PR9EP6: Avant-awful

Well, I missed a week, so before we jump on last night's train, and before last night's train wreck, let's bullet-point PR9EP5: One Day You're In, One Day You're Out, One Day Your Saved, One Day you Quit:

• Cecelia, who should have been Auf'd last week, decides to Auf herself and Heidi basically says, Byeeeeee.


• Josh C comes back and is still a giggly high-pitched schoolgirl of some indeterminate sexual orientation--or so he says, or doesn't say.


• Olivier literally takes a mighty tumble...a precursor for this week? And his dress was a Little House On The Sad Prairie.


• Josh M went all bitchy young queen and made Becky cry and made Bert snap, but he was declared a co-winner for helping with Anya's dress. Huh? What? Huh?


• Bert was a bitchy old queen, which always trumps a bitchy young queen. Sewing room. 'Nuff said.


• Viktor won with a motorcycle jacket and was actually nice this week.


• Becky is so not dowdy! She has a blue streak in her hair!


• Anya makes the award-winning design and the award goes to Josh M.


• Bryce showed up and actually was not in the Bottom.


• Kim made a pair of boxy ugly shorts.


• Laura missed the glam boat and made an outfit that looked like someone worked in the engine room of the glam boat.


• Anthony Ryan should have gone home because his outfit was the worst EVER! But he sparked a Nina/Heidi Battle, with Heidi declaring he should go because, after all, One day you're IN, one day you're OUT!


• But Danielle was sent packing for another, yes, another, green chiffon blouse. Damn. If only the show was called Project Green Chiffon Blouse we could end the season now.

On to this weeks challenge: to work with an art student from the Harlem School of the Arts and create a painting to inspire an avant-garde look. Now, that's a mouthful, which probably explains why most of the designers missed to avant-garde bus.

Becky
Her art student created some sort of outer space view of planets and shooting stars. Becky took this to mean make an asymmetrical dress out of denim....OUT OF MOTHER EFFIN' DENIM....and make some squares to hang on it.
Well, of course, that screams outer space and avant-garde. Denim and Squares. Sounds more like a country dance club.Y'all come on down to Denim and Squares for a rootin' tootin' good time! Yee! Haw!
But I digress.
Becky spent a lot of time in the work room critiquing Laura's dress, calling it a bad prom dress and something to hide a toilet paper roll. Um, Becky, honey? Eyes on your own work. Seriously,. Had you taken as much time to critique your own design you might have come up with something that kept you in the middle and forgettable.
In the end, her weird floppy hem didn't look avant-garde or earthy or spacey. Well, it did look spacey, but that don't get you to the tents.
Oh.My.God.Becky.
To the tents. I think the only tent in Becky's future ins the medical tent at the next Lilith Fair.

KIMBERLY
She got the bird. But in a good way. Her art student painted a sort of phoenix, rising from the ashes. And Kimberly could have gone all literal--lord knows she bought enough feathers and was all set to make a literal wing, until good sense, AKA art student and Tim Gunn, stepped in.
But she pulled it off. The sleeve that is. Pulled it off and tossed it away. But kept the pleathah--cuz she cain't afford leathah--and create a very strong interpretation of the bird painting without going overboard. Or over feathered.
Her dress ended up looking powerful and strong. I'd thought she was going Top Three because hers was one of the few that i thought of as avant-garde, but she went Middle of the Road.
But, she gets points for not making a pant. Pant; Nina taught me well.

BRYCE
As I said, Bryce showed up last week, and received all sorts of props for his dress. And this week, his artwork was of The Sad Girl. In orange and blue. Bryce is afraid of orange, but he stuffs away his fear like he used to stuff away his homosexuality, and went orange. And blue.
it might have been a little safe. a simple orange top with a poofy blue skirt, but then he turned the top into a straitjacket of sorts, and the dress suddenly became The Sad Girl.
in an asylum.
On the runway he worried about the orange and blue but he ended up being safe--something Josh M thinks Bryce needs to stop doing. I have a few words about Josh M later.
All in all, I liked it. 
Top Three? It could have taken Josh M's slot. it wasn't a winner--that should have been Kimberly--but it wasn't a loser. Safe!

