Paris, Briefly
Some photos from Paris, quickly shot and posted for your pleasure…or at least for my mom’s pleasure. They include adorable grafitti, delicious foods, flea market finds, semi-glamour shots, oil slicks, copious cafe facades, and the occasional recognizable landmark (Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, etc).
Off to Northern Spain tomorrow, then to Cape Town in a few days. Hope all is well, blog folks and random passersby.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Jacket (gift), tee (thrifted, $1), skirt (Anthropologie, $20), belt (thrifted, $.75), boots (random), jewelz (various), grave (the Legare family).
Happy New Year, folks! It’s your favorite (9th favorite? 132nd favorite?) skiver blogger here. I’ve just returned to Chicago from the South and in a few days I’m (here’s the exciting part of this post)…off to Europe! And then Africa! I’ll be visiting friends in France and Spain on my way to South Africa and Namibia, where I’ll be doing fieldwork for a few months. This means I’ll continue to shirk my blogger duties, and will probably only post the occasional photo of myself looking sweaty and thoughtful in Namibia’s desert summer. I don’t expect I’ll be wearing much that’s worth comment, since I’m only taking with me what will fit in a small backpack. Still, if you’re pining after my sartorial self (and who isn’t, right?), you can imagine me in my standard “I’m in Africa” uniform: a sand-covered white skirt, a random tank top, Chacos, and some sort of headband or scarf. I look like a hippie who got lost in the dunes. I quite love it.
In a last ditch effort to appease the disgruntled souls who’ve frowned at my lack of posts (that’s you, James, and random emailer who thinks we’re best friends), here are some outfit shots from a recent day trip to Edisto Island. Most of these photos were taken at a beautiful 18th century church and cemetery right off the Atlantic. It wasn’t difficult to justify prowling the grounds and using the mausoleum as a prop; the last Legare was buried here so long ago it’s unlikely there are any mourning relatives left to offend. After desecrating resting places and fruitlessly searching for haints, my pal Sean and I had a little sunset picnic on the beach, then carried on roaming the Lowcountry.
Cypress swamp awesomeness
And that, as they say, is that. I hope you all have a wonderful few months! I’ll return here as often as I can, and may occasionally confirm that I’m alive via weird pictures of my head with African landmarks. I’m sure I’ll inundate you all with stories when I’m home in the spring, but if you wish for a personal one, send me your address at sartoriography@gmail.com and I’ll send you a postcard. No spam, I promise. And no, Merl, I will not send you a baby cheetah.
Out of the Cave and into the Gardens: Returning to Life after Finals
In the past I’ve written about how I tend to disappear into my brain cave when writing time comes around each quarter. This term, I spent more than my standard week or two wandering around the caverns of my own thoughts, but I’ve finally emerged. It’s the holiday season, I’m (mostly) finished with finals and I’ve gone through a really important rite of passage in my program. Everything is slowly sliding back to normal, and that includes a return to blogging. Yippee!
Out of the Cave and Into the Gardens: coat (thrifted, $6), bag (thrifted, $3), boots (thrifted, $12), skirt (thrifted, $4), sweater (gift), tights (c/o HUE).
With some mega-plants in one of the greenhouses.
I was amazed at the size of these plants...obviously. 
Part of coming out of the academic coma is doing things that don’t involve either school or my nerdy pants neighborhood. For example, last weekend a friend and I went to see the holiday display at Chicago Botanic Gardens, which was really beautiful. There were light-laden trees, tiny trains and mini-Chicago landmarks, and festive decorations hiding between cacti and ferns. If you live in the Chicagoland area and haven’t been to the Botanic Gardens, get thee there at once! It’s worth it just for the English walled garden.
Holiday trains made their way around mini-Chicago landmarks. Super cute!
The one nerdy thing I couldn’t leave behind (okay, aside from myself) was this be-spectacled sweater. I just adore it, and it’s even cuter when the bow tie isn’t crushed by a coat and a bag. I had to apply some duct tape between the button holes to keep from flashing m’girls to the world (damn my ample bosom!), but otherwise this was the perfect happy get-up to wear on an outing where I was determined not to work.
Frank Lloyd Wright inspired building overlooking a lake. So pretty!
My favorite place at the gardens, Spider Island.
Goofy face in the setting sun.
My companion for the day in the fading light.
11:11 11-11-11
That’s right, it’s at exactly 11:11 on 11-11-11. For someone whose family has always joked about the tyrannical horror of the number 11, it was pretty much required that I publish a post at this time on this day of this year. And so, for your reading pleasure, here are some very important and all indisputably true and logical facts regarding this oh so important number:
-The number 11 is a palindrome and is also one of the numbers that looks the same upside down as right side up. Others are 0, 1, and 8.
