February 2, 2010 by ms. xandra
The past few months have been so lovely, because I met a nice boy, and he plays the accordion and he has a beard, and he makes me so, so happy.
And my hair is longer than it has been in years, and it’s going to stay that way because I love when he runs his fingers through it.
Shhh! Don’t tell.
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January 12, 2010 by ms. xandra
Happy New Year to all of my multitudes of fans, friends, and lovers! Yes, all seven of you! I am here, back in sunny Los Angeles, thank god, because winter is so overrated that it’s not even funny.
Anyhow, I took a bit of a holiday break from this blog, mostly because not much goes on in Portelginland that’s worth blogging about. I missed my semi-annual letter to Santa post, but rest assured, there’s a thank you letter to Santa in the pipeline, because this year I managed to actually get everything I could ever have wanted for Christmas (except for a unicorn, but what else is new?)
ANYHOW, I really want to jump right back into my regularly scheduled musical dress blogging, because somebody once told me that the only way I would ever become a CBC radio celebrity was if I actually blogged regularly and kept this project going. So I am going to start off the new year on a timely and surreal note, with a series of disconnected meditations on Lady Gaga.
i) I first heard of Lady Gaga from my students last year in the LGBT Pop class. I got a dozen papers about Poker Face (typical thesis statement: “This song is kinda gay, or something,” only less grammatically correct). And so I went onto The Internets to find out what the fuss was about, and watched the video and was completely baffled because the song was sort of weirdly unpleasant and the video was kind of ugly. So I immediately dismissed Ms. Gaga as alluring, but not my cup of tea UNTIL ONE DAY when I was poking around her youtube channel and found a video transmission wherein she proclaimed that she was from outer space and was going to save the world with fashion and glamour and sequins, or something. I can’t actually find the clip in question anymore. But anyhow, that was the moment when I realized that she was a hilarious genius, and from that moment on, my fascination with Ms. Gaga has bordered on obsession.
ii) The thing I like the most about the Bad Romance video (apart from all of that Alexander McQueen gloriousness) is when Gaga and her retinue of zombie dancers flail awkardly around the dance floor. I like it because that is basically how I dance, so seeing my particular dance aesthetic thus represented makes me feel less like an uncoordinated awkward person, and more like someone who could potentially appear in a music video.
iii) We are reaching a point where the avant-garde and the massively popular are becoming increasingly indistinguishable. I like this a lot.
iv) What do you think of the vocal stutter that appears in so many Gaga songs? It’s all over the place. This is actually a serious question and I’m wondering what people think. I just submitted a Gaga abstract to a conference, and in the paper I will theoretically write, I want to talk about that stutter. Sometimes it’s, liked, auto-tuned in or something and sometimes it’s, you know, the pa-pa-pa-poker face thing. I have my own theory, but I’d like to hear what others think.
v) How ridiculous would she have to get before she got too ridiculous? I am just so happy that there is a pop culture phenomenon out there right now that is so completely absurd and challenging, and yet I heard her playing on the radio at Tim Hortons in Parry Sound, Ontario, and she is my 13 year old cousin’s favorite singer.
vi) Dear Lady Gaga: ”Funny” is not an appropriate rhyme for “funny,” as heard in the lines “Met somebody cute and funny, got each other and that’s funny,” but I will forgive you for it just this once because I like your style. (My illustrious roommate has suggested “Got each other, look a bunny” as an alternative. You should considering hiring him for your production team.)
vii) The Fame Monster, with its eight nuggets of sparkling awesome, arguably works better as an album than The Fame, which could have been edited down a little because it sometimes gets a bit redundant (much like certain David Lynch films).
viii) Thank you, Lady Gaga, for introducing the phrase “paper gangster” into my vocabulary. I don’t want one of those either.
xi) There is a lot of rather pronounced idiocy in Lady Gaga’s oeuvre, but it is very self-aware idiocy. For instance, the song “Boys, Boys, Boys” (sample lyric: ”Baby is a bad boy with some retro sneakers, let’s go see The Killers and make out in the bleachers”) is profoundly stupid. But you can’t get that stupid without knowing you’re being that stupid, right? So actually it’s brilliant. That is my official scholarly opinion.
