Maxmaximus

The LFG Spring 2012 Preview

2012-02-12T07:35:00.000-05:00

It’s a bit before six in the morning and LFG appropriately, remains in a…“busier than ever sixth grader needs a battery recharge” slumber. It’s amazing but not surprising that my little gal is growing up. I thank God that she and I have built such a good foundation because the inevitable pre-adolescent, dare I say pre-pubescent years are just around the corner. Somebody hold me…I’m getting wobbly just typing the words. Why? I’m having to work harder to get on the LFG dance card and my time with her is slightly less frequent than in recent years. She’s a busy, happy middle-school kid and one-on-one time with dads isn't always the highest of priorities with gals of her ilk. I understand it. I don’t however, have to like it.

Y’all and I know that it’s all good…that it’s nothing unique and that on balance; the LFG positives outweigh by a long shot any negatives whatsoever. And my mother, the baby of ten kids, just won’t hear of my LFG obsessions and I don’t blame her. “Everyone accounted for? Anyone bleeding? Yes and No? Good.” That was my mother’s world regarding her parents' focus on emotional well adjustment and likelihood to thrive. I understand. But I’ve only got LFG so…so…so...so, there.

So LFG unpacks her school bag on Friday night and begins to knock out some homework. (The homework load for sixth graders is a lot. I’m mixed on the issue but am in tandem with said conflict, impressed that her particular school district rivals the area private schools in student performance and academic rigor) But before delving into the remaining homework odds and ends she pulls out the latest J.Crew catalogue.

My response was tentative as I saw numerous pages tagged with blue sticky notes. The stuff ain’t cheap and the quality, while sometimes pretty good, can be inconsistent. But I was buoyed by what the catalogue wasn’t. LFG eschewed all of the Crewcuts stuff a few years ago in favor of the more urban hoodie-esque Abercrombie and Fitch genre. At least it wasn’t a look book from that devil’s den. I’ll pay double to keep her away from all of that hook-up hoochie-coochie sh_t purveyed by the A&F camp.

There’s no doubt that my baby has a quirky style sense. Not sure where she gets it but she’s her own gal sartorially. And LFG has some of the A&F stuff but we edit closely what she’s allowed to have. Zippered sweatshirts and baggy sweatpants with some A&F signage…that’s about it. I’ve derived no joy from those purchases but at least the selections covered all of her body parts. Shut up.

I was gratified to see that she’s now interested in some classics. When Crewcuts launched years ago, LFG was still that delightful little lump of toddlerness and would wear anything we bought her. So yes, at one point she did have a little Crewcuts brown velvet skirt with embroidered bumble bees. But then she dropped all of the preppy-classic stuff like a bad habit. And now I’m relieved that she’s coming back. LFG’s at the top-end of the Crewcuts size range so I figure Spring /Fall 2012 will be her only Crewcuts hurrah. Lordy, then it’s where? The smallest adult sizes? Flashback…her Christmas navy blazer is a woman’s size “0”. I better get a second job.

So what in the catalogue did she flag? A well edited selection of tasty things that befits a budding young lady. I began to think of Bardot and Capri as LFG narrated her picks.

And speaking of Capri…

And again…

Cropped Capris require complementary shoes…

LFG informed me that her Jack Rogers still “kinda fit” but she’s hankering for these little thingys.

And a gaggle of shorts…

…including the very color that she admonished me not to ever wear again when I picked her up from school. I have a pair of orange cotton drill trousers. Funny how things change.

And I had to include this little shaver. My parents dressed me similarly every Sunday for church. Butcept my tie was, sorry to say, a clip-on.

What really resonated with me was the belt. I was about this fella’s age when I begged my mom for one of these. All of the older boys had a monogrammed silver slide buckle and an alligator strap. I remember getting one when I was in the third grade. I got bleeding madras pants at the same time.

Will LFG get all of the items requested? Nope. Shorts from Target in identical colors will work just fine—at less than half the price.

Will she get some of it? You bet. I don’t give a damn how you incent your child’s behavior. Carrot? Stick? Punishment or reward? We don’t cut “deals” up front with LFG for academic performance. What we've worked hard to do is instill in our child good ethics and proper study habits. And when my baby brings home straight A’s, the annotated pages in the Spring 2012 J. Crew catalogue are likely to get more of daddy ADG’s attention.

Onward. Proudly.

ADG-Two

Spring 2012 Preview

2012-02-06T10:57:00.001-05:00

Since my capricious and sophomoric gabardine drivel caused so many tisk-tisks, swish this one around in your style blog pie-hole for a bit.

Three shirts. Early Spring 2012 prototypes. Riveting...no? This IS the kind of thing you want to be updated on when you check in over here, right?

And a reader over at tumbler posited..."Cowboy yokes? Is that wise?" My response..."Not only is it wise, it's prescient."

Onward. Yokin'

ADG.Two

The Gabardine Proving Ground:My Warp-Weft Dialectic

2012-02-03T16:03:00.003-05:00

Someone asked a question over at the tumblr and I felt motivated to pen a lengthier than tumblr worthy pile of drivel about the query. Here’s the question… “Let's talk about gabardine suits. The drapey gabardines of the mid-20th century are really great. With the advent of super whatever number wool and spun silk and so many micro-miracle fibres, why do you suppose we don't see more gabardine suits? And that reminds me, why do you suppose khaki and taupe gabardine look so good and grey gabardine looks so cheesy? And can you think of other textures that work in one color, but not in another?”

I love gabardine and not surprisingly, a rather erudite definition of it is found in a guy named Alan Flusser’s book titled Dressing The Man. The best expressions of gabardine, as my inquirer mentioned, preen in an elegant fluidity of drapy line that simply doesn't manifest in other sartorial swathings. Immediately after reading the tumblr question I thought of a pair of my Purple Label Ralph trousers. They are as close to butter as anything in my closet. Except of course, the little box of Roxanne Burgess’ playthangs in the very back. Oh and by the way, my gabardine musings will be restricted to the woolen sort.

Bulletproof Kevlar Butter. Yep, that’s my new code name for gabardine...BKB be the acronym. I’m already ideating the Gabardine Brand Campaign. To hell with “Got Milk?”…I’m cranking on a “TCB in BKB” theme right now. Seriously, this sings. Now who can I invoice for this little strategic ditty? Somebody get me the number for the Gabardine GrowersAssociation. I believe I could do for gabardine, what marketing did for the vodka category in the commoditized spirits contest. Differentiate or die. Oh wait, I’m sure Burger King would be on my a_s like a rat on a Cheeto what with the “BK” theme and all. Never mind. Shut the…

But along with declaring its kevlarian impermeability let me say this...It’s tricky. So much so that the United States Army, in an effort to fully understand this dynamic-hard finish-high-twist textile, dedicated a testing facility in 1917 solely for putting the fabric in question through all conceivable paces. You’d think that if they’ve been yankin’, twistin’, stretchin’ and stankin’ that cloth since 1917, they’d have it all sorted out and the facility rightfully would have been closed as part of the Department of DefenseBRAC cost cutting efforts. But no. Just north of Baltimore in Harford County, the Gabardine Proving Ground is still hard at it as I type this.

So what about this gabardine trickiness? It’s tricky on many fronts. First, one of the reasons that you essentially don’t see ANY high quality, buttery smooth, drapy gabardine clothing on the rack, ready-made is that the best gabardine cloth is expensive. Expensive like any cloth in the high end range of a swatch book you might peruse during a bespoken sortie. And given that the majority (majority-that would be an amount greater than fifty-percent for you South Carolinians) of ready-made clothing of any material or morphology (morphology…that would denote shape/construct for you South Carolinians) doesn’t sell at full price; gabardine becomes a bad investment choice for inventory.

The aforementioned is exacerbated by the fact that most guys’ Clothing Intelligence Quotient (CIQ) is in the basement. Therefore they just won’t understand something as nuanced as high quality gabardine and will be reluctant to buy it. Got it? The low CIQ dynamic is a contributor to the “I don’t ever see elegant gabardine ready-made, hanging on the rack” question.

There was a time when The Brethren, J. Press et al would offer as standard stock, a well-done gabardine suit in all its high value three button glory. And there’s no better platform, no better host than gabardine to showcase and preen two badges of WASPy munificence...the lapped-seam and the hook center vent. (If someone, South Carolinians aside, doesn’t catch the dichotomy manifest in WASPy munificence, I’m gonna get my feelings hurt and threaten to stop blogging again). Bespokeydoke, let’s move on to the ensuing tricky variable.

Next…gabardine is hard to work with. Highly skilled tailors revere it and consider it an honor of epic magnitude to create a gabardine wrought garment. Average tailors or mass production garmentos eschew it. Why? Because the highly skilled hurdle, in the gabardine sense, is high. Cutting and sewing gabardine is almost antithetical to doing the same with even the highest quality fluffy flannel (I knew a Fluffy Flannel back in ’83…she’s worth a separate story) or an exquisite Harris Tweed. Misalign a flannel or tweed seam…joust wrongly a needle into them when tagging on a detail like a sleeve cuff or a throat tab and no big deal, you rip it out and go again. Their nature is forgiving.

Not the case with gabardine. This purebred hard-finished butter is impregnated with blame and will illuminate every less than precise tailoring move with almost klieg light drama. See the little bump-pucker-pull at the bottom of the hand felled lapel buttonhole above? Its current level of inexactitude is exact. It whispers handwork. But I can promise you that if the artisan who wrought that buttonhole had tugged even one millionth of a smidge harder on the final stitch, that prominent dueling scar would have puckered immediately into Aunt Tootie’s LBJ-esque gallbladder gash. Tailoring chops on par with the best plastic surgeon’s acumen are required here. Gabardine necessitates artistic suturing skills.

And there’s the issue of weight and count. If you can’t afford at least the lightest of light Super Duper 150s, then move on. Anything heavier or less tightly warp-wefted and the cloth looks cheap and polyesterish.

If you want something more substantial, move on to a keeper’s tweed or a cavalry twill.

Don’t be shy about it. If a more prominent, less attenuated warp-weftian look is what you are after, be powerful about it. Tyrone certainly was. Look at the grooves in his twill.

Think of suits made of high quality flannel or other beefy cloths as a Maude Earl oil portrait of a fluffy dog. The quality is obvious and the artisan’s skill is apparent. But there’s forgiveness written all over it. Misplace on the canvas a well-intended daub of spirits based paint? No worries. Gently scrape it off and go again.

Consider its gabardine counterpart as a delicate, precise watercolour on paper portrait of a delicately thin skinned Whippet or Greyhound. One false move in the rendering process and it’s … start over.

Every undulating gabardine lilt, when rendered properly, naturally complements motion. Even when the motion is made by a whiskey pickled Black Jack Bouvier.

So let me draw down chapter one of the Gabardine Warp Weft Dialectic. I'll leave you with another shot of Jack. Baggy, gabardinated and sockless. Next we’ll take on the even trickier issue of gabardine color choice.

Onward. TCB. Sans LFG

ADG the 2^nd

Thom Browne

2012-02-03T00:07:00.000-05:00

Meaningful? Sure.

Relevant? Of course. And laughing...all the way to the bank.

80Ghee

(Ok, I'll give the Pride of Allentown Pa. credit...if need be... for making the suit a fashion item again. I'll also throw his high-watered ass a bone for slimming down the general silhouette of menswear. But the Pee Wee Herman strategy he manifests to make his mark is...as my mama would say...skimpy)

100 Legendary Trunks Louis Vuitton

2012-01-28T07:38:00.001-05:00

I’m all about the back story. The lore…the explanation…the provenance…the collaterals. It’s all kinda catnip for my right brain. One of you even defined me as “an explainer”. I’ll take that and raise it by saying that I also enjoy the “explanation”.

My mom gave me an Amazon Gift Certificate for Christmas and when I was made aware of 100 Legendary Trunks, I deemed my mama’s contribution towards the MSRP such that I would pop for the balance. And I’m pleased that I did.

It’s not just about the trunks. It’s about Paris and France and Europe and the States and Colonialism...

...and Campaign Furniture. And of course, the proverbial back-story that accompanies the trunks.

It’s about craftsmanship and a time when one commissioned their things more often than buying them ready made. I just had that experience in San Francisco...with a craftsperson who was just as passionate about actualizing for me, the idea that I conveyed with said passion.

And it’s about eccentricity and the means with which to manifest it. Custom cases for exactly twenty-four dress shirts. Certainly bespoken courtesy of Charvet, no?

It’s also about function living quite nicely methinks—with form. Why not have custom trunks made for Impressionist paintings?

Oh and it’s about texture. Provocatively tactile beyond just the original impregnated canvas with the ubiquitous L.V. brand scattered about.

Trunks for ballooning. I want to believe that Santos Dumont bespoke some of these. But I’m sure he didn’t do so for his balloons. He was too focused on performance. But I bet he had cases for his Charvet shirts.

It’s about libraries and the portability of one’s favorite books.

It’s WASPy in a Drexel-Biddle kinda way.

People who created the books we love also engaged Vuitton to assist in the carriage of their trade-tools.

The need to hermetically seal things seemed not to be a problem for Vuitton…

…“fermeture hermetique” …in South Carolina that would be … “Herman, not tonight! Put that damn thing away”.

Oh, and it’s about toys. Specifically the toy department in the Vuitton Paris store. Toy soldiers. Guaranteed to be courtesy of fellow French artisans from CBG Mignot, the oldest continuously operating toy soldier maker in the world. Napoleon commissioned little lead men from Mignot. I’m not kidding.

If lore and the proverbial back story intrigue you even remotely as much as they captivate me; go buy this book.

And further regarding why people are wired for certain things…why some of us are passionate about stories and objects that leave others scratching their heads. I did the Strengths Finder self-assessment a few years ago and I loved the way it “got” me…the way it characterized my wiring. Most all of these personality/trait assessment tools are derivatives of Jungian stuff and I’ve always enjoyed utilizing them. I think everyone should at least do the MBTI assessment.

