President Obama

Rolling Stone Magazine 2017

Stay at it ...

I don't stay up late to watch the Stephen Colbert Late Show because I have to wake up early for school, but I watch it Colbert's YouTube every morning, especially the monologues. I, like many others, look to him to find comfort ... soften the blow ... in these troubling, political times. I don't need to explain it beyond that I would think. Not too long ago, Colbert talked about how comedy can get us through this, hopefully, short period of time in our nation's history. He shared that it was his mother that told him that you can't cry when you laugh, and when you laugh you think ... you use your brain. I would rather laugh than cry that is for sure. And through the jokes,  I find that I am able to approach difficult realities with a clearer understanding of what is at issue.

I wonder if Obama watches the show? Or Michelle? On last night's show, one of the guests was Chelsea Clinton. How strange to have a politically poised person speak so clearly and without barb or dagger. Colbert announced her saying that she is the daughter of two people who won the popular vote. That laugh was bittersweet as was the notion that this first daughter would be more effective working in the White House now than her estranger friend, the current first daughter who doesn't command the same respect for the office as Ms. Clinton demonstrated in her eight minutes having a chat with Mr. Colbert.

Stay at it ... I'm sure trying.

La Tour Eiffel

Harper's Bazaar 2017

This photo of the Eiffel Tower is beautiful. I have never seen it enveloped in fog before. It is so seductive. I had to look up what "The Harmonist" is because I hadn't a clue. Another page showed a beam of the tower with a model in a silver satin slip dress with the caption:

METAL

OPEN YOURSELF TO ITS MELODY

WRAP UP YOUR BODY IN ITS MYSTERY

It certainly is a mystery. The wrap up could easily have been the dress as nothing else about the pages suggests perfume. Now, many months later, I look at it differently again as I saw on the news that taking photographs of the Eiffel Tower, especially at night during its light show, is illegal. I did a quick check on Google, and it appears that that taking photographs of it is against the law.  It is suggested on the few sources that I read, however, that tourists aren't likely to be arrested for taking a snap. Whew. The last time that I saw Paris, I posted several pix on Instagram- and this video. How can one resist?

Mindy Kaling's Black Pearls

In Style October 2017

I had pulled this out of InStyle magazine last fall and can't seem to find the actual page. I carried it around in my purse for months meaning to write about it, and it never getting done. The story behind Mindy Kaling is that the mother of a friend gifted her the random pearls for which she used to make the necklace that is pictured ... I think. I thought that it was a good idea to make a necklace out of a handful of pearls that someone left behind. I also find the odd white pearl out charming. And I love that the black pearls are of different sizes and shapes. I'm not always a fan of match, so the mismatch is captivating.

I have not seen much of Mindy Kaling lately. I watched The Mindy Project dutifully every week when it was FOX, but when it jumped to Hulu, I sort of lost track of it, which is sort of sad. Although, to be honest, I've lost track of any network situation comedies or dramas as I spend all of my time in Netflix or Prime land. Who needs commercials? And why shouldn't series be more movie-like and bingeable. I don't want to stop after a half hour for goodness sake. I want to keep going and going and going until I've melted into the couch. Well, not really, but sometimes I wonder. I have a really long attention span. And when I happen upon a sitcom on regular tv, I am inpatient for how short it is. I've noticed also that I don't watch my beloved WGN news in the morning anymore. I have sort of stopped because I'm either getting work together for school (my current school is very depressing and can't think when I'm there ... can you imagine the kids who are there and trying to learn? That's the real question) OR I'm catching up on the previous nights' Steven Colbert. I can't seem to start a day without having a laugh with him ... talk about really depressing ... a dark, smelly school AND no jokes about Trump. Goodness.

Network television is dead to me. That's what I'm hearing here.

Postscript: I found the tear out in a pile of papers hidden in a corner. The pearls were given to Kaling from her college friend's mother, who she would visit in Hawaii. They shared a love of beautiful jewelry, and Hai Luen, the mother, would take Mindy to the best vendors and there, Kaling took to black pearls. On her death, very close to her own mother's, she was given the loose pearls that are of the necklace. Mindy says that "whenever I put it on, it reminds me of Hai Luen- and the bond between mothers and daughters."

