Lighten up, it's just fashion.

Until it's not.

And here's the "I love Hitler" video that just couldn't be brushed away as drunken smack-talking.

Oscars, anyone?

I haven't seen any of the movies, but I'm DVR-ing the show and will dip in from time to time. You can talk about it here and I might say something now and then.

For example, Jennifer Hudson has a smashing dress.

UPDATE: Man, this show sucks so bad.

UPDATE2: I'm IM-ing with my son Chris. I write: "is any celebrity saying anything pro-union or in support of the wisconsin protesters?" And he's all:

haven't heard anything

oh gwyneth paltrow mentioned you

in the middle of the song

she stopped and said you know ann althouse

needs to stop criticizing those protestors

LOL.

Inside the Wisconsin Capitol building, at the protest today.

In the rotunda, viewed with the fisheye lens (which feels at home in a round space):



The police presence was strong:



A man with a press pass sits on the ornate stone floor and works on his Power Book:


(Enlarge.)

"We Can't Lose" says a badly-drawn hand giving the peace sign:



Enlarge to read more signs — "Moms Can Tell You Are Lying," etc.

A man in saggy pants and a Teamsters jacket talks to an hipsterish guy near a sign that says "Get Out of Your EGO, And into Your Heart, Walker Causes GAS, And it's Time to FART":



Signs are laid out on the floor, and a woman sidles along viewing them as if they were a museum display:

What we wore to the demonstrations.

I love this sign — "Today is about peace and and DEMOCRACY" — and attitude.



And don't you love her outfit? Taking this shot, I felt like the Wisconsin Sartorialist. As long as I'm doing vertical, fashion-oriented photos, let me add this one, from the Tea party side of yesterday's demonstrations:

"Too Many Barnacles Sink the Ship/Is this the New Civility?"

Pro-Walker I think. It's surprising how much interpretation the signs demand!

And here's another visually distinctive female sign-holder-up.


(Enlarge.)

You many say she's a dreamer, but she'll have you know that she is not the only one. The other side of the sign said "This is The Hour/We are the ones we've been waiting for/Hopi Elders." Hopey changey elders... I have heard of you. And I know you're not the only ones. But seriously, enough dreaming. There's a time for dreaming, and a time for waking up. And I'm saying that. Me, the Althouse-y elder.

What everyone wore at the Grammys, beginning with a man in shorts...

... tight gold plastic short shorts — panties really, almost Spanx, don't you think? He's carrying Lady Gaga inside a prop left over from "This Is Spinal Tap."

More tight shiny men's pants at #25 (Ricky Martin). Justin Bieber also models the comically male, spoofing adulthood, I think, doing bagginess instead of tightness, at #36. Katy Perry, at #40, seems to be spoofing the old mishap of unwittingly dragging toilet paper with you out of the bathroom. Rihanna, at #47, seems to have collected all that toilet paper and crimped it into millions of tiny ruffles to band around her body in stripes — alternating with — apparently! —nakedness.

It's the Grammys. It's perfectly apt to dress as a joke.

Hey, everybody mistakes 4-star generals for waiters.

"In fact, when military personnel wear their dress uniforms of short jacket and striped trousers to black-tie parties, they themselves often make jokes to each other about waiting tables. [ Four-star Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli -- the No. 2 general in the U.S. Army] wears a chestful of medals, which [Valerie] Jarrett apparently did not see."

"No woman of quality has ever preferred football to baseball."

#24 on a list of 99 reasons why baseball is so much better than football. Actually, #24 reads in its entirety: "Marianne Moore loved Christy Mathewson. No woman of quality has ever preferred football to baseball." Oh, good lord. "Woman of quality." Marianne Moore. Christy Mathewson.

I got to that page via Peter Hoh, who said I should check out #19 on the list. Okay:

Pro football players have breasts. Many NFLers are so freakishly overdeveloped, due to steroids, that they look like circus geeks. Baseball players seem like normal fit folks. Fans should be thankful they don't have to look at NFL teams in bathing suits.

Great. Moobs. Let's take a closer look at those moobs. That list was written back in 1987, and it's my observation that a lot of those football players have very attractively V-shaped bodies. The ones who are tubby are tubby for a reason. What explains the tubbiness of baseball players?

And the fact is we don't have to see either football or baseball players in bathing suits. We see them in their uniforms — their costumes. And the football costumes are glorious and sexy, while the baseball uniforms these days look like children's pajamas.

***

I like to call the uniforms "costumes," because spectator sports are entertainment and because I'm looking for the traces of the feminine within the manly... and because it drives the guys crazy and I'm all about driving the guys crazy.

"Although it would have been illegal to fire him based on, say, his race or religion, firing him because of what he wore or because he is a Packers fan is not illegal."

"John Stone says it didn't occur to him that wearing a Green Bay Packers tie to work on Monday could get him fired."

Gladys Horton, the lead singer of The Marvelettes...

