"I love your comments, you must be such a joy to be around. Always (most of the times) you only see the good and so supportive. Me on the other hand …..I am a bit more critical ….terrible is a word I use."

A commenter reacts to another commenter who said "Love the way the end of the sleeve is cut off…his thick curly locks are sublime!" about a photograph at The Sartorialist that just made me laugh out loud.

(And speaking of idiosyncratic styling, I love the 5-dot ellipsis deployed by the commenter who uses the word "terrible.")

"Shots like this are challenging because it’s tempting to jump to conclusions about her economic situation... but all that we do know is that she has a wonderful eccentricity."

"I don’t know what kind of comments are appropriate for a photo like this other than something like 'more power to her.' Photographers like Lissette Model and Diane Arbus made their careers shooting people on the fringes of society but I wonder if those type of photos today feel informative or exploitive?"

From the comments: "Were you unable to talk to her? I imagine that all of your questions would’ve have been answered or at least a simple conversation would’ve revealed a few things. I think you may have answered your own question about informative vs. exploitive."

Have I tagged your mind?

2 signs — in the email this morning — that Althouse readers, when away from this blog, are thinking about Althouse blog tags.

1. "Dear Professor,  You occasionally use a tag for punctuation.  I saw this article in The Daily Mail and thought of you.  Regards."

2. "Italian Men in Shorts. In case you didn't see this."

My response:

1. These guys "invented" the question-mark-with-a-comma and the exclamation-mark-with-a-comma, patented it, then found it didn't catch on. How was it supposed to catch on? You patented it.

2. Seems to me, if you're able to wear a blazer, it's not so hot that you can justify shorts. And to prove the point that there's no "Italian" exception to the men-in-shorts standards, look at the 2 men leaning against the car in the background. Heinous.

Lips... flowers...

Absurd clothes... so lovable.

Socks and sandals.

Believe it.

This is perhaps the worst-received Sartorialist photograph ever. From the comments:

Lucky your post’s title had Paris in it otherwise I would have thought it was ironic! Now I just think how decadent Parisians must be to find this edgy! Normcore huh! It reminds me of the French character in one of Nancy Mitford’s books who tells her English friends she’s discovered the most chic London store full of marvellous things and they’re all wondering what they’ve overlooked and it turns out to be ‘the Woolworth’.

2 conversations I listened to today (with great pleasure).

1. The Sartorialist, Steve Schuman, talking about photographing fashion on the streets and his devotion — even as many other offers come his way — to blogging and to sincere self-expression.



2. Lena Dunham talks to Bill Simmons about "Girls" (establishing her distance from her character Hannah) and about the pop music and TV and movies that have influenced her.

Hipster/homeless ambiguity could be very dangerous.

"Not to offend anyone directly, but this photo could quite possibly be of a homeless man, a street person, or whatever term you wish to use. It could also just as easily be an affluent hipster wearing a highly dysfunctional piece of high-fashion. I think the ambiguity of that is very dangerous."

Comment on a photograph at The Sartorialist.

Follow-on comment: "The ‘danger’ here is somehow thinking that this is in the territory of Zoolander’s “Derelicte” Collection. I don’t know if it’s a ‘trap’ … but when reading some of these comments, I’m thinking Brüno and Zoolander :-)"

"Yes! I am always thinking of two-toned shoes. I’m never not thinking about them."

"This is perfection. Why are most shoes so boringly monochromatic?"

(Bonus: Amazon shopping link for 2-toned shoes. Special recommendations: here and here.)

All over the world, women are self-comforting...

... grasping their skirt hems and rolling, rolling them upward, absent-mindedly.

Meanwhile, women eat cupcakes, cupcakes, which were ranked among the 10 most overrated things in the world, which made me say:

The only reason cupcakes are popular is because people have forgotten actual cake, which is moist and tender. Cupcakes have way too much edge... and that fluting doubles the already-too-much edge. But if you never eat real cake, you don't notice. It's like how good crackers are if you never have bread or how good a popsicle is if you never get a nice big dish of ice cream.

But people won't go back to cake, because you can't get a slice of cake and carry it around with you on the street. How would it be presented? It can't be sliced and left out on the shelves like cupcakes. You'd need some saran wrap or something to keep it from getting dried out.

