9.10.2006

can't live without, ver. 9.10.06

Today's Chicago Tribune Magazine features a bizarre "Can't Live Without" page. They seem to have settled on fashion designers as the preferred examples of 'how to live', and today's is somewhat more extravagant than some. Here are Roberto Cavalli's 12 Favorite Things:
  1. Sony 7.2 Mega Pixel 3X Optical Zoom camera: I take my digital camera with me everywhere.
  2. My custom-designed yacht: It is very fast, and it's made of a material that absorbs light in different ways. Sometimes it's purple. Sometimes it's green.
  3. Emile Galle vases: Mine are mostly from the beginning of the last century, but I've stopped collecting because the prices got so high.
  4. Patek Philippe watches: They are the best in the world.
  5. Black suede cowboy boots and jeans: My favorite way to dress.
  6. Ferraris: I have a Testarossa, a Maranello and a Daytona.
  7. Ingmar Bergman movies: They didn't cost so much to make and they had something to say.
  8. Roses: My favorite flowers. I like daisies too.
  9. The film "2046": It's a Chinese movie. So chic. The women are so elegant.
  10. [the Ferraris line is repeated. Nice copy-editing, Trib.!]
  11. Beyonce: She is a romantic rocker.
  12. Sharpie markers: I love their bold, beautiful lines and I love to sketch while I'm thinking.
And here are mine, based on his:
  1. Canon PowerShot A80 4.0 Megapixel 3x Optical/3.6x Digital/11x Combined Zoom camera: It was sitting on the kitchen table, about 4 feet away from me, while I read this article. I use it probably 5 times every week. It is never "put away"--it doesn't have an "away" in which to be "put".
  2. [Hmm. What can I compare to a custom-designed yacht that changes color depending on the way that light that hits it?!] Friends: I have friends. Can that pompous asshole who 'can't live without' a color-changing fucking yacht say that?!
  3. Tea-pot collection, including the dancing cows and the glandularly-challenged frog, which always reminds me of Item #2, above.
  4. Coach Basic black purse: My one idiotically expensive indulgence, made more so by the idiotically expensive wallet [not exactly like the one linked but it seems to be off the website currently] that I "picked up" when I realized that I didn't have a black wallet after I bought the purse.
  5. Levis 504s and either white or black blouses: I can't seem to keep any color in my wardrobe anymore--except for the occasional blue or gray--but I don't mind. It seems that I'm developing, at long last, a personal style.
  6. Hondas & Buicks: It seems that most of the people I love own either one or the other, or both.
  7. Hal Hartley movies: Trust is my favorite, but I've loved them all. He has a way of revealing human frailties without celebrating them, and treating characters with affection without condescension or intrusion.
  8. Tulips: the darker, the better. Irises are good, too. Anything bulbous.
  9. The film Shiri: It's a Korean action film. So stylishly violent, redolent with imagery of disconnection, reconciliation, and disconnection. The main character, a woman, is elegant...and deadly. My favorite literal and figurative element of the movie is the pair of kissing gourami owned by the lead couple.
  10. I think I get a free one here. The [first] soundtrack from Grey's Anatomy: I'm not a big fan of the idea of soundtracks from television, and anytime there is a commercially-available soundtrack, the music is often so overly intrusive as to obliterate any interest that I may have had in the show itself. However, Grey's Anatomy is one of those exceptions to almost every rule...and I love this disc. It doesn't help that the music--and the show--remind me very much of someone I used to know, in the most respectfully melancholy way. "It's love that leaves and breaks the seal of always thinking you would be / Real, happy and healthy, strong and calm...."
  11. Dean Martin: There will never be another singer with that kind of voice, and presence, and class.
  12. Uniball pens: particularly the Signo 207 (retractable) or Vision Elite (capped, which won't leak in flight). I hand-write a lot, and these are the best pens that I've ever used. Better than my Watermans. Better than my Montblanc. Seriously--better than my Montblanc!

I'm off to create some Cat & Beast food. I'll re-link this later.

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