To Anna Akhmatova

I sent you a rose in a glass of champagne

while the Gypsies played as Gypsies do.

Then you turned to the man you were with and said,

"You see his eyes? He's in love with me, too."

That night you left me a look in the mirror--

 a look I've had too much of.

And the Gypsy singer kept jangling her bracelets 

and singing of love, and of love, and of love. 

--Alexander Blok

Kissing on the subway

No Wonder

Conversation between my father and I this Christmas Eve morning:

"Cameron, how do you say 'why' in Spanish?"

"Porque."

"No, I mean the letter 'y'."

"Oh. You say ee-griega."

"E griega? That's ridiculous. EE GRIEGA? No wonder they're a backward country! They spend all their time naming their letters. EE griega. That's silly." 

 

Reputable Information on Lace

For hearty souls or google translate.

J. Crew, you're doing it again.

"Unabashedly appropriate"? That's really in your ad copy? Unabashedly appropriate. I'd like to let the true sentiment of this product description shine through, if you'll indulge me.

The dress:

The description from J. Crew's website:

"Introducing our most luxurious wool gabardine—ever. With a finely twisted weave and a fluid, flowy drape, it's unabashedly appropriate all year-round, workday or weekend. Fitted bodice with inset waistband, pencil skirt. Scoopneck. Short sleeves. Back zip. Back vent. Fully lined in stretch fabric. Falls to knee.Import. Dry clean. Catalog/jcrew.com only."

The aspirations of J. Crew and its demographic:

"May I bring you a glass of chardonnay while you wait? Yes? Wonderful.

Please allow me to introduce you to a dress that, despite its judicious sale price (good for you! in these Tough Economic Times), will allow you to think of yourself as rich, but classy. Consider this dress a cloak of understated elegance, the kind exuded by women you secretly admire but, due to your mediocre genetic lineage, will never actually achieve.

It's clear to me that ever since you could drive yourself to the nearest mall, you've cultivated a fine taste for our company's rich fabrics and exclusive prints from the finest indeterminate Italian mills. As you know, we buy all of our inventory from very fancy, old European vendors, usually Italian, whose names we are not at liberty to reveal. I think your sense of touch will assure you better than I, a mere J. crew salesman, could--you have arrived.

Your oversized logo-print Coach bag says it all: You're a cultured, working woman, and you like to enjoy yourself. I understand your needs, and I assure you: This exquisite garment is unabashedly appropriate. You will never again have to wonder, "Am I the least threatening woman in this professional or social environment?" Darling, I have your answer and it's imported. It's dry clean-only. Go ahead and roll those words over your tongue again. You're tasting privelege.

Credit or debit? Lovely. No, thank you. You know what? You should treat yourself to that second Blue Moon at office happy hour in the strip mall next to the trendy Mexican restaurant. You deserve it."

Best Website Ever

I want to live inside of

http://www.javierferrervidal.com 

and you know what else? he splices in clips of LBJ speaking. perfection.

How to make me happy, in Spanish.

finish all correspondence with me as follows:

"Um beso MUY GRANDE a UNA PERSONA QUE, AUN LEJOS, ESTA SIEMPRE CERCA!

Encaje City!

So it turns out that there isn't just one kind of lace, there are two major kinds: one from Camariñas and one called encaje de Bolillos.

When Galician women make this lace, they do it by hand at a table all together (or, at least, this is the image I recall, it's obviously possible to do it alone but probably sort of boring) using tools like these:

You toss around the palillos and somehow create super intricate patterns in the lace. It's basically the coolest craft you could ever imagine. Our crafts are retarded compared to Galician lace-making. Try to think of the last craft you did...I'm going to say scrapbooking or a homemade birthday card. Not to be a hater, but pretty much anyone can go to Michael's, buy fifty dollars of tacky glitter paint and stickers with stuff like "VaCaTiOn!" and "LIFE'S A BEACH!" written on them, and then affix them next to a photo printed at CVS. I'm not saying I'm above it, I've done this in my life.

But now that you have an image of your 8th grade scrapbook, line it up next to a tiny Galician woman swinging fifty palillos back and forth until an exquisite and delicate stream of lace emerges, caressing the air like a thousand butterfly kisses. Butterfly kisssesssssssss.

I'm 90% sure that I'm still drunk from last night.

Future Baby Names

Skeeball McGibbons
Driftwood Stevens
Graceland McBungel
Rumpelstiltskin
Billabong Gubernador
Felix Culpa Sanderson
Millicent Ex Sancto
Panihose Ramcharger
Fenugreek (one name, like Cher)

Which brings me to:

My introduction to Galician designer Sarai Fernández Marqués, whose blog I fortuitously stumbled on while searching for images of Galician lace on the web. Her blog, LULA, is here and her professional website is here. Check her out, because she's really nice and makes really, really pretty clothes.

