You have almost certainly already read the Fran Lebowitz interview in ELLE, but if you have not, you should, because she has negged me so successfully that I am now on a bus to NYC so she can ash her cigarettes into my mouth:
I take very good care of my clothes. When I get home, I instantly hang up my jacket. If it’s hot outside, I’ll hang it on the shower rod so that it can air out a bit before I put it away. That’s the first thing I do. Then I’ll hang up my shirt if I’m going to wear it again that night, and I change into another shirt that I just wear around the house. It’s from high school and has holes in it. I love it because it’s mine and because nobody sees me in it, ever. I put my cufflinks in their little box. I shoeshine once a week. My jeans go in the washing machine, my shirts go out (they’re starched), and my clothes that need to be dry-cleaned go to the most expensive dry-cleaner. I dry-clean as infrequently as possible—not only because it’s psychotically expensive, but also because who knows what it does to the clothes? Dry…clean. These words don’t go together. Wet clean—that is how you clean. I can’t even imagine the things they do at the drycleaner. I don’t want to know.
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I don’t know if you’re following the Randall Miller situation, but this is a great explanation of why Sarah Jones’ death was such bullshit (I also watched the linked 20/20 episode and it was heartbreaking, although obviously deliberately designed to be so, in that icky way of investigative TV):
I don’t know any of the crew members who worked on Midnight Rider, but I can imagine a likely chain of events. The paper mill says yes, the track owners say no. Permission is secured to be “near the tracks” i.e. seems like enough legal wiggle room to steal a few shots on the bridge, because we all know nothing is actually going to happen, right? Some attempt is made to figure out the train schedule – I wouldn’t be surprised if some poor PA was sent to literally sit by the tracks for a few days to try and figure out how frequently they came.
And then the day of the shoot arrives, when cast and crew are told that if a train happens to be spotted, they’ll have 60 seconds to get off the tracks.
At this point, I imagine a look was exchanged between crew members, a conversation that went unspoken: “Should we be doing this?” “It must be safe if the producers and director are saying it’s OK.” “I’m sure we’ll be fine. Who dies on a film set?”
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I am unashamedly obsessed with all things normcore for no apparent reason (not everything has to be important!), so this was so fun for me:
Although normcore’s boundaries are contested, one premise about normcore fashion has remained universally unchallenged: Jerry and George would have worn it on Seinfeld. The question that naturally follows is, What would Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza have eaten? Having watched a lot of Seinfeld and also having researched “Jerry Seinfeld food” on YouTube I can tell you: tuna salad on toast, not-actually-spicy kung pao chicken, single-serving take out soup, Junior Mints, brandless cereal, and scores of dehydrating pretzels.
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Matt Zoller Seitz on why this last season of Justified is so perf:
Everyone on this show has trouble letting go of the past in some form: a past dream, a past love, a lifelong fantasy. “Doing what a man’s gotta do” fuses with its crime-thriller mirror, “Just one last big score.” Raylan’s boss, Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), warns Raylan that there’s always one more snake to kill, and if he insists on finding new ones, he’ll never settle down with his family; Ava fruitlessly urges Boyd to give up his desire for the $10 million in Avery’s vault and just pick up and leave town with her and start over somewhere new. It’s a compulsion, perhaps an addiction, embedded deep within the American mind — a concept suggested in a throwaway moment at a party announcing Avery as the town’s would-be new boss, at which Raylan picks up a tumbler of bourbon, then pushes it away, then picks it up again moments later and downs it.
ALSO, have. you. watched. the. latest. episode? GIF REACTIONS PLEASE:
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What’s happening with Sweet Briar.
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I backed the Emily Books Kickstarter, because, damnit, they really just have the greatest taste in books and indie publishing is a very worthy aim. I am also offering my book recommendation services at one of the reward levels, so, you know, that would be fun! Here’s an interview.
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SHOCKINGLY MOVING interview with Ad-Rock, IMHO:
Maybe this is morbid on my part to say, but you’re seeing one of your best friends get eulogized everywhere. It’s some weird, horrific preview of what people will say about you or say about Mike, right?
“Well, you know, all of that stuff made me really happy, that people cared about Adam so much. And there was graffiti all over the world, and it meant a lot. He meant a lot to a lot of people. That’s really nice. That’s rare that that happens: that one of your best friends dies and, internationally, people are freaking out.”
But it’s a glimpse of, frankly, what’s coming for you.
“Well, he was a better person than me. I have a feeling I’ll have some, but not quite as much. You know?”
Do you think people know that?
“What, that he was a better person than me?”
Yes.
“Yeah.”
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I have not watched this week’s Justified yet, but this last season really has been perfect. I forgive all the transgressions of last season because it ultimately set up this season perfectly. I can’t wait to go be and rewatch the entire show from the beginning
I feel the same way, I kind of want to watch the first episode immediately after the finale. SO so good.
I am four (4!) episodes behind because it’s one of the shows I watch with the boy, and he hasn’t been feeling like it lately, so I outright blackmailed him. I have a dinner with friends I could go to tomorrow evening, and I basically told him that I’m willing to stay home an have a cozy Friday evening date with him instead… as long as we spend that evening catching up on Justified.
POSSIBLE SPOILER:
I love what they’ve been doing with Ava. The last episode offers the intriguing idea that the show isn’t really about Boyd v. Raylan, but Ava v. Raylan (and maybe men in general). Which is just an awesome twist and makes me want to re-watch the entire series with that idea in mind.
Another spoiler:
I re-watched Season 1, episode 1, last night, and some things that have happened lately in Season 6 suddenly made sense to me, as a sort of throwback or logical outcome.
Holy shit that last episode. Did not expect that and it is awesome.
I’m one week behind because I’m in Canada (shakes fist in rage) but I’ve been loving it.
Ok, all caught up, and Holy Shit indeed. Although honestly, almost as big a shock (and pleasant surprise) as what happened at the end of the latest episode was Loretta’s speech in the one before. Girl is inspiring – and just a wee bit scary.
Reading that article on “normcore food” was like slowly watching my brain try to eat itself from the inside. I don’t know what type of food that’s classified as.
(HI TOAST! I’m home from work this morning getting ready to go to a doctor’s appointment! It’s truly horrifying how much my mood has lifted just by taking a few hours off work! AND after work this afternoon I have an interview at a SPECIALTY MEAT RETAILER.)
That sounds like a job that would lead me to heart disease……..
specialty dry-aged and cured Italian meats
Ohhhhhh, tell me more….. I am currently on a diet (not an “I need to be thin to be beautiful” diet, an “I need my pants to fit because I can’t afford all new pants” diet) and I spend my days looking at food porn…
OMG YES YES YES
My fantasy that I use to relax sometimes is having a big basement that I build a big professional kitchen in and then I make cured meats and pates in.
stop no you had me at SPECIALTY MEAT RETAILER
FOR YOU AND ANYONE ELSE WHO IS INTERESTED IN SPECIALTY MEATS: the interview was a total gong show in which the interviewer asked me both “Would your husband be OK with you doing this job? Would he let you?” and “Do you have kids? Because if you have kids you can’t do this job.” So AWESOME.
what? ugh
I hope you brained him with a giant cappicola and then tossed his carcass into the nearest dehydrator.
IT WAS A WOMAN
AGHGHGHGHHGHG
Ohhhhh noooooo. I’m so sorry. I hope you have better leads soon 🙁
Wow. Sounds like a lucky escape. (Is discriminating based on whether or not you have children not illegal? It is here in the UK – employers aren’t allowed to consider it when hiring people, and shouldn’t even ask – but I don’t know if it’s the case elsewhere.)
Good luck with your doctor appt and interview! Oooh, specialty meat retailing. I had an interview yesterday with a company called Climax! No sex toys involved!
I am so confused by it. Do people not just … eat food? Which they have chosen based on some combination of taste, health, convenience and price? I wasn’t aware I was meant to be following a trend when deciding what to cook.
I really hope something can be done to save Sweet Briar. I have friends who spent time there and it seems like such a special and beautiful place. If I had wanted to go to a women’s college, it would likely have been my first choice.
