January 2010
51 posts
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Lost menswear outfitters of the 20th Century: a...
Career Club
Johnny Carson
American Trend
T.E. Timme & Son
Princeton
Sulgrave
Kuppenheimer
Allen Solly (made expressly for Shillito Rikes)
Champion
Curlee
Grande Luxe
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New project: I am going to re-read every J.D....
Heh heh heh. Just kidding. I would never do that to you, reader.
But really, do go read Rise High the Roofbeam if you haven’t for awhile, or if you haven’t at all. Celebrity deaths are a sort of odd spectator sport on the Internet, but one purpose that all the reflections and blog postings and tributes can serve is to compel people to go back to the source material. So if this is your...
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"No one in my family has ever dated a letter."
J.D. Salinger’s books — specifically, Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction — were the first books my father ever recommended to me.
I mean that he recommended I read them in the way that an adult recommends a book to another adult. This was a recommendation without conditions or a disclaimer, like “You might like this...
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fightwithknives asked: What is the difference between South Minneapolis and Midtown? How is it that they often seem to be the same place?
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North of the 42nd parallel.
I woke up this morning to read that our man in Chicago, Falling and Laughing, was suffering from some distinctly north-of-the-42nd-Parallel troubles:
I woke up this morning with such a dry, sore throat. So dry! …I wanted to talk to someone about it, but when I opened my mouth, all that emerged was a sepulchral croak.
I was very sympathetic, beause I too was having some similar problems...
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S. 12th's decade in review: 10 years of lapel...
I have worn a suit jacket almost every day for more than ten years; it’s a silly youthful affectation that has calcified into a standard adult practice. The thing about a suit jacket is that you always need something to put on the lapel for visual interest. Here is fascinating glance back at the objects that have adorned those lapels in the Aughties.
2000-2001: stupid jokes. My sophomore...
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"These Democrats are fantastic!"
I was at a Christmas party with Nate last month for his work. He’s a prep cook at a very progressive, independently owned restaurant/catering business, and the owner was festively mixing up a really delicious peach-and-bourbon cocktail of her own creation for everyone. She called it a “Democrat.”
So Nate and I had one. We toasted the traditional toast*, and both had a sip. Nate...
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It’s been a tough couple of days for Boston....
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Part two of me reading Erich Segal’s Love...
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Deborah passed along the awful news that Erich...
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Let's make one thing perfectly clear: "Federal and... →
So guess who once cobbled together a better health care plan than the joke that is currently about to die an ignoble death in the Senate because a couple hundred thousand Massholes hopped up on Kurt Schilling and the collected works of House of Pain decided to send some waterboarding enthusiast to warm his buns in Ted Kennedy’s seat in the World’s Greatest Debating Society, instead of...
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This killer 1978 U.K. hit is a great “road...
“At the August 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King told the country of his dream...”
– From the Dr. King-related portion of the Church Committee’s final 1976 report on the FBI’s covert activities during the 1960s and ’70s. The whole document here is a sobering and unhappy read for your MLK Day.
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Mopeds: an introduction.
Q: Which subcultural group favors mopeds as a primary mode of transportation?
None of them.
Too fast for fixie-riding hipsters.
Too slow for Northern Soul mods.
Too quiet for hippie-bashing Harley gangs.
Too many moving parts for zip scooter-crazed tweens.
Q: Who would use a moped?
A member of a moped gang.
Q: What are some characteristics of a moped gang member?
Wears boat shoes.
...
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One for my loyal Friday overnight readers.
My default winter around-the-apartment nighttime outfit, for when I am ambling around cooking or watching a movie or listening to the BBC World Service, consists of the following:
one pair of black silk L.L. Bean long underwear that are thin enough to resemble leggings, and…
one oversize thrift-store green and black flannel shirt
I only bring this up because, incredibly, it is the exact...
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Anonymous asked: Do you have a girlfriend/"significant other"?
wr3n asked: What sort of a child were you?
"Consider it my pure but well-founded speculation... →
Jonathan’s first-person account of the earthquake from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Very powerful.
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Anonymous asked: Why am I talking in a fake southern/Texan/Kentucky whatever accent Dear Sir?
Does it offend you? Does my words make your authentic Kentuckian heart weep?
Answer me this my bearded bard of blogging!
Does it offend you? Does my words make your authentic Kentuckian heart weep?
Answer me this my bearded bard of blogging!
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Whereabouts in Louisville are you from?
Anonymous
Oh boy, reader, it’s Mailbag Week at S. 12th! This is just a weak way of saying that this is going to be the week I will answer questions from you and people like you. It won’t be fun, but let’s just hunker down and get through this together as best we can.
This anonymous reader asks whereabouts in Louisville I’m from. I...
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The lines are open, reader. →
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
(Please note: vaguely creepy anonymous queries I am obviously not going to answer in 1,000 word entries for the world to see may be directed to my email, which appears on the bottom of this page.)
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I recently asked my uncle, who was a 1970s-era...
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"There's no pity / in the naked city."
Here is a hard-ass New York City street narrative for all of my hard-ass, street smart New York City readers. It could have been ripped straight out of the pages of a Luc Sante anthology. And it happened to me.
I was using a restroom, somewhere in Manhattan, and I realized too late that there was no toilet paper. It was a very small bathroom. It only had one toilet in it. The door was locked. No...
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Well, OK, one more. Just because it’s a...
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Last year I wrote: “A lot of people complain...
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“If there’s any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there’s any...”
– Phil Ochs, wearing a gold lamé Nudie suit, at Carnegie Hall in 1970. Elvis is 75 years old today, and he is one of my very favorites of all, and this is my very favorite quote about him. On January 8 last year I observed this occasion with an All-Elvis Day, which you can see here. I won’t do...
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A comprehensive list of men who look great wearing...
David Byrne, circa 1985.
Tony Shalhoub in Monk.
My contemporary art history lecturer in college, an imperiously twee Englishman whose local curatorial masterstoke was bringing one of Gerhard Richter’s massive wall-sized abstract paintings to the university’s museum and then having a six-foot high, ten-foot wide, five-foot long wooden box built around it that only a few people could...
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Wendy Rene, “After Laughter Comes...
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Selections from the S. 12th personal library:...
Adverbs, Daniel Hadler. “I wrote this book, [signed] Daniel Hadler, 7.XII.2007.” I really, really hated this book. The cutesy notation and the “XII” instead of “7” or “July” make it even worse; it’s like the author is making fun of me for owning it. If you feel I have the wrong idea about Mr. Hadler and you would like to own this book for your...