After considering moving to Madrid or southern Spain, I'm revisiting returning to Galicia. Whenever it rains all day in D.C., it feels like Santiago de Compostela and my heart twitches with a little mourina and I want to go back. So! Ya esta.

love

C

Let me blow your mind real quick:

The DVF lace top mentioned below borrows heavily from a traditional fabric from the northwestern region of Spain, Galicia, my second home. Galician lace, encaje, is hand-spun by Galician women in the region of Camariñas. Let's take it full circle with this little item:

MK Olsen, wearing a dress made of encaje de Camariñas. The room is spinning, non?

Seeing anything traditionally gallego in American pop culture is like waking up from a dream with the dream man scooting down his miniature slip n' slide next to your bed. You never think it will happen, but when it does. Woo boy, it's magic.

Having temporarily come to my senses,

I'm not going to email this beautiful DVF top to my mom like I normally would in a vain and bald appeal to her Giving Spirit. In light of my hour-long financial rap with the padre yesterday, I feel that, perhaps, emailing my other parent screen shots of non-functional designer blouses might be in poor taste. Or, at the least, poor judgment. Hence, I submit it to you, dear two readers, that we might enjoy it together in some abstract and platonic way.

This beautiful DVF top:

Love always,

Cameron

Oh, W.

Shoe throwing.

Via BBC:

"Zaidi's attack was launched with the words "this is a farewell kiss, you dog"

"It's that cultural significance that has added real sting to the assault by an Iraqi journalist against US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference. "

"Many of Mr Bush's supporters will see it as a mean-spirited gesture against a man whose policies liberated the country from a vicious dictator.

To illustrate the point, in a previous age, the perpetrator would be facing a summary, and probably agonising, death if he had dared confront Saddam Hussein's regime in such a way. Instead Mr Bush has been praised for his dignified response. "

This morning I got a call from the Air Force One operator. When she put the call through, the voice on the other line sounded weary, tired, maybe a little resigned. The world is not comprehensible, but embraceable. Is it worth asking how things got this way? I guess we have to.

Oh, brother.

A bailout's a comin'...

Saturday, Dec 13 4:01 p.m.

From: Steve Hardesty

To: Me

"I've shared a document with you called 'Cameron's 2009 Budget' "

(What's worse: The ominous credit card bill attached as PDF at 3:01 p.m. or the spreadsheet entitled "Cameron's 2009 Budget" sent an hour later? Philosopher, shrink, business man, mechanic, financial advisor--I love my dad. It's lucky for me that he has such a steady reserve of faith in my ability to reform.)

Time to get serious, people!

Imperviously, Dotts finally put some Butter on me this weekend. Rick Owens really took my fancy with a jacket that more or less looked like this:

Which, against SD's protestations, I snuck into the dressing room and tried on while the pretty, petite, blue-eyed North Carolinian shopgirl tried new and inventive ways of complimenting our "silhouette" as we laughed at ourselves in the mirror. As Sarah put it, the garment looked like a luxury rendering of an arachnid costume for an elaborate high school musical. She made some weird spider-sucking noises and lifted up her arms like the karate kid to hit the point home.

Butter had another Rick Owens jacket on a mannequin that was amazing though--much less costumey, but with the same crazy proportions. Long, skinny sleeves and lots of symmetrical volume in the front with a simple pull-through strap below the collar. The back was cropped just above the hips. An amazing coat, but for the $2300 it costs I could bore a hole into Middle Earth and find one at a vampire hobbit consignment store for less expense.

Back to reality, I finally reunited with Loosh (and, fortunately for us, Lize!) and proceeded to pose as we did in the glory days of sophomore year at Davidson College.

(Photo Credit: Eliza Waterman)

We wore complementary and matching Christmas outfits. God bless.

Christian H. Williams with José María Luis Echevarri, III

Something pretty

I met Annie Leibowitz last night.

She spoke to me. She frames the world so well; I want to be that.

You and me--we're in the trust tree. OK? Let's talk about hopes and dreams.

I have a problem.

I bought my first pair of moccasins in Santa Fe, New Mexico when I was twelve. Those were the heady days of seventh grade, when my mother had launched us into a maelstrom of family time across the dusky Southwest. Then, my daily style consistently required a green Land's End jacket, jeans from the Limited Too, and Adidas Sambas. Kangaroo leather upper. Cotton mock turtlenecks of every color. Potentially some hippie beads I stole from my paternal grandmother's spare bedroom.

