Edie

I am currently reading a biography on Edie Sedgwick, which in one sense is sort of like inhaling junk food. The biography, first published in 1982 by Jean Stein, includes a world of photos of the Sedgwick family and The Factory and Andy Warhol, and when you're as obsessed with the 1960's as I am, it's like I can't devour it fast enough.

There is one photo of Edie at nineteen, lying on her back on a big white bed, kicking her lovely legs in the air, her head sinking into a pillow and turned at just the right angle toward the camera, her eyes scrunched closed and her smile famously dimpled. The bed knobs are spindly and glorious, like they were made of cherry wood (something like the furniture my grandparents had in their house in California) and the wallpaper a whimsical spiral pattern, like perfect sunbeams bursting all around this gorgeous girl. I looked at the photo and thought, dear gosh, she must have been so happy, and then I noticed the description for the photo and that it happened to be taken during her time in a mental institution.

As I continue to read about Edie's life, told as a sort of wonderfully disjointed oral history by family and friends, I feel like a voyeur sucking the substance out of this big juicy thing, not only the 1960's, but the heartbreaking story of a family who lost a daughter to an overdose at 29, one son to a motorcycle accident at 31, and another son to hanging himself from the bathroom door at 26. I sort of feel like I need to turn my face away from all of this, like I shouldn't be allowed to read something so personal, because it is becoming more and more horrifying. But I find myself reading on, not only for my interest in this creature who danced for Andy Warhol and defied the rules of fashion for the sake of fun during that magical window of time in New York in the 1960's, but because I need to make sure this family is going to be OK, and even though I know they won't be, I feel like maybe things could end differently this time around, if I could only love them hard enough.

• at 9:00 PM
• Posted by Anne Campbell
• 0 comments

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Whatever Happened to Zooey Deschanel?

I saw Zooey Deschanel on the cover of Marie Claire, with her long dark shag of a bangs-in-your-eyes haircut (that I've frankly seen too much of everywhere lately) and her signature cute-as-a-button smile and, most of all, the promise that she'll share with you exactly how she lost 30 pounds. Because she really needed to.

When She & Him released their first album back in 2008, I was all about Zooey Deschanel. There was something very real about her, very understated, very fashionable. She was wearing things we hadn't seen before, or at least things we hadn't seen in awhile (lots of flowery vintage-inspired frocks) and there was something sweet about her demeanor that seemed very anti-Hollywood. She was quirky, yes, but it was almost as if she didn't know it... back then.

Nowadays, Zooey Deschanel talks about exactly how quirky she is all the time, and even appears on SNL spoofing her quirkiness (which would normally equal self-deprecation, which I'd normally find endearing, but in this case it seemed a bit too, "I'm SO cute!"). And here's my biggest complaint: she hasn't evolved in the last four years. An "It Girl" should teach us what we need to know over the course of time, don't you think? A good comparison is Chloe Sevigny. She's often defined as quirky, out there, uniquely individual, an Indie darling, yet she's grown over time and constantly blows us away by her ahead of the curve fashion sense, her bold to-go-where-no-woman-has-gone-before (yet we'd all like to follow her there) intuition. We keep our eye on Chloe Sevigny because she surprises us. Zooey, as a person, is a bit of a one trick pony, a one hit wonder, and while those can be fun to listen to sometimes, we're left with wondering what else they've got to share with the world. Here's the bottom line, folks: Zooey Deschanel's cutesy schtick, which has only gotten worse with her television show, New Girl, is simply reaching the end of its adorable little rope.

• at 10:21 PM
• Posted by Anne Campbell
• 2 comments

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When I Saw You This Weekend, I Remembered

We worked at the Anthropologie on 5th and Pine, it was 2005, and our first monumental conversation had something to do with our mutual love for Joan Didion. We folded tea towels and we talked about love, and suggestively sold clothing to wealthy women and picked up the piles of clothes they left behind.

We sat at the pool in the courtyard of the purple condominium on the hill (because you lived there then with your brother), and we wore our vintage 1960's Hawaiian muumuus (that matched perfectly, even though we had bought them separately).

We shopped at Ross Dress For Less in Idaho when you came to visit the first time, and you found those black Frye boots at the Goodwill in my size (I still have them even though the heels are worn to bits) and you met the person I would marry when he was working at The Fireside Restaurant in Pullman, where we ate southwest chicken salads and drank red wine.

When you came to visit the second time, we sat on the lawn in front of the Presbyterian Church across the street from my apartment, and bought tomatoes from the Farmer's Market. I wore a pale pink trench. Your hair was longer than I'd ever seen it.

Before then, when we were still in Seattle, you met the person you would marry. He wore seersucker pants to your 25th birthday party, and I knew he was yours. I took a photo of you in the green dress you wore that day, and I'd like to say it was taffeta, but I could never remember those things, and you always knew what everything was made of and exactly what shade of green.

You got married on San Juan Island in those gorgeous fawn-colored riding boots (wearing your groom's thick purple socks, because at the last minute you needed to find socks, so you made them your "something borrowed").

I got married in that little white roadside chapel on the Mt. Baker highway. Just three months before my wedding, you had a baby. She was so tiny at the wedding, but now so much bigger, and when I saw her this weekend, I couldn't stop thinking about us, about what we were like then, and what we are like now, and what extraordinary things we might teach her.

• at 9:51 PM
• Posted by Anne Campbell
• 0 comments

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Smokes

For a time, I sold cigarettes at a smoke shop. I had to learn the difference between hard packs and soft packs, 100's and Lights, reds and golds and menthols. I learned about rolling papers and tobacco and lighters and chew. I worked the night shift on weekends and the place was always hopping. It was a small town in Idaho, a little convenience store within walking distance from pretty much everything, and we sold cheap smokes and 40's; candy and beef jerky and packs of gum. I have a tiny scar on the inside of my forearm from when I was stocking beer and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon exploded.

Everyone always asked for milk, and we never sold milk. I knew what they smoked and they knew me, all of the locals in this town, every last one of them, because everyone smoked. I would buy cloves and keep them in my bag and I would smoke them because I liked how they looked and I liked how they smelled, even though I never really knew how to smoke. You could still smoke in the bars, and it was dirty and romantic.

At night I was in charge of closing everything down, setting the alarm and turning off the neon lights and locking the door, and I'd check, maybe a thousand times, to make sure the front door was locked, and I'd look back and see it there, that place I loved, silent and sleeping in the dark, next to the empty laundromat with its machines going round and round.

• at 9:25 PM
• Posted by Anne Campbell
• 1 comments

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