The Grumpy Owl

pic nicked from here

Tags: black and white, dandy

I’ve been feeling strangely restless of late and last night, at about 2 am, I asked the wife if she intended to be awake until dawn.  Like me, she’s a night owl and usually goes to bed shortly before the sun comes out.  ”What time is dawn?” she asked.   I checked the weather network and found that the sun rose at 6:28.  Having informed her of this, I was pleased to learn that she would be awake.

“Let’s go to the park,” I said.  ”And look at birds.”

She found this idea agreeable and grabbed her camera.  We both wore pink, which garnered immediate compliments from cyclists.  For both of us!  This is quite odd as it’s usually my plumage that attracts notice while I tend to reduce the people beside me to invisibility.  ”Try to upstage me again,” I said to my dear wife, “and I will cut you.”

Taking my comment as a challenge rather than a warning, she pulled her switchblade and lunged towards my throat. Using the akido I learned in previous relationships, I disarmed her.  Our struggle brought us close together and our fight quickly escalated into passionate lovemaking on the sidewalk outside of the mini-mall.  This garnered no compliments from anyone.  It did attract the notice of the police.  Decoying them with the box of Timbits we keep for such purposes, we escaped into the park.

It was a shockingly beautiful morning.  So beautiful, that I had threaten to cut it too.

Pictures with captions after the jump.  None have been manipulated in any way.

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Tags: bespoke, dandy, high park, park, pink suit, Ryan Oakley, walk

As I take people like Oscar Wilde, Cicero and Friedrich Reck-Malleczenwen as my models of political dissent, I think it’s important to remember that even in horrible times, especially then, beauty, dignity and basic human decency are of paramount importance.  Although they are the first things to become improbable, you must never allow your better parts to become impossible.  So, as counterpoint to the barbarity of the weekend, I’m collecting some images of myself in some nice bloody suits.  Because this is an image heavy post, there’s a jump.  So, if you want to see more, jump!

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Tags: anarcho-dandyism, dandarchism, dandy, G20, style, toronto

Made by Don Fabien Lee Bespoke Black Suit from http://www.trendtailors.com/ // “Queen’s Park Anti-Cop Picnic” by Ryan Oakley // LOOKBOOK.nu.

Tags: lookbook, queen's park, Ryan Oakley, toronto

Does this look like a trouble maker to you?

Well, maybe . . .

YOU’RE NOT MY MOTHER!!!

Tags: canon theatre, cats, Ryan Oakley

I don’t know why I join these things but notorious tech gonzo M1k3y invited me to it and I’ll give anything a shot.  So I joined.  It seems to be a place where I can post my pictures and people can comment.

Just how redundant is the internet getting anyway?

If you click the picture it will “hype” it.  I have no idea what that means but I doubt it involves any money.  Anyway, if you’re on Lookbook, look me up.   If not, I can’t say you’re missing anything.  Unless you feel you need a Sears catalogue of yourself . . .

On my days off I enjoy a pleasant sit, followed by a nice little nap and then, maybe, a jolly lay down.  If I’m feeling particularly active, I might play some video-game baseball.  This past week, however, I had plenty of stuff to do.  And some of it might be of interest to you so I’ll relate it here.

My weekend started like all busy weekends: With a trip to a lawyer’s office.  I’m sponsoring my wife while she tries to immigrate to Canada so I had to fill out some forms, answer some questions, pass some papers to him and have him pass some to me.  I was given a list of chores.

I’ve been living my life for a while so it seems completely normal.  Apparently, it’s not.  Answering those questions I realized that the government has a template for a normal upstanding citizen and a template for normal romantic life.  I don’t fit either of those very well.

The lawyer told me I was”straightforward.”  That probably means I should either lie more or be ashamed of things I don’t really think about.  Either way, I’m not sure it’s a compliment.

On Thursday, when I was just settling into doing nothing, I got an email from an old friend, Jeff Lemire, asking if I wanted to meet up.  Since it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to see each other, I said sure.

