SUBURBAN OUTFITTER: Back home in the Bay Area, I never thought about shopping for spring and summer clothing until March when, if I were lucky, the temperature would slowly climb to the cool mid-60s. Here in Irvine, however, it's mid-January and a ridiculous 85 degrees. Even though I'm wearing denim cutoffs, I feel like I'm about to pass out as I trudge up a slight slope in Aldrich Park. What does this tell me (besides that I'm ludicrously out of shape)? It's time to shop for the new season.
In his youth, Professor Lindon Barrett loved fuzzy wool sweaters. His friend Jackie Popplestone remembers that he bought nearly every sweater in Dapper Dan's, the clothing store where she and Barrett worked. Popplestone recalls that one night, while she and Barrett were working together, Barrett said he wanted to expose her to a new kind of music and blared the song "Fuck You Symphony" by Millie Jackson over the store's PA system. Barrett believed that brilliance wasn't limited to the university community, and often told his students that bright people could be found anywhere, from a college campus to the streets of Long Beach to a 24-hour donut shop. He regaled his students with stories of his conversations with the homeless people he befriended at Dunkin' Donuts.
THE SOCIAList: After the reaction I got from my "Gossip Guy" article in the features section last week, the New University features staff, for some odd reason, awarded me a column in their section with the free rein to speak about whatever I want.