The Hardesty family wove through Albuquerque as hundreds of red, yellow, blue, striped, patterned and printed hot-air balloons rose behind us like prayers to the heavens. Photos tell the story of early mornings when I was still in my I'm-a-child-model phase, my little brother toothless as a hobo, and my Mom wrenching her face into a smile as my dad lay stomach-down against the gravel parking lot, adjusting the lens, Alfred Stieglitz of the suburban tableau--underappreciated, prophetic.

Then we trundled into Santa Fe. I especially recall terrorizing one sculpture garden, not only touching and photographing the art, but posing next to stone simulacra of women in native dress and tossing my head toward the sky like the stone figures, me in my beige Gap collared sweater and jean shorts. It's likely that Doc Marten sandals were involved.

But the moccasins! It was in Santa Fe that we bought moccasins. My first and only pair of moccasins. Only pair because although in seventh grade I wore at least two shoe sizes smaller than I do now, this hearty shoe still fits me. Its fur-lined innards still cuddle my knobby feet the way they did back in New Mexico, when I fussily tried them on in the faux-Native American boutique, because I was a little bitch and got pissy with my parents even when they were giving me gifts.

So many nights back in Plano I'd slip on my moccasins upstairs, then, like the lithest, leanest puma tracking its prey, I'd tip-toe downstairs and creep up behind my father as he nodded off in front of the t.v. with his laptop on. Slowly, very slowly, one silent footfall at a time, I'd approach. Even my critics, had they had the pleasure of witnessing this, would have had to admit that I resembled the most dignified and disciplined Indian warrior princess in that moment. "DAD!" He'd startle awake and I'd go, "You didn't hear me, did you?" Half-asleep, he'd say something like, "Go pay attention to your own business.." and nod off again. So, my moccasins worked. Silenced my every movement.

More importantly, they've lasted for ten years now, through transatlantic moves, new houses, new shoe sizes. Why? Because moccasins, real moccasins, the kind you buy in a novelty shop in Santa Fe benefitting boozy Native Americans on the res, are purpose-built. They're crafted to last a lifetime. You think Indian princesses chased hoofed beasts around the forest in crap moccasins that fell apart after a year? No, you know they didn't. You know that as well as I do.

Which is why I have a problem. And that problem is high-heeled moccasins.

Why? Because not only do they nakedly defy the functional essence of the REAL moccasin, they are also so fuckin ugly. I seem to recall Urban Outfitters jumpstarting this trend around the 2001-2002 time period. This girl was wearing high-heeled moccasins to a party in Dallas, and she kept raving about how comfortable they were. I couldn't even speak to her, but I looked at her heinous burgundy moccasin pumps thinking, "I hope they have comfort in hell." Then I gazed up at the cirrus clouds drifting, frigid, over the horizon of the plain as a tiny, solitary tear rolled down my wizened cheek.

When once I thought this trend was relegated to dull suburbanites of the Southwest, soon to peeter out after a couple of seasons, I must finally allow myself to understand the magnitude of this calamity. Today, I discovered that Cole Haan is trying to sell these:

I...have...nothing...left...to give.

Solemnly,

Cameron

E. St. V. Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply;

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 

Yet know its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone;

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more. 

[Ed. note: All poems are love poems]

London

Dear two readers,

Hey! So, I missed you. Went to London during Thanksgiving.

And I justified trampling the sanctity of the Second Most American Day with international travel using the following logic (provided me by two smart Londoners): Just goin' back to my roots, to the Pilgrims' launch pad. Just trying to see where it all began. I did not eat even a morsel of turkey.

Here's what happened.

A fiddler was playing very, very badly on the Millenium Bridge in front of the Tate Modern. His authentic Scottish attire embarrassed everyone within a twenty foot radius. He played "London Bridge is Falling Down." Yes. Shameless.

A German couple yearns for simpler era, free of Modern art.

Walked around Blackheath Village on Monday evening and shot the All Saints chapel. Really really pretty.

Met this charming rugby man in a Blackheath pub. I think I proposed marriage, but then we flipped a coin and I left to go into town. C'est la guerre. A rugby swimfan of Henry's team sexually harrassed me until I left the pub. Compliment? He basically just stared at and loudly discussed my breasts the entire night, bought me beer and thought that Los Alamos and The Alamo were the same thing. I just laughed and laughed at him and drank free beer until Henry extracted me from our protracted conversation. C'est la guerre.

Rode the tube, started experimenting with shooting from my stomach as I pretended to fix the camera. Didn't know it at the time that the man to the left was staring straight at me. So, bonus:

Saw the Miereles and Rothko exhibitions at Tate Modern.


Cildo Miereles is a genius. In one of his huge pieces, he invites the spectator to walk on a floor of broken glass, which cracks the glass more and more as you move around the piece.


