Silliman's Blog: 10/3/10

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Mondo Guerra & his model Eyen Chorm

It has taken me longer to decide what I think about Project Runway this summer & fall than it has in any of the show’s seven previous seasons. In part, that’s because the eighth season of Heidi Klum’s reality TV juggernaut doesn’t have the strongest set of designers in the world, nobody who is clearly going to become a Big Designer in the way Christian Siriano, winner of the fourth season, already has. But in larger part, this has been because this season of PR has been far less about the clothing & design & more about the dynamics of the people who make them. Three of the designers – Gretchen Jones, Michael Costello & Mondo Guerra (whose name, yes, translates into World War, tho he is the furthest from the image that projects perhaps of any of the 123 contestants who have at one time or another appeared on the show) – are interesting, complex, difficult characters. Between them, they have won seven of the first ten challenges & almost any other season it would be a no-brainer to conclude that these are the three who will be the finalists competing at Fashion Week. This year, tho, I’m not so sure.

For one thing, Fashion Week was quite a while ago and, as Project Runway has done in previous seasons, that meant that everyone who was then still a contestant got the opportunity to present at Lincoln Center (which has replaced the tents at Bryant Park): ten shows of ten looks each. Later, through the magic of video editing, it will appear quite different on television. I don’t believe they’ve ever had more than five designers present at Fashion Week in prior seasons, although even this has its risks, as when Austin Scarlett, who was not a true finalist one the first season, was widely perceived as having the best show in the tents. But in several previous seasons, it was pretty evident just who had brought in a show that was nowhere nearly as complete or envisioned as the true finalists.

Labels: Project Runway, TV

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Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Next to the Liberty Bell, the Phanatic is Philly’s most enduring visual icon

A couple of people have asked me if I was going to write my usual start-of-the-playoffs note on baseball this year. I’m almost disinclined to do so. For one thing, I really haven’t focused that much on American League teams this year and saying that I hope Minnesota will make it to the series just so the world can get to see Jim Thome on the big stage one more time isn’t enough of an analysis in my book.

But for my money the real interest this year is in the National League playoffs, where the Phils will represent the National League East for fourth year in a row, while my childhood San Francisco Giants – who have lost the only three World Series they’ve played in since moving to San Francisco in 1958 – will represent the West. The Phils will start off playing the Cincinnati Reds, while the Giants play the wild card Atlanta Braves. Since the Giants and the Phils have the two best starting rotations in baseball, this strongly suggests that I am going to be looking at a Phillies-Giants championship series in about ten days. That might be glorious. But it also might be misery.

Labels: Baseball

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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Harriet Tarlo’s “Recycles:
The Eco-Ethical Poetics
of Found Text
in Contemporary Poetry”

Rachel Blau DuPlessis’
Pitch: Drafts 77-95

Poetic Ecologies

Dorothea Lasky’s Poetry Is Not a Project

Bob Perelman’s 7 Works

The Dublin Poetry Review
includes (among others)
Sagicho Aibara, Rae Armantrout, Jenny Bornholdt,
David Brooks, Mairéad Byrne, Julius Chingono, Kwame Dawes,
Annie Finch, Forrest Gander, Eamon Grennan, Kimiko Hahn,
Michael S. Harper, Jill Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa,
Maha Elamin A Mahmoud, Jennifer Maiden, Mary Jo Bang,
Chris Mansell, rob mclennan, Paul Muldoon, Emma Neale,
Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Niyi Osundare, Robert Pinsky,
Chris Price, Muhammad Haji Salleh, Ana Vega,
C.D. Wright, Lavinia Greenlaw, Lorna Goodison,
Andrew Motion, Richard Tillinghast
& of course moi