Jeff and I used to work together.  Then he became a rich and famous comic book guy.  He also has a kid now and, as you can imagine, his time is at a premium.  He’s off to Poland shortly for a show.

What makes it worse is that bastard deserves all of it.  I remember seeing his very early work and thinking:  Wow.  This guy is actually good. Anyone who has ever looked at the work of a friend knows how rare that is.

We met up at the back of La Hacienda and he hit me with a bag full of comic swag.  We talked the same old shit and some new shit too.  We all had fresh material.  That’s a good thing about not seeing someone for a while.

The Chairman, who had organized it, was also there and said some pretty wise shit that stuck with me:  “When you get to my age you realize that gatherings with people who are meaningful to you are not to be taken for granted.  They don’t happen every day and you must enjoy them when they do.” Those are some true words.  Getting truer every day.

There’s not any pics from that night.  I prefer it that way.  Funny how photography now seems to cheapen an event.

The wife is a basketball fan.  On Saturday we attended the Harlem Globetrotter game.  It was great.  But I had run out of coffee a couple days before and was too busy to buy some.  This resulted in a splitting headache.

Not wanting my night to be wrecked, I decided that I should be.  I medicated myself with some, well, lets put it this way, some rather strong medication.  It may have been a a bit of overkill for a headache.  Something like a shotgun used on a fly.  But effective. Very effective.

I sat stupored and calm in my seat, watching the action while the globetrotters watched me. The wife got a picture of one gawking.  I was oblivious.

Ate a hotdog, cheered for and booed both teams and had a great time.  The kids really seemed to like the fart jokes.  So did I.  Fart jokes are funny.

I did, however, lose $4000 betting against the Globetrotters.  That’s not so funny.

Right after the game, we jumped into a cab and headed to the Buy Design Spring Social.  I’d been used in the extensive ad campaign and thought people might recognize me.  Recognition often leads to conversation.

Just thinking about that gave me another headache.  So I took more –a lot more– of my medication and put on a lavender wig to match my shirt.  I now felt like Courtney Love on any Tuesday morning.

Fashion events are much more pleasant if you’re out of your mind on drugs and if you can follow the Blue Jays game on Twitter.

I was in a warm exclusion zone.  Disguised to the casual eye, too strange looking for strangers to talk to and a pleasant fuzzy barrier between me and everything/everyone else.  They might have been playing Lady Gaga but all I could hear was Comfortably Numb.

And I actually had a good time.  Seems that all I need to do to have fun at these things is to be obliterated.  It’s a good thing that having fun at these events is not terribly important to me, nor do I often attend them.  Otherwise, there would be a problem here.  I’m prone to them.

The lawyer has asked for pictures of my wife and I to show the government.  I only hope that something like this is what he’s looking for.

We got a big bag of swag at the end.  Toiletries, as per normal.

After it ended –pretty early if you ask me– my wife, Anita and The Oracle headed to a gay bar.  Drugs always seem to end in a trip to a gay bar.

Does anyone know what the etiquette for these places is?  That is, if you’re straight and not interested in fucking men?  Do you immediately announce it to save everyone’s time or do you let them make advances?  I don’t want to be a cocktease.

It was nice to see that my wife — who looked absolutely radiant and beautiful, even if I couldn’t understand a word she said all night– was as jealous of men hitting on me as she is of women.  It’s good to know her irrational jealously is really, really, really irrational.  And I learned to never tell a drunk American to chill out.

Never!

We cabbed it home where I was suddenly hit with the comedown.  Pallid, shaky and sweaty as any junkie, I ate some steak and went to sleep.

Tags: buy design, fashion, harlem globetrotters, parties

I thought about blogging about the Buy Design campaign and the photoshoot but I can’t remember much about the shoot and I don’t really understand the charity. It supplies poor people with new clothes? Some sort of sweaters for hobos initiative?

Frankly, I’m not sure I approve of that.

If paupers have new clothes, how am I supposed to tell who’s poorer than me? If they start giving Johnny Foodstamp nice new shoes, then everyone is just going to quit their jobs, run off and become poor.

