Ricky Gervais introduces me and makes a comment about the fact I’m still in my pajamas. I sideways glare at him, “They’re yoga pants, Ricky, and at least *I’m* wearing a bra.” Tina Fey golf claps as the camera pans to Brangelina and they smile and laugh uncomfortably … “And the nominees are …”
We put the second six-week selection of the Swiss Army Wives’ Book Club to a vote and the winner is The Thoughtful Dresser! Making Toast was a close second, so that just might be our next six-week reading selection.
Not that we aren’t all winners, BUT truly we have an OFFICIAL winner, too! Our $20 Amazon gift card winner is the beautiful and talented Gretchen Gregg. Congratulations, Gretchen! (watch your email for info!)
March 15th is the deadline for both The Thoughtful Dresser and Freedom. We haven’t decided exactly what we’ll do for the discussions yet, but we’re open to suggestions. How would you like to go about it? Let us know how and when you might like to discuss the book(s) with other Book Club members. Okay? Okay!
“You can’t have depths without surfaces,” says Linda Grant in her lively and provocative book, The Thoughtful Dresser, a thinking woman’s guide to what we wear. For centuries, an interest in clothes has been dismissed as the trivial pursuit of vain, empty-headed women. Yet, clothes matter, whether you are interested in fashion or not, because how we choose to dress defines who we are. How we look and what we wear tells a story. Some stories are simple, like the teenager trying to fit in, or the woman turning fifty renouncing invisibility. Some are profound, like that of the immigrant who arrives in a new country and works to blend in by changing the way she dresses, or of the woman whose hat saved her life in Nazi Germany.
The Thoughtful Dresser celebrates the pleasure of adornment and is an elegant meditation on our relationship with what we wear and the significance of clothes as the most intimate but also public expressions of our identity.
About the author:
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool February 15, 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), studied English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
Her first book, Sexing the Millennium: A Political History of the Sexual Revolution was published in 1993. Her first novel, The Cast Iron Shore, published in 1996, won the David Higham First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Remind Me Who I am Again, an account of her mother’s decline into dementia and the role that memory plays in creating family history, was published in 1998 and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year award and the Age Concern Book of the Year award. Her second novel, When I Lived in Modern Times, set in Tel Aviv in the last years of the British Mandate, published in March 2000, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize and the Encore Prize. Her novel, Still Here, published in 2002, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her non-fiction work, The People On The Street: A Writer’s View of Israel, published in 2006, won the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage. Her Booker Prize shortlisted novel, The Clothes On Their Backs, was published in February 2008. Linda’s most recent book, The Thoughtful Dresser was published in March 2009.
She has written a radio play, “Paul and Yolande,” which was broadcast on Radio 4 in October 2006, and a short story, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” part of a week of stories by Liverpool writers commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Beatles, “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” broadcast in July 2007.
She has also contributed to various collections of essays. Her work is translated into French, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Czech, Russian, Polish, Turkish, and Chinese.
One last little bit of housekeeping for the day! We’d also like to welcome sneakpeeq as a fabulous new Swiss Army Wives sponsor. It’s a super easy to follow “social commerce site,” just join using your FB ID. You’ll see items I like, a lot of one-of-a-kind pieces featured on sneakpeeq on my Pinterest boards … enjoy!
We’re excited to add a new sponsor to Swiss Army Wives … Totsy! Think of it as a cross between Gilt and One Kings Lane for preggos, moms, and their kiddos. Welcome, TOTSY! We heart you!
I scoured the “Best of 2011″ lists for you, lovies, and I have some spicy & sweet & genius & crazy to share with you. Ready? No? Too bad. We’re off!
First is this gentleman – James Blake – who creates and records all of this mind-boggling mellifluousness in his house. Yeah, his house. One dude+a bit of equipment+one little house = brilliance. I triple dog dare you not to melt into a puddle when you hear his voice.
Recommendation: Start music, sit quietly, breathe deeply, and lose yourself in it.
You’re about to hit “Play” again, aren’t you? Yeah, I knew it.
I really have no words to describe how much I love Florence + The Machine … the composition … her amazing voice … it’s just one of the most incredible sounds I’ve ever heard. If you haven’t listened to them before, turn it up and prepare yourself for greatness. If you have, I know you’re nodding right along with me. Yes, yes, yes. Enjoy.
Okay, so the first round of Swiss Army Wives’ Book Club, let’s face it, went off with a whimper. That’s okay! We still love you with all of our little hearts, and by the way, if you haven’t read our first selection, Spoon Fed, for the love of all things holy put it on your TBR list NOW, dammit! Also, don’t forget that our long-read selection Freedom is still in play, and we plan to have some sort of discussion about it in mid-March.
Join us!
So, for round two of our short read (six-week) selections we thought we’d try something different. Viva la difference! We’ll present to you, dear lovely members of Easy Company, three books that we think are worthy of your time and brain cells. Then YOU, in turn, will vote on which book you’d like to read and one of you precious readers (who votes) will WIN A PRIZE! How about a $20 Amazon gift card to one of the randomly selected commenters? We get your input, and someone is a winner and can get his or her book FOR FREE! How does that sound? We thought you’d like it! (Here I like to pretend that some of you are clapping and bouncing in your seat as you’re reading this. Just go with me.)
