The film noir The Woman In The Window could easily be renamed "be careful what you wish for." A chance lingering look at a woman's portrait and an easy conversation between friends foreshadows the nightmare Professor Wanley's life quickly becomes...or perhaps the nightmare Wanley becomes. Left behind while his family vacations (symbols of stability and middle class morality) Professor Richard Wanley gives into the minor evil of spending the evening with mysterious stranger, Alice Reed. Before the night is through Wanley finds himself committing murder in self-defense, but that action is merely the beginning of his troubles. After killing to save his life, Wanley slowly sinks ever lower as he desperately works to preserve his reputation.
This is the message of the film: evil lurks inside even the most bourgeois-seeming people among us and what we will do to preserve not just our lives, but our respectability. Of course in the battle to maintain that public face we lose all claim to actual morality. There is one last twist in the film, but it ultimately serves to emphasis the theme: dreams are dangerous. But the question remains, is Wanley's fate inevitable, or the result of his projected fears and otherwise escapable?
"I was warned against the siren call of adventure," Professor Wanley states near the beginning of the film while attempting to decline an invitation to get to know alluring Alice Reed. In film noir isn't this exactly what the women are; sirens who promise excitement as they lead all who dare to follow astray? It is precisely their sharpness and yes, devious qualities that make me enjoy film noir so much. Certainly the women are often depicted as villains, or at the very least untrustworthy and questionable, but how clever, powerful, and bold they are. Their "feminine wiles" are wielded like dangerous weapons and their sharp minds make small work of the men with whom they cross paths. They don't always do the right thing, but their lives are always far from boring. In this particular film Reed isn't a fully fledged femme fatale, but she hints at those depths and dangers and represents Wanley's lust for adventure. Sadly, in film even femme fatales are often vehicles for the leading man's growth or decline...
The Woman In The Window, directed by Fritz Lang
I don't usually enjoy the combination of red, white, and black because, well...it's so predictable. However, I received this awesome vintage dress from my new sponsor 
I wear these tights all the time, but usually backwards so the stud detail is just a minor note. After all, I've heard a good outfit should make as much of an impression leaving a room as it does entering it. For today though to add some extra quirkiness to my look I wore them the correct way with the glossy black studs front and center. The added texture sort of mixes up what might have been a literal "geek chick" outfit; geek chic for the penny loafer heels and cardigan combination, not for the eyeglasses (because sporting frames to correct your vision does not make everything you wear geek chic).
This lookbook for 
Isn't this spot so lovely? It reminds me of the lake I used to visit in Fort Lewis, but sadly there is no dock here for picnics...not that I ever had a picnic on the dock in Fort Lewis, but I imagined several in my head. I dwell in my mind quite a bit and that reality is oftentimes more interesting than this one...
I'm quite mesmerized by these mysterious photographs by 
I quite like wearing jewelry, especially rings, but my jewelry-wearing always starts to wane in the winter months. Mostly this is because metal grows cold so quickly and one brief venture outside into chilly weather turns my rings into icicles that make my hands unbearably uncomfortable. The other day we had slightly warmer temperatures and I couldn't resist building an outfit around my necklace from my sponsor 
