Sassy Senoritas Eating Juevos And Gorditas

So some of you guys (V, Sarah, and Alex) might have noticed something pop up in your inbox this morning. That's because I made a new blog! It's called Brooklyn Prom Queen and it's super special because it's just for you guys! By you guys, once again I mean V, Sarah, and Alex. On it we can discuss awesomesauce music, kickass books, movies, and other badass magazines and publications that we like as well as White Rice!

It's basically the blawg Messiah. Oh yeah, so back to your inboxes (what a fucked up plural!), I sent you guys emails so the four of us can all write whatever we want whenever we want!

Brooklyn Prom Queens unite!

E

Mag Hag, Pt 2

I've talked about magazines before, duh. But damn, I really love them. So I'll talk about them again. Each magazine has always served a different purpose for me. When I was a virgin, I would scour the pages of Cosmo to find out enticing sex tips that were sure to make my first time amazing. (Alternatively, I lost my virginity to M83 in my boyfriend's dad's bed while on my period. Cosmo did nothing for me. It mostly just went out my head. Such a sordid past I have.) I flipped through Seventeen with a pink gel pen and circled everything that was $20 or under, and used it as a shopping list. I read up on the history of seminal 90s bands in Alternative Press and then pretended to be really well versed in music. From Entertainment Weekly I learned to be a sarcastic well spoken bitch that could make people laugh as well as report a story without bias. CosmoGirl taught me that virgins are sluttier than people think and from Missbehave...well...I basically got saved.

But since the invention of online indie magazines and the onslaught of startup productions it's started, raw creativity and vision has suddenly got the most amazing outlet, one that allows full interaction with the reader and full control of the writers. We're living in an age where there are no limits, no boundaries, no ceilings on potential, growth, and substance. No longer do you have to create a vapid, mindless mag catering to a pointless and empty headed demographic. No longer do celebrities, scandals, sex, or affairs have to be the paradigm of story fodder. We're in the most amazing age where we can literally transfer our thoughts, unyielding, uncompromising, and unstoppable, from person to person in their purest form.

That is the vision I have for White Rice. I've talked about WR before, obvi, but with a futuristic tone. At first I did see it as a venture meant for a later time in my life, where I would be graduated and settled. (And hopefully getting laid a lot more than I do now. Just had to toss that in. Gawd, I love sex. Sry.) But with how far I've come in my life, I don't believe I have anything stopping me. I'm here in the city of endless possibilities and I've got determination like no one else. When I go back to my mom's house for Thanksgiving I'm going to pack up my original copies of White Rice to bring back to LA.

And once I do, you better believe I'm going to seriously get started on some shit. I would love it if V, Lolita Hazed, and Alex could write things for me. That's what a community is about, sharing the wealth and helping others as you help yourself. This is gonna be big guys. This is a revolution. And it will not be televised.

Uhhhhh, actually it might be up on Youtube.

Deuces,
Erika

Girls Aloud!

You wanna know something funny? I almost went to ATL's Girls Rock Camp back in July. But I was afraid I had too much experience on the drums.

When I go to Barnes and Noble, it's usually for just one of two things: to buy a new novel that'll help me forget how much I hate my life, or for a new issue of Missbehave or Preen. (BTW, if you've never read Preen, pick it up! It won't put you to sleep like i-D and the glossies are as cool as Visionaire. Yeah I'm cultured, what of it?)

Anyway, sometimes there are off days and I don't find anything that I'm looking for. But I have to buy something. It takes so much effort for me to walk to BnN that I never allow a trip to be in vain. So I made the mistake of picking up the new ish of Seventeen. First of all, it was hard enough for me to pay for it when Miley Cyrus was cheesing back at me on the cover. Secondly, it hurt me physically to read it.

Having been seventeen not too long ago, I can honestly say these kinds of "issues affecting teens today" were shit I was dealing with back when I was 14. "Perfect party ready makeup"? "Kissing 101"? "How to make him notice you in study hall"? What??? Maybe I would have really pored through these pages when I was in middle school, but they've become drastically irrelevant to today's young women.