And without further a-do! The nominees are:
Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale Chris Ayres
In Death by Leisure, the hilariously inept antihero of War Reporting for Cowards returns from the Iraqi marshlands to the Hollywood Hills, where he proceeds to embed himself in America’s bubble economy-just as it’s about to explode. Before long he’s drinking foie gras piña coladas, smearing caviar in strange places, and borrowing seven-digit sums from grinning mortgage salesmen, all while trying to meet women by selling furniture on Craigslist. This is a shamelessly honest, savagely funny memoir (Ayres’s encounter with Michael Jackson on a date-from-hell is not to be missed) that chronicles the runaway aspirations of a generation-and the carnage that followed.
Making Toast: A Family Story Roger Rosenblatt
From O magazine to the New York Times, from authors such as E. L. Doctorow to Ann Beattie, critics and writers across the country have hailed Roger Rosenblatt’s Making Toast as an evocative, moving testament to the enduring power of a parent’s love and the bonds of family.
When Roger’s daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition at age thirty-eight, Roger and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren: six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies.
Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny—Boppo and Mimi to the kids—quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, play-dates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though reeling from Amy’s death, they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law and the tenacity and skill of his wife, Roger attends each day to “the one household duty I have mastered”—preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child’s liking.
Luminous, precise, and utterly unsentimental, Making Toast is both a tribute to the singular Amy and a brave exploration of the human capacity to move through and live with grief.
The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter Linda Grant
“You can’t have depths without surfaces,” says Linda Grant in her lively and provocative book, The Thoughtful Dresser, a thinking woman’s guide to what we wear. For centuries, an interest in clothes has been dismissed as the trivial pursuit of vain, empty-headed women. Yet, clothes matter, whether you are interested in fashion or not, because how we choose to dress defines who we are. How we look and what we wear tells a story. Some stories are simple, like the teenager trying to fit in, or the woman turning fifty renouncing invisibility. Some are profound, like that of the immigrant who arrives in a new country and works to blend in by changing the way she dresses, or of the woman whose hat saved her life in Nazi Germany.
The Thoughtful Dresser celebrates the pleasure of adornment and is an elegant meditation on our relationship with what we wear and the significance of clothes as the most intimate but also public expressions of our identity.
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We’ll keep the voting open until end of day Monday, January 30 and announce the selection and the Amazon gift card winner Tuesday, January 31 morning. Happy commenting/voting and GOOD LUCK!
Scene: Andy’s 3rd birthday party at our house. It’s one of those beautiful January afternoons we sometimes get in Texas, sunny and in the 70s. Lots of friends and family: new parents holding and feeding babies while swapping stories in the living room, folks sitting on the patio, kids are all running and playing in the yard. I’m in the kitchen refreshing food and cleaning up a little. Feeling a little pooped, but beyond content listening to the laughter and happiness in and around our home.
Andy walks in to the kitchen, holding up a can of Coke to me. I’m thinking he’s going to say, “Open it, mommy. I want a sip.” Knowing I’m likely going to say no, but I appreciate his pluck.
I bend over and ask, “What do you have there, Andy?” He hands it to me.
“Here, Mommy. This is for you.”
“Thank you, Andy.” I lean in and hug him. He turns around and runs back outside to play.
It’s the best Coke I’ve ever had.
My sweet three-year-old boy. Tuckered out after two days of birthday fun.
What’s behind all the vitriol regarding Paula Deen’s admission that she has Type 2 diabetes? Let’s dissect. Grab your scalpel.
Camp One: Members of this camp have always held Paula in disdain because she’s not on the whole food/raw food/organic food/dairy-free/grass fed beef/free range chicken/gluten-free/salt-free/vegetarian/vegan/sugar-free team, and for that, she must be publicly flogged, because everyone knows only stupid, ill-educated, irresponsible people eat whatever the hell they want to without making excuses or apologizing for it, and my, doesn’t schadenfreude taste DELICIOUS??? Paula, you poor Southern ruffian, just be more like us, and you’ll escape our withering stares and exasperated exhalations that smell of quinoa and raw beets and homemade organic salt-free flatbread repurposed from old hemp sandals.
Camp Two: Members of this camp, chubby and super sugar-fortified, ignored their doctors’ warnings about moderation in all things, like, say, how about dropping that doughnut and Dr. Pepper and opting for a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of hot tea every once in awhile?, and instead decided that if Paula Deen could eat tubs of sugar and sticks of butter and quarts of cream and fluffy pies and frosted cakes and flaky biscuits and viscous gravy, then by God, so could they, because she’s, like, a CELEBRITY, and see? It hasn’t hurt her one little bit. Not one bit! But now? Paula, you LIAR! You LIED to us! I mean, you never actually told us that we could eat with abandon and suffer no consequences, and you never actually told us to eat like this 3 times a day, every day of our lives, but THAT’S NOT THE POINT. Now I have to pay attention to what I put in my piehole (like less pie), and I can’t use your good health as an excuse to ladle cream gravy on everything and squirt canned whipped cream directly into my mouth. What the hell, Paula? Just WHAT. THE. HELL.