Charity is an incentive for failure.

Anyway, this is a picture heavy post (all pictures are by Anna Lisa Sang) so I’m going to put it behind the jump.

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Tags: buy design, fashion, pink suit

pic nicked from here

Last fall or late last summer, I was asked to be in a 1930s themed photo-shoot for Buy Design.  (A charity that provides new clothing and basic need stuff to social service agencies.)

Because it took place on the Island and I hadn’t been to the Island in years, I went to the thing.  It also gave me an excuse to wear my bespoke pink suit.   Not like I need an excuse but sometimes it’s nice to say you have one.

The photshoot thing was okay.  It’s not really my cup of tea.  Cameras have always made me uncomfortable.  When someone takes a picture of me, I usually try to ignore what’s happening and go to my happy place.  I feel the same about parties.  I sometimes attend because I feel like I should but it’s not what I find fun.

Don’t know if I’ll go this party or not.  I can’t even remember if I’m invited.

As far the shoot went, there was a boat ride and lot of sitting around.  I spotted a couple of cardinals and followed them around for a little while.  Someone put some make-up on me and some gel in my hair.  There were cookies.  I’ll do a better post on all this when I get some more pics.

Anyway, the website is up and running.  (There’s pics of me there.)  And I think this ad campaign is gonna be all over the place in Toronto. Maybe it already is.  I have no idea what’s going on and I actually forgot all about it.  But if you’ve seen me on a subway or something, let me know.  I’d like to know what trains to avoid.

Tags: buy design, pink suit, windfall

The Superbowl was on Sunday.  So I went to see basketball with my fiancée.

The Toronto Raptors gave Sacramento a good thrashing.  Since my fiancée is from Sacramento, it’s hard to say how this will effect my sex life.  I suspect that I’ll either learn to stop gloating or to enjoy sleeping on the couch with the dog.

But that’s fine.  I like that dog.

Beside which, I needed a nap between events.  It’s not everyday that I have to wake up before noon.  I was only kept awake by my pink suit and silver shoes.  As an interesting aside, sports fans are completely unperturbed by either.  Actually, they quite like the shoes.

I heroically awoke in time to go watch the superbowl at a sportsbar.

Watching football kinda makes me realize what it’s like to be in Robocop.  Everything is some sort of Dorito’s Dove for Men Super Play Countdown Extravaganza Brought to YOU by BMO and you just wave your cards in the air for a chance at a prize.   If corporatism could maintain these levels of awesome year round, I might like it more.

Since I know nothing about football and learning from your mistakes is a bit too much like admitting you were wrong, I decided to root for a different team than my fiancée.  She supported the Colts while I supported The Saints.

Here, the Saints aren’t doing so well.

And here, they are.

As you can see from my wildly varying expressions, I’m a real wild man.

At any rate, the Saints won.  More importantly, I managed to convince Shalome that it’s not the team you root for but the game.  It was a good game: a hotly contested and square match.  What more could you ask for?  Probably, another picture of me.

So here ya go.  (I think The Who was playing.)

Winter is here, as always; Hesitant and stupid, as usual.  A cold day here, a not so cold day there and rain in January.  At least, I solved a long standing problem:  My overcoat.

I picked it up from my tailor today.  Then my camera decided to go insane.  In real life, the coat is actually in focus.  My life, however is not.  It’s been that sort of day.

My water heater has broken and my afternoon began with me squatting in a bathtub, giving myself a sponge bath in frigid water while shivering.  My teeth were actually chattering for some time after that, let’s say, invigorating experience.  And I just missed my barber thus missing an already overdue haircut.   But I did get into the All-Star Game in the RTTS mode of MLB 09 The Show and I managed to pick up my coat.

So some things are in focus.

The coat is made from cashmere with a lamb’s wool collar.  I can, if I so wish, have this collar replaced with a number of different wools, furs or whatever animal strikes me as the one I wish to wear about my neck.  So keep your cats indoors.  I’m on the prowl.

