Summer Slacks

See item 1 for image link.

Not effortless gauze/linen in a wide sailor's pantaloon. No. I mean I've been slacking off on posting, and you've probably been slacking, too. It's that time of year when I feel muggily overheated and congealed at the same time, like an unhappy head cheese thrown into a bamboo steamer, oozing with putrid waft all down the insides. This isn't even bad yet, I know. August and September will be far worse, but my blood's not yet thinned to the consistency of a melted popsicle, so until I get my summer truly on, I'm logey.

1) However, I have been accomplishing a few little things. One is this review of Charles Vess' outstanding graphic novel (of sorts), The Book of Ballads. I worked on this review and think it's thoughtful, comprehensive, and accurate, but no one else has said a peep. Goes to show what my opinion's worth.

As bloggy Vess bonuses: A Suicide Girls interview where he discusses TBOB among other things, an impressive pile of doings from Wikipedia, his personal views on Growing Up Interstitial, and the link to New Light Gallery which has some of his work for sale, including the image above.

2) If you haven't followed the amazing journey of this blogger who, over one year and 17 barters encompassing Alice Cooper and Corbin Bernson, traded a red paper clip for a house, the summary's here.

3) Slate wonders if a push into pricey U.S. markets can save a once-august line from the tacky British yobs who've adopted Burberry as their calling card. But once it went onto bikinis, big-selling though it was, there was only so much class left in the leaded-crystal pickle jar. And the people who bedeck themselves in it here (and I disagree with the article's author as I know wealthy Midwesterners who happily overpay for status brands) ,well, I think the two words most apropos might be HOOD RATS. You slum your brand, you don't wake up tony. Britney can't marry Prince William after K-Fed.

You can sell out your fusty old moneybagged customers, but when you sell them for the celebretante youth, who are invariably faddish, in time you've lost them all, with no farm team of developing tastemakers to save you. A pattern that knocked-off pimpensteins wear on their flip-flops is not one I want on my car seats or even inside my clothes where the shame is private. Welcome, Burberry, to the hell of Cristal.