VIKTOR
His art student should have been on the show this season, even if she doesn't exactly know what a bustier is; she has more fashion sense in her perky little smile than half that workroom.
Together, Viktor and Skye created an airy, flowy work of art, and Viktor decided to run with it, but to give it an edge. I think he missed the edge; he came close, but he didn't go over. He designed a beautiful, flowy, watery, ethereal gown  that was draped and tied and shredded.
It worked.
But what also worked [my nerves] was the old Viktor resurfacing to bag on every other designer in the room. He ripped Kimberly's fabric and Anya's feathers and Josh C's fur and Becky's denim and Olivier's slowness and steadiness. The only one he didn't bag on was Bert; he liked Bert's.
He should have gone home for that alone.
All I got from his this week was fluttery and bitchy.
Not enough to win, Vik!

ANYA
Fire trees. 
That was her artwork. 
Though I guess it's better than firecrotch, eh Lohan?
So, again, fire trees. And Anya gets feathers and drapery fabric. The feathers don't say fire tree and neither does a big balloon skirt made of heavy fabric. That says, I have a fat ass and I'm going to hide in the window.
Seriously. look at that picture. It looks like a torpedo with an Afro head on it. But at least we didn't get any I can't believe she's still here because she can't sew moments. I'm over those.
Still, that's all I have from Anya. It's neither here nor there; it's neither top or bottom.
All I get from her is that accent, which I love. And which reminds me of how much I hate Olivier's phony Asian-British thing he's got going on.
YOU'RE FROM OHIO!!!!!!


TOP THREE

LAURA
Her painting was of a flower and some thorns, which describes Laura to a tee. She's pretty like a flower, but she's got some thorns, and they are aimed right at Becky, though I don't know why.
She starts to go all ruffly and I'm thinking it's gonna look a little bed skirt-y, but then she pulls out this idea of making a corset striated with a dark green that would mimic the thorns. And she burns the edges of her fabric to create the wilted edge of the flower.
Now, that sounds literal, but it wasn't. It didn't looks like flowers and thorns at all. It looked, well, like a fairy made of non-constructed ruffles. Which I gather is a good thing since she made Top Three.
Guest judge Zanna Roberts Rassi--taking the spot of my beloved Nina Garcia--didn't see the correlation between the art and the dress until Laura explained the thorns and the boning. Then Zanna liked it. Fellow guest judge, and a personal hottie of mine, Kenneth Cole, loved the fabric and the boning, as did Michael Kors. Heidi loved the softness and the hardness of the dress.
it was pretty, hell, it was beautiful, but was it avant-garde? Laura explained that Lady Gaga wears avant-garde clothes but I couldn't see Gaga in this, unless it was made of real thorns.
That would be avant-garde. And hard to get near!

Josh M
His piece of art was a tree, dead from the ground up and alive beneath the earth. He didn't get it. Even he said he doesn't do earthy he does fake...like his hair tan teeth voice and personality.
I'm a little over this princess, can you tell?
He buys neoprene fabric and paints it to look like bark. Um, that's avant-garde? Or is that costume? Because the last time I saw a tree costume it was smacking an apple out of Dorthy's hand on the road to Oz. And that was in 1939. Yeah. Not so avant-garde in 2011, Joshy.
Then he slinks over to Becky to tell her that he loves her design, after which he tells us that her new improved creativity is solely because of the beat-down he gave her last week. Well Joshy, if you want to take credit for Denim and Squares, have at it.
Seriously, I'm over him.
However, I loved the top. The color and the volume were lovely, and looked like a tree on fire--Wait! Didn't Anya have fire trees and Josh have dead tree? Me thinks someone is pilfering a little Anya again.
I hated the skirt. Even the addition of his initials, his mother's initials, and a little heart--like it was carved into the bark of the tree skirt--couldn't save it for me. Cos-tume.
Still, those wacky judges loved it. Heidi liked the painted skirt, as did Kenneth Cole. Kors thought it was spectacular, top to bottom, er, flora to trunk, and Zanna loved the skirt.
Okay, so three of four complimented just the skirt and he gets Top Three? For half a good outfit.
Oh honey. No. This win will go to his head as we see from promos for next week when Josh melts down.

