Mrs. Blandings: Simply Divine

Today's post was supposed to be about finding cool stuff for yourself instead of letting catalogue companies reproduce it and deliver it to your mailbox, but I took a turn at Spivey's Books and never made it to the River Market Antique Mall.

There I found this tiny little pamphlet-like thing, Interiors, Character and Color edited and written by Van Day Truex. For $3. Wonderful. Being so close to Half-Priced Books I stopped in to see if Vreeland's Allure was still there. Was. Truly, I don't need to be spending $50 on a book, but it seemed some kind of divine intervention so I lugged it around while making a quick dash through the design section. There, completely unaware that it is fashion week, was The Fashion House with no price tag. "How about $2 since the jacket is torn?" said the nice woman behind the counter. Um. Great. Thereby justifying the alluring Allure.

So while the youngest did his math homework and spelling, I was tutored by Vreeland and Truex. After all her musings on style and photography and attitude she declares, "...really, we should forget all this nonsense and just stay home and read Proust."

Then, with iCarly in the background, I noticed Yves Saint Laurent's note in the Fashion House that his entire home was conceived around Rememberance of Things Past. But I can't possibly return to Proust right now as Franzen has my fancy and in the meantime I must ponder the allure of Bill Blass's white walls.

Jonathan Franzen will be at Unity Temple on the Plaza, thanks to the wonderful Rainy Day Books, September 22nd. Information here.