So here’s how Strengths Finder thematically characterized me. I thought I share the themes that seem to explain why I’m so damned hooked on “the story”.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information-words, facts, books, and quotations-or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. With all those possible uses in mind, you really don't feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It's interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Communication

You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write. This is your Communication theme at work. Ideas are a dry beginning. Events are static. You feel a need to bring them to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid. And so you turn events into stories and practice telling them. You take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors. You want to divert their attention toward you and then capture it, lock it in. This is what drives your hunt for the perfect phrase. This is what draws you toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. This is why people like to listen to you. Your word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.

Ideation

You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.

Context

You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present. From your vantage point the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time, a time when the plans were being drawn up, that the present regains its stability.

Onward. Thematically.

ADG II

Birthday Embarrassment...

2012-01-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

...but not too much.

I've got two stories in mind about my San Francisco sortie. And I'm full up with all kinds of other raw-materiel for other stories...but am short on time. So I figured I'd share for now, as a placeholder, what greeted me at the post this morning. I stopped by after landing from SFO and my Cleverley bespokes awaited me...along with my birthday lead soldiers and a half price Rugby sweater. And my Bookster trousers were cuffed and ready. I'm on procurement lock down for the balance of 2012.

But the greatest gift accompanying the sartorial goodies was my thirty-four dollar electric grill. I'll kick George Foreman's a_s.

Onward. Kicking. In Cleverley.

ADG II ... from San Francisco

San Fran Quickie

2012-01-26T09:44:00.000-05:00

I’m trying to stay on east coast time…something I seem to manage until the proverbial “day three” of any visit. So I’ve been up at 345am which is great from a “knocking out the to-do list” perspective. However, by 5pm, my cocktail hour lucidity and general charm are pretty much gone.

My free time has been limited but I’ve had a blast attempting to take advantage of all the great options offered by scores of you. Thanks and stay tuned for more protracted drivel about my San Fran Sortie.

Onward. Rehearsing my PowerPoint jig…for my client gig.

ADG II

San Francisco...Plan My Day

2012-01-20T12:44:00.000-05:00

I haven’t had a San Francisco business meeting in a decade. Then suddenly the billable-day Gods shined on me and I’ve been sandwiched into the agenda for a conference downtown.

So here’s my question for you. What would you do/where would you go if you had one free day downtown and no rental car? Where’s the low-brow place that you’d send me for lunch? Tell me about the eclectic old vintage bookstores. Is there a museum or gallery exhibition that would be tragic not to see?

Plan my free day for me. And I’ll even take a suggestion or two for proper cocktails and dinner.

Talk to me. Butcept not about Top of the Mark, Cable Car Clothiers or Wilkes Bashford. Been there done that. And I’m not doing the Alcatraz tour boondoggle thang.

ADG II Traveling

The Christmas Haul

2012-01-14T11:37:00.005-05:00

Someone asked me to weigh in on the Christmas loot that LFG and I accumulated and I figured I better get to it before the Holiday memories become even more distant. But before diving into the materialistic nirvana of our goods, let me offer up a bit of prophylactic karma. (Karma for my damn self—to shroud this “look at all the cool and expensive stuff that we got” story in hopefully, some level of social responsibility and gratitude so that God won’t slam me with another broken molar this weekend. You my friends, are responsible for your own karma depleting/escalating tactics. Shut up.)

I like stuff. But I’ve learned some tough lessons about allowing money and possessions to ride in the front seat of my life journey buggy. And…I believe that giving anonymously has more gravitas than indexing the amount you give to how prominent your name will be on the donors list or where and beside whom you’ll be seated at the charity event. But for a moment, I’ve just gotta mention what LFG and I give, before we preen about what we get.

Our charitable giving is kid centric. It’s my choice and I like the measureable efficacy of the money that’s given to a select few charities. It’s the business modelling-measure the value of the effort-consultant in me. I’m hopelessly commercially minded. It’s what I do for a living. And to that end, I like the fact that when I give two hundred and fifty bucks to Smile Train, I am guaranteed that at least one child will receive the restorative surgery necessary to literally change forever, the trajectory of their life-journey. So there are a half-dozen of those little people somewhere in the world that as a result of what LFG and I’ve done in 2011, have mouths, lips and palates that now look right and function properly. Ok, before you begin to contrive your scalding ass comments, calling me out for bragging about our charitable giving; chill out. At the risk of redundancy, I’m telling you that this little bit of giving pales breathtakingly when compared to the obscene level of getting that LFG and I experienced at Christmas.

And we love Meg Fairfax Fielding for about one point eight gazillion reasons and if for no other, we would give every year to Woodbourne. But the other reason that we always give to them is that older kids seem to get forgotten by society faster than others. It’s no secret that a healthy new-born child usually gets adopted quickly. But let a kid get a little older or have a special need or be a minority and the chances of placing them become much tougher. So I believe that places like Woodbourne are doing sublime work by creating an environment where their kids have a better chance of growing up and becoming self-sufficient members of society. LFG and I gave to Woodbourne in 2011 and we’ll do it again this year.

And finally, my business partners and I decided about a decade ago to change how we expressed appreciation for our clients. My partners and I are blessed with healthy, happy children. LFG of course, is smarter and prettier than any of them but that’s beside the point. We decided that instead of sending all of the holiday gift baskets and booze and typical loot that every other vendor and consultant also sends, we’d do something better. The Make a Wish Foundation offers, as you probably know, an opportunity for a terminally ill child to experience their dream trip, event or whatever. I can’t imagine what it feels like to learn that one’s child is terminally ill. But what I can imagine is how it feels to know that a terminally ill child will realize their wish. We send one child each year on their way…to whatever experience it is that will bring them some joy. And we make sure that our clients know that we are doing so in their honor.

Whew, now that I’ve gotten all that karmic penance shite out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. And let’s start with LFG. This Christmas was different in a couple of ways and mostly because LFG is older and the magic of the “throw any toy under the tree and they’ll squeal with delight” strategy is over. She wants, surprise I know, in addition to a sock monkey hat... clothes and money and gadgets. But I ended up faring rather well with my choices for her.

I’m gonna begin with the one thing that I was proudest of…LFG delight-wise. LFG tried on this cute little blazer several months ago in Brooks Brethren. It was too expensive for a jacket that even she couldn’t articulate how/when/where she would wear it. I figured that if I ever saw it at 60% off, I’d buy it for her. But from time to time, she would bring up unprompted, “that navy blazer.” And then she saw a ladies standard, less twee looking navy blazer in Brooks and said that she liked that one better.

Alas, it ain’t easy to find a navy blazer for a little girl. I tucked into J. Crew on Christmas Eve eve…the day I began my shopping this year, and saw a rack of ladies navy blazers. A nice sales lady talked it out with me and we decided that I should give a ladies size “0” a go. She said that if it didn’t work that I could return it and she’d order a “00” to try.

Folks…the navy blazer was THE hit of all the gets. LFG loved it and when I said that we could have Suh shorten the sleeves she resisted…demonstrating that she’d want to push the sleeves up on her arms. And like her tacky-a_s fuzzy daddy, she undid a couple of the working sleeve buttons.

I’m not sure why this particular gift of all things, had me bursting with pride. Maybe there's some kind of Trad neuroses bubbling up courtesy of the iconic navy blazer. Shut up.

I think that Hunter Wellies were barn mucking, utilitarian boots for generations. Not no more. They come in an array of colors and the fleece interlining socks are an interchangeable fuzzy accoutrement that just adds whimsy to the whimsical.

LFG preferred purple boots and she’s got pink and purple fleece fuzzies to swap out when so inspired.

And she loved the Vineyard Vines fleece vest and bracelet so much that we gave a similar vest to one of my business partner’s daughters.

And then LFG’s stocking began to ring. Yes, I bought her an iPhone. With very rigorous utilization criteria and consequences associated. And we allowed LFG to collaborate with us regarding what the rules should be. Before you tisk tisk and eye-roll over this one, hear me out. LFG already had a cell phone in her back pack for emergencies. She already had an iTouch for games and Apps and all the other things kids do with these delightful Apple devices. She is required to give her iTouch to charity. Her old cell phone is now obviously, shut off. Her mother and I have full access to her passwords, her emails and her texts. And on a selfish note, I can now call her and text her without having to undergo the hit and miss triage/middle person process of calling her mother and seeking telephone access to LFG that way.

So as always, it was a good Christmas for LFG.

And the obscenities don’t end there. For I was extry prone this year to practice a few highly skilled tactics myself. First, I did the “buy one for them and one for me” gift strategy. Next, I did the “tell them exactly what you want so that you don’t get shitty gifts” thing. And the outcome was perfect.

I love one hundred year old lead soldiers but I’m also a huge fan of how Bill Hocker of Berkeley California interprets the old ones. His story, not only about how he came into creating these contemporary versions of antique toys, but about the people he employs to help him, is a great one.

And so I got the Hocker Boer War Observation Balloon and another grouping of his little lead men.

Fuzzy Dog sweaters from J. Press are nice but they are so darned thick that unless it’s twenty degrees, my a_s tends to overheat in them. But I’m really digging the less expensive, thinner version that Rugby offers.

And of course, my Hulme leather Gladstone bag from Sterling and Burke is stellar. The jury is still out on how well it’s gonna work as a carry-on. Stay tuned.

My Anglo American tortoise sunglasses frames served me well for over a decade. And I decided on my Gotham stopover the week before Christmas, to replace them with an updated, lighter colored tortoise version. Same size, same everything. The guys at A.R. Trapp just popped my prescription lenses into the new frames and bam.

Uncle Alan Flusser bestowed upon me yet another pair of his bespoke Poulsen and Skone shoddings from thirty years ago. Sublime.

Drakes scarf. Yep…that rounds out my Christmas loot for 2011.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most intriguing find that I gifted myself this Christmas. It was absolute serendipity that I was offered these four large scale, hundred year old Georg Heyde lead soldiers. They are rare to the point of virtually unobtainable. I’d only seen one of these size soldiers one other time before. And you don’t even want to know what the tariff was in these four musket-damn-teers.

I’ve gotta close this drivel and get back to writing stuff that actually pays wages. I think that perhaps now you see why I took the time to drone on at length about giving…before crowing so much…about getting.

Onward. Having gotten. And now giddily prepping for an LFG weekend.

ADG II

Gary Cooper—Enduring Style

2012-01-12T09:07:00.000-05:00

I always knew that Gary Cooper was an all ‘round good guy. And for us clothes nuts, Cooper, usually courtesy of Alan Flusser, has always made the pages of sartorial testimony. As an exhibit of course, of one who knew how to wear clothes. And he did.

I’m sure I’ve construed and contrived…contorted and embellished for my own clothes loving amusement…Alan Flusser’s little story about Cooper buying fabrics and taking them to Malibu for aging-fading-patinating in the sun…before taking them to the tailor for some kind of assembly. After reading Enduring Style, I have more circumstantial evidence to believe the story. For Gary Cooper too; loved clothes.

It’s no secret that lots of Gary Cooper’s clothes originated on Savile Row. And of course you’ll get a good dose of that evidence in Enduring Style.

But what you’ll really get—courtesy of the fact that these are Cooper family photos, is overwhelming evidence that like Astaire, Cooper also had the necessary duende to be equally elegant when kitted out in accessories that might have been picked up at Woolworth's.

I’ve settled on what I’ll call Cooper’s “England-Montana” antecedents as the basis for his personal strategy.

Born to British parents and raised in what had to have been back then and probably remains, a neck of the woods that bred self reliance. Self reliance and subsequently, a measure of gravitas balanced with not taking oneself too seriously. Montana was an adolescent twelve year old State when Gary Cooper joined it.

His aura and essence of down to earth American gravitas riding shotgun with a reserved elegance that could only be helped by being six feet-three inches tall—five feet of which seemed to be legs. Like me. Shut up.

In some ways it’s rather sad to be impressed with people who accomplish some rather standard things. The bar these days is so low for certain performances that when you see an above average example, it seems like an unassisted triple play.

You know…like getting married only once and evolving that initial connection into a symbiotic partnership that stands…that withstands…especially when Hollywood and the movie business are environmental swathings that shroud the effort.

And to have years later, an adult daughter who isn’t in need of writing Crawford-esque Mommy Dearest exposés to cleanse her Hollywood childhood demons. Coop lived an honorable life in-full and its right here for your viewing, in Enduring Style.

Bruce Boyer and Cooper’s daughter Maria have done a stellar job of assembling Cooper family pictures and annotating it all with worthy insights. And as luck would have it, I’ve missed every one of their book signing parties. Some because I was scheduled elsewhere and a few because I was paid handsomely not to show up. And plenty has already been blogged about this great little book but I wanted my humble three-point-seven cents worth to be on the record as well.

I also enjoyed reacquainting myself with Bruce Boyer’s words and his writing style. God and everyone knows, photo courtesy of the blogosphere, that the man has unparalleled personal and sartorial style. But his ability to string a phrase exceeds even his sartorial gifts. There are some writers whose words I so enjoy reading that I’ll blow through whatever they scribe. Boyer has that gift and of course, I’m always keen on a sartorial back story.

Reading Enduring Style prompted me to pull Boyer’s 1985 book, Elegance, off my shelf. And I enjoyed reorienting myself to the man who’s lead many a sartorial treatise at Town and Country, GQ, Esquire, The Rake and scores of other publications through the years. I urge you to get a copy of Enduring Style but I’d also have you consider adding Boyer’s Elegance to your sartorial library as well.

The Cooper book is one of those that I’ll use like a select half-dozen others in my home. I’ve now read it cover to cover and will grab it from time to time…just to get a transient bolus dose of visual comfort. A glimpse at a man and an era when style and gravitas were things that occurred in a man or woman as a by-product of whom and what they were…of what they believed, felt and lived by. Style and gravitas as a result, not intent.

