This has got to be the most ridiculous, derivative thing we’ve ever done, but part of us really likes calling the audioblogger number and just rambling on about how crap Jessica Simpson is.
P.S. Audioblogger has destroyed part 2, but as soon as they get their act together, we’ll finish up here.
But have you entered our new contest? Did we mention that the prize is worth over 100 American dollars? And perhaps 140 Canadian dollars?
Okay, honestly, no idea what the exchange rate is there, but you get the point.
Skeleton Key: not a terrific movie. Not as bad as it could have been. Not as good as it would have been if we hadn’t spent Friday evening sitting next to a crazy woman, who did that whole little dance crazy women do before sitting down to enjoy a Kate Hudson supernatural thriller. We were a little concerned that she might smell a little off, to be honest, but she smelled like roses. We don’t know what she was eating, but it was immense. Peanuts? Rocks? No idea. But she smelled like roses, and that’s good enough for us.
The best thing, bar none, about this film, was Kate Hudson’s studded belt. (Not visible in this image, or any of the nine million other shots of her in her panties.) Really, the belt should be out there doing PR, because it deserves some sort of award. Not the kind of horrible three-inch-wide Sienna Miller belt, but one of the ones that actually fit through belt loops.
Of course. the easiest way to do this would just be to buy one from the Hollywood Trading Company. The only problem with HTC is that they are so freaking expensive. It’s like, hmm, groceries for a month, or belt. But the thing is, how many times have we bought healthy groceries and then completely forgotten about them? And then one month later, it’s like, why did we buy these stupid blueberries, when all they were going to do is sit in the fridge and get nasty-mold on them? Stupid blueberries. So maybe belt is best. Above, two HTC belts: the brown, nicer one is $196 and the black, not as nice one is $230.
And growing up, we always thought Coach was so gross, mostly because all the aggravating rich girls at our school had one — which now sounds so ridiculous we can hardly believe it. We do like their sunglasses and other non-handbag accessories now, a conversion we’re sure Coach is wildy excited about. Coach studded belt, $168
And one from Lucky. At least this one’s a reasonable price ($48). Seriously, there’s something so naff about spending loads of money on a studded belt, with its vintage and \ or rock ‘n’ roll [ahem] connotations. It’s like buying those $400 “distressed” jeans with little paint smears on them, just like real artists have(!). So if we’re going to be posers, we’d at least like to reduce our cash investment. The mother of pearl studded belt, $48
True: Whenever we fly now — which is something we do fairly frequently, given the boyfriend who, aggravatingly, lives 4,000 miles — a distance also measured in terms of one disgusting meal, one viewing of the cinematic delight that is National Treasure, and a screaming toddler — away (he loves it when we say how much we hate babies), we avoid looking in the mirror, at all costs, because staring back at us is quite possibly the person we will be (when not on planes) in 30 or 40 years: a terrifying witch who bakes children in ovens. Not even a good witch, who can do magic, but a neighborhood drunk with one tooth. Possibly we exacerbate this problem by buying and then drinking three or four bottles of Diet Coke during the flight instead of water and saying things like “We can just go straight from the party to the airport, that’s an awesome idea,” and then arriving at Newark Airport at 4 in the morning for a ten o’clock flight.
Now Fresh is selling an “In-Flight Kit” for $130, and it includes extra gentle cleansing towelettes with lotus and pomegranate (presumably for wiping chicken lasagne off your fingers), an in-flight mask with moringa, whatever that is, and a post-flight serum with green coffee. Seriously, at a certain point, do cosmetics companies just start making shit up? What the fuck is green coffee? Anyway, we’re not entirely convinced that wearing a mask on an airplane is socially acceptable, because it’s so clearly Ab Fab satire. But also hate deboarding plane looking like own grandmother, only with worse mid-brow furrow. Would be interested in $1.30 solution involving over-the-counter painkillers or fruit, rather than $130 “green coffee” etc. Dilemma.
Dear Banana Republic: You used to make things we wanted to buy. Now you don’t. This looks like the wardrobe for some 19th-century mystery: Who stole Miss Marple’s hat? There’s nothing to like about it: the boots and cropped trousers combo makes us look like we have leather dinosaur legs, and the three-quarter bell sleeves on the coat, with the extra-wide belt … blergh. Plus the bag looks like a crappy Jocasi rip-off. Please. Fix. We are Luxe Card members, and we demand action.
Those are some pretty high-waisted jeans, huh? They’re almost so high-waisted they’re stealthily trendy again, but not really. Not at all. High waists, big hips, ankle-length and then tapered. Maybe they’re the hideous reverse fit from the Gap, which almost singlehandedly ruined our high school experience.
Which is just to say that at one point in 1994 these jeans were sufficiently popular and acceptable-looking that Hollywood producers allowed them to be shown on the poster for their movie. This is despite their now-obvious hideousness.
