Patrick bateman does david byrne

Miles Fisher - This Must Be The Place (Cover) from Miles Fisher on Vimeo.

Do you like Miles Fisher? His latest EP marks a new peak of professionalism. This is his take on David Byrne’s ‘This Must Be the Place’.

In case you missed it in 2009, Popmatters has recently rediscovered Fisher’s version of the Talking Heads hit (below), which in a brilliant tribute to American Psycho, examines how ‘even monsters love pop music’. 

According to a little research, Fisher is a former Texan with a penchant for a capella (he took his Harvard troupe, the Krokodiloes on a tour of 24 countries). He does a mad Tom Cruise impression and played Kinsey’s preppy Princeton drug-pushing buddy Jeffrey Graves in Mad Men, below. (You may recall uptight Peggy’s defiant introduction: ‘I’m Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke some marijuana’).

The fact that he bears an uncanny resemblance to both Tom Cruise and Christian Bale, combined with his mum sitting on the board of the National Film Institute, makes me think he’s pretty much cut out for a life on screen. However, his Ivy League education and the almost excruciating level of detail he’s gone to make the Byrne cover work shows there must be something more to him than just looking like an early-80s Cruise/Bale hybrid.

But then… maybe he’s just riding on the fact that two formerly respected actors are now almost universally known for being either difficult or virtually insane. Plus he’s probably demanding a much, much lower rate for the charming yet slightly sleazy prepster roles.

Hell, it’s a great, great song. And a personal favourite.  I say more power to him. You can check him out at Milesfisher.com, read a mega interview with American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis over at Vice (just don’t blame me if the photos of his smug face make you want to retch/never read a BEE novel again) or enjoy the original David Byrne track below:

David cameron wants to be like common people

I went to Eton paid a lot for knowledge…

Today I received my postal voting papers. Not long after, a dear friend sent me this Pulp-inspired ditty, officially ruining this classic song for me forever.

Sack off health care, cut some jobs
Support the rich guys & fuck the yobs.

Then in another attempt to gain some street cred, Cameron announced The Wire is excellent and Dominic ‘McNulty’ West used to fancy his wife. Fortunately, West deftly blamed it on his mysterious friend, ‘Nick’. This comes directly from the Telegraph’s Election Coverage, not some two-bit glossie.

Now if I can just get my head around hung parliaments, I’ll be ready to cast my vote.

Summer is a verb, says new preppy bible

Summer - verb (used with object)
To spend or pass the summer. They summered in Southampton.

So says Alice Richardson, author of Summer is a Verb blog. She’s looking forward to True Prep, the long-awaited sequel (due out in September) to The Official Preppy Handbook, which she describes as ‘like a Bible to us’ in a recent New York Times article.

The NYT says Muffy & Biff (which I assume are akin to Tarquin and Beatrice in the UK?) can rejoice in a revised version of the Preppy Handbook. The original was released in 1980  (‘when it was fun to hate the rich’) and quickly became a cult favourite both with preppy kids – and those who wanted to be them.

This new version ‘dispenses a dollop of  upper-class frugality’ for the modern ‘prepster’ and even includes advice on rehab and new technology, as well as specific sections on the gay and black preppy scenes. (How inclusive of them!).

As for the new guide’s target audience, Ms Richardson (who at 44 is something of an OGP) is listed alongside ex-sorority girl Helen ‘Hopsy’ Goblirsch (from Kappa Prep, with its delightful ‘WASP Wednesday’ series). They’re just two of the many preppy bloggers who chronicle their lives in pink and green. (Apparently preppy folk like these two colours. As did my cousin when she 11. I thought it was a hideous colour combination and wondered why she would ever make an email address declaring her love for the two. Perhaps she was just a ‘prepster’ in the making?)

True Prep is in now in production thanks to Chip Kidd, ‘one of the industry’s best-known book designers’*. Kidd is working with one of the original writers, Lisa Birnbach, whilst the guy who came up with the entire concept, Jonathon Roberts, has refused to be involved. He explains:

The only reason you do something again is if maybe you’re going to do it better — like Godfather II.

But Preppy Handbook? I mean, come on. The subversive idea behind it was if you can reveal all of the secret systems and totems by which a portion of society keeps its elite status, you kind of pull the rug out from under them.

Respect. Roberts deserves a medal for this splendid display of integrity in the face of a book deal.

For similar satire of the upper classes in the UK, please refer to 1982’s Official Sloane Rangers Handbook. Author Peter York was asked in 2007 to update his guide to the traditional values of the privileged, although no such book has been released.

Yet. 

In the meantime, please see Orlando’s exploits in the jungles of Burma, below.  Not a preppy bible, as such, but rather an acute jab at the privileged youngsters who (literally) travel far and wide on their gap year. Then chunder everywhere.

*Which industry is that, NYT? The preppy-guidebook-loving book designer industry?

**OGP c.f. OGT

Read more about the photo guide to preppy style.

Japanese photographer unwittingly creates summer festival style bible

Can you stay up to see the dawn in the colours of Bennetton?

Little did Japanese photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida know his 1965 collection of Ivy League style would one day be coveted by Vampire Weekend fans the world over. His book, Take Ivy,  is now being re-released at a significant saving – original copies can garner almost a grand on eBay. Read more at powerHouse books, or enjoy the lovely photo montage from Esquire UK while considering just how far we’ve come in 45 years.