Some free legal advice:
Kirsten Kennis may be 5 feet 8 inches of WASP-y gorgeousness but don’t even think about downloading or re-tumblr-ing her beautiful face for your own enjoyment, artistic or otherwise.
If she’ll take Ezra and his boys to court, I don’t doubt she’d do it to all of us as well.
Since publishing an entry this past January with an early 70s photograph featuring Paul Newman, a dirt-bike, and a pair of biker-esque boots, I diligently hit internet auctions every morning for seven months to race down, at last, this “near mint” pair of 1960s Red Wing Irish Setter Sport boots.
They differ somewhat from my original inspiration, but they were just the style and color I figured would work with my day-to-day wardrobe. Now that I’ve finally got them, I’ve had to figure out to make them look cool with my pants when I’m not wearing slim 60s denim and sitting on a mini-motorcycle as Mr. Paul Newman was.
First I started with my pants crammed inside, but it takes time and it takes work to get them in there alright, and the resulting look is undefined and essentially dowdy.
Pulling the pants out streamlined the silhouette, but I can only think of electricians and dishwasher delivery men wearing them this way.
Neither in nor out was working, so I finally tried my pants the way I normally wear them, cuffed up twice. So far that gets me and my boots nearest that Newman photograph so I’ll roll along that way and see how often I end up wearing these biker-y boots I spent all year yearning for.
(Slimmer pants will probably help too. I’ve loved these canvas, khaki ones quite a bit, but half a year without fried chicken and chocolate milk and they’re just too big now.)
Up in Northern Minnesota, time stands still in a way that wouldn’t be possible down here around home. And even when something you loved up there finally moves on or fades away, signs of it will still remain for many summers to come.
I’m trying to comfort myself here, but honestly I feel a little bit blue.
Did you see these yet?
Taken between 1939 and 1943 by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information to document the effects of the great depression on the super-great citizens of small town America.
Whatever you call the crimson cap atop the boy on the right, let’s all find one for fall!
There’s something so elegantly nonchalant about the way they’re tending this soil. Perhaps they’re just posing, but next time I have back-breaking work to take care of under the summer sun, I’m going at it as cool and casual as they all did.
Oklahoma kiddies worn out by a square dance. Someone host a square dance, invite me, and we can all get worn out together! I’ll bring sarsaparilla, or something.
These images (and all the others) make me wonder if the sky was more cyan back in 1939, or if the grain was more golden. Surely not, but it always seems that way.
My car is nothing fancy. In fact its pretty much a rolling disaster. But when I bother to spiff her up I refuse to take her anywhere but The Mermaid.
First off, The Mermaid’s logo and branding is pre-millenial, photo shoot perfect, and perched just about everywhere.
As you exit your vehicle, rolling waves murals carry you through the air-conditioned corridor toward the cash register (and candy bar/greeting card shop).
Before they drop you off on dry land, the painted waves roll you past a plastic dome of complementary donuts and pastries. (If its still early in the day and they haven’t all vanished yet. If its after 2pm, you’re left to just pout in the surf.)
Once you’ve paid your bill and picked out an Obama-themed birthday card for your mom/boss/parole officer, you can play with the chatty parrot perched in front of the car freshener section. Its at this point in my visit each time where I’m certain a strange Steve Buscemi film will shoot here someday.
After all this fluorescent and feathery fun, your car is usually already done.
The final mermaid bids you farewell, and your soaped up and sea-sprayed car carts you off into another two (but for me, more like six) months of dead bugs and grime.
If only every mundane errand could be ran in such amusing establishments as The Mermaid.
There’s many items I don’t mind spending a bit more on in order to land something really well-made or unique, although I’m not sure I’d put T-shirts in that category. T’s are just T’s, their whole point is to be cheap and replaceable.
Nonetheless, when I clicked onto the Nitty Gritty webshop to sift through their Levi’s Vintage Spring ’10 Collection the 50s Pocket Ts made a rebel out of me and I flippantly paid a premium (plus a shipped-from Sweden postage fee) in order to own one.
The 50s Ts, produced to exact historical Levi’s specifications are just cut so brilliantly boxy, as if bought at a dusty Des Moines dime store and shrunk in a shaky old Kenmore in your cousins’ cabin. It’s faded in a way that suggests it started as an altogether different kind of hue and will look better and better the worse the whole piece gets.
To an outside eye, it’s essentially a nothing-special, ordinary old T. Unworthy of an expensive trip across the sea to be seen in. But to me, the ways in which it is old and ordinary seeming is precisely why it’s special.
Perfect, pristine white denim jeans are the most McQueen-ish (as in Steve) way for an otherwise Good Guy to get down ‘n dirty come the rumblin’ of summer.
To kick around, all over town, in a truly proper pair, the trick is in cotton rough and rugged enough to protect against white denim’s greatest threat: visible front-pocket outlines.
Aside from that, there’s nothing to fear. A little grime ‘n grit ground into them good is exactly what you’ll want…
It shows all the cats ’round your corner just how bad you really can be.
Ever since this winter, Monday morning through Friday afternoon I pretty much won’t pop a single thing into my mouth unless the chick from Clueless says it’s okay.
As a result, I’m now a walking punchline – and half of my clothes are now too big for me and my plant-fueled body.
