Death by black velvet is otherwise known as the Prada Fall 2008 runway skirt woven in twirling floral arabesques on a ground of black silk.
Think Louis XIV damask meets London 60s mini-skirt. It rocks with soft cashmere sweater and above-the-knee boots.
Mrs. Prada found a centuries-old weaving family in Lyon France to take up the challenge to create this piece of cross-century art.
On the body, it snuggles the hips. To the fingertips, it's like soft as bunny fur.
All I want to do is kiss it before I die.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Death - Kate Bueler
Death. I have written about a death of a name. How can a name die for you? Good question. Just date a few guys with the same name and they seem to let you down in a heart and gut wrenching way. So much you begin to wonder there might be a tragic flaw in a name. I vowed to never date a man with the name C. I shake a hand with someone attached to this the name. And I cringe. Inside. I hear someone say the name from afar and I stay there. I stay away from them. From those C’s.
After I dated three men with the same name- I let the name die for me. I ended up being left with a doubled park dumping and an almost broken nose (my doing from a drunken night of debauchery-aftermath due to the break up). I was left with a bad highlight job of blonde- I needed a change-and him showing up on my doorstep with a b-day present months after he dumped me. And me not wanting him upon my door. He left me with one final email. I never responded. Later I heard he had gone off the deep end. At least I wasn’t left with that.
Another. He left me with one less book on my shelf- my favorite book Unbearable Lightness of Being and wondering what would have ever happened if he had really took a chance. He later found me. And came to give it round. Kissing me upon my doorstep. Anticipation of years made me feel faint. For the first time. But he ran away again. Left me wondering.
For years, I wondered. Until he almost died. And I had to tell him. And wonder until. I couldn’t anymore. We said goodbye in a hospital room. He might be healthy now. His body. But a fatal flaw of a man who would rather be full of potential than fail is not a tragic hero but a sad estate of affairs. If death doesn’t breath life into your bones into your body nothing will. Needless to say. He let me pass through his life again.
What ifs. Were better for him. He stopped being a what if. After one last summer of living out our past college days of infatuation. I walked down that hall of the cold clinical hallway and pushed the button to the elevator. Wanting to run down the hall and say goodbye. Or just say no. Don’t die. Not now. Because as I walked slowly and purposefully. I never wanted this what if to die. I wanted it to grow and flourish into something. But it had. As it lay lifeless inside of me. In that hospital. The elevators door open. Two faces appear before me. I hesitate. Not sure. If I can. Walk away. For good. I find my place in the elevator as the doors close in slow motion. Closing my view. Smaller each minute. Until it disappears. Dying. The death. Of me wanting it to work. He didn’t die. But we did.
After I dated three men with the same name- I let the name die for me. I ended up being left with a doubled park dumping and an almost broken nose (my doing from a drunken night of debauchery-aftermath due to the break up). I was left with a bad highlight job of blonde- I needed a change-and him showing up on my doorstep with a b-day present months after he dumped me. And me not wanting him upon my door. He left me with one final email. I never responded. Later I heard he had gone off the deep end. At least I wasn’t left with that.
Another. He left me with one less book on my shelf- my favorite book Unbearable Lightness of Being and wondering what would have ever happened if he had really took a chance. He later found me. And came to give it round. Kissing me upon my doorstep. Anticipation of years made me feel faint. For the first time. But he ran away again. Left me wondering.
For years, I wondered. Until he almost died. And I had to tell him. And wonder until. I couldn’t anymore. We said goodbye in a hospital room. He might be healthy now. His body. But a fatal flaw of a man who would rather be full of potential than fail is not a tragic hero but a sad estate of affairs. If death doesn’t breath life into your bones into your body nothing will. Needless to say. He let me pass through his life again.
What ifs. Were better for him. He stopped being a what if. After one last summer of living out our past college days of infatuation. I walked down that hall of the cold clinical hallway and pushed the button to the elevator. Wanting to run down the hall and say goodbye. Or just say no. Don’t die. Not now. Because as I walked slowly and purposefully. I never wanted this what if to die. I wanted it to grow and flourish into something. But it had. As it lay lifeless inside of me. In that hospital. The elevators door open. Two faces appear before me. I hesitate. Not sure. If I can. Walk away. For good. I find my place in the elevator as the doors close in slow motion. Closing my view. Smaller each minute. Until it disappears. Dying. The death. Of me wanting it to work. He didn’t die. But we did.
Drugged - Bonnie Smetts
Marjorie stood before the man in the saffron robe unable to feel her feet. The reflections from the mirrored tent ceiling dared to distract and unbalance her, but she focused on the kohl dot between the man’s eyes. He was the teacher she was sent to see. They’d told her to find him across the field behind the rock hills.
