Thursday, June 26, 2008

Nick's choice

I don't know how you feel about seersucker, or if you are even actually acquainted with it.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, I found an image on the Internet to give you some idea.

Personally, I kind of hate it. But I can't really tell if I hate how it looks or if I mostly hate it because I associate it with Carolina. And my college years just sucked so much ass.

And so things that take me back will often give me a visceral reaction. Not southern accents, fortunately, because Nick has one, and I find it charming. I don't seek them out, but I like his.

But things like seersucker, which as far as I can tell, is always worn with bucs. And I got bucs at college. Even though I loathed those fucking shoes. That's how hard I was trying to blend.

So anyway.

Seersucker is a summer fabric - thin cotton. It's striped, and woven in a particular way so as to make it pucker, which apparently means that it doesn't sit right on your skin, so it's cooler. I get why it's practical.

Nick has a seersucker suit. He wears it with white bucs. He hates being hot, and he loves this suit. And he really does look all clean-cut and handsome in it.

Incidentally, he is not a small man. He's 6'4" and has this gigantor frame. And the reason I bring this up is as follows. When he wears this suit? Let's just say that if you ever see an enormous wall of seersucker walking down the street, it's most likely my beloved.

And furtherly incidentally, have you ever seen Sophie's Choice?

If you've not, it's an extraordinary film.

Sophie, played my Meryl Streep, is a Polish woman who has survived the holocaust and has made it to America. In the present in the movie, she's living in a boarding house with Kevin Kline. Both actors are so young and gorgeous and incredible. And Streep does an amazing job with the accent. As always.

There's also this young southern writer living there - Stingo, the narrator. The three of them become friends, and they have a very intense friendship. And this young fella, he falls so in love with Sophie.

He's all freshly-scrubbed and sweet and earnest. And one day he's wearing a seersucker suit. He's a completely lovely, southern, seersucker suit wearing kind of guy.

She compliments him sincerely, in her near but not totally perfect English. On his cocksucker suit.

So as you may imagine, Nick, who enjoys the seersucker significantly more than I do, is beyond done with my compliments.

15 comments:

  1. I adore a man in a seersucker suit. But I'll never be able to walk away from one without paying him such a compliment again. Hilarious.

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  2. Bwah hahahahaha.

    Thank you.

    :o)

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  3. oh goodness, he really IS a conservative, isn't he? ;-)

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  4. Maiden Metallurgist - Hahahaha! I would like to hear that happen, especially if you say it very sincerely.

    Dagny - My pleasure. :)

    kate.d. - He really, really looks conservative. And he has conservative taste in furniture and art and really just about everything except people. But his politics and world view? Not remotely conservative. Thank goodness.

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  5. Is it just me... or does one have to be white to get away with wearing seersucker? Really, not just white, but on the pale end of the spectrum.

    On the Hill, seersucker season is in full swing... and I alternately cringe and laugh every time I see someone with darker skin wearing seersucker. I hate heat more than most - I'd like for it to be between 55 and 65 year round, but I just can't imagine myself in seersucker.

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  6. Oh, how I love you!

    The moment you said seersucker, I was thinking of Nick's size.

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  7. hahah.

    so entertaining!

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  8. VVK - I am a bad person to ask, not being fond of the stuff. But I'd think that the dark skin-pale fabric combo could be nice? I imagine you in a nice linen suit rather than seersucker.

    FreckledK - You're one of few who can actually envision the wall o' seersucker. :)

    Slightly Disorganized - Thank you, my sweet! I don't recall ever seeing seersucker in SoCal.

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  9. Seersucker suits are like tuxedos. If you have one that is properly tailored and with the right accessories (the most important accessories are confidence and comfort, by the by) you look like you have the world on string. If you wear a rented or untailored tux or seersucker, then emperor would be better off with no clothes.

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  10. oh good lord, I thought you were going to say he wanted to wear that at your wedding!

    One doesn't run across much seersucker here in MA, so I don't have much scope for my distaste for the fabric. However, I do remember an incredibly arrogant guy coming in to pitch his (pathetic) product to me very early in my career, when I was an industry analyst, and he was wearing a seersucker suit and a bow-tie and a self-satisfied expression on his face. I could not imagine how I was supposed to take him seriously. Maybe if he had been more southern-gentlemanly I would have been more receptive to both the suit and the message, but the arrogance-suit combo just put me over the edge.

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  11. Restaurant Refugee - I think that's true. Everything looks better when you look confident and comfortable.

    Cheryl - Hahaha! No, not for the wedding. Although I have to say he has been threatening to wear this "special" jacket inherited from his father. I can't even bear to talk about it. He also doesn't wear bow ties, and I'm pretty happy about that. And arrogance makes me soooo angry! Ugh!

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  12. Omg, I went to UNC Chapel Hill, but I'm from Massachusetts, so the southern fratastic/sorostitute 'culture' was a completely foreign phenomenon to me- if I see a guy wearing seersucker, boat shoes, croakies, a popped collar, or god forbid, pleated salmon-colored short shorts... well let's just say, biggest turn-off EVER.

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  13. It can look sharp, but generally, I have to go with the cocksucker analysis when I see a guy wearing one.

    Meryl Streep is a wise woman.

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  14. being a happy graduate of Georgetown, where seersucker is all the rage (i mean, we are a scant few steps from the capitol and those interns sure do love it), I take your side in that I'm not a huge fan of it. Which seems to be blasphemous here in the 'south'

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  15. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...that is hysterical. I was so intrigued w/the Sophie's Choice observation, frantically trying to remember the movie in my head to see the connection and I totally forgot that comment about the suit. Absolutely hilariuos...

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