Friday, July 22, 2011

and now for something completely different......

Came across this link to Savage Beauty, a surreal fashion/art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here's the description:

This website from the Metropolitan Museum accompanies their retrospective exhibition of the work of couturier Alexander McQueen, who committed suicide at age 40 in 2010. McQueen was known for his lavishly staged runway shows, for example his spring 2003 collection, Irere, featured a recreation of a shipwreck complete with pirates and amazons, and models falling overboard.It's only a game in 2005, was a human chess game, with models dressed as chess pieces, such a knight in a horsehairs skirt. On the exhibition‚s website, visitors can view selected objects including McQueen's extremely low-slung trousers, "bumsters" or the Spine Corset, a silver exoskeleton, worn over a dress. Narration is provided by Andrew Bolton, the British curator of the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute, Michelle Olly, who wore one of the dresses, and McQueen himself. There is also a section of online videos available here, where visitors can watch a model in a chiffon dress drop into the ocean, and see the chess pieces move.

Click on the Video link to see a selection of short video clips of McQueen's shows. I really like the one called, "It's Only a Game," as described above. Wonder how this guy ever made any money? It's not like anyone can really wear these things. Can't think that he only sold to collectors and museums.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Crime and Punishment

Starting a week ago, I was assigned to a jury for a case at 26th & Cal, that ominous address for the Criminal Courts building on the south side of town right next to Cook County Jail. A convicted felon, who looked fairly ordinary to me, was accused of owning two guns kept in the bedroom closet of the apartment of his former girlfriend and their two grade school age children. Illinois law says that convicted felons can not have guns. The girlfriend was the only defense witness. She said they were no longer a couple and he only visited occasionally to see his children. She had assorted men's clothing hanging prominently in her closet and said that they were donations from friends and family for a garage sale - even though they had been there for a year since she moved there. He did go into the bedroom and lock the door for an hour or more once in awhile, which she thought was "odd."

I thought the girlfriend presented herself very well - dressed nicely, spoke intelligently, etc. Another woman on the jury, a suburban nurse, also totally bought the girlfriend's story, but several black women on the jury said they almost laughed out loud when they heard about the "garage sale." They said no woman would give up "prime real estate" in her bedroom closet to garage sale clothes - for a year! That stuff goes in plastic bags in the garage or basement! The more I listened to them, the more I realized I had been taken in. The last straw was the information that the felon's current address was with the "former" girlfriend's parents - hunh. Things just didn't add up.

So, at the same time that I felt foolish for having believed the girlfriend's story at first, I felt sad at having to find the felon guilty of two more felonies (after two days of the trial, the jury voted unanimously for a guilty verdict in less than 2 hours). Three felonies puts a person in the "habitual offender'' class in many states, although I don't know if this case falls under that law. I keep thinking about that guy and what it must be like to realize you will be in prison for a very very long time. One guy said as we were leaving the jury room to go home at the end that maybe we saved a life. One of the guns in the closet was loaded - probably to be used at a moment's notice - and sitting in a hatbox on the closet shelf. How many kids live in places like that?

I won't be able to stop thinking about all of this.