The Old Oxford: The Lady in the Suit

(All photos by Jesse Untracht-Oakner) When you see a woman truly wearing a suit it catches your eye, and she is an image hard to forget.  When Balzac wrote that “If clothing is the whole man, it is even more so the whole woman,” in 1830, he probably didn’t envision Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Grace Jones, or Patti Smith transforming garments traditionally made for men into something subversive, iconic, and beautiful.  Amber Doyle is in that school of women who can […]

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On the Retired Athlete Profile

If you aren’t already one of the thousands (and thousands and thousands…) of people that have read Wright Thompson’s ESPN profile on Michael Jordan dealing with his post-NBA life, it is definitely worth your time if you’re a basketball fan or not. Thompson doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that Jordan is a pretty awful person (“He can be a breathtaking asshole: self-centered, bullying and cruel. That’s the ugly side of greatness. He’s a killer, in the Darwinian sense of the word, immediately sensing […]

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Denis Johnson’s Kids: On the Short and Gritty Nu-Realism of Susan Steinberg

You read certain books at just the right time. I could go down a list of moments where literature totally clicked with what was going on in my life, what I wanted from my life, or what I was searching for.  Not to go down the entire list, but Denis Johnson’s collection of stories, Jesus’ Son, is on that list. The book that, like for so many other folks I’ve talked to, was my introduction to Johnson’s work; a path […]

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The 50th Anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s Death and Katie Roiphe’s Collected Death Day Writings

Slate observed the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death by posting a piece by the always controversial Katie Roiphe, where she floats her theory that”Quite sensibly biographers and critics have always thought that Plath’s most famous poem, “Daddy,” was about her father. I would like to float out the theory that it is really about her mother.”

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Start Your Day With The Troggs

It always irks me when I see The Troggs called a one hit wonder. “Wild Thing” is obviously an anthem for the ages, but they had so many other wonderful songs that you’ve probably heard a few times before. Since the band’s lead singer Reg Presley passed away yesterday at the age of 71, I figured now would be as good time as any for you to go ahead and blast three of those songs as a tribute to Mr. Presley, […]

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The Old Oxford: Real Men and Perfect Gentlemen

I constantly find myself looking at magazines, blogs and books that claim to be able to help the reader “Be a better man,” or pointing them to five or ten [insert whatever here] things every man needs to experience or own to truly be a man. I see books like Joel Stein’s Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity, which I assume was written as a joke, sadly I’m just too uninterested to look to find out. But then I see that nearly […]

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The Old Oxford: Downton Abbey, Gatsby, Don Draper, and Costuming Drama

There was this one shot from the premiere of the third season of Downton Abbey that has really been sticking with me. It wasn’t the epic moment when the Dowager Countess and Shirley MacLaine shared their first scene together, anything having to do with Bates in prison, or Lady Mary throwing a fit when Matthew decided he wanted to be the latest of the show’s martyrs and not accept a windfall of cash that he inherited (days before their wedding, no less). […]

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