Fashion | Mockingbird

The Unforgiving Law of Prep (Part One of Two)

by Matthew Stokes on Mar 25, 2013 • 18 Comments

I cannot be preppy.

I was not born in Philadelphia.

I did not attend boarding school.

I went to a public university. In the Southeast.

I did not grow up in Made in America, LL Bean hand-me-downs.

I occasionally shop at J. Crew (which is not preppy).

I wear slim-fit chinos and shirts, which are also not preppy.

I don’t remember a time when Brooks Brothers was American-owned and I can’t tell you about how great Orvis used to be or why the Norwegian sweaters were better when they were 20% rayon or how the only good camp moccasins are made in Maine and how outsourcing has…

Fashion / Humor

From The New Yorker

by David Zahl on Mar 18, 2013 • No Comments

Fashion / Psychology / Sports / Theology

Intellectual Honesty, A Theology of the Cross, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition

by Nick Lannon on Feb 20, 2013 • 8 Comments

My four-year-old daughter Hazel is a Sports Illustrated subscriber. It’s a complicated issue of expiring airline miles; don’t ask. This week, the annual swimsuit edition was delivered. I remember, as a younger man, subscribing to SPORT Magazine (it was a cheaper monthly option than the weekly Sports Illustrated) and eagerly awaiting the swimsuit issue. SPORT, it should be noted, performed a service to its libido-crazed readership: it actually produced a normal sports-themed magazine to put around the models in bikinis. In other words, when your mom looked askance at the cover, you could always complain that “it just took pages…

Comics / Fashion

From The New Yorker

by David Zahl on Jun 13, 2012 • 1 Comment

Church / Fashion / Film / Identity / Interviews / Music / Psychology / Religion / Social Science / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Moral Dieting, Self Illusions, Craig Sager’s Suits, Superhero Saints, LIBERATE, Prometheus, Drive-In Church, and MJ’s Bad

by David Zahl on Jun 8, 2012 • No Comments

1. We’ve given him a rest for a few months, but the break is over! David Brooks wrote an another incisive column for The NY Times this week, “The Moral Diet,” reflecting on Dan Ariely’s new book on dishonesty. Brooks isn’t afraid to cast the research in historical-religious terms; indeed, the shift in Western self-perception, from fundamentally bad to fundamentally good, is one of his favorite subjects. But in this column he also touches on our proclivity for self-justification, questioning the unquestioned assumption that a good life is simply one where the good outweighs the bad, i.e. where the moral/political/achievement…

Fashion / Identity

Prostitot, The New Accessory by Marc Jacobs

by Ethan Richardson on May 2, 2012 • No Comments

And he said, “Let the little children come to me.” A New York Times article that gives us an amazing portrayal of the lengths to which we go to accessorize and craft an identity that will justify us. Interestingly, Jesus tells us, like Charles James, that we must become little children: “Most American fashion is based on older women trying to look like babies.” Ironically, this trend towards the accessorization of children, and the fashion industry’s relevance-seeking chops, has inverted the biblical paradigm–and children are becoming adults, way too soon.

In the last year or two, Lanvin, Gucci, Stella McCartney and…

Church / Fashion / Film / Humor / Politics / Religion / Suffering

PZ’s Podcast, 84-89: Yvette Vickers, Protestant Episcopal SuperMarionation I&II, Bette Davis Eyes, Tana and Tahrir, and Pacific Overtures

by Mockingbird on Jan 23, 2012 • 1 Comment

Thanks again for your patience with us this past week. As you’ll see, while the site slept, some of us were busy!

Episode 84: Yvette Vickers (f. 4.27.11)

Newspapers and blogs seem to settle for the categorical in reporting such events as the discovery, on April 27, 2011, of the body of Yvette Vickers in her house in Benedict Canyon.

Yvette Vickers’s death becomes a “bizarre” event, and gets linked to the Gothic, even, as it applies to the kinds of movies in which she appeared. (She gave knockout performances, by the way, in her two “legacy” films: Attack of the 50…

Books / Comics / Fashion / Humor / Identity / Music / Poetry / Religion / Social Science / Theology / Year In Review

More 2011 Favorites: Books, Documentaries, Musical Discoveries and Web

by David Zahl on Dec 29, 2011 • 4 Comments

Books and Film

Favorite Piece of Fiction (Read During 2011): Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Not just a favorite of the year, but a favorite, period. It’s a rare work of art indeed that can shed light on both The Royal Tenenbaums and the Jesus Prayer. Unbelievably wise, delightfully funny and deeply religious (in the best possible sense), I’m not sure Christ had a better spokesman in the 20th century than Zooey Glass. And has Salinger’s dialogue ever been bettered? I’m only embarrassed it took me this long to discover it. Favorite novel released in 2011 would have to be…

America / Art / Fashion / Identity

A Hipster Is…Anyone But Me

by Ethan Richardson on Nov 21, 2011 • 1 Comment

If you ever choose to experience American Hipster 1.0 on the The American Hipster YouTube channel (not exactly a recommendation), you’ll notice a funny thing about those interviewed and the things they have to say. Many, if not most, of the high-school to 20-something crowd defined the “hipster” as something derogatorily vain, something inauthentic, and something ironically (IRONY!) self-descriptive. In a rather brilliant moment in the public interviews, a young couple describe the classic hipster garb as the normative skinny jeans, the vintage plaid, the un-prescribed black frames; shoot to the next interviewee, and you have said hipster-clad hipster answering…

Fashion / Humor