So Collegiate

This evening's stripe is from The Ward Cleaver Collection.  Dusky dark navy is livened up with rich scarlet diagonals, giving this tie a sort of University look.  It's the kind of tie that almost begs for a cardigan, one with an oversize argyle design, and some sort of casual academic setting.  Will there be wide-wale corduroy pants, chinos, or very dark designer jeans?  One of them, certainly.

Though We Gotta Say Goodbye For The Summer

The Report is back from our own hiatus, just in time for Brian's Monday Stripe.  Tonight's offering is a soft, satiny hyacinth blue with broad yellow diagonals.  It's as if Bri knows that Autumn is just around the corner this week, and he signals the end of Summer in a blaze of glory.  This cravat is all about the brilliantly blue skies of July and August, the heavy nodding heads of sunflowers before they shed their golden petals and relinquish their seed.

Certainly Not An Adam Sandler

As if hearing our collective frustration, Brian gives the stripes a rest and dons a different tie this evening, the soft denim blue with charcoal polka dots.  This cravat reminds me of the comedian Stephen Wright.  It's lighthearted, but in a somber, serious sort of way.  It's not slapstick and silly and sophomoric and jokey.  It's thoughtfully and cerebrally and intelligently witty. 

Last Words

Brian makes us reflect on Why We Missed Him tonight as he has knotted up another in his series of Striped Ties.  This one is brilliant white and midnight sky.  She was barely able to see the stairs, let alone find a safe way up them.  How did he let it get this bad?  As she made her way up, she moved piles and piles of books and magazines and newspapers out of her way.  If it was words, her father had kept them.  She squirmed her way through a small, packed doorway and suddenly, the room opened up before her.  It was astonishingly empty.  The walls were...grey?  No.  As she looked more closely, she saw that the walls, once white, were now filled with her father's small, tight writing.  Every spare inch was covered in words.  Her eyes blurred; this was it, his final opus.

Not This Time, Boys

Brian wraps up his Comeback Week wearing a tie of suitcoat navy with moderately slim stripes of periwinkle.  The last item on their agenda was merely a formality, and not one of the men in the room expected the person to even show up.  Several of them had already turned off their tablets, buttoned their jackets, grabbed a last pastry to take back to their office.  Suddenly, the door opened.  Most of them only saw heels and a pastel blue power suit, but one of them saw her face.  It was not the scared and tearful face they had double-talked out of their offices a year ago.  This woman was steel-eyed and confident; she had the look of a predator who smelled blood, who was hungry, even lustful for it, and who was coming in with no other idea than to win, no matter what the cost.

A Very Chipper Tie

Looking everso well-rested and perky, BriWi knots up the textured purple silk arrayed with creamy white polka dots for this evening's broadcast.  It's a very chipper tie.  This cravat is like sunshine on your day off.  It's watching a little girl twirling around in a new party dress, and the face of a young boy entering a big league stadium with his dad for a game.  This tie is rope-skipping, snow cones, shoe sales, and getaway weekends, all smiles and satisfied sighs.

Morning

Firmly ensconced behind his newsdesk, Brian Williams is sporting his narrowly striped cravat of textured dark turquoise and silvery grey-blue.  She padded down the steps in her thick socks at sunrise, her breath making small vapours in the chilly cabin.  Flipping on the coffee maker, she drew open the blinds on the vast sliders to capture the eastern view of the mountainside.  The spruces were ethereal, shrouded in fog, and they stood like sentinels over the still, deep lake.

Brian Williams Is Back, And We Announce The Winning Tie

Welcome back to The Nightly, Brian Williams!  The Report has missed you.  Winging its way to you is the Winning Tie, supplied by Bows-n-Ties.com and voted in by your fans and Report readers, this lovely paisley creation.

Now, on to The Report.

 

Tonight's Homecoming Cravat is an arresting striper of royal blue and pure white.  It is both snappy and lovely, like a Marine in dress blues and his bride in flowing and feathery chiffon.  It's like a brisk September sky of blazing azure with lacy fleeces of clouds.  It's a bright blue bowl of vanilla ice cream with puffs of whipped cream, fluffy and airy and awaiting the spoon.

Brian Goes In For Repairs

More important than his tie tonight (another outing for the orange, navy and cream stripe) was Brian's announcement that he is leaving for knee replacement surgery.  Certainly we here at The Report wish him Our Very Best. 

In his absence the very capable and very dashingly dapper Lester Holt will fill the chair at The Nightly.  We are still conferring as to whether or not we will report on his neckwear due to the lengthy absence of BW.

The Agony

The Stripe of the night is vivid lilac and midnight blue.  She opened her eyes slowly and tried to focus.  Immediately a sharp pain cut into her temple and flared into a purple bloom of agony behind her eye.  She turned on her side and fumbled for the nightstand drawer.  A wave of nausea broke over her; her arm dropped uselessly and hung there, clammy and cool.  Another stab of pain, this one deep indigo and intense.  She made one more valiant grab for the drawer before the white pain came and oblivion.

