0 tuesday tune

Givers were my favorite band discovery this summer (thank you, Mary!). This song and video make me want to be to outside for every last second of it. Now if you'll excuse me - my guitar and I have some deck-sitting to do.

1 The calm before the storm

This Friday night was "the calm before the storm" in many ways for my family: the last night before Sam went back to college; my last weekend before moving to New York and starting a new job; and, quite literally, the night before Hurricane Irene hit. So how did we celebrate it? With lobsters and champagne, of course! (Make that just champagne for me...) I also used the sunny, pre-apocolyptic skies to take pictures of my mom's pretty garden and all the greenery I'll be saying good-bye to.

0 Real girls

It really bugs me when street style blogs focus on model-skinny, couture-wearing girls. While those ladies look great, I read those blogs to get style inspiration from people who look like me. These two gals from Stylesightings caught my eye: not overly perfect or polished, but rocking it nonetheless.

0 Svpplying for Fall

I've become seriously addicted to Svpply, an online database that allows you to keep all the products you're coveting in one place (think of it as the Pinterest of shopping). Stores post their products, you add the ones you like to your svpply, and you can be redirected to the store's website if you're serious enough about buying something. You can follow stores and people, so every time you sign on, there is yet another round of stuff that you're guaranteed to love. To me, the best thing about Svpply is that it allows you see your favorite looks in one place - it gives me a sense of what sorts of trends and styles I'm into at the moment, like:

Menswear-inspired booties

1. ASOS Leather Chelsea Ankle Boot; 2. Koshka Monotone Cream Boots; 3. Aubin & Wills Mosedale Boot; 4. Topshop ALEK Lace-Up Ankle Boot

Cross Body Bags

1. J. Crew Edie Purse; 2. Vivienne Westwood Canvas Summer Squiggle Cross Body Bag; 3. Topshop Teal Contrast Key Lock Cross Body Bag; 4. ASOS PREMIUM Lunar Cross Body Bag; 5. Madewell Petite Briefcase Bag

Big Gold Watches

1. Fossil Boyfriend Watch; 2. Coach Boyfriend Bracelet Watch; 3. Nixon Oversized Watch

Long Pleated Skirts

1. Club Monaco Julia Skirt; 2. ASOS Midi Skirt; 3. Pins & Needles Long Pleated Skirt; 4. Tibi Long Pleated Skirt

Colorful Trousers

1. ASOS Tailored Ponti High Waisted Slim Flare Pants; 2. ASOS Cropped Flare Pant; 3. Ksubi Super Spray On Jean

Neutral Knits

1. Aubin & Wills Muscatel Cardigan 2. Pringle of Scotland Rope Cable Sweater; 3. United Bamboo Pile Knit Pullover; 4. Cacharel Textured Knit Dress

2 Happy dance

I must look like this walking down the street today because... I got a job! This morning I officially acception a position as a production assistant at a travel website. I start after Labor Day, and I'm moving to the city in a week. Things are moving like a whirlwind and I'm in a little bit of a disbelieving daze. I'm so excited to start this next stage of my life!

Serendipitously, I'm guest-posting today over at She Writes and Rights about my job hunt, and about coming to the realization that I want to work in travel. I sent Bethany the post mere minutes before getting the job offer. Life is funny.

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0 on the radar

already taking the blogosphere by storm, scotch & soda's fall collection is, in a word, perfect. (um, can we talk about those red jeans?)

darren criss for gq. i mean, come on.

this photo, because it reminds me of the fleeting days of summer

dear pringle of scotland: one day, when i'm a rich lady, all your clothes shall be mine.

a cool illustration based on room by emma donoghue, which i'm tearing through (clicking the link leads you to a crazy interactive website. books these days...)

this look by les composantes


an adorable rendition of "cecilia" (thanks caroline!)

a fingernail ring = completely genius (via)

nicole's gorgeous pictures from new mexico, which remind me of my own trip there a couple years ago (only my photos weren't quite so pretty!)

1 Tuesday Tune

I find this song so beautiful... maybe because it sounds exactly like Simon and Garfunkel.

1 Black and pink and gold, oh my!

I've been gaga for interior design recently - probably because I'm moving to a new apartment! I'll have a New York, NY, address in less than two weeks, which I couldn't be more excited about. I love the look of basic black played up with feminine details - like antique gold frames, hot pink and yellow accents, groupings of plants, and old-fashioned photos. My head is spinning with possibilities!

1, 2-5, 6, 7 [pretty much all found through SF Girl by Bay, my kindred interior design spirit!]