ANTHONY RYAN
After the debacle of last week, when Nina Garcia had to promise one of her kidneys to Heidi in case she needed to it, to keep Anthony on the show, he needed to step up.
And he did.
His collaborative artwork was a self-portrait of himself and his art student. And Anthony was inspired by the colors--this from the colorblind one--and the brush strokes. So, he opted for a sheer fabric embellished with thicker fabric strokes.
And, after collaborating with the artist on her painting, he worked with her on his design. When she said the orange must go, he ripped it off--and apparently gave it to Bryce?
His look on the runway was literal without looking literal. It looked like the painting in that the colors were similar, and the fabric brush strokes truly mimicked the actual brush strokes. But it wasn't literal. It was fashion.
It wasn't, sadly, avant-garde, but then so few were.
Heidi loved it, saying it was sexy, modern, simple and powerful. Kors liked the dimension of the fabric strokes and the sheer fabric, while Zanna also liked the brush strokes. Kenneth Cole thought the execution lacked refinement; the hem was undone, but was that intentional or not?
Must not have been because it got Anthony Ryan his first win of the season.


BOTTOM THREE

OLIVIER
Seriously. That accent must be stopped. But first, let me apologize in advance for making fun of it. See, sometimes it sounds Asian, sometimes it sounds British, sometimes it sounds like a bastard child of Chinese and British. It never sounds like it's from O-H-I-O.
Instead of I'd like sausages and potatoes please, it becomes I'd like some bangers and mash, please, or it becomes I like banger mash please. It has to stop.
And, while we're stopping that, stop with the sad sack routine, too. Oh, you listen to depressing music. Oh, you like muted colors. Oh, you like simple design. Snap out of it! Quick, someone call Cher and have her smack some sense into him.
We get it. Your palette is muted, your taste is simple, you can't manage your time. And you cannot grasp what Tim is telling you when he tells you to step up. Your artwork was bright and colorful, and you picked gray and blue. Pay.Attention.
And lose the accent!!
You glued the dress to your model? WTF! Luckily that was caught on camera and Tim Gunn  sprinted--well, as much as one can sprint in a suit--into the workroom for the scolding. No glue EVER!!!!
The other designers call him "slow and steady" but this ain't no fairy tale, no matter how many fairies are on the show. Slow and steady don't win this race, Ollie.
His dress was sad, like his music and his voice and his color palette. It was also cut way too high. Had the model taken bolder strides there might have been some good china on display.
Heidi absolutely hated it; in Olivier speak that's HeidiHate. Zanna liked half the top, but hated the other half and the entire bottom and the color. In Olivier-speak, that's ZannaHate. Kors liked the bodice, but warned that Olivier needs to explode. That's Olivier-speak for OllieGoBoom or OllieGoBackOhio. Kenneth Cole also liked half the top but thought there were too many details and hemlines and shapes. Olivier-speak for KnockFuckOff.
Olivier should have gone home for this mess, but he got saved.
OllieHappy.

BERT
His student was a cubist and since Bert is a bit of a square, this should have been a match made in heaven.
Yeah, not so much.
Bert hopped on board the Literal Train and rode it to Literal Mood and bought Literal Fabric and made a Literal Outfit. Literally.
He made oven mitts in all shapes and sizes and then attached them to a pair of old man pants; you know, the kind that buckle just under the chin? But these old man pants were also balloons and made his model look like an Oompa-Loompa after a month on Jenny Craig.
Bert had decided avant-garde didn't need to be exaggerated and then he literally exaggerated it.
Zanna decided that the artwork and the fashion weren't harmonious. Um, Zanna? Get me Nina. The art and the fashion were the exact same freaking thing! Kors said avant-garde could be beautiful, just oddly beautiful, but this didn't look modern. He told Bert to get ugly. Obviously, Kors hasn't been watching the workroom feed from last week. Kenneth Cole thought it was too outside the box, when, in fact, it was a box, and a circle and a triangle, stuffed with sponges and appliqued to big-ass pants.
Heidi was obviously having a  stroke because she liked it, and she alone saved Bert from an Auf'ing he deserved.

