Leyendecker, Joseph C. (1874-1951) Inspiration and heroes are everywhere, if you simply bother to look. We sometimes live in a biased world. Not blatant, but covertly dismissive, remanding great talent to side notes. To wit; Joseph Christian Leyendecker was perhaps the best-known and successful commercial artists of the twentieth century. His mastery of the commercial art medium surpassed that of his better-known and still revered follower, and protégé, Norman Rockwell. The Americonic Rockwell idolized Leyendecker. Leyendecker, who was out gay man in a time where sexual orientation was seldom acknowledged, or discussed. Leyendecker elevated the field of commercial/illustration to high art. A Caravaggio, to obtain the look he desired, Leyendecker went so far as to personally grease up his carefully selected athletic models with Vaseline, (many who were pulled directly off the street) and then painted them in candlelight, so he could get the effect of glowing muscular male bodies, which he immortalized. Leyendecker's art was always immediately recognizable. These images were then happily published in saturated color by the Saturday Evening Post. Ironically, Leyendecker’s illustrations were digested as “wholesome” for the presumed straight public. (Think “The Village People“). His illustrations and paintings of muscular athletes and military men, have long remained long ignored by straight publishers, even after his death, but in recent years as the temper of the times have changed, Leyendecker‘s work is now attracting a growing group of collectors and scholars. To understand Leyendecker’s artistry you need to comprehend a fetish. Style trumps substance: a prodigy, Leyendecker developed a distinctive brush technique, and employed a unique use of highlights found within shadows. Some of his originals appear almost unfinished because he let the under painting show through, to represent those brightest highlights. He is also credited for being the genius for finding “the straight within the curved”, and his figures do have a sharp, crisp, almost pre-cubist geometry that makes them really exciting, almost architectural. Leyendecker seems to have the ability to paint things the way they should be, not the way they were. Leyendecker could make a white starched shirt seen thrilling. Seemingly simple things like folds in cloth became wonders of intricately painted designs, dizzying valleys of carefully controlled color, highlighted with those amazing strokes of color hatching. Leyendecker was an old-world artisan who worked in stages, creating many pain staking small-scale studies from which he would then re-construct the whole by using the traditional technique of “squaring up” to transfer to a larger canvas. The American Art Archives has website with a fantastic page of his studies that is not to be missed by anyone interested in the techniques of this incomparable illustrator. Given the prevalence of Leyendecker’s work and notoriety, amazingly little is known about Leyendecker and Beach's personal life together. From about 1905 to 1925, they entertained often and publicly, but later they lived quietly with their few servants, in self-exile, as almost hermit like recluses. Leyendecker pulled an effective veil over his private life, and it’s significant that by 1974, when Schau wrote his book, “J.C. Leyendecker,” he could only fill a few pages with biographical information, and nearly half of them are devoted to Leyendecker life before he moved to New York. The people with whom he was closest, his brother Frank, his sister Augusta, and Beach, did not provide any written insights into his life. In many respects Leyendecker remains a Mona Lisa. Here is what is know, albeit scant, Joseph Christian Leyendecker was born in Montabaur, Germany, to a family of Netherlandic extraction, on March 23, 1874. Fleeing the poverty and economic turmoil in Europe, the family immigrated to the United States in 1882, and settled in Chicago where relatives owned a brewery. From early childhood, Leyendecker drew images on any available surface, a habit that his parents encouraged, as they were unable to afford private art lessons for their son. Typical of the time, he was apprenticed at age fifteen to a Chicago engraver, with whom he began his career by designing advertisements and book illustrations. The J. Manz & Co. was an important printing house, and at that time, printing houses provided more than reproduction services. Leyendecker was called upon to design posters, and advertisements for Manz clients. At the age of nineteen, Leyendecker was given the task of creating sixty illustrations for an edition of the Bible that Manz was to produce. Unfortunately, few copies exist today. From the few images that were reproduced in Michael Schau's book, “J.C. Leyendecker,” Leyendecker was a precocious 19-year-old prodigy. During these years, Leyendecker also took night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Leyendecker demonstrated a gifted hand, and showed a mature technical mastery of the illustrator's art. He won a Century Magazine cover competition, which brought his work to national notice. (FYI: Second place was awarded to Maxfield Parrish.) This led to cover assignments in other national magazines, like Inland Printer, for whom he did all twelve of their covers for 1897. The work was produced, however in Paris, France. That respectfully in mind, with his younger brother Franz, who was also gay, they traveled together to Paris to study at the Académie Julien and Colarossi, in part to garner “culture“, something that the still young America believe it did not obtain. It is on this excursion that Leyendecker’s younger brother appears to have been introduced to drugs. This may account for the rationale that while despite the artistic success of the trip Leyendecker propitiously arranged for their hasty return to Chicago, and in 1898, to establish a studio there, where the brothers seemed to have worked collaboratively. Both soon gained numerous commissions for magazine, and advertisement illustrations, and in 1899, J. C. Leyendecker produced his first cover for the Saturday Evening Post, one of the leading mainstream American publications. Suddenly in great demand, the Leyendecker brothers then moved to New York in 1900, where America’s magazines had their corporate headquarters. Both of their work can be characterized by what might best be called a coded male homo-eroticism, typically portrayed handsome young men, particularly athletes, soldiers, sailors, and muscular working men, as heroic figures, recalling the classical ideals of the French Academy and the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau. Those who can do. The technology of printing was still an evolving art. Putting a color illustration inside a magazine was a logistical nightmare. Color demanded special paper, printing care and added expense. Issues of magazines were designed around the color plates, which had to be collated between signatures, or else individually glued in! One magazine, Delineator, came up with an idea, the feature comprised of a half dozen color plates that integrated text and art on the same page. By moving the text into the illustration, Delineator could insert this group between two signatures. Inserting the plates as a group incurred no more binding expense than if one sheet was inserted (it was done by hand). Other magazines quickly followed with similar color sections. The modern magazine was born. In 1905, Leyendecker began a relationship with Arrow Collars (later Arrow Shirts) for whom he created just one of the icons he introduced into American psyche. The Arrow Collar Man was one of the most successful advertising images in history. It turned Arrow into the largest collar/shirt brand in America. Leyendecker provided the bulk of their advertising until 1930. Leyendecker’s illustrations were the progenitor of today’s “logos” or “icons”. By 1914, J. C. Leyendecker had accrued enough wealth to build an estate in New Rochelle, New York, where he lived with his brother, his sister Augusta, and his lover Charles Beach. One imagines the jazz age optimism, heady days, and a concerted effort to break away from the confines of post Victorian mores. A rift between the Leyendecker brothers apparently occurred just months before the