Also, as someone with serious flight anxiety, I having a very hard time processing the news about the German plane. I wish I didn’t have to fly on Saturday…
Re: Germanwings – Oh god I hear you. I’ve never been a huge fan of flying, and now my anxiety has spiked through the roof. Those poor, poor people.
Everything I hear about the flight is just so awful. Those are the kind of flights I’m most frequently on, too (low-cost carriers, short inter-Europe flights).
I’m glad someone else wants to talk about how awful this is. I heard about it in the car this morning and I really just wanted to turn around, drive home and spend the day hiding under the covers…
I seriously can’t blame you. The only way I’m not doing that is by relishing the fact that I’m visiting my parents and the fact that I have their puppy around to cuddle with.
I don’t have to fly for another month and a half, but I am suddenly VERY NERVOUS about it, even though I know that it’s unreasonable.
Agreed, re: Germanwings. I’m flying with United/Lufthansa in two weeks and having an impossible time focusing on my work right now.
I’m currently watching the conference with the CEO of Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, and basically they’re treating this as something that is obviously extremely unexpected and they have apparently very stringent mental health, etc. checks on their pilots. Apparently, Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who was flying the plane, had had a pause of a few months in his training back in 2008, but they won’t release information as to why he had this break. However, Spohr emphasized that short breaks in training aren’t necessarily exceptional.
Yeah, I know the mental health screening pilots have to go through is more rigorous than pretty much any other job. So I’m holding on to the fact that this is super rare and it makes it statistically more unlikely for it to happen again in the near future.
Also, being able to talk about it with Toasties is a HUGE relief.
agreed! I mentioned in a comment below that I REALLY would like to discuss this openly with my parents as I’m flying from Germany to the US in a few weeks, but I can’t because me coming is a surprise for my dad’s birthday. So I’m going to dump this all out here. I’m obviously talking about it with my husband too, but he’s German, so he’s kind of like…well. very reasonable, which is good, but also somehow I want him to also be freaked out that isn’t in the way of, “I have no idea how this could’ve happened because everything was done by the procedure and therefore this does not compute.”
Yeah, my parents know how bad my plane anxiety is, so they are very much “let’s not discuss this and fast forward through any news about it” even though I said it’s okay. So I’m just not going to mention it to them and find other outlets so I don’t worry them any more than I have to.
I know. I just flew Germanwings from France to Germany a few weeks ago, and I just know that my flying anxiety is going to be out of control next time I have to get on a plane.
The most heartbreaking part of the whole story is the German high school that lost sixteen tenth-graders – the parents were actually at the airport waiting for their children when they got the news, and I don’t know why that detail makes it all so much more horrible but it does.
God, is it just me or are there ALWAYS school groups on these planes that go down? I swear to God, it’s always the most horrific thing.
Pretty much any flight anywhere has a school group or a sports team on it.
I just read the news that it was purposeful. For some reason, that makes it worse, even though obviously it doesn’t make a difference to the people on board. I keep imagining what was going through the pilot’s head when he realized he’d been locked out of the cockpit.
I’m not and haven’t ever been afraid of flying, though, since the statistics are still nothing compared to driving. I’ve also been on a plane that had to be restarted repeatedly like an old car, so I figure if I didn’t run off that flight, I don’t have reason to panic on any other. (On the other hand, I spend a lot of time on highway drives thinking about the probability and consequences of a serious car crash, especially if I’m the one driving.)
Re: Germanwings
I’ve just woken up and read about the co-pilot apparently intentionally taking the plane down and I’m feeling very shaken up by it. I’m a flight attendant, so flight anxiety is not a problem for me, but like…the idea of your co-worker like completely betraying you and everyone is pretty unsettling and disturbing. You are always working with different crews so you don’t always know the people you fly with very well, but like…. I don’t know, this sounds cheesy to say, but you really trust each other and you really rely on each other for help and there’s just a lot of…unspoken understanding about supporting each other. Just imagining what the captain and flight attendants were feeling is so sad to me, because they almost certainly knew that something bad was happening before the passengers did.
Also, I’m confused about quite a few things…on my airline two people always have to be in the cockpit, so if the captain or first officer gets out to go to the bathroom, then I get in and take their seat for a few minutes and let them back in when they come back (I spend most of my life hoping they’ll need to go to the bathroom, because sitting in the cockpit is dope). Anyway, I thought that was pretty standard so either I’m wrong and they just don’t do that or they weren’t following that procedure for some reason.
Secondly, I mean…you don’t always know when or if the captain is going to take a bathroom break meaning like….the first officer made some kind of spontaneous decision to do this? Sort of at least. Idk, it’s weird as hell.
And finally, if they won’t call it suicide or terrorism WHAT THEN WOULD THEY CALL IT?
According to this Guardian article, European regs don’t require two people to be in the cockpit at all times, unlike US regs: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/germ…
That’s just so silly because it’s not like it HURTS to stick another person up there or like its difficult or anything…..sigh. It’s just like such a SIMPLE thing that could have most likely prevented all of this, and it’s extra galling because as the US already had the regulation it’s not like one of those things that just hadn’t occurred to anyone yet. 🙁
The terribly depressing part of my mind just went, “unless there was collusion.” 🙁
But yeah. It’s a really simple policy, it probably causes a lot of minor inconvenience for flight crews (what if the pilot needs to take a leak right in the middle of in-flight service?), and it would have reduced the likelihood of this occurring. But the likelihood of this occurring is so small to begin with, you would think, that I can see it seeming like a ridiculous overreaction on the part of Americans…sigh.
I hope this reassures Toasties who are flying on American airlines in the near future and doesn’t hurt anyone who is grieving today. :\
I was planning on buying tickets for a Germanwings flight literally the day of the crash.
I then proceeded to get D-Bahn tickets instead. An extra 4 hours is nothing compared to the anxiety, plus I love trains!
My family was on vacation when the plane accident happened and we had to fly back today. My poor sister already has a lot of anxiety over flying, and she certainly didn’t want to add ‘co-pilot deliberately crashing’ to her list of worries.
Those poor people and their poor families. I can’t imagine how you deal with the prospect of your loved ones having put their trust into the hands of someone who just…killed them all. How could you? It’s implicit, trusting the pilots.
1000% fuck anybody who criticizes women for “not trying hard enough” when it comes to the style of their goddamned pants. I’m so done with that.
OMG, are you the only other person who hated that Fran Leibowitz interview?
I only got a couple of paragraphs in before I bailed. Fuck off, with your men’s shirts and blazers and jeans everyday. And your glasses (or whatever) that cost as much as my car.
I didn’t get very far past the headline!
You dont need to be as child of The Depression to be horrified that glasses cost as much as a car.
Nope. HATED IT!
I didn’t hate it, because I read it as a fascinating character sketch, and not at all a prescription. Like, she says that when she was young shoes were made in New England! That’s it! Just in New England! That’s crazy pants! When she was young there were like 4 billion people on the Earth, many of them wearing shoes!
I HATE that it is branded as rules about dressing.
My grandmother wore jewels every day of her goddamn life. I’m not kidding, she died at 98 wearing a MASSIVE Tanzanite pendant. That’s fascinating. It’s not a rule about living or a valid criticism about how other people live, even if my grandmother believed it was.
Yeah, I read it the same way and found it fascinating. When she got to the part about bike helmets being like astronauts, I knew. She made it easy not to take her seeming proclamations seriously. It felt intensely personalized.
And at the end, she says it as a matter of fact that she is “deeply superficial.” I actually found it all kind of refreshing from the usual “fashion things to do! fashion things every woman should own!” stuff.
Ok, like I barely even know who this lady is, but when I click on the article and the headline loudly proclaims her opinion that “YOGA PANTS ARE RUINING WOMEN”? Nope. No thanks.
It’s just so tiresome. Oh, physical comfort is ruining women. Yes, that’s it.
they’ll have to pry the comfy pajama pants from my cold, dead hands.
UGH I just read a couple of paragraphs and now I have to close the tab. I don’t care if people have money, and I don’t care if they use their money to buy custom-made jackets or whatever, but like… the superior attitude and the judgment kills me. Yes, I’m going to buy clothes off the rack, and I don’t care if they meet your definition of “fit” or not. I’m going to walk around in my H&M pants, and my “fancy” clothes from the Banana Republic outlet, and you wear your custom jacket, and we’ll all just be happy for each other, ok?