This wasn't the focal point of the sculpture, I just thought it was important to document the first time I've ever felt legitimately entitled to singing "Walking on Broken Glass" under my breath in public. In the same installation were two aquariums with live fish. Two types: one fatter type that would swim around independently, and one translucent, skinny type whose heart and spinal artery and bones you could see. They'd all swim together in formation against an artificial current, no deviation from the pack. The grouped-up fish and the independent fish. One sort seemed entirely beholden to this Sisyphean task, and the other sort seemed to be completely unaware that the task even existed.



Another piece, Missions, was a pool made of 60,000 copper coins beneath a ceiling of 2,000 animal bones lit from above. Connecting the ceiling and the pool was a strand of 800 communion wafers. Stunning. I now love Cildo Miereles. Also, he is hot. This shot I took beforehand, it's above and below the Millenium Bridge facing St. Paul's:




And this is inside, when I entered and exited my Munch phase:





Then on Saturday night, I met this guy at a party for which I wasn't nearly drunk enough. Handsome, no? There, I remembered Jason immediately. He's on t.v.? The glasses in the background.



For some reason, this abominable male accesory haunts me from continent to continent. It's taught me tolerance, though:

Things I didn't take photos of: Saw Living Together of The Norman Conquests at The Old Vic. Really entertaining. We happened to sit right next to a group of Americans and they were tolerably accepting of me screaming "Happy Thanksgiving!" at them when I heard their accents. One was a law professor at Georgetown, so just to prove to her that I didn't give a shit about laws, I put gum under her chair. These are bench-type chairs that flip up when they're not in use, so anyone could see that there was gum under her chair when she left for intermission. She'd be missing a hand in Singapore right now. So, eff you, snobby law professor who scoffs at Thanksgiving to me inside of the Old Vic.

Bryant K. and I had dinner and drinks at The Engineer in Camden Town, which is a delightful spot. Bryant's living a really good life. Big flat in Camden, pursuing his MA in Classics with aplomb, etc. He's a gifted conversationalist and a fellow Leonard Cohen fan. God bless him, I'm glad we met up.

Read "A Month in the Country" by J.L. Carr and it made me want to die it was so good. Get it immediately.

"I should have lifted an arm and taken her shoulder, turned her face and kissed her. It was that kind of day. It was why she'd come. Then everything would have been different. My life, hers. We would have had to speak and say aloud what both of us knew and then, maybe, turned from the window and lain down together on my makeshift bed. Afterwards, we would have gone away, maybe on the next train. My heart was racing. I was breathless. She leaned on me, waiting. And I did nothing and said nothing."

Love,
C

Dresses My Enemies Should Wear

Ugh

Nasty

Sick why

No words

DENOUMENT OF AWFUL anna sui pull it together

Enemies, WEAR THESE DRESSES!!

Let's Get Pretty: Dresses for My Friends

Clothes that would look good on my friends:

Sarah D. should wear this coat 4ever:

Maxine R. should wear this dress to a party:

Lucia W. should wear this dress to dinner:

Straushaus should wear this Milly jacket:

Mary Alice R. would look lovely in the summer in DVF:

Don't you think?

London posts soon. It was ridic. I missed you!

Love,

C

Who Knew They Knew Steve Earle in London

But they do. 

Happy Thanksgiving. Texas, I'll miss you, baby. (I've gotta go.)

Goodbye, by Steve Earle.

love, 

C

Waste and Resurrection and Loss

Can things you associated with someone you love--songs, places, sweaters, friends--resurrect? I asked myself that a couple of years ago. They can. As Rilke wrote: you must live the questions themselves, and one day you may live into the answer.  A poem from Kay Ryan's "Say Uncle" put me in mind of waste, and resurrection, and loss. Here's the poem:

Waste

Not even waste 

is inviolate.

The day misspent,

the love misplaced,

has inside it

the seed of redemption.

Nothing is exempt

from resurrection.

It is tiresome

how the grass

re-ripens, greening

all along the punched

and mucked horizon

once the bison

have moved on,

leaning into hunger

and hard luck. 

Stay Fancy

Holy shit I finally got my watermelon socks. I am absolutely in love with them. Nothing, um, let's say, conventionally fancy I've bought in the last year compares to my excitement about bright-hued footwear and stockings. This has been a big week for me as far as exceptional hosiery goes. Saks sent me some bright red Wolford tights ,which I wore to the office on Wednesday. They were a little zany for some--the big boss's assistant gave me her look that translates to, "CAMRON. CamRON!" and then noted that if she wore the same outfit that I chose to wear that day, then people would think she'd lost her mind. I love the way she says my name, just two syllables, really emphatically. CAM-RON. But the big boss noted that the tights were festive and a great fashion choice. When I broke the news to him that there will be no future appearances of the bright red tights, he expressed some disappointment. Was he just being nice? 