younger brother’s death, from a drug overdose, in 1924. All that is known is that shortly before the overdose; Franz left the wing of the Leyendecker estate that was built especially for him by his older brother, never to return. It should be remembered that though Franz was an exceptional artist himself, although he constantly struggled with the label of being "J.C. Leyendecker's little brother." (Think Roslyn Kind). Franz had trouble completing jobs, which may account for the dearth of his art. In his heyday, Leyendecker was the most famous Post cover artist they have ever had. His first cover for the magazine was in 1899. The cover was a colorful miniature poster designed to attract the eye of a newsstand buyer, an innovative approach itself. Magazines relied on text and pen and ink illustration up until this time. Leyendecker returned in 1903, and began a forty-year association in which he produced over 320 covers for Post. Each year, Leyendecker was hired to execute all the important Post holiday covers: Easter, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Years. Recognizing his success, other clothing manufacturers, and magazines vied for his work, and he prospered. WWI (the war to end all wars) found him working on propaganda war posters with a distinguished group that included Gibson, Christie, Flagg and Wyeth. After the war, if anything, Leyendecker became more successful. That is not necessarily true of his contemporaries, whose work now looked old fashioned, and Victorian in the era of the “modern“. Leyendecker’s style was still relevant…for a while. All good things come to an end. In 1943, the editorship of the Post changed, and the new editor felt that Leyendecker was too strongly associated with the old magazine. So goes forty years of a mutually satisfying relationship. You know the old adage, “Out with the old, in with the new“. Now Leyendecker had to go looking for work, as it no longer came looking for him. He found it, but not in the quantity, he was used to. He maintained his palatial home in New Rochelle, but had to let the servants go. Leyendecker was ill-equipped to cook, clean, garden and maintain an estate. The last years of J. C. Leyendecker's life were overshadowed by financial concerns, as he continued to spend as lavishly as he earned at the height of his career. Sealing his fate, by the 1940s, all the major magazines increasingly supplanted artist's cover illustrations with the new commercial and documentary style of photography. Leyendecker's latter years were morose. The ascendancy of photography meant he had to go himself to peddle his gorgeous paintings to disinterested, if not bigoted art editors, and young art directors who were still green behind their ears. Selling his work was a practice which he had never done before, and one he deemed tantamount to prostitution. Work inadvertently picked up a little bit, when he received commissions for new war posters, for World War II. The series would feature the commanding officers of the U.S. forces encouraging the purchase of war bonds. The American Weekly hired him in 1945 to do the covers. A Sunday supplement to the Hearst newspaper chain, The American Weeklywas printed on newsprint. The quality of the reproduction was nothing like Leyendecker had been used to, and as a perfectionist, it rankled him to no end, creating a reputation for him being difficult to work with. The effort he put into some of the paintings showed some of his frustrations. Many were just recycled Post covers with minor changes. A kind of artistic malaise had set in. For forty-nine years, Beach, who functioned, as not only Leyendecker's model, lover, and cook, but also business manager was now his primary care giver. The household remained extremely careful in maintaining a strict, even secretive, self-protective privacy. Although Beach's illustrated features remained periodically in the public's gaze, few actual photographs of him, or any of the camera shy Leyendeckers are to be found anywhere. Accordingly, few facts are known about their relationship, or the couple's interactions with Leyendecker's siblings, of which there were several. Leyendecker died at home of a heart attack on July 25, 1951 with Beach close at hand in New Rochelle. Their devotion was enduring, albeit sad to report, that we have little recorded insight into it. Leyendecker was working on yet another American Weekly cover when he simply had a heart attack. The work was printed unfinished. A fitting and haunting tribute to an uncompleted life. Even in death, still reticent of the public, the funeral was held in the studio of Leyendecker's home. Almost forgotten, certainly not appreciated, Leyendecker received little to no mention in any obituaries, in many of the papers that once carried his extraordinary images. The pallbearers were virtually the only guests present, with a tearful Norman Rockwell being one of the pallbearers, the rest of guests who were Leyendeckers male models, were now middle-aged gentlemen. The New Rochelle newspaper reported, however, that a funeral mass was held at Blessed Sacrament at ten o'clock, July 28, 1951. Having made and spent a fortune, Leyendecker was buried in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery at 233rd Street in The Bronx, New York. The grave was marked by the director of The Haggin Museum in California several years later. It is one thing when the world does not get you, its anther when your family does not. Leyendecker’s sister, and life partner, Beach, held a garage sale of his canvases, and there were many, as Leyendecker was infamous for always insisting on the return of his originals. For $75.00 could have purchased any of the original Post covers. As a result, Beach and Augusta sold many of Leyendecker's art works, which now bring hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, for a pittance. Beach, presumably at Leyendecker's instruction, burned virtually all correspondence, and many other original art works after the artist's death. Beach followed Leyendecker in death within a months. For a wonderful and comprehensive article on Leyendecker let me direct you to www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/2305/leybiog.html 
Leyendecker’s work roughly spanned the period from 1895 to 1950. He is best known for his Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly covers and for his Arrow Collar and Kuppenheimer suit advertisements. When not illustrating sinewy men, he practically invented the American Santa Claus, and did invent the New Year's baby. So iconic, the U. S. Postal Service re-issued one of these on December 27, 1999 to commemorate the millennium. 
One must be a cobbler, or seamstress to stitch together the personal patchwork of his life. Leyendecker (twenty-seven) met Charles Beach in 1903 when the young model (sixteen) from Cleveland, first posed for him. The artist was impressed, with Beach’s not only handsome face, and physique, but with his ability to hold poses for extended lengths of time. Twice blessed, it was an attribute valued by Leyendecker. Beach took direction well, and seemed to enjoy the attention from the older gentleman. The adoration is evidenced in the artwork. Beach became Leyendecker’s muse, and most oft used model. Through Leyendecker's hands, Beach set the physical standard that several decades of men aspired to. During the decades between the two World Wars, the Arrow Man, the advertising figure of the Arrow Collars and Shirts Company was synonymous for American values of health, strength, prosperity, intelligence and sophistication. Beach, inadvertently became the defining icon of urbane American straight masculinity, receiving more fan mail from adoring women and girls than most leading men of the stage and screen, and even inspired numerous songs. I imagine he got a kick out of that. Unknown to the public by name, this epitome of male beauty, and heterosexual female admiration was, ironically, the product of an intense and devoted homosexual partnership that lasted half a century between the artist and his model, thus becoming one of the most widely circulated visual icons in mainstream American culture. In this capacity, the Arrow Collar man became one of the first recognized “brands”. (Think Rock Hudson). Leyendecker could make a Pilgrim look sexy. 