I’m trying to think of any subject besides fashion in which Expert Professional Lecturing All Us Schlubs Who Don’t Prioritize Their Thing gets published and lauded like this. Maybe cooking? (heeeey that’s also very gendered)
But like imagine some famous director ranting about all the trash on YouTube or a starchitect saying people don’t pay for custom-designed houses these days. We’d have a good laugh and not feel remotely bad!
I’m trying to think of any subject besides fashion in which Expert Professional Lecturing All Us Schlubs Who Don’t Prioritize Their Thing
All GOP pols talking about morals in society.
ah yes. yes, for sure. I like to think the fashion people at least hold their fashion values consistently, though.
I have had the gentleman caller staying for a week (just dropped him off at the station to go home) and last night as I opened the door to the delivery due for dinner, I realised I had my hair in two plaits a la Pippi L, and was wearing yoga pants, pink and purple stripey fluffy socks and a big fleecy jumper. I did almost make him go and pay for dinner but then I thought fuck it, I don’t care who sees me wearing comfy ridiculous clothes.
oh yes but don’t you feel like you are ruined now
I think I’ve been ruined since I was 14, by these bonkers standards.
I stayed home from the office on Tuesday with a headache (and also a complete lack of clean clothes) and ordered Chinese food. They arrived earlier than I expected based on when they open, so I answered the door wearing a sarong around my waist and a tank top, and my hair was still in pigtails from yoga the night before. I mean, I would still have opened it braless and in house clothes, but I had intended to at least put on sweatpants.
My mail delivery guy has caught me EVERY TIME I am home, no bra, pajamas, basically he’s seen more of me than most men alive, is what I’m saying. Maybe we are actually dating? idk.
Based on stories I’ve heard, every time a door opens and A. the person behind it is fully dressed and polite and B. they tip properly, it’s a win for the delivery person.
FACT.
It’s a good look.
Yep. I can’t be bothered to care what someone else thinks is super-cool and incredibly perfect in fashion and also has time to trash young people for being idiots, basically, and then also trash women for “not trying hard enough” because come on. Are there not enough things in the world for women to stress about without worrying about whether or not their PANTS are edgy enough?
Like, if your average woman is worrying about her job and maybe being underemployed or having a terrible boss or not making enough money or not having health insurance or good enough health insurance or is pregnant or has kids to worry and stress about and a relationship or a lack of a relationship or familial issues and drama and friends with their own issues and problems and then thinking critically about race and class and the state of politics in their country and women’s rights issues and volunteering and pets and worrying about them too and also wanting to have time enough for a social life and perhaps some kind of hobby in order to blow off steam from all this worrying about life.
And now you want me to think about what my pants are saying? My pants are saying HEY, THESE PANTS FIT MY BODY AND LOOK GOOD ON ME, AND I CAN AFFORD THEM, SO FUCK YOU. That’s how hard my pants are trying.
Yeah, I’d love to have so few problems that I get all salty about other people’s pants!
I love you so much right now.
Fran needs to open that store whee they sell well-fitting pants for someone my size that cost what someone like me can afford.
Ugh yes. How dare women be comfortable when their one job is to be decorative?
You’re ahead of me on the pants front–mine are saying LOOK I AM WEARING PANTS TODAY. When I wear pants.
(which today I’m not, because leggings plus knit skirts plus comfy boots make me feel like I’m beating the “ladies, however you are dressing is wrongity-wrong” system and I love that)
That is like my uniform right now and I love it.
Oof, just the intro, where she refuses to talk to someone who’s calling from a cell phone —
You know what? This person is a dinosaur, already irrelevant, soon enough to be dust. Her opinions don’t even matter. It’s a pity the reporter was ever persuaded otherwise. I wish she’d given up after admitting she didn’t have a landline. Okay, time to find a new assignment!
BABY BOOMERS NEED TO DIE ALREADY.
Hello! Boomer here.
But I do see your point. I have recently given myself the gift of a firm new policy. I will never again work for a dinosaur. For anyone older than me, I need evidence that they welcome technology.
Another Baby Boomer, and just let me say that I absolutely resent being in the same generation as my mother, who I have nothing in common with … people born in 1941 should be in a different generation than people born in 1963. But no, we’re lumped together. I’m a Baby Boomer because of a technicality or something.
I blame boomers for Ronald Reagan, the non-response to the energy crisis, the making of the student loan debt crisis, and all manner of other things. But I should be blaming myself even though I was too young to do anything about any of these things.
Also, Fran Lebovitz is on best-dressed lists, so she is not an average Baby Boomer. I think I’d classify her as a 1%-er who has no idea how normal people live.
Now I’m gonna duck.
is there an official definition — isn’t it a bit fuzzy at the edges?
my mother and father were born in ’43 and ’44 respectively, and they always called themselves war babies because they didn’t want to be Boomers. Besides, it really was a different era — they were in college in the early 60s, as opposed to the late 60s — a very very very different experience!
Would 100% read that version of the article.
I think – other Toastie librarians back me up? – that she is the literal perfect example of a certain type of library patron.
In one way, it’s kind of kick-ass not to care at all about computers and still buy stamps and have a landline and complain about people making noise in the library. And in another way, you want to gently guide them to the door and say, sorry, that’s just not really how the world works anymore. Learn to change.
But I suppose if it works for her (as I’m assuming it does, being wealthy and eccentric in New York), then more power? The eccentrics who still need to use the public library system aren’t going to be given quite such a forgiving audience.
I am (almost) a librarian, and I buy stamps and have a landline and hate people making noise in the library with a fiery passion. I am definitely not wealthy or from New York. (Maybe eccentric?)
The type of library patron I encounter most often is the one who assumes the rules don’t apply to them – they’ll bring coffee and food into the library, answer their phones, leave rubbish on the tables, leave books scattered about the place and chairs in the middle of the floor – I don’t know if it’s that they genuinely don’t realise, or if they just think they’re above such things.
She complains that youth havent come up with any fashions that horrify the olds and then talks about how horrified she is by yoga pants, down jackets and bike helmets.
Sigh.
She can keep her cufflinks and cowboy boots and ill keept my leggings and my down and we will all be very happy for ourselves.
That’s the most delightful aspect of the whole interview. The youngs are so conventional and old fashioned but also repulsive with their unprecedented (?) focus on warmth and comfort and not suffering head traumas.
(Does she know that she’s not a cowboy and therefore, by her own logic, should not be wearing shoes specifically made for cowpeopling.)
cowpeopling
You are wonderful.
One of the things I stopped caring about recently was whether you can see my underwear line. Yes, I wear underwear, how about that? I have never found a thong that I didn’t want to cut off of my body with scissors after roughly 10 minutes, hipster underwear just doesn’t fit me right, and I just don’t give a crap anymore. I’m not going to be uncomfortable all damn day so that people can’t tell if I wear underwear or not.
So if I’m not trying hard enough to be as perfectly put together as possible, so fucking what.
I … this… it…
You might have just saved me from some genuine anxiety. I just bought new lace underwear (six identical pairs, because it was somehow cheaper to buy a half-dozen than to buy two), and the first thing I thought when I put on a pair was that the lace edging is more visible than I expected and people (WHO ARE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT MY BUTT ALREADY) might be able to discern it (BECAUSE THEY ARE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT MY BUTT ALREADY) and that I should avoid anything that makes people (WHO WOULD HAVE TO HAVE DECIDED TO KEEP LOOKING DIRECTLY AT MY BUTT) consider my undergarments.
p.s., my favorite Miss Manners quote is not, as it sounds, about undergarments, but I think of it exclusively in connection with undergarments: “Miss Manners does not speculate about clothes she cannot see.”
Whenever I worry about my underwear line (less and less frequently!) I make it an Onion headline: BREAKING: Area Woman Wears Underwear. This calms me.
This is the best thing I have read today, possibly this year. I will now do this with everything I worry unnecessarily about. BREAKING: Area Woman Farts In Bathroom Stall.
Yeah, if people are going to get all bent out of shape about being able to detect that I wear underwear, they should just stop looking at my butt.