She doesn’t remember arriving, but now she stands before him, embarrassed. “You have come…” He says the only three words she understands, for each sound that comes from him thereafter is as if from a flute. Notes. One lovely note connected to the next.
I must stare at him, and not lose that dot. Then she is floating down a river on her back, the water is warm and she’s floating without a boat, a raft, anything to hold her. But she can’t move, she can’t be terrified. Her terror sits on the river’s bank, as if held in a glass box. She can’t touch it, but she sees it.
She floats on.
Fire burns inches below her feet. The fire sizzles when water from her dress drips onto its embers. She doesn’t see the fire, she feels its heat and the smell of burning wood.
“Please sit now and we will …” The swami is before her. She folds to the floor and a stiff cushion meets her before the hard rock of the tile floor.
“Sit, see the place beyond this room, let it come in and let it fill you. You are filled with this spot beyond space and time. Sit.” The swami never looked at her, and when she tried to look at him as he spoke the final words of the day, she could not find his shape. From the corner of her vision, he was there. But when she tried to see him, to see if he were real, she saw only a shimmer of saffron. And the glass box filled with her terror now sat shimmering in the reflection of the man’s robe.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She remembered seeing fish underwater, breathing their water-air.
She doesn’t remember arriving, but now she stands before him, embarrassed. “You have come…” He says the only three words she understands, for each sound that comes from him thereafter is as if from a flute. Notes. One lovely note connected to the next.
I must stare at him, and not lose that dot. Then she is floating down a river on her back, the water is warm and she’s floating without a boat, a raft, anything to hold her. But she can’t move, she can’t be terrified. Her terror sits on the river’s bank, as if held in a glass box. She can’t touch it, but she sees it.
She floats on.
Fire burns inches below her feet. The fire sizzles when water from her dress drips onto its embers. She doesn’t see the fire, she feels its heat and the smell of burning wood.
“Please sit now and we will …” The swami is before her. She folds to the floor and a stiff cushion meets her before the hard rock of the tile floor.
“Sit, see the place beyond this room, let it come in and let it fill you. You are filled with this spot beyond space and time. Sit.” The swami never looked at her, and when she tried to look at him as he spoke the final words of the day, she could not find his shape. From the corner of her vision, he was there. But when she tried to see him, to see if he were real, she saw only a shimmer of saffron. And the glass box filled with her terror now sat shimmering in the reflection of the man’s robe.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She remembered seeing fish underwater, breathing their water-air.
Drunk/Death - E. D. James
It startled her, the bird, when it fell at her feet. She was standing at the streetcar stop. The sky was reddening in the east, a few dark clouds silhouetted at the horizon. She felt the air move in front her and then the bird appeared on the ground. A soft thump accompanied its arrival, a sound she could barely hear over the noise of the traffic around her. She stared at the little body at her feet and then up at the brightening sky. She couldn’t see any other birds above her. The white-breasted body fairly glowed on the dark pavement and Sai guessed that it was a Nuthatch. The species was one of the few that made Toronto their home year round. Her father had favored the noisy little creatures and always delighted in finding places where they had stuffed the peanuts he left out for them into the bark of the trees in their back yard. She wondered what had driven the bird from the sky. She wondered if it had a family that was even now waiting for its return home. Her streetcar came into view down the track and the ground began the faint shaking that accompanied its passage. The vibrations seemed like the shock of a filibrator on the bird. It flipped off its back, stood on its feet for a second, shook its head, and then launched off into the sky again.
“Will you look at that!” a man standing a few feet further down the platform said, “Must have been drunk on the holly berries.”
Sai turned to examine the faces in the windows with a smile on her face. Perhaps the bird was a sign that tonight her search would be rewarded.
“Will you look at that!” a man standing a few feet further down the platform said, “Must have been drunk on the holly berries.”
Sai turned to examine the faces in the windows with a smile on her face. Perhaps the bird was a sign that tonight her search would be rewarded.
Disappearing - Donna Shomer
Friendships
Like
Cyclist in the Dutch
Fog seem to
Disappear along
The tram tracks
But being
Like Fish
They
Are just
Shimmering
Like
Cyclist in the Dutch
Fog seem to
Disappear along
The tram tracks
But being
Like Fish
They
Are just
Shimmering
Disappearing - Melody Cryns
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for everyone if I just disappeared. Would anyone wonder what happened to me, worry about me? Megan’s constant text messages that say, “Get ruffles, peanutbutter, milk and juice at the store please,” would go unanswered. Good friends would not hear from me. I wouldn’t show up for work – and Global Word Processing couldn’t send me all those crappy, huge projects that no one else wants to do. Maybe someone would wonder – where is she? What happened to her? The older kids who live their own life would figure it out eventually.