Onward. At five feet-three inches tall—one foot of which seems to be my damn legs. With broken molars and root canals and porcelain implants gobbling up all of my 2012 fun money. It hurts. And it ain’t funny. Shut up.

ADG II

*I borrowed, as usual, photos from all over the Internet to contrive this little yarn. If I’ve stepped on the toes of any of you sensitive types… Do please, let me know.

Gladstone and Levis 501s

2012-01-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

My maiden travel sortie of 2012. It dawned on me last night as I checked into the Hyatt Regency Princeton that I've been doing this gig since 1996. And the trade-offs I make to do what I do for a living have on balance, been worth it. The biggest trade-off is averaging two nights each week away from home. It’s a fair price to pay given that I compensate by taking pretty much two months off each year for holidays/staycations/LFG jaunts etc. It’s all good.

Oh...and I've done really cool things with my travel points over the years. I had a fair amount of business miles and commensurate points under my belt before starting my own gig. And I suppose one of the most memorable uses of my travel points was flying Concorde before they decommissioned the program.

As I rolled up here last night in a pair of 501s I pondered “jeans and the middle-aged man” as a blog story. I’ll address the issue of my still-in-work ADG Denim/Age Index and who knows, I might create an iPhone app to sort it out for those in the lurch on this issue.

To steal and edit a phrase from my buddy Fitz…“501s are the Meryl Streep of jeans”…they're generally successful in any role. You may disagree with the 501s part of the analogy but think about Streep for a moment. Other than being a sixty-two year old stunner, she’s one hell of a role-player. Evidence?

Karen Silkwood

Julia Child

Margaret Thatcher

Back to this 2012 first night on the road for a moment. Someone asked if my self-gifted Hulme leather Gladstone bag was gonna be too heavy-comparatively-to the canvas carry-ons and duffels that I’ve used for years. Well frankly, I don’t have enough experience yet to settle on an opinion. I love the bag for several reasons but one of the deal closers for me when I saw it at Sterling and Burke in Georgetown (I was doing the “one present for them-oh, and one present for me” thing that day) was the Gladstone-esque way the thing opens. It’s like throwing stuff in a barrel. And that suits me. But I haven’t flown with it yet so stay tuned.

Oh, and for those who haven’t visited Sterling and Burke, it’s one of the best and hopefully less-kept, secrets in D.C. If I want a little whiff of New Bond Street I just step inside Sterling and Burke. And one of the most appreciated gifts I gave (not the Gladstone bag to my damn-self, silly) this year came from them.

Onward. Amidst breakfast and John O’Hara. Then a project pitch and a hurried drive back home.

ADG II

Kicking 2012 Off...In Flannel Pajamas

2012-01-05T08:18:00.000-05:00

The first three work days of 2012 have been blessed mania. Hygiene holiday hunker down in a baseball cap mania. I’ve been writing case studies for a strategy project and as usual—have been under the deadline gun. I was gonna tidy up the last bits of it during the Christmas holiday in South Carolina but then my mouth blew up and everything was on hold.

With the exception of donning an old pair of LL Bean flannel lined khakis and going to the bank to deposit an expense check, I’ve been self-exiled…sequestered…put away…sent to my room…literally, since last Sunday night. It kinda reminded me of grad school when I would hyper focus for thirty-six hours straight and maniacally write a soon to be due paper—thinking the entire time as I pulled the words out of my a_s, that this was gonna be the time that my procrastination and ADD whateverishness had finally caught up with me. But then I’d get a smokin’ hot good grade on the script. I’ve lost the boxes that contained most of my schoolwork. But I do have one paper that I wrote on the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania. My professor initially gave me an A-minus on the paper. But then he crossed it out and put “A+…You captured it perfectly.”

So a maniacal three days of writing isn’t anything new. Butcept this time I remained at home in my favorite pair of Brooks Brethren flannel pajamas for 100% of the time excepting the trip to the bank and the post office. Baseball hat and pjs and soup—I’m so freakin’ tired of soup. After I hit “send” on the email that jettisoned my out-of-the-butt panic writing…seven attached pdf files, I felt like I’d just been sprung from prison. And my Brooks pjs were gamey to say the least.

So I showered, shaved and layered on a dose of ADG sartorial absurdity and headed to Brooks Brethren in Georgetown. It was sixteen degrees yesterday morning and the skies seemed to say all day that they’d be offering snow.

So I wanted some color to go with my layers. The resultant shodding and horizontal hosiery screamed … “look everyone; ADG’s been pole-axed by a gay Dr. Seuss!” Shut up.

And it was certainly cold enough for my Ralph Camel Polo Overcoat.

My Christmas present to self Drakes/Flusser scarf tightened this rig up just right.

And by the way, if you haven’t visited the Georgetown Brooks, you should. It’s a great store and I’d rather have it as the replacement of Larry McMurtry’s old book shop than the Pottery Barn that was there before.

While at the Brethren, I phoned a friend and proposed…not THAT kind of proposal…that we meet thereafter at Bistrot du Coin for an early dinner—given that my jaw has sufficiently recovered to graduate from soup to roast chicken. She laughed at my update on going to the Brethren and declared that I needed no clothes. No shit. After making her aware that I’d been living in the same pair of flannel pjs for three days, she without pause said…“Get two”.

But alas it was not to be. The flannel pjs are on sale and they are pretty much gone. They had a pair of extra-large but on my best, puffiest chest day, I’ll not fill those bad boys. And this was a situation of wanting it now. None of this “let me call around to the other stores and have them sent to you” thang. My gamey ones have now been sandblasted and detoxed—ready for another flurry of Occupy CasaMinimus.

I had some time to kill before heading over to Bistrot du Coin so I stopped in at Sky Valet on upper Wisconsin to check on the status of my Edward Green Westminster double monks that I ordered in October. Please go and visit these guys. They are a pedal oasis in an otherwise style devoid town. As much as I love my Gotham jaunts and sartorial finds in other cities, I’m gratified to transact some business with local merchants who purvey tasty goods. Alden, Edward Green and Crockett & Jones represent the bulk of their mens offerings. Oh, and they are shoe makers by training and do expert repair work. And right now, all of their Crockett & Jones and Alden shoes in stock are 10% off.

I’m not impatient. The Sky guys told me that special orders were bottle-necked at Green’s Northampton works and given the two-week factory shutdown at Christmas, it would be January or February before they rolled in. I didn’t figure they’d be in but it was a good excuse to stop by and say hello. Why the custom/special order? Hello. Did you forget whose freakin’ blog you’re reading? I wanted the lighter, reddish-yellowish tan/brown suede and I wanted a Dainite sole.

So the Bistrot du Coin roast chicken and pommes frites…swimming in a thin roast chicken gravy…was perfect…even though I had to gnash every bit of it on one side of my mouth. Worry not. I pre-medicated with a Kir Royale and then accompanied the one-sided gnashing with a twenty-four dollar bottle of a white Burgundy--no need to go overboard. There’s nothing better to sooth me, short of Roxanne Burgess, than French country comfort food.

Onward. Into 2012 full-bore. Reveling in the fact that I had the time and energy to cobble such quintessential randomanalia. And wearing hats like the one my mama made me wear in the picture above when I was three. Kind of a piccolo Stormy Kromer. It's cold here.

ADG II

The Artist

2012-01-03T07:23:00.000-05:00

I saw it last night. Brilliant. Brilliant Brilliant.

Never thought I’d enjoy a silent movie. But I did.

And Bérénice Bejo is a stunner.

But the Jack Russell stole the show for me.

Happy 2012 everyone. I’ve got some things to write about and I’ll actually have the time to do so this week. Stay tuned.

Onward. Kick starting my 2012 work efforts.

ADG II

Calder's Circus

2011-12-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

I love Alexander Calder. And I love all of his forms…his tools…his media. I just think his work is flat-out brilliant in a whimsically geometric way. And for some reason, I tend to believe that unlike me in my present state, Calder did not use narcotics.

I loved the Calder-Miro show years ago and I stumbled upon, literally by accident, the Calder Portraits show several months ago in Washington. As a collector of caricature, I was flummoxed, delightfully floored by what I saw. The brilliance dealt the first blow but then I was bitch-slapped by the mechanics—the technique of bending wire. Just amazing.

I could posit several examples to support my amazement with the Calder Portraits but for now; I’ll let Babe Ruth stand as exhibit number one.

I love the child in Calder and I’ve loved having LFG as my co-conspirator and giggly cohort in reliving my childhood during these last ten years. I can’t speak for others but for me, living amidst this ever so complex world, I sometimes need a huge ass dose of whimsy. And Calder is a great dealer in such goods. Look at the creative clutter in his studio. I've found a new excuse for my mess.

Just realized that the three previous paragraphs begin with “I love(d)”. That ain’t that bad is it? LFG and I got great Christmas presents this year and I’m gonna do a post on our loot. But I wanted to tell a story about what might be the best gift I received. I got a book about Calder’sCircus—a child’s book. And no it wasn’t intended for LFG. It was specifically meant for me. And I love it.

Calder’s genius is manifest in all of his media. But for me, there’s nothing better than seeing it emerge through the absolutely crazy characters in his Circus.

The mechanics and the art appeal to me in etchings and drypoints. Same goes for my late 19^th century toy soldiers. Technology and art…left and right brain dialectics. Calder pulls every dialectic lever with his Circus. It’s all there man!

I’d pay serious money to hang out with Calder and ask him about his Circus…what motivated him…where the ideas came from…did he ever get frustrated and trash a prototype in disgust…did he chain smoke cigs sometimes while bending wires and swathing these little contrivances…how did he know when he got one “right”?

“Human Salvation Lies in the Hands of the Creatively Maladjusted” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed Dr. King. Indeed.

Onward…with Oxycontin and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. One less tooth and an implant pending.

ADG II and LFG—In South Carolina

The Sears Christmas Catalog 1969

2011-12-27T08:07:00.002-05:00

The proper name for it was the Wish Book. But we weren't much on the proper over here when I was a kid. I’m sitting as I type this, in the same room…in the same spot where my sister and I would fight like cats and dogs over the catalog till my mama intervened. The most efficacious stun-gun in her arsenal from just before Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve was “Santa Claus is watching you.” That simple phrase would have us compliant in a nanosecond.

The Christmas catalog was our Google search. It was our Internet. It was the congregation of the bits and pieces that we’d seen on Saturday morning television ads and at Woolworths and Kress on Evans Street…an amalgamation of options. I suppose it was intended to facilitate trade-offs and focus so that young’uns could tell mama and daddy exactly what to round up for Santa to drop off at the house. That particular intent was lost on me but then again, Ritalin and Adderall weren’t standard pediatric unguents in a Florence, South Carolina of 1969. And when the big book would arrive in the mail, I was riveted. It would prime my imagination with options from alternating pages of grayscale newsprint and in-your-face color depictions of any and everything I knew I wanted. And it offered things that I’d never seen before but suddenly realized that I couldn’t live without.

The 1969 edition of the holy book of goods depicted things that I suppose I received over probably three or four Christmases. Seems like the categories of toys I coveted had staying power and most were generally focused on death and destruction or good over evil. The good over evil thang was huge come to think of it.

GI Joe…far and away my favorite childhood toy. I still enjoy reading about the Hassenfelds up at Hasbro in Pawtucket Rhode Island rolling the dice on this one. Literally betting it all on this game-changer. “Boys won’t play with dolls…nor should they.”

Ok, it’s an “Action Figure.” And my neighborhood buddies and I would dig trenches and set up battle scenes and then blow it all up with M-80’s. Yep, M-80’s and Cherry Bombs. There was nothing delicate and baby doll about how we rained chaos on GI Joe and his comrades.

But before I had a GI Joe, my mama unwittingly secured for me a soldier named “Stony”. Stony was a feeble attempt to compete with GI Joe and I’m pretty sure they launched in tandem. I don’t fault my mama for choosing Stony over Joe. She loved me—still does—and wouldn't intend to inflict undeserved emotional distress upon me. But it happened. I’ll leave the Stony v. Joe story for now. It deserves its own blog post. Seriously.

Before we leave GI Joe, take a gander at this high-tech 1960's teaser above.

I wasn't much on science fiction and space fantasy but one year Moon McDare was a home run for me. There were several other companies that attempted to compete with Hasbro in the action figure category and McDare, I think, was made by Gilbert. Stony and the Johnny West series were courtesy, I think, of Marx.

I had a brief go with the Wild West stuff but abandoned it quickly for my stalwart GI Joe...stuff.

And of course "Geronimo started it"...

Major Matt Mason was pretty cool and I remember stringing up the jet ski like space scooters that Mason and his team rode…in my case…right here in Galaxy 69—my mother’s living room. “Billy Blastoff?” Please. Seems like he went on to make films—of a certain genre.

Here...get to know Major Matt Mason courtesy of YouTube.

Combat Gear. A couple of episodes of Rat Patrol or Combat was all the fodder we needed to roam the neighborhood in search of Nazis and (sorry…it was Florence-1969) and Japs. But since this was at the height of Vietnam, we soon ended up at Mangum’s Army-Navy Store on Dargan Street, procuring the genuine goods. Ten bucks and a station wagon ride courtesy of somebody’s mama would assure a head-to-toe authentic army gear kit-out at Mangum’s.

Bottom of the left page…the Johnny Seven. Folks, words cannot convey the excitement manifest in this one weapon. This one…do all…kill all…protect all device that would have rendered Rambo cowering behind Pudgy Burgess’s mama’s Vista Cruiser station wagon…begging for mercy. Eight dollars and forty-four cents is nothing to pay for that level of security. Shut up.

I mean really. What kid wouldn't want the Johnny Seven after seeing this top secret-classified television commercial update on the J-7 capabilities?

Battle Ground Europe and the Battle of Fort Apache. Not that you care, but these extruded plastic monochromatic “army men” were the death knell for hand painted lead soldiers. The reasoning (other than the fact that lead tends to lower the I.Q. of kids…an already pervasive problem in the South Carolina of my youth) was simple. A kid could get a hundred plastic ones in all guises/poses/iterations of action for what ten lead ones cost. And I had millions of the plastic ones. LFG and I still find one now and then when walking the grounds of my youth.