I don’t care about that either, or if *shock horror* people can see I’ve got nipples on a cold day. I have had more than a few people ask me in horrified tones whether I know and what am I going to do about it.
“I have had more than a few people ask me in horrified tones whether I know and what am I going to do about it”.
That’s just… bizarre. What exactly do they expect you to do about it? “Oh, okay, I guess I’ll just hold them until they warm up”.
They mostly expected me to put on a coat. Or on one occasion, hang a hat on them and make myself useful. (Although that one was a joke.)
“Y HALO THAR MAAM DO U KNOW THAT YR NIPPLES R STICKIN OUT?!?”
How on earth do people even think asking something like that is appropriate?
Yeah, I am not submitting my nipples to the repression of a nipple-proof bra in the pretense of some weirdly smoothed anatomy. If it’s that upsetting that I have nipples, then look away, or LOOK UPON MY NIPPLES AND FEAR ME.
I don’t know why this recent undergarment purchase caused me a moment of qualms. But it did, for, like, a day.
It’s funny how even the least fuck-giving people have moments of doubt. About once every two years I think I care about wrinkles and buy eye cream, and then a week later I remember I don’t give a shit about looking younger than I am and throw it out.
I have never, ever worn a g-string in my life. Not once. My friend at primary school once had to wear one to be in her cousin’s wedding when we were, like, 11 or something, and for about a week I thought I wasn’t doing femaleness right because the idea just horrified me, even though all the girl magazines talked about them all the time.
Then I got over it, and have never seriously considered getting one since.
I dooooooon’t understand them.
Me neither and I’m never going to.
I’m still waiting for Prince to write “Khaki MF” for me. He keeps refusing. (Yes. flat front, because I’m sophisticated.) But why do I have to mail order brown Dickies? Is it that niche a market?
Also Jockey stopped making my undershirts but there’s now finally a Hanes that I like. So I have the fifteen dollar version of her problems.
You’re not wrong! But she did say this of Hillary Clinton, which I loved a lot:
“But I would not say her look (I won’t even call it style) is so imposed on her. Yes, there’s a narrow parameter for a woman that public, but I don’t feel that inside of Hillary Clinton there’s a Jane Birkin waiting to get out. I don’t think she cares. I don’t think she is interested in how her house looks, where her furniture is from—I don’t think she has any visual interests. And there’s nothing wrong in not caring. A man who doesn’t care about what he looks like, he’s applauded. We say, ‘Oh, he’s not superficial!’
I, myself, am deeply superficial.”
Especially someone who wears nothing but FUCKING 501 LEVI’S FOR FUCKS SAKE??
Shut up, Fran.
i had to google her and i was supremely unimpressed with her “look”. that’s how my dad dresses when my mom says “wear something nice but not TOO nice”. good for her for genderblending and for being happy in her clothes but i hardly think her look warrants status as a fashion guru.
I honestly thought I’d somehow gotten a picture of Steven Tyler.
For real! I don’t know who the fuck Fran Leibowitz is, but she sounds like an absolute arsehole. “Oh you just have to have your clothes made for you or you don’t know what correct fit is”
And lady, someone with a pyramid perm should not be lecturing other women about their fashion choices.
Normcore foods feel to me like the sort of things Boomers ate before the advent of health food: tuna salad, chicken a la king, baloney and mayo on Wonderbread, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.
I made a giant tuna noodle casserole last week using crushed Saltines and Campbell’s cream of mushroom. You can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
OMG that is such stereotypical mangiacake food. Normcore is just people embracing their inner mangiacake-ness. I get it now.
Oh wow, so mangiacake is like the Italian “goy”?
sort of? Usually it refers to really stereotypical WASP-y type people/things (especially food). Like turkey and mayo on Wonderbread, which is basically the epitome of mangiacake.
That’s it.
I love finding new variations of “honky” (which I am).
AKA the traditional foods of my people, the Midwesterners, and still pretty much what my parents eat except my mom sometimes has avocados now.
HOTDISH
One of my mom recipes is partially frying chicken then simmering it the rest of the way in a pan full of cream of mushroom (and ya got a mess o’ gravy!) (I mean my mom made it…wait, did I just coin a normfood term?)
the avocados! she insists on peeling them and then cutting wedges. kinda like an apple? i tried to teach her the right/better way but she won’t listen to me. at least she’s trying something new, though.
That is so cute though.
I tried eating an avocado that way once. They’re just so bland and squooshy that way. Blech.
See, my mind goes immediately to these 70s Weight Watchers recipes. The ones with no nutritional information.
“Once upon a time the world was young and the words “mackerel” and “pudding” existed far, far away from one another.
One day, that all changed. And then, whoever was responsible somehow thought the word fluffy would help.
Oh, and eggs, too.”
Have you read the blog where one woman actually tried making those recipes and documented the results? It’s so fun- frankfurter spectacular is…well…something: http://theskinnyjeansproject.blogspot.com/
I think the Boomers just had an different idea of healthy food, though. You could probably meet the guidelines in older versions of Canada’s Food Guide pretty easily on a normcore diet. At least for the versions that are readable at that link, which sadly doesn’t include the 1961 version, but the text says there weren’t that many changes from the 1949 version.
May I refer you all to the Gallery of Regrettable Food: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/
Just don’t read it somewhere where you can’t guffaw loudly, or your head will explode with trying to stifle yourself.
Ohhhh you got there first! But I LOVE the GRF. (The steak that looks like Peter Lorre!)
Truly, the first time I came across it, I was at work in a rather non-private office space and I nearly killed myself trying not to laugh too loudly. But I couldn’t keep myself from clicking on to another Regret after another. The related material on 1970s interior decor is nearly as good.
I don’t even know what to say about the latest news on the Germanwings crash so I am just going to leave this link here and then we can all hold each other silently, maybe?
THE PILOT LOCKED THE FLIGHT COMMANDER OUT OF THE COCKPIT AND DELIBERATELY CRASHED THE PLANE AND SAT THERE IN SILENCE FOR THE 10-MINUTE DESCENT WHAT THE FUCK
I am morbidIy fascinated by this as well. I just cannot fathom what would move a person to do this.
I had just gotten over (most of) my fear of flying wrt short flights over land, but now, as though there weren’t enough scope for anxiety re: mechanical failures or bad weather, now I have to worry that one of the pilots will deliberately crash the plane for no apparent reason and my body will end up in tiny pieces “scattered over 2 hectares.”
I don’t know how to phrase this eloquently, but – most people are just bumbling around through life, doing their best, trying to be good happy people, but life is actually terrifying and arbitrary and awful things happen out of the blue for no reason. Sometimes I don’t understand how anyone can bring themselves to get out of bed in the morning.
Life IS arbitrary – but sometimes it’s arbitrary in good ways. Someone suddenly does something nice, or the sky is a lovely color, or you read a book that captures your mood perfectly, or listen to a song that gives you shivers. The small moments are what I do it for, personally. But yeah, moments like this… those poor people.
This is a lovely comment.
If it’s any consolation, in North America one pilot isn’t allowed to be in the cockpit alone — if the other pilot leaves, a flight attendant has to come in — so it would be difficult to happen here. Maybe after this the EU will start regulating that as well.
ooooh that makes sense. I’m a North American flight attendant and I was wondering above why they didn’t have someone else in there. That’s ludicrous that they don’t have that rule though, it takes like 0% more effort and clearly would have been a complete game changer in this situation.
Coffee. Coffee is how you get out of bed in the morning. And then once you’re already up and dressed, might as well try to find a spot or two of happiness before rinsing and repeating.
You have discovered my secret.
I can’t help wondering if he was unconscious — a stroke or a faint. Do we know for sure he wasn’t?
(grasping at straws)
I am here for the silent holding of each other. It’s hard to even process… they’re saying the passengers didn’t realize until the very end what was happening, which… good, if that’s true, but can you imagine what it was like for the commander pilot who was locked out?
But how could the passengers not have realized something was happening when they could presumably see the commander trying and failing to get back into the cockpit D:
Oh nooo, that’s a good point. D: Maybe somehow they couldn’t see??! Everything is horrible.
