You may recall me gushing about my favorite earrings, a pair of silver hoops from San Francisco jewelry designer Vicente Agor. Well, these days his Fes Ring is at the top of the list of jewelry I’m lusting after.
It’s part of his Moroccan Garden collection, which also features gorgeous earrings and necklaces in gold shapes inspired by Moroccan architecture and a gold version of the hoops I love so much.
Oh yes, the Fes is calling out to me in a big way. Someday. When I win the lottery.
I was catching up on marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog today. As I sit here contemplating the addition of an iPad to my collection of Apple gadgets that keep me hooked up and linked in, a couple of things Seth said really struck me.
Building your success on being more in sync than everyone else is a sharp edge to walk on. You’ll always be near the edge of perfect sync, but never there.
The alternative is to be a lot out of sync.
People who are way out of sync with the digital maelstrom of the moment aren’t always bad followers. They might be great leaders.
The incredible surplus of digital data means that human actions, generosity and sacrifice are more important than they ever were before.
A pretty powerful endorsement of keeping at least one foot grounded in the analog when so much else about our lives is digital. When was the last time you sent someone a hand-written note instead of an email? When did you last turn off your iPhone to spend a few uninterrupted hours with a friend or loved one?
I love gadgets as much as the next nerd and the digital world is fun and engaging and often productive. But an online rose doesn’t smell sweet at all and your iPad can’t give you a hug. Food for thought.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
~ Audrey Hepburn
A few of my creative and app-savvy friends turned me on the fun of Hipstamatic photography for the iPhone. While there are a few, the simply-named Hipstamatic was my app of choice when I decided to play.
Hipstamatic refers to the Hipstamatic 100, a camera designed in the early 80’s by two brothers in Wisconsin, Bruce and Winston Dorbowski. The history of the Hipstamatic 100 – and the contemporary love of all things Hipstamatic – is lovingly chronicled in a blog by the boys’ brother, Richard Dorbowski. He says that the Hipstamatic was born out of his brothers’ passion for art and photography, their desire to create an inexpensive camera that anyone could afford and use to record their special memories, and their ability to make things happen. It was modeled after a Russian plastic camera that Bruce had been given as a gift in 1972 and inspired by Winston’s love for his Kodak Instamatic.
After Bruce and Winston got the idea to make a plastic molded camera they worked 18hr days until they figured it out. They had a small cabin on the river that they used as their studio, and from dawn til dusk they would spend the day creating plastic sculptures, photographs, and paintings. In November of 1982 they would finally make a mold for the Hipstamatic A1 lens. By the end of the month they had made their first 5 Hipstamatic 100s.
The Hipstamatic 100 is very rare. Only 157 were ever produced since Bruce and Winston were killed by a drunk driver in 1984.
Thankfully, today we can recreate the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras from the past with our iPhones. I love the saturated color and the grainy quality the Hipstamatic app produces. And I especially love that the finished image is rendered as a square photo with an old-fashioned deckled edge!
You can view a gallery of the best HipstaPrints from the Hipstamatic community of fans at The Big Hipstamatic Show.
Below is a small gallery of my own Hipstamania, mostly things that caught my eye that I wanted to capture in that moment. I haven’t yet experimented with the range of effects possible with changing “lenses” and “film” that are part of the Hipstamatic app, so expect more to come as I become more savvy. Enjoy!
Look at yourself after watching this.
A few weeks ago, The New York Times wrote about author Stephanie Dolgoff who is “currently struggling as a ‘Formerly’. ” What is a Formerly, you may ask? Apparently, it’s a life stage – like ‘Tween or Baby Boomer – that takes its name from the book, “My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches From Just the Other Side of Young” (Ballantine Books). About taking on the “thankless task” of coining the newest life stage category, Ms. Dolgoff was, apparently, “undaunted.”
According to Ms. Dolgoff, women in their late 30s and early 40s fall into a “new category of person: adult ’tweens, not quite middle-aged, but no longer our reckless, restless, gravity-defying selves.” Their new moniker: Formerlies, as in formerly hot.
I’m going to have to beg her pardon.
At first I thought the article was amusing and that Dolgoff was making a tongue-in-cheek commentary on what it’s like to age in a culture that seems to value youth over everything. But when I read it again I realized I felt insulted. Who wants to be lumped in a category with someone who is trying to convince people that reaching a certain age requires us to think of ourselves as “formerly” anything. Hot, fashionable, fun, or otherwise?
On the plus side: no longer having to keep up with the latest restaurant and bars. Formerlies, typically mothers of young children, haven’t the time or energy to go. And your friends won’t care. Women this age tend to be a lot more forgiving than they were as high school BFF’s and college roommates. In any case, Formerlies, Ms. Dolgoff explained, are more comfortable in their own skin and no longer depend on other peoples’ judgments. You no longer have to be annoyed at being ogled by strange men on the street.
Then again, you no longer are ogled by strange men on the street. In her book, Ms. Dolgoff recalls a morning commute in which an attractive man asked her the time. “Eight-forty,” she replied tersely. And then, nothing. No longer the sexy young thing who had to adopt “a slightly defensive posture when men asked her superficially innocent questions on public transportation. I was no longer ‘all that,’ perhaps no longer even a little of ‘that,’ whatever ‘that’ is.”
What?
If this woman can make money and get written up in the New York Times for writing a whiny book about how much she misses being offended by wolf whistles and not having any nice shoes to wear, then I’ll invite them over to inspect my very-hot-indeed closet full of designer shoes and show them my treatment for a book that has nothing to do with justifying to myself and the world why I’ve let myself go. I’m not yet so jaded and cynical as to believe that this is the only way that a woman in her 30’s or 40’s can distinguish herself. And there actually are plenty of examples to prove her wrong, so why does The New York Times find Stephanie Dolgoff so fascinating?
Stephanie Dolgoff in The New York Times
It would seem that most of the 62 people who bothered to take the time to comment on this article agree with me. A few of my favorites:
Does everything have to be categorized and labeled? There are “hot” women in their 60s, boring and drab women in their 20s, good people, bad people and then there are most people – those of us who are just living our lives without worrying too much about what category we’re in at any particular time. Why on earth would anyone worry about these things?
Aaaaah the slow news days of summer; pointless stories. Having read the whole thing, I still miss the point. Ah well, I had five minutes of my life to spare.
Congratulations, New York Times, on having dropped to a whole new low. This piece, based on the imagined trend, based on the book picked up by a desperate agent, based on the beyond-brainless blog…is spectacularly vacant (think “black hole” vacant) even by current standards of pop trends.
I have to say that I wanted to like this article but it does seem to follow some trend of someone who can write in an engaging style (self deprecating a bit, witty/slightly cynical), acknowledges and feeds into what others are going through, starts a blog and then somehow it is deemed to be book worthy. I just found this sort of sad and I’m in my ’40’s. I don’t want to be “formerly” anything. I want to live in the PRESENT and know what that means. This is being way too identified with your past self. Yes, it’s challenging, moving through the stages but let’s appreciate each one for what it IS.
Oh geez—is this really worth publishing? Honey, if you’re hot you’re hot at 40, 60. 80. Granted there is a point in your 40’s where everything shifts and women can become invisible–but that’s what separates the haves from the have nots. If you are whining about the dated clothes in your wardrobe that you thought were doing something for you back in the day–you so missed the point.
How vapid! I am in my late 30s and am enjoying one of the best years of my life. I am in a new-ish relationship with a man who, like me, is facing 40. Our concerns are far similar than most would acknowledge: career mobility, aging parents, aches and pains that come with getting older, kids, and finances (in no particular order). We acknowledge and laugh at the fact that he will be “hotter longer” but truthfully, like Kelly Cutrone said “I’m done with being cute.” I deeply value the authenticity of my relationships, and truly knowing myself and what I want in life…wrinkles and wardrobe be damned.
I hope this author didn’t think this article would HELP the sale of her book.
At 43, I’m definitely more comfortable in my own skin and as I’ve settled into each new decade of my life I realize that each one is better than the last. Unlike Stephanie Dolgoff, I’m not chalking this up to a comfort level derived from the fact that no one cares what I look like any more. Guess what? I care plenty and I think I look better now than ever. Frankly, I’ve never cared much about what other people think. As for me and my BFF’s, many of whom do have young children and busy lives, we enjoy keeping up with the latest restaurants and we visit them. Often.
As one of the commenters above suggests, identifying one’s self as “formerly” anything means that your concept of yourself is rooted in the past. I’d much rather enjoy the present and relish the tantalizing prospects for what is yet to come.
I love Frank Bruni’s latest installment of The Tipsy Diaries (to start with, I just love the name of this column). In it, he talks about the New York craze for “bespoke cocktails” and highlights the talented owner/bartenders at TriBeCa’s Ward III. Messrs Neff, McCoy and Tabini will accept any customer’s challenge to use any ingredient to create a cocktail. The story starts with a Twinkie thrown down on the bar and ends with a recounting of Bruni’s own experience, the result of which is the yummy-sounding BruniBerry, made of tequila, cilantro, strawberry, jalapeno, honey water and lime juice. Frankly (no pun intended, but savored nonetheless) I really want to try a drink made of gin, cardamom and peach – quite possibly my three favorite flavors ever – that was a result of one of Ward III’s challenges and is featured on the article’s accompanying slide show.