JOSH C
So, his first solo challenge after being Auf'd, resurrected and put on Team Olivier and Viktor last week.
And he gets the best artwork possible. A wolf. A wolf whose ribcage is open to show its heart. I mean, you could go all sorts of ways with this, and Josh C did.
Sadly, he went all those ways and then came back with nothing. Except that nervous girl giggle that says, I wanna come out, I do!
At Mood, his first trip ever--where he's given $300 and spends $170--he goes for leather or pleather and faux fur. Now, the other designers derided the fur and told him so, but the outift needed fur. Not a lot, mind you, but enough that would create the softness in the painting--a wolf with a heart.
And Josh C put a bejeweled heart on the model, which was a nice touch, and then he took it off. He designed a long skirt, very full, and ruffled, and then chopped it off into a leather-pleather mini.
He lost his whole design because he was second-guessing himself and listening to the other designers. Kors said it was neither avant-garde nor fashion, but more Victorian cocktail waitress in Vegas. Heidi called it Halloween Whore, or Halloween Horrible. Zanna thought it trashy and not beautiful, while Kenneth Cole thought the proportions were off.
it didn't read wolf. It didn't read heart of wolf.
it read Auf'.
Again.
I was going to post Josh's picture from the website, but I deleted it from my computer the last time he was Auf'd and it really isn't worth the three seconds it would take to find it again.
And, I hate to be rude--that's funny cuz it's sooooo not true--but, Josh? Don't come back.

Oh, There's Outrage All Right, But It's MY Outrage!

In the spirit of fairness, I don't watch 'Dancing With The Stars'. Well, in the real spirit of fairness, I did catch some YouTubes of Kate Gosselin clod-hopping across the dance floor, but I don't watch the actual show. Could be because they call them 'stars' and they aren't stars at all.

Two words: Bristol Palin. In her case, the show should have been called 'Dancing With The Daughter's Of Failed Politicians and Media Whores' though that title might have proven a bit unwieldy.

So, there's always been controversy over who gets on the show. Are they stars or media whores? Athletes or wannabes? But now, with this next round of DWTS there is some new fuel to the controversy fire because Chaz Bono will be dancing.

Is Chaz a 'star'? Well, maybe not in the vein of his mother [Cher, for the one or two of you who live under a rock] or even his father [Sony Bono, entertainer-turned-politician for the two or three of you living under a neighboring stone]. But he is a published author, he was a media spokesperson, and he has been the subject of a documentary on his decision to transgender from female-to-male.

So, there is some 'star' in there. At least more star than ego-maniacal behemoth Nancy Grace who will also appear this season. But it's only the addition of Bono to the cast that is yielding a vehement reaction from some folks, and it getting ugly out there.

There have been all sorts of messages on the DWTS message boards--and who knew there was such a place?--about idiotic things like, who will be his partner? I put 'his' in italics because, ladies and gentlemen, Chaz Bono is a man, so naturally he'll be dancing with a woman. True, Chaz was born Chastity, but things change, and so do some people's gender when they recognize that they were born differently and opt to correct it.

So, Chaz is a man. Get over it. Deal with it. Move the fuck on from it.

Here's how this show apparently works: the 'stars' come on and are paired with a professional dancer and then each week they dance. The judges comment and then the public gets to vote on who stays. So, really, it's just a popularity contest.

But know this, Chaz Bono should not be voted for or against because of his gender reassignment surgery. He should be kicked off or kept on because he danced well enough, or poorly enough. This isn't a show about accepting transgendered men and women, it's a reality-pop-pop-fizz-fizz dance show.

If you don't accept transgendered people, or think the whole subject icky, then don't watch, and stay locked inside your bigoted, judgemental head for the rest of your bigoted, judgemental life. The show isn't an ad for or against gender reassignment It is neither a public welcoming of transgendered people, nor some sort of kangaroo court for the public to judge transgendered people. It's a reality-pop-pop-fizz-fizz dance show.