(Whew. I feel MUCHO better now. Someone pass me a celebratory vat of queso and some unsalted kale chips.)
Well, hi there. Miss me? Well, I certainly missed you, especially you.
Oh my gawd, y’all, most of November and all of December (and the first part of January) was mostly THE SUCKIEST SUCK OF ALL SUCKS.
Lemme give you a quickish rundown (in no particular order) of what I like to call The-Time-That-The-Universe-Tried-to-Maim-Me:
THE SUCK #1: I was REALLY REALLY REALLY sick for nearly two months. I’m fairly certain I had The Plague and my gizzard may have fallen out, at the very least it was enlarge.
THE SUCK #2: My computer crashed: Physical Memory Dump. (pour one out for my computer homie) Most of the really great Christmas gifts I had planned on designing went out the Window(s).
THE SUCK #3: The day after Christmas our washing machine died. (pour another one out for my laundry homie)
THE SUCK #4: A *wonderful*job with a great company I interviewed with thrice, in November, during the onslaught of the The Plague, no less, was a no-go. THEN out of the blue, I get a call in late December: Was I still interested? And, would I be willing to draft a proposal of sorts? (Yes, during the busiest of the holidays AND no real computer besides a clunky SLOW laptop.)
THE SUCK #5: My phone all but died: call and message logs would completely disappear, I couldn’t always make or receive calls (or they would drop) and messages that I sent weren’t actually going anywhere. Couple that with limited computing and I was dead in the water from a communications standpoint.
THE SUCK #6: My dad was in the hospital.
THE SUCK #7: Andy showed zero interest in potty training. ZILCH.
THE SUCK #8: I needed to get new glasses. With bifocals. (pour one out for the last vestiges of my youth)
Here’s the outcome, up- or flip-side, and oh so many reasons I’m counting my blessings (and shake my little victorious fist at The Universe):
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #1: I feel soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better. It’s amazing how good you feel after you’ve felt bad for so long. Also, I actually lost weight during the holidays and all of the coughing I did gave me a “two-pack.” I’m totally ripped, dudes. (Not really, but go with me here.)
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #2: Fortunately, one of my Good Lookin’ Husband’s friends had a built a fairly high-octane computer for a guy – who bailed ended up NOT buying – and it became mine all mine! I named him George. I love George. With all my heart. And, I count this as a bad thing that turned out good: Freelance slows to a crawl in the last quarter of the year, so none of my clients were left in the lurch. Also? I keep all my files and things like fonts backed up on an external hard drive. I didn’t lose any files during what I call The Unholy Crash of 2011. (BTW, if you use Outlook for your email? MAKE TRIPLE SURE the emails are also saved to the server. LESSON LEARNED.)
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #3: I found a local place on Craig’s List that delivered (twice, first one was a lemon) AND installed a refurbished replacement, almost identical to the one that died … for the EXACT amount of “Christmas Money” I had received as gifts from some sweet relatives.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #4: I’m still waiting to hear on the jobola (again!), but I really enjoyed the research and the writing (even given the timing) and am really proud of the work I did. I have an unbridled enthusiasm that I sometimes forget I possess. I dig that about me. Don’t you? Confidence boost!
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #5: My cell phone service provider ran a screaming special on the EXACT phone I wanted AND got our monthly plan costs down a tad a bit, to boot.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #6: My dad is doing better now, and I’m thankful (as always) my stepmother takes such good care of him. Also, Matt was off of work that week, which freed me up to go see him a few times (an hour drive away) and give my stepmom little break.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #7: Andy has now mastered #1. (We’re working on #2, still) PRAY FOR ME.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #8: I can actually see and my glasses are cute in a generationally inappropriate hipster doofus sort a way? Meh. See over-compensating.
SO, you see what I did there? Silver linings, Limoncello from lemons, chicken salad from chicken sh… well, you get the idea, right?
The best thing of all things that happened in the last few months is that after ages of tangling with duplicitous entities, foreign and domestic, dear friends of ours FINALLY brought their beautiful little boy from Ethiopia HOME. Seeing that sweet boy being held by his mom and dad marks one of the happiest days of my entire life. Truly.
I know this time of year folks are full of resolutions, and this craptastic episode we’ve endured of “bad stuff happening to good people” reinforced my all-the-time resolve to be thankful for ALL my blessings, as well as the challenges, first-world and otherwise.
We're a little bit country. We're a little bit rock 'n' roll. Swiss Army Wives will tell you where you can go, what you can do with yourself, and how to look good, smell nice, be well-fed, and keep your house clean while doing it. Man up, Nancy.
Nearly twenty years later, two girlfriends from college use their Wonder Twin powers to activate a blog. We're two busy moms (+friends) who blog about life, kids, marriage, family, careers, politics, social issues, music, books, movies, food and drink, entertaining and other domestic travails, and our thoughts on looking and feeling good.
The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter
