2-BSide
4B —Thursday, February 1, 2018
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NowFashion.com
So you say you want to
be a couturier, do you?
The first time I came across
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
it was in the form of 10
printed pages delivered by
my sister as she stumbled off
a train from Mich. Her friend
had written a dissertation on
it in high school, and on her
recommendation
my
sister
printed it off for the trip from
Mich. to Chicago. “You should
read it if you liked ‘Catcher in
the Rye’,” Mimi told me as she
placed the pages before me on
the kitchen counter.
Liked “Catcher”? I didn’t
just like “Catcher,” I thought
incredulously.
Along
with
every
other
unbearably
angsty
15-year-old,
I
worshipped it and treasured
the voice of Holden Caulfield,
his weariness towards life
and bemoaning over phonies
everywhere.
“It
perfectly
captures the listlessness of
youth,” I would tell anyone
who asked, but mostly those
who didn’t.
Were I being honest with
myself, I would have been able
to admit the book didn’t do
much for me. My dedication
to the book at 15 was entirely
guided by a pursuit of social
capital. I was a teenage girl
with a bunch of friends who
were obsessed with the book
and the faux-academic air it
allowed us to presume. It’s
not that I hated the book
or anything; I just couldn’t
figure out what the big deal
with Salinger was all about.
But then I met Seymour
Glass, and in 10 pages, I
fell in love. It’s Salinger’s
sickly
sweet
cruelty
that
drew me in. Forget Holden
and his droning thoughts,
here I had Muriel and Sybil
and Seymour. Here I had a
woman who “for a ringing
phone
dropped
exactly
nothing” and bananafish that
contract banana fever from
uncontrollable eating. Here
I had Seymour, holding onto
the edge of a little girl’s foot
as waves of the ocean carried
her, before later putting a
pistol to his head.
Maybe it was the precision
with which Salinger describes
Muriel applying lacquer to
her nails or the slicing sound
of young Sybil yelling after
“see more glass.” Maybe it
was that I never anticipated
the ending.
“Nine Stories” has carried
me through the last five
years of my life. I find
myself revisiting the hazy,
cigarette smoke-filled living
room of “Uncle Wiggley in
Connecticut” with its two
women lying on their backs,
scotch glasses on their chests,
reliving their college days
and lost loves. I find myself
thinking of the missing wife
in “Pretty Mouth and Green
My Eyes” and her desperate
husband who doesn’t suspect
that she might be found in the
hotel room of a friend. I think
about how I want to talk,
write, be like the characters
he crafts. On another day in
another life, I’d be a Salinger
character,
built
from
the
ground up by his pen. I want
to exist in the mind of a
writer
whose
descriptions
and dialogue are laden with
humor and sadness.
These stories are undercut
by small and heavy tragedies,
filled with characters simply
trying to figure out how to
live in a world overwrought
with
unexplainable
peculiarities
and
sorrows.
Philip Roth, in his 1961 essay
“Writing American Fiction,”
writes that the only solution
Salinger gives us for how to
live in this world, between
The Glass Family and Holden,
is “to be charming on the
way to the loony bin.” But
I disagree. In the wake of
Salinger’s specialty sadness,
something persists. At the end
of each story, when the words
on the page shake you to your
core and leave you hollow,
something else drags you on.
It’s why placing “Bananafish”
as the first of nine stories
doesn’t immediately halt the
collection. We are human, and
because of this our fascination
for the uncanny and devotion
to reading another’s sadness
all stems from an effort to
figure out our own.
The spring of my freshman
year of college a friend from
back home came to visit. He
had recently lost a brother
and I, a friend. In an effort to
escape the shadow of this loss
I threw myself into making the
weekend fun for him, filled
with exuberant distractions
like karaoke and blistering
hangovers. And while it was
fun, something about him,
our relationship, had shifted
in the months since death
visited
our
doorstep.
His
signature
pessimism
had
become darker, more sinister.
I was drained by the end of his
visit, the inevitability of our
changing relationship leaving
me limp and exhausted.
My sister came to meet
me in the Diag the day after
I dropped him off at the
bus station. My body was
hungover and heavy with
weariness, so we simply laid
back into the warm sun of
a late Apr. day and talked,
sharing a sandwich. Months
earlier, on the night the news
of Danny’s death had reached
me, I was lying next to her in
her bed overcome with grief.
Now I lay next to her in the
sun overcome with something
close to grief, but not quite.
She read “For Esme — with
Love and Squalor” aloud for
me that day. From start to
finish her voice told the story
that had been my favorite
since I read the collection all
those years ago. I fell in love
once again with the soldier
and his lovely affection for
Esme, the little girl with an
arrogant wit in whom I saw
a little too much of myself. I
fell in love once again with
its
strange
structure,
its
self-reflexivity
that
seems
to stretch farther into J.D.
Salinger’s own life than any
other of the nine. I fell in
love once again with all its
nuances and all of its fac—f-a-
c-u-l-t-i-e-s.
I often return to those
hours
Mimi
and
I
spent
lying in the Diag, just as I
return to these stories. In
reading them, I’m able to read
myself in different places,
at different times in my life.
And every late Jan., when
the cold creeps around the
corner and the excitement of
the new year slowly turns to
dust, I yearn for the warmth
of the sun, not the cold of
dim memories. I yearn for the
sunburn that slowly stretched
across my face as Mimi and I
read stories filled with love
and squalor and humor and
grief. I clutch to Salinger,
his words and his characters
who don’t presume to know
anything about living in the
world, but who simply subsist
and push on from one story to
the next.
Books that Built Us: J.D.
Salinger’s ‘Nine Stories’
A young woman’s discovery of author J.D. Salinger’s
lesser-known works, his characters and a universal story
NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
At the beginning of the
new music video for X
Ambassadors’s “JOYFUL,”
band members move around
the inside of an extravagant
concert hall. They climb
the stage, tap on drums and
get ready. Then, all outside
noise fades, and the song
begins … and they just kind
of stay there.
The entire video takes
place on the stage of the
concert hall, panning
between lead singer Sam
Harris at the microphone,
fellow band members Casey
Harris and Adam Levin on
keyboard and drums and a
backup choir that emerges
around halfway through.
Things pick up a little with
the introduction of the
choir, less due to the music
video than to the building
tension and excitement in
the music itself.
It’s not that “JOYFUL” is
a bad music video; it’s just
that it doesn’t really seem to
add anything to the song. X
Ambassadors deliver a crisp
performance, not unenjoy-
able to watch, but also not
particularly noteworthy.
At its best, a music video
shouldn’t just be a well-
captured performance of a
quality song; it should be
a way to take what you’re
already saying with the
song and accentuate it using
film, to be more creative
with it, to give it dimension.
It doesn’t really feel like X
Ambassadors accomplished
that with “JOYFUL.”
That being said, the video
does at least fit nicely along-
side the song. The song has
a very simple message, and
the video delivers it plainly
— when Harris sings that
he wants to be “joyful and
happy, just being alive,” it
seems like the video is try-
ing to deliver itself with
the same unembellished
approach as the song. The
straightforward nature of
the video underscores this,
as it seems to beckon the
viewer to immerse them-
selves in the performance;
at the very end, the camera
even lifts high above the
city, eventually leaving the
word “JOYFUL” all by itself
in a bright blue sky.
There aren’t any glaring
problems with the video
for “JOYFUL,” and in many
ways it does embody a lot
of what the song is already
saying. It doesn’t reach
very far beyond embodying,
though, and this restraint is
what unfortunately holds it
back from being a standout
music video.
– Laura Dzubay, Daily Arts
Writer
INTERSCOPE RECORDS
“JOYFUL”
X Ambassadors
KIDinaKORDNER/
Interscope Records
I just couldn’t
figure out what
the big deal
with Salinger
was all about
I clutch to
Salinger, his
words and his
characters who
don’t presume
to know
anything about
living in the
world, but who
simply subsist
and push on
from one story
to the next
BOOKS
I’d like to begin with an
unfortunate disclaimer: Juicy
Couture is not real couture.
The phrase Haute Couture
is French for “high sewing.”