... has died at the age of 66.

As a student at Inkster High School, Horton helped found the group that would eventually become the Marvelettes, linking up with fellow glee club members Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Georgeanna Tillman and Georgia Dobbins.

A successful audition for Motown Records was followed in 1961 by the group's debut single, "Please Mr. Postman," with 17-year-old Horton on lead vocals. It became Motown's biggest pop crossover hit to that point, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100.

The audio is a lot better here. And here are The Beatles covering the song, pretty much adopting The Marvelettes' style. (You know The Beatles took a large component of what they were from the great girl groups of the early 60s.)

My favorite Marvelettes song was always "Beechwood 4-5789." Another really cool one is "Don't Mess With Bill":



Love the bows! We girls used to go to school dressed just like that in the early 60s. Tried to tease our hair that big too. It wasn't easy! It wasn't even possible.

I love looking back at these old styles and this old music. I'm sorry that these days the occasion for celebrating someone from back then is an obituary. I'm sad to hear that Glady Horton has died, but let's talk about how great The Marvelettes were.

"[O]nly the color of [Michelle Obama's] dress paid direct homage to China..."

"... red symbolizes good luck and happiness."

And Communism.

"This is my little hourglass, and it has like over 5,000 little diamonds in it. And they're real."

A view from inside what Kimora Lee Simmons calls her "brain" — that is, her closet, her "satellite closet, a smaller version of the the mother ship."

***

Meade overhead me playing the video that's at the link, and asked, from across the big room, who it is...

Me: Kimora Lee Simmos.

Meade: Mara Liasson? NPR?

Which — you've got to watch the video — is really quite hilarious. Imagine Mara Liasson showing off her fancy shoes and handbags like that. But maybe the NPR folk actually do go home to posh mansions and wealth beyond belief.

Now, "go in peace, and be fabulous." That could be an NPR sign-off, don't you think?

Golden Globes... are you watching?

I've set the DVR but I don't know if I'll look in.  I haven't seen any of the movies that are up for awards. (I've seen one or 2 of the TV things, but I've never cared about TV awards.)

I'm just not interested in sitting through movies these days. I find them boring and annoying. It's not the way I want to spend my time, and I don't believe the people of Hollywood have anything particularly interesting or useful to say to me. Yes, there is pure pleasure to be had... but in movies? Not so much.

Still, if you're watching, please feel free to hang out here. If something cool happens, I do have it recorded, and I'll go back and check it out.

ADDED: I'm not watching, but I did check out this slide show of the fashions. Angelina Jolie arrived as the Good Witch of Emerald City, Helena Bonham Carter came as an insane person, and most of the rest of them look like adults who, in the 1960s, looked like they belonged in the 50s.

My vision of the Super Bowl.

The Packers defeated the Eagles and the Falcons, so birds need to watch out. It will be more fun (next week) to see them go after the Bears. "Packers" refers to meat-packing, so I think Bears are more meat than Seahawks. Enough fowl. We want red meat. (So I want the Bears to win today.)

Now, after we the Packers butcher the Bears, it's on to the Super Bowl (which suggests a bird, Superb Owl, but there will be no birds in the Super Bowl). Who will face the Packers: Jets, Patriots, or Steelers. The best image isn't Packers against Jets. Jets are planes. I don't like the imagery. So Patriots or Steelers. Both are human beings. I think Steelers makes for the best imagery, because Packers and Steelers are both working guys. There's a nice parallelism to that, which pleases me.

I also care about what I like to call their "costumes." Certainly, yesterday, the Steelers' costumes were much better than the Ravens costumes. Man, the Ravens looked like they were wearing ladies' leggings. I think you want some color break at the knee, so I was for the Steelers.

I'm all about: How do they look? It's a spectator sport!

(Originally written as a comment, here.)

UPDATE: I'm watching the Seahawks and Bears game right now, and I'm seeing there's a player named Herring on the Seahawks team. That's like having a player named Honey on the Bears team. This reinforces my support for the Bears (this week).

UPDATE 2: The Jets and the Patriots have quite similar costumes. To understand the game, I need to keep trying to remember which team is dark on top and white on bottom and which is the other way around. It's like that "Last Battlefield" episode of "Star Trek" where one guy is white on the left side his face and black on the right side and the other guy is the reverse. To people who aren't intimately connected to the struggle, like Captain Kirk, it just doesn't look different enough to matter. And by the way, that episode of "Star Trek" was bogus as hell unless it's established that these people don't have mirrors. Anyway, I concede that top and bottom are easier to distinguish than right and left, and I also realize the dark color is different for the Jets and the Patriots, but I need more contrast.

Barehanded snowball fighting, Althouse-style....

... in a scarf beautifully knitted by Irene. Wait a minute...



... in a hat spiffily hand-knitted by Martha.



Gotcha!

(Seriously, thanks, Irene and Martha, for the cool handmade birthday stuff.)

