passages i liked when i woke up at 3 am and couldn't fall back asleep

From "The Moment in Fashion: Eccentric":

The woman [Robert Burke, the fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman] had in mind is one who does not mind raising eyebrows, even relishes the thought. At a time when movie stars employ battalions of stylists to help achieve a bland perfection that passes for good taste — an exception, Ms. Nickerson said, being the singer Bjork — such eccentricity is rare…

…"I really wish they would banish the red carpet," [Nickerson] said. "When a person insists on being photographed looking glamorous but conventional, it kills experimentation, and fashion cannot move forward."

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Sophie Harrison, a first-year medical student, writes the London Review of Books Diary:

The skin has already been cut for us, a neat bloodless line across the base of the neck and another straight down the chest to the top of the abdomen. The students opposite me put their gloved fingers into the cut and pick up their side of chest and fold it back. The dermal layer is as thick as a slender paperback, and, without blood, the same beige as old paper. It sits neatly folded over the cadaver's arm as though he'd slung it there himself.

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Amy Benfer analyzes Sweet Valley High books, "The Training Bras of Literature":

At first, it seems liberating to have your sympathies split between two very different heroines. But eventually it becomes clear that the twins thing reinforces the principle lesson of these kind of novels: personalities are fixed, and you are either one kind of girl or the other; there is no room for ambiguity. Thus you can be either sincere or manipulative; earnest or playful; dependable or flighty; a hard worker or a party girl.

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From a 2002 interview with Morrissey, "The man with the thorn in his side":

Who is his best friend? He laughs derisively, 'My best friend? At the age of 43? My credit card!' Not even a cat? 'No. My best friend is myself. I look after myself very, very well. I can rely on myself never to let myself down. I'm the last person I want to see at night and the first in the morning. I am endlessly fascinating - at eight o clock at night, at midnight, I'm fascinated. It's a lifelong relationship and divorce will never come into it. That's why, as I say, I feel privileged. And that is an honest reply.'

Posted by nchicha at February 4, 2004 10:35 AM