"Let yourself be inert"
From Marcel Proust's 1907 letter to his friend Georges de Lauris, regarding the recent death of his mother:
"Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her.
When you are used to this horrible thing, that she will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her rightful place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible.
Let yourself be inert, wait until the incomprehensible power ... that has broken you restores you a little, I say 'a little' because henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more."
*this translation I took mostly from the September 13 issue of the New Yorker, which has a really touching compilation of Roland Barthes' notes on mourning. I changed a few words of the translation after finding the original letter in French here.
On Balenciaga and going beyond the LBD
Being that one of my vices is a taste for fashion magazines, I'm up on the latest designer clothing offerings. The past few years have been full of duds, in my opinion: everyone has been trying to play it safe due to the bad economy. My thinking is, if you're on a really tight budget and can only buy one thing per season, why would you buy something completely boring-- another iteration of what you already have in your closet?
Even if I had all the disposable income in the world, I'd still shop primarily at consignment stores and places with reasonable prices and ethical manufacturing practices like American Apparel. Once or twice a year, I'd buy select designer pieces that are actually bits of art from a distinct moment in time-- things that can't possibly be aptly replicated by Banana Republic.
I've already done this a little: In college, I decided to splurge on my first "designer" handbag. After considering a bunch of neutral colored purses from the likes of Kate Spade and Coach, I went with the graffiti-inspired L.A.M.B. bag pictured here:
It couldn't have possibly been more 2003, but I actually still think that's what's cool about it.
What I've seen in Harper's Bazaar and Elle of Balenciaga's current collection has stoked my long-dormant desire for truly unique fashion. I read that the designer Nicolas Ghesquière's inspirations included "cosmonauts, seventies Formica, packaging and food boxes, synthetic foam, and plywood." It's bananas, and I absolutely love it.
If I could, I'd buy several pairs of Balenciaga's Fall 2010 shoes-- some to wear now, and others to put on ice for myself and future generations. I really think they're that special.
"Life is not what you dream"
The Flaming Lips performing at Bonnaroo 2010; photo credit Kravitz/Film Magic via RollingStone.com
“People
say, ‘Why are you doing Dark Side of the
Moon? It seems dark and cynical,’ but I don’t believe it is. I think it’s a
great, simple mantra, this idea of ‘all that you touch and all that you see and
all that you taste’ – the idea that your experiences are your life.
I think that says a lot to this crowd here, saying, ‘This isn’t about reading something in a book or watching a movie or being on the Internet. This is about really living life.’ It’s about your friends, it may rain on you, it’s going to be hot, you have to shit in some Porta-Potty. It’s about experiences, and that’s what your life is. Life is not what you dream, it’s what you live.”
-the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne about the band's decision to cover Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety at this year's Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee. I finally leafed through the July 8-22 issue of Rolling Stone, the one that contained the much ballyhooed article about Stanley McChrystal. But the part of the issue I liked most, which wasn't posted online, was Brian Hiatt's wrap-up of Bonnaroo.
