You may have heard supports and pundits suggesting that Barack Obama’s charisma, charm, and politics are reminiscent of the much loved John F. Kennedy. The comparisons are fair, even if you’re only using Obama’s command of a crowd and tendency to inspire hope and personal accountability as a measure.
There is another connection between the two politicians, however this one has less to do with international relations than twin sets and A-line skirts. Vanity Fair’s 68th Annual International Best Dressed List counts Michelle Obama as one of the top style icons, a title Jackie Kennedy Onassis still holds to this day.
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Tags: Fashion · Living
Radiohead is a band you can’t admit that you don’t listen to, even if you’ve never heard one note of their music. For this reason, I raise my hand and admit, with a little shame, that I’ve never listened to Radiohead. Worse yet, it’s not even on my list of things to do in 2008. For sake of perspective, this list includes letting my eyebrows grow out a little and eating more green things.
Two weeks ago I went to the Roxy on the invitation of Ter Dines, co-founder of Lemonwilde, to hear his band whose sound has been likened to Radiohead. Even I know that’s more than just a passing compliment. Lemonwilde is the sum of 4 un-like minded guys who banded together just a few months ago to form a band that is quickly gaining notoriety among the people who determine what music you and I listen to. You may not have heard of them, but you soon will and more than likely it will be during a movie when the director is trying to elicit an emotion only electronic beats and seemingly incompatible sounds can evoke.
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Tags: Reviews · bands
Have you ever watched a really good movie that you never wanted to see again? There are a lot of movies that I’d put on this list, and it’s usually because the movie made me experience an emotion I wasn’t anxious to feel again. This is how I felt after screening Frozen River.
The film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize this year at Sundance, tells the story of two downtrodden women who out of desperation and desolation resort to smuggling Chinese and Pakistani immigrants across the Canada-United States border by way of the St. Lawrence River. Ray, played by veteran actress Melissa Leo, is 40-year old White American raising two sons in a trailer not big enough to house the frustration and disappointment felt by Ray, avoided by her estranged gambling-addicted husband, absorbed by her teenage son, and affecting her still innocent 5 year old. With her sights set on a double wide trailer and having been recently robbed by her now absent husband, Ray pairs with an equally despondent Native American woman, Lila, a well known smuggler in the cold country where the two reside.
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Tags: Film · Reviews
I’m sure most of you know, or at least are vaguely aware, that Sarah Jessica Parker has her own line of clothes. I’m also sure you know she’s considered a style icon and is the motivating force behind Sex And The City’s influence on the fashion footprint. What I don’t think you know is that not one of the items from her line BITTENâ¢, sold exclusively at BITTENâ¢, sold exclusively at Steve & Barry’s®, is priced over $10.98. I would not have believed it either had I not seen the $8.98 chinos with my own eyes.
Steve Shore and Barry Prevor, God bless them, are the great minds behind the Steve & Berry’s® retail genius. Their roots were planted on college campuses, selling casual sports wear and collegiate paraphernalia to students. Two hundred and seventy stores later, they are still operating their business with the student budget in mind. In any given city, college campus present or not, you can find well-made clothes for insanely low prices.
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Tags: Fashion · Reviews
Men will be channeling Mr. Rogers, famed children’s television icon, this fall when they slip into this season’s must-have: the cardigan. Or as I like to call it, the mandigan. Never before has one item of clothing been associated with such a wide range of iconic and proverbial figures: ladies who lunch (paired with a pencil skirt), your 4th grade teacher (worn with khakis and loafers), your grandfather (that smelled of stale smoke), and Cliff Huxtable (which was immediately removed by the oft amorous Claire Huxtable). It’s the uniform staple for soccer moms and members of the PTA, and every third woman at church sports one with a camisole and string of pearls.
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Tags: Fashion · Living
With gas prices fluctuating between miserable and laughable (less “Ha ha,” more “I laugh to keep from crying), I am now looking for ways to exist without having to leave my home. The internet has become my dearest comrade, bringing everything from financial planners to now-discontinued shades of my favorite Smashbox lipstick within a fingertip’s reach. What does the real world have that the internet can’t offer? Absolutely nothing.
