Tuesday, June 24, 2014

In Which I Come To A Conclusion...

...of sorts. While I find les cravates and this sort of micro-writing endlessly fascinating, I no longer find the neckwear of Mr. Brian Williams to be consistently inspiring. Thankfully, the Title of this repository has planned for this eventuality. Once in a while, I will review a tie when the mood strikes, but on a capricious basis. And certainly on the Re-emergence Of The Lovely Pink Tie.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Art Heads

When I was in high school, all the art kids used to bring these grey boards to classes and use incredibly sharp, wooden-handled tools to eke out designs in them. So, while they were supposed to be listening to teachers talk about bisecting angles, titrating solutions, or punctuating subordinate clauses, they were instead digging out pieces of rubbery grey matter in varying line widths and chunks, leaving behind piles of crumbs and curls. Brian's tie tonight reminds me of those projects, with its reddish blocks of textured lines set onto a deep blue background.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Again With The Lazy Ties

SPT.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Ladies Night

Bri couldn't wait any longer; he knotted up a purple tie this evening.  His choice was the textured violet silk with creamy Swiss dots in martial array.  Wednesday evenings bored him, but he could do exactly nothing about it.  He was too little to stay home alone, his mother said, and the stern finality in her voice warned him away from any argument.  As she packed up her sewing bag, he stuffed a rucksack full of toys.  At the schoolhouse, the warm yellow light shone through the windows.  Already, a dozen women were bent over the big quilt rack, their sharp needles piercing the stretched fabric, the threads rising and falling with the hum of their voices.  He crawled underneath, lay on his back, and opened his toybag to pull out few biplanes. With the deep purple of the quilt above him serving as the sky, each stitch a star, he flew missions and sorties until the war was over.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Destination

Oh, well. Brian has decided upon the faded indigo tie with the charcoal grey medallions. She walked out of the airport with her backpack and shoulder bag and stood on the median. Cabs and cars and buses crawled by, lingering, then rolling on, full or empty in accordance with their destination. At first she was afraid, the kind of fear that pinned her chest, held her breath hard, made her eyes bulge and pulse. She looked down, closed her eyes, willed herself to inhale slowly. Inside her boots, she curled her toes. When she opened her eyes, she felt calmer. It was chilly. She buttoned up the old denim jacket, the metal buttons dull and worn from overuse, and wound the scarf around her neck a few times. Without waiting for traffic to clear, she stepped off the curb.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

It's Like The First Line Of "Bohemian Rhapsody" Keeps Looping In My Head

We are refreshed and ready to Report...and Brian Williams has his own Little Hiatus, bringing the lovely Ann Curry in off the bench to take over The Nightly Desk. Did we get a new cravat upon his return? Ha! It is to laugh. Instead, he dug into the depths and brought forth the baby blue with white and midnight stripes, one that is so oddly contrasting that it appears surreal and somehow animated or painted, much like the landscape of Deadvlei, Namibia.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

This Just In

The Report is on Summer Hiatus until June.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The Dinner Party

Textured purple silk with mini white polka dots in a grid pattern is the cravat this evening. She could hear the easy flow of conversation punctuated here and there with appreciative and genuine laughter. It was astonishing, really, how well things were going. Their work friends were getting along with their social friends, the lamb came out beautifully medium rare, and now all she had to do was finish getting dessert ready. Her dark, dense chocolate cake was gorgeous, and she took the pan of baco noir granita out of the freezer. Her fork left perfect shards of icy wine as she scraped the tines along the surface over and over again. She placed a scoop atop each sliver of cake. It was then that she glimpsed her apron hanging on the back of the chair. Panicking, she looked at the front of her white tunic, certain she would see spots of wine.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

What, Again?

Grey Amoeba Tie.

Monday, May 5, 2014

The Promise

How lovely, and how unexpected! Mr. Williams resurrects a long-absent striper of beach sand and bluesky for viewers this evening. She didn't care that it was too cold to go in the water. All she knew was that as soon as she was near the ocean, she was going to find a way to get close to it, close enough to find a way to pull over and walk right to it and stand at its rim, looking at its impossible vastness. She had spent all of her life landlocked, closed in by dirt and grass and trees and crowds. There was something in her that needed to see the immense possibility of expanse. Something that was churning with life below, holding promise and holding secrets. A huge promise of life within what looked like only emptiness.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Searching For Warmth

As The Report struggles to regain its composure after a rare airing of the once ubiquitous Original Evil Tie, Brian knots up the slender stripes of deep turquoise and worsted grey-blue.  She pulled her shawl more tightly around her thin shoulders and hoped it would stop the chill draft.  It was early spring, but she had awakened to frost every morning this week.  Bright sun belied the freezing temperatures, and the cloudless sky only meant crisper cold.  Her hands ached; she drew on old wool gloves with the fingertips cut off and set the teapot on to boil.  From the basket on the floor, she unearthed her knitting and sat down to work the arthritis out of her fingers while waiting for tea.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Is This Real Life?

TWSNLBRAINDTM.  I'm still reeling.

Monday, April 28, 2014

First, The Unceasing Rain, And Now, This

Grey Amoeba Tie. The Report returns from a lovely Southern Jaunt, and this cravat is what greets us. Le sigh.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

And Another One Bites The Dust

Grey Amoeba Tie. I know, I know! It's a perfectly respectable tie, but Brian himself resigned this cravat to its Den Of Ubiquity. We had no choice.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Over It

Purple Purple Purple Yawn Yawn Yawn The End.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Spring Plans

Brian Williams selects a stripe of charcoal and lilac for this evening's newscast. It finally felt like Spring, and they grabbed the last of the bottle to take out on the deck.  It was far too early for either of them to have brought out the patio furniture proper, but there were two folding lounge chairs in the garage.  They set them side by side, poured the wine, and sat down to survey the back yard.  The purple crocuses had popped out overnight, and the place looked as if it had been carpeted by a magic gardener.  Dusk fell as they talked about their future plans for the house, for themselves, for everything.