The pocket space is immense.  After leaving the tailor’s shop, I was able to vanish a copy of New Scientist into one.  I also had a special pocket put into the coat for whatever infernal beeping device I might need to manipulate or quickly plug into my head.

Aside from the beautiful lining and effective windproofing, there’s a variety of pockets on the inside, all large and specialized to my needs.  There’s even a chain to hang the coat from. A nice chain.

Not that you can see any of that but here you go:

When trying the coat on during the fitting process, I was immediately struck by the softness and lightness of the material.  I’ve never owned cashmere before and not being one of those people who go around touching people, I don’t think I’ve ever even touched cashmere before. It feels wonderful.  That’s a mixed blessing.  Though I may want to cuddle up with my coat, I’m not looking forward to removing the groping hands of strangers on the street.

Should we ever meet, museum rules apply:  Look, do not touch.

Insofar as the lightness, it seemed impossible that the coat would be warm enough to withstand winter.  It is not, after all, some space-age material procured at the local sporting goods outlet.  It’s  a type of goat hair.  But, after buttoning it up, my ideas of what’s possible underwent a drastic change.  The coat is very warm.

My teeth stopped chattering and what was left of my chill was gone.

The coat, which fits better than my gloves, has two modes of wear.  One is slightly more formal, with shirt and tie exposed.  This is for warmer days.

[Had I the eye of a stylist, I might have thought to adjust my coat's lapel so that it was in its proper place.  Thankfully,  I have no such eye and I try to avoid thinking.]

The other mode of wear has the lamb’s wool collar turned up and front closed up. I’ll let you figure out what days that’s for.

I’m as bad of a model as I am a photographer.  (At least I make no pretence to being either.)  But you can see that, below, I have paired the coat with my opera scarf.

There’s something suggestive of the priesthood in that and the austerity pleases me.  Worn with my Red Army ushanka, I should be a thoroughly mixed message.  Some sort of cashmere, catholic communist.  Hmm, come to think of it, that sounds about right.

As always, I’m pleased with the work of Don and his staff at Trend Custom Tailors and, as always, they went above and beyond the call of duty.  I wish my photos did their work justice but I’d have to be one hell of a photographer with a much better camera.

As it is, the fuzzy pics are actually growing on me.  Perhaps I’ll be like bigfoot.  Because of the bad photographic evidence, you won’t believe in my existence until you actually see me.  And then you’ll think:  He needs a haircut.

I detest fashion.  At best, it’s an idiot’s guide to looking like other people.  At worst, you end up looking like an idiot.  Have a look at this fellow:

Featured in the Globe and Mail Style section under the title “Sherlock Holmes Style: The Mystery of the Modern Dandy” he’s wearing an ill fitting suit and  woman’s boots.  He manages to make plaid look bad: A function previously reserved for Steve Urkel.

When I think of Sherlock Holmes style, I think of injecting a lot of cocaine on the couch while getting into other people’s business.  You know, Sherlock Holmes style.  I don’t think of Robert Downy Jr. and turtlenecks.

And when I read an article like that (because it was sitting around in the paper at work — I don’t usually read these Toronto rags) I can only congratulate myself on my style timing.  It’s fucking supernatural.

Just when every fool in this city will be donning bad versions of this aesthetic, I have abandoned it in favour of a work uniform; thus re-contextualizing my bespoke collection and overcoming the quasi-historical frame, cobbled together from pop culture, that people have so eagerly attempted to pigeon-hole me within, so that they may better reduce me to the level of their ignorance.

Though it will doubtless take some time for people to appreciate what I’m up to and about, my bespoke collection is now a better reflection of  complete and efficient simplicity.    Just as its always been.  It has nothing to do with the old-fashioned, be it Mad Men or Sherlock Holmes, or the popular conceptions of dandyism.  Just as it never has.  It’s just me and my philosophy.

