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Sunday, August 21, 2011

N.Y. Times Style Magazine: "...hardscrabble glamour." Steve Provizer

"Or maybe your granny (great-granny?) was a weathered-but-gorgeous sharecropper, a Dust Bowl refugee in frayed frock and battered boots, only-wait! what if those boots were splattered with glitter?"
Sunday New York Times Style Magazine, August 21, 2011

"Damn heels." Granny was trying to weed the beans when one of our gopher holes intervened. "Pa, I told you to flush out those varmints and fill up these holes!"

"Be right with you, sweetie. Just trying to see if these jeans are riding too high in the crotch. Too bad this mirror's got so many cracks in it. And you can hardly see anything in between the Prince Albert letters."

"Stop preening and get out here! God, my things are a mess. You'd think Gucci would find a way to keep the dust out of their purses."

"Stop frettin'. Next time I go to town I'll see what they have in the General Store."

"With that old nag laid up with the dropsy, it'll be a while before anyone gets in town."

"Damn, that means we wont be able to pick up this month's Harper's Bazaar."

"Oh, they've got nothing in there you haven't seen in Potato Grower's Weekly."

"Well, who's a little snippy? Just because that burlap frock of yours showed up in a J.C. Penney's ad."

"Like to know what Martha what's-her-name got for designing that."

"Honey, the day she can slop 3 pigs and do what you can do with a can of beans is the day I'll transfer my affection to that phony."

"You're sweet. Hand me that bucket of glitter, will you?

"Wait, you're not planning to...?"

"Yes I am, you old fuddy-duddy."

"But there's 12 coats of hand-applied lacquer on that vinyl. A dozen designers worked overtime to arrive at that shade of puce."

"I don't care, pa. It's mostly covered with cow manure anyway and I need a little brightening up."

"But glitter? It's so--louche!"

"Just because nobody else in the dust bowl has done it before doesn't make it a faux pas."

"Oh, honey, that's why I married you. (That and your pa's shotgun). You always were out in front of the rest of the pack."

"Like to see those rubes next door try to measure up to our standards."

"Too late now. They were taken away in chains by the sheriff after they missed their sharecrop payment."

"I know, I offered to lend her my Chanel suit for the trip to Leavenworth, but she just looked at me with a blank expression."

"Nothin' you can do about that. Most of these Okies couldn't tell the difference between Prada and Pravda."

"That's a good one, pa, but let's get going. If we move fast, we can patch that hole in the ceiling before the next tornado and still have time for that skin peel we promised each other."

"Honey, have I told you lately you're weathered but gorgeous?"

"Come on, lover. let's go have a closer look at the crotch on those jeans."

4 comments:

IWitnessEd said...

A most excellent highheels-tall tale, laced if not larded with accessorizing worthy of some pretty-boy Floyd or bonnie Ms.Parker alike (and lit out fer the Territory too). Definitely Okie-doke in Word and indeed.

Anonymous said...

Carmen Miranda who had a huge collection of shoes, thousands of shoes, to be exact, she would have loved your article, Steve.

http://travel.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977637225

Oh, how would I love to see her live! Alas, master time has no mercy.

IWitnessEd said...

Actually, I did send a comment two days back, but seems to have fallen victim to damnable new computer ills maybe originating right here, a ghost in the machine so to speak. Dangnab it, I thought those Okie-homies knew me well!

Steve Provizer said...

Many pardons for leaving your comments in limbo. Okies cannot be blamed. I changed providers (one rotten cable company for another (but cheaper) one)-I'm now s.improviz@comcast.net.

I like Carmen's Museum, although I wonder whether Frank Gehry might have been a more natural choice as architect-http://screenwritingfromiowa.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/disney_hall_tom-bonner.jpg