Interesting Things

Yes, I will admit it, it IS this first thing that pops into my head. Yes, I am talking about The Sex Lives of Conjoined Twins in The Atlantic. Does that make me a bad person? When you hear about conjoined people, what is the first thing you think of?

I am always in the market for a new set of headphones (Not that I do not love my SkullCandy ones, but...I can always upgrade.), however, headphones can be really expensive. Mashable has a review of $60 headphones that are pretty awesome. These Cheap Headphones Will Knock Your Socks Off.

Middle School/Junior High is the forgotten middle child of education. (I know, because I did not train as a teacher, that I am not allowed to have opinions on how education works. I am just passing this on.) Slate has a piece about a school in Rhode Island that is handling Middle School differently with good results and why it has a tendency to be ignored. The Worst Years of Our Lives: How We Can Make Middle School Less Awful?

Presented Without Comment: Friendship, Dating, Attraction, & Heartbreak (The Hairpin)

Via Kempt: How to Tie a Bow Tie.

I mean, I know you have a smart phone and therefore have access to Untappd (if you do join Untappd, I am ewabbott...just sayin'), but I guess you could use this Moleskin Beer Journal. (Uncrate)

Finally...
Arcade Fire is working on a new album with a release date in sometime 2013. (Pitchfork, Pretty Much Amazing, Vulture)

Something Old, Something New, Always Classic

My mother's father was a dapper man. In this case were are defining dapper as "neat, trim; stylishly dressed, neatly dressed; spiffy". A lot of what I think about men's fashion derived from the way he dressed. Now I am neither as neat nor as fastidious about clothing as he was, but I am also of a different era. My grandfather went bald early and one of the reasons I am proud and happy to crop my hair so often was because he had. If he had no reason to "be ashamed" by what was natural, why should I?

That being the case, I always remembered my grandfather's bow ties. Now, over the years, I have been known to wear one, but never as well or as consistently as he did. When my grandfather passed, I wore one of his ties to his funeral, as an homage to him, and the only thing I asked for to remember him by were his bow ties.

I went through the bag of them yesterday and I was amazed by them. With the exception of three, they were all Brooks Brothers (the others being Cohoes Manufacturing back when Cohoes was known for something other than unwed mothers and high STD rates), and they spanned forty years of men's fashion.

Some of these have not aged well, but others are still current and amazingly so. Looking at them, I see the patterns that I wore as recently as last week.

I do realize that I need to lose twenty pounds to wear them regularly, but I love the idea of wearing them, as a statement of my love for my grandfather, as well as a statement about men's fashion.

Would you see a bow tie as an affectation or something novel if you saw me, or anyone else, wearing one?