No doubt, in four years, when the Globe does a piece on “The Workers Uniform: The Toiling Commie Fascist,” featuring people wearing blue uniforms from H&M accessorized with a turtleneck and baseball cap, I’ll once again have to endure the imaginary expertise and insulting approval of the style-raping fashion classes.

But, for now, I feel as if I have dodged yet another bullet.  As far as their fashion future goes, I’m quite sure I’ll be as ahead of them then as I am now.  It’s easy.  After all, they have no ideas except the ones Hollywood gives them.

That’s to say, they just have no ideas.

pic nicked from here

When a ship is at sea for a long time, a bizarre species of crustacean, known as barnacles, affix themselves to the hull.  Although one barnacle does no damage, too many impair the ship’s speed and manoeuvrability.  When that happens, the ship must return to port to be cleaned, stripped and fixed.

As creatures set afloat in a sea of commerce, we too gather many little barnacles.  Passively acquired, protected by a rock hard shell of psychological attachment and glued to our lives by a mixture of laziness, passivity and fear, these creatures slow us down, stop us from moving and must be removed.

At times, we humans too must return to port.

pic nicked from here

Because of my mode of dress, my closet is perhaps more susceptible to barnacles than most.  Each suit, after all, requires a certain amount of supporting clothing.  Shirts, ties, various accessories and accoutrements.  When purchasing these, it’s quite common to find something else to buy.   And most of that is never actually used though it remains because one day, maybe, I’ll need it.

One day, maybe.

Well, one day maybe never comes.

I have tried, every spring, to strip off the barnacles but to leave the hull intact. And this has met with varying degrees of success.  Yet, not matter how through I am, every winter I find myself overwhelmed by clothes I never wear.  They clog up my closet, lay strewn over my floor, impair my speed and manoeuvrability while causing needless complication when getting dressed.  It’s a minor but constant psychic strain.

An utterly unnecessary one.

Other than my bespoke suits, I always wear the same few suits to work.  To introduce variance to these work clothes, I have tried adding.  More shirts, a variety of sweaters, different ties, even more shirts.  It has not worked.  The drag on my life is increased.  I cannot acquire my way out of this mess.  After all, I acquired my way into it.

Drastic measures are called for.

And drastic measures have been taken.

Today and yesterday I gathered every single item of clothing I own, other than underwear, socks, ties and bespoke, and bagged it.  It’s all in the garbage.

I have replaced all of that with three pairs of navy blue work pants and three pairs of navy blue work shirts from BIG B WORKWEAR.  I work three shifts a week.

These are now my work clothes.

When I’m not working, I own enough bespoke to be exclusively clad in that.

The entire middle of my closet has been removed.  No matter my sentimental attachment to any item, it has gone.  No matter how much money I once spent on it, it is now garbage.  No matter how much I once liked it, I murdered the fucker.

Purges are a ruthless business.

Sentimentality is deadly.

And I have been here before.  Every so often I find my progress impeded by old ideas, old items and old things.  I return to port and tear the ship up.  Rebuild it and start again.  There has been many Ryans over the years.  Punk, drunk and the one that you have gotten to know here.  The fellow who exclusively wears suits.

But that was never meant as the complete final version.

If you thought that, you haven’t really been listening to a word.

I’ve always been a quality over quantity sort of person.  But constricted as I am by limited finances and desirous of fine suits, I have had to acquire a great deal of not so fine suits.  Over time, as planned, my one-time front line of suits has become my bottom end work clothes.  I simply did not have the money to have both suits and work clothes.   I needed to do a sort of double duty.  Buy a suit, replace it with a better one and turn that old one over to the job.    Any money spent exclusively on work attire took away from this replacing of the top end.  It slowed me.

pic nicked from here

Over time, that bottom end decayed through wear and tear.  As they say in the maritime business, it became biofouled.  Quite literally, in some cases, frayed around the collar.  They needed to be replaced; not as suits but as work clothes.

I could have bought other suits but that would have required a great deal of effort and money spent in an impractical pursuit.  A lot of time searching through second-hand shops. And just to have work clothes.  It is much better to simply buy work clothes that match my aesthetic of efficiency tempered with biology.