That’s how I felt on my 11th birthday when everyone forgot about me – because my sister was sick in the hospital. I felt as if I’d disappeared – I didn’t really exist. Yet I finally did get it.
On Saturday morning, after a night of dancing all night long to awesome live classic rock music with a bunch of my friends, I managed to pull myself out of bed and jetted over the hill to Santa Cruz to play my ukulele on the beach and sing with at least 60 or 70 other people. They show up at this one beach rain or shine, and they play and sing. I try not to miss being there with the group that calls themselves either “Sons of the Beach” or “Babes of the Beach,” because there’s nothing like playing ukulele and singing on the beach with dozens of people – there’s always someone with an upright bass or even a bass ukulele, conga drum players, guitar players join in, you name it. We bring music stands and the Santa Cruz ukulele songbooks if we have them – something you should not do without – one can play songs on guitar, ukulele, anything.
I got there right before 10 am and when I walked around the building next to the Crow’s Nest Restaurant to set up with the gang, I had to stop because what I saw took my breath away, literally. The fog had lifted and the sun shined on the ocean, bright blue sky, sail boats close up gliding by, the lighthouse on the rocks majestically presiding over the beach to the right, waves crashing against the store and the birds…people playing volleyball on the beach, and the group the wonderful group of people I’d found who welcomed me each week – from all walks of life and backgrounds – no one cares who you were or where you came from. We were all there to have fun and play music. I had brought the sign someone had given me the week before with a picture of a guitar on it that said, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” Everyone loved that sign and wanted me to bring it back. There were many older people in the group, mixed in with younger ones, even children – and as we formed our large circle, I couldn’t stop thinking of how this reminded me of growing up in San Francisco when we sang along with random people sitting on stoops or standing around playing guitar – how we all played and sang together and no one ever cared or worried about who you were or where you came from. A different life.
Knowing that it still exists gave me great comfort somehow.
I felt as if I belonged with these people, and had already gotten to know a few of them from camping with them at Burning Uke for four days down at Big Sur, an amazing experience, one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Music has always been such a huge part of my life.
Okay, here we go – we’re going to start to play and sing now – we always open with an old song called “All of Me” and later close with “Please Don’t Talk About me When I’m gone,” both old standards from the 1920’s and then we play dozens of songs that someone gets tapped to pick each week – from old standards to a couple of awesome Hawaiian songs, to folksy music, even Beatles and Bob Dylan and a bit of rock n’ roll. We play and sing it all. It doesn’t matter. We even got to do City of New Orleans, a song that tells a story – I never get tired of playing and singing them.
It was so warm that I got my shoes and socks off between songs, and my jacket went and we played and sang with the ocean stretched before us.
I couldn’t leave right after the jam, no way. I had to hang out all day. As I sat on a stone bench putting away my music stand, an older woman sitting along waiting for someone began to talk to me. She told me her name was Jean, and that she loved playing uke and singing. She asked where I lived, and I told her Sunnyvale.
“Oh yes, I lived there for many years, until we finally got to move here, about 25 or maybe 30 years ago now…”
I nodded. “That’s a long time.”
“Yes, I’m 94 now!”
Wow. Ninety-four? I looked over at this lovely, beautiful woman – yes, older with wrinkles, but still so spry and alert, holding a ukulele in her hands – maybe the uke somehow was like a time machine…hahaha! Funny thought.
She went on to tell me all about her kids and grandkids, and asked me questions about my life. I told her about all of my kids, that I was going to be a grandma for the first time this year and I was excited, that ‘d found music with the ukulele groups and it made me happy. She agreed.
As we both sat there, I thought again – I could disappear and stay right here in this spot and never go back. Oh yes. I could.
That’s how I felt on my 11th birthday when everyone forgot about me – because my sister was sick in the hospital. I felt as if I’d disappeared – I didn’t really exist. Yet I finally did get it.
On Saturday morning, after a night of dancing all night long to awesome live classic rock music with a bunch of my friends, I managed to pull myself out of bed and jetted over the hill to Santa Cruz to play my ukulele on the beach and sing with at least 60 or 70 other people. They show up at this one beach rain or shine, and they play and sing. I try not to miss being there with the group that calls themselves either “Sons of the Beach” or “Babes of the Beach,” because there’s nothing like playing ukulele and singing on the beach with dozens of people – there’s always someone with an upright bass or even a bass ukulele, conga drum players, guitar players join in, you name it. We bring music stands and the Santa Cruz ukulele songbooks if we have them – something you should not do without – one can play songs on guitar, ukulele, anything.
