becky haycox

Month: July 2007

  • lighten up! it’s just fashion!

    Santino

    (UpdateII): My goodness, I got quoted (quoting D. Hale) in the SFluxe blog .. awesome dishy SF-society blog that it is. (/UpdateII)

    (Update) If you want more details of the interview in near-transcript form, go to Blogging Project Runway. Also, see who is the first commenter below on this post? And who fav’ed all photos of himself in my flickrstream (within a 1/2 hour of my posting them)? Santino Rice, that’s who! (/Update)

    I would like to report that (thanks to the near real-time scoop reporting of Blogging Project Runway), I was the very first person to order tickets to this event, Bad Boys of Runway at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, which happened last July 27 and starred Santino Rice and Jeffrey Sebelia of Project Runway. Of course, I was too cheap to get the most exclusive gold tickets that would have enabled Alison and me to actually rub actual elbows with the boys, but life is what it is.

    I hate overuse of the word fabulous, but I’d reckon there was quite a bit of fabulousity. Witness the boys’ introduction: Jeffrey rode in, piggyback on Santino, from the back of the theatre, throwing handfuls of glitter into the air. They ended up in front of a streamer-firing cannon as the audience nearly fell apart. Fabulous!

    [I interject here that I am, obviously, a huge Project Runway fan. I have never had such geeky devotion for anything in my adult life. I can’t explain. I can only love. Love!]

    Tiny Tim Gunn There was satisfying dishing of the show. There was a lot of photos. There was a surprisingly funny Tim Gunn impersonator, who was pint size but spot on.

    fabulous fashion in film There was a cringe-worthy fashion show, a queasy mix of bad drag-queen performance art and really awful gowns. Judge Denise Hale had one of the best lines of the night, in her thicket of accent, when a good dress finally came down the runway:

    Every dress has been STOO-peed but for this one.

    Jeffrey and Denise Denise Hale! If all socialites-of-a-certain-age were more like her, we’d all have a much more EEEN-teresting life.

    You might think that Santino smiled at me because of my waving and my camera-wielding. But I know it was because of my hat.

    See the entire photo set here

  • effervescent

    john_waters.jpg

    I just got back from seeing Hairspray. Oh, my good friends who are reading this, I can see you bracing yourself from over here. Please unclench!

    [Explanation: I am somewhat notorious for hating almost every movie I see. However, there appears to be a Hambox de-curmudgeonization trend of late. I am getting older and less harshly judgmental of the moving image, I guess. Perhaps it has been the several years’ vacation from forced viewing of many experimental films while working for an indie film organization. Plus, I hardly ever go to the movies and only rent things from Netflix that my Netflix friends recommend to me. See? See how much I’ve softened?]

    What was the curmudgeon saying? Oh yes. Hairspray. I loved it. Loved loved loved it. Dazzling! Bubbly! Totally escapist! I giggled nonstop whilst elbowing Jeff and shoveling popcorn in my mouth. I even got teary, I was that overcome with sheer delight.

    It goes beyond the fact I’m a musical geek. And beyond the giddy, summery feeling of impulsively going to a matinee with pals.

    I felt just as I did when I saw John Waters’s original version way back when (though the two films are different beasts). The delight of seeing something so sexy and offbeat and sly and fun and cool — the colors, the sounds, the shapes, that dancing — it was as though a very very good drug was being painted directly on the hard-wired happy centers of my brain.

    I could feel such a connection to the 1988 me, almost as though the spirit of that younger, weirder Becky was co-inhabiting my body. Like, through the reaction to the movies, I was validated for who I was then and who I turned out to be. And all so bittersweet, too — things turned out so differently for me, for all of us, than the dream presented in this confection.

    Can you tell I’m still high? Listen to this monumental hyperbole! Good lord, I’m going to regret hitting “Publish.” But publish this post I will. While me and vintage-me continue to catch up, I send out turquoise-and-pink beribboned kisses to all the boys and girls.

    PS: Okay, it wasn’t perfect:

    • Only John Travolta attempted a Baltimore accent; why didn’t anyone else?
    • Not enough eyeglasses. If you see a yearbook from that era, you’d know.
    • Queen Latifah’s necklace was distracting, no?
    • I won’t spoil, but: Tracy’s transformation at the end was a little off, year-wise. John W.’s Tracy did it better.
    • I missed the beatniks.
    • Maybe one song too many?
    • I told you! I’m like that!

    john_waters.jpg, originally uploaded by arimoore. Thanks for letting me use it!

  • and that’s the way you do it

    The Emmy nominations are out. Who’s got their fingers crossed?

    Update 9/11/07: Great googlymoogly, they won.

    deek in a box

    Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics

    Saturday Night Live • Host: Justin Timberlake
    Song title: “Dick In A Box”
    NBC • SNL Studios in association
    with NBC Studios and Broadway Video
    Justin Timberlake, Music & Lyrics By
    Jorma Taccone, Music & Lyrics By
    Katreese Barnes, Music By
    Asa Taccone, Music By
    Akiva Schaffer, Lyrics By
    Andy Samberg, Lyrics By

    [clip is NSFW]