funny and interesting (Home)

Since a large part of my life is fashion and since it is often funny and interesting, I have decided to introduce it as another theme. Recently I’ve become obsessed with Vladimir Nabokov’s writing. From his prophetic Bend Sinister, to his eerily tender Ada, to the much loved Lolita, and in and out of collected poems and short stories his writing is impecable and awe inspiring. And so to celebrate the influence of models and fashion here is his amusing poem, “Ode to a Model.”

(Twiggy)


I have followed you, model,
in magazine ads through all seasons,
from dead leaf on the sod
to red leaf on the breeze,

from your lily-white armpit
to the tip of your butterfly eyelash,
charming and pitiful,
silly and stylish.

Or in kneesocks and tartan
standing there like some fabulous symbol
parted feet pointing outward
— pedal form of akimbo.

On a lawn, in a parody
of Spring and its cherry-tree
near a vase and a parapet
virgin practising archery.

Ballerina, black-masked
near a parapet of alabaster.
“Can one — somebody asked —
rhyme ‘star’ and ‘disaster’?”

Can one picture a blackbird
as the negative of a small firebird?
Can a record, run backward,
turn ‘repaid’ into ‘diaper’?

Can one marry a model?
Kill your past, make you real, raise a family
by removing you bodily
from the back numbers of Sham?

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My little sister Linnea has short fluffy brown hair, long legs, can recreate any good Johnny Cash song in perfect pitch, and recently became a model joining me in LA to shoot the new ck1 fragrance commercial. One weekend in July we shot a home video together pretending to be spies—her code name “Agent Russell;” mine “Agent Slotska.” I emailed the video to my agent and later the same afternoon he called to tell me he’d forwarded it to Steven Meisel and he wanted Linnea to shoot ck1. (Yes, Meisel has now seen me jump out of a bush screaming with a ninja move.) Below is the home video and the ck1 commercial— see if you can tell the difference!


http://www.ckone.com/

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One day my friend Lee Swillingham admitted to me that he suffered Pareidolia.

“What is that?” I asked him.

“It’s like when people see Jesus in their hamburger,” he said.

“You should take pictures of everything you see,” I suggested. “Then other people can tell you if you’re crazy or not. If you really are delusional then people won’t understand what the pictures are of. If, on the other hand, people can see what you’re talking about when you frame it for them, then you’ll know you’re much more observant than everyone else. “ He agreed and a month or so later sent me these.

People have many different interpretations of Pareildolia. Doing some brief internet research I found that some describe Pareildolia sufferers as crazy and insane, religious fanatics and worse. But there are those who see Pareidolia as an advanced human trait. The leader of this camp being Carl Sagan, an astronomer, who wrote,

“As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper. These days, nearly every infant is quick to identify a human face, and to respond with a goony grin (Sagan 1995: 45).

Of course trusting a scientist who uses the word “goony” isn’t easy.

I think it is Clarence Irving Lewis that provides a good middle ground. Founder of the philosophical school of Conceptual Pragmatism Lewis argued that one has no way of knowing whether or not perceptions are “true” in any absolute sense; all one can do is determine whether one’s purpose is thwarted by regarding it as true and acting on that basis. According to this approach, two people with two different purposes will often have different views on whether or not to regard a perception as true.

And so, here are the photos of what Lee sees. After you look at them leave a comment telling us whether you think he’s insane, advanced, or just one person with a unique perspective he has no reason not to believe.

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In short, I visited my grandma and she doesn’t have Internet. At length,

Saint Augustine is a small town an hour south of Jacksonville, Florida. It is full of shops with misspelled names—Grampa’s Music, Olde Tyme Candy Shoppe, etc.— and old white people who still whisper the word homosexual, wonder whether one is supposed to use African-American or Black, and who like to tell stories about their grandkids who work for the World Wide Web. It is also where my grandma lives. And it is also the name of a saint. Saint Augustine, the place, is endearing, despite the impression I may have given you. It is also the reason I haven’t posted in awhile. Like I said, my grandma doesn’t have Internet.

