The Radical History News: Shopping, Nixonland, Feminist Blogging and A Farewell

Yesterday I passed two milestones:  I went to BJ's Wholesale for the first time, and I finally bought an iPad.  As I was driving home, the Sister of the Radical (SORor) called, and I asked her if I was the last person on earth to discover BJ's.  "Yes," she said, not unkindly.  Well, so be it.  I was late to the game on Deadwood too, but caught up eventually.

BJ's had been recommended to me by my dentist during a prolonged procedure (he was trying to distract me from the root canal he was performing) and I must say, neither the root canal or BJ's has been a disappointment.  As I toodled down I-91 with a full trunk of loose items (they don't give you bags at BJ's, and I made a mental note to bring cardboard boxes or totes the next time) the only parallel experience I could compare it to was being allowed to visit a warehouse stocked by UNESCO, or being the patriarch of a polygamous Mormon family.  Bales of socks and long underwear were nestled next to a case of baked beans, a massive brick of TP, a bushel of garlic, six quarts of shrink wrapped OJ, and a variety of other jumbo-sized items. 

Riding shotgun was the iPad.  What can I say?  64 gigs and it's everything I can imagine. Having posted the purchase on my Facebook, I got the following link from Rick Perlstein (who is cool and funny and nice, in addition to being a terrific writer) advertising the enhanced e-book of his Nixonland:  the Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Scribners, 2008).  I embedded the video here:



Is that cool or what?  In other news:

Historiann and Tenured Radical have been nominated for a 2010 Cliopatria award in the category  "Best Series of Posts," for their series on Terry Castle's The Professor (You can get started reading here).  If that isn't enough, the roundtable on feminist blogging I have been promising, "Women Gone Wild," starring TR, Historiann, Jennifer Ho, May Friedman, Marilee Lindemann and Rachel Leow, is now up and rocking the house at the Journal of Women's History.

Finally, we are sad to say that the authors of Edge of the American West seem to be biting the poison pill.  Oh yeah, they say they are going on hiatus, but when and if they come back, they will come back as something else.  As one co-author said:"I’d rather take a break before it becomes a chore or I start posting pictures of cats." Another: "We associate the West with new beginnings, but also the end of the day, and maybe we have got there."

Maybe. We'll miss you, and thanks.

In Which the Radical Descends Upon Madison Avenue

I have always thought I had a little bit of the haberdasher in me, but now I know I do, since I have successfully collaborated with Extravaganza to dress him for eighth grade graduation, shepherding him through a variety of men's stores downtown and on Madison Avenue to put together the Perfect Outfit. He actually picks his own clothes very well, and has an acute sense of personal style that some adults will never achieve, so all I have to contribute is what grown ups usually contribute on such missions. He is also a striking boy, as are his brothers, so dress him in a paper bag and he looks good; go to a little effort and he looks like a movie star. Since Ex was deserving of both a birthday present and a graduation present, we had agreed some time ago that we would go to New York and shop for his first Stylish Suit (my partner N. was a 50% backer of this expedition, you will be glad to know.) We completed this mission today, and had an absolutely marvelous time. I took him to brunch at a French Bistro I know on the Lower East Side; he took me to dessert at a resturant in the former Little Italy that serves nothing but rice pudding in twelve or fourteen different flavors.

Oh, and speaking of movie stars, when we got off the train and into Grand Central, there was a massive film crew filming Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road on the Vanderbilt Avenue steps and we saw Leonardo Di Caprio dressed as a 1950's suburban commuter.

Now I said I wasn't going to write about people without their permission anymore, and Extravaganza is my real nephew, so I can't even pull the composite character bit. This means I have to withold all of our witty conversations, as well as a number of interesting questions he asked me about the city that I know well and love, as we coasted past Potemkin University, various historic folksinging joints and the Stonewall Inn (I try to keep the history lectures to a minimum.) For the same reason of course, you will hear no family drivel, which you wouldn't find interesting, but we can be consumed by it for hours. And I will tell you nothing about the eighth grade at Shoreline Middle School, which is a hotbed of intrigue, and about which I like hearing because the stories are hilarious and the eighth grade was the nadir of my own life and the life of nearly everyone else I know. In contrast, Extravaganza's eighth grade seems to be full of wonderful kids who are more or less nice to each other. By re-living the end of middle school vicariously I hope to finally put to rest my own youthful trauma.

I will tell you, however, that recently some idealistic community philanthropy group had the poor judgement to sponsor a lip-synching contest for eighth graders in Shoreline and surrounding (wealthy) towns. Shoreline middle schoolers chose songs from Broadway shows; a quartet of white boys from Richbury chose a rap song called "Nasty Girl" by Nelly, which has as part of its verse, "I need you to grind your little ass and hips...." You've got the picture. I said innocently, "What did everyone think of that?" Extravaganza said, "Well -- these guys were, like touching themselves! And like -- banging against each others butts with their -- and we were, like --" speechless, is what he might have said to complete the sentence, but he demonstrated it instead: mouth dropped open, eyes wide in mock surprise. I can only imagine.

Partly I tell you this because I think it is hilarious, and partly I tell you this so that the next time you are complaining about your university or college job you can imagine what it would be like to teach the eighth grade.

So what did we buy? We bought this suit and shirt (btw, the model is not Extravaganza):

To accessorize, we purchased a pair of pale yellow socks, which picks up a pinstripe in the shirt; a pair of white cruise shoes and one of those belts they started making so preppies would stop stealing their father's neckties to hold their pants up, in pale yellow and white regimental stripe.

Pretty snappy, eh? We think so. Not even DiCaprio looks as good as our Extravaganza. Not by half.

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Morning non-fashion question: Has anyone noticed anything odd going on with Sitemeter?