The Guardian story says, “Robin added: ‘I don’t think the passengers realised what was happening until the last moments because on the recording we can only hear cries in the final seconds,'” so I’m hoping that means that if anyone noticed what was going on, they either didn’t realize how serious it was or didn’t realize until the last second.
I’m not sure I would notice that. Normally when I fly I am wearing headphones and either reading or playing games on my devices. I don’t pay attention to what is happening at the front of the plane unless I am flying close to the front (which is rare). I don’t know how big this plane was, but if you are flying coach in larger planes, there is a little curtain to separate coach from first class so you can’t even see the cockpit.
It’s also possible that the flight commander, even when he realized what was happening, was actively trying not to make a big deal of it so as not to alarm anyone.
Isn’t there an area between the cockpit and the body of the plane, where they keep the beverage carts and whatnot? And it’s sealed off with a curtain? Probably he would have been in there.
I have to fly twice tomorrow. I am…very tempted to just eat my ticket.
Yeah, I’m flying tomorrow too… sending virtual hand squeezes. This stuff rarely happens but sometimes statistics don’t provide much comfort…
Yeah, same here, and then back again next week. I am getting very anxious but am trying to keep a lid on it. Hand squeezes all around.
I have to fly on Saturday and this news is not helping my already present flight anxiety. Control issues, I have them.
I feel like such a bag of dicks right now because I am having a super hard time not thinking about myself. I’m flying in two weeks United/Lufthansa, and NEED to be focusing on prepping for my FINAL oral exam which is TOMORROW to finish my master’s degree. There’s like a pretty decent chance too that I will start crying in the middle of this exam. (This has, unfortunately, historically been my response in similar stress situations.)
Don’t feel bad! We all deal with these things in our own way and if thats how you react, that’s how you react. I used to feel so much guilt about how I dealt with grief, but it’s nothing we have any control over and you shouldn’t feel any guilt about that.
thanks. sigh. yeah. damn.
Hey, I just wanted to say that you genuinely know more than you think you do. (I passed my Ph.D. comprehensives last month — everybody knows more than they think they do!) It’s okay to block out the news for a while. Be good to yourself. You’ve got this. <3
This makes me want to barf, and die. At the same time. Those poor fucking people. That poor pilot, banging on the cockpit door.
BUT in a strange way…how do I say this without sounding like a ghoul who is an asshole…I’m terrified of flying, right. I do it anyway because duh (thank you, anti anxiety meds, apologies to all my future seatmates). So when something happens that seems likely to repeat itself in the near future (pilot error, some kind of mechanical failure, freak weather etc) it really scares me. Because it could happen on ANY plane and no one can really prevent it or predict it. So when something like this happens (and has happened only a few times before, most notably EgyptAir 990) it’s almost like, oh well it wasn’t a random non preventable act of nature or faulty mechanics that could happen at any time – someone did a terrible, rare thing on purpose and statistically it’s very very unlikely to happen again any time soon. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all, it’s early and once again, this makes me want to barf and die.
Uh, although I guess it’s also the result of a huge flaw in a human being that could happen at any time, so not so sure how well my theory pans out. /end ghoul asshole talk
Yeeees I feel the exact same way. It’s almost a relief to know it wasn’t the plane itself because that’s what I sit there and panic about.
I think that’s a pretty normal reaction! I’m not a psychologist so I’m just spit-balling, but I think it’s a pretty common defense mechanism to self-soothe by thinking of ways/reasons something terrible will not happen to you. Sometimes this can lead people to be huge fucking dicks (victim-blamers, etc), but if thinking about the statistical unlikelihood of something quiets your anxiety (and isn’t part of a mindset of “well, those people should have just tried harder to avoid x”), then go for it.
Yeah I think on one hand I know that it’s probably common and normal; on the other hand, I feel like a dick being all “PHEW thank god it was a pilot murdering everyone, and not some kind of engine defect!” cause…damn, that just feels cold.
I guess it’s the same thing you do mentally when say, someone gets murdered and you’re all OMG is it a wandering serial killer? Am I next?? Then it turns out to be the spouse and you’re like oh thank goodness. Wait, what.
ugh, had the same reaction and same “I am an asshole” feeling about it. Especially since like, as I mentioned above, most of my flights are on carriers like Germanwings – the lower-cost airlines, the ones that do relatively short flights within Europe. And I feel a little better knowing that the planes I will be flying on at some point in the summer are not going to break. And then I feel like an asshole.
This is so common that there’s probably a psychological term for it. It’s not bad or ghoulish, just very human.
I once had to get on a plane on a day when a similar type of plane from the same carrier had caught fire on a runway in a different part of the country. Obviously there were long delays while things got tested out, and I think everyone on the plane felt shaky about it, but the pilot came on the intercom and said that they wouldn’t be flying the plane if they didn’t completely trust it to be safe. In that reassuring pilot voice which did help.
I am immensely bored by normcore but I love Seinfeld and will talk about all aspects of it forever so that article was a roller coaster of emotion for me.
Sweet Briar Alumna, chiming in! Thanks for linking to our story, and thanks to the kind comments above! It really is a magical place, and it’s been devastating to our community to think that generations of young women to come will not have the opportunity to experience that for themselves. In speaking with friends, former professors, old classmates, and current students over these past few weeks, what has become most clear to me is that the loss of Sweet Briar is not just a blow to our specific community, but for women in general. The beauty of women’s colleges, generally, is that they create space to not so much find one’s voice as to find oneself speaking in an environment where one is finally HEARD. In a world where even the brightest and most capable women find themselves being gaslit and talked over, we need these spaces more than ever. In trying to balance my desires with reality, I’m hoping that something of the College can be salvaged and that we will not lose this place forever.
(For those inclined to contribute to or follow alumnae efforts, donations can be made and updates can be found at http://www.savingsweetbriar.com )
The Sweet Briar story is heartbreaking. I know a lot of Toasties are women’s college grads…it’s where we learned about bored women in art history 🙂 I really worry about the homogenization of higher ed over all. If we can’t create safe, creative, challenging spaces for people to learn, what will happen to us? Women’s college in particular are often hugely welcoming and comforting environments for trans students, who may feel unsupported or outright threatened elsewhere. These schools are so critical to creating more confidant, funny, articulate leaders of all genders. I hope they can turn it around!
I propose that The Toast Commune include plans for an adjacent women’s college. What shall we name our esteemed oasis of higher learning?
For those who aren’t sure, I am not being flip. I am sincere about women like us needing a commune and for girls who will become women like us needing an oasis of higher learning.
The Mallory Ortberg School of Awesomeness and Taking to the Sea.
The school is *on* a boat. Like Semester at Sea, only it’s a whole school that has actually taken itself entirely to the sea.
Also the boat provides abortion services like Women on Waves.
Yes!
I mean, I like this plan, but I worry that adding a college as a necessary part of the commune supports the idea that everyone must go to college, and that people who don’t get a four-year degree don’t deserve good jobs, which is obviously bullshit.
I guess if we offered diploma courses and maybe some apprenticeship stuff through the same institution then I could get on board with it. And maybe a strong continuing education program?
“adjacent” not “necessary” It’s a college available to those who choose it.
You may have confused me with someone else. I am child-free by choice and otherwise refused obedience to my parents’ expectations for what every little girl must become. I am not the sort to say “everyone must” about anything.
Nor have I noticed “everyone must” attitudes here at The Toast. But your perceptions may be sharper than mine.
I like your continuing education program. And I am super supportive of apprenticeships, wishing there were some available to me. Glad you reminded us.
Oh, no, I definitely didn’t think you or The Toast had that “everyone must” attitude. More that it seems to me to be a societal trend, and so although the Toast commune college would be great in and of itself, I think that the context it would exist in would make it less great, at least if it were strictly a degree-granting institution. Sorry about the confusion.
AD-ROCK. I want to cuddle him.
Yeah, that piece gave me a lot of feels, which I… wasn’t expecting.
Gonna go listen to Paul’s Boutique for the rest of the day now. Love u Ad-Rock.
Wait, is “normcore” real? I thought it was a joke. Like a hypothetical satire of where fashion trends were going in the future.
I thought it was a joke until I inadvertently signed up for promotional emails from Gap. They have gone… full normcore. Like their marketing strategy is “be as listless as possible and trumpet that fact.”