I got there right before 10 am and when I walked around the building next to the Crow’s Nest Restaurant to set up with the gang, I had to stop because what I saw took my breath away, literally. The fog had lifted and the sun shined on the ocean, bright blue sky, sail boats close up gliding by, the lighthouse on the rocks majestically presiding over the beach to the right, waves crashing against the store and the birds…people playing volleyball on the beach, and the group the wonderful group of people I’d found who welcomed me each week – from all walks of life and backgrounds – no one cares who you were or where you came from. We were all there to have fun and play music. I had brought the sign someone had given me the week before with a picture of a guitar on it that said, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” Everyone loved that sign and wanted me to bring it back. There were many older people in the group, mixed in with younger ones, even children – and as we formed our large circle, I couldn’t stop thinking of how this reminded me of growing up in San Francisco when we sang along with random people sitting on stoops or standing around playing guitar – how we all played and sang together and no one ever cared or worried about who you were or where you came from. A different life.
Knowing that it still exists gave me great comfort somehow.
I felt as if I belonged with these people, and had already gotten to know a few of them from camping with them at Burning Uke for four days down at Big Sur, an amazing experience, one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Music has always been such a huge part of my life.
Okay, here we go – we’re going to start to play and sing now – we always open with an old song called “All of Me” and later close with “Please Don’t Talk About me When I’m gone,” both old standards from the 1920’s and then we play dozens of songs that someone gets tapped to pick each week – from old standards to a couple of awesome Hawaiian songs, to folksy music, even Beatles and Bob Dylan and a bit of rock n’ roll. We play and sing it all. It doesn’t matter. We even got to do City of New Orleans, a song that tells a story – I never get tired of playing and singing them.
It was so warm that I got my shoes and socks off between songs, and my jacket went and we played and sang with the ocean stretched before us.
I couldn’t leave right after the jam, no way. I had to hang out all day. As I sat on a stone bench putting away my music stand, an older woman sitting along waiting for someone began to talk to me. She told me her name was Jean, and that she loved playing uke and singing. She asked where I lived, and I told her Sunnyvale.
“Oh yes, I lived there for many years, until we finally got to move here, about 25 or maybe 30 years ago now…”
I nodded. “That’s a long time.”
“Yes, I’m 94 now!”
Wow. Ninety-four? I looked over at this lovely, beautiful woman – yes, older with wrinkles, but still so spry and alert, holding a ukulele in her hands – maybe the uke somehow was like a time machine…hahaha! Funny thought.
She went on to tell me all about her kids and grandkids, and asked me questions about my life. I told her about all of my kids, that I was going to be a grandma for the first time this year and I was excited, that ‘d found music with the ukulele groups and it made me happy. She agreed.
As we both sat there, I thought again – I could disappear and stay right here in this spot and never go back. Oh yes. I could.
Disappearing - Jennifer Baljko
“Crawl under the pot. Hurry. They won’t see you there.” Maybelle nudged Margo toward the corral where the rest of the cows were munching straw. Margo, who fancied herself more a cow than a chicken (an identity confusion that started after Margo’s family disappeared shortly after she cracked through the shell), wanted to trust Maybelle. She hadn’t been wrong before. This time, though, the pot seemed to small for Margo’s fluffy bum and her neck was longer, making it harder for her to crouch down completely out of view.
She had seen others around the field simply vanish. Maybelle called them the unlucky ones, the tasty ones. She had instructed Margo not to graze on the fine corn meal they kept scattering around. Maybelle had long ago calculated that eating too much of what those, those, uh, humans – yeah, that’s what she called them - directly correlated to the increased number of missing animals a few weeks later. Maybelle had figured out how to beat the system, and Margo was the latest one Maybelle took under her udder.
“Just squeeze in there. I’ll come over in a second and pretend I found something to nibble on over there.” It was Margo’s last chance. The loud little one was gaining speed as she ran downhill. She was the cute one, but still Maybelle had her doubts about that human’s long-term integrity.
She had seen others around the field simply vanish. Maybelle called them the unlucky ones, the tasty ones. She had instructed Margo not to graze on the fine corn meal they kept scattering around. Maybelle had long ago calculated that eating too much of what those, those, uh, humans – yeah, that’s what she called them - directly correlated to the increased number of missing animals a few weeks later. Maybelle had figured out how to beat the system, and Margo was the latest one Maybelle took under her udder.
“Just squeeze in there. I’ll come over in a second and pretend I found something to nibble on over there.” It was Margo’s last chance. The loud little one was gaining speed as she ran downhill. She was the cute one, but still Maybelle had her doubts about that human’s long-term integrity.
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