"Capacity crowd" my a_s. I only have one story to tell about a rip-off. Stony wasn’t a rip-off…just an innocent mistake by my mama. But the NFL Big Bowl Electric Football set was a flat out rip-off. No other way to put it. You set up your teams and hit the “go” button on this electrically mediated contest. The intent was, I reckon, for the vibrating surface of the field to send the players in their proper directions. It was a hoax folks. The players vibrated their way in every direction but where they were supposed to go. There was NO control over them and therefore NO fun associated with this game. I abandoned it within an hour. Funny, about six months later I saw my Aunt Tootie sitting on it and giggling.

The bikes. Spyder death traps and my buddies and I HAD to have them. And we did.

I’ll close this reminiscence with a page from the “these things will kill you” department. I’m not an NRA member and I realize that we no longer live in the world of my youth. But I think every little boy, and little girl for that matter, needs to at least once, shoot a tin can with a BB Gun.

Oh, and one other thing as I sit here in the neighborhood of my youth. There are still tons of kids living on the adjacent streets and the one I grew up on. By seven a.m. on Christmas morning and for the ensuing week off from school, the kids of my youth were swarming the streets and lawns, reveling in the excitement of Christmas toys, bikes and games. In today's online, electronic gadget and gamer world, the same streets are abandoned.

Onward…at home in Florence. Writhing in pain and awaiting the verdict on having the root canal done here or when I get back to Virginia on Friday. No better place to be when in pain than at home with your mama.

ADG the Second and Lady LFG the Only.

Heavy Tweed Christmas

2011-12-24T20:01:00.000-05:00

LFG and I wish for you and yours a magnificent holiday and great New Year. Our 2011 has been incredible and I’m anxious to have LFG over in the morning to open all of this and then head to S.C. to see my mom.

I’ve already amassed gifts both material and otherwise that reward me far beyond what I deserve. And one of the real treats was the news that Heavy Tweed Jacket is back up and running for the Holidays.

I urge you to leave a message over there and request that Mr. Heavy Oxford Cloth Tweedmon to leave the site up in perpetua.

Happy Holidays!

ADG and LFG

To Heck With Hitchens—I’ve Got a New Girlfriend!

2011-12-20T06:33:00.001-05:00

Her name is LFG. And she’s a dancer.

And she’s growing up so fast I can hardly stand it.

In addition to that bit of breaking news…we have more superficial randomanalia.And I figured we needed it over here at my little corner of the world-after all the delightful pyrotechnics that the Hitchens mention created. I would have been disappointed and all of you if the fireworks hadn't launched. This load of randomness includes the fact that my Mini Cooper S is quite impractical around Christmas time. But Mountain Dew always seems to mitigate the most perplexing of challenges. It remains to this day, the best antidote to cotton mouth.

What’s been your largest holiday parcel that you've had to deliver this year? See above regarding the impracticality of a Mini Cooper S.

It’s been warm up till now. And I’ve been wearing summer weight suits quite a bit this month. Including this one and only two button Flusser from my archives. All the rest are 3/2.

And this shirt? A twenty year old Ike Behar horizontal hairline stripe…contrasting collar and cuffs. A rather attenuated Gordon Gecko here. Shut up.

But then it got cold and I wore a heavier wool pinstripe Flusser rig another day. Bam. (Bam. Without an exclamation mark. Don’t be vulgar—we’re still in mourning over here)

And then it got really cold.

But not so cold that my girlfriend LFG and I couldn't put up the Christmas tree. Oh, and the Wii Fit? Yep, that’s for me. My arms are getting jiggly and my butt is sagging.

Saggy butts can be aided with the curved cut of a fishtailed English split back trouser. The good folks over at Bookster made the cords for me. Bookster ain't Huntsman but neither are they Huntsman prices. I've yet to try anything other than their trousers but the trews are well worth the price point. I wore these yesterday here in Stamford—the location of my final billable for the year and what a year it’s been. My best since 1996. I’m off the chart grateful. I now finally have the money for my hair transplant.

But if you really wanna draw attention away from your jiggly arms and saggy butt, just strap on a Grecian formulaic Houndstoothian ensemble like this. Jiggly-saggy will be the least of your issues.

Ok, I’ll close this load of superficial drivel now. Peace. Out.

ADG II in Stamford. Stopping off in Gotham for a dose of NYC Christmas and maybe a little gift for myself. What might that be? Onward.

Hitch

2011-12-18T06:52:00.000-05:00

I disagreed with him most of the time. But he wrote with intelligence and clarity so I read everything he wrote. His assemblage of words was always as elegant as he was rumpled. Don’t preen and crow as you take Hitchens to task for his views. He’d expect your response to be standard behavior for any self-respecting thinker—and certainly nothing to preen about unless of course, you were offering a robust counter.

We are slowly losing our public intellectuals. Or perhaps we are placing them in locales that are lost to me because I be damned if I can find 'em. I used to watch Firing Line with William F. Buckley when I was a kid and I don’t know exactly why because I really couldn’t grasp fully what they were talking about. But I do remember wanting to watch it because I envied this man who seemed to pop-off the most remarkable words in an almost unintelligible, at least for a kid in South Carolina, square jawed accent. He made me want to learn. I wanted to learn those words and I wanted to get better at grasping ideas and developing opinions. Hitchens did the same for me. And if I'm limited to passing on but one trait-habit-proclivity to my child, I'd want it to be the thirst for knowledge and the openness to accept all viewpoints before settling on hers.

Unwavering. Yep. That’s a proper word for Hitchens. His brother Peter said this about him… “My brother possessed courage to the very end, and if I often disagreed with the purposes for which he used it, I never doubted the quality or ceased to admire it. I’ve mentioned here before C.S. Lewis’s statement that courage is the supreme virtue, making all the others possible. It should be praised and celebrated, and is the thing I‘d most wish to remember."

“The acquisition of knowledge is the unending business of the soul” and I’m in Hitchens’ debt for helping feed my intellect. I generally don’t cower, based on my few experiences, in the presence of famous or powerful people. My problem with authority is such that I think I’m genetically predisposed to become surly as opposed to nervous in such circumstances. I think I’ve told the story of approaching Hitchens at Washington National Airport years ago but indulge me again. I was scared to do so but couldn't...not. And I could barely utter a word. Here’s an email I sent the other day recounting it…

“Steve

It’s 533am EST and NPR woke me up at 5 with the news. I don't generally get nervous in the midst of public figures but I think I wrote somewhere that when I met Hitchens one day years ago at National Airport, I could barely get "hello" out of my mouth. He gravitated to a little 3 year old LFG who was in my arms and asked me about her. As he walked away I said to LFG..."I hope there will always be a Christopher Hitchens." He turned around and simply said..."thank you."”

I’m already missing the hell out of Christopher Hitchens. I’ve never had a glass of Johnny Walker. And certainly have never had one cut with a splash of Perrier. But I’ll do so sometime this week and simply say…thank you.

ADG II

Christmas Cheer for a Buck-Fifty

2011-12-15T09:44:00.002-05:00

I’m never at a loss for suggesting to my public what to get me for Christmas. I prefer NOT to be surprised by my clan for more often than not, the surprise is not a good one. LFG and I for years, have engaged in a fun little tradition of buying me antique toy soldiers for Christmas. We go to my buddy Neil’s shop on the Hill…I select three options for my gift…I go sit outside and wait till LFG chooses one of the three. They call me back inside after LFG’s choice has been made and boxed up so I won’t know the selection. And then Neil sends me the bill. Works great for all involved.

My pal over at Vogue on the Range emailed me and asked for insights on Christmas gifts for the budget minded. I’ve long since been smitten with Ms. Ranger…a stunning gal and at present, dutiful law school attendee. Here's her missive...

"Dear ADG:

Couldn't help but notice what methinks is your trim, hoofpick belt-clad midsection on Scout Charlottesville today, and so I thought I would drop you a line. Could you please do a post of a gift guide for the sartorially inclined gentlemen friends (with perhaps a section on appropriate stocking stuffers and otherwise less tres cher gifting options for us currency-challenged law students)?"

And of course, I’m happy to oblige.

But first, let me tell you the story about the evening I asked her to marry me. I’m not making this up. If you don’t believe me, ask my sister AllieVonAintNevahSeenaBudget and her husband MisterDoctorBaby. Or axk my man D. … late of Southern Gent and presently at Politico. They was all sittin’ at the table when I done it.

Allie pulled together a little drinks/dinner meet up for us all back in the summer. I hadn’t even finished one drink so it wasn’t the hooch doing the bidding. It was all me. Being twice Ms. Ranger’s age, I didn’t prevaricate around the bush. I simply asked her to marry me for fifteen years. Thereafter, she’ll still be in her prime and I’ll deserve to be left to my own dotage and devices. Perhaps I’m delusional but I DO think I’ve got fifteen good years left yet after that, I’d be willing to set such a lovely gal like Ms. Ranger free. Skin elasticity issues horrify me and I be damned if I’d ask anyone to hang around and witness that immutable process.

Alas, with great poise, Ms. Ranger reminded me that she was commited to a lucky man and that was that. So what does one buy for such a lucky man when the budget is tight? I decided to pull together a gaggle of things that I’d like to have…all coming in at less than 150 bucks. Here goes…

Dressing theMan: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion—35 bucks: If your man reads, and if you think he’d appreciate a style reference, Alan Flusser’s Dressing the Man would be my suggestion. There are other good ones out there but Alan remains King.

Target BoxerShorts—Four Bucks: I wasn’t kidding y'all when I said I buy boxers at Target.

Central Watch GrosgrainWatch Straps-Five for 30 bucks: AllieVonChaChinger turned me on to this source.

J.Crew Fun Socks-Three for 30 bucks: Great stocking stuffers.

Sid MashburnOyster Belt Buckle—75 bucks: I’ve changed my tune on Mashburn. More later in a post devoted to him.

Other Sid beltsfor 50 bucks: Mashburn’s banging eleven on the style/fuzzy meter.

Sid Sport Shirts for 145 bucks: I’m gonna pop for a couple of these my damn self. Instead of buying two-three of those cheap ass sweatshop made ones over at J. Crew, buy one of Sid's.

Rugby Canvas& Italian Leather Bag: On sale for 130 bucks: I’m a Battenkill/Hulme man but I checked this bag out at Rugby (Who by the way, is kicking J.Crew’s ass in the fuzzy department). I did not like this bag at 250 bucks. I pounced at 130.

Wiley Brothers Belts:The Hoof Pick—145 bucks: Are you gonna buy a bunch of little things or one BIG present? If 150 is your budget and you’re gonna opt for one thing. Pounce on the Hoof Pick. Yet again, another heads up from SistahAllie two Christmases ago for me. I’ll have this belt till well beyond skin elasticity issues. I admit openly and without shame that I hope to be wearing it when I proudly step to the counter at CVS to get my first prescription of Viagra filled. I’m hoping by then though, that they have a combination product that mitigates both ED and BPH. I suggest that they call it…Niagra.

Bill Hocker’s 79thNew York State Militia—153 bucks: I like 100 year old lead soldiers but Bill Hocker faithfully recreates them and I LOVE his interpretations. Hocker is always my alternative venue for an LFG gift to me.

Ok, that’s it for now. I’ve got a real job to focus on and a lifestyle to fake. Oh...I almost forgot another option. LFG will make you some hippie bracelets but you'll need to contact us soon if you want them before Christmas. They are one-of-a-damn-kind-artisnally inspired-curated and pickled. 400 bucks each. 350 for the ones that LFG's dog peed on.

Onward. Still fairly pliable. Over bracelet-ed this morning. At a buck-fifty or less.

ADG II

Outlaw Trad

2011-12-15T06:53:00.000-05:00

Outlaw Trad...Kenny Howard...VonDutch...THE best pin-striper and customizer EVER. Rockin' a Weejunesque Penny and cuffed/turned up trou.

Dig the socks. Or not. Shut up.

Fred Astaire Goes to London…April 1923

2011-12-13T19:57:00.000-05:00

I was thumbing through Steps in Time…Fred Astaire’s rather bland autobiography and did run across a couple of sartorial nuggets. Fred and his sister Adele made their first trip to England in the early spring of 1923 aboard the Aquitania. Certainly, the performing duo was far from wealthy at this time and Fred would turn a youthful twenty-four in May. But youth and what must have been less than unlimited funds didn’t keep Astaire on the sartorial sidelines. I remember my first walk on Savile Row and Jermyn Street...but as I've shared before...and unlike Astaire...I was too intimidated to walk into A&S.

“I went on a clothes buying binge on Savile Row, mostly at Anderson and Sheppard’s. It was difficult not to buy one of every cloth that was shown me, especially the vicunas. They never wore out. I outgrew most of them.”

“It was Hawes and Curtis and Beale and Inman for shirts and such."

“I’d get lost for days in the Burlington Arcade.”

Astaire also mentions his admiration for a uniquely cut white waistcoat worn by his new acquaintance, the Prince of Wales. Upon learning that it was made by Hawes and Curtis, Astaire called on them to make an identical version for himself; whereupon he was told that “it won’t be possible Sir.”

And finally, Astaire recalls feeling quite complimented after actor Adolphe Menjou asked him who made the tails he performed in one evening. I reckon the young Astaire had no idea that in not too many years to come, he would run sartorial circles around the over studied, too well contrived, stiffly formal Menjou. Astaire was Menjou’s swathed antithesis.

And if you’d fancy a well curated source for sartorial Astaire, I’d recommend G. Bruce Boyer’s Fred Astaire Style.

