--This is what happens when you buy one lousy dress from Neiman-Marcus
(now and forever to referred to as Needless-Markup in Cake Eater
lingo). You get on their mailing list and they send you catalog after
catalog full of things you want and want badly but will never be able
to afford while your manuscript remains unsold.
“Autumn,” as that Irish humorist, Marian Keyes, declares, “is the time of new boots.” Amen, sister. Preach it to the choir, anyway, because
we all know Gucci̢۪s buyout of Yves St. Laurent is draining the cash
reserves. Tom Ford needs the money, honestly he does! That evil LVMH
almost sucked him dry during their hostile takeover attempt. The sheer
amount of greenmail they had to buy that horrible Bernard off with is
hurting poor Tomâ€Â¦we MUST help him! If you’re a man, you will
have noticed this trend: women will use almost any excuse to go out and
buy a new pair of shoes. I am, sad to say, one of these women. Sigh. I
love shoes. Always have, always will. I adore the smell of leather. The
complex and intricate stitching causes me to gasp in awe. Cleverly
designed heels make me swoon. And most of all, I love
the feel of sliding on a new pair of leather, high heeled boots and
then zipping them up. An incredible and heady mixture comprised of part
Charlie̢۪s Angels (the original Charlie̢۪s Angels...not
those horrid remakes with those three dimwits) babe who can kick ass
and uber sex kitten pumps through my veins, like a morphine drip whose
lockbox has been broken. Now, just because I wear a pair of Birks or
Merrills most days does not mean I do not have a profound affection for
fancy, designer shoes. It simply means it would be impractical to break
my neck attempting to walk back from the grocery store in three inch
heels. Shoes for women are like men with supermodels. They know a
snowball stands a better chance of surviving hell than they do of
pulling a model. They know they will never have them, but it doesn̢۪t
keep the fools from lusting after those women in the first place.
It̢۪s the same for me and my Prada mules. Riiiiiiaaaaaooow!
What exactly is it about autumn that makes you want to go out and buy
copious amounts of hot shoes? Is it some evil and unholy alliance of
the irrepressible urge to school shop and the need to finally cover up
some of that skin after a whole summer̢۪s worth of bearing it? Is the
modesty factor sexy? I haven̢۪t the foggiest notion, but the ingrained
need to shop for shoes this time of year always tempts me beyond
repair. I have been successful at repressing the need so far, mainly
because I̢۪ve never had the money to do so. All I can say is, God help
me when I do have the spare cash. Object of my current affection
Now, I don̢۪t normally go for animal prints, and this picture
doesn̢۪t do the poor shoes justice, but I really like these, for some
unknown reason. Or
They also have these in a fabulous wine colorâ€Â¦and I would completely
buy them if we had won that $100 million Powerball jackpot yesterday,
and they didn̢۪t have that goddawful Gucci logo on them. I honestly
wish I̢۪d bought one of those handbags emblazoned with the Gucci logo
back in the 1980̢۪s. If I had, I could pull it out now and everyone
would think I
had the newest, latest and greatest design. And while they all tittered
about how to get one just like mine, I could smile smugly and know that
it had been sitting in my closet since 1986. I still have a faux Louis
Vuitton bag my first boyfriend bought me in Manhattan way back in the
dayâ€Â¦maybe I’ll have to pull that out one day and see what everyone
has to say. And then we have the piece de resistance.
“YEAH, BABY!”
--In our traditional bid to beat back the ever present State Fair which
is occurring over in St. Paul as we speak, (Someone just undoubtedly
gagged on a cheese curd. One day, someone will do statistics on this
sort of thing---every five minutes someone chokes at the State Fair.
Mark my words. It̢۪s Minnesota, they study everything here and then
they ban it.) the husband and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of
Arts today to take in some air conditioned culture. We went for this
and were pretty impressed. Romanticism is the movement that directly
precedes Impressionism on that interminable art history spectrum your
teachers were always trying to shove down your throats. The period is
known for its idealism, not only in thought, but it the way the artists
depicted their subjects. It shouldn̢۪t seem so revolutionary to us
that these painters actually—gasp--painted
landscapes that they saw right before them. But it was a revolutionary
idea in those days, and to see it evolve and for the paintings to
gradually grow more realistic, but blurrier was rather interesting.
I̢۪m not going to get into it too much, but if you̢۪ve got an
afternoon to blow in Minneapolis and you want to see some good art, go
and check it out. Delaroche̢۪s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, and Gericault̢۪s The Raft of the Medusa
are both larger-than-life canvases that take you a good long while to
absorb. And then you could spend another half hour just admiring them.
Oh, and if you get the opportunity, check out Desdemona̢۪s
outstretched arm in Colin̢۪s depiction of her murder by Othello.
It̢۪s freaky and just not humanly possible. But the line and
composition work because of it. Ick. --Oh, Tommy.