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March 2009
March 31, 2009
March 29, 2009
"I Have No One, I Am All Alone"
Anne Frank, had she survived the Holocaust, would be 80 years old. Anne Frank died at the age of 16, (March, 1945) in the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen. Anne Frank was sent to not one, but three concentration camps, during the course of her internment. Coincidentally, she was on the very last transport trains to arrive in Westerbork, Auschwitz, and finally Bergen Belsen as the war progressed. Anne Frank passed away just a few days prior to the end of World War II, and the liberation of her camp.
"I Have No One, I Am All Alone"
(Last known words of Anne Frank)
Induced by typhus
In hallucined and said, almost maddened pleas
Anne before her lingering death is seen
Circling the camp in frantic paces
Vainly articulating the brevity of her adolescence
“I have no one. I am all alone”
“I have no one. I am all alone”
So many things the photographs cannot show
Like the strewn off piece of tenting
Neatly reticuled inside of her
To shroud “her secret”
From the dire deeds and further privations
Of the officers and officials
So many things the photographs cannot show
How when the testemental hours pass
Complacent as a cube of ice
During roll call, she recalls
The memory of her father's lenient words
“Little bird, little bird”
Oh, little bird, little lost wren
Wand’ring so far from it’s sanctuaried nest
Helpless to fend for itself
Among the treacheries of these, the fittest
Your wings are insufficient, too temporal
To carry out their assigned tasks
How swiftly your demise may be
Poor little bird
This is what Anne saw one morning
But not of herself
What she did see was
Throngs of shoeless Gypsy children
Without concern or consent
Ushered into the un-blessed chamber
By Nazi's with Incendiary glee
The despotic spectacle, witnessed, but not seen
As the iron doors shut, tolling like death-chimes
There, outside the Frauenblock, Barracks 29
Anne’s eyes like unspent florins
Close into the tight fist of her lids
As infants and their swallowed screams
Passed into little more than billowing smoke
And into the vast perfection of ever constant sadness
So many things the photographs cannot show
How scabies pock your pallid flesh
And in the Kratzeblock
How Anne’s auburn tresses tumble to the floor
Along with her uncoiffed pride
As she picks the infesting lice from burrowing in her balding scalp
Shaved already, twice or more
Even “Dear Kitty” could not stave off the summary of your sorrows
The sweet document of her soul
Not yet read
Laboring without purpose, toiling without intent
Anne’s deportment belies all her gifts
Breaking batteries and carting stones
In this, the incomprehensible maze of "The Final Solution"
Still, you once wrote,
“Paper is more patient than man”
If true, who among the worlds most wicked and wise
Were yet to wait to weep, or to wait to wonder?
So many things the photographs cannot show
Like the volt of dread, Anne must have felt
During the selections
When Mengele inspected her bare back
His black glove fingers seditiously running down her spine
Counting her protruding bones
To asses her current worth
The Angel of Death did not know
Was not aware of the treasures stored in your brave, buoyant heart
So many things the photographs cannot show
Your father, you presumed gone, like the perfume of the past
Or at least absent, like the breath of the future
“I have no one. I am all alone”
When severed from her children, left barren like a vital limb
Your mother lie dead, laden with exhaustion, grief and starvation
Perishing without benefit of company in Auschwitz
“I have no one. I am all alone”
Shoved by random accident from her sleep
Your sister, Margot, fell to the stone floor on a moonless night
Too weak, to once again rise
“Cold” she prophetically said, “please close the door”
Trembling, she died in your embraced arms
Not knowing the door had never been opened
Then without falter or ceremony
Guards tossed her rigid body in a heap beside the latrine
It’s there, you pass by the last semblance of her remains
Shooing away the flyswarm from her one opened eye
Dovening your tears on the prized Yellow Star of your neighbors dark sleeve
While skeletal women silently recite the Kaddish
No diaried entry worth enough to be made
Could dignify or contain the contents of your despair
When you declare your languid tome one last time to the Sternlarger
“I have no one. I am all alone”
Oh Anne!
All reason wrenched or rendered then
As hope became a foreign tongue to you
So much so, that only a few days later
Without contrivance, you pass away in the bunk
Upon a bed of netted excelsior, you share with several strangers
Stacked like odd-sized dishes and tea spoons
They only notice your death
When your placid body turns cold as plate that night
March, of Nineteen Forty-five
Were dreams of peace and lottery haunting your enerred rest
When death came to take your uncupped hand?
For in as many days, as years you had lived
Just fifteen or so, no more, the war would commence
So close to triumph, but closer to defeat
You prevailed with certain, if unknown victory
Yet liberation came to find you’d vanished among the uncounted millions
Millions, millions
So in tribune, we have memorized what you believed…
“I believe that at heart, all men are basically good”
And in tremulation, forgotten what you said…
“I have no one. I am all alone”
Frauenblock: women’s barracks
Florins: Dutch form of currency, equivalent to a penny
Kratzeblock: scabies ward
Sternlager: “Star” barracks (for Jews only)
March 28, 2009
Good Things About A Bad Economy
A soothsayer might suggest that we brought on this economic turmoil ourselves, and that as a result we cannot rely on the Gods or government to resolve it for us. While I too am looking for the silver lining, pennies from heaven, my ship to come in, and happy days to come again, truth be told there are some good things about a bad economy.
Money does grow on trees. Burpee Seeds, founded in 1876, is doing 20% more business to date over last year. They cannot get their seeds out the door fast enough and they are even taking on new employees. American’s in droves are returning to home gardens to help stretch their grocery dollar this summer. Plus, it’s so green. So for every retailer/manufacturer that goes under, invariably another will emerge in prominence. Do you think my landlord will let to grow green beans on my fire escape?
What a difference a day makes. Just a year or two ago we boasted how much incidental things costs, we were proud to announce that we were wearing 250.00 shoes or carrying a 1,500.00 handbag. Extravagance was celebrated. Now that’s just considered gauche. Today, we’re more liable to share our pride on how much we got, for so little. Point me towards Costco and Wal-Mart, and let me have at it. Will we ever pay retail again? Living in an era where things arrive in store at 20% to 40% off is sort of nice. I could get use to it. It makes us realize how gullible we were.
The poor economy has advanced a lot of analytic studies concerning how people shop and why. In a recent article for www.forbes.com “Your Brain On Credit”, 03/19/09, Tim Hartford delves into the profound changes that economics may have altering our behavior and perception. He cites a classic example of the checkerboard as a symbol of our convoluted economic logic.
QUESTION: there is a checkerboard with $1.00 on the first square, $2.00 on the second, then $4.00, $8.00, $16.00 and so on, doubling on each square. How many dollars are on the final square? PS: There are 64 squares with a checkerboard. Don’t use a calculator, stay away from the accessories button on your PC. Just guess, or approximate if a pen or pencil isn’t handy. The answer is at the end of this blog. No cheating, don’t skip ahead.
Our Flintstone-age brains just do not seem to be able to cope with today’s digital-age money problems. We shop the way we used to eat. As our primordial brains evolved, it was a safe bet was that if you had food, you should eat it, because there was no guarantee that more food was going to be available anytime soon. When more than adequate food was available Wilma’s set it aside for a rainy day. Hence, the birth of the first savings account, but our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate first, they gorged, and stocked up, like there was no tomorrow, and saved later. (Sound familiar? It‘s called magical thinking.) Just so, many people today struggle with temptation and easy credit is a great way of enjoying immediate pleasure, and postponing the consequences. Which is why a lot of our ancestors are fossils now, they starved to death looking for food.
A further indication of this comes from looking at savings rates over a period of time, and comparing it with other countries. Looking at the G8’s. The two countries with the biggest and most exciting range of products available is the U.S. and the U.K., who have also been the ones with the lowest savings rates. (Say what?) Countries like Japan and Italy, with a back-to-basics range of products, have higher savings rates. Canada has been the outsider, with lots of financial innovation, but thrifty citizens anyway. Besides who wants to trudge to the mall in six feet of snow. What is a G8 you ask? The Group of Eight (8) is a forum for governments of eight nations of the northern hemisphere: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States who meet to set world agenda for issues related to the economy, the environment, health and welfare and world peace.
Shopping, like cigarettes and alcohol may be hazardous to your health. Exactly what credit does to our judgment remains unclear, but some of the research is alarming. One early study, from the mid-1980s, asked subjects to say how much they would, hypothetically, be willing to pay for various things. When the experimenter, Richard Feinberg, "accidentally" left cues lying around to remind people of credit cards, guess what, their willingness to pay increased dramatically, up to threefold, in some cases. The slick advertising from credit cards have penetrated our psyches like water to a sponge.
Later research by two MIT economists and smarty-pants, Drazen Prelec and Duncan Simester, turned the hypothetical into the real. They split their subjects into two groups and asked each group to compete among themselves in an auction to buy tickets to sold-out basketball, and baseball games. One group was told that payment had to be made by credit card; the other group was asked to pay in cash within 24 hours. The credit card group offered much more for the tickets, in one case, more than twice as much, despite the fact that the experiment was arranged so as to make paying in cash just as easy and convenient. Which may account for why I paid three times as much for my UCLA restored version of “Mr. Peepers” first season DVD’s on eBay as I knew it was worth?
What other good things have resulted from a bad economy, do tell.
ANSWER: The 64th square of your checkerboard should contain nine thousand quadrillion dollars, nearly a million times our national debt. Mere instinct (survival) and our “magical” thinking almost always suggests a far smaller number.
March 26, 2009
An Ode To Sansabelt
“Facts should be like Sansabelt pants; adjustable to fit your needs.” Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
Last night I was watching an old episode of Honey West, (circa 1965) scene after scene featured the ultra-attractive John Ericson, as Sam Bolt, wearing pairs and pairs of Sansabelts, and then I got thinking….hmmm…
Sansabelt is a brand of popular if not beloved men’s trousers that were introduced in 1957, first on network television, (which was still sort of new) and then perfected by 1959, by Jaymar-Ruby Inc., an Indiana-based clothing company. Their mid-west origins automatically positioned them as mainstreamers, far outside the tight knit designer circles of 7th Avenue.
Sansabelts came on the scene about the same time that Playboy Magazine and the pill were beginning to make a stir. The sexual revolution was just starting. As such, Sanabelts were heavily advertised as being the modern choice for menswear, since they resisted wrinkles (saving ironing), were proportioned for men of action, and had a streamlined look that was the perfect counterbalance to Nehru jackets. They were an overnight success.
The trousers work on this principle; they have an innovative wide elastic band sewn into the waist to enhance the appearance of the pelvic area, which is intended to make a belt or suspenders unnecessary, hence the name “sans a belt”. Male anatomy periodically has the drawback of having a little extra definition at the waist. This means that anything resembling slacks must have a fairly tight cinch to keep them from slipping, such as a belt. However, through a miracle of Hoosier engineering, Sansabelts stayed in place. This is because the Sansabelt waistband features not one, but three bands of elastic webbing, forming a girdle-like zone, allowing free movement with or without the use of a belt!
Throughout the 1960’s Sansabelts were heavily hyped. Nearly every TV figure wore a Sansabelts including, Fred McMurray, Dick Van Dyke, Johnny Carson and Dobie Gillis. They read as clean, modern, suburban chic, relaxed, hip, sharp, and comfortable. The style lasted for a full decade before waning in popularity.
Sansabelts initial success forebode ill for the future. Sansabelt despite the superiority of their design became associated with "kitch". The line was oriented to the older generation of male buyers, and to those who had waistline problems. It was the mainstay of "big and tall" men's stores. Sansabelt became identified with the older generation who did not mind their Dacron polyester material or gabardine twill. Its appeal was its adjustable waistband that could be let out an inch or two. Nevertheless, don’t loose heart, Sansabelt is still in business, and business is still good. Sansabelt has a devoted following, with a facebook page of over 100,000 friends. I don’t even have a facebook!