This is how I feel every time I walk by the Banana Republic at the mall.
“There are the clothes for people that don’t want look like anything!”
I am actually wearing full Banana Republic right now and thinking I look quite slick
Well, I expect a lot of it has to do with how they set up the mannequins at the Banana Republic store, I imagine that a person who is committed to it could certainly make it look stylish.
Also, the style that I believe society should strive for is Baroque Space Opera Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion, with shirtless-capes and like, insane, bat-shaped pauldrons on everything, so it’s worth it to take my assessment of Banana Republic with a grain of salt.
The fashions of Dune or Warhammer 40,000 aren’t going happen by themselves,. We need to ramp up to them.
You’ve been waiting for Jupiter Ascending your entire life, haven’t you?
In a way, yes.
And by “a way”, I mean “every way.”
I am wearing 3 items from Banana Republic today *fistbumps*
Hey, bland clothing is just the ticket for showcasing one’s loudest, most stunning accessories.
by this I assume you mean a two-foot jewel encrusted crown shaped like a falcon, and I think that is great
Personally I prefer an Egyptian golden vulture crown when I’m going for that “large bird chillin’ on my actual head” look. Rich tapestry, as they say.
As long as it is giant and gold, I think it will go fine with this season’s Banana Republic options.
I would wear the fuck out of that crown. And I have the regal, giving-no-fucks facial expression to go with it.
Though I prefer more shiny metal to the jewel encrusted trend.
Banana Republic was fine and lovely until they hired a new lead designer last fall who turned everything greige. I am not over it.
I saw a GAP ad on the side of a bus stop that said in big letters “DRESS NORMAL.”
Because “EMBRACE THE HEGEMONY” was too long, I presume.
For me at least, the Ad-rock interview had one of those “normal” gap ads! Though the model’s style seemed more like a finance bro’s take on bohemian than normcore.
Are they doing their bit to make the place look like They Live? It’s bad enough that there’s a brand called “OBEY”.
This probably ties into Fran Lebowitz’s feelings on youth and platform shoes.
Here’s a vintage joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2QrWzsfghA
Additionally I REALLY don’t know if that Awl essay is a joke or not. (I’ve read too much Buzzfeed and Jezebel in my time so I just don’t trust the young people)
right? Imagine future historians trying to parse the media of our time. “This sounds really sarcastic, but it’s 10,000 words long. Did…did they take jokes that far in the 2010s? And this one…it sounds serious, but they called it satire after someone called it racist. Can anyone here tell me what actually happened?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3eAPzbdFyA
About a year ago, when “normcore” first became an actual thing, my cousin sent me a link to an article about it and said, “You’ve been so ahead of the curve on this Normcore thing. Dressing comfortably and without caring about brands on purpose… so innovative.” (Said with love and humor, in case that wasn’t clear)
I am apparently a useless human being because I didn’t know that Kathleen Hana was married to Adam Horovitz. (Having missed Bikini Kill, I mostly know her from Le Tigre, and assumed she was gay.) On the other hand, I was in a one-act play by Israel Horovitz in college. None of these things adequately expresses my FEELINGS reading that interview. Oh, Beastie Boys. Oh.
For me it was like hearing Corin Tucker married Lance Bangs. “I had a shot?!?” (sure you did)
Then Carrie Brownstein started doing comedy and I’ve only gotten more attracted to her.
lol You were in Line, weren’t you. Good play, that.
No, it was Stage Directions. 🙂 The director decided to split each character up into two actors, one speaking one, er, emoting? Or something like that? So I was the non-speaking Ruth. My one line was the last written instruction: “The play is over.” The director did so much in terms of “getting into character” but no, like, “getting out of character” after, and I found myself walking around campus, thinking thoughts (unintentionally) as Ruth, and since she kills herself at the end of the play, it seemed like a really unhealthy thing for me to be doing.
Oh man, detoxing from a character is work! I feel for you.
Thx 🙂 At the time, I didn’t understand that there was work involved, y’know? Like it just seemed like “what happens when I act,” and not “here is another skill to learn about acting that will keep you sane.”
I Stage Managed Hopscotch in theatre school. Didn’t figure out the Ad-Rock connection til a few years later.
I’m even worse. The tone of this roundup suggests we’re all familiar with these things, but I don’t even recognise most of the names.
Oh man, I will never not read an article about the Beastie Boys, in any iteration. Although this latest sad broken-up version is, I will admit, a REAL FUCKING DOWNER for my highschool self. I don’t understand how people I like can die.
I don’t think I’ve ever cried at a celebrity death so hard as Yauch. It was just like I grew up with the Beasties, they were teens getting famous when I was a tween (that word didn’t exist then) and then he was doing good work and still making great music and had a young family and was too young to die.
I dry-clean as infrequently as possible—not only because it’s psychotically expensive, but also because who knows what it does to the clothes? Dry…clean. These words don’t go together. Wet clean—that is how you clean. I can’t even imagine the things they do at the drycleaner. I don’t want to know.
I know. They use extremely dangerous chemicals that are incredibly environmentally persistent and hard to clean up, handled by people who largely have little training in handling toxic waste, to saturate and remove stains and odors from your clothes. It’s called “dry” because it uses these solvents instead of water. Dry cleaners are hazardous places to work, and create incredibly difficult and expensive environmental contamination issues. That is the SHORT version. But you know, I’m sure it’s important to keep your bespoke blazers in tip top condition so you can continue to sigh at the moral failings of the hoi polloi in style.
Minor rant: Prolific companies (Zara, Banana Republic etc) that sell widely available clothes that have the label “dry clean only” because they dont want to spend the money to test the clothes which then increases the amount of dry cleaning and consequently environmental damagw done. (Though in my case the clothes are just never cleaned)
Grr argh fuck all those fast fashion lazy fucks.
This is precisely why I check the material content rather than the cleaning instructions, and if it’s a sturdy fabric (ie, not silk, rayon, or viscose) into the washing machine it goes. (And it’s not like I have money to spend on silk shirts anyway.)
Should you find yourself with any of these fabrics in the future you can actually gently hand wash all of the above materials, using cold water and something like forever new or another non-enzymatic cleaner. IMO it’s better for them. Dry cleaned silk always has a weird coating on it.
I am the household laundress, and the only things I send out are my husband’s dress shirts (which he wears 2x a year, max) and heavy wools (suits and the like), mostly because I can’t press things worth a damn.
Does the handwash/special cleaner/hang to dry thing go for things like blazers with some structure in the shoulders? I don’t have any full-on suits, but I’ve been terrified to ruin my thrift-store “fancy” blazers.
I send my suits and blazers out once a year to get pressed/dry cleaned. I am not a particularly sweaty or smelly person. In the meantime, I find that you can deodorize the armpits with febreeze or with dryel liquid (which is dry cleaning solvents), and let it air out for a few days (I hang it on the shower rod). Often stains come out of wool or poly suiting with a good, stiff brushing (I keep a clean nylon brush around for this purpose), but don’t try this with silk. Silk suiting should be left to the professionals.
I wash my blazers! My clothing care strategy becamse a hard realism approach- if it’s not going to survive home washing, I’ll realistically never use it because I rarely take things to the dry cleaner. Blazers I find stand up fine to a hand wash, they’re usually more sturdy than you other clothing. The issues are lint issues and shaping issues. I do a no heat tumble in the dryer to get the lint off and pull enough water out so they’re lightly damp. then I usually press/shape them a bit and hang them on a structured hanger- if you don’t give them a bit of shape before they dry, they’ll be hard to get into place afterwards,
you hand wash your silk? I love my silk shirts, but I get so nervous I’m going to ruin them if I hand wash. Or that I won’t get out any stains (I am kind of a messy eater, even in silk, like a monster).
I do, but I hardly ever stain them. When I do, I find that directly applying silk wash to the stain (I like either forever new or the laundress, depending on how flush I’m feeling) agitated with a baby toothbrush (soft bristles) gets most stains out of silk (incl. silk ties). You can also use oxyclean on silk (dissolve it in a small amount of warm water and then mix into a larger thing of very cold water to wash), and I am also a big fan of vintage textile soak <a href=”http://(http://www.vintagetextilesoak.com/)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.vintagetextilesoak.com/). Don’t use enzymatic cleaners (most laundry detergents, Biz, etc.) on silk.