x) Once upon a time, in a Women’s Studies class way back in my undergrad, it was Madonna day. We were talking about La Isla Bonita. The prof suggested that La Isla Bonita would never fly anymore (this would have been in about 2003 or 2004) because we had just experienced that surge in Latin popstars (think: Ricky Martin, J-Lo, Shakira) who were doing it for realz and not just appropriating (and I would be interested in debating this particular theory as it is interesting but I can see some holes in it. But that is another blog post for another time). Now, it is 2010, and we have Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro,” which opens with a spoken monologue in fake Spanish accent and has lyrics that are mostly nonsense with the names Alejandro, Fernando, and Roberto repeated ad nauseum, possibly just to sound fake Spanishy? Difficult to say. Is pop music cyclical, and have we come full circle, back to La Isla Bonita? Difficult to say. Is it politically incorrect that I really love both songs? Probably.
xi) Here is a picture of me in a silver and blue lame space dress, which I inherited from a drag performer, and which is obviously what I would wear if I was ever to meet Lady Gaga. I am standing in front of a rare space ficus. This is the one and only time I will be featuring myself as a model on this blog, and it’s only because I’m too tired to care, so eat it up, kids:
Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music, Uncategorized | Tags: | 7 Comments
October 25, 2009 by ms. xandra
It was raining in Los Angeles! Um, almost two weeks ago now. But it was so exciting to have two days of rain in which I could wear raincoats and cardigans and boots that I am still reliving it in my heart. And to help me relive it in my heart, I have been listening to this song:
Carole King, Crying in the Rain:
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I like the Carole King version bestest. She wrote it, obviously, because she is such an awesome lady. The Everly Brothers version is more widely known, and is also lovely:
And then there’s the A-Ha cover. Also really really good:
I don’t really have anything intelligent to say about this song, other than I love it. I love it because it is melodramatic (“fuck you, you’ll never see me cry, I’m going to cry in the RAIN”) and sad but sounds so disarmingly cute if you’re not paying attention to the words.
So, raincoats. Raincoats, raincoats, raincoats. My favorite raincoat is my blue, polkadotted, double-breasted, vinyl-tablecloth-material raincoat that I wear at music festivals in the rain, thereby contributing to my reputation as the Least Practically Dressed Lady at the Folk Festival. Here are some other awesome raincoats:
From Catbooks1940s. Absolutely in love with the full skirt!
From The Dusty Dog Vintage. I love: This color of green, double breastedness, belts.
From a la garconniere. Adorable and wonderful!
And HOW CHARMING ARE THESE BOOTS? Only the most charming, ever. You will be SINGING in the rain with these boots on. (I was thinking very hard about whether or not to include that very bad joke, and decided that yes, indeed, I would go there.)
from Modcloth.
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October 21, 2009 by ms. xandra
I have this new theory that there exists a finite amount of self-esteem in the world, along with a finite amount of self-awareness. The problem we have now is that all of the world’s self-esteem is in the possession of the kind of people who don’t deserve to have it, while the people who do deserve some self-esteem are instead saddled with so much self-awarness that they are totally neurotic. This explains why I have so many friends who are brilliant geniuses but who don’t realize that they are brilliant geniuses because they are too busy being self-critical, while irritating, obnoxious people feel great about themselves while remaining blissfully unaware of how irritating and obnoxious they are.
And speaking of self-doubt, a funny thing happend the other day when I was looking up ficus tree care on the internet. I have a third roommate, who you might not know about, and my third roommate is Doctor Ficus Johnson (Ph.D. in Ficology), who is a rather lovely tree that moved in after a friend moved out of town and left Doctor Ficus Johnson to us. And because I care, I wanted to check and make sure I was watering Ficus enough. And there, at the top of ficustree.com, it asked “Do you have what it takes to care for a ficus?” and then I wondered, “What if I don’t? What if I don’t even have what it takes to care for a ficus? Jesus Christ, what’s going to happen to me if I can’t even take care of a ficus?” And then I realized that I was being an idiot.
No dress post for yesterday, sorry – I was too busy spending seven hours deciding which Frankie and Annette movie I want to include on my list for my Special Field exams.
