So what that Marc Jacobs hired some "full-figured" models (read: 34C) for his Louis Vuitton show in Paris - you know, size 4 chubs like Elle Macpherson and Laetitia Casta. If you saw any of the other runway shows for the fall 2010 collections, you would see that most of the models were a bonny prepubescent 14 that looked like walking ghosts. Is it that the bodies should be so minimal that the clothes quite literally hang on the models as they would on a hanger? Is it a combined Lolita/death/sex fetish? Kim Noorda, the 22-year-old Dutch model, chronicled her weight struggles in the April 2010 VOGUE annual Shape Issue. She had obviously been told to lose weight at the beginning of her career (when she was 14, shocker!) because that whole "healthy" look just would not work for anyone's standards in the current fashion industry, and then she plummeted from there: became obsessed, lost too much weight, was booked for every show but had no energy and was miserable. VOGUE, under new CFDA rules, kind of suggested that she get "healthier," but by then it was too late, she had an eating disorder, and it ultimately slowed her career. Now she is 23, due to retire in five years or less, and then what is she going to do? Can a body make a lasting career?
Yes, argues not only Anna Wintour but Christie's, the auction house on high (or rather, Rockefeller Center). A body can make a lasting career out of selling a different kind of collection: fine art. Someone I know just accepted a full-time position at Christie's, and informed me over dinnerdrinks that Christie's "strongly recommends" (requires) their employees to join a gym, and Christie's will essentially subsidize the membership so that the employee only pays around $20 a month, or less. Another intern I know at the auction house witnessed a gym fair the other day in the offices, like a club fair or a job fair but with Clif Bars and Vitamin Waters. Why is this necessary, you may ask? I mean, other companies have perks, but nearly fully paid gym memberships to David Barton?
This gracious bonus is not meant to be taken lightly. If Christie's is paying for the membership, then everyday after dealing Picassos for millions of dollars you are taking off your Zanotti's and getting yo ass to Sport LA or whatever that one is in Rock Center. Because one can never be too rich or too thin in the art world. Models don't have to be real people; they just have to be skinny enough to not distract the eye when displaying the designs. The arty/artistic yet business-savvy leaders of tomorrow are the ones that have to develop the outfit, make it a reality off of the performance art-style runway. These are the people - the ones who make art accessible and profitable to the world at large (WASPs, dynasties, royalty, socialites, starchitects, the Coppolas) - who need to match the sample sizes to bring "fashion" to the world at large (see above) as well. One cannot be an expert on ahhhht unless one dresses like s/he can own it as well. And the fitter you are, the better equipped you are to survive in a jungle of phenomenology and appraisal. How else could one be taken seriously unless one is his/her own (sculpted) work of art?
In other news, it is summer, it is so hot that some of us stay in bars until 4am just for the AC, but everyone is wearing short sleeves and tanks. A prominent TA in the library this morning, I noticed because of the change in wardrobe, has a tattoo. Not a colorful flexy mermaid or "Wino Forever" or anything, but a simple pseudo-chain-like design encircling her upper arm. Is this allowed in the art history world? Does Christie's do a background check, regular drug tests, and tattoo searches? I pondered this girl's career trajectory as I thought of how, in any case, the ahhhht was on a noticeably toned, slender upper arm. So her career is probably not in shambles.
Enjoy your afternoons, and don't worry: even if you don't belong to a gym, you are probably sweating off your body weight in the heat right now.
GA
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
That Oxford Shirt Is Not Fooling Anyone.
At the circulation desk. NE looks like he has literally just come from having stacktion.
I LOVE MY JOB.
I LOVE MY JOB.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Eat Less
I stole the title from an Urban Outfitters T-shirt that was recently in the news - or rather, New York Magazine's website, which is kitschy news, but I'll save the kitsch bitch for Clement Greenberg (someone needs to slap me for committing the worst art history non-joke ever by the end of the day). I guess that Urban was selling this American Apparel-style tee with "Eat Less" written in some ugly, tacky font that completely destroys the power of the message. Someone decided that an insecure person would see this shirt on someone walking toward them, think that said shirt's message is directed at them, and run to the fastest New York Sports Club to cry their way through an elliptical work-out. (I guess the T-shirt would have to read "Exercise More" in that particular scenario but the sentiment is still there.) But the shirt is still being sold in stores - just not online - which is a relief because it could very well be the new slogan for Avery Library. (I decided that the old slogan was "We put the fine in Fine Arts!")
Every day the exact same people come to Avery - Girl With Braces, the Married Couple, My Favorite Older Gay Man, The Smirk (he always smirks at me when he walks in, but it's a cute smirk, like a head-nod) - and they don't leave until 9pm when the library closes and wolves howl, etc. So unless they are secretly middle-of-the-night dancers with the New York City Ballet, I don't know how these people stay so thin and sit for so many hours at a time. It's like they are training to be airline pilots or something. This cannot be good for one's blood circulation. Or one's vitamin D levels. Or anything, really, because, as Broseph tells his dissertation students, "Everything that you are writing about and researching and discovering at this very moment, someone else in the world is already publishing that information."