The Gift

Placating us, Brian wears the richly textured mahogany silk cravat with coral coloured petit points.  She stared at the heavy burled oak dresser and crib with dismay.  "They're family heirlooms worth thousands," her husband said.  "They mean it to be a very loving and important gift for the baby."  Later, she found fluffy sheer fabric with multicolored polkadots.  She made billowing curtains, valances, a dust ruffle for the crib, and a half-ruffle for the dresser, which would be doubling as a changing table with a custom-made pad on top. The effect was lovely.  The warm finish of the oak grounded the room and made it feel safe and strong.  She thought of her husband and smiled.

For The Man Who Has Everything!

I wish Brian Williams' tie had some quality by which I could recommend it; alas, it does not.  The fabric appears cheap, like dime store sateen, and the vivid stripes are best described as Hunter's Orange.  Even the background colour is a rather blinky navy blue, like one would find as part of a dollar store dolly's sailor outfit, made in Taiwan or Bangladesh or China or someplace.  On the whole, this tie comes across as something one might find in a conglomerate gift given by one's goofy aunt who is prone to shop at warehouse closeouts, yard sales, flea markets, and from television channels like ShopTV.  Perhaps she saw something called The Businessman's Bucket, a plastic receptacle with a solar calculator, a faux leather phone case, a plastic "marbleized" pen and pencil set, this tie, and a microsuede address book.  Just the thing!

Summer Party

Could tonight's tie be any lovelier?  Lilting, slim stripes of lilac and creamy white look summery and light.  She laughed as he led her, hands over her eyes, into the small park near the old store.  A few more steps, then they stopped; he brought his mouth close to her ear and said softly, "Happy birthday to your inner child."  He took his hands away, and she was able to see the astonishing tableau before her.  The trees were hung with pastel streamers and white fairy lights.  A picnic table in the centre, covered in a rainbow cloth, held goblets of candy which surrounded a multi-tiered cake.  In a strange procession, balloons began to emerge from the surrounding bushes and trees; they were carried by her family and friends.  She clapped her hands in delight, her eyes filling with tears.

Un Interlude Avec L'Histoire

Monsieur Williams has decided to reprise some summery cravats after all.  This is one of my favourites, a cravat of broad carnation pink and midnight sky stripes.  He thought it was impossible, but it was true.  Here, on a quaint avenue in Paris, he found her--quite by accident--yet here she was.  The shop had the requisite French pink and black striped awnings, and the sign "Le Studio Ste. Jeanne" was modestly displayed.  Through the window he watched her as she meticulously added embellishments to one of her creations, a black straw fedora, as its owner waited.  Her hands were gentle and quick, and loose tendrils of hair were pushed back into her haphazard French twist.  She was as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as he had left her, and he stood and watched in rapt fascination.

How Easily We Are Pleased These Days

BriWi really reached into the depths of his Tie Armoire for this evening's cravat.  It has been ages since he knotted up this raspberry silk with sky and turquoise medallion pattern.  In the past I've likened it to Lillian Vernon vinyl stained-glass window covering by-the-roll, Greg Brady's "groovy pad" light display, and all manner of wacky stuff.  Tonight I'm just thrilled to see something other than Stripes.

The Artist

Tonight's tie is a lovely sky blue crossed with stripes of cloud white and a narrower band of anthracite.  He jumped down from the back of the truck, waved his thanks to the driver, and began walking off into the brush.  It was early morning, but the sun was brilliant and warm.  He readied his camera and began snapping off shots of the rocks, the road, the clouds, all three, or two at a time in varying combinations.  He walked on, sometimes backward, but all the while clicking off pictures.  It might be an hour--or two or three--before another truck came down this stretch to give him a ride.  Until then, he'd walk and shoot.

The Other Side

Tonight's cravat is a striper of deep lilac and nightsky.  Down a darkened corridor and into a shadowy, candlelit anteroom she followed her wordless guide.  Seated on a shabby settee, she waited patiently for one of the curtained portals to open.  It was immaterial which spiritualist she consulted with.  All that mattered was that she made contact.  In a few minutes, the purple satin draperies directly across from her were drawn to the side.  A gloved hand beckoned her in.  Tears of gratitude began to well in her eyes.  She moved swiftly into the small, dim room, and the portal sighed shut.

Conspiracy At The Manor House

Wide stripes of pumpkin and somber navy comprise this evening's cravat.  "And what may I get the little miss for her luncheon?" asked the footman, bowing low before the curly, redheaded mite perched at table.  "Oh, Rolph," she sighed dramatically, "luncheon is dretful!  Mayn't I have strawberries an' ice cream only?  No san'wich?  Please?  Oh, so pretty please?"  He laid a gloved hand upon her coppery head, smiled, and winked at her.  "I think we shall find something pleasant in Cook's kitchen.  You may leave it to me."

It Takes Your Breath And It'll Leave You Blind

SPT.  And one that looks as if it were made from the leotard of a roller-blader in the finale of an off-off-Broadway performance of Xanadu.

Blue

This evening's cravat is the textured narrow striper of pewtered blue and dark turquoise.  All the days seemed the same to her; indeed, they were.  She kept the curtains drawn in all the rooms, she rarely ventured out of bed, and she ignored the phone.  Her headache was a constant companion, for she rarely ate but often cried.  Sometimes the sobs were soft and mostly tears.  Other times she gave in to the grief entirely, and huge wails wracked her body and her soul.  She moaned her loss and sank into her darkness so completely that she could see nothing of herself, nothing of who she was, and nothing of who she would ever be without them.