March 24, 2009
Fashion: A LOVE Story
Here are the opening lines…“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?”Oliver Barrett IV, from Eric Segal’s LOVE Story, 1970
What can you say about the novel that was released cloyingly on Valentine’s Day, after several months of much hyped excerpts had already appeared in “The Ladies Home Journal”, only later to be turned into one of the most successful films of the decade? The story followed Jenny Cavilleri, the beautiful and complicated daughter of a impoverished Rhode Island baker, who gives up her dreams of being a musician and going to Paris so that she can be with Oliver Barrett IV, the handsome and arrogant son of a wealthy industrialist who gives up his families fortune to study law at Harvard. You damn preppy! The only way out of this tragic tale is for Jenny to get a disease so terrible that even her Dr. will not tell her what it is. On her deathbed, she comes to terms with Oliver who must go on, by telling him (cough, cough) “That love means never having to say you’re sorry”. (Insert Kleenex commercial.)
Okay, the story is cliché ridden, formulaic and contrived, but who cares, this is all about fashion. Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal are gorgeous to look at, and their clothing is so beautiful that all you want to do is undress them, so that you can dress them back up. It is no wonder that you can still pick up some “Love Story Paper Dolls” on eBay. (Jenny in hospital gown not provided.)
To understand the fashion forensics you need to realize that 1970 was really still the 1960’s. This is a time when men had naturally curly hair that was as unpredictable as the weather. Some days it was tight and curly, other days it was brushed out and smooth as flax. The perm had not yet been introduced. Mr. O’Neal’s locks were blond the way blond it used to be, not stripped of color, but toasted by the California sun. He was a surfer blond, bleached by the ultra violet rays the way houses are in Tuscany. The color had depth and resonance. When light, it shone like polished gold. This is a time when men still had hair on their chest, soft curly follicles, not the shaven pre-pubescent hyde we are accustomed to today. Mr. O’Neal has blue eyes, not enhanced by contacts, so when we look at him tearing up, (real men don't cry until the third reel), which he does in a good bit of the film, it rings true, and effervescent, not glassy, and cold like a mirror. His face is attractive in that post Kennedyesque way, flawed, but classic. There is no hint of rhinoplasty or Botox. Clearly, there has not been a visit to Patricia Wexler’s office. He his well built, and indeed athletic, there are a number of sequences of him playing hockey, running track, and playing touch football. I was never an athlete, but might have entertained a game of touch with Mr. O’Neal. Still this is 1970’s athletic, not the gym induced, steroidal, Chelsea aesthetic that is de rigor now. By today’s standards, we would declare him a bit too round, shame on us to have replaced grown men with little boys. O'Neal is a Bottecelli cherub.
Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV is dressed beautifully. Fashion is used sucessfully as a plot devise to help forward the narrative which is weak. Clothing conveys character. For the charactor of Oliver Barrett it indicates that there is status, substance and quality here. Its classic “prep” style is straight of Brooks Brothers. As Oliver evolves we see his clothing grow up, it too becomes more serious, sober and sedate. Half way through the film, he trades in his boxy American cut suits for the "Continental" look, when he starts as a junior partner. You damn preppy! Yet, throughout the film, there are montages of Oliver and Jenny, young lovers walking hand in hand on campus. They look like the couple in the old “Windsong” commercials (“I can’t seem to forget you, your Wind Song plays on my, Wind Song plays on my mind“) They are anti-establishment, but not hippies, they may show up at a protest rally, but well coiffed. You can be sure that Ali’s (Jenny’s) center-part doesn’t move one iota, even in the throws of passion.
As for Oliver, there are a litany of nice suits, plaid wool blazers, so respectable you could wear them to the annual flea market at the DAR, herringbone hunting jackets, glen plaids, his shirts are white button down oxfords, with a traditional point collar worn with rep ties, Oliver wear Khaki’s to class, sometimes white socks with black shoes, or Florsheim penny loafers, when the new semester arrives he has a Burberry trench coat, imported Italian leather buffalo hyde gloves in tobacco; he has Irish knit sweaters, that were hand crochet by nun’s cloistered in Cork, in summer he sheds attire, his grey fleece athletic jerseys have the neck line already cut out, and are artfully stretched showing his clavicle, when Oliver wants to “let loose” he has a gauzy blue denim cowboy shirt, open to his expansive pectorals, lest we not notice (who doesn’t) he has his black chocker of love beads around his neck, Oliver is an ad for Ralph Lauren before there was a Ralph Lauren, when we are led into winter a metaphor for what’s to come, he has a pea coat, the collar upturned like Humphrey Bogart or George Raft, which he alternates with a generic Woolrich jacket in camel, with bone tooth buttons and a hood, and long colorful stripped scarves mostly draped, not seriously knotted tightly for the snowy Massachusetts winters when he makes (foreshadowing) angels in the snow with Ali. When will you girls with Leukemia learn to stay out of the snow!
The clothing captures a brief time, the bridge from the mod-bohemian ‘60’s, as we entered the plastic happy faced ‘70’s. Sometimes fashion means never having to say you’re sorry.
March 23, 2009
Energie
There is magic in a camera lens. The lens is an extension of the eyes. Our eyes are the extension of what the heart wants, and the brain needs. Therefore, sometimes the best photographs are unconscious, almost accidental.
In this image by photographer, Sindi Schorr, two attractive young men appear to be isolated and protected by the reflection of a fire escape. The fire escapes geometric symmetry is reiterated, albeit fortuitously, in the shape of the stripe on the sweater on the mannequin in the foreground. This “found” image is a composite of good merchandising, the serendipity of the right setting, being in the right place at the right time, and the innate ability to see what others who pass by may not notice.
Photography reveals. The photographer’s eye penetrates the surface and illuminates the soul. Mannequins may not have souls, but if they did, the symbol of the fire escape might be apropos. Through the use of symbols, messages are conveyed, subliminally and/or conspicuously. The fire escape delivers us to safety; it provides escape from the dilemmas of indoors. On it, one can ascend to the isolation of the roof, or descend to the anonymity of the street. The fire escape is a passage, a refuge to separate oneself from the others inside, and is for some a kind of stage for dreaming, as used in the opening of Tennessee Williams‘, “The Glass Menagerie“. “I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.” Tom Wingfield
Sensitive to color, Schorr captures the steely cold blue of the sky at dusk, which compliments the warm yellowy amber of their skin. The value between the two hues creates a kind of tension. The apprehensive angle that the photo is shot, with its low POV, suggests that the two men are transfixed with something occurring across the street.
