I’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you. But in the hierarchy of importance, pretty stands several rungs down from happy, is way below healthy, and if done as a penance, or an obligation, can be so far away from independent that you may have to squint really hard to see it in the haze. […] I was going to make a handy prettiness decision tree, but pretty much the end of every branch was a bubble that said “tell complainers to go to hell” so it wasn’t much of a tool.

Powell’s ultimate conclusions regarding the malignancy of a “military style,” appropriated along hyper-masculine, hyper-nationalist, and highly commodified lines in American civil society, are correct. But Powell’s analysis erroneously refers to the same cultural zeitgeist to explain both military conventions, and the civilian appropriation of the “military style.” Treating both as manifestations of the same overarching culture effectively ignores the material concerns that distinguish the military’s appearance and design standards from the “future fascist paramilitary participants” Powell rightly warns us about. [...] There are many service members and veterans, myself included, who are uncomfortable with the various ways that civil society has been militarized, from the entanglements between sports and the military to the weapons of war found in American streets. Their voices are important in our discourse because they carry the weight of credibility. They are difficult to dismiss, especially for those who fetishize the military. Yet, criticisms of the “military style” that mischaracterize the military create a space for people to flippantly dismiss valid criticisms of militarization as just more political posturing, even when those criticisms come from military veterans.

Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men. [...] All of this—skulls, trucks, flags, guns—form the edges of a commodified, weaponized identity. [...] Those same political and market forces have successfully rebranded the American flag as both consumer product and cultural signifier. Merchandizing and uniformed services have considerably shifted associated symbolism away from a (debatable) neutrality toward a fully masculinized, militarized icon eager to make way for an authoritarian future. The breakdown governing its authorized use asserts that allegiance is above its own laws (and flag code). The incremental push remove color [from the flag] extends far beyond its obvious symbolic value. It’s no stretch to see how emphasis on rigidity and lack of depth helps reframe any spectrum as weakness: vibrancy, nuance, interpretation are signs of vulnerability.

Kanye West’s obsession with the fashion industry is an important one and his comments must play out on a world stage. While seemingly humorous, in fact, they highlight the very real barriers between what is and is not considered fashion.

Kanye’s decade-long solo career has been a struggle between the non-stop ideas running through his brain and his skills at verbalizing them through a variety of communication obstacles, whether self-created or forced upon him.

A elegy to hipsters, complete with obnoxious photography, sort of just picks and chooses various elements of youth culture and NYC hipster party culture and starts dividing them into subspecies. I have read this through three times and still don’t get it. That may be my fault or this may just be total bullshit.

"But all of a sudden, for a brief time at least, she's the only real pop star around."

Post-crash style.

Audio Visual Arts is a gallery in New York. Christian Joy, fashion designer for Yeah Yeah Yeahs and friend of my fashion-designer friend Leah, has a costume installation there. I hope to go there someday.

Stylistic changes in the Obama White House. "I've got to do something about these plates. I'm not really a plates kind of guy."

"Music. Dance. Clock."

They'll be decking out my man Ethan for his October wedding. Rock and roll.

The ultimate in cuteness, now on a tshirt! Napoleon Dynamite?

"The Utilikilt offers the Utility Patented Pleat System #6,282,723 which separates our product from any other Mens Unbifurcated Garment on the market today."

" 24 Different Ways To Lace Shoes."

"Each one sells for around $10 and features real, live plants that grow in a tiny arboretum until they become too large to be contained, after which they can be transplanted to a larger pot."

Buy these next time I make some tshirts.

"Yes, for the fun of it!"