This brings us to our new fall jeans, which are not really so dissimilar from the T&L jeans, but with a lower waist and a longer leg. These jeans really aren’t so much about looking good — it’s more like wearing a t-shirt that says “I’m skinny” or “I have an eating disorder,” but in jean form. Or “I’m a mannequin,” like with that first pair, from Seven for All Mankind, $165
We’re not sure if the angle on this photo is totally weird or if these jeans require legs that form bizarre v-shapes. Earnest Sewn Dark Wash Cigarette Denim, $199
At least these jeans from shopbop.com are being modeled by a human. They’re really just denim leggings. We love how the bunching by the knees is totally unavoidable. Miss Sixty’s J Lot Lowrise Skinny Jean, $149
Sometimes it can be painful when Banana Republic does super-trendy, but these are okay. Observe: the model appears to have a thigh, but they are still very skinny at the bottom. This is either the best of both worlds, or a recipe for absolute disaster. Skinny selvage premium jeans, $148
These also look a teensy, tiny bit more forgiving. Not sure if we totally love the patchwork-aspect to the front pockets. Rogan Medium Wash Devastete Tapered Denim, $265
This is in addition to the extra-large bottle of Advil to deal with all the people who pay more in taxes than we earn in three years. And they say that, to the guy who works at the bagel store: “I pay more in taxes than that guy makes in three years.” We hate those guys, those terrible old men and their convertibles and their trophy wives in their “J’Adore Dior” t-shirts. Barf. Why are they always, always yelling? But we love the rest of the Hamptons. Beaches! And thanks to a very good friend of ours, who lucked out in the boyfriend lottery, a bed to sleep in very close to the beach. We are sure that if we stay there long enough, we’ll run into some old man who’d rather just give us his old Volvo than go through the hassle of selling it. We actually thought about putting an ad in the East Hampton Star, just begging for a car. Stranger things have happened, right? We’ve read about it in Readers Digest.
On the other hand, we hate people who complain about going to the Hamptons because, Jesus, it’s not exactly … er, somewhere really shitty. We want to say Camden, but if we lived in Camden we’d be pissed about that, and besides, there are probably some nice people in Camden. We know! It’s not exactly L.A.
Moving on: Our favorite store in the Hamptons is the farmer’s market in Amagansett, where we buy grape soda and spaghetti. They don’t have a website. Our other favorite store is Bookhampton. The yelling old men are always, always at Bookhampton, but everyone else (except the trophy wives) seem nice. Recently we bought “A Carnivore’s Inquiry” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin” there, and these books, especially the second, completely fucked us up. We would look up from this book, “We Need etc,” and just be so glad that we were — like when you wake up from a nightmare. But we were awake when this was going on, which should give you an idea of how absolutely fucking terrifying it is. In fact, we will admit that this book fucked us up so badly that we ended up defending it in a bizarre, circuitous, five-star review on amazon.com. Normally we would link to these two books on Amazon or bn.com, but given the indie bookstore-ness of it, that seems just wrong. 20 Main Street, 631.324.6202.
Appropriately positioned on the corner of Newtown and Main, Calypso has absolutely got to be the epitome of Hamptons shopping. You know why we’re buying bikinis now? Because they’re all on sale. And because we’re moving to Australia. We are not dealing with another one of these motherfucking New York winters. And that curse was totally justified. Left, the Plaisance Bikini ($45) and then the Happy Summer (also $45). Calypso is also tunic — er, “kurta” — central, but we’re so over them, we can’t even get into it. Unless you’ve got a clothes pin cinching it in the back, it just looks like a cotton garbage bag. One Main Street, 631.324.7646
Oh, we don’t care how bourgeois it is, we are fools for Theory. Left, the Keilly Element down-filled jacket ($340) and right, the Lennie Tubular tank ($90). Why that costs $90 we can’t say. 46 Newtown Lane, 631.324.3285
Scoop Beach. Maybe they just should it called it “Tunics R Us” this summer. When we look especially poor, we like to go in there and just spend three or four hours trying on different pairs of jeans. This makes the sales staff really, really happy. We should have a flash mob at Scoop, and all request, say, some 25-waist Kellies from “Paper Denim.” 47-51 Newtown Lane, 631.329.8080
As if to prove how absolutely, positively irrelevant we could possibly be, we welcome you to what was supposed to be our cutting-edge new thing, where we share our weekly Us Weekly experience with our BS friends: The Us Weekly Home Companion. Audio! Fucking audio! We can’t believe it, either. We were so freaking excited about audioblogger. Then we couldn’t figure out how to make it work for like two weeks. Then we found ourselves in a place where there appeared to be no Us Weeklys (as incredible as that seemed), the result of a faraway family birthday, and we went to a store where English was not the native language (realizing that this in no way distinguishes this store from any of the magazine stores in Park Slope) and said, in our nicest Gore-supporter voice: “Do you have the new issue of an American magazine called Us Weekly?” “No, no, no. But let me ask someone else.” And he does, this friendly person. His friendly friend says, “No, no, no. But let me ask someone else.” And he does, and that person says, “Us Weekly? No, no, no. Wait. You mean, U.S. Weekly?” And we said, “That is absolutely right.” Unfortunately, that issue was four weeks old, this bizarre Us Weekly trip into the past befor Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen were (allegedly) back together. So: We have proven our inability to cooperate in cultures outside our own, and our insistence on publishing outdated ideas. But now, we welcome you to the Us Weekly Home Companion. Do you still have the August 8 issue with Angelina Jolie on the cover? Then sit back, relax and let’s be bitchy together. Just hit play on the audio files below (we think they’ll be below). We had to do it in two parts. Technology. Difficult.