Although she lacks in Internet, G-Shirley, as we call my grandmother affectionately — also to bring her name into the twenty-first century — does not lack in much else. Her wardrobe consists of layered galabayahs (from her years of living in the Middle East) and shiny “fancy” things from second-hand stores and yard sales, all of which she embroiders, appliqués, prints on, and ultimately drapes so that at 5’ 10” she stands a towering piece of folk art. Even in her bathing suit, onto which she has sewn beads and embroidered in gold thread around the neck, she manages this look. She has jewelry she can “go to the pool in.” She has a selection of waterproof watches and swim caps to match. And her house is a living museum. Living because there are in fact bugs living in multiple unexpected places, because St. Augustine is in the American tropics because, and also because she is constantly updating, or perhaps adding-on is a better phrase, more and more flair. A museum because everything she has comes in a collection and there is a lot of art.

G-Shirley does not lack in friends either. Generally she introduced me to them saying, “This is my granddaughter, the one I told you about, the supermodel. Tell them how much you weigh and how tall you are.” After this pronouncement I try to simultaneously shake hands with the person and pretend that I don’t know the lady introducing us. This is nearly impossible so I usually look down or away after shaking hands and pull my little sister in front of me. “Cute as a button,” they’ll inevitably say when they see her, and I will be saved.

Among the many people we were introduced to and places we swam while we were not on the Internet, Gladys the shell lady and the water aerobics class stood out from the rest.

Gladys is shorter than my sister who is shorter than me, so in short, she is short. She is older than both of our ages combined times two plus twenty. She lives in a clean wall-to-wall carpeted house with adjoining garage and green lawn and paved driveway a couple blocks from the ocean. Despite all this, her house smells like glue. It is not an unpleasant smell. Everything in her house has small shells meticulously glued to it, so in fact it is not a surprising smell either. Mostly it is an odd smell, one you don’t expect to linger, but does, hanging around casually staring at you, while you try to ignore its presence.

Gladys fired statements posed as questions loudly at my sister and me, “I HEAR YOU LIKE TO SWIM. IS THAT TRUE?”

Yes,” we both said.

“DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?”

“YES,” we both said.

“SO YOU LIKE TO SWIM?”

“YES.”

“THAT’S GOOD, ISN’T IT?”

“YES. GOOD.” And like that we were distracted from awkward glue and preoccupied with the awkward conversation.

“DON’T YOU JUST LOVE SHELLS?”

“YES, THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL.”

“I LOVE MAKING THINGS WITH SHELLS. I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING; IT’S A SHELL BALL. DO YOU LIKE IT?

“YES. IT MUST HAVE TAKEN YOU A LONG TIME TO GLUE THOSE SHELLS ON!”

“WHAT?”

“A LONG TIME TO GLUE THE SHELLS ON!”

“YES I LIKE GLUING THE SHELLS AROUND.”

Eventually we negotiated our way out and got back on our bikes to head to town. It was only after we got there I realized that the exhilarating hilariously swooping laughing hysterical bike ride to town might have been caused by Gladys’ Glue that we had forgotten about. An odd moment of vulnerability fell over us as we imagined being kidnapped by Gladys and covered in glue and shells. We would be set out on the glass coffee table to dry. “DON’T THEY LOOK PRETTY LIKE THAT,” we heard her yelling at her next victims.

Water Aerobics was an entirely different experience. Rather than feeling kidnapped, my sister and I consented to our grandmother’s request that we join her at the health club for the 9am class. We thought it would be amusing. And it was for the first fifteen minutes while older ladies, keeping their powdered faces and permed hair out of the water, bobbed up and down to Rhianna’s Umbrella –ella –ella –ella. My grandmother wearing her Girls Gone Wild baseball cap and embroidered swimsuit took the prize.

“Do you know what Girls Gone Wild is?” asked my little sister.

“Yes my swim coach told me it is a show where girls reveal their bosoms. It is funny.” The group is very amused with the idea of Girls Gone Wild and everyone laughed.

At the end of the class my competitive grandmother asked us to race. My grandmother is twice our ages combined plus sixteen, or eighty-two. “Forty lengths,” she challenged. “I won’t beat you on speed but I will on endurance,” G-Shirley boasted. My little sister who was never on a swim team looked worried.

“How about twenty lengths?” she asked.

“No it must be forty! C’mon, don’t be a baby.”

