Even better than the “real woman” challenge

Project Runway week 2 – I’m writing this as I watch the episode, so don’t judge me for my use of the present tense!

I don’t know why, but I really like this group of designers. They’re not bitchy yet, and they seem really happy to be with each other and still in the competition. There’s even a level of cooperation that seems more universal that usual. Everybody seems to be getting in on the fun. They seem more functional than previous years’ groups, and I feel like most of them would not annoy me in person. Gordana is awesome, and watching her crack up with Ra’Mon when he said “semester” instead of “trimester” was pretty terrific. Maybe his passion for fashion wasn’t the only reason he decided against a career in medicine.

I’m happy to see a pregnancy challenge. It’s good when the competition goes in new directions in terms of what is being asked of the contestants. I like that the designers are really thinking about what pregnancy clothing means, and considering things like the gap between maternity clothes and regular fashion, and what will be comfortable on a pregnant woman.

It’s hard to hear Ra’Mon second-guessing himself now, when he did so well last week. It’s a shame that he seems to be ignoring the positive comments his dress garnered, and paying so much attention to the judges’ advice against being too safe. I hope he doesn’t shoot himself in the foot by going too far away from where his natural inclination will take him.

Rebecca Romijn is, once again, seeming like the most awesome person ever. I would babysit for her and my eighth grade love Jerry O’Connell whenever…

Oh my god, what is happening on Sandra Bullock’s head in the “All About Steve” commercial? There are no words for how wrong that color/style combination is on her…

Oh, Malvin. He’s talking Ari-talk right now, and I think we all learned how well that turns out. I really really want to like him, but he’s beating the quirk drum just a little too hard right now. Tim’s “cuckoo has already happened,” is pretty much my idea of heaven. He didn’t say it aloud, but you know that sentence was continued in his head as “Bless Ari’s little heart.” I wish Tim Gunn would come to my job and critique my performance. “Oh Nicole. I really want to like what you told that woman, but you know that there’s another edition of that book in storage, right?” I guarantee that I would be more productive and awesome and my ideas would be fabulous. Project Library would rock so much.

Whoa! Look at Mitchell being an underminer. I want to believe that he’s being this way unintentionally, but it seems like a particularly brilliant strategy. “It looks better from back here?” Oh, you cad! I don’t know what it says about me that this made Mitchell go up in my estimation.

While at the hospital earlier today (not for myself) I saw two pregnant women today who were actually in labor (I think my fallopian tubes crossed in sympathy), so watching these otherwise skinny models glide around with their basketball bellies and lack of waddles is sort of killing me.

Qristyl, who smarter people than I have dubbed Spell Check, is super bitchy. I find it laughable that she is the one who is talking about unfortunate choices in style and what is and is not au courant, considering that she was nearly sent home last week for bad sewing and questionable taste. How quickly they forget.

Carol-Hannah is wearing a beautiful dress. It’s halfway through the episode and I can’t remember what her design for this challenge looks like, but I hope it’s as least as cute.

Ra’Mon just mentioned Stella! and Leathuh! What a nice callback. And it’s cool to see that the designers have an awareness of what happened on previous seasons, which we already know, but they don’t always seem to want to acknowledge. This is why I don’t get it when they pretend that they have no idea how this show works. HELLO, you’re on the sixth season already. The time for disingenuousness has passed.

Aw, Malvin way to rally. I appreciate his acknowledgment that some of the other designers have something to show and say, as well. Confidence is one thing, but it is really off-putting when a designer refuses to even acknowledge that any of his or her competition could possibly be playing at the same level.

Now it’s time for the runway challenge! Heidi explains the rules, and that there’s no Michael Kors. Noted designer Monique Lhuillier bravely tanned in his place and then took over his chair. Way to take one for the team, Monique. The judges are all female, and they’ve all been pregnant, and woe is the designer who tries to BS them about a design that is just not working. They shall lay the smackdown with a quickness!

I really liked Logan’s top, but overall thought his design was pretty generic. Shirin, who is probably already my favorite of this season, had a dress that was awesome on its own, and then added a fabulous coat. Somebody must have told her how much I like coats. Nicholas’s model looked like a pregnant streetwalker. Christopher had immunity, but I thought that he took a good risk and his top was great. Spell Check’s dress looked like she threw an orange sack over her model and then cut a couple of holes. I gave her an extra week to gain some taste, but I can see why the judges were concerned about her overall lack of refinement. Epperson’s look is okay. I’m not sure how I felt about the jumpsuit. Louise’s dress was cute, but I think that her model’s belly was more pregnant that some of the others’ and the whole outfit ended up looking slightly comical.  Gordana, as I’ve come to expect, made such a great outfit. Johnny toned down the emotion by a factor of a thousand this week, AND made a beautiful dress. I have a feeling that my love for him will exist in inverse proportion to how much he emotes. I hate hate hate what Malvin made. I feel for Ra’Mon. I don’t think that his dress is amazing, but I would have been interested to see what he could have made if he wasn’t worried about avoiding the appearance of safety. Mitchell’s look is tight and unremarkable. Carol-Hannah’s dress is okay. I like the ruffly jacket she put on top of it, but the draping around the pregnant belly seemed a little trippy to me. I love Althea’s dress, but her model’s girls are barely contained by the fabric, which sort of ruins things. There’s nothing worse than the feeling that one of your boobs could make a break for freedom at any time. You can’t relax in a dress like that. Irina’s dress seemed pretty safe, but was super cute.