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September 15, 2009 by ms. xandra
Some thoughts, having just finally seen 500 Days of Summer (which I really liked!):
1. I would like it on record that I had publically declared Ringo my favourite Beatles months before Zooey Deschanel made it the hip thing to do.
2. The movie seems to be set in Hilarious Bizarro World Los Angeles, in which people ride public transit and actually hang out downtown, without bitching about it. Bizarro Downtown LA looks pretty much like New York, but with palm trees. Real Downtown LA looks pretty much like New York, but with more dirt, blazing sun, lots of shops selling quinceanera dresses and disreputable electronics, and palm trees if you look hard enough. Oh, and Clifton’s Cafeteria.
3. Because it was set in Downtown, there was lots of good old architechture porn – Downtown is full of wonderful old buildings that used to be movie palaces and theatres but now are mostly abandoned or converted into retail space or use as filming locations. Ironically, I was watching this movie in the multiplex at the Grove, the foyer of which is meant to look like the interior of the old single-screen movie palaces (think crystal chandeliers and marble) and, in fact, has a informational display about LA’s old theatres, but, as a multiplex, is partly responsible for why those theatres can’t stay open.
Depressing! I’m going to bed. I am still on Port Elgin Standard Time and I am going to STAY THAT WAY, DAMMIT, because it means I am going to bed at midnight and getting up at eight in the manner of a normal, functional adult, rather than staying up until three and getting up between 11 and noon and then feeling so guilty for sleeping in that I then stay up until 3:00 under the auspices of getting work done (mostly this work period involves a lot of reading of fashion blogs). It’s vicious, I tell you.
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August 14, 2009 by ms. xandra
How fucking stupid is the Oops, Peggy is Pregnant! storyline in Mad Men? So fucking stupid. I was about to write a blog post about how stupid and kind of irritating the Peggy Gets Fat storyline was, but now it has reached its logical conclusion: Of course she was actually expecting; we could have a sympathetic, non-caricature-like fat character. But anyhow, Peggy is still my favorite character because she really is the only person on the show who isn’t totally obnoxious.
I still really like the show, though. It’s good stuff. And here is some advice for when we’re all dressing like Joan Holloway this fall: Don’t be costumey and matchy matchy. I like to pair vintage dresses with a totally anachronistic shoe, as suggested at the link above, or to rock a color combination that wouldn’t have seen the light of day in 1963, or, you know, just anything, so that it looks chic and not sock hop-themed party.
And now I’m going camping! At least I have an entire box of wine.
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August 13, 2009 by ms. xandra
I just wanted to let you know a recent search terms that has led some poor soul to my blog is “binder clips on nipples.”
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July 16, 2009 by ms. xandra
Come back tomorrow for the DINOSAUR DAY PHOTO ESSAY!!!!!! Guaranteed to be the best invention of the internets!!
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July 15, 2009 by ms. xandra
“I want to let all of you know that for Dinosaur Day, I am going to dress up as GRACE KELLY.”
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July 7, 2009 by ms. xandra
You may be thinking that I forgot to do a dinosaur profile for July 6, but you are wrong! Later today you can expect a special double-feature dinosaur of the day(s) which will more than compensate for a lack of dinosaur today.
In other news: I saw The New Pornographers and Tegan and Sara and Death Cab for Cutie at the Hollywood Bowl last night. The New Pornographers were great. Tegan and Sara were great. Death Cab for Cutie was fucking annoying. Is this what we feminists are fighting for gender equality for? So that mopey white boys can feel comfortable expressing their stupid feelings in the most irritating way possible? Dear god. Somewhere, de Beauvoir shakes her fist at the sky and bellows “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” Also, my reaction to the last number, which involved fireworks and the LA Philharmonic, was “Really?” (which, incidentally, is my most favourite thing to write on student paper when they say something particularly dumb), followed closely by “the orchestration is awfully hamfisted.” This may indicate that the problem is me; that I am far too cynical for this earth. This is probably true.
Stay tuned tomorrow for: BRONTOSAURUS VS. APOTOSAURUS! FIGHT!
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