So, let's see how dimwitted and narrow-minded and asshatted and fucktarded people can be; here are some of those messages to ABC, and the DWTS message boards:

"HUGE HUGE fan of this show since season two and eagerly await each season to get my dancing/entertainment 'fix'!! But when I heard that Chaz Bono was going to be on, I was sick. Not that I have anything personally again her/him, I just don't want that lifestyle choice continually flaunted in the media esp ABC."

First things first, asshat. it isn't him/her. It's him. Chaz Bono is a man. Deal with it. Secondly, it isn't a lifestyle choice, it's a life choice to finally be able to breathe in your own body because you can now accept your gender and not fight against. Grow the fuck up.

"Chaz Bono How low can this show sink. Well you have certainly addressed the gay commuity [sic]. Guess this will not be a family show any longer!!!! Lost my family!"

Boo-freaking-hoo. You don't like gay folks or transgendered folks. Then stay inside, because we're here, we're queer, we're transgendered, and we're on TV.

"YOUR choice to bring Chaz Bono into the mix goes too far. I am not about to risk the potential for on screen dialogue about sex changes and gender confusion while my 7 and 9 year old are watching. If you want the "anything goes" hippy culture, then soon that is all you will get. You've lost us. In case any of you are wondering ... no, we are NOT tolerant. We are not tolerant to allow any and all influences to come unfiltered into our home and especially to our children. This is truly a sad farewell."

So, um, rather than have an open honest discussion about gender, gender identity, and reassignment, you'll just close the door to the show. Hmmm, I wonder how that will go over with you kids? Too bad you won't take the opportunity to have a conversation so maybe your children won't be as close-minded as their parents.

"Chaz will have to dance with one of the girls because she/he says she/he is a man but chromesomes [sic] say different no matter how many surgeries you have."

And no matter how many times you speak, you'll always be a delusional fucktard. But, other than me and, I know, countless other--and I may just watch this season and vote until my fingers bleed for Chaz if he proves a good dancer--he has another someone on his side.

Cher. Mom and original diva. After all these anonymous commenters plagued message boards mocking Chaz's selection for DWTS, Cher took to Twitter.

"Chaz is being viciously attacked on blogs and message boards about being on DWTS! This is still America right? It took guts to it. I support him no matter what he chooses to do...It took courage to do DWTS! Thank God Chaz has an unlimited supply."

True, Chaz is a helluva lot stronger than these morons. I think he gets that from his mother. But then Cher got pissed--and don't mess with a pissed off diva: 

"Mothers don't stop getting angry with stupid bigots who f--- with their children!"

Mothers should know better, and best. While some mothers are not accepting or understanding, and maybe don't want their children to be themselves and be happy, most mothers are that way. They were, in fact, born that way.

So, for all the naysayers, and all the supporters, what does Chaz have to say about all the ruckus?.

"At this point I want people to know that transgender people are just like everyone else. We're not people to be afraid of or misunderstood. I would love to get that message across."

'Nuff said.

ABC receives complaints about Chaz Bono's addition to 'DWTS'

Scenes From A Vacation

So, here's a quick photo-tour of our time in the Northwest. 

As always, you can click 'em to emBIGGERate 'em.

My father lives very near, very near, the Canadian border, in a small farming community.  I mean, it's so close that one wrong turn and the Mounties demand to see your passport. This is a view of Mount Baker rising behind one of the farms.

Speaking of Canada, with their gay marriage and health care, this is the Freedom Arch at the border, and a view of the Canadian flag, done flower style.

In the harbor of Bellingham, I found the name of this boat particularly suited to me, as I often don't give a Flying F. After spotting this, I went in search of the Asshat and the Fucktard, to no avail.

This is the City Center of Tacoma, right across the street from a delicious Mediterranean restaurant we enjoyed. Tacoma is very reminiscent of San Francisco, so it holds a special place in my heart. Old buildings, streetcars--albeit new ones--and a waterfront.

In Tacoma, we saw an exhibit of Chihuly glass--if you've never seen a Chihuly exhibit, what are you waiting for?? But I was stunned that so much of his gorgeous glass pieces could be found on the streets and on freeway overpasses.