I can’t believe that Spell Check is safe. Ra’Mon’s dress had definite faults, but they seemed to be laughing with him, as opposed to at him. That’s okay, right? Malvin, I thought you weren’t supposed to mention the Mother Hen thing. Oh, wait. That was the chicken thighs thing. Oh, Heidi. I love you. Mitchell, the underminer, HA. HA, to you, sir! Too tight t-shirt and too short shorts. They love Shirin like I do. I’m wondering if maybe two weeks of underwhelming is all that Mitchell is going to get. We’ll see. Rebecca mentioned the bowling ball bag thing in regard to Ra’Mon’s dress. Awesome. Hey, I never said that Mitchell was wrong in his critique of Ra’Mon; it’s just that it wasn’t nice. Or helpful.

I don’t know that much is added to the program to hear the judges discuss the top and bottom looks. We don’t hear them say who won, and the editors are trying to tiptoe around accidentally revealing anything before the final commercial break. It’s tedious. Since I can’t find out the results at this point, the only thing left to do is watch how the judges interact with one another. It’s funny when it’s obvious that a judge really likes or doesn’t like something; they’re all pretty much decided on their opinions by this point, and yet they try to convince one another to adopt their opinions. All the tension makes me want to suggest a group hug. Nina shot down Louise’s dress, even though Rebecca quite liked it. I ended up feeling like Nina was questioning Rebecca’s taste for not feeling the same way about the dress that Nina did. I think I found the drama that was missing from the workroom.

Okay, it’s time for them to reveal the winners and losers. Somebody’s gonna cry. I knew that Shirin won when Rebecca looked in her direction. It would have been cruel to look her way and then say that Althea won, and my imaginary friendship with Rebecca could not have survived such a Meredith Viera-like move. Yay!! Ra’Mon is in. Okay, is it going to be crazy or sloppy that’s out? I think that crazy is going to live to work another day.

Am I right?

No. Continuing their streak from last week. Mitchell barely manages to survive the competition, and the oddball designer gets the boot. Sorry you got auffed, Malvin. You were fun to watch, although you probably couldn’t have realistically lasted much longer than week 2, anyway. I guess Lifetime is less accepting of crazy contestants than Bravo. I wonder how long Santino, Wendy, or Angela would have lasted if they were on the Lifetime version of Project Runway…

Countdown to Project Runway

After what seems like years of legal wrangling between Lifetime, The Weinstein Company, and NBC Universal , Project Runway’s first season on Lifetime starts tomorrow. I’m really excited, but aside from briefly looking at the photos and bios of the new contestants, I haven’t tried to find out anything about this season. I want to be surprised, and not to hate any of the contestants until the editors have provided me with a reason. I’m starting a new scarf, so I’ll have something else to focus on if the first episode is as underwhelming as PR season openers usually are.

Sometimes complaining works

I wrote this letter to the Goergia O’Keeffe Museum fully expecting that it would end up in some spam folder and would never be read. And I’d fully intended to mail it, but just got sidetracked. Moving on. Then, I saw the following email in my inbox this morning:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 7, 2009

For more information please contact:

Jackie Hall

Director of External Affairs

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

505.946.1020

jhall@okeeffemuseum.org

Georgia O’Keeffe Elementary School and Georgia O’Keeffe Museum to Work Together

Santa Fe, New Mexico—On July 31, 2009, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Interim Director, Carl Brown and its Director of Education and Public Programs, Jackie M, met with Lucinda Sanchez, Principal of Georgia O’Keeffe  Elementary School.  Mr. Brown conveyed  to Principal Sanchez the Museum’s regret over the misinterpretation of issues surrounding  correspondence between the Museum and the elementary school.

Mr. Brown stated, “The Museum does not object to the elementary school’s use of Georgia O’Keeffe’s name, nor do we object to the selling of t-shirts that feature the school’s name for fundraising purposes.   We are pleased and proud that the elementary school is named after Georgia O’Keeffe. The school has been in existence for 20 years and the Museum has never had an issue with its name.”

The Museum and school officials spent most of the meeting discussing cooperative efforts in the area of education for students, faculty, and family members.

