Friday, September 07, 2012

Is This An Over-The-Top Promotional Op Or What?

Some writers, actors, and at least one artist got together to dress up as some of Edith Wharton's chums visiting her at her little place in the country, The Mount for the article The Custom of the Country: Vogue Recreates Edith Wharton's Artistic Arcadia. I'm having a hard time working out the point of the article and the illustrations for it, since it has far less to do with The Mount than it does with Wharton's sex life, which appears to have been carried on elsewhere. It seems as if they ought to have done an article about her sex life or about The Mount and not tried to confuse everyone by tangling them up together.

All the living people playing dead people seemed to have recent or upcoming projects to promote. Having flattering pictures taken of yourself in costumes seems like the ultimate way to get word out about what you're doing. I'm wracking my brain to think of a comparable project for children's lit people.

Update: I've got it! Louisa May Alcott and all her Transcendentalist buddies! I, of course, want to audition for LMA, and we can all have our pictures taken lounging around Orchard House.


4 comments:

  1. Thank you for making me smile, but I don't think LMA or the transcendentalists wore good enough clothes for Vogue. And I'm not just saying that because you called being Louisa first (just like my older sister..)

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  2. That's true about the Vogue quality clothes. While I was reading that article, I did feel that Vogue was giving coverage to one of their own, even if she had been dead for decades. LMA and her crowd would be proud to be rejected by that magazine.

    So what publication could we get to do a LMA/Transcendentalist photoshoot for us? I would be willing to negotiate roles and consider playing Margaret Fuller, Lydia Emerson, or Abigail May Alcott. The latter two I would play with a great deal of rage.

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  3. What publication would feature LMA and her friends? Mother Earth News, of course :)

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  4. Thank you for reminding me of Mother Earth. Hard to believe I'd forgotten about that magazine.

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