(Brief interruption - IT'S AN AUTOMATIC DOOR. IT WILL CLOSE ON ITS OWN. DO NOT TRY TO PULL IT SHUT.)
So these people come in and sit all day and read and induce migraines and seem to never conclude their studies. Then when they "venture out" for pseudo-breaks during the day, they do so at Brownies, the café that is below Avery and accessed through the building's lobby. So, essentially, they never leave Avery. (Smoking does NOT count as leaving.) I understand that Brownies has the best food and cheapest coffee on campus. But commuting from the library to Brownies to the smoking deck is almost as bad as hanging out in Butler 209 all day, and night. The difference is that at least in Butler there are empty chip bags and Starbucks cups strewn about, evidence that people have actually been consuming food and caffeine because both are important to learning and success. When the perma-sitters go down to Brownies, they never order anything. They just sit more. And talk about their theses. And try to make new breakthroughs. They never stop! There is never a moment when it is just them, a bagel, a heavily Splenda'd hazelnut coffee, and a copy of the NYT and nothing else in between. Food decidedly interrupts the learning process and they would rather just "power through" twelve straight hours of hypothesizing and then tuck in to a head of cabbage or whatever. You know, energy for their all-night NYCB training (I insist it's ballet because it is a muscle-lengthening form of exercise that keeps one trim and lean, not bulk-inducing, and I insist it's the NYCB because that's the Balanchine company and Balanchine dancers are not allowed to have an ounce of body fat).
There is something great about this please-don't-feed-the-grad-students show: while picking up books around the 300-level (the one with windows) last week, I passed Girl With Braces and a glimmer of turquoise next to her laptop caught my eye. Behold, it was a pack of gum - and not just any flavor, but specifically Orbit Wintermint. As everyone who comes to Avery or knows me even a little bit would know, I have a quite serious gum addiction. My smoker friends say that there is no such thing as a gum addiction but it is a very real habit: it is expensive, it is gross, it comes with it's own slew of health problems (TMJ, digestive issues, etc) and there is nothing you can do to quit like cigarettes because the so-called cure for nicotine addiction is CHEWING GUM. Fuck.
In any case, I started the habit - I won't tell you how many packs I chew a day but yes, packs, plural - as a way of staying awake to study without eating crap or drinking coffee throughout the night. Girl With Braces has caught on (with braces, even!) and I like to think that I was the bad influence that brought her here. Let's just hope that she doesn't have to spend more than $1.50 every couple of days. God damnit.
On that note, time for me to deposit paychecks so that I can pay rent and gum.
GA.
Every day the exact same people come to Avery - Girl With Braces, the Married Couple, My Favorite Older Gay Man, The Smirk (he always smirks at me when he walks in, but it's a cute smirk, like a head-nod) - and they don't leave until 9pm when the library closes and wolves howl, etc. So unless they are secretly middle-of-the-night dancers with the New York City Ballet, I don't know how these people stay so thin and sit for so many hours at a time. It's like they are training to be airline pilots or something. This cannot be good for one's blood circulation. Or one's vitamin D levels. Or anything, really, because, as Broseph tells his dissertation students, "Everything that you are writing about and researching and discovering at this very moment, someone else in the world is already publishing that information."
(Brief interruption - IT'S AN AUTOMATIC DOOR. IT WILL CLOSE ON ITS OWN. DO NOT TRY TO PULL IT SHUT.)
So these people come in and sit all day and read and induce migraines and seem to never conclude their studies. Then when they "venture out" for pseudo-breaks during the day, they do so at Brownies, the café that is below Avery and accessed through the building's lobby. So, essentially, they never leave Avery. (Smoking does NOT count as leaving.) I understand that Brownies has the best food and cheapest coffee on campus. But commuting from the library to Brownies to the smoking deck is almost as bad as hanging out in Butler 209 all day, and night. The difference is that at least in Butler there are empty chip bags and Starbucks cups strewn about, evidence that people have actually been consuming food and caffeine because both are important to learning and success. When the perma-sitters go down to Brownies, they never order anything. They just sit more. And talk about their theses. And try to make new breakthroughs. They never stop! There is never a moment when it is just them, a bagel, a heavily Splenda'd hazelnut coffee, and a copy of the NYT and nothing else in between. Food decidedly interrupts the learning process and they would rather just "power through" twelve straight hours of hypothesizing and then tuck in to a head of cabbage or whatever. You know, energy for their all-night NYCB training (I insist it's ballet because it is a muscle-lengthening form of exercise that keeps one trim and lean, not bulk-inducing, and I insist it's the NYCB because that's the Balanchine company and Balanchine dancers are not allowed to have an ounce of body fat).
