http://www.socialprimer.com Manners, Conversation, Style & Handling Your Liquor Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:41:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en With the imminent re-issue of Take Ivy around the corner, it got me thinking (and Googling) about the original Preppy bible, The Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach. Since the 30th Anniversary of TOPH is upon us, I wondered where Lisa Birnbach was and what she is up to ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/03/breaking-news-the-official-preppy-handbook-2-0/ If you thought the 2010 Academy Awards red carpet scene looked like the March of the Penguins you would not be too far off the mark. To push the point further, one could say the men looked like clones of one another with no individual style. Again, your aim would ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/03/social-primer-best-dressed-men-2010-academy-awards/ And the Oscar Goes to…. Oh, who knows? This is really just an excuse to beg you to watch Food, Inc. The most important film of the year, decade, maybe ever. I will be back on Monday with SP’s  highly-anticipated and most-viewed post of the year (Best Dressed Men at the ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/03/aggragation-for-your-friday-round-up/ [caption id="attachment_2068" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Brooks Brothers F/W 2010. source: ivy-style.com"][/caption] A note to the uninitiated: New fashion collections are presented to the press six months before the clothes hit stores. The recent men's shows in New York are a preview of what will be on shelves in the Fall of 2010.  ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/03/sp-recommends-the-best-mens-looks-for-fallwinter-2010/ The mail bag here at SP General Delivery has grown bulky (and some might say dusty, some of these were sent so long ago. Sorry.) So now it is time to sit down at the desk, pull out the quill and put our readers’ whirring minds at rest. Bribery ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/02/ask-sp-readers-queries-answered/ Plantation columns and blankets of snow are not often heard in the same sentence uttered in the Deep South. If a southerner sees snow at home during his lifetime it is as rare as, well snow in the South land. And actual accumulation is even rarer. The recent snow storm ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/02/sp-road-trip-snow-in-the-southland/ It should come as no great surprise to anyone when I state that my reading and writing tend to be pretty old-fashioned. Hell, it took the Great Recession to make me tolerate The New York Times online. (I had to give up the luxury of doorstep delivery because it is ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/02/intellectual-pursuits-best-mens-blogs/ Commenting and advising on the interaction between would-be paramours would seem a bit off subject here on SP, but we respond to the readers and the readers this week have been pushing their romantic frustrations. Public behavior is addressed here and this subject definitely falls into that category. In ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/02/meeting-dating-expectations/ Well, another perfectly good evening was close to ruination. The cause? Inconsideration and a total lack of decorum by a few cretins masquerading as gentlemen. There is an appropriate quote from Fitzgerald in Tender is the Night, I believe, lamenting the lack of decorum in men but the passage escapes ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/01/gentlemen-please-decorum-2/ The ideal of the well-dressed man is a simple one but apparently difficult to obtain. Men should be impeccably turned out and never ostentatious. The well-dressed man about town should be unremarkable yet elegant and well-groomed. His clothes should be age-appropriate, fit well and be made of appropriate fabric ... http://www.socialprimer.com/2010/01/social-primer-best-dressed-men-golden-globes-2010/