“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." - Coco Chanel

This woman knew her shiz. I’m really into biopics, autobiographies and the general idea of leading a compelling life. Coco Chanel did just that. Last fall Audrey Tatau nabbed the lead role of Miss Chanel in the biopic Coco Before Chanel. From seamstress by day to cabaret singer at night, to sought after call-girl to hat maker, and eventually the voice of female fashion and the first ever power suit, Chanel stands on her own.

The funny thing about this mademoiselle is that she used one of the most effeminate things: fashion, as her vehicle for embracing womanhood. Empowering through pants.

It's almost as if Chanel took a lesson from her French contemporary Simone de Beauvoir's All Men are Mortal, and somehow figured a way to crossover into immortality. In the name of pink tweed suiting and puffed stitching on purses, Chanel certainly made her mark as a woman who dressed for herself and not her men, which she had many. To be honest, Chanel was kind of a ho, and that she had to have learned from de Beauvoir (who also wrote The Second Sex, major feminist literature). I mean, a nazi officer, Chan, really? Really. It happened.

But for all her faults, I still want a $2,000 purse, and let's be honest, so do you.







"Insects were scurrying about in the shade cast by the grass, and the lawn was a huge monotonous forest of thousands of little green blades, all equal, all alike, hiding the world from each other. Anguished, she thought, 'I don't want to be just another blade of grass.'" - Simone de Beauvoir, "All Men are Mortal"

"Birds of a Feather Flock Together."

It's the time of year when birds are migrating back up North and soon students will be returning to their respective homes from their months away at school. My youngest brother, Kevin, has been calling me more often now, buttering me up so I won't mind the tedious task of getting him from the airport in three weeks. Arrival Time: 11:50 p.m. CST. You think he wants to get out of Los Angeles fast enough? As my lovely grandmother Celeste would say, "California is the land of fruits and nuts, in more than one way," so I'm sure he's just looking for some good Midwest R&R. She's just so uncannily inappropriate.

The funny thing about birds flocking together is just that. Birds can't mate with other birds unless they're of the same breed. There's no such thing as a hybrid bird, a hybird. But I've found that this saying, which aims to say, "Those of similar taste congregate in groups," has in the past tended to be true. Yet now, less people accept the idea of being (ha) pigeon-holed (ha) into one group. 

Pop Culture Reference: In the relatively new musical comedy television show Glee, Coach Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch) makes the point that the Glee Director, Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison), is breaking up the hierarchy of high school politics by blending athletes with theater geeks. "Kids like to know where they stand," she says, and it's true, when you're younger, you do like to know where you fit in, even if it's at the bottom. Even now with a few years to go until my 10 Year Lake Forest High School reunion, I know that the same birds won't be flocking together. We'll have moved on, like people do, and we'll have found knew friends, some with like-minded interests and some who you love because they stir the pot unexpectedly. And maybe that's just a different version of birds of a feather flocking together, but I don't think so.

Justin Bieber: What is up? Not talented.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm of a certain age or maybe it's the fact that Justin Bieber isn't talented. I don't know what it is, but I cannot take this little man/woman. Oh, and the fact that this little shiny haired monster went ahead and ruined beautiful sketches on SNL, really drawing a deep line in the sand on the Island of Good and Evil. It's not "a-ight."
 
Don't get me wrong, Tina Fey was great as the creepy over-the-hill teacher who somehow got a school girl crush on Mr. Bieber, but Justin couldn't reciprocate, not only because he's 12 years old (I don't know, all I know is he was born in the mid-1990s), but because he can't deliver a line. He's probably the worst crap-actor ever. And, hold the phone, dance skills? What's up Bieber, you don't know how to shake a choreographed number? He moves his hands and arms like a robot and hides behind his 30-year-old backup dancers who are just trying to make it. It's bizarre, and I don't get it. Why bring on the new Aaron Carter with Tina Fey as the host? The two draw completely different crowds, yet each can hold their own amongst throngs of fans. Why double it up? It's bizarre, and I don't get it.

And I was like, baby, baby, baby, oh — Bieber mania has got to stop.

JP Morgan Chase Bank Funds Mountaintop Removal

This is one I wish was fiction. It's come to my attention by way of my environmentally conscious roommate that Chase Bank (my bank for nearly a decade now) funds the devastating work of mountaintop removal. In case you are as desperately insufficient in environmental knowledge as I am, mountaintop removal is simply a form of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit of a mountain, also known as the top of the mountain. Essentially they blow up mountains in search of coal. Nevermind the fact that dust is everywhere, toxins are in the air and entire mountain views are destroyed. No big deal, right? Wrong.

Over the last few decades its become common knowledge that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including gross losses of biodiversity. Along with that there are serious adverse human health impacts resulting from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust. Decades ago it was common for companies to buy entire towns in exchange for the city's residents to receive homes completely paid for. What wasn't clear is that those people, who unintentionally signed away their lives, essentially could never sue those companies for health problems or sell those houses to other people as they've lost all value. It's sad because those companies knew full well that they were putting people in harms way in the long run.

In the run up to this coming week's Earth Day festivities, I thought it a natural progression to write about this terrible practice. Loyola University Chicago will be hosting an event Tuesday, April 20th (7-9 p.m.) called "Purple Mountains Majesty or Appalachian Tragedy: The True Cost of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining." It will be held at  Loyola in the 4th floor (Atrium), Information Commons, LSC. 

As far as JP Morgan Chase is concerned (Reuters, Jan., 2010):

JP Morgan Chase has been funding six of the top eight coal mining companies responsible for mountaintop removal coal mining in the United States. Recently, its investment bank underwrote more than $1 billion in new financing to Massey Energy, the largest mountaintop removal coal mining company.

JP Morgan Chase states that its “environmental goal is to make a positive contribution to sustainable business practices by integrating environmental practices into our business model.” Yet, Massey Energy has a deplorable environmental record, having violated the Clean Water Act no fewer than 4,500 times – resulting in a $30 million fine in 2008.

And I will leave you with this tidbit: "Mountain top removal, basically it's like investing in cancer for poor people."

So, thanks Chase. Thanks.

Daddy Like

First of all, have you seen this thing? It's a minivan. Last I checked, no one particularly liked minivans. It's just one of those things you have to have in order to qualify as a somewhat responsible adult with children: A Right of Passage. So, no, daddy does not like. Daddy tolerate.