Lord & Taylor

Chicago Tribune 27 February 2018

Oh dear.

I am a department store girl. Have been since ... well, I think that it all began when I was young and my grandfather would take my sisters, brother, and I to Marshall Field's on State Street in Chicago on Christmas Eve. We would visit Santa, walk through the toy department, and have lunch under the big tree in the Walnut Room. I can just taste the Frango mint pie ice cream pie. At that time, the store was big, old and dusty. The floor boards creaked as you walked from counter to counter looking in wonder at all of the lovely things that could be purchased. 

When I left college, I didn't really have a good idea of what I wanted to do with myself. I had to get some kind of job, so I went over to the suburban branch of Marshall Field's near my parents' home where I was living. I started out as a part-time sales associate in the accessory department. I was very familiar with handbags and didn't really care for them much. But I loved the scarves and of all things- sunglasses. The scarves were beautiful, and the store carried a wonderful assortment of vendors. They were slippery devils to lay out in the case, but I never tired of straightening the colors and silk. Sunglasses were a mathematics problem to me. I had so many towers that held them on top of the cases, and the cases themselves to fill. In the early eighties, many of the glasses were very large. One of the best selling vendors was Liz Claiborne, and hers were particularly big. As you can imagine, customers would come through and in trying on many pairs, would upset the apple carts. I loved the challenge of getting them all back in their place. Better yet, I would love when a big shipment would come in of new styles, and I would have to make room for them along with the existing pairs. I think that I would do it now, just one time, for free just to have the satisfaction of perfectly merchandise sunglasses cases.

As you can see, I sort of was a natural at merchandising and was soon transferred to the County Shop, which was a private label that mirrored a Ralph Lauren collection. The buyer, Beverly Miller, was an icon, and the merchandise in the shop was beautifully designed with rich fabrications. I would argue that it was a better fit and as fine as Ralph Lauren product. I would examine the catalog that would be sent to Field's customers for each season for the shop and merchandise it on the floor exactly as shown on the pages. Our sales went up for the department and though I didn't quite see eye to eye with my manager, who was more suburban and I was still trying to crawl out of my college new wave phase, I was noticed by the downtown management and was offered a position at the State Store, the flagship. When I arrived on December day at the height of the Christmas season, I thought that I had died and gone to retail heaven. The floors creaked, the scent of Paris perfume, which was released that year, wafted through the floors, and the people there were fashionable. I was in Juniors clothing, which was like a barn of clothes that I had a hard time keeping on the rounders and 4-squares, but it was exciting.

I worked in two other departments in my tenure as what would become a management position over ten years, and I happily was a part of a large-scale renovation of the flagship store. I left retail to become a teacher, but I never left behind what is the allure of a department store- beauty, bustle, and assortment. But the department store model is dying, and I am so sad for it. Field's is long gone. Macy's may have been something in New York, but as a national chain, it is horrid. When I walk into Macy's and am greeted by that ugly red that they use for everything including their name, I want to ... go somewhere else. They've killed the beauty of great stores. And their assortment is pedestrian. The best department store that I have been in recently has been Bloomingdale's in New York. Oh, they still have it. I didn't get off of the first floor for time, but it was enough to feel satisfied. That store is spectacularly beautiful.

And now, I read that Lord & Taylor is closing two more locations in Chicago. What is a girl to do? Do you know how much I have come to depend on them. Nordstrom's is okay, but their assortment isn't always my desire, and their sales never reach a truly sweet spot for a department store savvy shopper like myself. Granted, if I need a dress for an occasion, I usually go there first. Online. Nordstrom's has an excellent web site. Bloomingdale's seems to be heading the way of Lord & Taylor in Chicago. I haven't spent nearly the time, in store or online, as I have in the past. But Lord & Taylor? Oh, the coupons. Oh, the POS (point of sale ... like 'take an extra 30% off ... oh, that is music to my ears) and a coupon. Oh, I just bought a cashmere sweater there for less than $30. Of course, I know a sales cycle and know when to shop for what at the best price (and with a coupon). And of course, I know that I may have contributed to the demise of the store because I seldom shopped without a sale (and a coupon). I can remember at Field's the first time that offered coupons to customers, I thought ... ooh, this could become a problem. And it seems that it has.