You know when you wear something possibly questionable and you're not sure whether or not you made the right decision? And you see some people looking at you for just a tick longer than is normal? And you're like wait, maybe this is a terrible move after all. You have a choice then. You can go to Filene's down the street and buy some black tights, change into them, and feel conventional for the rest of the day. Or you can just give that worry up to Jesus and rock the red tights like you were born in them. Was this a story about you or me?

This post is really scattered, and I'm going to tell you why: I'm listening to this new musician at full volume and my head is, like, pretty close to the speakers. But these songs give me such good feelings! So last week I was at my liqour store buying some beer, and my guy was playing an amazing sounding Otis Redding-esque live show. Obviously I loved it, so he wrote the name down for me--JAMES HUNTER. Download the album "People Gonna Talk". "Mollena" is DEFINITELY going to be one of the first songs I cover when I'm a recording artist. So, so good. 

Per semi-popular demand, Medieval Times recount to continue (soon).

LOVE

Cameron

Heraldry and Pomp: Medieval Times, Baltimore Castle, 2nd Installion

OMG I was going to write a whole other drawn out essay on Medieval Times, but honestly, my heart's just not in it. Let's just leave it at this: the couple to our right included a woman in her late twenties donning a homemade, burgundy lightweight cotton jersey dress with sleeves that covered the tops of her hands and came to a point. The outfit was complemented by a gypsy belt which I learned she'd had for TEN YEARS when a piece of it broke, to much, much ado. When the half-trained Medieval Times Andalusians came out to do their routine, she gasped in what can only be described as astonished ecstasy. Throughout the "program" she could be heard exclaiming either, "JESUS, they're GORGEOUS" or "my GOD!", presumably in response to the magnificence of the beautiful, trusting beasts that have diligently served mankind for eons being led and whipped around a dirt ring inside of a fake castle attached to a Sears and Books-A-Million. To our left, two seventeen year olds passionately made out as soon as the house lights dimmed.

Here's the thing about the Medieval Times at Hanover, Maryland. It's a study in absurdity. So, okay, the ideal of Medieval Times, at its very core, is absurd. We all can agree to that. It's such an improbable company.

Here's my theory: MT exists because the only role-playing aficianado--in the history of the human race--who was born with business acumen, motivated by vengeance for years of childhood teasing, figured out how to swindle the most mediocre and facile swath of middle America using the very same role-playing that once made him a loser. It's the same argument that mothers of nerds use to assuage the misery of a loveless adolescence--one day, you'll be the smart, succesful, handsome guy who all the girls want to marry! Possibly in a Renaissance Faire-themed wedding.

Anyway, so, we're done talking about Medieval Times. I won't need to go again for at least another 15 years.

love,
C

To Use One's Power For Good: Medieval Times

The sun had set an hour ago, and it was dark. We'd just completed the long drive from Capitol Hill to Hanover, Maryland when a jolt of anxiety exploded within my conscience. I turned to my passenger.

"All day, we've been about two miles away from some of the world's most celebrated museums, which we could've visited for free, and we didn't go to a single one. Yet we paid $70 and just drove forty-five minutes to Medieval Times. What the hell is wrong with us?"

That, however, was the end of my self-flagellation. No, we didn't go to the Smithosonian--hey, I go to the National Gallery on my lunch break sometimes. No, we didn't tour the capitol building--after all, we'd both already done that more than once before. As for the monuments, we saw them up close back in February. So, really, I was free to explore the outliers of cultural District of Columbia. I was free to get Medieval.

It was in this spirit of exploration that I found myself parking before a Burlington Coat Factory with a half-functioning back-lit sign ('Discot Uxury Linens', for instance). As we waded through a stream of children and parents wearing multi-colored cardstock crowns, the majestic feeling only a mall parking lot can conjure washed over us like a baptismal rain. We had arrived at the Castle, and the Castle was connected to an outlet mall.

After the thrill of receiving our crowns and taking a photo with the King subsided, we proceeded to the bar. You might imagine the bar, or "Wine Cellar" at Medieval Times to be a modest affair--a few draft ales, some cheap wine by the glass, perhaps some whiskey. But you'd be so wrong. What we found was a 10-register full-service bar, complete with margarita and pina colada machines, wenches who prepared shots for horrifyingly ill-behaved "cheerleader moms", and mega-sized novelty glasses, the king of which could set you back $25 when filled with Miller Lite. Do you even have to wonder? I obviously ordered a Pina Colada. With whipped cream. Cole and I were in heaven--that kind of heaven where you suspend hope about everything pure and good in the world, and revel in the disaster of existence.

