Why Does Everyone Love Heidi Klum So Much?

The Met Gala looks were a real disappointment this year.  I haven’t been feeling Marc Jacobs for a while now (sorry ED).  His short dress edict bombed.  The women look horrible!  They all wear heels that are too high that over-accentuate their boney calves and the short dresses just make them all look like cheap tarts (except for Cindy Crawford, who looks like a cheap tart in a long dress with a big slit up the front).  Statements must be made:

• Kate Moss.  For an old hag with major drug problems, she totally worked it (in spite of my previous comments about the short dresses) although her heels are an abomination.  I have no idea why everyone picked up on Christian Louboutin, like, ten years later, and then he started making hooker heals.  Fashion insiders, any insight?  Again, props to Moss, but she’s not really worth a picture.  She looks haggard all the time.  She should stop doing drugs.  On the real. 
• Do I need to go into the disaster that was Posh and Madge?  Oy ve!  MK deserves honorable mention, I love Lacroix, but she’s too damn short for that dress, and you can even tell in the pictures.
• Gisele: *BIG yawn*

Best dressed goes to Kate Bosworth, Shalom Harlow (I die.  And am forever devoted), Kate Beckinsale (she’s a bore post-Cold Comfort Farm, but that dress is pretty amazing), Iman, and Claudia Schiffer.  Honorable mention to Leighton Meester.  But only the models deserve pictures tonight.  When will fashion get over the boring TV stars?  Honestly.

Other people who looked scary:

• Rachel Bilson (please cut your hair!)
• Blake Lively
• Jessica Alba (???)

I have a Five Minute Break

I’m visiting:

Small Stump to check out flowers

Miss Pickering because she has an amazing all-green arrangement

Martha Stewart’s Twitter because she is hysterical.  What’s up with the Ted Turner obsession?

Berkeley Parent’s Network for a tree trimmer/cutter-downer

The pinkness I missed last weekend in NYC

Let’s escape!

PS: Don’t forget Paris!  I want those effing Chanel tights!

PPS: and eating Thai Vegetable Gyoza from TJ’s

“Babytime:” courtesy of an anonymous person in an office with the door open in the Mills College Library

“So I was sitting there at Park Chow last night, and I look around and there are babies EVERYWHERE, and I’m like, what is this?  what are all these babies doing here? and then I realize it’s babytime–5PM!  What other normal person eats dinner at 5 o’clock?  Babytime!  [other person in the conversation mutters uninteligibly] By the way did you see Revolutionary Road?”

Google image search results for “Babytime.”

Love Baby! Feed Baby! Change Baby!

Meta-Blahghe

I just discovered the Ideas blog on the NY Times website while procrastinating the inevitable: completion of “Element K” a series of technology tutorials and assessments all teachers must complete for a teaching credential.  It’s estimated the tutorials and assessments amount to approximately 14 hours of un-fun screen time.   

I love the randomness of “Ideas.”  The first post I found, called “The Doctorate is Out” [lol], contains a link to an article reporting the horrendous state of the job market for humanities PhD’s.   So far there’s one comment from reader Phed up with higher learning.  

With that I suppose I should begin my tutorials on MS Office keeping in mind that my teaching credential actually qualifies me for a job (albeit low paying) with health and retirement benefits, unlike my PhD counterparts.  

waa waa waa…

Saddleshoos is BACK!

It was a long week and a long weekend, but we have a new administration (almost) it’s Thanksgiving break (almost) and Saddleshoos is back!

Once again, a big thank you to Refinery29 for having Saddleshoos’ back!

I love that they got saddle shoes in a variety of colors.  I’m still searching for the perfect pair.  I want classic black and white, with a narrow, feminine cut, soft-ish soles, and the classic lace-up (none of this saddle shoes posing as flats or heels NO!).  My favorites I’ve found so far would have to be shipped all the way from down under:

 But I have to say, they are close to perfect.  They also come in blue/white, red/white, yellow/white, hot pink/white, (regular) pink/white, and leopard/black. 

I also picked up an AMAZING pair at my favorite thrift store, Alta Bates Hospital thrift store on College Avenue.  They’re Ferragamo’s, perfect condition, and an effing AAA width.  WTF.  I’ve tried wearing them and they hurt, so I’m going to try to get them stretched.  For $30, they were worth displaying in my closet:

They are made of this great pebble-texture leather.  So beautiful.  

Here’s Orlando Bloom showing us the importance of same-color laces with saddle shoes, so much more chic, less the 50’s Ed Debevic’s element:

Unfortunately, he loses points for the mismatched socks.  Not soothing.  Also he’s pretty much a cheeseball.  Please do not read that I’m advocating for Orlando Bloom or his style in general.  I simply found this image when Google image-searching saddle shoes.

G to the B

I have to write this post in spite of the ubiquity of GB on bloggery because I just love it so much.  I’m often reminded of the love when driving to school listening still to Yellow House several years later.  So the artists of the day are Edward Droste, Chris Bear, Chris Taylor and Daniel Rossen.  They are all amazing on their own and as a unit.  When I imagined writing this post in my car listening to “Lullaby” I wrote it much better than I am right now.  But I have to make it to school early today, and maybe I’ll revise later.  It would turn into a good twelve inches pretty quickly.  I’ll leave you with two favorites.  Thanks GB.  