Onward, ADG II

Trad v. Prep v. WASP

2011-12-12T20:35:00.000-05:00

Now my boy B.F. (in red) is anything but TradPrep in this photo but he is, in all of his Scottish kit, one well turned out cat. And in addition to our shared Palmetto state heritage, (our mammas grew up in the same general neck of the woods) B.F. likes to scriven a yarn from time to time and like me, he’s crazy about clothes. When someone over at my tumblr axked the following question...Wasp style vs prep vs trad: what differentiates each? B.F. opined.

So for now, his answer to the question of Trad v. Prep v. WASP style is indeed, my answer…

“This is like the menu at a burger joint. You can slice and differentiate and subdivide until your fingers bleed. Southern prep, Anglo prep, can we get a big shout out for SURFER PREP? On the great Style Continuum, we are talking about a few centimetres out of a couple of city blocks. Pretty soon, it comes down to each person's style, and even that, of course, varies over time and space. ADG style, WT style, JFK style, A. Canine Dogg, IV, style...

I think there is something youthful-boyish about prep that may not necessarily be true about other forms of Trad. I am guessing "WASP" implies a little bit of proud New England stodginess and maybe a little more formality, though it would probably depend on what milieu we are discussing.

Much of our host's style is what we might call Dandy-Trad and I mean no disrespect when I observe that he seldom appears (at least in these pages) in the sober cloth of bankers and lawyers. But surely many of them are Trad to the Bone, aren't they? So if we take ADG in one of his houndstooth confections and plop him into the lobby at Brown Bros or the County Courthouse, it is pretty clear he is a client. But put one of those grey flannel guys in the reception area at Bushwood Country Club and people will assume he is there on business. And not the fun kind.

I do not intend to usurp the powers and prerogatives of the Mighty Mighty ADG, but I hope my opinions and thoughts may offer him at least a straw man to knock over as he expresses his own. Even though I find the distinctions fuzzy and ultimately unnecessary, I would say that Prep grows up and matures into Trad, while its cousin WASP may be more confident and playful, though sometimes a little down-at-the-heels. And damned proud of it.

You may print this out and take it, along with $5 to your nearest coffee house, diner, or eatery. They will probably give you a cup of joe in exchange, but I can't guarantee that.”

Houndstooth Diagonality

2011-12-10T09:45:00.001-05:00

Everything I write here is twee and superficial. But it’s been a while since I’ve limited my impertinence to purely sartorial drivelosity. Maybe it was the tumescent houndstooth carpet in the hallway at the Sheraton Jacksonville this week that inspired yesterday’s houndstooth rig. Or maybe it was the radical change made in my diet over these past many weeks.

You see; after at least a decade of “dry-up-three olives”…and often times, jalapeno stuffed ones…I’ve taken to my martinis with a twist. I think I’ve reached the point of olive overload. So after months of leaving two of the three olives alongside my cocktail napkin, drying out slowly…taking on that sandpapery dullness like a beached dolphin parching in the sun…I quit ‘em. No need to waste the briny bulbs of ‘tini ballast. For years I was as hooked (not really—I’m lying my ass off) on the olives as I was the hooch. I liked, especially with the taste buddian Fourth of July pyrotechnics offered by the jalapeno stuffed ones, the bitter tantrum that a gnashed morsel of olive would offer amidst an ice cold swig of clear comfort. Kinda like a Quaalude with a half sour.

Oh. Right. I was going to stick to just the sartorial stuff this morning. So it’s finally cold enough here to consistently wear winter togs. And it’s about time since our weather swings have been crazy. “Brown houndstooth and light gray flannel? That doesn’t match.” Do you EVEN remember who’s writing this sh_t? When did I worry about what matched? I consider light gray a neutral color. Shut the…

It wasn’t my original idea. I saw this little houndstooth-gray flannel snap of God Flusser over twenty years ago in a New York Times menswear supplement and it made sense to me. So there’s the attribution. Let’s move on.

But let's don't--for a moment. Here's the hint of gray flannel prairie doggin' out from under the swath of fabric.

This is a strong rig. Don't argue it with me.

Oh, and let me address the issue of diagonality. I’ve already anticipated the blowback that’ll be coming off of this but here goes. My preference is to angle a tie bar in a rather extreme manner.

One could argue that since the tie has diagonal stripes, a horizontal placement would create enough visual dissonance to make all of this junk geometrically interesting. Exactly. And that’s exactly why I wouldn’t do it.

And another point—please. DO NOT use a collar pin AND a tie bar. You’ll over collateralize your rig with unnecessary accoutrement…making redundant one of the two pieces of hardware. And you’ll be on the cusp of blingy. But you DO need one of them. Let me explain. A collar pin heightens the visual interest of the tie knot. It perks it up by cinching it in a way that creates a proud perch. We call it Proud Perch Perkiness. Every fraternity had one of those guys...Proud Perch Perky. Who was yours?

However, collar pins on these classic rounded collars is a no-no. It causes an already attenuated collar flap to almost disappear. Case in point is H. Ross Perot and his, for decades, ubiquitous round collar pinned (collar bar) ensemble. The giant sucking sound of collar nothingness is the endgame here. Don’t do it.

Ok, so if we can’t use a pin on these collars, how do we achieve Proud Perch Perkiness? You do so with a tie bar. Same outcome, different tactic. “You’ll never find a winning characteristic of one approach that fits all collar situations. Globalization of strategy is precarious.” –Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

So you wanna longer rounded collar that you can pin? No problem, when you bespeak shirts, just order a straight point collar and have them round the points for you. Request a rather significant rounding of the points and you’ll achieve the stellar outcome that Richard Merkin was known for when commissioning the same.

So this vintage Flusser jacket is a Brooks Brethren inspired model. Notch lapels…a deviation from my standard Flusser order of single breasted 2/3 peak lapels.

Patch and flap pockets and a ticket pocket to boot. I like the sprezzaturated insouciance that preens just a tiny bit—courtesy of the doggie eared pocket flaps. Shut up.

You can’t really see it but the breast pocket is an open patch as well. And all of the seams are welted. Only thing missing is a hook center vent. I don’t do center vents. Hooked double vents? Maybe.

The tie is Purple Label Ralph and the shirt is a twenty year old Alan Flusser end on end. Cuff Snaps? Yep. Georgetown Flea Market. Fifteen bucks. Bam.

I rounded this out with chocolate suede Edward Green Monkstraps and spent the day at Providence Hospital in Washington D.C. If you wanna be assured of a greater level of gratitude for your less than perfect life, spend a day at one of the only two hospitals in a large urban area that will care for certain subsets of Medicaid patients. Humbling. Back home, in my three hundred square feet of divorced man-nest, I kept my rig on for a while. Butcept I slipped into some kilim slippers. Diagonally. With a twist.

Onward. Mixing and matching. 80G-2

And another trip to the Post Office...

2011-12-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

...thanks Yankee Whiskey Papa. I owe you.

Just in from JAX via ATL. I'm gettin' too old for the road warrior life. Butcept leastways I got me a hat for the Spring time.

Onward. Sans LFG till her Sunday Dance Recital. And more than trumped by her dog.

ADG, II

Some trips to the Post Office…

2011-12-03T07:14:00.000-05:00

…are better than others. I travel quite a bit (surprise I know) and so for years, I’ve had my mail sent to a family owned parcel service down the street. They also do printing and shipping for my company so to say that they take good care of me is an understatement of epic proportion. And being a small, family business, they work their asses off.

Most mail pickup days are rather mundane and some are rather scary. I no longer get—fingers crossed here—registered packets from attorneys since we aren’t being litigated this year and I’m not amidst divorce. And IRS envelopes no longer quicken my pulse at all. If you own a business, you get used to those queries coming with some regularity. I also love the fact that I can dump junk mail and leave large packet and shipping boxes there for my friends to recycle or dispose. My monthly service fee is worth this courtesy alone. But the other day manifested a parcel pick up bonanza.

My Whistler etching by Boldini finally showed up. And it’s even more awe-inspiring in person.

Will from A Suitable Wardrobe was the first to send me a Christmas card as well as a pair of his great Bresciani socks. Will is a kind and thoughtful fella and as I’ve said before, the most knowledgeable guy out there with regards to the technical aspects of bespoke clothing. And his socks are truly a great indulgence. Click over there and treat yourself.

An Enduring Style rolled in. I’ll do a separate post on this great Bruce Boyer annotated tome later. (And just shut the ___ up in advance. I know I need to vacuum the rug. When do I not need to vacuum the rug(s) around here. I said shut up.)

The most surprising package contained the Kilim rug shown here. My buddy Scott is serving us in Pakistan…fulfilling his Reserve duty for one year in what is becoming day-by-day, an even dodgier spot for anyone to do their Duty. He emailed mentioning that during his very limited down time, there wasn’t much to do or much to spend money on—except rugs. So I just rather flippantly replied … “well hell Scotty, send me one…” And he did.

And finally, a huge ass Molasses Cake. My other Christmas present that I didn’t deserve. E.G. sends me all kinds of random stuff that she knows I’ll love…but this is the first time I’ve received something so tasty. I’ve had two slices this morning…slightly toasted with butter…washed down with coffee. And LFG hovered two pieces last night with, as E.G. instructed best to do, a cold glass of milk. Worry not about the en route concave-esque sequelae. It hindered not--the taste.

Onward. Waiting for my (grown) baby to wake. Wallowing in cool stuff. And eatin' cake.

ADG II

Divorced Man's Trip to the Grocery

2011-12-01T06:49:00.000-05:00

It was a dark and increasingly chilly early-evening in the office. I'd be late getting home and there was nothing in the pantry.

BAM! Fifteen minutes at the Giant in Old Town and I'm in business.

Bisque-Kwik

Bisque-Wisk

Doll it up with a bit of milk, Sherry, butter and fresh ground pepper. Shut up.

Comfort Food en Can(s)

I'm living a dream. Roxanne...come get your earthangs and your bracelet.

The Kilim Shoe Source—Books—Boys—Dances

2011-11-27T10:42:00.002-05:00

I wish the Farquhar family lived in the States. But since they do their Kilim thing in the Cotswolds, I doubt that they wish to live here inside the Beltway. Who could blame them? If they were around the corner, I'd already be commissioning one of the above. My house is overrun with rugs and other textilian evidence of what I materially salvaged from my marriage. Shut up.

And it’s no secret that my Kilim chaise would be the only piece of furniture that I’d rescue if my house was on fire. The two of us have…let me just say…History...with a capital H. And of course my appetite for textile-esque shoes of dubious origin and questionable gender categorization is legend. Shut up.

Here's a photo of me in dreamland atop my Kilim chaise and interestingly, a Kilim pillow offers me some form of cardiac security. It was 1995 and I was adrift in many ways so a Kilim pillow was as good as any to gird and ground my nap. Roxanne Burgess. Five makes ten that I'm dreaming of her.

When you read about Nomad Ideas you’ll learn that theirs is a family affair. Three daughters help mom and dad with their Kilim strategy. And their turnout is great. I’d love to have a Kilim club chair or the ottoman with hidden storage. I’d be torn regarding what to secret away in it. Stationery and fountain pens come to mind…magazines…Velcro restraints...Astroglide and my Herve Villechaize costume…the options are endless.

And Nomad Ideas sells Kilim everything.

Almost.

But since I’m a bit far from the Cotswolds, I’ll continue to settle for the great Kilim slippers they offer. About $185.00 gets a pair from the Cotswolds to the States and the process is decidedly and frankly, enjoyably low-tech. Email Pammie-Jane and request a gander at the slippers in your size. But do your homework before emailing. Know what your size conversion is for European metrics. They aren’t a shoe store per se and you’ll want to minimize the tisk-tisking about size and color choices. I wear a 40 or 41 and requested to see what she had in said sizes.

She’ll send a jpeg and you can take your pick. I’ve simply cropped the photo and sent back visual evidence of my choice along with a three-separate-email-sequenced conveyance of my MasterCard details. My second pair will be en route next week. So swing by and grab a pair. And tell ‘em I sent you. And as always, I’ve not accepted anything from Nomad Ideas in exchange for mentioning positively my experience with them.

Ok…on to books. LFG has a rather rigorous school-workload that includes regular book report projects. And if you’ve read my drivel you know that I love the book projects. But in addition to the regularly scheduled formal book projects, her school requires that they constantly read “something else for pleasure” and they have to complete one pleasure book every three weeks. At the end of three weeks they have to write up a very brief summary of their just completed book.

No worries, my baby loves to read. Always has.

Several Sundays ago LFG and I are seeking her next “something else for pleasure” book and she happened upon The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch. “M.A. LOVED this book dad.” (This news didn’t surprise me. M.A., one of LFG’s loveliest friends, read Phantom Toll Booth one zillion times) “Well then let’s get it for your next read.”

“But daddy it’s three hundred and eighty four pages.” And that right there pretty much put an end to the first installment of Bosch being LFG’s next reading project book. Then I watched her thumb through other chapter books and soon noticed that her number-one measure for considering a book was page count. We weren’t even close to any level of drama or frustration yet. Actually, and yes I know it’s just around the corner, we don’t have much of that on any given day. But I could sense an emerging lack of joy in the process. Plus, it concerned me that page count was prevailing as the primary driver of choice. We’ve all had to read brief articles, White Papers and slender books wherein every paragraph was painful drudgery. And of course many of us have read lengthy books in one or two sittings. But how do you convey this to a sixth grader?

I’m not brilliant so let me just admit that I pulled the solution to this smoldering issue of “the book’s too long for me daddy” out of my … slippers. “How long was the book you just finished LFG?” She couldn’t remember so we tracked it down and snagged that metric within moments. It pagi-damn-nated out to about two hundred and sixty. So I took the Bosch book and dog-eared the lower corner of page two hundred sixty one. “Ok baby, here’s the deal…forget that the other pages exist. You now have a book the same length as the one you just finished.” “But what about the other pages dad?” “DO NOT worry about them. Read the first two-sixty and then let’s talk.”