And then...we we entered the ring.

to be continued...

What's Ya Got Cookin'?

Thanks to my friend John Glasgow, I VIP'd it up at the Robert Earl Keen concert last night at the 9:30 club.

IT WAS AMAZING!

Felt like Austin, Texas. Rarely am I able/willing to stay at a concert for its entirety, but this show was different. I screamed for the encore and afterward waited--in line, no less--for REK to sign a cooking apron I bought moments prior to meeting him.

In a manner that I like to think of as charmingly gawkish, but, in reality, is just clumsy-drunk, I told Robert Earl Keen that his Wikipedia entry showed him as a Kerrville resident, and that I went to summer camp near Kerrville. We had a little chat, made some lingering eye contact, and my thoughts naturally turned to the free and easy life I'd live as a fixture in his tour bus. At the risk of my good Christian friends thinking I was blind drunk and unclear on where the cab was, I tarried for a second outside REK's bus, scheming half-heartedly. Sometimes I want to lose it all.

Might could be getting back to Texas soon. We'll see.

Love,

Cameron

Veterans' Day

This Veterans' Day, I've celebrated thusly: Woke up, ate a mini-pack of peanut M&M's while watching recorded episodes of Gossip Girl and The Hills, then promptly began g-chatting the shit out of g-chat until it broke.  I'm supposed to be cleaning in anticipation of Cole's visit, but instead I'm listening to Alanis Morrisette's break-out album of 1995, "Jagged Little Pill," which is, of course, stored on my boy roommate David's hard drive.

Then Christian made it all worth it with this line (post-discussion of whether or not a guy hates him, and something about male modeling):

"I think anyone reading the transcript of this chat would assume I was a huge mincing fag."

And my morning is made. 

Ex-boyfriend in Famly Feud, 4 realz

So, I was debating whether or not to change Tommy's link from his views on on-campus drinking at Santa Clara to a youtube video of him dressed as a farmer on Family Feud. With T-bone's input, I decided to leave up the Santa Clara link to the right, but not without bringing your attention to this clip of his Aunt Kathleen, a nun, being kissed by the host of Family Feud. 

Enjoy.

Flying Solo

Cole flies helicopters.

Off the Coast of Scotland

me: dad, u there?

Steve: I am

me: woohoo!! in Scotland?

Steve: Isle of Eriska.

me: drinkin' scotch?

Steve: No, I poured it down the sink.

What a card. 

I'm going to the Roald Dahl memorial in Wales in, like, two weeks. Flying Solo!

Love,

C

"Wrap the attached scarf insouciantly around your neck"

This Brian Reyes dress (on sale at Saks) makes me want to cast off the trappings of a bleak and weary world--happy hours on the House side, $2 hamburgers downtown, impulsive trans-Atlantic plane ticket purchases, ignominious financial meltdowns, self-doubt, Isaac Mizrahi for Target--and rise, the phoenix of a million clear-eyed Indians' imaginings, into the life of a woman who wears this dress.

Unlean against our hearts.

Blandeur

by kay ryan

If it please God,

let less happen.

Even out Earth's

rondure, flatten

Eiger, blanden

the Grand Canyon.

Make valleys 

slightly higher,

widen fissures

to arable land,

remand your

terrible glaciers

and silence

their calving,

halving or doubling

all geographical features

toward the mean.

Unlean against our hearts.

Withdraw your grandeur. 

November 5th, 2008

First Amendment

RRP photos
by Cameron

Sort of Beside Our Collective Self

1 a.m. from Dad:

Cameron, 

This is an amazing moment in history. I could have never imagined this as a child or even when I was your age. Remember it forever. 

Love, 

Dad

1:04 a.m., from Mom:

This is a historic moment in our nation's history. Folks like Dad and I, who grew up with segregation, are just amazed at how far we have come. I wish my mother, your grandmother, could have lived to see this--she was brave about standing up against prejudice and I will never forget that. I'm thrilled that you're in D.C. at such a pivotal moment. I would like to be there for the inauguration (if you have any connections, let us know). 

Love, 

Mom

OK. I am beside myself a little bit. I'm not sure how to proceed! All I can think of doing right now is drinking champagne or quitting my job. Let's all drink bottles and bottles of champagne tonight. I'll send out an eVite.

We will pour one out for our friends abroad--Sara, Max, Si, you're here in spirit. 

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Love, 

Cameron

DrReSseS!!!!11

Love.

Love!

omgLove.

Love!!!!1

Love.

Look, I know I'm not blowing anyone's mind with my crack reporting here, but basicboutique.com is a-m-azing.

k.

love!