What is it? Is it something the heart wants?
Photograph © Sindi Schorr 2009
This weeks TOP TEN PHOTOS are all pulled from Ms. Schorr’s photo album. Please visit it to see some of her other extraordinary work.
March 22, 2009
Modesty: More Is The New Less (part two)
Brenda Sharman, who became national founder of the teen girl group Pure Fashion in 2006, already knew public sentiment was on her side when she launched her “modesty mission.” However, she did not think there would be much interest about how low necklines plunge, and how high hemlines rise in a time of overwhelming economic pressure, and spiraling unemployment, but now she believes the economy has, in fact, benefited her mission. "Fashion's in our court right now," says Sharman, a former model. (“Thank you!… Pat Stevens)
Pure Fashion has about 700 members who work as models at spring teen fashion shows, which can attract up to 11,000 people. The group has affiliates in 10 countries, and is signing new groups on its website, www.purefashion.com. You guessed it, Pure Fashion is an offshoot of a Catholic missionary organization, (whatever happened to the Leniency of Decency?) but Sharman believes its core message resonates from Muslims to Orthodox Jews, to parents who simply believe it should not be hard to find shorts that completely cover the rear end of their 12-year-olds. "Girls need to understand, what they wear sends a message," Sharman says. (Clearly, she has not read Greer’s, “The Feminine Mystique”).
Preparing to address a group of teen girls at a Pure Fashion camp last year, Sharman had props ready to convince them just how far into the gutter fashion and our culture have gone. There was an eight-inch long skirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, with one of their store's shopping bags with a near-naked man on it. There was "Bling Bling Barbie," who looked suspiciously like a prostitute. (Honestly, I have not seen a prostitute with blue eye shadow, and a ponytail since Kennedy was in office). Sharman also showed a camisole that is now sold as a top, but was considered lingerie at the time Sharman modeled it in the 1990s, when she says bras and underwear "were more full coverage." (I guess she never modeled for Victoria’s Secret). Sharman did not have to go any farther than her local mall to collect her examples. A floor-to-ceiling photo graphic of a young man with his pants unzipped has greeted many visitors to Abercrombie & Fitch stores. (Dear Ms. Sharman, if you are done with the graphic, I would love to have it!) The home page for A & F’s chain's lingerie line, “Gilly Hicks“, has seven men with bare behinds posing with a young model in a bra and underwear. A & F is in good company, American Apparel's website home page recently featured a topless model wearing see-through leggings (no underwear).
Please do not squeeze Ms. Sharman, she is not alone in her quest. Evangelical tween group Secret Keeper Girl was founded in 2004 by author Dannah Gresh, in response to a 2003 Time Magazine report that $1.6 million was spent the year before on thong underwear for girls ages 7 to 12. (Note to mothers everywhere…if your 7-year-old is asking for thong underwear, you may need to lock them up until they turn 18.) Secret Keeper Girl group is circulating a petition that it plans to send to the Council of Fashion Designers of America and the Apparel & Footwear Manufacturers Association, urging them to consider modesty in their designs. (Trust me, the CFDA and AFMA is not holding their breath.) Gresh is hoping to have 50,000 signatures by fall. She says 5,000 have come in on their website, www.secretkeepergirl.com. When they do, Gresh plans to organize a day of shopping at the few stores they think offer appropriate fashion choices for pre-teen girls, including Old Navy, Gap Kids and Children's Place. Gresh, who also started teen group Pure Freedom, which hosts fashion events in up to 80 cities annually, says the parents of her members are relieved the movement is getting traction. "When clothes get skimpier and skimpier, moms get angrier and angrier, but it's harder to appeal (to retailers) when it's become the norm, and you're just one mom trying to hold the line,” says Gresh, who has written several books including, “And The Bride Wore White."
Modest or not, young people tend to prefer specialty stores to department stores, and that trend was evident during recent "mall missions" conducted by Pure Fashion. During these trips, groups of girls who are ages 14 to 18 fanned out across shopping areas to rate retailers on their apparel and store atmosphere. They awarded Pure Fashion seals of approval to those that passed muster on at least seven out of 10 areas on their checklist, which includes appropriate apparel, mannequins and music, (just what we need now, 14-year-olds setting standards). American Eagle, Anthropologie and Banana Republic got the Washington, D.C., group's highest ratings, while Delia's, J. Crew and Ann Taylor all got the Pure Fashion thumbs up elsewhere.
Still, stores' sales suggest sex does often sell. Although Abercrombie's sales have plunged with the economy, February's sales dropped a record 30 percent from February 2008. It is widely attributed to the chain's resistance to discounting, not a conservative backlash. (Lines for A & F on Fifth Avenue are out the door). Moreover, along with sister store Hollister, Abercrombie remains one of the stores teens most often list as favorites. American Apparel, which sells basic cotton tees and other casual wear, had a stellar 9 percent sales increase in February, and is often cited as one of the retail’s greatest success stories of the economic downturn. American Apparel says its ads are all done in-house and feature employees. "Sometimes that means our ads are more controversial than other companies, but they are at least, always sincere and genuine," says company spokesman Ryan Holiday, (maybe he should look up the meaning of sincere and genuine) who says provocative ads are at the "core of many fashion brands." (Note to readers: CEO Dov Charney is still under litigation for alleged sexual harassment charges. See Portfolio Magazine, November 2008, cover story)
While Sharman is pleased by the response her cause is getting, she suspects some of retail's embrace of modesty may cycle back out of fashion again in a few years. "Fashion has been so sexy for the past seven to 10 years, they wanted to do something different to keep sales going," she says. Still, all her members really want are options. Hoffmann says most stores these days are acceptable for girls who "know how to shop" with an eye toward modesty. "Everybody's seeing their bottom lines shrinking, so they want to sell to those who wear modest clothing, as well as those who want to wear it in a more risqué manner," says Hoffmann. "And that's fine with us."
Courtesy of www.retaildesigndiva.com where it appeared on March 18, 2009
March 21, 2009
Time Permitting...
