Big Book Ideas: Olivia Got Baited By "Glitter & False Eyelashes"

Between a straight man and a gay man, I'm going to side more with the ideas of the gay man, because that's more my style! Anthony's ideas were very historical. He wanted to recreate moments from history and duplicate how the hair and clothing was, while Karl was like, "Let's have glitter and make this fabulous and extravagant!" Obviously, my eyes were going to get bigger and I was going to start salivating at the thought of all that fabulousness.

I don't think Karl meant to take control, though. He's an artist. He's extremely talented and creative, so the second you give him an idea, his brain just starts running. It's not like he was trying to take over—he was just throwing out all these ideas at once. I loved the ideas, even the exteme ones!

I was really hoping that we could keep the essence of teaching people the history of New Jersey but also make it more than just a history book like Anthony wanted. I liked the fact that Karl wanted to make it fun and more interesting. It was like baiting a kid with candy, except on me, Karl was using handfuls of rhinestones, glitter and false eyelashes! I love Karl and was being drawn to his ideas, but at the same time, I didn't want to lose what Anthony originally wanted for the book.

Once we had a sit down and started hearing both sides, I felt like we found a happy medium between what Anthony and Karl wanted. For the first time, we had a direction.

I also got to check out The Liberty Hall Museum at Kean University, which was really cool. Seeing all of that stuff firsthand was extremely helpful, because I can't really remember much about what I learned in history class. High school was a while ago, and I can't say that I totally paid attention, because the books weren't that interesting. They made the history of New Jersey kind of boring!

I would love to go back to Liberty Hall, though, because it's huge! We didn't get to see the whole thing, but it was really cool to see how people lived in the past. Even the things they used to shower were so different! 

They had two Dior dresses and two Henri Bendel dresses, and that was awesome. Just being in front of those dresses from years and years ago was so cool. A classic Dior dress from the 1940s is historic, and it felt like I was standing in front of royalty. It was like meeting the Queen of England for me, because that's what I'm interested in—fashion!

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