“I’m so appreciative for the opportunity to work collaboratively with the O’Keeffe Museum in coming to a win-win solution for all.  We are so grateful to continue honoring the brilliant legend of Georgia O’Keeffe through the use of her name,” said Principal Sanchez.

Ms. M added, “ We look forward to working with the school, one with such a noteworthy academic record and a long history of outstanding accomplishments.”
# # #

It’s nice to know that public shaming was enough to get the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum to back down and stop looking like such greedy jerks. I think the reaction to their attempt to strongarm a school showed them that people will step in when such overt wrongdoing is happening. Right now, I feel like people who care can actually make a difference. On that note, I will get on with my day and enjoy the loveliness of Newport Beach!

Good on so many levels

I love helping people. And cupcakes. So I’m really stoked that there’s a new business in Teaneck that specializes in both! The bakery, Zoe’s Cupcake Cafe,  opened in June, with a mission to help teenage mothers get work experience. All proceeds from the shop benefit Zoe’s Place, a non-profit organization that helps pregnant teens and teenage moms and their babies. NJ Monthly magazine has a lovely article on the cupcake cafe.

Beautiful

The tiny part of my heart that is not shriveled up and black loves this wedding entrance so much. Makes me feel like I’m not such a freak for wanting to march out of the church to Jason Mraz’s “Butterfly,” which ends with joyous repetitions of the phrase “You’ve got it all, you’ve got it all, you’ve got it all.” Anyway, I know that I would love to attend a wedding like this, and as much as I might play it cool, I’d probably have a blast if I could be one of the dancers.

Books, books, books

I find Top 100 (or 10, 50, etc) of anything lists fascinating to read but generally meaningless. Tastes are so subjective, and even when I’m familiar with the subject being evaulated, I don’t always agree with the items that are chosen for inclusion. Still, I’ve found out about good books, movies, music, and web sites this way, so I’d be crazy to discount Top whatever lists. Today, while reading Newsweek’s Top 100 Books, I thought it might be interesting to work my way through the list and read everything on it, even books that I’d already read before. I used to hate classic literature, but now  I realize that I just hated the way that a lot of it was taught in schools, with all the joy removed and too much focus on minute, boring analyses. Then I read books like Anna Karenina and Pride and Prejudice on my own, and realized that a book doesn’t have to be terrible just because it’s considered classic literature.

At first I was going to give myself a time frame in which to do this, but there are few things in life that I enjoy as much as completely ignoring deadlines, so I’m not even going to bother to assign an end date for this. I’m in the middle of a fun, lighthearted Jennifer Cruisie novel right now, and I have a few other things lined up for the rest of the week, but I’ll get started on this at least by the end of the month. I’ll keep track of my progress.

Membership has its privileges

Although I’m trying to do better about managing my money, and am making an effort to say “no” in situtations where I previously would have offered a wholehearted “yes,” I still like to have to option to get things, should I really need or want to. I have belonged to Gilt Group and Ideeli  for about a year now, and now I joined Rue La La and HauteLook. You may ask yourself why somebody who is trying to practice more self-control is doing this to herself, and I don’t necessarily have a great answer. I know that I like my options, and that I try to get the most for my money when I do buy things.

So, anyway, all of these clubs are private, but in scouring the interwebz, I was able to secure invitations for all of them in a matter of minutes. Since I always live to save people the bother of searching the Internet, if you’re interested in joining any of these clubs, you may use my refererral links below, or visit any of them and use my email address, nicole[at]nonsenseuponstilts[dot]com (replacing the brackets and words with the usual email symbols and punctuation) as your referral. And, yes, I do get a credit if you join under my name and then make a purchase (from $10 to $25, depending on the web site). Happy shopping!

• Beyond the Rack – Please use the following code: NNWF60BB2B3
• Billion Dollar Babes
• Editors’ Closet
• HauteLook
• Gilt Group
• Ideeli
• Rue La La
• The Top Secret

I haven’t actually bought things from all of these sites yet, but I’ve heard good things about all of them, so I thought I’d share anyway!

It figures

I thought that something was missing from the news that Project Runway could go ahead on Bravo, but I didn’t know what. And then Heidi Klum and Seal announced that they were expecting their fourth child and I was like, oh yeah…

It’s just not a good season of Project Runway if Heidi isn’t sporting those insane maternity outfits and knee-high boots!

And now Project Runway’s disputed sixth season has a Lifetime premiere date of August 20. Can’t wait!

I knew all that tv watching would eventually pay off

I asked Alan Sepinwall, tv critic for the Newark Star-Ledger and blogger, a question for his mailbag column, and he answered it for me! Maybe he answered my question first because it was the best (yay!), the worst (boo!), or possibly because I am from the state the paper is based in. Whatever, I found out what I wanted to know. It’s nice to be the one asking questions, for a change.

Happy Monday!

One of the pictures that I took when Satanski and I went to the American Museum of Natural History has been added to the New York Schmap Guide. How exciting!