I had no idea if my strategy of head-in-the-sand total-page-number-denial was gonna work. But I was determined to try and get LFG off of page-count-being-the-driver-of-liking-a-book-or-not trend. Plus, she had three weeks to get it done. My nightmare scenario worked out to be a situation where LFG might be crying, convulsing and hating the book and I’d be sitting beside her cajoling the child into consuming another gulp of three of four pages between sobs—with one day to go before the final two hundred pages had to be done. Kinda like forcing doses of scrivened Castor Oil I reckon. And I was willing to accommodate the nightmare scenario.

You gotta love it when a plan comes together. Wednesday afternoon…three days into the journey I called LFG and asked her what page she was on. “Dad! I’m on page one-thirty-seven and I LOVE this book! Can I please have the others in the series?” She was finished with the first book in one week and begging for the next one. So I Amazon One-Clicked the other books then and there. “Are they here yet?” was LFG’s daily call-out to me. When they arrived in a few days, I drove straight to Chevy Chase to hand them off to LFG. I’ve yet to see my child so excited about a book…or a series of them. Page count be damned. I can’t imagine my life without books and I’m gratified that my young’un is developing a passion for them as well. And by the way, you might ask why we didn’t check these out at the library. They literally cannot keep them on the shelf. And, after LFG finishes her paperbacks, we always donate them to the library.

Now on to a more traumatic issue at hand. Coming up is my LFG weekend and I’ve been instructed to pick her up after “the dance” on Friday night. The dance? My child is in middle school and where we live that means sixth-seventh-eight graders co-mingled. My baby is going to her first school dance. Chaperoned of course, out the a_s by a zillion parents, LFG’s mom included. So no worries right? LFG went to Cotillion but this is different. DO NOT ask me to explain why. I can't. I’m just in denial.

My phone call with LFG the other day… “Are you gonna dance with an eighth grade boy? (LFG giggle on the other end) “No daddy.” “Are you gonna dance with a seventh grade boy? (LFG giggle on the other end) “No daddy.” “Are you gonna dance with a sixth grade boy? (LFG giggle on the other end) “No daddy.” “Oh…so you and your girl besties are all gonna dance together!” Yes daddy! Whew. It’s amazing how I can craft-wrought-contrive my desired realities.

But I did let LFG know that I thought it would be great if she danced with any boy who was nice enough to ask her. I told her on the phone and then backed it up in a letter to her. I can’t let my neuroses become hers.

Onward. Wearing kilim slippers. Reading books. And watching my little girl grow up.

ADG II

The Kilim Shoe Source—Books—Boys—Dances

2011-11-27T09:28:00.001-05:00

And it’s no secret that my Kilim chaise would be the only piece of furniture that I’d rescue if my house was on fire. The two of us have…let me just say…History...with a capital H. And of course my appetite for shoes of dubious origin and questionable gender categorization is legend. Shut up.

Here's a photo of my in dreamland atop my Kilim chaise and interestingly, a Kilim pillow offers me some form of security. It was 1995 and I was adrift in many ways so a Kilim pillow was as good as any to gird my nap. Roxanne Burgess. Five makes ten that I'm dreaming of her.

And Nomad Ideas sells Kilim everything.

Almost.

Ok…on to books. LFG has a rather rigorous school-workload that includes regular book report projects. And if you’ve read my drivel you know that I love the book projects. But in addition to the regularly scheduled, formal book projects, her school requires that they constantly read “something else for pleasure” and they have to complete one pleasure book every three weeks. At the end of three weeks they have to write up a very brief summary of their just completed book.

No worries, my baby loves to read. Always has.

“But daddy it’s three hundred and eighty four pages.” And that right there pretty much put an end to the first installment of Bosch being LFG’s next reading project book. Then I watched her thumb through other chapter books and soon noticed that her number-one measure for considering a book was page count. We weren’t even close to any level of drama or frustration yet. Actually, and yes I know it’s just around the corner, we don’t have much of that on any given day. But I could sense an emerging lack of joy in the process. Plus, it concerned me that page count was prevailing as the primary driver of choice. We’ve all had to read brief articles, White Papers and slender books wherein every paragraph was drudgery. But how do you convey this to a sixth grader?

I had no idea if my strategy of head-in-the-sand page ignorance was gonna work. But I was determined to try and get LFG off of page-count-being-the-driver-of-liking-a-book-or-not trend. Plus, she had three weeks to get it done. My nightmare scenario worked out to be a situation where LFG might be crying, convulsing and hating the book and I’d be sitting beside her cajoling the child into consuming another gulp of three of four pages between sobs—with one day to go before the final two hundred pages had to be done. Kinda like forcing doses of scrivened Castor Oil I reckon.

Now on to a more traumatic issue at hand. Coming up is my LFG weekend and I’ve been instructed to pick her up after “the dance” on Friday night. The dance? My child is in middle school and where we live that means sixth-seventh-eight graders comingled. My baby is going to her first dance. Chaperoned out the a_s by a zillion parents, LFG’s mom included. So no worries right? I’m just in denial.

Onward. Wearing kilim slippers. Reading books. And watching my little girl grow up.

ADG II

Toad Slippers

2011-11-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

Well, not really but Toad did send me a great book called The Gentleman’s Slipper by Fiona Dreesmann. Such a gesture simply reinforces my belief that Toad’s the real-deal, friend wise.

We share many of the same interests and also a mildly curmudgeonesque view of almost every damn thing in the world. Except daughters and granddaughters…we both shed the cranky affect when it comes to this delicate and sublime subject. Same thang, shoe-wise.

So yesterday I roll in to pick up the mail and there’s a parcel from England. Too thin to be my Cleverley shoes and thank God, too soon for their arrival and final invoice as well. Much to my great pleasure, it was this stunning book.

My views on foppish shoddings are clearly known around these parts. I’ve been accused of being a shill for Belgian Shoes even though I’ve never received anything from any supplier as a favor for writing about their goods. Conversely, Roxanne Burgess threatened to sue me unless I STOPPED writing about her goods. Sometimes a fella just can’t win for losing. Shut up.

Oh, sorry, that’s right, this is about slippers. I started thinking about Roxanne Burgess and a craving flung itself on me. Plus I’m taking a few days off from Adderall and this is the price we pay. Ok, back to slippers. “The slipper speaks of carpets and boudoirs and soft, shaded places where the wearer may relax and be themselves. Unlike our more public costumes, the slipper speaks of the real, private person” writes Julian Fellowes in the forward to Ms. Dreesmann’s book.

Fellowes goes on to tell a great story about his slipper shod second cousin Peregrine Fellowes.“…those slippers spoke of a man who is content in his own skin, of one who fears no judgment and seeks to make no judgment of others. The male slipper is not just a statement of physical comfort, but of a comfort within oneself. They tell of the man who wishes to be no one but himself. This is surely the man we would all want to be.” Indeed Lord Fellowes, indeed.

And I love the story that Ms. Dreesmann tells about her foray into the world of slippers. She wanted to make a special gift for her father’s seventieth birthday and so decided on needlepointing a pair of slippers for him. But she confesses that alas, after completing them, she didn’t have the funds to have her needlework converted into slippers. I’m sure that her father was just as proud to have, for his seventieth birthday, her loving handiwork pre-completion, as he was anything. The slippers in question are shown above.

So the book is just brimming with the oddities and eccentricities that can manifest so clearly in slippers. Every nuance and proclivity that might be conveyed shoddingly is visually evidenced herein.

I mean really. Please. Prince Rupert Lowenstein manifests a slipper led trifecta. Great shoes, beat-to-hell corduroy trousers and a single breasted peak lapelled jacket.

That’ll be me in another twenty-five years butcept I’ll have a monkey instead of a dog. A little monkey with an Alan Flusser bespoke outfit on. And a cigar. And little slippers. Monkey slippers. Lowenstein’s oldest son stitched his. Nice.

Cartier chairman Arnaud Bamberger is also noteworthy here. His needlepoint slippers are stronger than new rope.

Bam! Berger.

The 14^th Duke of Bedford’s slippers.

More Bedford contrivances. His wife made all of these for him.

And perhaps the greatest slipper manifestation in the book is the Sir Jackie Stewart story.

His are Cleverley and Stewart pays great respect to the shoe making legend.

The dog ate this guy’s shoes. Literally. And his gal worked on them for two years.

Toad wrote about the book as well. Go here to read his take. Thanks again Toad. I owe you.

Onward. In Kilim.

ADG, II

Hitchens and Me...Driving Home

2011-11-21T06:53:00.000-05:00

Fourteen hours round trip to Florence for my Aunt Kat's funeral. Twenty three hours of Hitchens on CD. Love him or hate him...I doubt that there's much middle ground where Hitchens is concerned...but let the man challenge your mind. And spare me the vitriol about his physical abuse...smoking and drinking and his atheism being the key drivers of his cancer. It might be true but W.G.A.S. If he's your ideological enemy, then take a page out of Sun Tzu's Art of War and learn as much about your nemesis as possible. I've not had this level of cerebral workout in years and I'm looking forward to the final nine hours remaining on these CDs. Oh, and I learned about a dozen real big, fancy words and I needed some. My vocabulary is scant and ancient.

And there's nothing like reading what's left of the local newspaper to re-engage in the ways of the rural South. A nine year old boy and an eight point Buck...bagged before going to school. Jerrob will be telling the story about this before-school outing for the next fifty years.

Stopped at Fort Bragg on the drive back. The gate guys had me pop the hood, open the trunk...they searched my car for fifteen minutes. No big deal except they forgot, after they answered affirmatively when I asked if directions to the 82nd Airborne Museum were well marked, to tell me that it was closed on Sundays.

Still enjoyed walking around the grounds a bit. All of the old wood framed WWII era barracks are gone. I'd not been to Bragg since my first visit to the museum in the early 1980's.

Onward. Blessed mania in the office for the next three days. And reveling in throwing a Monday morning grenade into the blogosphere containing such polarizing content as Christopher Hitchens, killing Bambi and agents of death, sanctioned by our government, dropping from the sky, rendering it to those below.

ADG, II ...with twelve big, new words. Come on over. I'll use one on you.

Oh and PS...My Aunt Kat's funeral was great. More laughs than tears. One of the Ministers said... "If talking and shopping were Olympic sports, Kathleen would have Gold Medals in both."

Horizontal Flusser

2011-11-18T10:47:00.001-05:00

You may know the old joke…“Why don’t Baptists have sex standing up? Someone may think they’re dancing.” Vertical love making is a tricky endeavor and I’ve pretty much given it up. Dancing too. And it’s a shame really ‘cause everybody knows that there are three things that Southern rednecks love to do…f____, fight and fast-dance.

Verticality…Horizontaciousness. Sin is sin no matter what the latty-longy orientation might be. And my latest sin was horizontal in nature.

The gateway drugs to this level of sartorial malfeasance have long since been consumed but that’s not news to anyone reading this load. Blazer striped shirts en vertical are fully represented in my lineup. But then—surprise I know—the Devil flung a craving on me. A horizontal one.

So I skulked into the confessional chamber and had a word with Father Flusser. It had been, I don’t know, at least a month since my since my last purge with the Father. Fluss-counsel always leaves me awash in high price-point redemption. And it makes no difference that my confessor orbits in a Hebrew-Buddhist galaxy. Matter of fact, in this case, it’s probably a good thang. That’s Father Fluss above…in about as fuzzy a contest of verti-hori as one could ever imagine.

God lives in the details. And in my decades old ape-mimic strategy of seeing Alan wearing something that I admire, I’ve been requesting his “cowboy cuff” for some time now.

The perpendicularity of its placket-ated sidewaysness doesn’t convey in photos.

You need to see it starched and on my arm to appreciate the tubular conicality of its fuzziness. Shut the ___ up.

Blasphemy I know but these fresh from the box babies look a bit like the big ole Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. Blasphemous and silly now that I think of it…because all believers know that gettin’ to the Big House in the Sky has nothing to do with shirt stripes. Shell Cordovan is the ticket.

I’m amused by your assumption that I wouldn’t tart these babies up further with a monogram. One friend consistently asserts that any man who places visible initials on a garment is immediately one of no consequence. A midnight buffet, all inclusive resort going, pyramid-network marketing…networker. ADG.

Guilty. Guilty as charged. My only regret is that Fluss et al wouldn’t vet my request that the ADG permanent name tag be commissioned in Times New Roman 32 font. They did though, as a consolation, allow a placketed pocket. I’ve requested a prototype shirt with bellows/poacher pockets for my next fuzzy foray.

Another bespoken no-brainer chemise-wise includes these shirttail seam buttresses. Or is it buttressae? Unseen but crucial bolsterers of side-seam strength…Kevlar-esque insurance policies against which hopefully, you’ll never have to submit a claim. They remain irrelevant and without function until…until some Trixie, in a fit of passion, commences a manic-frantic blitz of ripping your damn clothes off. “Settle down baby! Let’s be a bit more methodical here. I’ve no problem availing my nicely tufted chest to you, but don’t rip my shirt.”

If such admonishments don’t settle Trixie down, the buttressae will help assure that the seams don’t, in a pique of resistance, resign themselves to rolling over and giving up. On the other hand, based on the caliber of Trixie involved, it may be worth sacrificing a shirt. Hell, I’ve been known to allow a Flusser suit to burn on the altar of whateverishness.

And finally…the collar. I rarely wear a tie with anything but a straight or maybe a modified spread collar shirt. Preferably straight so that I can anchor it with a pin. And you know how I feel about anything but a pin impaled collar versus that clip-on nonsense. But when I’m sans tie I’m avec collar buttons. It’s a holdover from my Tradfratty days.

But these three Flussketeers sport a bit of collar unusualalia. Modified spread button down? You have to be kidding me right? I’m a lot of things...but not a collar kidder. Never…never do I kid about collars. Flusser collar variance just adds to the angularitaciousness of said ADG chemise hat-trick.

And the spread variance in these shirts versus my last round of absurdness is subtle. But not so that you wouldn’t look at the collar for a moment and go hhhhmmmm. Worry not—I’m used to it.

