What I'm Playing, Reading, Watching, Surfing, II

The Hyperion books by Dan Simmons have landed on many a top 10 Science Fiction lists.  So as any self-respecting science fiction reader would do, I decided to give the books a read. I began Hyperion last month, and just finished its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion on my iPhone. In a nutshell, the books are about a massive war between man, Artificial Intelligence, and the Ousters - an evolved offshoot of man. The Hyperion series is a space opera.  At its worst, I felt like I was muddling through a high schooler's melodramatic first novel.  However, at his best, Dan Simmons showcases his imagination with image after remarkable image.  Take for instance his evocation of the Shrike, a 9 foot tall monster bristling with thorns and spikes, perhaps one of the scariest monsters ever written in the modern age. Also, I love the description of the Consul's space ship.  I wish I had my own personal space craft equipped with a grand piano, full bar, and cushy round sofa pad.

The Hyperion Books

What I'm Surfing
I'm obsessed with reading the Style Section on the New York Times website.  I've been following the runway shows in New York, Milan and Paris religiously and I'm learning to love designers I would have loathed just a couple of years ago. Take for instance this Fall's Prada show.  I realize now that Miuccia Prada is a genius, rather than a hawker of ugly nylon bags, for which she was originally famous.  Her proportions and color choices could be interpreted as dowdy and retro.  But I think she is an innovator-extraordinaire.  She has a genius for reinventing forms and combining textures.

Prada, Fall 2011

Another fashion designer that I've grown to admire is Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton.  I used to make fun of people who owned Louis Vuitton purses.  The prototypical LV bag owner, for me, was someone who aspired to be high-class, but who really wasn't, or at most, was someone who didn't have enough good taste to be original.  But I have since changed my mind. Marc Jacobs has a very evolved and cultivated aesthetic sense.  His latest Fall 2011 fashion show was fetishistic, and decadent, yet tightly prudish all at the same time if such a thing were possible. The fashion reviewers say that his runway show was based on the 1970s cult film, The Night Porter, which was about a masochistic affair between a concentration camp survivor, and her Nazi captor. The theme seems rather obscure to me, but there was no denying the drama as each model arose on stage from a metal cage elevator wearing a juxtaposition of vinyl, with tweed pea coats, buttoned up dresses with hand cuffs.

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011