So much of what appears in newspapers bores me to tears. It's always "length of school days" this and "solve this sudoku puzzle" that. But last week, while I was out of town, the Chicago Sun-Times (motto: "We don't know why we still exist either") ran an article seemingly tailor-made to appeal to my particular interests. Even the headline sounds like something I might utter into the darkness during some sleepless night: "So, What's in Hedy Weiss' Closet?"
I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this piece of journalism, penned by Hedy Weiss herself, is the best thing that has ever happened to me. In it, she talks about how she doesn't own jeans and pretty much only wears dresses "even though I came of age at a time when women made pants something of a political statement" (take that, Hanoi Jane). She confesses to a shoe obsession stretching back to a childhood craving for Capezio ballet flats. She says she once "spent months on a long, secretive, fruitless search for a chemise-like slip like the one worn by Julie Christie in the movie Darling." Oh my God, I thought I was going to hyperventilate.
My favorite part, though, is when she talks about how she "devised a style a male friend [READ: big ol' queen] would later describe as 'Power Victorian' (though 'Power Edwardian' would be more accurate). That meant dresses with long, flowing skirts, cinched-waisted jackets, lots of velvet and Liberty prints; granny boots." I mean, on the one hand, why did a major metropolitan newspaper think we would give a shit about the sartorial choices of its theater critic? But on the other, far more important hand, I GIVE A DEEP AND ABIDING SHIT.
Having discovered, then, that the Sun-Times has evidently made a commitment to answering all of my most nagging questions, I here submit some headlines for stories I would like to see in the near future:
So, What's in Hedy Weiss's Medicine Cabinet?
What Is Hedy Weiss's Earliest Memory?
Is Hedy Weiss Interested in Sharing an Egg Cream with Me and Talking about Cute Boys?
So, What's in Hedy Weiss's Garbage Can?
and
How Come Whenever a Cell Phone Rings during a Play, Hedy Weiss Glares at Me as Though I Am Responsible? Or Am I Imagining Things?
And you thought print was dead.
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