Give the lady what she wants ... we ladies do have more choice in how to spend our time. I must be some kind of spirit ghost for a lady from the past who liked to be dropped off at 111 North State street to be free of her obligations and live, if only for an hour, admiring fine things in a beautiful setting. I wonder if they had a good sales rack then? Or a coupon?

Gucci

Harper's Bazaar February 2018

I have certainly been off of my magazine reading game for various and assorted reasons. They have piled up to the point where I don't know how to begin again and think that starting over may be the best address of the litter of glossy pages that have populated my apartment over the last several months. And what better reintroduction than this lovely Utopian fantasy that Gucci has illustrated for us in the spring issues to highlight a handbag that is of another time.

When I first started working in retail in the 1980s, I worked in a accessories department in a major department store. One section of the department was the locked cases for the Gucci handbag department. One would think that would be a coveted assignment for a four hour shift, but I found it challenging. I was not schooled in high end bags at this point of my career. I knew that the bags were popular and that they cost more than my bi-weekly wage, but their double-G pattern did not hold my affection as it did for the customers who came to buy them. Plus, given the vinyl fabrication of the bag, they were hard and awkward. As carefully as I could merchandise them attractively in the case, they would fall from their spot in an unpliable thud on top of my head whenever I opened the case to show one to a customer. If memory serves, one must have bruised my forehead from a tumble. I also remember once or twice having a dream of not owning a Gucci double-G bag, but of one tumbling onto me from the case beating me up. It was probably the coveted 'doctor's bag.'

A couple months into my tenure selling a bag that I knew nothing about, my manager approached me to return one. Interestingly, one was never sold to her. And I doubt that anyone would think that she would own an expensive bag given her determination to wear a smock to work everyday. And was it a coincidence that she was off to Vegas the next day for a 4-day vacation. I may not have known about the bag, but I did know that she probably went into the locked cage in the store room that held the back stock and thought that the money she would gain from returning it would make for an afternoon's delight at the slot machines. Yeah, I turned her in and took the $500 reward for tipping off internal theft. The manager lost her job. I don't remember how I spent the $500; perhaps, I should have bought a Gucci bag as a trophy of sorts. 

And through the beauty of this lovely mermaid drawing, I see it clearly and remember it fondly. It is better in a Utopian world, for it is unforgiving in its structure and not for us mere mortals to own.

LCD Soundsystem

I was driving home from Sunday dinner with my Mom and heard the first single released from LCD Soundsystem's new album, "American Dream." Usually, the drive home on Sunday nights is full of the oldies or the Casey Kasem count down vault from a year like 1977, but a month ago Sunday, all changed when I heard 'tonight.' I nearly swerved off of the road ... what the heck is this super groovy music? I had to wait for a whole week after that to purchase the album. I spent the week listening to the radio waiting patiently for the song to play again in the rotation.

When I first got a hold of the album in its entirely, I confess, I hit #5 over and over again. I couldn't get enough of it. But then #6 moved into the repeat spot with is sweeping, U2-esque stadium melody. And well into a month of owning the album, I can honestly say that I have wrapped my head around all of it. For as much as some of the songs remind me of others like Bowie, the Talking Heads, and David Lynch (one song sounds like one that he would pick for a movie like "Blue Velvet"), it different- fresh and modern. It is Angry angsty, yet there is a naive sweetness and disbelief in what has become of our America that is quite charming and believable. I won't review the album beyond this ... listen for yourself. You'll find yourself wanting to hit the same button for the same song over and over ... until the next one comes to take over your psyche.