A piece of Chihuly glass. I love the reflection  of the overhead lights and how it looks like stars.

Another Chihuly. Many of his pieces are inspired by the handwoven blankets of Native Americans.

 The Tacoma Union Station, now a US Courthouse with a lobby filled with Chihuly glass pieces.

 Mount Rainer, as seen from the Chihuly bridge overpass.

 The street art. Row upon row of Chihuly artwork on a pedestrian bridge from the City Center to the waterfront.

 These are some of the fabrics created by Chihuly and then used as inspiration for his glass pieces.

 And what's a visit to Seattle without braving the crowds, sights and smells of the Public Market.....

....or getting all touristy and going to the Space Needle.

 I loved the views from the top of the Space Needle, looking out at Seattle. I was not so fond of looking down.

 The beautiful Snoqualmie Falls are just about 45 minutes from the craziness and traffic and noise and fun of downtown Seattle.

 The town of Snoqualmie had a railroad museum. Carlos loves railroad cars and railroad travel. I, however, was more taken by the rust and decay of the rail cars and found many--and I mean many--shots I had to take of rust and ladders and numbers.

So, there's a brief tour of some of what we did and saw and smelled and tasted and touched. farmland to city, waterfalls to trains. A little bit of everything, I guess!

Design Star: It's Nate!! It's NATE!!!!!

Okay, so I was gone last week but they have this new thing called a DVR that allowed me to watch the show when I got home. Which i did, and will now recap in a few sentences:

• Karl got all architectural and camera ready and won.


• Mark went all woody [again!] and used some old things he found as wall art [again!].


• Meg hoisted a 200-pound ottoman over her head, and the lifted a Toyota Prius off of a kitten, and half-designed a room with a crooked art display.


• Kelly refused to listen to a five-year-old who wanted bunk beds and should have gone home but for some reason did not.


• Leslie turned a two-year-old's show biz performance room into a guest room with a wonky stage from which she was cancelled.


• Kevin went all pop of color and yappy little dog and, eventually, he went home, too.

Caught up? Good.
This week the designers are tasked with taking one of the smaller condos in their building and using $2500.00 to spruce it up, like say, the owner of the condo might do. They are given identical spaces with furniture and some accessories that they can use or discard. This is like the White Box Challenge from weeks back, but now it's a White Room.
There are no new ideas.
Let's rip:

Meg
For some reason Meg makes up a whole story about the person who lives in her space; some sort of brokedown, trust-fund baby named Graham Wilcox who used to travel but now she's poor and living in a giant loft in Brooklyn and eating Ramen and hanging baskets on the wall.
Oooooooooooookay.
She has the painter paint the room gray and then takes long strips of molding and attached them vertically to the wall. Oh yeah, she paints the molding yellow. All of the designers picked bland and boring paint colors. Did they never hear Kevin talk POP!!!
But the idea of the molding, and the floating shelves attached to each piece, was interesting. What wasn't interesting was the large silver L-bracket you could see beneath each shelf holding it up. Um, Meg? Perhaps some yellow paint on the brackets? Or, better still, get actual floating shelves and notch then around the moldings so you don't see the supports?
Just sayin'.
For her Camera Challenge, presented Live! on The Nate Show, Meg took an old coffee table, painted it gray, and then did some sort of loopy, swirly, squirrelly design on it. Seriously, she called it chic and modern, when it looked like something a seven-year-old might do. And then she goes all Beefy and The Beast and demands that the audience ooh and aah as she paints the table. Frightened, the audience submits.
But the judges loved the fact that Meg finally finished a room, on her own, and on time, and she gets the win.

Karl
He's mostly worried about the Camera Challenge since he's been a little off in that area. And he's even more afraid when he's told he'll be presenting Live! on The Nate Show. But his repurposing, or creating something a homeowner can do themselves, was a cool idea. He took store-bought, boxy shelves, stood them om end, and used actual books to make the book shelves. It was a cool ideas, and worked in his space, but would have looked better had there been more of them.
Still, his presentation, again, Live! on The Nate Show, went very smoothly and he generated oohs and aahs naturally, not through inti-Meg-ation.
His one mistake, other than more sad paint colors, was to take what looked like a bunch of paint stirrers and make them into a small dot of a clock along the biggest wall in the condo. It looked a little lonely.
But, because of his shelves and his Camera success, Karl gets a Second Place finish and some more tears.