There is something great about this please-don't-feed-the-grad-students show: while picking up books around the 300-level (the one with windows) last week, I passed Girl With Braces and a glimmer of turquoise next to her laptop caught my eye. Behold, it was a pack of gum - and not just any flavor, but specifically Orbit Wintermint. As everyone who comes to Avery or knows me even a little bit would know, I have a quite serious gum addiction. My smoker friends say that there is no such thing as a gum addiction but it is a very real habit: it is expensive, it is gross, it comes with it's own slew of health problems (TMJ, digestive issues, etc) and there is nothing you can do to quit like cigarettes because the so-called cure for nicotine addiction is CHEWING GUM. Fuck.
In any case, I started the habit - I won't tell you how many packs I chew a day but yes, packs, plural - as a way of staying awake to study without eating crap or drinking coffee throughout the night. Girl With Braces has caught on (with braces, even!) and I like to think that I was the bad influence that brought her here. Let's just hope that she doesn't have to spend more than $1.50 every couple of days. God damnit.
On that note, time for me to deposit paychecks so that I can pay rent and gum.
GA.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
This Is My Youth
Oh hey guys.
OH WAIT NO ONE READS THIS ANYMORE EVER NVM.
Profoundest of apologies for making y'all wait a couple of months for the next entry. (Because I know you were checking quite constantly to see what would happen next.) The thing is, believe it or not, my lack of consistency with this blog really is doing a disservice to the world at large (Columbia). I firmly believe that coming to Avery is like entering Narnia, combined with the EPCOT center and perhaps a photo shoot for Numéro magazine. It is, as TLC once sang, CrazySexyCool. You just can't read about Felix Gonzales-Torres like you can in Avery anywhere else. We don't even (entirely) abide by the Library of Congress system of call numbers, damnit! We are our own entity!
Hence, why I am applying for a full-time position at The Avery Library at some point this summer. Yes, your predictions came true; all bets are off. This is my destiny; it would be silly to deny it. What else do I talk about? How many Brownie's punch cards do I go through in a year? Who was elected University Student Librarian of the Year?! Me, true gents, your faithful GA. And thus I intend to stay faithful by working here forever. So cross your fingers, and I'll let you know when I formally apply.
In other news, I finished my thesis, went on a pathological spree of anti-feminist activity for about a weekend, graduated (LOLZ), moved to Brooklyn, and that's wear I now sit, on my bed, with my same quilt from dorm life, waiting for my hair to dry to go to another art history friend's housewarming party, where the wine and the AA* gossip will flow. I look forward to working with you for the 2010-2011 school year, if all works out in my favor. In any case, I'm around all summer. This is my youth, and this is the summer where anything can happen, and all I want is for Avery to fall madly in love with me, as I am with it, so that I can wax poetic about it on The Red Zone.
Also they're rearranging all the folios and I want to be around for that!
GA
*AA is a professor's initials, not the abbreviation for Alcoholics Anonymous. This needed to be expounded upon because it would also entirely make sense for a party of former art history majors to all be in AA. It is one of the major requirements, in fact: write a thesis, drink about it.
OH WAIT NO ONE READS THIS ANYMORE EVER NVM.
Profoundest of apologies for making y'all wait a couple of months for the next entry. (Because I know you were checking quite constantly to see what would happen next.) The thing is, believe it or not, my lack of consistency with this blog really is doing a disservice to the world at large (Columbia). I firmly believe that coming to Avery is like entering Narnia, combined with the EPCOT center and perhaps a photo shoot for Numéro magazine. It is, as TLC once sang, CrazySexyCool. You just can't read about Felix Gonzales-Torres like you can in Avery anywhere else. We don't even (entirely) abide by the Library of Congress system of call numbers, damnit! We are our own entity!
Hence, why I am applying for a full-time position at The Avery Library at some point this summer. Yes, your predictions came true; all bets are off. This is my destiny; it would be silly to deny it. What else do I talk about? How many Brownie's punch cards do I go through in a year? Who was elected University Student Librarian of the Year?! Me, true gents, your faithful GA. And thus I intend to stay faithful by working here forever. So cross your fingers, and I'll let you know when I formally apply.
In other news, I finished my thesis, went on a pathological spree of anti-feminist activity for about a weekend, graduated (LOLZ), moved to Brooklyn, and that's wear I now sit, on my bed, with my same quilt from dorm life, waiting for my hair to dry to go to another art history friend's housewarming party, where the wine and the AA* gossip will flow. I look forward to working with you for the 2010-2011 school year, if all works out in my favor. In any case, I'm around all summer. This is my youth, and this is the summer where anything can happen, and all I want is for Avery to fall madly in love with me, as I am with it, so that I can wax poetic about it on The Red Zone.
Also they're rearranging all the folios and I want to be around for that!
GA
*AA is a professor's initials, not the abbreviation for Alcoholics Anonymous. This needed to be expounded upon because it would also entirely make sense for a party of former art history majors to all be in AA. It is one of the major requirements, in fact: write a thesis, drink about it.
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