So here, lonely ladies of America, here's your pre-dried-out cake: cupcake.

It sounds like something an old-fashioned guy would call you if he thinks you're pretty, so maybe you're thinking about him as you walk down the street licking icing and choking down dry cake... and tears.

Are your pants too short?

Maybe not.

"If You’re Thinking About….Black Socks, Black Shoes."

A possible trend... or just something Sartorialist has been seeing...

I'd say black socks, black shoes is a poor girl's short black boots. Except the girl's not poor, so it's a humorous commentary on poverty.

The "sneaker trend."

Something else that came back from the 80s.

Keeping track of digits.

This picture — over at Sartorialist — of a young woman reading a book in an outdoor café reminds me of something that happened yesterday. See? She's casually slouching in a big fuzzy coat. I assume that's fake fur. So... I was traipsing about on State Street yesterday, looking for something red to wear. (I'm going to the football game tomorrow. I've never gone to a football game!) And I wandered into a shop I like, where I often try things on and, in fact, I often buy things. Many times, over the years, I've dropped $300, $400, even $700 at a time on skirts/tops/jackets/whatever. I check out what's new, and there's a nice fuzzy coat, the sort of thing that seems as though it might be fun to wear slouching about in a café. It might amuse the students and my colleagues if I walked the law school hallways in that. I glance at the price tag. $395. It fits. It looks cute. It could be "me." La la la. Kind of retro hippie. I'm getting a Janis Joplin vibe. I overhear a salesperson say the words "four thousand dollars." Holy fuck. There's another digit on that price tag! I pretend I didn't just realize the coat cost 10x what I thought as I maneuver myself to the point where I can return that pelt to the hanger. Would I ever pay $4,000 for a coat? Maybe. I did buy an Armani suit that one time. But yesterday wasn't one of those times. Yesterday was the day I bought a red scarf — in "cashmink" — which is not something that entailed the participation of any goats or weasels.

The return of hot pants.

I remember the first time this happened. The people who succumbed to the trend were very embarrassed later, to the point that they couldn't even understand how they could have made such an egregious fashion blunder. But I'm old, and these kids today don't remember. They will have to go through their own cycle of enthusiasm and shame. Have fun!

A "men in shorts" atrocity.

Presented as good, by The Sartorialist.

"I want now this vintage bag!!!"

A comment over at The Sartorialist got me thinking about the oldest, most impossible to throw out thing in my closet. My closet is big enough that I can always fit more things in, but I'm trying to discipline myself into at least thinking about editing my collection of presumably wearable items by resisting buying more hangers.

As I visualize this task, the first thing I picture are the oldest items, the things that have survived many editings over the the years. I have a chartreuse dress made of scarf silk that I haven't worn in 20 years. Any time I look at it, I feel I am on the verge of wearing it. And now, it's clearly vintage.

Do you have things like that? When you contemplate off-loading them, does a voice in your head say "vintage"? What is it about that nasty old red bag in the Sartorialist photograph that made a commenter covet it and think "vintage"? If you've looked at the photograph you will know the answer and you will have laughed at the question.

What did your grandparents look like on their second date?

Like this?

"I've always said that sports is at the forefront of what 'real men' (read: macho men) would wear."

"There's a very simple reason... men will do or wear anything to win a game. They will shave off all their body hair, they will wear skintight lycra bodysuits, they will wear shorts that look like skirts if they think it will help them win or fit in with the team."

So... then does that mean that if those shorts that look like skirts don't help a guy play basketball then he's unmanly... even more unmanly than the usual guy in shorts... that look like skirts?

Do those skirt-like shorts help? What if those old-style short-short basketball shorts help? Wear them and you're more manly?

I'm just testing the theory!

ADDED: I'm noticing how The Sartolialist has hedged his theory: "if they think it will help them win or fit in with the team." And now it seems incoherent. Doing what it takes to win does seem manly, but doing things because you believe it will help covers all sorts of unscientific, superstitious, and just plain stupid things. What's manly about that? And wanting to fit in? Now you're getting downright girly!

"People who sit & knit are just the coolest people ever!"

"Yeah knitters!"

How to look adorable...

... while old.