Friday, July 30, 2010

The 3 C's: Clowns, Clothes, and Chocolate!

Hey Lovers!

I'm back from my "blogging break" and I apologize for not posting in such a long while. I've been a pretty busy beaver in the metal's studio lately, getting things nice and tidy for the Art Fair next month. The good news is, I have plenty of tasty photos and ideas to share, which I will be uploading in the next couple days.

But first, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the adorableness that is Zoe Kravitz.





That skirt is worth dying for.

I've been trying to find a coat like this for the past 5 years of my life. No success.

BTW, Who knew that Alexander Wang was so young and gorgeous??!!

So now that I've gotten my fashion crush out of the way, I want to talk about something I've recently read: Clown Girl by Monica Drake.


My friend lent me this book during my short vacation in Michigan. I was intialy very excited about the prospect of a "dark, witty tale" regarding the life of an aspiring clown. But I was very disappointed by the end result. The main character of this novel is named Nita, an aspiring clown who works relatively shitty gigs to save up enough money to go to Clown School and be with her boyfriend (who she also sent to Clown School). In the midst of pining after her fellow clown lover (who doesn't return her phone calls) and perfecting her mime interpretation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, she is also resisting the advances of a "Steve McQueen look alike" cop who is trying his damndest to court her.

You can pretty much guess the ending, right? I definitely did but continued on for the remaining 300 pages in hopes that atleast the end would justify the means...but it did not. None of the characters were sympathetic or multi-dimensional at all. In fact Nita, with all of her self imposed problems was down right unlikeable. It's also unclear as to why the cop was so drawn to Nita because clowns are relatively common place in this story's setting and Nita never leaves her home without her makeup and costume, even if she doesn't have a gig.

It's very clear that the author was trying to draw a parallel between the way the two character's "costumes" affected the way they interacted with the world but each character was so underdeveloped that after a while it felt like I was choking on archetypes. Read this book if there is nothing else lying around and if you don't mind getting headaches. I only think about this novel fondly because of the person who gave it to me.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Friday thus far. I'm in an overly air conditioned office, dreaming about Ice Cream.

No comments: