I hate to say it but i think Mccain won the debate. That is my strong overall feeling. Though articulate, clear, sensible, and in my strong opinion - right - he still lost. The bottom line: Obama has got to be even more presidential - the way he was at the democratic convention - than he was last night and has been the past few weeks. He needs to be presidential, and at the same time, slide around more in his skin like Mccain did last night. He needs to act like he belongs there, like the defacto leader of the free world. His voice should be bolder and he should take up more space. He seemed visually edged out of the picture with Mccain’s easy breezy and confident responses. Obama is an exquisite public speaker except one tiny thing that occurs in ad lib events: when i was learning public speaking as a child the first thing we were taught was to cut out all the superfluous ums, ers, hesitations, stuttering. Those speech patterns where you are waiting with the guy to find his next word - those are bad bad bad. Especially in American life which is numb to all but a sensation. With a population that doesn’t like to read let alone read between the lines, and for a racist society in particular, that can’t go unmentioned, this is not going to work. He needs to be bolder, louder, stronger. Whats that daft punk song? harder better faster stronger? Thats what America is used to and what Americans need in order to vote the first black president into office.
I was a little late to the news but learning of Nagi Noda’s sudden death makes me incredibly sad. Only 35 years old, so unique, so creative, so accomplished, so weird, delightful, and magical. Time is of the essence to make art and invent so get to it. I feel this urgency now more than ever. The sky is falling. The sky is falling, yes, but economy be damned (and I’m talking to myself too here). This is one woman I wanted to meet and befriend (of many of course!) She inspired me and awed me. Japan, with all its innovation and break-through everything, is not an easy place to be different. Selfishly, this is such a disappointment. I wanted another 50 years of Nagi Noda.
Please, all you female designers, artists, artisans, and pioneers, contact me and show me your stuff. We need more of you.
this is on par with the saddest tale ever told of soullessness, self-righteousness, and bloodthirst. it makes bambi and lassie look like wry comedy. in a nutshell, this person is not a good person. she is a BAD PERSON - and should not be allowed to even parent her own children. what she did by not giving her daughter a choice is child abuse. she is a PROPONENT of animal abuse. a PROPONENT of laws that hurt women, hurt our already failed educational system, hurt animals, hurt the planet. she is one of the bad people on this earth. i am not just against sarah palin as vp. im against sarah palin as a human being.
60 minutes report on the war against women in the Congo, massive rape during the Congolese civil war from 3 years olds to 75 year old women victimized. What can we do??
Also look for The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo by HBO Films which won the Jury prize at Sundance 2008. Apparently you have to click to see the video.
(Sorry about that. WordPress needs to get with the program on embedding something NOT on Youtube which is always poor quality. This is from CBS.)
I got these two from Huffington Post but they need to stand alone.
Who is Palin?
- ardently pro-life, against abortion, even for rape or incest victims (has a down syndrome child that was diagnosed when she was four months pregnant so she means it)
-aggressively pushed for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
-does not believe that polar bears should be on the endangered species list
-mayor to a town of 6,000-cum-Alaska senator for just over a year
-had to get a passport last year as she never leaves the country
-has ZERO international or national experience
-not much interested in the VP position and does not know what one does
-met McCain once
find me on facebook where i post articles all the time.
I started to create a video documentary of sorts interviewing women around the world asking them why they were choosing to marry later and have children later — and I only got so far as a few furniture makers in Italy during the 2007 Salone del Mobile but their English was so rudimentary that it didn’t make for a very compelling soundbite and an American woman living in Barcelona who went on and on about a man she loved and another that loved her. She was talking to herself and forgot all about the camera. Her years not choosing might have something to do with her speech style? We never got to the point.
The footage still sits on my computer in a file called “Women and Marriage. As I’ve learned, what I was onto wasn’t just a blue state hunch after all. The census bureau reports that it’s a very real thing. The pressure is diminished. This means it’s increasingly more acceptable to wait or refrain. This means more parents that actually want their children. More ready parents. I think there is a real danger to just following ‘the steps’.
I’m going to recommend here that you see Kramer vs Kramer again. Sometimes women don’t want to be moms. Sometimes dads are great dads and should keep the child. I’m not suggesting this is the norm but this movie is still radical and brave today. The movie came out in 1979 and it was still the height of first wave feminism. I wrote the following review on Facebook after rewatching the film, the first time since I saw it in the theater when it came out.
“god i love Dustin Hoffman. this movie came out the year my parents divorced. like the kid, i too was 6. I saw it again today. same effect. just amazing. deals with fatherhood and father’s rights, breaking stereotypes and assumptions, in a way i have never seen after.” love how he learns you need a bigger bowl and then the bread comes out perfect.
I just got back from Japan where I had some very special and unique experiences - for one, meeting with a man who, for Issey Miyake and for himself, experiments with dying processes employing root vegetable dyes and charcoal, coffee, various indigenous plants, layering color on pre-worn and original fabrics to varied effect working in concert with innovative fabric cutters unique to famed Japanese design processes where they mix technology and craft to deft expert effect as they have for centuries.
We sweat and fanned ourselves desperately in his Kyoto workshop tucked away in one of the many back roads of Kyoto neighborhoods with rows of wood and clay houses. His daughter presided over one machine over boiling blue dye and another son’s voice could be heard from the back room. He told us his wife was also an artist. The reed thin, passionate, and kindly man took over an hour with us giving us all of his time and energy as though we were the most important people in the world as we sipped iced coffee and poured over his portfolio books of sketches, fabric samples, ink drawings. In America, this would never happen. The person would be so protective of his work fearing imitation. We did discuss the Chinese factories briefly. I am being circumspect here on purpose. He offered me a hat that he could see that I loved. Ths approach to strangers is completely absent here in Paris. That type of incident would simply not happen.
A similar experience took place later on in Kyoto (I could tell Tokyo stories as well, an hour plus spent with a passionate graphic designer and store owner who came out of the back to greet me for no particular reason when I bought a shirt) with a younger generation of cobbler who made hand stitched shoes. He made only 30 a month because of the time it takes to cut the leather, to dye, again with vegetable dyes, and to hand stitch the shoe. The design of the re-imagined Geta thong is a layering of visible structural materials on leather.
Other than the tales of the Genji Yamaguchi scrolls, a story originally written by a woman (Murasaki Shikibu 1000 A.D.), in my 10 day stay, I saw very little in the way of female art. I am still on the hunt.
I love Japan. I can’t stop thinking about all I took in. It’s like a love affair you can’t forget and you are sure you will be right back. Well, maybe I won’t be right back - instead I’m headed to the Normandy coast and then probably London waiting for my next project to start. But I’ll be back. More on Japan later.
As the Olympics begin in an atmosphere of conflict, I found this New York Times article on a new wave of female Chinese artists. (China’s male artists have had a huge spike in attention and recognition.) Here is the article linked below:
Where the hell is my road map? Somewhere between the towns of I-Know-It-Allville and Mid-Twenty-Slumpton, I got a little lost. There are so many bumps in the road to “true adulthood”, which no one really tells you about and you can’t possibly prepare yourself for.
Take a peek at my resume and you would never guess that I would ever doubt myself. For someone my age, I’ve done well. But at the same time, I’ve also hit that no man’s land between over qualified for this and under qualified for that. The positions, which are offered to me, I am generally over qualified for (I have been told that in job interviews, more than once). But the positions, which I generally aim for, are just slightly out of my reach. Plus, the poor job market doesn’t make things any easier as jobs are not in abundance right now (never really are, to be honest). Hence, I spend a lot of time doing other things. I am the odd hobby queen! Odd jobs too for that matter.
I believe the problem lies in the fact that I graduated from school guns-a-blarin’, ready to conquer my field. Apparently, while some of my generation were living their lives, working in bars, renting bug infested summer houses in beach side towns. . . I was moving to London, working hard in my field, pitching ideas to television networks and making contacts. When I came home from London, I resumed my production work and by my early twenties, I was working for a major television network and holding my own among those many years older than me. I was well on my way to a pretty decent career. But somewhere between the two places I became jaded, misguided and extremely unhappy with the work I was doing. I basically couldn’t find the bread crumb path I thought I had so cleverly laid out for myself. Gretal got lost in the woods.
Last year (after one bad freelance job left an awful taste in my mouth), I decided I needed to take a sabbatical from my occupation and took a job in a completely different field, only to find that that job didn’t really give me the gratification I was seeking, either. Some days I feel like Kevin Spacey’s character in “American Beauty”. I’d be happily content working at Whole Foods Market, like I did in my teenage years. I think my admitting that might have scared off my last date (it all goes swimmingly until I open my big mouth).
So, in conclusion, only when I accepted that I don’t have it all figured out, did I start to feel happier about my life. . . I sew, I dance, I do lots of odd jobs and I freelance here and there. But I’m a twenty something mess… which is essentially the best kind (in my book).
The author wants you to listen to A Little Lost by Arthur Russell which is what she originally named this post so here goes:
LOOKING to better understand perceptions and impressions of Japan, the Japanese, Japonism, Japonica, all related Japan culture - in the west.
There is frequent buzz about Japan’s influence on the youth market - manga - anime - gaming - technology - harajuku girls - those vending machines - j-horror - j-pop - etc.
Im looking to investigate Japan’s influence especially Japanese women - on those in the west who are older than tween and teen years. What allure does Japan hold for the luxury customer today for example? What does Japan mean to women, to fashion, to lifestyle, in the aesthetic cultural arena?
Any way to guide me to experts and interesting perspectives, please drop me a line.
I visit Japan on July 16th and I’m very excited. It’s a life long dream to go. I’m working on a Japanese project and this is part of that work.
I’m taking a quick jaunt into a sober tone but I thought this Sexual Abuse campaign warranted a look. It is the most affecting and illustrative ad I’ve seen on the topic. I can imagine this is what it might feel like to be trapped in the person who has endured, is enduring sexual abuse.
Growing up in a non-traditional Asian family, I have always loved travel. My mother lived in Hamburg, Germany for 13 years. During that time she backpacked all over Europe, most of the time solo. When she got married, she and my father often went camping together, packing tents sometimes in sub zero weather.
I like traveling alone. That is not to say I haven’t encountered the weird, the strange, and the hilarious. When I went to New York for the first time, my friends couldn’t understand why I would go alone. Their fears ranged from boredom to personal safety.
When I travel alone, I’m able to think clearly. Going to New York alone for the first time, I was able to feel Central Park, take time with paintings at the MET, watch people passing by me more clearly.
Sometimes, when you are with friends, you are so engaged in conversation that them that new sights become a blur, a memory before you even go home. You don’t take the time to look or really see. Because I had three days left and I had already poured over the whole city, I decided to take the Chinatown bus to Boston and Washington D.C. Upon coming back, my mind was filled with anxiety. It was after midnight when I arrived and I guess I thought, coming from a small town, that the streets would be empty with shady people lurking around corners. Myth! When the bus stopped, the passengers unloaded. I was relieved to see the streets bustling. As I begun to walk to the nearest subway, I thought like a child of all the possibilities of things that could go very wrong. Then a voice whispered, “excussseee meeee?” My heart jumped into my throat and I panicked, and okay, I ran. And then I turned around. It was a lost and confused tourist. I shook off my embarrassment and walked back and helped her.
In Japan, I spent some days traveling by myself. In a super market, this lady offered food samples. Tiny crackers inside a cup- that’s Japan for you. Unassumingly, I took the whole tiny cup. She then shook her head furiously, gave me a disapproving frown, and gestured “one only”. Embarrassed, I gave back the tiny cup and took one tiny cracker from the cup. But if you saw the tiny cracker, you would have done the same. In America, the whole cup IS the sample.
My hope is to travel around the world, alone. I would bring two essentials- a journal and a camera. I reevaluate my goals and dreams when I travel and realize what I really care about back home.
If you think you’re not a market, but an individual with twists and turns, inconsistencies and nuances, think again, because the marketers are coming straight for you, tracking devices in hand.
You know that, though right? You know you’re being marketed to and for the most part, eat it right up. Give me those goods, give me those services. I need ‘em. I realize in all of my cynicism for the profession that pays my bills, we are capitalists and we like the machine. We gladly grease its wheels and get a thrill when we sign our credit card slips and bounce out the door we new stuff. But marketing gets caught in the net of racial simplification to disastrous effect - a lot less subtle than gender - and what a tangled web it is. (In fact one could argue that gender misses are more insidious as they’re harder to detect or easier to ignore.)
I think this is a great article. I want him to go on for another five pages though because his one example, though while I think pretty common and a good one of how racist and incredibly off marketers are about the intricacies of ‘markets’, I want to hear more myths shattered.
I thought I’d put this in the form of a very eloquent poem
if you will
ahem
It’s easy to have a photo exhibit
When you’re Patti Smith-it
Times Change
What was significant then
Is not
Significant now
If this was your friend inviting you over for art
You’d say hmm
to be polite
About Arthur Rimbaud
She naively babbles
reminiscent of a teen diary
written in another era.
Yet she’s sixty or more
and has not that excuse.
Maybe she’s just gone a bit
Funny in the head.
I like her looks.
They are hearty.
So earthy.
They have not a thing to do with gender
Not male, Not female
Strong like a horse after a good run
Like her best album
also iconic and unapologetic
Her face is the only art I saw
Some pictures were kind of good
The tribute to David Hockney perhaps
though clearly an ado hoc dedication
As I walked I scribbled:
People with fame become so proud of themselves
they forget to keep pushing
and become
Ridiculously bad.
When the news media zeroed in on African-Americans around the nation cheering at the news of O.J.’s acquittal, I was exasperated. I muttered ‘give me a break’ under my breath collectively with millions of others watching the footage. That incident reminds me of the staunch loyalty of a certain subset of feminists and Hillary supporters in recent months, summed up nicely in this article.
So here’s my two cents - you can’t just support a woman because she is a woman, no more than you can support someone who is black because they are black: O.J. did it, okay? Black people know it, white people know it. Everybody knows it. O.J., he especially knows it. Now yes, that is totally objective and being pro-Hillary is subjective but to be pro-Hillary because she is a woman is ludicrous. It’s reactionary! Dogmatic! Myopic! Simplistic! and it peeves me greatly.
If we’re talking fighting for the rights of women, Obama’s got that covered, thank you. Hillary, on the other hand, while I’m sure she’s going to work hard to not let Roe vs. Wade be overturned, conveys more of an old boy network approach to political climbing than a call to arms for female empowerment.
Thank you, early feminists. We know you did the hard work. For that I am grateful. During my stint at a misogynistic ad agency, I came to really appreciate you, really took the time to look at that era (since I felt I’d time-traveled back to it) and realized all I took for granted in my free-wheeling New York bubble but overall and very much so, things are different than they were: We don’t need power suits to prove we are powerful. We’ve turned that corner and went too far the other way as slutty sex ‘empowered’ exhibitionists and then transgressed even that subversion. (well, not all of us, not the legions of 11-25 year olds prancing around on MTV or flashing their crotches in limos). My point is that many of the formerly necessary signs and symbols of feminism cloud the issue of self-determination; we are not asking permission from some great Uncle Sam like authority to be who we are or to have power.
When the women’s movement started (Sisters of ‘77), it soonafter turned divisive. White women were speaking for everybody and Latin women, black women, married women, single women, gay women, older women, younger women, protested this singular message and the story lines started to splinter. It continues today.
To the over 60 set I ask, do you need to witness a woman in the white house ‘come what may’? What kind of criteria is that in choosing the president of the United States at a time where, yes, we are falling from power and have long fallen from grace? Is that really to help your daughters and your daughters daughters?
No, I think that’s just for you. For all those who can really close their eyes and push her gender out of the picture and honestly say she is the best candidate, my apologies. But to the rest, I wonder this: is it really no big shakes to have the first black president in the white house or is that really not so important or interesting after all? Who really cares about that, right? That wouldn’t be a historically momentous and glorious accomplishment for a country where race is the national obsession that plagues us permeating almost every discussion or decision, conscious or unconscious?
Wasn’t the woman’s movement based on the concept of equal opportunity for all? Wasn’t it about erasing bias based on gender, race, sexual preference or any other criteria irrelevant to merit and competency?
Voting for Hillary for any other reason than feeling confident she is the most passionate, most authentic, most qualified, and most visionary leader for the job is selfish. It’s akin to an extremely irresponsible affirmative action. It’s self-serving for women over sixty to vote for her because they want to see a female president in their time. Me personally, I want see a black president pretty badly. More than that, I want to see Obama be president. I’m confident that we’ll find the right woman for the job someday soon because we are that bad ass - but it ain’t Hillary. So let it go.
I’ve been back from my studies in London for about 6 months now (returned to the good ole U S of A in November 2007) and I’m torn between whether I miss London or not and whether I am happy to be back in Chicago or not. Thus my life story…indecisive as hell. Living in London for the past in year and a half was interesting to say the least. Coming back to “The Chi” was once welcomed with open arms, but has now (after 6 months) as posed a challenge…I get bored very easily.t
However, right now in the American economy…I have done what very few immediate university graduates are able to accomplish and that is not only snag a job, but a job in the industry in which I received my degree. What a feat and something that I am extremely proud of and excited about.
Nevertheless, my excitement at the present time does not continuously lie within the joy of my jobs, as interesting as they may be (i.e. working in the advertising department for mags Maxim and Blender and freelancing as international editor for Papierdoll magazine), but my overt exuberance is towards the constant battle between Clinton and Obama for the Democrat nomination (pure entertainment) and the US Presidential election in November. For the first time in my 31 years of existence, I can honestly say that I feel like there is a candidate who is for all of us and not just pulling interest from those in my parents and grandparents generations. That I’m not choosing a candidate just because he/she is a democrat, but because I believe in this individual’s mantra to bring change and unity to this country.
History is being made, and to think at one time one would have thought hell would have to freeze over before seeing a woman or a person of color running for the highest office in the free land.
Chauncey was diligent in asking me to post. She just didn’t give up. I almost dreaded when her next email would come as I really did not know what I wanted to say with my “personal” voice. It seems that my “Alabama Chanin” voice has become my personal voice or, perhaps, that my personal voice has become one with my Alabama Chanin voice. For this reason, it was difficult to find a place and time to speak my own mind.
I was asked the other day by a journalist, “Who is your hero?” And my answer was, “If I have to choose one, Alice Waters.”
The person asking the question replied, “Who is Alice Waters?” And I did not know where to begin. So, my answer was rather bland, “Why don’t you Google her?”
So, I Googled Alice Waters myself and became inspired again after all these years.
If I could have “Dinner for Twelve before I Die” - a game that I play often with an ever changing cast of characters, Alice Waters would forever be both Chef and Honored Guest.
The Edible School Yard is one of the most important projects started in years as it takes the mission of the 4-H Club and the best of Montessori training into our contemporary society and straight to the classroom where it prepares a legion of children to appreciate, cultivate and propagate their own food and tastes.
I have tried to model my life after The Edible School Yard. My own backyard is a place to plant, grow and reap the rewards of a good days work. I want to use fabric, fashion, textiles and my voice to feed the hungry, myself and my family while learning (and loving) the taste of it…
This article talks about a trend in highlights and other hair salon treatments for kids as young as six and usually in the ten to twelve year range. The first time my now thirteen year old sister got highlights I really laid in on her. I said she was going to ruin her hair and miss out on the beauty of being a little girl. I found it creepy to see such a child with porcelain skin and baby fat also have processed locks.
Attention all global marketers - your children’s market is shrinking.
Childhood only seems to last from the time infancy/toddler age ends (two-ish) to, apparently, six or eight. That’s a small window for digging in the dirt and getting elbow scrapes climbing trees. I’m not a parent yet but I can’t imagine being the parent who encourages a kid to stay glued to MySpace between hair appointments and shopping trips. But they do, they certainly do.
Earlier in my career, I noticed and heralded the narrowing gap between mothers and their daughters - in interests, tastes, wardrobes, activities, topics of conversation, and ultimately as participatory consumers. Girls and moms shared jeans and both loved Spongebob and Justin Timberlake. I love the idea of the freedom to not be restricted to a demographic (or geographic or psychographic). That you can tap into your tween-self and return to your complex nuanced adult self all within an outing. I even created a strategic platform for a well-known plush toy company to use their material to create products across six stages of human development with this idea in mind - that in one individual there is the infant, the newly physically separate child, the newly socialized kid, the preteen, the teen, the early adopter twenty-something, and the settled and established adult. That with increased access through the Internet and travel we are complex individuals with shifting and flexible mindsets that can’t be reduced to a list of simple drives that define us and then get reinforced and resold to us. That we live at a time when time is new again - where our task is to explore all of the social sea changes ramifications and opportunities and create anew, breaking all previous definitions and accepting that things are forever changed. I love technology and what is has afforded us in freedoms.
But my sense of natural order in the world, an innate part of my being human, says skipping the inevitably time consuming aspect of human development in our desire to mimic and therefore rush our entree into the consuming public, juxtaposing nascent flesh and clean new hair, small hands and feet, a time busy learning what sharing and discovering the power of your fingers and toes, your muscles, your words, your ability to express and take in, everything brand new, juxtaposing that with twisting, nipping, coloring, and disguising your physical nascent being feels sick and wrong.
What am I doing here? Why did I come here? Do I like America?
These are the questions I’ve been asked over and over the past year since my arrival. My plan to head to America started when I was very young. In Thailand, it’s what brings ‘value’. Parents prefer to send their kids to London or America to study. In Thailand’s materialistic society, people prefer someone who has graduated from an unknown college in London or America than from the most prestigious Bangkok university.
My dad graduated from the University of Miami so he believes in the American education system. He also thought coming to America would help me grow up. He said I was irresponsible. I never had to do anything for myself when I was in Bangkok. Most (well-off) Thai families have maids, gardeners, and drivers, and ours were no different. I guess that’s one of the good things about life in Thailand. You don’t have to be a millionaire to access that lifestyle. He wanted me to go to graduate school but I fought to study fashion so now my ‘fake answer’ to why I came here is, “I came here to study fashion because fashion schools in Bangkok are a joke” but it’s so much more than that and some of the reasons seem lame, almost corny. My first impression of America has not been so bright. I guess because I landed in L.A. It’s so different from Bangkok. I love a city vibe. I love people. I love seeing the city streets by night - but L.A doesn’t bring me any such joys. The public transportation here is annoying to the max. Where are the taxis? Where are the skytrains? Where is the underground? Why is it is so dirty? The questions never end. However, one thing I like about America is that you can be whatever you are and people will not judge you or put you down.
In Thailand, it’s more close-minded when it comes to self-expression. You can’t be that much different from everybody else; otherwise people will be more than ready to criticize you. Whatever’s ‘in’ is what everybody follows (and i mean EVERYBODY).
But it scares me sometimes when I think about whether I made the right decision. I really don’t know if I did. I do know I didn’t want to look back and say “What If I went to America? What If I took a chance?” At least I did what I wanted to do and followed my heart. I know I will not regret that.
A lot of my friends have asked if I would go back after I graduate. I said YES with no hesitation. I said, I do not like it here. I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to party, get drunk, be irresponsible, and be lazy, is what I thought. But now, after one year in this sunny city, there is something that tells me I am going to miss L.A when I go back. And MAY BE someday I will realize L.A is not so bad after all.
I was a little late to the news but learning of 
Where the hell is my road map? Somewhere between the towns of I-Know-It-Allville and Mid-Twenty-Slumpton, I got a little lost. There are so many bumps in the road to “true adulthood”, which no one really tells you about and you can’t possibly prepare yourself for.
LOOKING to better understand perceptions and impressions of Japan, the Japanese, Japonism, Japonica, all related Japan culture - in the west.
Growing up in a non-traditional Asian family, I have always loved travel. My mother lived in Hamburg, Germany for 13 years. During that time she backpacked all over Europe, most of the time solo. When she got married, she and my father often went camping together, packing tents sometimes in sub zero weather.
I thought I’d put this in the form of a very eloquent poem
These are the questions I’ve been asked over and over the past year since my arrival. My plan to head to America started when I was very young. In Thailand, it’s what brings ‘value’. Parents prefer to send their kids to London or America to study. In Thailand’s materialistic society, people prefer someone who has graduated from an unknown college in London or America than from the most prestigious Bangkok university.
My first impression of America has not been so bright. I guess because I landed in L.A. It’s so different from Bangkok. I love a city vibe. I love people. I love seeing the city streets by night - but L.A doesn’t bring me any such joys. The public transportation here is annoying to the max. Where are the taxis? Where are the skytrains? Where is the underground? Why is it is so dirty? The questions never end. However, one thing I like about America is that you can be whatever you are and people will not judge you or put you down.