Sigh. Futurama has brainslugs and Zim has brainworms. Get with the program.

Dumb like a moose, Dib! Dumb like a moose!

Huh. In running excitedly all over the 'net looking for a replica of an incredibly cool square silk parasol I saw in a vintage fashion newsreel, I came across this auction.

Somebody who's more designer-knowing than me, please explain? I mean, I know that Louis Vuitton is a very schmancy, high-tone designer and la la la and all that, but still. It's an umbrella. No matter how I try, no matter how many analogies to 17th-century Shakespeare octavos and mint condition Stradivarius violins I make, my brain still hits a speed bump on Umbrella and Opening Bid: $1,350. And then my brain falls into a ditch and lies there spinning its wheels helplessly.

Does this actually make sense, or does it just get filed under Rich People Are Totally Fucking Loony?

Sweet weeping Moses. An umbrella? Yes, the rich are different.

Hey JZ, I'm in the market for some new, interesting parasols myself. Do you have any favorite outlets? All I can get around here are the laquered paper jobbies...the colors of which don't always suit me.

See, the umbrella doesn't ping me. I look at the people who buy stuff like that as collectors. They collect designer stuff. For them, finding the brown and pink LV cherry blossom umbrella would be like me finding a pair of the original ruby slippers. At least, this is how I don't go and take their $1500 unbrella and beat them over the head with it.

I am in fact a parasol virgin. Jilli's the expert -- she's currently being slammed by nasty work deadlines, but if she emerges in one piece over the weekend she'll probably have a ton of links.

Also, double huh. On looking over the auction more closely, it turns out that $1,350 for this umbrella is a bargain, as when brand spanking new (in 2003-04) it sold for $2-4,000. The rich are not only different, they may be an entirely different species. A crazy species.

I know that at one point Jilli had recommended ... Dragonfly Design? ... something like that. They had parasols in, if I remember correctly, Battenburg lace type fabric.

I am in fact a parasol virgin. Jilli's the expert -- she's currently being slammed by nasty work deadlines, but if she emerges in one piece over the weekend she'll probably have a ton of links.

(I'm not really here. I am sneaking in a tiny break from endless document revisions.)

Well, Gothic Lace has some nice parasols for reasonable-ish prices. [link]

(Dragonfly Design has the same ones, but I know the owner, so buy from her! [link] )

Dharma Trading Co. has plain white silk parasols that you could decorate with fabric paints and add trim to, if you wanted. [link]

(vanishes back into doc revision hell)

My living room is 8 billion degrees. Opening the door makes it hotter. I need to get out of here and go somewhere air conditioned, but I have been rendered immobile by the heat. Send help!

I could mail a popsicle.

You can have some of our cool. I think it's about 60 (if that) and overcast. We're supposed to hit a high of 61 today!