Onward. Horizontally buttressed.

ADG, II

Bow-less Belgians and Aunt Kat

2011-11-17T06:57:00.000-05:00

Thanks everyone for your kind words and personal emails regarding my Aunt Kat. I flew in from a meeting in Atlanta last night and am driving down to S.C. this morning for the funeral tomorrow. It will be a celebration of a life well lived and a time to see cousins and others who these days, don't cross my path very often. I wasn't planning to go home for Thanksgiving--LFG and I will be there for Christmas--but I'll now have an opportunity to stay a few extra days. It's all good.

So there's nothing like a Popsicle after returning from a round of vaccination shots at the Pediatrician's office...remember your parents' strategy? Something soothing soon after something bad. I landed at DCA last night in time to stop by and grab my mail from the service that holds my mail. And my bow-less Belgians were there. I needed a Popsicle.

Here's what I said over at tumblr...“Bow-less Belgians. I have them…just in from Belgium…well, NYC from Belgium. You wanna pair? Call or go see Pat. Tell him I sent you. Pick your color and your piping. Sky’s the limit for a fifty-dollar special order upcharge. These arrived, at least for Belgians, in a lightning speed time interval of two months. BAM!”

If you wanna be like me and let's face it, most of you do, then get yourself a pair.

Onward. To celebrate my other mother...Aunt Kat.

ADG, II

Bow-less. And hung like a Tic-Tac.

Sturdy Girls..."give me those elbows!"

2011-11-16T06:34:00.000-05:00

My Aunt Kat died last night at 84. One of the seven Strong Cole Sisters. My mom and aunt Selma are the last surviving sibs of the original ten. I think many of us are prone to embellish or exaggerate many things family...both the good and bad. And we are more prone to do so amidst bereavement. But I must say that these Strong Cole Sisters have been an over the top amazing lot and my Aunt Kat was my favorite.

All of the Cole Sisters loved and tended to each others kids but my Aunt Kat was extra special in that way. She lived such a life-in-full and was funny and pugnacious to the very end. I'm dreading having to tell LFG but then again, it's another opportunity to teach lessons about love, kindness, service to others, importance of family and finally; the inevitability of loss. I am a better man because of the Strong Cole Sisters. And I'm proud that my Aunt Kat knew just how much LFG and I loved her. I wrote the following a few months ago...

"And then there was the issue of my Aunt Kat. She’s the next oldest and till recently, the healthiest. I’ve loved all of my aunts but she’s always been my favorite. She’s a damn titanium magnolia if there ever was one. But in early April she ended up with hospital acquired pneumonia and on a respirator. This is a slippery slope for old folks. Hip fractures and pneumonia are the grim reapers geriatric dispatch tactics. That’s my Aunt Kat on the left, then my mom and aunt Selma. Yes, my Aunt Kat gets her “A” capitalized. Shut up.

Folks, there’s no mawkish or maudlin intent here. This is a script…one that each of us with aging family members inevitably has to read and then usually…perform a part in the immutable production. And to that end, when they took my Aunt Kat off the vent and sent her to hospice, my brother and I were looking at our schedules and speculating about getting back home in time to be pallbearers. No tears…just gratitude for having loved ones who've lived this long. The hospice folks had already started humane doses of morphine to comfort my Aunt Kat in her exit. And like my buddy R.E.B. who I said goodbye to a little over a year ago, I’d have gone to say goodbye to Kat in person but she was no longer coherent.

And then...she gradually became lucid. And then…she started asking for people and food and other comfort oriented things. Three days later she’s as lucid as ever and Hospice, of course, kicked her out and she ended up in a long term care facility. So you know now why I had to get home. I’d have never forgiven myself if I hadn't made it home to visit with my Aunt Kat. She’s recovering splendidly and will be out of long term care in another week.

I stayed with my Aunt Kat most of the first day I was home…with my mom’s blessing. I knew she was going to be ok because she was gossiping her ass off. Filling me in on who else was in the long term care center and regaling me with stories about what these people had done over the years…scandalous and sublime. Stuff like… “You know that Tootie Mae Johnson is over in room 36…your daddy used to date her before he married your mama. Go peek in there and see what you’d a looked like if he’d married that old hussy”. Yep, my Aunt Kat was gonna be ok.

On a respirator and Hospice bound one week and tending to me two weeks later. Kat was moisturizing her lips with a little tube of petroleum jelly when she spotted my dry elbows. “Give me those elbows”…and she proceeds to tune me up with a dab of her lip balm. The same maternal, service to others predisposition that all my mother’s sisters demonstrated to everyone.

LFG and I will see my mom and Aunt Kat next month and Kat will probably, after giving LFG a few jars of homemade jam, find one of us to daub some moisturizer on or reach over and straighten a collar or wipe a mouth. So I dedicate most of today’s Mother’s Day gratitude to my Aunt Kat. “Give me those elbows”…"

Bahne Skateboards Circa 1974

2011-11-10T09:02:00.000-05:00

Florence, South Carolina. Small town uncoolness personified. My first skateboard, I kid you not, was almost identical to the one above. My mom took me to Western Auto to buy it.

But then I swapped some stuff with D.A. and got his Bahne. D.A. was a _ussy anyway and wasn't gonna do much with it on his best day. No skate parks and certainly, no cool surf/skate counterculture to accompany the desire to go fast. No "look" ... no kit and surely, no freakin' safety helmets. I'm gonna try and find my old Bahne when I go home for Christmas.

It was Florence and Florence wasn't cool.

Onward. Headachy.

ADG II

PS...Even though Florence wasn't cool, I am the THIRD coolest guy to come out of there. Ever. I'll write a story one day about the other two.

Sweet-Sweet Jesus and Alan Flusser

2011-11-09T17:06:00.000-05:00

Thank you Jesus. For what I know is gonna be some swimmy-headed bell ringing goods when this parcel rolls in on Friday. And the peeps that read this stuff are gonna vaporlock from the get-go. If yalls's vacation allotment still has a day allowed to you, maybe you oughta just take Friday off.

Onward. To the Hill. From some wine blog reception thang. With, I might humbly mention. A stunner.

ADG II

Stop it. Stop it LFG!

2011-11-09T07:22:00.000-05:00

Right now.

Right this minute.

Onward. Denying. Shut up.

ADG II

Joe Frazier R.I.P.

2011-11-08T06:49:00.000-05:00

I watched an old Thrilla in Manilla documentary a few months ago. I’d forgotten about the brutality of that fight and I’d failed to remember the paucity of Frazier’s words versus Ali’s bluster. Fourteen rounds in one hundred degrees of Manila humidity.

Frazier beat Ali in 1971 at Madison Square Garden but we all know how the Ali-Frazier meetings concluded thereafter.

You can rest now, Joe-Joe. Worry no more about the trash-talk.

Onward. Pugilistically…butcept only with words.

ADG II

PS…I took LFG to Abercrombie Kids on Sunday. The experience made the Thrilla in Manilla seem like a walk in the park. I’d never been in an Abercrombie Kids store and I won't return. I’d never been in an Abercrombie otherwise…at least not since it became some kinda damn adolescent hoochy-coochy show. I’m still not over it. Bofe my eyes remain swolt shut and my head’s still pounding.

Anderson and Sheppard...A Style is Born

2011-11-05T07:51:00.000-04:00

I remember being too scared to enter Anderson and Sheppard during my first couple of trips to London. It reeked in its patinated propriety, of the Empire. And I reeked, in my skulking around London digging for old books and prints casualness, of American savagery. Even though never during those times that I walked by 30 Savile Row, did I sport a fanny pack or baseball cap. It made no difference. I had no business going in there. Literally.

So the first time I darkened the doors of Anderson and Sheppard, my augmentation for trace elements of legitimacy and purpose was my wife to be. We were dressed for an early dinner and the theatre. With her—and a decent Flusser sportcoat on, I felt brave enough to go in. These first two pictures capture the stodgy elegance of the old Anderson and Sheppard shop on Savile Row. My condolences to those of you who missed it.

They were predictably poised, reserved and accommodating. I was, predictably, flushed with all of the good neurochemicals that washes over one when amidst…you know…those moments. I was in fellowship with all of the massive bolts of textilian beauty that inhabited the showroom tables. But more so for me, the excitement came from knowing that I was where, literally, Astaire, Cooper, Beerbohm and scores of others had come to execute their sartorial desires.

My always (things change…shut up) pleasant wife-to-be was a great buffer and conversationalist and…enabler of my wandering the bolts and rows till it was time to leave. They took down my details and for years, I would receive one of the most modest brochures imaginable, announcing their visits to the States. Marriage, other expensive proclivities and a devotion to Flusser always kept me from pulling the A&S trigger. And it’s a good thing that I’ve never imbibed. For having done so would have assured that my currently negative net-worth would be negative-er.

Anderson and Sheppard…A Style Is Born won’t equal the Flusser tomes in offering sartorial instruction but it knocks it out of the park otherwise. It’s very well written and is the antithesis of the recent and slapdash, thrown together kids coloring book, Preppy—Cultivating Ivy Style. This is a book for grownups.

Graydon Carter et al have created a structural thing of beauty and made sure that the occupying content equals the configuration. It’s a coffee table book. With an erudite expression of Anderson and Sheppard’s genesis as well as a nice glimpse of what I’m gratified to see, a seemingly bright future.

The soft suit—Scholte drape antecedent to Anderson and Sheppard is more clearly and thoroughly explained here than in any other source I’ve encountered. And, at least for me, another general interpretation of the Row and the business of cutting and making clothes is part of the narrative here.

I knew before I got my hands on this book, that if Christopher Simon Sykes, an A&S customer himself, had any input on the visual parts of the A&S story, it would be stellar. Some of my favorite books…those that I pull down from time to time just to get an aesthetic bolus, are illustrated with Sykes’ photographs.

I’m not a book reviewer and LFG is gonna wake any moment. So let me cease gushing about this treasure of a book and just throw some additional visual candy out there for you.

A Prince...in A&S double breasted casual splendor. Thomas Mahon, late of A&S and now Lord of English Cut, used to fit Charles' sloped shoulders.

Cecil Beaton in seersucker...the most frivolous material to request Savile Row caliber interpretation and workmanship. I've done it. Twice.

Clothes. In work.

Trouser treatments. I'll have one of each. I've had. One of each.

Oppenheimer and Capp. Two unlikely A&S bookends no? Shut up already. Of course Fred damn Astaire is in the book.

Onward. About to feed my tiny dancer daughter Krispy Kreme donuts. We're out of money for a proper breakfast. Now go online and order A Style is Born. Right now.

ADG II

Costume Nonchalance

2011-11-01T06:57:00.003-04:00

Halloween 2001…LFG was 16 months old. Would she keep the Ladybug antennae head band on? Probably not. But as long as she had a Saltine cracker in both hands, perhaps she would keep it on long enough for us to snap a few photos of this, her first ambulatory Halloween.

Her cracker-in-each-hand mediated nonchalance was impressive. She walked around the house and the patio not once tugging on her little costume or reaching to strip away and cast down her headband. Compliant. Impressive. After all, sixteen month old toddling little lumps of love could give two hoots and a damn about their costume. The the first, grainy little photo shows LFG, I think, headed back to the cracker tray. It seems that her right hand needs a cracker reload. “Cracker Reload”…might be the title of my ADG resurrection book.

And while I have you; please, let’s take up the issue of nonchalance. My way of thinking says that if one manifests nonchalance, then someone, at some point had to have manifested chalance. Otherwise, how would we know that someone was being nonchalant? Chalant. I can’t wait on the lexico-powers that be to declare it a word. I must do so now. “Hoyt was one chalant cat during the deposition. He might as well go ahead and plead guilty. The boy was shaking like a two-dollar washing machine on spin-cycle when they asked him about Lurlene Finklea.”

Same goes for nonplussed.

Onward. Plussed.

ADG II

LFG, Whistler and Boldini

2011-10-31T07:33:00.004-04:00

I wasn’t being maudlin (any more than my steady-state of 24-7 mawkish treacle homeostasis dictates) when I snapped the photo of LFG’s overnight bag at my feet the other weekend. There wasn't too much of a heart string twinge or tug as I recollected the years of every other weekend visits. It was just a visual symbol of logistical recollection. Shut up.

The weekend ended up being a great one…as usual. But the weekends are a-changing as LFG gets older. It’s more of a transportation-finance-logistics commitment what with her various dance classes and birthday parties etc. Gone are the days of a clean slate awaiting my inputs for fun and frolic with a three year old. Her Highness did allow a brief foray into Cactus Cantina. I think I’m gonna buy the place.

But last weekend did avail a four-hour window on Sunday that offered, at LFG’s suggestion, visits to the Hirshorn and the Freer. LFG knew about the Warhol shadows exhibit so our first stop landed us at the Hirshorn to see the massive Warhol expanse. We’ve always loved our local museums and thanks…again...for your Federal tax dollars that avail these local aesthetics playgrounds to us. As LFG inches more towards the predictably reticent grunts and uh-huhs of early adolescent communication with me, museums seem to give us more to talk about.

And post Hirshorn and Warhol saw us with some time remaining so we tucked into the Freer for a bit of fellowship with Whistler. The Freer is my local home-church for art and aesthetic recharge. My visits are so frequent and the Whistler stuff is so rarely rotated, that a thirty minute flurry resets me just right. I've been known, in the midst of a frustrating work day, to hop the Metro to the Freer and wallow in the aesthetic salve between conference calls with corporate blowhards.

I came to know and revere Whistler the same way I became acquainted with all art. Vanity Fair caricatures. I can’t think of another gateway that would have been as intriguing as Vanity Fair prints. I’m satiated now but for years there was more to learn about them. I probably made the Vanity Fair collecting journey as erudite as anyone could ever hope for... too much so I suspect…for most people.