Take a pause and imagine my grandmother in her Girls Gone Wild hat taunting my little sister. Obviously, my sister couldn’t resist.

We began to swim. Out of the three of us, I was the only one who could flip turn so I lapped my sister and grandma almost immediately. Understand that this is not boastful; rather I hope to make you appreciate the situation I was in. Forced to race my sister and a competitive old lady. Of course you understand that I couldn’t let my sister win, that’s just the way it is with younger sisters. You start letting them win and soon enough they think they’re better than you and you can’t make them get you breakfast. Competitive grandmothers are a special breed, if you have one you’ll know that there’s no real decision. You have to beat them. The glory of beating anyone will lead to hours of bragging, photographs taken at the scene, emails and phone calls to relatives, visits to neighbors, driving to the Dollar Store because they carry ribbons, awarding the ribbons (first and honorable mention) to all participants, and no, I’m not being facetious. In the end I beat them both and feel guilty for doing it. When my grandma finishes she says, “If you were 82 you wouldn’t have beaten me so it’s kind of like you cheated.” My sister concurs.

This more or less concludes my lengthy explanation. In short I could have said I wasn’t posting because I was high off glue and busy beating old women and children in swim races, but then that doesn’t really explain it.

At the airport a middle aged French man sat two rows ahead of me on the bus running between terminals. He wore brown leather lace up shoes and black pants cuffed pants. On his right shoe a paper luggage name label was nicely attached to his laces. Perhaps in case he lost a shoe under his seat?

Waiting in an airport line behind an older couple with practical American clothing and practical short hair I couldn’t help but notice the excessive luggage. The husband’s matched bags were snapped together in three descending layers from his larger wheeled jungle pattern suitcase. As the couple approached check-in the wife unzipped from the smallest outside luggage pocket neatly coiled green polyester straps with silver fasteners. They unfurl each belt and then put the Kelly green belts methodically around each of the already unmistakable suitcases so that now they will be easily seen on future luggage carousel?

In Battery Park three men in matching dark blue pinstripe suits sit on the bench across from mine. The first takes out his sunglasses from his breast pocket and the two others follow. All the sunglasses match. Another takes out his blackberry and begins to type a message and the two others remove their blackberries and begin to text as well. The make occasional eye contact, but it is brief and spy like. Synchronized, they all stand up and leave five minutes later.

Last night I was eating sushi in the East Village when a fifty something man dressed in a suit and tie carrying a black leather brief case sat down and ordered six Sapporo beers. He opened one and drank it. A woman also in her fifties then came in and sat with him. She was dressed in a loose dark-turquoise pantsuit. She refused a Sapporo and ordered green tea. They chatted and were very much engaged by each other, so much so I don’t think they noticed me staring. As I finished my ice cream five young Japanese women, none older than twenty-four or five came into the restaurant and sat down with the man and woman. They were dressed for a night of clubbing in tight red and black dresses, their hair ironed, their makeup fresh. The Sapporos were passed around. Conversation continued jovially and everyone appeared quite at ease with each other. The girls seemed comfortably intimate with the older couple and laughed and told stories at length.

My neighbor takes three chairs and a fan out of his apartment and leaves them on the landing. He puts a sign on them that says These Are Not Free. When I pass him in the hall I ask if they are for sale. “No,” he says, “Why would they be?” “Well if they’re not for free…?” I begin to reason. “They’re not for anybody, not for you, not for sale!” He has been unlocking his door while we converse and punctuates the now awkward silence by opening the door slowly, allowing it to screech while we stand too close and without conversation in the hall.

So many inexplicable events have led me to two conclusions. The first is that assumptions, that if something is not free it is for sale, that baggage tags are for luggage, and that women twenty-five years younger than the men they dine with are either daughters or prostitutes, have gotten me nowhere. The second is that I should stop staring at people because they are probably creeped out.

I’ve decided to turn this blog post into a contest of sorts. If you have an explanation for any of the above events, or if you are in fact one of the subjects of my confusion, or if you wish to report another odd event send an email to funnyandinteresting@gmail.com. The winners for the best submissions will be posted on the blog and will receive my hearty email congratulations; e-cards may or may not be involved.

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