Cameron

Democracy, Democracy

<3 u, baby.

There was a two-hour wait at D.C.'s 86th Precint's polling place this morning.

A crew of middle schoolers ran around the schoolyard where all the voters stood in line. They were screaming, "BARACK OBAMAAAAAaaaaa" over and over again. Every third car honked in approval of the long line wrapped about the yard like the curve on a running track. I arrived at 7:15 a.m. after a five-block walk from my house.

You know, I say walk, but it was a piligrimage. There's hardly ever a reason to walk east of my house, so I rarely do. Houses and alleyways half a mile from my house were complete mysteries to me; the neighbors I never really thought of as neighbors. My neighborhood's all parceled up into gentrified and non-gentrified units, and the polling place was in a unit that had not yet been gentrified.

So I was walking through, um, uncharted territory, on a holy-secular journey to help breathe life into the democractic ideal, and far earlier than the time I normally wake up--you can see how it's easy to get dramatic. So anyway, I voted.

While waiting in line I finished McCarthy's THE ROAD and started crying when I read the ending as I reached the front of the voting line. The book is set in the post-apocalyptic America where society and goodness have succumbed almost entirely to savagery and cannibalism, so while reading THE ROAD it's hard to feel anything but pure existential wonder at an arrangement like democracy and patient, efficient voting sites. That's where I'm coming from, people.

Going to Hawk n' Dove for election night fiasco tonight. I hope to be interviewed by numerous bottom-rung news outlets. But wait! This post isn't just about the American political process. I have a few other things to say.

1) WTF is wrong with Marc Jacobs sometimes? Does he have astigmatism every sixth garment that he designs? If a dress makes a 90-pound model look fat, then no one else has a prayer of looking good in it.

2) I love DVF's ethos so much. She is like your fanciest grandmother who smokes cigarettes out of skinny, long cigarette holders while advising you to date more men. That's what these shoes look like:

Also, check out http://www.herroom.com/ for bras, etc. It's awesome. Okay that's it! Have fun tonight.

Love,

Cameron

The Opposite of International Acclaim

See! I wasn't lying.

The details are wrong, but the photo is right.

If only the Frenchmen had uploaded their footage to the YouTube, my trifecta of the tiniest amount of fame possible would be complete.

RRP Eastern Market on Sunday, J.Crew, Grammar

Oh hey there.

Really Really Pretty features weekly theme "Bye, Hater" at Eastern Market this Sunday from 10-5. $15 per matted print, with twice the variety of last week and half the class.

Make a morning or afternoon of it--if you've never had a crepe from the Frenchman on 7th street, you really haven't lived.

SO ANYWAY, I get e-mails from J. Crew, and I have to speak out because they've been bothering me. J. Crew completely abuses the period in the subject line. Exempli Gratia:

"Private sale. Extended one day. Online only."

Three periods in one email subject line, J.Crew? You're really going to take it there? It makes every fucking email I get from this company sound so smug and self-important, which is completely unwarranted considering the emails are advertising $10 off corduouroys with cocker spaniels emblazoned on them.

You know what the excessive period use reminds me of? Those people who write something totally inane on a facebook wall, and then leave a complete line space blank (I have to presume for dramatic effect) and then type

"That is all."

Like they've just handed down the most mind-boggling decree of the modern age, when really they were like,

"Girl!!! I miss you let's go play this weekend I feel like we haven't gone out forever and that makes me sad :-(".

Hey, want to know why you haven't seen your friend in so long? Because you're embarrassing.

Punctuation matters, OK?

LOVE,
Cameron

A Good Week

The wretched wasteland of infectious mono is a distant memory. A few really good things happened to me last week, and I will sketch out the highlights for my two readers now.

Columbus Day.

No work! Walked around the neighborhood with a 5-foot roll of chickenwire and a burlap sack, both of which will be put to use this Sunday. Really Really Pretty is at Eastern Market!

The Final Presidential Debate.

After two consecutive happy hours, I staggered into Pour House to meet 3L friend Shelly and a bevy of GW democrats. Since I was already pretty drunk by the time I got there, I alternated my focus between french fries and making googly eyes at a hot guy sitting behind me. Barack laid the hurt on McCain on the Ayers issue, but that's about all I caught. It was nice to see both candidates groping for a response when Bob Schieffer asked if they were willing to repeat the allegations in their negative ads on live television.

After the debate, a few of us had a drink at the bar downstairs. Press swarmed the bar (well, just a wire service I'd never heard of and a french camera crew) and began to target anyone who they could make eye contact with. The overhead light was bright. The camera was warm. I eyed the shaggy-haired french interviewer as he asked, "McCain or Obama?" He'd heard from Dems all night, and it was time to give him his interview.