Thank god for Missbehave, but I feel like there should be something more. MissB is for street savvy badass women who can hold down a 9 to 5, keep their boyfriend satisfied, cut a bitch at the bar, hit up the online sales at Karmaloop, and still have enough money to pay the rent on the 15th and buy their girls a round of drinks on Friday.

While that is (for the most part) me, there's like a void, a lost niche for a magazine that appeals to the broke-ass, socially awkward, incredibly smart, fashion forward, obsessive, compulsive 18-22 set. I'm thinking of starting a revolution. I'm thinking of starting a 'zine.

Who's with me?

Deuces,
Erika

Cole Mohr X Marc Jacobs

At first when I saw these ads I was still reeling from the MIA versions. I thought, "boy in a dress...this will pass." But there are more. And they look promising. The boy is Cole Mohr. The designer is Marc Jacobs. The photographer has always been Juergen Teller. These are dresses.

Scarily enough, I would consider buying them more after seeing them on a dude. In the famous words of Missbehave:

Discuss.


Valentina loves Cole Mohr. I like masculine Cole Mohr. I guess this works out because if they get together, they can borrow each other's clothes.

Deuces,
Erika

Magazines And Me

I like to collage. Why? Gawd, you ask sooo many questions! Well because I like to put things together in a creative way and I like being able to use random shots and words to form something meaningful. And because I can draw fairly decently, but I can collage circles around my art friends.

So as I was rounding up a few magazines to get a start on my new collage (old Nylons, double issues of Teen Vogue, a few Cosmos, but I never touch the Missbehaves because they come out quarterly and are therefore a hot commodity), I got to thinking about how I felt about magazines.

I love them. I love how for some they can be 290 page bibles, filled with glossy pages of mantras, wisdom, and life advice, but for some they can be a way to get through the day. When I was in school, I read the same issue of Nylon over and over and over again, just to combat the boredom. I can almost dictate that issue to you now.

Some people buy magazines for the articles, and some people buy them for the cover model (how I impulsively bought ElleGirl for the Adam Brody cover), and some people buy them purely based on the faith that it, based on what it says on the cover, will have all the things they want to read about.

It amazes me how a group of people can fit hours of conversation about fashion, culture, music, or food neatly into 100 pages. Certain articles can change people's lives, cause an epiphany, make your sex life better, update your wardrobe, or help someone lose 20 pounds. People live for magazines, people die for magazines. Editors-In-Chief of magazines are like celebrities. Anna Wintour, Amy Astley, Mary HK Choi, and Marvin Scott Jarrett can transform the masthead into a calling card of all-knowers of pop culture and style.

And I love zines. I love the idea of people turning to an organic creative outlet to voice their beliefs and opinions instead of just logging into Blogger and typing it out for people to randomly stumble upon.

In fact, I used to have a zine. I became antsy after endlessly pouring over my Nylons and Missbehaves and dreaming of writing for one, one day. So I made one of my own. It was called White Rice Magazine, and it was 2 only pages long because I made it on Microsoft Word, which is the only computer program I've mastered save for Powerpoint, but I wrote every article in it happily. It covered new music, fashion trends, upcoming Atlanta shows, recommended reading and a rant about whatever retarded celebrity was being retarded. It even included a current events story. It was published every 2 weeks. I distributed it to three of my friends and my mother and I was soooo proud of it.

I guess I have waxed poetic about magazines long enough, but I truly do love them. I even wrote a little love letter to a certain AWEsome mag awhile back. Now I almost buy them just to collect them. I have two years of Seventeen, two years of Teen Vogue, a year of Nylon, all the Missbehaves except for the first issue, a year of Under the Radar, assorted issues of Cosmopolitan, CosmoGirl, Jane, Entertainment Weekly, and even a year of issues from Dog Fancy back when my mom let me buy a magazine subscription in middle school.

So I'm done. The end. I sort of want to start writing White Rice again; I'd kind of just let it go, but I suppose I might when I get to the Valley and have people to distribute it to. Kthxbai.

“All "little" magazines have the luxury of thinking the reader is the same person as their editors.”

---William Whitworth

Deuces,
Erika