I’ve been told you can also use baby shampoo to clean silks, but I have never tried it.
ETA: One more thing about washing silk: be sure to wring it out in a towel before you leave it to dry. Martha Stewart has a pretty good description of how to do it. http://www.marthastewart.com/270610/how-to-wash-d…
the main problem with getting silk wet (assuming we’re talking a single color item) is that it rarely dries to the exact same shade. i find that i’m better off dealing with the spot and then hand washing the whole thing (usually ties). that way the whole thing dries to a slightly different shade.
Yes, the spot cleaning I described above is a pre-treatment. If you get only a part of a silk garment wet, you will probably have water stains. Sorry for any confusion.
Advice please – what to do with cashmere? I have a cashmere tunic I adore and naturally the tag says dry clean only, which manages to happen maybe once a sweater season.
I use Dryel on all my cashmere, all winter long.
I always just handwash with baby shampoo or woolite and dry flat. My favorite tip I ever heard was to use a salad spinner to get out excess water before drying- it really helps, especially with stuff that you don’t want to wring.
I actually just bought a laundry-specific salad spinner: http://www.thelaundrypod.com/
I live in an RV (without a washing machine) and I use this for my delicates — which really means my crappy Old Navy cotton shirts that don’t last very long if not babied — and it works pretty well.
OMG. This is an awesome thing! Thanks for sharing!
Always hand wash cashmere, don’t dry clean. The solvents used in dry cleaning will make your cashmere less soft. I use the same method and cleansers I use with silk, but the laundress makes a wash specifically for cashmere.
Yes, I do this! I just know I am entirely unenthusiastic about hand washing and so generally avoid buying fancypants clothes in the first place 🙂
I throw all my rayon and vicose into the washing machine too. I have lots of rayon shirts and dresses that have given me between 4-5 good years with that kind of of treatment, I just don’t machine dry anything I like to wear.
The things that are impossible to hand wash are anything beaded or sequined- sequins are usually not colorfast, beads obviously live to come off clothing.
I’ve hand washed sequins and beads with no ill effects? Very very gently — agitate the water rather than the garment, except a little scrubbing under the arms (or similar) where it probably will get worse treatment just by you wearing it. But I’m not an expert.
That’s good to hear, last two times I’ve tried it, even just being touched by water leached dye out of the sequins and beads. Might be a new garbage materials versus, older solid construction thing or just garment to garment?
I wash silk, lace and linen in the machine. Just fold them, put them into a small lingerie bag and put on handwash cycle with a very low spin rate. Dry flat on a towel (don’t peg or tumble dry). Works fine as long as you’re careful not to wash them with anything sharp bits that could snag the fabric.
Also Fran was totally biting one of Jerry’s old bits there. Get yer own material!
Properties that used to be or are located adjacent to dry cleaning facilities are v. difficult to buy/sell because they always require expensive environmental discovery reports, which all too frequently turn up expensive environmental remediation needed. (*The More You Know! ™*) Big reason I didn’t lease that apartment upstairs from a dry cleaners!
Yep, and anything that is located on a busy corner is almost certainly a former gas station.
“Just don’t buy urban property” is basically what I learned after many years in the environmental remediation biz.
I don’t know, the former-gas-station-ness of the building I work in is really the least of its problems.
Oh man developers are building high-end (700k+) condos on a former derelict gas station which I walk by on my way to work. They have done almost no clean-up, just tank removal and grading, and I am now determined to pull the plans for any piece of property I ever think about buying.
OH eff my office is above a dry cleaners and I have been convinced for ages that it’s contaminated somehow (the air is…not great) and now I am MORE CONVINCED.
Also apparently the building owner is desperate for us to renew our lease, NOW I KNOW WHY.
Indoor air quality is definitely A Thing that environmental consultants deal with a lot (fun fact: it’s not just indoor air of places that use chemicals — underground contamination of soil and groundwater can get under structures and outgas into buildings!). It might be worth some peace of mind to at least get a quote for what checking on that would cost you before you renew your lease.
to be fair, a lot of “office” type clothes are dry clean only. I go to a cleaners that advertises itself as “environmentally friendly” but I have no idea what that means…….. I guess I need to do more research here. I’m not sure what else to do with my suits?
There are a variety of more environmentally-friendly options available, but of course with anything that has become a “normal” part of an industry, there’s a lot of resistance to change. Claims that alternatives don’t work as well or are too expensive, or it’s too hard, etc. You should be able to find a less-horrible alternative by googling “green dry cleaning” and your city.
A good overview can be found here: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmen…
I put my “dry clean only” clothes in a cold wash cycle and hang them to dry, and I have never ruined an article of dry clean only clothing 🙂
I went to no less than EIGHT stores over the last two weekends (I hate shopping a lot) and found exactly one pair of dress/work pants to replace my super worn out and kind of too small work pants. I’m in between a 12 and 14 in most stores, and also tall. it’s really hard to find pants that fit nicely.
Anyway, they are 30% wool and another percent polyester and Dry Clean Only on the tag, and I’m terrified of ruining them by sticking them in the wash, but I didn’t realize they were Dry Clean Only until I wore them (and even then, they’re the only pants that fit decently!) what do I do
cold wash, hang to dry! you can even do em in a bucket or sink or whatever if you dont’ want to swish them around too much. I wash part wool stuff like this all the time.
Okay I will try this thank you!!!
I’m allergic to wool, so very very rarely buy anything with wool content. (Even these pants at 30% were mysteriously itchy ALL DAY Tuesday, but I thought it was just the fabric weight/style. I’ll have to wear my stretchy not-spanx shorts underneath in the future I guess)
I’m also allergic to wool and ALL ANIMAL FIBERS. As I have a very fluffy cat that i cannot part with of, I had to give up the feather pillow and duvet (SO SAD) and any wool blends so I can breathe, and at the same time I started to buy more semi synthetic clothing (I still mostly wont buy plastics, but I do all the paper pulp clothes- rayon, cellulose, viscose, tencel, modal, etc). Silk however seems to be ok, and I’ve had good luck with one down coat in a nylon shell, and one less than 30% wool sweater, but I had to learn how to wash everything regularly because it really helps and the dry cleaning does not make my lungs feel good. I’m hoping to avoid becoming one of those super chemical sensitive types this way.
Next up, lion cuts for the cat?
Being allergic to animal fibers is the worst!
I like to knit but it’s so impossible to find really fun colorways or dye patterns in yarn that isn’t wool. And, of course, in the winter if you want warm and cute and cozy, it’s wool or seventeen layers of cotton and polyester.
TBH I tend to think I’m lucky that it’s JUST a burning itch for me most of the time, and I can avoid being near fluffy cashmere or mohair, especially now that I no longer work in a clothing shop. Also I’m lucky that I live in Florida where wool is rarely necessary. I feel so bad for y’all who have a worse reaction and have to deal with it in a truly cold climate.
Also, not to be gross, but I don’t wash my work pants all that often.
Also, Dress Barn has some decent alternatives, and I LOVE the Eddie Bauer “Slightly Curvy Stay Shape Stretch Twill Trousers,” which might work well for you because they come SUPER long. They are expensive, so keep an eye on the sales and outlets.
Oh, damn, no I don’t wash my work pants unless they need it, buuutttt I do eventually need to! Especially since I live in Florida with no a/c in my car, so the seat of my pants gets sweaty and gross after a few wearings. (Also the pants with stretch in them that start out too tight in the morning then are falling off by evening, so I HAVE to wash them just to shrink them up again so I don’t look sloppy. I’m guest relations, so I try not to look too sloppy, you know?)
I think I used to buy those Eddie Bauer pants, then got lazy about going to the outlet. I’ll have to look again, thanks!
Oh also, I have pants troubles a lot of the time, but lately old navy has been really bringing it with a cotton stretch ankle pant- I bought a lot of 97% cotton pants from them that look pretty good, are decently thick and, the 3% adds a really effective stretch.