"For the people who believe that readjusting the Snuggie when you move from the Barcolounger to the mobility scooter is too much work..."

"... comes the Forever Lazy, described as : 'the one piece, lie around, lounge around, full body lazy wear!'"... observes Manolo, adding:

Many thanks to the Manolo’s internet friend Anne for altering him to this.

That's not a reference to me. Anne with an e would be a misspelling, referring to me. But he does have have a typo there. He's thanking Anne "for altering him." I'm sure he means "alerting," but it's a nice Freudian slip, since those giant fleece onesies will destroy your manhood.

How the Sartorialist does his work.

Great 7-minute video showing how the wonderful fashion blogger wanders the streets looking for people dressed in a way he wants to show us and how he approaches them about being the subject of his photography. His seemingly candid shots are not taken by surprise. He asks. At 2:25, there's a perfect demonstration of how to obtain permission from a stranger. I'm going to use that!

ADDED: The Sartorialist — using almost no words, only photographs of real people — teaches us far more about what is stylish, what will be stylish, what is good in fashion, and what we should like in fashion than any mainstream fashion magazine. It's truly brilliantly done, and the video shows how the Sartorialist — Scott Schuman — works on natural instinct — and that is, I think, the key to blogging. It's what distinguishes blogging from journalism: the feeling of being in direct contact with a real and distinctive person.

IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin sends us to his "sartorial commentary":



Start a blog right there. That's the basis of the first post. Then continue in the "anti-sartorial" vein.

"The nipple mania is just a runway styling conceit."

"Our only issue (and it's really not that big an issue) is when a trend like this gets so saturated so quickly."

Saturated? Here, use these.

"Fashion forward: 10 things to get excited about in 2011."

From the L.A. Times "image staff":

1) Skirts falling. At last, some clothes for women who don't look to the Kardashians for style tips. The tyranny of the mini is over and skirts are falling. Midi, maxi and knee-length skirts were all over the runways for spring at Jil Sander, Michael Kors, Yves Saint Laurent and more. But they're going mass, too....

I led this trend beginning in '09. Took a break from it in fall '10, but after buying these boots yesterday, I've been contemplating regressing to my long skirts. (Bonus Althouse skirt-length material here. (Scroll to "Note about me."))

Oh, well, let's read on. Blah blah blah... oh!

6) The new political guard. If there is one person I'm eager to observe dressing for today's political stage, it's California Governor-elect Jerry Brown. In his 1970s heyday, he was a rake in double-breasted suits with sharp lapels. But now, almost nothing is known about what he wears.

Compared with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who favors suits by Armani, Brioni, Prada and Gucci, has been known to carry a Prada weekend bag and refers to himself as a "shoe queen," Brown is practically anti-fashion--which could almost be more interesting. 

Shoe queen, eh? Where are the pictures to prove this? All they've got is a pic of his head, which is bald on top and pensive in front, with an ear on at least one side. I'm skeptical!

ADDED: Oops. I misread. It's Queen Arnold. There's nothing at all about what Jerry Brown wears. Here's some fashion advice for Brown: wear... brown! Oh, sorry. I thought I was Naomi Wolf for a moment there. Advising Gore.

"That's pretty cool. I love the open buckles and how they pick up the silver of the tin foil/duct tape..."

Comments on a Sartorialist photo from the scene of the NYC blizzard:

Awesome! I love the boots, but it's the duct tape in classic silver that made me take notice. It just goes to show that even a homeless person or city worker or whoever this person is can accessorize with wit and style, given what's available to them....

Whoever this person is, there's always a slight line between what's ridiculous and what's considered "fashionable"...nowadays it seems that everything can work and be "cool"! ...

I battled with this photo. It affects the emotions in that it could be of a homeless or an eccentric person. Maybe you could have indicated that the guy is a construction worker. It comes close to the bone....



I was outside today photographing snow in Central Park, and let me tell you – this is a smart idea to tape your pants to your shoes! Of course, it is also sad because this picture is most likely of a homeless person, and this isn't a good time for them. Either way, the silver cheers up the idea, if only a little bit...

Why would people be offended with this being a homeless person? Scott's blog isn't just about girls in bandage dresses and high-heels. He takes photos of people coming from ALL aspects of life. Homeless or a billionaire, both are worthy of a photograph. Good golly, you picky, whiney people.

I hate snow falling in my boot tops and have thought of doing this several times. Also, interesting how many people who posted earlier equate functionality with homelessness.

uhh...sorry this isn't creative or stylish at all. If it was deliberate, maybe it'd be cool, but it's just a homeless guy keeping warm. Oh how avant-garde! Not really....

20-inches of snow, people. Add to that the mountains on curbs where you could easily sink in to your mid-thigh. Duct tape dude has the right idea.

Ha. Angst-ing over duct tape in New York City. Meanwhile, in Alaska....