Here are a few sites I’ve come across that you should find useful if you’re like me and enjoy having an “in” on the latest trends and scoring goodies without surrendering your first born to the fat cats at the oil companies.
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Tags: Editorials · Fashion
Last Tuesday our favorite stars collided for the 2008 BET Awards Show at the Shrine Auditorium here in the heart of LA. While I could focus on the best dressed or the performances that had us texting our friends to make sure they were watching, I’d rather focus on another issue of much greater importance. I consider it my civic duty to address what appears to be a terrifying trend emerging among my people, and must be stopped at all costs: sensible women sporting haircuts apparently inspired by Dora the Explorer.
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Tags: Editorials · Fashion
Ready or not, a change is going to come. The gaps that have previously separated the semi have’s from the ultimate have-not’s are closing, and Americans are being bonded by a sense of urgency to see immediate change. Our beloved country is drowning her members unable to swim in deep waters. Meanwhile the rest of us are barely treading water, and becoming increasingly tired doing so. The mantra of change Barack Obama is running his campaign on isn’t popular because it’s catchy or clever; we’ve clung to the slogan because we’ve been quietly mumbling it to ourselves at home, to our friends and family, for the past seven and a half years.
For much longer than reasonable, we’ve been pushed against a wall where the option to be all you can be is diminishing. [Sidebar: Just after I typed the last word of that sentence a commercial for the US Army came on. It's almost as if I wrote it into fruition. I'm not a superstitious gal, but to be sure... A check with the exact amount of money I'll need to pay off my bills and my graduate school tuition will be in my mailbox tomorrow.] Self-actualization is beginning to seem elusive, like a fantasy Maslow concocted to get one over on future psychology students.
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Tags: Local Politics · News
If you’ve been near or around the 400 block of North La Brea Avenue, just south of 3rd, then you’ve probably seen the name of my latest subject: Kira Plastinina. Apparently I’m on a gluttonous quest to discover individuals who mock the childhood I spent playing Nintendo instead of becoming a prodigy. So it makes sense that I would stumble across the world’s youngest fashion designer, 16-year old Kira Plastinina.
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Tags: Uncategorized
…And I’m not talking about Bette Midler.
I’m a c-word.
Not that c-word. I’m a Christian, which nowadays generates a response similar to the one I imagine I would receive if I announced that I host Klan rallies and dogfights in my backyard.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but it’s no secret that those who profess allegiance to organized religion are increasingly considered social pariahs. For the most part, I completely understand the disdain; throughout history people have committed some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity in the name of religion.
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Tags: Editorials · Lifestyle
Life isn’t fair. Just ask Whitney Port, reality star-cum-budding fashion designer. What can wealth, beauty, and a Bachelor’s degree get you in 2008? Apparently a spot on an uber popular reality show, internships that require no discernible skill but include multiple trips to France, the cover of Rolling Stone, and a line of over-priced clothes placed in boutiques your coeds won’t be able to frequent for several years. No, for some life simply isn’t fair.
MTV struck gold with The Hills, and its stars are cashing in their doubloons to fulfill fantasies that would normally take decades to execute. Though not as shameless as her co-stars (I’m looking at you, Spencer and Heidi), Whitney Port is using her time wisely, capitalizing on her resources and launching a line of contemporary party digs named Whitney Eve. While the rest of us work our way up ladders that lead to jobs we’ll eventually resent (Except me â in case my boss is reading this â because I absolutely adore my job. Really.), twenty three-year-old Whitney Eve Port is living her dream. Now.
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Tags: Editorials · Fashion
You may have heard supports and pundits suggesting that Barack Obama’s charisma, charm, and politics are reminiscent of the much loved John F. Kennedy. The comparisons are fair, even if you’re only using Obama’s command of a crowd and tendency to inspire hope and personal accountability as a measure.