And the Whistler caricature by Leslie Ward (Spy) was and remains one of my favorites. Even Jimmy Whistler liked it and told Leslie Ward so. He kept extra copies of it and would give signed images to friends and patrons. So of course, I had learn more about this fella who until I acquired the Vanity Fair image of him, I knew only as the “Whistler’s Mother” guy. Oh, and that his mother was originally from the Wilmington North Carolina area.

So Vanity Fair led me to Whistler and then Sickert and … Tissot, Menpes, Degas, Sargent, Steer, Lavery, and of course, my runner-up to Whistler in my contrived “London Based Artists Liked by ADG” set, William Nicholson. Nicholson by the way, did the excellent woodcut of Whistler that adorns my hall.

And Whistler led me to etchings and drypoints. I love the art that emerges from scratching needles on copper plates but I’m equally intrigued with the technical processes and nuances involved in inking-wiping and pulling paper from plates.

Most artists will “proof” an etching or three…essentially giving their blessing to the ensuing run of an agreed upon numbers of prints…printed by the owner of the press. Whistler was an outlier in innumerable ways but he was an outlier and then some when it came to tinkering with the printing process.

He played around with various degrees of ink saturation on the etching plate. He wiped them loosely sometimes and other times he would spread the ink with a small feather to create even more nuanced conveyances when printed. He added a needle strike here and there to deepen the ominous presence of an early evening sky or a Thames cataract. Or he would work the plate with his little hammer…beating out a line or two if it fancied him. And as often as possible, he would pull the prints himself.

Oh, and he was crazy about different types of paper. Mortimer Menpes tells the story of Whistler leaving London for Holland in search of, based on rumor, a cache of 18^th century fine wove paper. I think Whistler’s toying around with materials and processes was nothing short of genius. And so of course, I began to accumulate a few etchings and drypoints as well.

LFG and I headed straight downstairs last Sunday when we rolled into the Freer. Why? I might have shared it before in a story or two but on the lower level there’s always a minor (major to me) little Whistler collateral exhibition on the hallway walls. It’s usually a niche cull from the turgid repository of Whistler goods en perpetu at the Freer. And for me it’s always a refreshing little splash of genius.

I love that Whistler worked in pastel, watercolour, drypoint and oil. And currently downstairs at the Freer, you’ll see a well curated flurry of each. It's... Sweet Silent Thought: Whistler's Interiors.

But what about Whistler as the subject of portraiture and caricature? Eric Denker wrote what I think became his Ph.D. dissertation, In Pursuit of the Butterfly. The National Portrait Gallery in tandem with Denker’s publication had an exhibition of the same title and it was Whistlerian nirvana.

The fodder for Whistler images was just too seductive for anyone during his time to pass up. To say that Whistler was pugnacious is an understatement so he was always creating some kind of Chelsea based shit- storm in the art and social realms of London. That’s fancy talk for being an easy target. So Denker’s book is loaded with evidence that Whistler in his prime was as much a subject of art as he was a creator of it.

I visited the Whistler exhibit probably a half dozen times, including one tour that Denker narrated. But kinda like the first of many times I saw the Allman Brothers; my maiden trip to the exhibition was more riveting than anything subsequent. You entered the gallery and Whistler, courtesy of Giovanni Boldini, greeted you. Boldini’s portrait is almost six feet tall and it captures, larger than life, the essence of what one sharp elbowed critic called Whistler… “a pocket Mephistopheles.” If I was limited to one image of Whistler to illustrate his whateverishness, it would be the Boldini portrait. Those closest to Whistler, including Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell, declared the Boldini image of Whistler to be a remarkably accurate capture of the man. Whistler predictably, cared nothing for it.

Being the sucker for a collateral or back-story, I enjoyed learning about Boldini’s sneaky little drypoint of Whistler. The story goes that Whistler, while posing for the Boldini painting, would tire of posing and insist on a nap. So Boldini grabbed an etching plate and needle during one of these little snoozers and dashed off the image. Here’s a better characterization of it from our friends at Childs Gallery inBoston... “Gary A. Reynolds notes the incident surrounding the creation of this drypoint, in his catalogue "Giovanni Boldini and Society Portraiture": "In 1897 Boldini painted a seated portrait of Whistler, the most famous monument to their friendship. Edward G. Kennedy [Whistler's American dealer]...remembered that 'Whistler frequently got tired of doing what he had made other people do all his life - pose - and that he used to take little naps. During one of these, Boldini made a drypoint of him on a zinc plate." This incident is also noted in Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell's biography, "The Life of James McNeill Whistler" (1911), fifth edition, on page 346. Other impressions are in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.”

I have a fairly decent collection of Whistler images but the Boldini drypoint, an edition of less than fifty, has always been out of my financial reach. No worries. One can’t nor should have everything.

And besides; the drypoint of Whistler by Paul Helleu was one I coveted even more than the Boldini and at about ten to fifteen thousand pounds, I was never gonna own that one.

I've not acquired much in the way of art in the last several years. If anything, I've divested my walls of various treasures here and there. But the art market is hurting. Hell, almost every market is hurting right now. And the Boldini image came up at auction last week. I placed a low bid that surely wasn't enough but even so, I culled the necessary possessions to sell if indeed I did win it and needed the dosh to pay-up. I've done the deal on dosh raising and probably by this time next week, the Boldini image will be here, in fellowship with me, at CasaMinimus.

Onward. Boldly. Avec Whistler and Boldini. Sans LFG...till Friday

ADG II

Halloween—What chy’all Goin’ As?

2011-10-29T10:40:00.000-04:00

I’m going as a Strunk and White reading, angry-ass middle aged divorced man with a mildly enlarged prostate.

How ‘bout you?

Imperious Faggots

2011-10-27T12:21:00.001-04:00

You know what happens. Some commenter drops a bomb on my ass and I get riled up. And when the comments rile me up, I turn it into a post. Here’s the Glenn O’Brien comment that got me going…

“Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but the guy strikes me as an imperious faggot. What's so "manly" about a book of catty comments about the way other people dress?

OCTOBER 26, 2011 5:32 PM”

And here’s my latest comment...

“I deleted my original response to the “imperious faggot” commenter because I stooped to his level and then regretted it. O’Brien’s book is NOT a three hundred page tome of sniping ass arrogant pot shots. It’s a well written, wise and fun book. And there’s even some self-deprecation in it…which, and this is coming from ADG, the preening peacock of self-deprecation, gives the book and O’Brien further cred. And it’s not my job to defend it further.

So if anyone is being imperious, it’s the “faggot” commenter. Five makes ten he hasn’t read the book so his authority is nil…leastways it is here in ADG land. And if Glenn O’Brien is an imperious faggot, then so am I. And those who are important to me know unequivocally, that I love girl-bootie better than Peter loved the Lord.

And finally, Glenn O’Brien wasn’t being haughty and aloof to me. He was, if anything, appropriately startled that someone got in his face so enthusiastically and started firing off specifics about what he’d written. He was courteous. I knew, based on social cues, to be brief.

Ok, I’ve gotta go back to work now. I have Cleverley shoes to pay for.

Oh, and Greg D. ... I'll take wine any day.”

How to be a Man…Glenn O’Brien for President

2011-10-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

I met Glenn O’Brien last night. Actually, I abandoned my date and pounced from my bar perch at Rasika and like an adolescent Labrador, floppy ears and big paws in the lead, jumped in his lap and started licking him. And it was obvious that he wasn't impressed. I think he was as shocked to be suddenly recognized in Washington DC as I was to recognize him. I barged my ass back out almost as fast as I barged in on him.

I stand by my assertion that DC is three-button goofball sack-coat company town. The kinda town that cool cats like Glenn O’Brien don’t generally hang out in. So when I, with my typical pinball machine synapse firing machinations, giddily told him that his recent book, How to be a Man should be required reading for any male under the age of fifty-five (guys older than probably forty-five are irredeemable but what the hell, I wanted to include myself in the demographic), he thanked me politely and looked to his two, I assume local cohorts, for a rescue move. I may be a country ass redneck from South Carolina but I’m coachable. I knew to amble back over to my bar stool without delay.

Glenn O'Brien Photography byPeter Ross

So why is O’Brien the Shit? A better explanation will manifest when you get up off of some of that moldy ass money of yours and buy his book. But for now, let me provide you with an excerpt or two. If I was limited to only one paragraph…one exhibit to support my "O'Brien is the shit" premise, it would be this:

On Shirts…

“…The worst male fashion trend of the millennium so far may be the shirttail worn out. On purpose. I know that many consider it hip to go around with the shirt untucked, or even half tucked, like you slept in your clothes and haven’t had coffee yet. I know this is intended to convey a youthful, casual je ne sais quoi, but more often than not he looks like he’s too fat to tuck. Even worse than the shirttail out is when this is under a jacket. Of course, some casual shirts are made to be worn out, and these have squared off bottoms, but even these should not be worn under a jacket. A caftan would look better. Another egregious trend was unfastened French cuffs hanging loose through and far beyond the jacket sleeves, giving the wearer a waifish street urchin look. Accessorize this look with a tin cup.”

That paragraph is worth the price of the three hundred and two page book. But here’s the opening statement on O’Brien’s tie treatise…

“I love the necktie because it is the only article of clothing in a man’s wardrobe that has real enemies. Iranian revolutionaries for instance, see the tie as an evil phallic symbol of Western decadence, emblematic of the Crusader’s Cross of the Great Satan. The enemies of the cravat point to it as a symbol of conformity, even servitude. Some see covert obeisance to black magic encrypted in it, a fashion version of the “cable tow” of Masonic initiation rites.”

So mode it be. Buy the damn book.

I could end it there but there’s a bit more of the Glenn O’Brien oeuvre that caused me to lick him. Without it, I’d have limited my fawning to a sloppy paw or two. They say he can drive the piss out of a golf ball. He’s a husband and father and his journey includes a stint with Warhol. Not some vague collateral thread of Studio 54-esque Factory wannabe. O’Brien was Editor and Art Director at Interview and Warhol includes O’Brien a half dozen or so times in his diaries. I checked it last night. Shut up. I'm erudite. January 26, 1987… “Oh, and I talked on the phone to Glenn O’Brien about why the sixties are coming back or something, he was doing an article for Elle, he was fun.

Jean-Phillipe Delhomme illustrated O’Brien’s book and offers a postscript portrait of Glenn. It isn’t fawning. It’s fact. He says… “I could mention TV Party, the cult TV show that he hosted in the early 1980’s or Downtown 81, the poetic film that he wrote about his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. I could mention some of his current projects. But it would still be incomplete. In fact, every time I see Glenn, I have to update his bio.”

So Mr. O’Brien, I apologize for licking you. Labrador slobber stinks. Even if it’s slap-dashed all over you with an admirable tongue. I’ll hope that a few others will buy your book. And send me the dry cleaning bill.

Onward. Rube ass that I am.

ADG II

Ahh...But There's Always Monday

2011-10-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

And George Cleverley provided the perfect unguent this morning. An emotional healing salve called bespoke shoe fitting number one.

Sublime. I'll write more about it later.

Onward. Post Stellar LFG Weekend.

Cleverley yours,

ADG II

Every-Other-Weekend

2011-10-22T13:36:00.000-04:00

Today marks nine years of it.

Laurence Fellows

2011-10-20T10:02:00.000-04:00

Certainly there were other talented and noteworthy illustrators for Esquire and Apparel Arts. But those of us who are clothes nuts…sartorial history buffs…devotees of the drapy era of men’s clothing when waist suppression and higher button stances were de rigueur…default to Laurence Fellows’ as the illustrator of note.

But who was he? Here’s an excerpt from Walt Reed’s write up on Fellows…

“…showcased the talents of such major illustrators as Charles Dana Gibson, James Montgomery Flagg, Orson Lowell, T.S. Sullivan, Peter Newell, Art Young, and many others who mirrored the country's foibles in their enthusiastic ridicule.

Joining the group in the early teens was an ultra-sophisticated young artist named Laurence Fellows. A native of Pennsylvania, Fellows had received his training at the Philadelphia Academy of Art, with several follow-up years studying in England and in France at the Academie Julien under J.P. Laurens.

Upon his return to the United States, Fellows' fresh point of view, particularly reflecting a French/Vogue influence, found him a ready audience. His style was distinguished by a thin outline, flat tonality or color, with the emphasis on shapes rather than details. Just as quickly, however, he acquired many imitators. Before John Held, Jr., for instance, had invented his "flapper," he was clearly adapting much from Fellows' mannered drawing style into his own submitted gags. Other new converts were Hal Burroughs, Bertram Hartman, and Ralph Barton, who would each run with it in their own way. Fellows particularly liked to play with off-balanced compositions, even in the more conservative arena of illustration for advertising.

One of his early commercial clients was Kelly-Springfield Tires, which gave him the opportunity to combine his elegant draftsmanship with the clever, humorous copy depreciating the competition, thus often violating the rule against "negative" advertising. But Fellows' drawing and the copy had an edge of good humor that attracted a national following and the successful campaign lasted for many years.

In the thirties, Fellows gradually shifted his emphasis to fashion art, including both men and women, finding clients in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The American Magazine, and McClure's. He also became a regular contributor to Apparel Arts magazine.

With only a limited number of men's fashion artists available, Fellows was most in demand for the male-focused subjects, particularly by the newly launched Esquire magazine in the thirties, where he was regularly featured in full-color spreads for many years…”

So this guy Fellows? What did he look like? Was he as sartorially bulletproof as his subjects? I found totally by accident, a group photo recently that included a twenty-six year old Fellows. Here below is the group shot and caption.

"Unknown photographer: A Group of Young American Artists of the Modern School (from left to right: Jo Davidson, Edward Steichen, Arthur B. Carles, John Marin; back: Marsden Hartley, Laurence Fellows), c. 1911."

And here’s Fellows. I’ve got a trove of Apparel Arts books and other sources containing Fellows’ illustrations. But my goal is to one day own one of Fellows’ original watercolors. Keep your eyes peeled on my behalf.

Onward.

ADG II