Adventures of the Eurotrash iPod: Chapter 1.

Scroll, scroll.... click, click, cue Kings of Convenience playlist.

Those of you who have had the pleasure of perusing my iPod will be hard-pressed to put your fingers on what exactly a eurotrash girl's music taste consists in. Hints obtained by reading through past blog posts are of no help: Hed Kandi, bossa novas, Michael Jackson, Drake... Sounds like a mischievous game of 'all of these things don't belong'. Consider this, I recently had to get a new hard-drive solely to accommodate my, busting at the seams, iTunes library.

Other than her dashing ability to foresee burgeoning trends before they burgeon, eurotrash WAS one of the first girls to own an iPod, 1st generation with the 4 buttons on top, a touch wheel and brick bodice, because she needed a soundtrack to her life.

Her iPod has been a faithful companion, cueing in the right song at the right time, transforming ordinary life into a movie. She thinks there is something so eurotrash about living in her own personal movie, without the artifice of post-production; it is as real as Bazin could ever hope. Like that first time she sat poolside at the Villas in Ravello, high above the sea barely peeking through the valley, listening to Real Ibiza Vol IV; the music made that moment a moment. She remembers it through the music, through Abraham's "Magpie". Now when she walks down the gloomy streets of Toronto, one touch of the play button, and she instantly sees the culmination of her life moments in one. She is poolside in Ravello AND sipping a nonfat latte while crossing bloor and avenue. This summer she brought a bit of her city to the coast, blasting Drake's "The City is Mine" on board Big Poppa while looking out to the open water of the medi, not a city in sight. Is there any better explanation as to why the Hammond B3 organ takes her back to her childhood? Why she can't listen to Interpol without remembering? Why Subsonica is best listened to on long bus rides across Lombardy and Justin Timberlake has a special place in Londontown? Why Jazz fits on Sunday, why Turkish music reminds her of Las Vegas, why Mahler's 5th got her through her thesis and will subsequently never be listened to ever again? Believe me, the list goes on.

Her misunderstood iPod is eurotrash just like her. She'll postpone her life happening just to find the perfect song to make it happen. And with the unfathomable success that the iPod has had since she bought her first one for 600 dollars (a rarity back then), it would seem that she is not the only one making a mundane, perhaps even depressing, trip to the laundromat a little more eurotrash by pressing play.

AN OPEN LETTER TO DRIZZY DRAKE

Dear Drizzy:

you have been been making all of toronto bob its collective head since you positively busted out this past spring with your hit single best i ever had. you're sooo sexy, your flow is the smoothest and most irresistible we've heard since biggie and you're from the tdot. what more could we ask for? the answer is your new single killa. a fervent text message from my better half last night informed me that in the first verse you make a shout-out to the amalfi coast, la divina costiera where eurotrash spent 7 long weeks this past summer. coincidence or direct inspiration? we like to imagine it's the latter. but in any case:

drizzzzzzzzy drake, we adore you.

love, eurotrash

... but i got a new jacket.

First and foremost, it's a miracle that I was even able to summon up the tenacity to blog today after almost choking on my special k cereal this morning when I opened up to page A2 of The Star and read the following headline: "Lilo takes Paris plunge". Just when we thought that nothing worse could happen to the post-apocalyptic fashion world, Lindsay Lohan gets a job designing for Emanuel Ungaro. Yes, the house that eurotrash used to love so much for that little added touch of bright red shoes, so wizard-of-Oz-esque, on every model's feet. According to David Graham, who barely dodged fourth degree murder, the show got mixed reviews - some called it the future of fashion (as coco, louis, yves and gianni all roll in their graves) and others, whom i like to call the more astute critics, called it an embarrassment. My hat goes off to Lindsay who was seen shopping leisurely on the Champs-Elysees the day before the show; now, that may not be dedication, but it is definitely eurotrash. 

So, hushing her dwindling faith in fashion for the duration of this post, eurotrash must address the rapidly plunging temperatures and her need for fur. (Disclaimer: eurotrash wears fur). My better half, whose last post rocked my world, already got her winter jacket and I am starting to feel the pressure. I don't want to be the girl who finds her dream winter jacket in another girl's size, or heaven forbid, donned by another girl. I have to double back for a moment here to when wearing a winter jacket was uncool and then to the era of the tommy and polo bombers and lastly, to the deceased tna parka, in order to appreciate how far we've come in embracing the climate just to have an excuse for adding another piece to the ever-expanding, women's wardrobe. Nowadays, being caught scantily clad in the dead of winter is a sign of fashion ineptitude, pace Lilo. Instead, eurotrash approaches winter like the Czar's daughter, and indulges in designer goose down parkas with luscious, over-the-top, fox fur trimmed hoods and collars. I mean, if you really think about it, the winter jacket is the one piece that eurotrash is dragooned into wearing every single day for approximately 7 months, give or take. That's 5 dollars a day for a jacket that costs circa 1k. Hello, investment. 

Pair the jacket with Uggs or Moon Boots, Cavalli rabbit-fur earmuffs, LV "british royal guard" fur hat (only for the brave), seal skin gloves and an extra long, missoni scarf-hat; and you have not only a case for PETA, but an undeniable, knock-out winter gitch. This year eurotrash cannot disclose her final decision on a jacket, but is leaning towards Riccardo Fiume's Hell is for Heroes ski jacket. Originally designed for climbing the mountains of Tibet, the tag line for the collection reads: "When a mountain loves a woman". Needless to say, it is easy to see how my painstaking search for a functional, yet recherche' winter jacket could quickly end here. 

If this ski store that I've never heard of on Yonge Street doesn't have the Hell is for Heroes "Scout" jacket then I'm getting my partner in crime to bamboozle canadian customs once again on her way back from Italy next month and smuggle in both our winter jackets in one sitting. 

Il faut souffrir....