Dear One and All,
Time permitting, please check out www.theanatomyofwow.com On it you will find one of my photos, with a great blog entitled "Crashing Into Society" about the extraordinary windows produced by Diesel on Fifth Avenue, NY. I'm only just getting familiar with the site, but it appears to offer lots of wonderful content.
Regards,
The Bespoken For Gentleman
March 20, 2009
Memoir Of a Suit: Part Two
Back when Dwight D. Eisenhower was President parents thought it was cute to dress their little boys like old men in suits. Toddlers wore blue serge suits, with clip in bow ties, wing-tip oxfords, and vests. It's hard to imagine, but we were dressed to look like they were in training for junior executive jobs on Wall Street. It was a kind of indoctrination for the corporate world that lay ahead. It's no wonder that Gregory Peck was starring in Sloan Wilson's "The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit". The popular novel was an indictment of the post war status quo, that in retrospect seems to celebrate the idea of the "uniform". The guiless Thom Browne has based his career on the same dialectic. His spring show in Milan featured forty men all dressed identically in grey suits, white shirts, black ties, grey cardigans, camel colored trenches, black horned rimmed glasses, white socks and black polished shoes. They did not strut down a catwalk, the walked in unison onto a stage of forty desks, typing the identical page, and even ate their lunches from brown paper bags at the same time. They were office drones. The audience gave a standing ovation for the presentation. Which is odd, because that's exactly what I do all day, and I never get an ovation. Clothing has for many a kind of “sense memory”, a kind of stored memory, not just of experience, but also of sight, smell and taste and feel. It is 1967, Nixon is in the White House, and the “Summer of Love” is still a full year away. Prime time TV has just gone to color. Now I know that Samantha’s carpet is olive green, and Granny’s cement pond is powder blue. I recall going to Bamberger’s in Newark, New Jersey, to the Boys “Prep” Department on an awfully hot day. I recall how the clothing fixtures towered over me. I remember the torn grey carpet was shredded from age, and puddles like an ebb on a dirty pond. I see the men milling about; there is a flurry of activity. I remember the smell of corduroy and wool baking in the afternoon sun. I can smell the acidic synthetic. I feel my eight-year-old hands as pink and pliable as taffy run over wool tweeds as sharp as sandpaper, and velor as soft as cat fur. I hear the deafening pitch of hangers screeching like a banshee over a chrome rod as an officious salesman tries to find my size. A blazer with a windowpane check the color of burnt sienna and burgundy is pulled off the rack. With great haste it tried on me as if I was a Cupie doll. I compliantly raise my hands like a victim in a hold up when instructed to do so. I was an obedient child. The jacket we are told fits perfectly “with room to grow.”Another jacket of identical style, albeit in Atlantic blue is selected for my brother who is seventeen months younger than I am. We are often commanded to wear the same style, albeit in different colors. Parents think this is cute too. My father, who wears expensive suits himself, cannot fathom the cost of a child’s jacket. Had he his druthers my father would barter for it like a Christmas tree in the Church parking lot, but Bamberger employees are immunized from this kind of haggling. As craftily displayed by the salesman, the thing that really sells the jacket is that while the lining of the breast pocket is stitched in, it can be pulled out and poufed to look like a silk handkerchief. Now rising from my breast pocket is a silk cloud as colorful as the queen’s garden. The suit also comes with a matching tie, which is a psychotic mix of gold, magenta and purple in a petite paisley. The deal is done. My father was horn-swaggled. I am quite certain the Bamberger salesman once sold Dr. Goodfellow’s Cure-alls from the back of a hitched wagon. I will wear this jacket until I have out grown it, (two years) in which it time it will be handed down to my brother, whose jacket will in turn be handed down to our younger brother. Style is economy. My next jacket marks a rite of passage in a young man’s life. I am allowed to select it myself from Dan Manzi’s in Maplewood, New Jersey, suggesting to me that I have autonomy. With strong sartorial opinions, I feel it my duty to look at, and inspect nearly every suit, even the ones far outside my suit size. Manzi’s is a small Mom & Pop shop, cluttered with merchandised and boxed stock. The displays are old and show age, what garmento’s call “tooth”.The staff at Manzi’s humor me. I cannot articulate what I am looking for. I only know I want something that does not look like anything else. Dan Manzi's is legendary as the manager has a glass eye, which seems as exotic as a red ruby in Buddha's belly button. When questioned about his glass eye, the saleman's infamously announces that it is not glass, it is crystal, it's from Waterford, like my mother good wine glasses. The distinction becomes legendary in Maplewood. Like his eye, I am attracted to something I am frightened of, the uncommon. There hanging with only three others, is a sedate striped blazer, white and pale butter yellow, with a dark outlined stitch that gives it an almost aristocratic feel of mattress ticking from the court of Versailles or Beach-nut gum, you be the judge. It is a two-button jacket, with narrow notched lapels, and equestrian side vents. It calls to me like a valentine. The fabric is a duck cotton blend, so it will seldom need pressing. The lining is black acetate, which when the jacket flies open (I will seldom button it) reminds me of a monarch butterfly. It is most respectfully not the kind of jacket that other junior high school students wear. Awash in a sea of grey and navy, my 7th grade class photo indicates that I may very well be from another country, or more likely, another planet. My parents stare in wonderment, when I reveal my purchase before them at the dinner table. The jacket is conspicuous, but the deed is done. It has been altered. This is not a year round jacket; it cannot be worn to a wake, funeral, or any other Christian occasion. I have defied the laws of nature. Oh well, my parents figure, I can always just stay home. See "Leave It To Beaver", "Wally's New Suit" www.sitcomsonline.com On a recent excursion on Fifth Avenue I fell in love with a “made to measure” jacket displayed on a headless mannequin in Sak’s front window. It is romantically flanked by gondola poles. This jacket instantaneously brought be back to my youth. I did not dare look at the price tag. This suit was just meant for dreaming. Like your grandmothers Shalimar, or the way you can recall the smell of your elementary school gymnasium, I was transported back in time. I once had a similar jacket. It too was woven with one hundred and eight shades of blue, one I think for each sea in the world. It was purchased in the mid 1970’s, while I was still in high school. When we lived in a world of wrinkle-free double