"McCain!"
"Really! Really! Great. Why do you vote for John McCain?"

This was going in the direction of the 6 p.m. French newscast berating Americans for their unconsidered political convictions. Or maybe it would be a specialty piece on young people voting for McCain. That's when the winking began. I couldn't stop it!

Sarah Palin paved the way for winking at the camera in inappropriate situations, and, if ever there was a time to wink at the camera inappropriately and egregiously, this was it. Three eager frenchmen dressed in indeterminate black outfits were interviewing me with a microphone, a huge-ass t.v. camera, and an overhead light at the bar. My visage would soon be the most recognizable in all of Paris, and probably all of France. There really was no stopping me.

"Why do I want to vote for McCain? Because he's the handsomest." ;-). I basically converted into a live-action emoticon.
"Well, yes, but why really do you want to vote for McCain?"


My thoughts quickly turned to the debate. What did I remember? What did I remember? The comb-over.


"He has the best hair cut." Wink wink wink wink wink.

At this point, the french interviewer's doe eyes gazed deep into mine, searching for some semblance of reason, or mercy.

I winked really slow at him.

He cut the camera.

The wire service, lured in by what must have appeared to be a successful interview, came to record my thoughts. I spouted an impromptu theory about the visual aspect of the debate, and how analysts don't pay enough attention to the fact the debate is often broadcast in split-screen, so that you can monitor the reaction of one senator as you listen to the words of the other. The theory went on and on, and I thought I was incredibly insightful. The wire service actually liked it, so maybe I should google myself again today.

As we left the bar, we found the three frenchmen sitting on the patio. Do I even need to say that they were smoking? Don't embarrass me. They were smoking. Marlboro Reds, like American badasses. I took one and the interviewer asked me why I didn't give him a serious interview. I said I didn't really care about politics, that I was from the most conservative congressional district in Texas, and that my hometown would never go blue. But I had to say "azur" for him to understand me. The French are so out of touch.

Love,
Cameron

Gakmosexual

A Gakmosexual is someone who is only attracted to Gak.

Really Really Pretty Went to Market

Dear Two Readers,

Hey! How are you?

Remember how I take pictures? I sold some yesterday at Eastern Market. Like, more than one. Some photos, like the anti-abortion protestor in front of the Supreme Court, were unappealing to everyone except for SCOTUSblog writer/manager Eliza Presson.

(Note that her picture on the SCOTUS blog homepage sucks, and further note that I hereby indefinitely extend my offer to photograph her styled as a 14th century Italian oligarch.)

This Sunday I'll be at the Eastern Market with a whole new batch of prints. I literally cannot wait to see you there.

Love,

Cameron

Auto-Rotation

Jobs.


On Tuesday, my boss asked to chat about what my job plans were for after his departure. I was like, is this a job? Standing in the office door giving withering looks? Memo to the Public: Sarah Palin didn't get to be the Republican VP nominee by NOT winking at the camera!

First love, Cole, is training to be a commercial helicopter pilot right now. Badass, right? Part of his JOB is safely landing a helicopter when the engine dies and the blades are spinning freely. It's called auto-rotation. What's that? You're asking about the most exciting part of my job? It's when a New Hampshire area code pops up and Herschel Collins, a "consultant to W" calls from his local Kinko's to report that Pakistanis are photocopying their passports.

Life does not need to hang imminently in the balance for a job to be interesting. But variety matters. That's all I'm saying.

Speaking of jobs, and variety, and how to best live, the D.C. Metro Rail exemplifies the appeal of living abroad . The Metro is exceptionally easy to understand. The trains are clearly marked, the stations are clean and well-designed, the lines are marked by primary colors in a scheme a five year old would appreciate. It's all so stiflingly easy. Even the New York City subway, with its well-disguised entrances, grimy tunnels, ornery attendants, and intricate map--which has defeated my feeble mind more than once--is conducted entirely in English. The most meager effort to navigate the NYC subway yields results.

But Madrid! There, the most banal daily minutiae held a bounty of potential missteps, and each one was a little gift of excitement. When you first live in a foreign country, you're constantly guessing at the most basic elements of daily life: When does the train depart? What's the conductor saying? Why are we stopping? When I visited with my friend Katherine, an exasperated middle aged woman interrupted our dazed conjectures when the metro unexpectedly stopped on the rails one Saturday. With an abrupt and threateningly suggestive slapping sort of hand gesture, she positioned herself one inch from my nose and yelled, "TRAN! TRAN VIA! NO! NO VA." Adventures abound when confusion reigns! Basic functions demand more attention than they ever would back home. Everything is a challenge, and life is richer for it. I'll be back eventually.

Posting on the debate later.

Love,

Cameron