NOW I Know What Boyfriends Are For...

...among other things, a good boyfriend introduces you to crazy shit you wouldda never seen otherwise. Take the Gem Sweater Lady, Leslie Hall. I know you've always known about her, but I was astonished and delighted, even thrilled, to discover that this awesome art school chick--who turns out to also be an awesome, fat art school chick--did a project involving gem sweaters: rhinestone-encrusted, sequin-adorned, and otherwise bedazzled, well, sweaters.

It's almost too good to be true.

Leslie Hall in character

You can see a gallery of sweaters.

You can watch a sweet music video courtesy of youtube.com. There's more on her website, but this video is all you really need.

Don't confuse her with the earnest Canadian songwriter of the same name; no, the real deal is to be found in the links, right here. Yes.

I can barely describe the pleasure of seeing a woman work so many levels of irony, ambiguity, and just plain wrongness. If she'd worked with John Waters twenty years ago, shit, blood, chicken-rape, dying for art, or just plain murder might have been involved, but this may be the most dangerous bad taste we're allowed while living under Emperor Bush. Joe-Bob says check it out.