knits and drip-dry polyester blends. We are just past Watergate and the Viet Nam War. The Age of Aquarius has passed into the Era of Disco. I am ruminating over the suit I will carry with me for the next few years. I have moved up the hierarchy of New Jersey retailers, and find myself in Portnoff’s, on South Orange Avenue. This is the store where the Jewish men who live on the hill, on the other side of Wyoming Avenue, in an area known as Newstead live (read: exclusive). Poor Mr. Portnoff, his families name was bastardized by Phillip Roth in his 1969 novel, “Portnoy’s Complaint". Follow this if you can, another Roth novel was adapted for film. “Goodbye Columbus” was made into a film in 1969. (Same year that "Portnoy's Complaint" the novel came out.) The film co-starred Jack Klugman, as Benjamin Patimkin. In 1972, Jack Somak played Jack Portnoy, in “Portnoy’s Complaint”. Both films starred Richard Benjamin. In “Goodbye Columbus“, he played Neil Klugman, and in “Portnoy’s Complaint” he played Alexander Portnoy. Jack Somack played a poor man's version of Mr. Portnoff in the film in 1972. Like the progeniter in the novel and film, Portnoff’s sells stylish clothing, some with designer names; you would have to go into New York City to find anything better. My personality is nearly fully formed, or as fully formed as a seventeen year olds personality can be. My body is now shaped closer to that that of a young man. I have shoulders and a waist, and the visible trace of pectoral muscles. Like time and biology, a suit can transform you from one thing into another. A suit is an almost living thing. Living things are characterized by six characteristics, cells, organization, energy use, metabolism, growth and reproduction. If we loosen up the strict scientific meanings, each characteristic can be applied to a suit. Suits are made of material, which are cellular. Fabric is organized by its weave and weft. Suits protect us from the elements, can draw and retain heat and therefore rely on energy use. Suits are absorbent, when made of natural materials, like cotton, flax, linen, wool or silk, which additionally relies of food, soil, and water to sustain themselves, thus are metabolized. As for growth, suits do no go nor are harvested n the classic sense, but they do have the ability to stretch, conform, and can be “let out”. In addition, while suits are not self-reproductive they are reproduced. Portnoff’s is located just under the South Orange Village railroad trestle. I can hear and feel the rumble of the Erie Lackawanna’s Montclair Line’s 4:45 pm early commuter train as it shakes the acoustic popcorn tile. Small flakes of embedded glitter fall to the floor like snow in a globe. I am given a budget of 50.00, ideally, but can spend no more than 75.00, which is almost twice what a sport jacket would cost at Lord & Taylor, in Millburn. Always a pragmatist I reason that I will split the difference, and begin my rigorous search for a jacket that retails for 62.50. My practicality is certain to impress my parents. I try on any number of decent options, but it is not until Mr. Portnoff suggests that I try a sedate Del-robia blue tartan plaid, made from Scottish goods, an imported item, that finally ascend to heaven. Mr. Portnoff is unabashed, telling me that this particular shade of blue compliments my green eyes. (Lie of the century!) He suggest that there is some sort of an alchemistic magic. My hair is prematurely graying, Mr. Portnoff instinctually knows that I am self-conscience; he reports with authority that I will look distinguished, perhaps even like Alain Delon or Louis Jourdan. Mr. Portnoff knows that I am taking French in school. The jacket has a ticket pocket, which I find strangely curious; as it is doubtful I will be traveling, or spending a night at the Burlesque. Still I wonder what secret item or talisman can I keep in it. The buttons are dark bone, and veined like marble. The jacket has soft padded shoulders that makes my frame look just a bit broader. It is a one-button jobber, with a deep lapel, which creates the illusion of an expansive chest. Finishing the picture, the lining is cerulean. Vermeer need only to paint me beside an open window. I sometimes think that a suit to a man is what lingerie is to a woman. A suit is the defining garment that shapes our sense of self. A man without a suit is really just a boy. These are some memoirs of a suit. 
March 19, 2009
Necessity Is The Mother of Invention
The Climate Change Chocolate Bar
Bloomsberry, the modest little chocolatier who sells its candy bars in groovy wrappers decorated with a human footprint, have teamed up with Terra Pass, a green energy broker, to offer these "Climate Change Chocolate" bars. The wrappers are printed with 15 educative tips to help you reduce your carbon footprint on the world, (can you imagine the impact if Hershey and Mars got on board?) and in addition, have included in their sale price, enough carbon energy credits from Terra Pass to offset your carbon footprint for one day. Now I have another reason to indulge in chocolate. You can read more about the global warming confection at Terra Pass' website... www.terrapass.com
The Fizz - Screw-on Ice Cream Float Cup
I see an infomercial with Anthony Sullivan any day now for The Fizz Cup, which is a plastic cup that screws onto a plastic bottle allowing you to create a mobile (take it with you) ice cream float. Once you screw the cup to a bottle, fill the cup up with your favorite ice cream, then insert a straw, (maybe even a crazy straw), and finally, squeeze the bottle. This fills the cup with soda, allowing you to sip out a mixture of ice cream and soda. The soda stays fresh. The cup is reusable, but not dishwasher safe. Where do I re-invest my 401K rollover? Check out www.thefizzcup.com
Throx - Socks with a Spare
Throx is a company that sells socks, claiming to have solved the age old problem of the missing sock, by selling three socks instead of two. Brilliant! Only last weekend the dryer ate one of my socks, or it was whisked away by an aberrant sock fairy to the land of lost socks. Visit Throx online...www.throx.com
World's First Non-Contact Thermometer
A company called Kidz-Med, Inc. has launched a new thermometer called, "Thermofocus", claiming it’s the first thermometer to accurately take body temperature readings without even touching the body. (Say what? Didn’t Dr. McCoy have one of these on Star Trek?” The product's website says Thermofocus can read infrared heat emanating from a person's forehead, and give results as accurate as a rectal thermometer, (Ouch, and then some) and more accurately than an ear thermometer. They advise pointing the device towards the forehead because the head is supplied with blood from the temporal artery, which receives blood through the aorta, and the carotid artery, guaranteeing a considerable flow of blood. (Cherry Ames Student Nurse would be impressed!) Moreover, the forehead is the only part of the body close to the brain that is not covered in hair. (I never thought about that) Kidz-Med says you can also use the Thermofocus to take the temperatures of baby formula, bath water, and food. Hallelujah! Visit Kidz-Med online at...www.kidzmed.com