2 Tuesday Tune

2 You Don't Have to Be Pretty

I read this post today and it really got me thinking about the idea behind "prettiness." The article is titled, "You Don't Have to Be Pretty," and it focuses on the idea that women often feel a pressure "to maintain a certain standard of decorativeness" in order to appease other people. It reminded me of another article I read about a month ago on Jezebel: "Should We Tell Little Girls They're Pretty?"

It's an extremely complex question, because while we shouldn't be teaching girls that looks are their most important asset, we should really be asking what exactly we mean by "pretty." What does the word mean, anyway?

I'm probing this because I'm thinking about the name of this very blog and if it really corresponds with how I actually want to represent it. My Dictionary.com widget defines "pretty" as: attractive in a delicate way without being truly beautiful or handsome. Curious! If I had known that, I certainly would not have named my blog Prettier World (plus, Delicately Attractive but Not Quite Beautiful World was already taken).

What I was focusing on in naming my blog was the er in prettier: not accepting just a what-you-see-is-what-you-get aesthetic in life, but gaining a deeper appreciation for places, people and things that are holistically, intrinsically beautiful, quirks and all, and beyond a simple first impression. We all know that feeling of falling in love with someone or something the more time we spend with him or her or it. The more we get to know the object, we grow to appreciate its imperfections that, in the end, become the things we love most. They become prettier, and they become real. In a way, maybe it's better that pretty things aren't, according to the dictionary, "truly beautiful"? I'm not sure "true beauty" is all it's cracked up to be.

But I digress. Why not call little girls pretty? Because they'll grow vain and all they'll care about is how they look? Maybe. What if we say, "that dress you picked out is pretty" or "you did your hair pretty today"? What differences do semantics make so long as we're getting the same idea across - that it's what a girl (and any person) does and earns for herself that should be commended?

At the same time, I will acknowledge that we are visually-driven. We're humans. I refuse to not smile and flirt with a cute baby, because when I see an adorable baby, that's pleasing to me somewhere deep down in a core I can't control. It's true when some people see certain animals. It's true, obviously, with sexual attraction for both sexes and all orientations. Looks play a huge role in first impressions, and even though attractiveness varies widely from person to person, that initial attraction is based on a first physical impression. We can't be so naive to think that, even if we never call a little girl pretty, she won't someday experience a man telling her she looks good. And that she will not gain some sort of self-esteem boost or at least mild pleasure from it.

We can't change human nature, and we can't expect ourselves or anyone else to give no regard to the way people look. It's the emphasis that matters, and it's up to each individual (and, in the case of these little girls, every parent) to shift that emphasis and to appreciate the un-truly beautiful in the pretty.

Finding it too difficult to find a picture that corresponded well with this post, I just picked the last photo I admired, by the ever-talented Abby

1 picture + poem

corydon & alex, redux
by D.A. Powell

and yet we think that song outlasts us all: wrecked devotion
the wept face of desire, a kind of savage caring that reseeds itself and grows in clusters

oh, you who are young, consider how quickly the body deranges itself
how time, the cruel banker, forecloses us to snowdrifts white as god's own ribs



what else but to linger in the slight shade of those sapling branches
yearning for that vernal beau. for don't birds covet the seeds of the honey locust
and doesn't the ewe have a nose for wet filaree and slender oats foraged in the meadow
kit foxes crave the blacktailed hare: how this longing grabs me by the nape



guess I figured to be done with desire, if I could write it out
dispense with any evidence, the way one burns a pile of twigs and brush

what was his name? I'd ask myself, that guy with the sideburns and charming smile
the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I'd expire with him on my tongue



silly poet, silly man: thought I could master nature like a misguided preacher
as if banishing love is a fix. as if the stars go out when we shut our sleepy eyes

photo by Lukasz Wierzbowski

3 on the radar

Hey, it's back! A weekly round-up of the things that caught my eye this week (normally reserved for Fridays, but with all the blog catching-up I've been doing as of late, it looks like it's gonna be a double radar week):

Gallery Owner, New York City. Is not very good at small talk.

Short Order Cook, Marathon, TX. She can bench press over 300 pounds.

Bartender, San Antonio, TX. Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily.You Are What You Eat: a fascinating project by photographer Mark Menjivar that exposes the interiors of Americans' refrigerators

Emma's list of 25 Things To Do Before I Turn 25, which has inspired me to create my own list (stay tuned, dear readers!)

Breathtaking images of girls and plants by the Polish photographer, Lukasz Wierzbowski

Folky goodness by Nicki & Tim Bluhm, a gem of a musical couple from San Francisco

Hipster Food: a new-to-me vegan tumblr that I finally checked out, c/o Nadia

I'm going through a serious Dolly stage. "I look like a woman, but I think like a man," Dolly Parton said a couple of years ago on 60 Minutes. "People think I'm as silly as I look, but I done got the money."

Karla is so beautiful, and pretty much my style icon