Its
implications
developed
out of a 1945 decision made by
France’s Chambre Syndicale
de la Haute Couture, which
determined
that
“Haute
Couture” should become a
legal designation for fashion
houses who qualify to become
members
of
the
Chambre
Syndicale. Today, just over 150
designers in the world boast
the auspicious designation.
Why, you might ask, did
any of this hierarchical legal
action begin in the first place?
And in response, dear reader,
I will remind you that “high”
fashion’s origins lie within a
hotbed of European elitism.
The Chambre Syndicale de la
Haute Couture was started
upon such a foundation in
1868, when a group of Parisian
dressmakers, couturiers, came
together in hopes of regulating
one another with regards to
counterfeiting,
collection
release
dates,
number
of
models
per
fashion
show,
proper relations with the press
and issues of fashion-related
laws and taxes.
Today,
the
Chambre
Syndicale exists within the
jurisdiction of the Fédération
de la Haute Couture et de
la Mode, whose mission is
to “promote French fashion
culture,
where
Haute
Couture and creation have a
major impact by combining
traditional know how and
contemporary technology at
all times,” according to their
website. The Fédération is
responsible for maintaining
virtually
every
aspect
of
Parisian
high
fashion,
but
perhaps
most
integral
to
the city’s reputation as the
world’s fashion capital is the
Chambre Syndicale’s highly-
curated
list
of
members,
who have the opportunity to
show collections as part of
the prestigious semi-annual
Couture Fashion Week.
There
are
many
key
differences between ordinary
Fashion
Week
collections,
often referred to as ready-
to-wear,
and
couture.
I’ll
scratch the surface: Ready-
to-wear garments are factory-
made in standard sizes, and
are available to most anyone
willing to shell out the cash
for a 900-dollar t-shirt. The
same can’t be said for couture
collections, which boast one-
of-a-kind, handmade pieces
made to measure for fashion’s
uppermost echelon of clientele
(i.e.
royalty
and
Julianne
Moore).
Other
notable
criteria for Haute Couture
status include ownership of a
workshop, or atelier, in Paris
that employs at least 15 full-
time staff members and 20
full-time technical employees,
and the presentation of at
least 50 original designs to
the public every season, in
Jan. and Jul.. It is ultimately
up to Fédération executives to
determine who earns the title
TESS GARCIA
Daily Style Editor
of couturier, along with which
designers should be chosen as
“guest members” for a given
season.
Outside
of
tangible
requirements, couture designs
tend to be more outrageous
than their commercially-sold
counterparts. Couture Week
Spring-Summer
2018
just
wrapped up, and featured a
refreshing quantity of textures,
colors and voluminous feather
headpieces. Standout pieces
were seen at Dior, where
newly-minted
creative
director Maria Grazia Chiuri
at last seemed to find her
footing, within Giambattista
Valli’s
tulle-laden
paradise
and at Giorgio Armani Privé,
where
watercolor
reigned
supreme.
Guest
members
like Guo Pei and Iris Van
Herpen
breathed
new
life
into the institution’s deeply
homogenous framework.
Greater diversity in member
brands’ leadership is making
Haute Couture more exciting
than
ever.
This
season
saw the rise of the female
creative director — namely,
Grazia Chiuri at Dior and
Guo and Van Herpen at their
eponymous labels — along
with non-European brands,
like American expat Proenza
Schouler and Lebanese fan
favorite Elie Saab. Fashion
has a long, long way to go, but
to see its most discriminatory
subgroup making progress is
exciting, no doubt.
Let’s circle back to that
Juicy tracksuit you wore every
week in middle school. It was
special, yes, a fundamental
ingredient to the anxiety-
filled casserole that was your
formative years. But make
no mistake: There’s no way a
legacy upholstered in velour
could make the Haute Couture
cut.
I’d like to
begin with an
unfortunate
disclaimer:
Juicy Couture
is not real
couture
Greater
diversity in
member brands’
leadership is
making Haute
Couture more
exciting than
ever
STYLE
I will
remind you
that “high”
fashion’s origins
lie within a
hotbed of
European
elitism