YOu gotta keep an eye out, I think even different colors have different fiber blends, but here’s one: <a href=”http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=977332052&vid=1&locale=en_US&kwid=1&sem=false&sdReferer=http%3A%2F%2 Fwww.oldnavy.com%2Fproducts%2Fwomens-pants.jsp” target=”_blank”>http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=9773…” target=”_blank”>Fwww.oldnavy.com%2Fproducts%2Fwomens-pants.jsp
Old Navy has also been really sticking the landing with cotton and linen cotton blend shirts. It’s crazy. Real fibers!
Nice! I never really shop at Old Navy because when I did used to go in, nothing fit well OR ELSE the styles weren’t right for me (or weren’t dressy enough for my job), so I don’t think about them when I’m at the mall. Guess I should try again – thanks for the tips 🙂
Amen! I have never taken anything to the dry cleaner in my life.
Would also love to hear from anyone who has had good results washing men’s suits. Always nervous about washing my partner’s suits because they are so expensive but not only is drycleaning not good for the enviroment, I always think it’s not really a way of getting stuff actually fresh and clean.
I put “dry clean only” clothes in a lingerie bag and put it on a handwash cycle. Then air dry. Works every time, even on silks and delicates. The only things I dry clean are tailored jackets, but I’m Australian so I wear them for maybe one week of the year.
Hey, that’s me! *motions towards the three sites with ridiculous CVOC table*
But yeah, seriously, I couldn’t click past the linked paragraph. Ugh.
I’m envious — I only got to work on gas station sites there 🙁 BTEX is nowhere near as interesting as chlorinated solvents.
Oh no, these are still retail gas stations. Comingled plumes!
*cries*
I love you guys.
Oh goddddddd…… I’m so sorry. Also fun because I bet your site is tiny and the plumes are not so much!
North Jersey is a cesspool, is what I’m learning.
Truth.
Yes! I mean, obviously there was lots of terror involved for the lead pilot and all the passengers and crew aboard thanks to the actions of one person–how is that not terrorism? Because it’s not connected to some Greater Cause?
Also, this is a terrible tragedy and we don’t know all the details yet and perhaps it’s completely unfair to impose gender on this but….what IS IT with these suicidal men who decide to take out dozens of others when they end it all? This applies to mass shooters too. I know there are some serious mental health issues tied up in all this, but I’m just absolutely floored by the transition from “I’m miserable and I’m going to kill myself” to “Oh also, I’ll take 150 other innocent lives in the process.”
Edit: Reply to viktoriusB. Thanks, IntenseDebate.
Nah, I get what you’re saying. I read a book called The Skies Belong to Us about plane hijackings in America in the 60’s/70’s (there were A LOT) and most of them did not involve killing people or even taking control of the plane, they would hold the passengers hostage for ransom money or demand to be taken to Cuba or whatever, but there was this clear thread that a lot the (overwhelmingly male) hijackers felt frustrated and ignored by society so they did these things because like everyone had to pay attention to them and take them seriously, the FBI had to negotiate with them, the news would cover them etc and…..it’s difficult not to conclude that Men Must Be Stopped
I wonder if it’s related in some way to the psychology of “family annihilators-” men who face failure in their professional lives and decide that they need to kill their wives/kids in addition to themselves in order to “spare” them. Don’t know how that translates to killing a plane full of strangers, though.
I’m not going to read that Fran Drescher interview because I don’t want anything to spoil the image of her painstakingly maintaining her Nanny costumes.
Not Fran Drescher, Fran Lebowitz
I also read that as Fran Drescher at first, and the realization that it’s actually Fran Lebowitz decreased my interest level 500000%
oh my god
SINCERE APOLOGIES TO FRAN DRESCHER
who the hell is Fran Lebowitz. I clicked the link and still have no idea, so I guess she’s right that young people today don’t know anything.
Some kind of sort of author.
I confused her with Annie Lebowitz. And I’m not young, I just don’t care.
Ohhhhh I totally thought we were all talking about Fran Drescher too.
Justified is the best fucking show in the universe and the only one I feel like was created only for me, special little me, and you are all just so lucky to come along for my ride. When the show ends, Tuesdays should be purged from the week because they will no longer serve any use.
But… Person of Interest and The Flash and…
No but Justified is really great. I’m glad they are able to end on a high note.
I guess what confused me about the idea of normcore article food is that I had previously understood normcore to be a style choice–like, a variation of hipster irony or hipster authenticity (look how authentic my mall-store-style threads are, or something). I mean, you see it on runways and in movies, right? And the big argument of the normcore food article is that it is not a hipster movement, but a sort of third way between artisanal obsessives and snack food obsessives, something for people who want to eat food that is reasonably nourishing (I think? I was really thrown off by the mints and pretzels sideline) but don’t have time or interest to participate in high-end branded healthfulness and authenticity. Which, okay, fine, we all do that; does that mean we are all normcore? Even if we don’t consume the kinds of foods she describes as normcore? What is the purpose of defining a category of foods called normcore?
tl;dr I didn’t really get whatever point that article was making, and I read and write a lot about food, y’all.
“tl;dr I didn’t really get whatever point that article was making, and I read and write a lot about food, y’all.”
Same here! I also found it so … jargon-y and buzzword-y that it was kind of hard to follow and I gave up after a bit. Argh.
“that it is not a hipster movement”
Of course it is. It’s the People’s Front Of Judea vs the Judean People’s Front.
SPLITTERS!
There is nothing I do not love about Serena Williams’ 7/11 video
Also, the fact that Azealia Banks sent a troll a picture of her vagina with the caption “If you look closely you can see the future” is just…. *kisses fingers*
Is anyone else getting a thing where links to new posts appear along the top of each page some time before they appear on the main page? Or is it my browser or something?
I’ve been getting that over the last couple of days, too.
oh my god thank you for clarifying this. I feel much better about my upcoming flights. Not about the whole situation but at least I won’t be a pile of nerves tomorrow.
Wow, I have never hated anyone from one article as hard as I am hating Fran Lebowitz right now. Wow.
Aie, the hatred for Fran Lebowitz! I love her. She’s a writer who doesn’t write; she hasn’t published a book since before most of you were born; she is a grouchy old-school NYer; she drives a vintage automobile that she bought when it was a new automobile; to the extent she has a profession she is a comedienne, and this (curmudgeon, Luddite) is her persona. I think she’s grand.
So are the Oh, Hello! guys actually normcore icons?
(I really miss Kroll Show, you guys)
I’m really hoping for a Neice Denise spinoff or movie. Jenny Slate’s total embodiment of that character is amazing
I was really excited to read an article about fashion by Fran Drescher
Imagine my confusion, and disappointment.
Reply to eegghh in that long thread about dry cleaning.
Oh my god what a horrible thing to happen! These ones I had were colourfast or colourless, so it all went well. So maybe #notallsequins — both for caution and for daring.
Justified. Here be SPOILERS btw. Read no further unless you’ve seen the latest episode!
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Ava been cleared of the charges that would make it possible for the annoying DA to send her back to prison? By that I mean that 1) Boyd killed all the witnesses who might have testified against her in the murder case; 2) the slimy prison guard who stabbed himself and then blamed Ava has confessed on at least two occasions (once with the marshals present). Ergo: her motivation for 1) ratting on Boyd; 2) shooting Boyd (OMFG!) is moot. If that’s the word I’m searching for.
Also up for discussion Boyd Crowder: chaotic or lawful evil?
Thank you, yes, I do this CONSTANTLY. Like I'm single and entirely uninterested in entering another heterosexual relationship and sometimes I'm watching cop shows or movies where the wife/girlfriend is killed by the husband and I'm all "Welp, one less thing I have to worry about"
Don't you at least get your helmet handmade for you at Hilditch and Key? I mean, you don't even know fit until you've worn a custom made bike helmet.
I got a free sample of Guerlian eye cream when I bought a chapstick once. It was this tiny 5mL tube. The "full size" version is 15mL and costs $200. My eyes still look exactly same after using the whole tube, so I think I'll save my $200. It amazes me that people are willing to spend this kind of cash on face crap.
Here you got! https://www.facebook.com/groups/6072484486/?fref=… I can't promise that nobody will chase you, though.