Mark
Hottie Mark is at a loss. I so wanted to hug him, but then, i always want to snuggle a hot Latino. He gets all caught up in what to do for the Camera Challenge--to repurpose an item that a homeowner can do themselves--that he forgoes things like art. And design.
There's a lot of moving of furniture. A lot of painters painting. Some hanging of boxes all crookedy and crazy on the wall, and the purchase of some thrift store chairs that he could have painted some fabulous color and reupholstered as part of a, oh, i dunno, Camera Challenge.
Instead, he opts to silver-leaf a desk lamp because everyone can silver-leaf, right? I know.
Mark presents his Camera Challenge Live! on The Nate Show and gets all tongue-tied and nervous and calls silver-leaf tinfoil. i imagine a lot of bored housewives in some of the square states rushing to the kitchen for the Reynolds Wrap, and a hot glue gun, then cursing Mark when it doesn't turn out well.
Still, even with all his troubles--Hey! Maybe he should have gone woody and recycled wall art again!--Mark gets a save.

Kelly
She decides to create the condo space as if it were her own.
Mistake One.
I mean she's a suburban wife and mother, not your typical New Yorker. It'll be like Iowa in Brooklyn, and those two don't really mesh.
She buys rag rugs and then decides to use them to reupholster some stools. Ooh, never seen that before. Padding. Rug. Stool. Staple gun. Done. Très exciting.
Mistake Two.
And, in all her shopping, she forgets to buy window treatments for the one huge window that hits you in the face as you enter the space. So, she hangs table-cloths up there, and then places sheers behind them, and lower than them.
Mistake Three.
Her Camera Challenge, presented Live! on The Nate Show, was very clinical and dull. She must have said, two or three times, while holding up a rug, a stool a piece of foam, and a staple gun, "We've all seen these before." And we have, which made it a boring segment.
Mistake Four.
Out the door, Kelly. You've been cancelled.

Rants
I have a few.

This season is dull. Except for a few designs in the White Box Challenge there have been no Oh my god moments and no Wows. It's dull. And boring. And it's been seen before.

Genevieve Gorder is a moron with the design sense of dirt. I mean, the woman wore culottes and pumps last week, and is more high school girl giddy on TV than anything else.

Vern Yip is an annoying little queer who says things like "super interesting." The last time anyone said super interesting was in the 80s, and she was a high school girl. In fact, I think she was Genevieve Gorder.

Nate Berkus. I mean, come on, without Oprah, it's be Nate who? And his raves about Meg had me wondering: He's from Chicago. She's from Chicago. I sense a schoolyard reunion, where the bully is on a relaity show and the bullied one is a judge and too afraid the bully will take his lunch money again so he picks her as the winner.

And finally: Bring back Candice for crying out loud.

buh-bye, Kellie. You are out of this picture!

I May Have Had A Lovely Vacation, But I'm Gettin' Ready To Rant!

source

Home Is Where The Dirty Laundry Is

Home.

At last.

As always, the vacation is fabulous, but coming home is just as nice.

Especially, it seems, after running around Northwest Washington for over a week, and seeing just about everything.

Let's start with air travel. Hate it/Love it. I love the actually flying part--except for the feeling of being cattle in a  boxcar--but I hate the waiting and the delays, which began instantly. Our flight out was due to leave at 10:15 AM and didn't depart until 12:45 PM. That was sort of okay, because we have a layover in DC of some three-and-a-half hours which was cut to about thirty minutes. Except that our flight out of DC was delayed 90 minutes.

Flying. Pfffft.

On the way back, our flight to Houston was delayed because that plane was coming from Newark, and some hurricane or something was causing all sorts of havoc, and we would have missed our connection in Houston. So, the ticket agent rebooked us on another flight from Seattle to Charlotte, and then from Charlotte to Columbia. Nice. Except it didn't leave for five hours.

