When my friends from high school moved to the East Coast for college, they were most horrified by winter. "Why did people settle there?" My friend once asked when discussing New York. "It's uninhabitable!" It's not that my hometown, San Francisco, is the tropical paradise people assume of a California locale. Perpetually autumn-temperature, SF experiences a winter rainy season and brief Indian summer and lots of low-lying fog. As a ... Read More

        As an obsessive SNL watching kid, I first noticed them- somewhere between the lead singer and the band were the backup singers. Almost always, there were three, in identical black dresses. One had an afro, and they stood to the side- they obviously weren't the lead singers, they didn't play instruments, and they certainly weren't in the band.    Sometimes there to add a campy Motown vibe a la Bowie's ... Read More

On IFC's Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein lock Steve Buscemi in a feminist bookstore after forcing him to make a purchase for using the customers-only bathroom. Picking up something embroidered with a rotary phone, he says, "I'll take this wristband." "That's not a wristband, that's a coffee cozy," they reply in earnest. From dumpster diving to ear-plugged bike messengers to the Sherlock Homies, a hipster adult hide 'n seek ... Read More

  On first glance, the art of Jessica Harrison may appear to fit in with any number of sweet miniatures- perhaps you’ll see a tiny, plush chair, old-fashioned baby carriage, or waltzing lady. On closer inspection, we see a thick red tongue protruding from the pram, the fleshy chair sprouting hair, and the lady holding her brain in her hands. Like a good Victorian ghost story (or one by those more modern masters, Angela Carter or ... Read More

Watch fashion inspiration Ilona Royce Smithkin in fab fashion blog Advanced Style's new video. Ilona, 90, who favors bold, bright colors, geometric shapes, skilled layering, and self made feather eyelashes, gives some sartorial advice we could all stand to hear: in these capsule collection and it-bag obsessed times, we often forget that fashion is really about how regular people put their clothes on every day- often far more inspiring ... Read More