-The deepest point in the ocean is in the Mariana Trench at 11km from sea level.
-World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918.
-11 is the number of brothers of the Biblical Joseph, dreamer and wearer of fancy coats
-The state of New York was the 11st state added to the Union.
-The first American lunar landing was made by Apollo 11.
-The largest cat in the world is the Siberian tiger measuring 11 feet long.
-The Grateful Dead wrote a very cool song called The Eleven.
-Soccer, cricket, American football, and hockey are all played with 11 players.
-According to some spiritual something from somewhere, “11:11 is said to be a pre-encoded trigger placed in our cellular memory banks prior to our descent into matter which when activated, signifies that our time of completion and ascension is near. It is believed that one knows when this particular gateway opens for them by continually seeing the numbers 11:11 in there every day lives as a continuous ocurrence. Activation of other gateways may be symbolized by other digits.” Again, all true and logical.
-When I was 11 I was already as tall as I am now, and just as weird and nerdy, although probably less likely to be writing blog posts about 11:11. Actually, that last part isn’t true.
And that, my friends, is all I care to say about that! Happy 11:11 to you all, no matter what time you’re reading this!
Under $20 Tuesday: The Snack Time Edition
No matter how busy we are, most of us take time every day for the ritual of a meal (or two or three). Whether it’s grabbing a quick dinner, lingering over a cup of coffee, or enjoying drinks with friends, the aesthetic experience of the kitchen- and what comes out of it- permeates our daily lives. Here are some goods to make your tabletops, counter tops, and stove-tops (not to mention your tummies!) happy during your ritual snack time. And, as always, that ritual can be perfected for $20 and under.
Sugar candies, $12, Terrain
Set of 4 highball glasses, $15, HSN
Mortar and pestle, $18, Terrain
J. Friend and Co. Wild Thyme Honey, $11.45, Father Rabbit on Big Cartel
Star mug, $18, The Cupcake Kid, Etsy
Recycled milk bottle, $16, Terrain
Ash cutting board, $18, Terrain
Ceramic bowl, $16, The Cupcake Kid, Etsy
Canal House Cookbook Set, $19, Williams Sonoma
Coffee Mug, $12, CeramicPix on Etsy
Wooden spreading stick, $9, Rare Device
Past Lives (If They Existed): Oxford Man and the Royal Navy
Following are a few things you may or may not know about me. If you fall into the former camp, please pretend to be surprised or at least interested. It’s only polite.
1: If I believed in former lives I’d be certain that I was a British school boy/Oxford man in one of mine, circa early-mid 20th century. Or maybe I was a sailor in the Royal Navy. Or maybe I was both. Either way, there has to be some deeply mystical explanation for my preternatural love of stripes, blazers, insignias, oxfords, navy, the ocean, the British classics, the perfect weathered satchel, and general chappery.
2: I may be a nerd in my professional life, but off-duty I’m pretty handy when it comes to jobs stereotypically associated with the more dudely end of the gender continuum. I once helped my dad remove, tinker with, and replace a transmission, and while wearing this very outfit I de-masted a sailboat. Doesn’t that sound dirty? In this instance, said emasculated sailboat is the one on which I perched myself for photos. I’m a fan of adding insult to injury.
I’m sad to say these photos are from my final to the marina, where I helped pack up The Kestrel for the winter. I hope you enjoy a little glimpse of its pretty details, along with this semi-nautical, semi-school boy outfit. Now, it’s off to the high seas with me, as I mix metaphor and swab the decks with the pages of Beowulf and my stripe-y school boy scarf!
PS: What were you in your past life/lives?
PPS: I’m obsessed with these shoes!
Hapa ni simulizi kwa nyinyi. In Swahili, that sentence reads, “Here’s a story for you.” And indeed, here’s a story, one in which Swahili is humorously relevant, as is this outfit (well, mostly just the hat).
My favorite hat taken on a whole new meaning...
In my Swahili translation session my absolutely hilarious professor often shares useful pieces of info regarding colloquial or idiomatic speech. He’s taught us how to say the Kenyan equivalent of , “Eh, whatevs,” has turned me into an A+ slinger of some East African Marxist terminology, and makes sure we know how to discuss hot dudes and randoms with equal skill. All this is typically accompanied by goofy black board diagrams that look nothing like what he says he’s drawing (think a machine-gun looking trumpet or an explosion that’s supposed to be a god). In short, we learn everything we need to know for a full and happy life as Swahili speakers, with a dash of Surrealism on the side.
