Missoni Mayhem

Okay I confess, this post won't be about books because I'm multifaceted. Not only am I a writer but I'm also a shopper. I love fashion and gleam at a sale. Yesterday I got caught in the Missoni mayhem and was eager to see the limited edition designed for retailer Target and nab items that elsewhere are being sold for up to five times the original retail price.

The Missoni design is reminiscent of the 1960's and it includes some highly individual knitwear in bold patterns, primarily in a zigzag, some of which, I admit, I don't like and make me dizzy. But because the line has been around so long, their garments have become status symbols.

Had I have gotten to the store sooner, I could have picked up the gold and brown cardigan I wanted, but I'm not a morning person. A hoarder in the crowd filled up her shopping cart and when I asked her where the merchandise had come from, she sent me on a wild- goose chase. But all was not lost.

Left: I see an opening. You go in hard, and I'll follow.

Right: That could work ... but it's still risky.

Left: We've been training for months. It's as easy now as it will ever be.

Right: All I'm saying is, we don't have to go through with this. Nobody would blame us.

Left: It's going to be tough to run through this entire mega-store without a cappuccino, but let's move, or we'll never get through to the women's department. Come on, what da ya say?

Right: All right then. Let's do this thing. But if I slip, you're paying the chiropractor bill.

These will be fun to pair with pants because the heel is chunky (I prefer a stiletto with a dress). And, I can walk in them. The older I get the more I value mobility over beauty or perhaps I've come to believe there's more beauty in mobility?

Feel free to step forward in the comments– and, tell me what you think. 

Never love a wild thing

This afternoon while taking a walk in the light mist I saw an alley cat, huddling up against a wall, bringing to mind the cat without a name in Breakfast at Tiffany's. http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/Tiffanys/tiffanys.htm This month is the film's 50^th anniversary which is being remastered as a DVD release.

Apparently with Truman Capote's success came social celebrity. He mingled with the social elite, and was seen at the best parties, clubs, and restaurants. His novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958), took much of its inspiration from those experiences.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is the story is about a struggling writer Paul Varjak that moves into a New York swank East Side apartment building (from the generosity of his female, married benefactor) and becomes intrigued by his pretty, quirky neighbor Holly Golightly. Holly confuses and fascinates Paul; in public she flits through parties with a sophisticated air, but when they're alone she changes into a sweetly vulnerable bundle of neuroses.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOByH_iOn88

Capote lobbied for Marilyn Monroe in the lead, whom he deemed more suitable for the role, much to his displeasure it went to the aristocratic Audrey Hepburn, to play the rural- Texas-born Holly Golightly that he created. He even went as far as to say that Paramount double-crossed him in every way. Not a bad outcome for an act of deceit.

A Yearning Heart, A Score, A Book

Night before last I turned on to Charlie Rose for the last segment of the show. The affable Italian-American Antonio Pappano; Music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, was his final guest (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11278).

Rose referred to him as Antonio but with his strong work ethic and drive for conducting he should be dubbed Tony the Tiger. His infectious passion in communicating music made even the poker face, Charlie Rose smile.

Time and again what popped into my mind were the similarities in music as in the written word. Based on his interview here are some examples; the love of art gets your blood going like no other thing can. You have to sustain and engage your audience and keep them interested. Listening (as in writing) is an emotional experience. And finally it's his job as a conductor (similar to writer) to take the words and find the inherent drama in them for others to relate to.

On a personal note my husband sang under his baton when Pappano was a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Steven moved by a particular piece, the Britten War Requiem, went up to him and asked him how he could prevent himself from getting choked up. Pappano replied, “that's the point, you're suppose to be emotionally spent.” The score is based on poems written by a soldier during World War I, found after his death in the trenches.

To conclude the interview, Rose made a remark about Pappano's sense of purpose, at which the conductor responded with, “Opera is hard to do. It's very easy to do it mediocre, it's easy to do badly, but it's hard to get it right.” I echo his statement about getting it right.

I thought about the inter-connectedness in art, how interpretative and communicative artists are grateful to their audience that allows them to let their gift shine through and how audiences desire to embrace music as they desire to embrace a good story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qplk3PL-ltw