Pod Person

When I was an assistant counselor at summer camp, in the days before anyone but geeks had the Internet, I had a quirk that I didn't find all that quirky, but that quirked other people's quirkers.

Someone would say, "Have you ever seen (for instance) Top Gun?" And I would say, "With Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis?" and my friend would say, "Yes!" and I would say, "I haven't seen it."

They thought this was odd. But I was just a human, analog precursor to IMDb.com — another million-dollar idea, I might add — albeit one focused almost entirely on movie that a teenage girl would find interesting for whatever reason.

Some movies have had an osmotic impact on me, even though I've never seen them.

Top Gun is not one of them. Justin Long's obsession with that movie in that movie where he and Drew Barrymore have a long-distance relationship (whose name escapes me at the moment, as I am no longer 17 — and this is why someone actually invented IMDb instead of relying on treacherous brain cells) would have been a deal breaker for me, were I in Drew Barrymore's position, which I so rarely am.

(Although apparently she showed up at a bar one night right after I had gone home and complained to all my friends about Fabrizio Moretti. Why didn't I just fall asleep on some coats?!)

Dammit.

ANYWAY, I've probably thought about Top Gun more in the last five minutes than in my entire life, with the possible exception of when I was puzzling over its appeal during... Going the Distance (thank you brain), but what this post is actually about is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I remember, as a kid, reading some nonfiction by Stephen King (Danse Macabre, most likely) in which he talked about Invasion of the Body Snatchers, particularly the scene where a terrified woman describes her suspicion that her husband has been taken over. She's telling someone about how she doesn't think her husband is her husband, and she mentions a birthmark of her husband's, and checking the suspected impostor for the birthmark. Her friend asks her if she's scared because there was no birthmark... but there was, and that's why she's scared.

I figured I would see the movie eventually, but I never have. I know it's supposed to be about McCarthyism (or Communism, or maybe just aliens), but for some reason that image, or my idea of that image, really resonated with me — it's more chilling when everything seems to be in apple pie order, but there's something dangerously, invisibly awry just below the surface.

Oh yeah, dresses. The print on Pod Person

seems like a portrayal of an odd and alien garden, just about to slither in and take over.

You could call it a floral design, I suppose, but it's much more intently focused on creeping tendrils, and vines, and pods that could just be waiting to unleash something nefarious upon us all.

They're here already! You're next! You're next! You're next!

What am I saying?! Pod Person isn't evil!

It has fabric-covered buttons!

ETA: I knew I was forgetting something... the winner of last week's Giveaway. Reading in Skirts, who by the way has a lovely style blog of her own, is the lucky new owner of Bluey. Reading, I don't think I have your email address — maybe you should subscribe...


All photos by Claire Loeb!