I know.

Sad to say, the only flight arc that was on time and the least bit enjoyable was the flight from Charlotte to Columbia because it was, literally, a sixteen minute flight from, as the captain said, "wheels up to wheels down."

The poor flight attendant offered beverages as soon as we were airborne and as soon as she served them she came around to collect, them and we were down.

Headed home.

To pets who went nuts and suitcases of trinkets and dirty clothes. But I've got one more day till back to work, so that's my task.
Laundry. And making up our absence to Tuxedo.

I'll have some photos to share as the week goes on--I took about 300......Oy!--but these few are some of the high points.

High points! Get it?!?

My new favorite drink, The Lychee Cooler:
Yazi Ginger Vodka, Soho Lychee liqueur, muddled mint, fresh lime, ginger beer, ice.
Hea-ven!

Mad About Town

Well, since I'm away, I thought I'd offer up a little tour of Smallville [real name: Camden} for those of you--and I'm assuming that's all of you, who've never been here.

The Kershaw-Cornwallis House,
just south of town.

Camden is the fourth oldest city in of South Carolina, and is actually the oldest inland city, with a population of roughly 8,000. In total area, Camden is 9.8 square miles, of which 9.6 is land, and 0.2 is water.

Like I said, Smallville.

The Robert Mills-designed Courthouse is now
Camden's Visitors Center. Mills is most famous
for designing the Washington Monument.

In 1730--yes, almost three hundred years ago-- Camden became part of a township plan ordered by King George II, and was laid out in 1732 as the town of Fredericksburg in the Wateree River swamp--just south of present-day Camden.

Beautiful downtown Camden.

When King George III ordered eleven inland townships established along South Carolina's rivers, few of the area settlers chose to take lots surveyed in the town, choosing the higher ground to the north, and the Fredericksburg township soon disappeared.

In 1758, Joseph Kershaw, from Yorkshire, England came into the township, established a store and renamed the town Pine Tree Hill. Camden became the inland trade center in the colony, and Kershaw suggested that the town be renamed Camden, in honor of Lord Camden, the champion of colonial rights.

One of my favorite buildiungs in town,
it's now a music store.

In May 1780 the American Revolution came to Charleston, and that town was captured. Afterwards, Lord Charles Cornwallis and 2,500 of his troops marched into Camden and established it as the main British supply post for the Southern campaign.

The Battle of Camden, the worst American defeat of the Revolution, was fought on August 16, 1780 in Camden, and the Battle of Hobkirk Hill was fought by 1,400 American troops led by General Nathanael Greene and 950 British soldiers led by Lord Francis Rawdon on April 25, 1781. The latter battle was a costly win for the British, and forced them to leave Camden.

Camden City Hall.

Camden, though not involved directly with the Civil War, did send a few generals into battle, most notably a Hero of the American Civil War, Richard Rowland Kirkland, who is interred in the Old Quaker Cemetery.

After the war, in 1885, Camden became a place where rich Northern families would spend the winter. The town became associated with many equestrian activities, and is now the home of the third oldest active polo field in America. In the winter, more than 1,500 thoroughbreds call the field home. For that reason, Camden is known as the ‘Steeplechase Capital of the World’.”



The Main Post Office.

 The Carolina Cup is an annual event held on either the final Saturday in March or the first Saturday of April, with the first race held on March 22, 1930; the Cup has been held every year since, with the exception of 1943 and 1945 when a little old thing called World War Two got in the way--why we had the Cup in '44 is not known.

The races have become a South Carolina tradition, and normally draw crowds of over 70,000 spectators to Camden. as we live on the rod to the racecourse, we see most of these people driving, and walking, to the Cup.

The Cup has become a premier social sporting event at Springdale Race Course, which is also home to the Marion du Pont Scott Colonial Cup held on the third Sunday in November.

It's a big deal in Smallville.

And so, y'all, there's a little history, and a few pictures of Small.....er, Camden.


Springdale Race Course, a 500-acre venue for racing and training.



The Cup.