Of course, Boston has its own talented bunch of bartenders making couture quaffs. There is the great group over at Drink, which I wager could hold their own against anyone in New York. And Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, the creator of one of my all-time favorite cocktails, The Metamorphosis, who after stints at Eastern Standard and Craigie on Main will be landing soon at a new venture. Recently, I had the pleasure of trying several cocktails that he created especially for an aperitif tasting event at BRIX. A master of libation improvisation, the man can make you something tasty to drink out of almost anything!
I’m getting thirsty. It’s five o’clock somewhere.
Remember that scene in Sex and the City when Carrie stops in front of a shop window to admire a pair of frilly fuchsia Christian Louboutin sandals? This was just like that. I was walking by the Hermes store, where they had just put in new window displays, and there they were. These beautiful, fur-trimmed, grey suede shoes. Oh, me likey.
This image (the only one I could find online) simply doesn’t do them justice. When you see them from the front you will understand why this shoe gal’s heart skipped a beat. Perhaps I should go back to take a photo of the window display. Or better yet, I should go in to try them on. And skip paying the rent next month to buy them.
I could use a new lover.
A posting today from The New York Times‘ City Room blog tells the story of how a devastating storm that brought down hundreds of trees in Central Park last year has actually become a blessing in disguise. Parkgoers and park employees alike were horror struck at the initial devastation. But now, with cleanup efforts complete and plans to replant in the works, New York’s park commission and the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit agency that runs the park, are seeing the opportunity they now have to restore an overgrown park to the original vision of its creators, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
The de facto thinning out of densely wooded areas is closer to what the park’s original designers intended, said Douglas Blonsky, the Conservancy’s president and the administrator of Central Park. “The concept was of drawing you into the park and having these visual experiences,” he said. “You would see something in the distance that would cause you to say, ‘Hey, I want to go see what that is.’ ”
Mr. [Adrian] Benepe [parks commissioner] said: “They were painting a portrait in the land. And this is like when you find a painting and it’s been overpainted somehow over the years, and you have the opportunity to take all that overpainting off and see the landscape as Olmsted and Vaux intended it.”
I like this metaphor of park as painting.
Here in Boston, we’ve been engaging in some “painting” restoration of our own. For the past couple of years I’ve done some volunteer work for the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, which is devoted to restoring and preserving Boston’s own Frederick Law Olmsted masterpiece. After the completion of the Big Dig – that infamous multi-year infrastructure project that put the freeways cutting through Boston underground – it was possible to restore portions of the Emerald Necklace that had been destroyed by overpasses and other roads. For the first time in many decades, the Emerald Necklace is once again the connected chain of parks that Olmsted envisioned, and the work of the Conservancy is returning the parks that comprise the Necklace to their original designs, removing non-native plantings and other elements to return woodlands to their rightful states and restoring the Muddy River to once again be the point of access and landscape amenity that Olmsted intended for many potential users of his park.
It’s heartening to see that people revere both history and our public green spaces and, even in today’s fast-paced, high-tech world, recognize the value in preserving both. Because now more than ever before we need spaces like these, of which Frederick Law Olmsted said:
We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day’s work is done, where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets.
In this article from The Boston Globe last year, we learn how the city hurts our brain.
Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting — that’s why Picasso left Paris — this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.
Apparently, living in the city, despite all its good qualities that made us want to live here in the first place, can make us stupid, tired, aggressive and depressed. What we can do about it? Get thee to a park.
One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil.
It seems that Olmsted already knew what scientists over a hundred years later are “discovering” – that occasional immersion into the tranquility of a green space is good for us urban dwellers.
I love reading poetry and it’s been a while since I’ve found something to engage my interest on that front. A website I read sometimes quotes the poetry of Goethe on occasion and, although I know him more as a philosopher than as a poet, I was inspired to buy a book of his poetic works today.
Goethe’s poetry was essentially autobiographical. One of his poems, “The Diary,” was suppressed for more than a century for its eroticism. Well, of course, the thing we want to read first and most is that which has the excitement of the forbidden! So I started there. You should read it for yourself, but here are the final lines:
This life’s a crazy journey, and our heart
May stumble, but two mighty powers, we’ll find,
Can move the world and help us as we go:
To Duty much, to Love far more we owe.
How lovely!
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