Thankfully, for the past ten years I haven’t been able to throw out any adorable article of clothing too large or too small without first saying to myself, “You know, you’re either gonna be one of those people who get thicker and thicker the older they get, or you’re gonna be one of those people who get skinnier and skinnier the older they get. So, self, you better save that sweater/tuxedo shirt/tattoo-ed pair of 1999 CK jeans, just in case you grow a little bit thicker or a little skinnier anytime between now and the year 2062.”
I now have five ‘n a half coffin-sized bins of my former fashion hits and misses messing up my attic which I rummage through every few months. It’s like my own personal thrift store but with far fewer Hilfiger hoodies.
I might not get to eat anything fried or frosted during the week because of that damned vegan has-been, but I can fit into my favorite jeans from Fall of 2000 again which I never thought would happen.
It’s not quite as delicious as Thai chicken with basil was, or salted caramel milkshakes were, but digging into a heaping mound of well-worn clothing classics you yourself turned vintage is tasty in its own way
After five hours of traveling we capped off our 95 minute sprint through Mt. St. Michel with a cone of crispy Chu-Chis, deep fried twigs of dough that are then doused in a dramatic downpour of sugar. Like a funnel cake, but tough and crunchier.
We were held up by Mean Mickey at the Porte de Vanves flea market. It’s a drastic makeover, but he wears armed & insane surprisingly well.
Flower-buddy spices at the Galleries Lafayette über-market.
I assumed the golden nose on this $1400 McClown lamp was its on switch, but, sadly, the joke was on me.
France is the land of 10,000 carousels. We saw many, rode one, and photographed most of them.
Down in Nice there was a strong Italian influence and so we strolled around the city with gelatto cones twice a day. At our favorite shop, if you ordered two flavors, they didn’t just plop one down on the other, snow-man style, but created radial little blossoms of creamy coolness.
Whenever I’m in a foreign land, I like to hunt down grocery market finds by brands we have back at home of specific products which we do not. I even sacrificed precious room in my suitcase to pack in a big box of Kellogg’s Tresor cereal.
The daffy door leading to the unisex restrooms at Colette.
As you can see, France isn’t all fussy refinement. It can flash a little crass and whole lot of sass.
Looking back at my mad dash around France through the lazy lense of my Lomo LC-A film camera.
Glowing stone figures in the gardens of Versailles. It was so bright and brilliant it nearly burned my eyes:
Stepping up out of the subway system to spot the older (but not oldest) of the three eras of the Metro Stop signs made moving through the city even more movie-like:
A tiny drop of ornate greatness in the giant ocean of ornate awesome-nesss that was Le Train Blue restaurant. (Much more on that later.)
My first glimpse at the delightful Deyrolle taxidermy shop, and the first photo I took in France:
(Me and) my shirt sleeves annoyingly un-cuffed inside a Parisian Palace:
We traveled by train down to the coast into Nice for two days. It wasn’t any warmer there, but the palm trees seduced you and your bare arms into feeling otherwise:
A fizzy fountain back in the capital. Five seconds later, it full on splashed me as I ran away in an un-classy spaz:
I had suspected that once I visited France I would never want to leave. Nine days into my visit, it seemed as though I truly never would…
My trip began with a frenzied flurry of cathedrals and cafes, croissants and charm. Every day was a rigorously scheduled stampede past Paris’s prettiest or pleasingly grittiest spaces and places.
Striving to slot in not only the iconic museums and monuments of history but the long and lovely list of Treasury reader recommendations of shops and stylish sites as well, there were few moments in my first days in France that felt fully experienced. Fully felt.
A silvery gold brunch at Ladurée with baskets of baked bliss and pitchers of milkshake-thick hot chocolate was one of the few itinerary items I didn’t just check swiftly off of my list, but actually absorbed languidly with all my senses and my entire soul.
For anyone who carts at least three cameras to any vacation destination, it can be a tricky challenge to not simply photograph the glory of your getaway, but actually FEEL it too. I have to get better at this.
As the trip was just about to end, an ashy disaster in Iceland erupted, shutting down all European air traffic and trapping us on the far side of the ocean. Unsure of whether we would return home to Minnesota in mere days via plane, or not for three months via a sluggish U.S. Army sea vessel, we washed our clothes, mildly panicked, at a Parisian laundromat. (And accidentally laundered 10 Euros worth of Ladurée chocolate into them, to make matters worse.)
Our pressurized yet picture-perfect vacation had slammed on the breaks at last and we were forced to slow down, set the cameras aside, and look at the city not as time-strapped tourists but as lazy (temporary) locals.
For six extra and almost-agonizing days…
It may sound like I’m whining, because I totally am, but let me explain.
Of course there are way worse things than to be stranded in Paris. The city of lights is lovely, for sure – but nothing is lovelier than home. And when you can’t get there, and a volcano that last erupted for two whole years is standing in your way of ever returning, Paris transforms from the culture capital it normally is. It becomes, unfortunately, a cute but confining cage.
I’m just so very glad to be home again. I missed it, and you. I’ll share more stories and snapshots in the days ahead that showcase and celebrate France and all its non-cage-like best!
A mixed bouquet of images to celebrate Spring.
It’s not my favorite of the seasons…
…to me it usually feels like Things Ending, rather than Things Beginning.
But this year I’m feeling unusually excited and optimistic…
and I’m planning little plots to keep everything rolling.
A preface to this volume including further information on its founding editor.
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