Hooligan: trench (H&M, $15), dress (thrifted, $3), tights (c/o Hue), belt (found on the ground), boots (thrifted, $10), hat (East Africa Hooligans-R-Us, apparently).
This last week my professor taught us some key vocab, including the term for “hooligan,” (mhuni) which is apparently a very popular insult in East Africa. After trying his best to draw a hooligan on the board, he gave up, looked dejected, and then suddenly shouted, “AHA! There is a hooligan!” It scared the shiz out of my classmates and me, and I turned around to see who he had identified. No one there. Wait, whaaaa? Why is he pointing at my head? Is the hooligan…me? Oh. Err…? He grinned triumphantly and said, with joy at his Sherlock Holmes-style skills of deduction, “Only a hooligan ever wears such a hat!”
Bracelets from southern Africa, where no one speaks Swahili, but where there are certainly some hooligans.
Hooligan behavior!
There you have it, folks. What I thought was a stylish and clever way of hiding my aversion to showering is apparently just the head-cover of a hooligan. Who knew? Well, come to think of it, maybe urchins and hooligans have something in common…
A Drowsy Numbness: Lies and Compensation with Regards to Coolness
A Drowsy Numbness: skirt (Anthropologie, $50), top (H&M, $9), jacket (gift), boots (random, $30ish), earrings (uummm...?), necklace ($1, thrifted).
"I'm very serious about this jacket. This is my melodious plot of beechen green."
As some of you may know, we grad students party like wild people. We’re pretty much out of control. The phrase “nerd alert”? That’s code for, “Look out, this party is about to get real!” Case in point: my adventures this Friday night. After folding laundry and making a giant pot of tomato spelt soup I lay on my living room rug, reading and re-reading Keats (“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense…”) and listening with rapt attention to Seamus Heaney’s Nobel lecture. There’s nothing more raucous than a rich Irish brogue and poetry laden with dryads and affect.
Okay, okay, I know. I’m about as exciting as a dial tone. ”Drowsy numbness” is right, Keats! But I compensate for my lack of bar dancing or beer guzzling by wearing a hodgepodge of neutrals with solar-system looking arts and craft project necklaces. That counts for something, right? If not, I’m screwed, because it’s Saturday night I’m already eyeing a volume of Rilke poems and a pile of pillows like there’s no tomorrow.
Common Crow Vintage Give-Away at What Would a Nerd Wear!
See those sexy dudes up there? On my behalf they’re saying, “Get thee to What Would a Nerd Wear!” My darker and more sinister half, Common Crow Vintage, is sponsoring a give-away on Tania’s blog. Enter to win a $25 gift certificate so you can plunder the vintage goodness I’ve got going on.
Not convinced? Check out some of these pieces; maybe one of them will seduce you with its awesomeness.
PS: Outfit posts to soon return. Broken cameras, new laptops, visiting siblings, and, OH YEAH, my career have kind of gotten in the way of this blog o’ mine. But don’t worry, I’m still alive! :)
Vintage suede jacket, $32
Vintage Wrangler cowgirl boots, $55
Vintage trench/hunter coat, $35
Vintage Liz Claiborne Flats, $24
Vintage polka dot blouse with button up back, $18
Vintage Striped Market Tote, $22
Humping Columns and Misquoting Marx: A Story of How I Cried over Technology, Then Wore a Non-Imperialist Vest
Marx: Jeans (vintage, thrifted, $3), striped top (H&M, $9), vest gift), boots (random, $30), hat (H&M, $12).
Once upon a time, there was this dude named Karl Marx. He had some theories about capitalism, labour, and…you know, other stuff. Marx coined this term “commodity fetish,” which he described as…uhhh…people getting too attached to material things and turning them into substitutes for human relations.
Okay, that’s not exactly what he said, BUT it’s a great way for me to bring up two relevant facts. The first is that I recently lost my laptop in a brutal sweet-tea explosion, hence my disappearance from the interwebs. Despite my general disdain for gadgetry and technology, I suffered some serious heartache at the loss of my computer. You’d have thought it was my grandma…or at least my puppy. It has been my constant companion these three years, and has seen me through many a late night/early morning writing session. So, my grief explains my absence…and gives you a very bad example of commodity festishism.
Second…school has started again!! This means I get to wear fall clothes (as evidenced here, in all their neutral, abandoned-building adventure glory) and read fun stuff like Marx! Lucky for us all, I don’t generally butcher my analysis in class like I do on my blog.
PS: I’m obsessed with this vest. I feel very “tough explorer girl” in it…but without the imperialism.
Hugging, not humping.
YAY, adventures! Happy to report I did not fall on my face after this photo was taken.