Lullabye

Colorado

Ps: dear GB, I would like to post a photo of you here, but I am not completely soothed by your new press photos.  I also think female fans the world over would be into a photo gallery section on your website separate from the blog because the blog is largely dominated by pictures of skinny hipsters with moustaches getting crunk that may or may not also be other indie artists.  not soothing.  I’m also happy that none of you have moustaches.  There is only one person in my life who is allowed to have a moustache and it is not I., as in I. and I.  dig? xx

This Is Just To Say

I have not

written the warm up

that the children

should do today in class

 

and which

you were counting on

using

for today.

 

Forgive me

dinner was delicious;

pumpkin pasta

and fresh salad.

After William Carlos Williams

A Busy Day

By 8:00AM I had done a series of aerobic exercises including “Super Hula Hoop” on the Wii.

By 9:30AM I had changed my name, applied for a new license, registered to vote, promised my organs, a posed for a photograph: Oakland DMV.

By 9:45AM I made it to Bakesale Betty:

Bakesale Betty is SUPER Oaklandish (Oaklandish often=cheesy earnest hipsters and not necessarily high quality…this requires a more full explanation, to be continued in another post).  For that and many other reasons I resisted the lure of the place and even called it overrated.  But now I’m all in.  Their pecan shortbread is phenomenal.  Plus they inevitably give you free stuff every time you go there.  How can you beat that?

The fun really ended there for quite a few hours.  But how damn good does fried chicken look in the morning?

The night ended with an aborted mission to Ici (it was closed, which I kind of knew, but was holding on hope) a stop at Videots on College (actually I. went in and I stayed in the car), and a craving for some maki from Manpuku, which was strangely open at 10:15PM.  Good to know.  

[Perhaps the post could be more accurately titled: Cravings.  No, I am not pregnant.  Thank you.]

PS: Saddleshoos did not partake of anything from Bakesale Betty’s, nor ice cream, nor fried things of any kind.  Saddleshoos ate more kale salad for dinner tonight (kale salad=good dinosaur food) and is concentrating on exercising her over-thought, under-active self.

A Rockridge Morning/Back To School Night

As I. gets fit on Wii, I am madly assembling a teacherly ensemble.  

I’m sparing you the shot of him in his underwear on the Wii platform, nunchucks in hand. 

Tonight is BTSN: Back to School Night.  Otherwise known as the first day of school for teachers (what should I wear?  will they like me?  will I make friends?  is someone going to tease me?).  Working with parents (a part of teaching that I actually love) is kind of like the holy grail of being an educator.  So I’m picking my outfit carefully.  Unfortunately, the perfect planner that I am, I just put everything in the wash and haven’t ironed and sent everything else to the drycleaners (something I rarely do–why did I do it this week?).  So options are limited.  I’m going with BR (Banana Republic) head to toe.  Kind of embarrassing but effective when in your teaching persona.  Wide leg light gray trousers with a silk blouse.  Hard to eff up.  

A Saddleshoos/Rockridge life secret: I never shop at BR.  It’s too expensive for what it is.  For all of Saddleshoos’ snobbiness, Saddleshoos is a huge cheapskate.  Major admissions are being made.  Neither of these pieces cost more than $20.  I get most of my school clothes, and many others, at the Crossroads location at the corner of College and Shafter.  And, call me crazy, I LOVE this blouse:

Look at that subtle and conservative collar!

And that mutton-y sleeve!

The one aspect of my outfit I have reservations about, and that I would NOT wear on a regular day, though I feel OK about it because it is BTSN is the metallic flats: 

But I think it’ll be OK.  The silver color blends with the light gray of the slack and is mostly covered by the wide-leg trouser aspect anyway.  

Alright, wish me luck!  Saddleshoos will be quieter today than usual, but I promise to be back soon with more exciting reporting from Rockridge.  

Tonight

I read 3 lengthy articles, all with scintillating titles:

“Cultural Literacy”

“Critical Literacy”

“Literacy in Three Metaphors”

When grad school gets you down, blahghe!

But really, titles aside, these are important pieces of writing that debate questions that determine our American experience.  What should children know?  What is literacy?  Who gets to decide what is important to know?  

Deborah Meier would remind you at this point that this is ALL OF OUR (THAT MEANS YOU) problem to examine these questions and participate in creating solutions.  

The above-listed articles are good places to start informing yourself of the ongoing national debates over what to teach, and what defines literacy.  E.D. Hirsch actually lists 5000 facts he believes every American should know, or at least have vague knowledge of, in order to be have “cultural” and “mature” literacy.  It’s both hysterical and terrifying to think of this man sitting down to outline this uniform of literacy.  (Does he know that GHWB doesn’t know these facts?)  Hirsh might not be as ignorant as GHWB, but he certainly lacks self-knowledge, self-awareness, and dexterity as a writer; he goes on way too long and fails to win the sympathy of readers with culturally insensitive arguments.  Why doesn’t he just call the book “Systematic Oppression of Black and Brown People and Anyone Else Who Ever Had an Independent or Original Thought?”  He’d get the same support from the GOP and right wingers who love him anyway, without confusing unknowing grad students with such an innocuous title. 

More interesting is Provenzo’s polemic, written as direct response to Hirsh’s work.  Provenzo argues that his version, the iconoclastic, “un-American,” anti-canonical list of 5000 things Americans “ought” to know, is actually the path to the true Democracy that Hirsh and his cronies are so vociferously seeking.  To Provenzo, individualism, debate, and the imperative to be “critical” (read “dissent”) lead us to actualizing Democracy and the American Dream.

Alright, it’s the best I can do after teaching 3 classes, learning 3 class, reading 3 texts, and pushing Adolescent Development HW to the 5AM wake up call.  

Start a blahgh.  Tell us what you think.

Good night and good luck.