“I have no doubt that the U.S. presence in Iraq is attracting all
sorts of terrorists and Islamists to oppose the U.S. I also have no
doubt that politicians and intellectuals in the nearby Arab states are
rooting against America in Iraq because they want Arabs and the world
to believe that the corrupt autocracies that have so long dominated
Arab life, and failed to deliver for their people, are the best anyone
can hope for.
But I totally disagree that this is a sign that everything is going
wrong in Iraq. The truth is exactly the opposite.”

Oh, babyâ€Â¦you know how to get a girl going. Mmmm, hmmm.

“ We are attracting all these opponents to Iraq because they
understand this war is The Big One. They don't believe their own
propaganda. They know this is not a war for oil. They know this is a
war over ideas and values and governance. They know this war is about
Western powers, helped by the U.N., coming into the heart of their
world to promote more decent, open, tolerant, women-friendly,
pluralistic governments by starting with Iraq — a country that
contains all the main strands of the region: Shiites, Sunnis and
Kurds.”

I just love it when you say they don̢۪t believe their own propaganda. It̢۪s making me so hot I can barely stand it!

“You'd think from listening to America's European and Arab critics
that we'd upset some bucolic native culture and natural harmony in
Iraq, as if the Baath Party were some colorful local tribe out of
National Geographic.”

It's the clever man who can make a woman laugh.

“In short, America's opponents know just what's at stake in the
postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat
America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose
to America there, lose everywhere.”

Oh, honey, I can barely wait for the finale. It̢۪s going to be so satisfying. Can you feel the gooseflesh? Shivers, baby, shivers.

“. . . Your experience in Iraq is going to create two reactions:
one is hypersensitivity, led by the Islamists, and the other is
welcoming, led by the secularists. [But you have to understand] that
what you are doing is a penetration of one culture into another. If you
succeed here, Iraq could change the habits and customs of the people in
the whole area."
God, I just love it when you bring in the anecdotal evidence to back up
your point. God. It̢۪s just so fabulous and your sources are so good.

“â€Â¦The Bush team tells us, rightly, that this nation-building
project is the equivalent of Germany in 1945, and yet, so far, it has
approached the postwar in Iraq as if it's Grenada in 1982.”

Huh? Oh, sweetie, go backâ€Â¦go back. Please, for the love of God, go back!

“We may fail, but not because we have attracted terrorists who
understand what's at stake in Iraq. We may fail because of the utter
incompetence with which the Pentagon leadership has handled the
postwar. (We don't even have enough translators there, let alone
M.P.'s, and the media network we've set up there to talk to Iraqis is
so bad we'd be better off buying ads on Al Jazeera.)”
Well, I can see what you̢۪re saying, darling, honestly I can, but
stillâ€Â¦maybe if you just picked up the manual and read a little
further, we might get somewhere. Yeah, that̢۪s right. It̢۪s in the
nightstandâ€Â¦no, not that oneâ€Â¦the one whose title reads How to Handle the Claims of New York Times Editorial Writers.
Yeah, the one written by Rummy. Now, just open it up to that dog eared
pageâ€Â¦yeah, 267â€Â¦the page that talks about not being a know-it-all. Darling,
please do it for me. Yes, that̢۪s right. You̢۪re a wonderful man. Say
it with me: “The Kurds are more than happy. The Shiites are doing
well. So, we̢۪ve had few issues getting the power running, but people
are able to walk down the street now without fear of being shot for no
good reason other than they were walking. The Majority is happy with
our presence.” Now, say it againâ€Â¦yes, darling. Thank youâ€Â¦I’m
feeling so much better now. Much more lovingâ€Â¦yes, that’s rightâ€Â¦

“We may fail because the Bush team thinks it can fight The Big One
in the Middle East — while cutting taxes at home, shrinking the U.S.
Army, changing the tax code to encourage Americans to buy gas-guzzling
cars that make us more dependent on Mideast oil and by gratuitously
alienating allies.”

You just had to go and ruin it, didn̢۪t you? That̢۪s it. When I said more to the left I meant for you to go to your right. I̢۪ve had it with you. Just get the hell out, would you? You know cheap, left wing rhetoric doesn̢۪t do it for me! Tax cuts? Gratuitously alienating allies? Oh, please. I thought maybe you had something new to add, but apparently I was wrong.

No. No. No, you cannot explain anymore. Just get the hell out.

-- I̢۪m initiating a new award here in Cake Eater land. And we̢۪re going to call it the Sicko Award
for depraved acts of humanity. You need not be Robert Mugabe, Foday
Sankoh, or even Slobodan Milosovic or even Herod to earn it. All you
need to do is have highly questionable motives and an unshakable belief
that you̢۪re really doing the right thing by the citizenry of the
world. And so for our first recipient, we have Agata Siwik. A nice Polish girl who grew up near Auschwitz.

You think selling a key ring emblazoned with the words Arbeit Macht Frei ---with
all the infamous and downright wrong connotations those words
evoke---is honestly going to keep it from happening again? Have you
learned nothing? For shame, woman. For shame!

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