I've just finished reading Diana Vreeland's autobiography. What a crazy romp! It was so fun, so over the top, everything you'd expect from the woman who made Vogue magazine what it was and is. (I guess we have to give Anna Wintour a little credit too...)
Her memoirs were quite surreal and nonsensical but I finished reading in just two days... I like to take the same approach to reading that I do to eating( when I'm being my best self...)You've got to eat your meat and greens before eating that big slice of cake. But you must never deny yourself the cake. Otherwise, what's the point in living?
So the meat and greens book I read before this one was The Scarlett Letter. How I escaped high school and college without being forced to read it I really couldn't tell you. But I can tell you that it took me weeks to plod through! Maybe I"m just a product of the internet revolution with the attention span of a nano-second, but I just can't stomach all the flowery language of that era, all the painstaking details about things that have no bearing on the story. It makes me crazy. Just spit it out for goodness sakes! I guess I'm just more of a Hemingway kind of girl. There was a man who said exactly what he wanted to and nothing more.
But back to Diana! The book is full of her trademark "fashion proverbs" (as the book jacket describes them) but I have to share this one with you. I've written it down and pinned it above my desk as an important reminder.
"Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I'm a great believer in vulgarity-if it's got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste. It's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against."
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