Once upon a time, when interviewed about my sense of style I said: “Function is beautiful and beauty is functional.” These are words I stand by.

I never wanted to be that fellow who wears suits.  Never wanted to be your dandy or your fop.  What I wanted was some beautiful suits and to find a sort of timelessness within them. That I had to constantly wear suits, was not a matter of taste but one of finances.  It was a part of a progress to a life more beholden to quality than to quantity.  Having a lot of suits is no article of pride.

I bought bespoke suits because they would lead to a greater efficiency in my closet.  This was my ten year plan and they have served this purpose admirably.  I can now honestly say that my collection of suits are about the best that my money can buy.  My wardrobe can still be increased [it will be: much more slowly] but it can only be improved on with a series of details invisible to even to myself.

To do that, I would have to be a millionaire.  I’m not a millionaire.  I’m not any sort of aire.

Lacking the money for a direct approach to the problem of making my bespoke suits better, I have used a trick that I learned in writing.

It sometimes appears that there’s a problem with a chapter when there is no problem with that chapter.  The problem is in a different place.  In another chapter.  And that’s what needs to be changed.

I can make my bespoke look better by not constantly wearing suits.  Rather than being an improvement on something that, to the uneducated eye, probably all looks the same anyway, it will be a stark contrast with BIG B WORKWEAR.

But not too stark of a contrast.  At opposite ends of the spectrum, we often find more similarities than differences.  To me, this workwear is simply another example of a suit.  Though lacking the bio-sartorial functions of a suit and tie, it is recommended by being stripped down to even greater simplicity.

To make a very old and oft wrong prediction, jumpsuits are the way of the future.

The whole history of menswear teaches that today’s ultra-simple work or sports wear is tomorrow’s formal clothing.  This was the insight of the lionized though misunderstood Beau Brummel.  Though extravagant by today’s standards, his clothing was, by the standards of the Regency, shockingly simple.  He understood better than most that the past is little more than a collection of barnacles.

So perhaps the B in BIG B WORKWEAR stands for BEAU.  Perhaps it stands for BROTHER.  But one thing it does not stand for is BARNACLE.  It’s the future.

Get used to it.

Gentlemen of Bacongo also examines the strange merging of colonial and Congolese culture. Tamagni notes Sapeur Salvador Hassan “thinks that a real sapeur needs to be cultivated and speak fluently, but also have a solid moral ethic: that means beyond the appearance and vanity of smart, expensive clothing there is the moral nobility of the individual.” Says Hassan, “The label is not important, what is important is to be able to dress depending on the taste of the individual.”

From here via M1k3y

November is a cold and slimey month.  It drizzles but never quite rains, sleets but never quite snows.  It’s as damp and sick as a Tuesday.

It’s a time for hot beverages spiked with brandy, warm fireplaces enjoyed with warm women and tweed suits with heavy ties.

I’ve put away  my summer suits –the pink, the light and the spiritually gay– and pulled the heavy ones out of the closet.  This year, fresh from my tailor, Don Fabien Lee, I have a new addition to the collection:

This one won’t get much play in the warmer months but for November to June, it’s invaluable.  Heavy, warm and cut to perfection, it’s everything I want in a winter suit.  I won’t bother describing the colours, as you can see them, but it’s a three piece, rolling three button made from –if I remember right– a 14 ounce Dormeuil Derby wool, with no pleats or break in the trousers, a button fly and a belt-loop.

I don’t usually get belt-loops on bespoke –they’re unnecessary– but since I plan on doing some bird watching in this one, I need a belt to hang my binoculars from.  Now, strictly speaking, it’s incorrect to wear a belt with a three piece suit, but I doubt birdwatchers or birds much care about that rule.  Trees, on the other hand . . .

But one of things I love about this suit is its lack of formality.  Not many suits could look equally good at the theatre with dress shoes or in the field with a pair of rubber boots.  This one could.

It almost makes me wish it was always November.  Almost.