Hear/Say

Recently, the luxury goods industry has reached out to those with irresistible urges t0 recklessly slide credit cards everywhere– as well as title the campaign as a public service announcement. Not only do they call it that; it’s reblogged as such by influential bloggers JAK & JIL as well as Bryanboy. The loophole to call consumers to arms as a public service? It’s supporting the retail industry that ranks as the second largest industry in New York City:

The goal of Fashion’s Night Out is to celebrate and support the fashion and retail industries with full-price shopping.

Not only does this sound like BS to me, this sounds like BS to me.

I was also mistaken: this is a global celebration. Aka: luxury goods holding companies and department store empires (see: Nordstrom) see fit to pull together in a giant “Gee public, you’re stupid” stunt to  ”celebrate fashion” as a good service. This is terrifying. While New York City is a focal point for this “global celebration” to occur, Bellevue’s own Nordstrom is taking part while inviting “prodigious tweeter Lily Jang” to join as special VIP guest. And there’s going to be tweet trivia, oh boy.

While the “PSA” for New York City does mention charities for the 9/11 memorial and a city-wide clothing drive, I don’t trust the “good” of supporting an industry– it’s not like the banks or financial service industries can pull a thing like this. And who says the rest of this “global celebration” will have any charity to represent, rather than “THE GOOD OF EMPLOYEES OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY?”

Why isn’t anyone doing something for newspapers, or a functional news system?

PHUNK.

Graceee

PS: On the “positive spin” of things, it’s ingenious. Bloggers would reblog the term, and because the organization of these powerful companies officially use it, it would naturally be assumed that it is, in spirit, for the good of… people. It’s the profit that leaves the bad taste in my mouth– especially because many others are suffering as well.

Yesterday, I visited Seattle’s 2010 HEMP-FEST. It’s the best people-watching you get outside of folk-life; even so, the folks are much more extreme.

Walking down Elliott, the daunting line into Olympic Sculpture Park stretched for blocks and was thick six people wide. The Chan bros. and me decided to skip the line and walk to the northern entrance, across the train-tracks next to the silos.

Elliott was lined with little camper vans, havens blacked- out by makeshift curtains clenched in the window cracks and historic buildup of stickers. Dogs everywhere; pit bulls, puppies, bulldogs, dirty-mouthed children with elephant ears squeezed between their fat fingers and tender gums, their face powdered with jam and sugar. There was a boat docked under the silo arm that reached above the sea; not a boat, a ship– and it echoed whatever reggae music bumped at the stage decorated with a huge sculpture of a blunt (someone went “Dude, I swear that boat is playing music”). Tye-dye shirts, being worn, being sold (“I live off tye dye, man”), celebrated with leis of pot leaves twisted into bushel-like bracelets or waving lazily around slightly sweaty necks.

The sidewalk constantly thick with people and movement, of turning heads and the pulsing rhythm of festival life– but the atmosphere is relaxed; people don’t mind the bustle as much; most people are looking for semi-covert areas to smoke the pack of joints they rolled on the way over, looking for their hook-ups, their friends who promised them a good time; perhaps make some new friends in order to have a good time.

There are some who have too much of a good time; we passed a boy that looked sheet-white and stood stock still as both his friends grabbed him and murmured calmly while their fingers pressed savagely into the back of his arm; ten minutes later we were down the park but heard sirens…

Funnily enough, internal conflict was found in young pot smokers against 1) the younger pot smokers (“Those girls are like, 15!!!!”) and 2) families; particularly the women-and-her-child (boys: “yeah, I wouldn’t bring my family here”). I saw a young boy– definitely younger than 15– cheekishly wriggle up and ask “hey, can I bum a cigarette?”

The Chan bros. met up with their greater group of dude-friends, one of which was celebrating his birthday. They all chipped in to buy a spectacular bong for him– olive green with the clear bowels of the bong displaying ten tubes, what they called “splash shields”; people stopped him on the street and asked to see him “rip it”. The magnificence had a gold label near the lip, a giant RX designed into RelaX… while the wet grey blanket named Scott whimpered in the corner, because the social mingling with the trophy of a bong made him increasingly late to pick his parents up at the airport. And he was their ride in.

Read here for more information on 1068, legalizing medical marijuana in Washington state.

Graceee

So, let me begin by saying: the only thing that relates the two ideas I’m about to write about is… my life.

As per usual, I get the jitters about the fall/winter season during the late summer– being more pensive than usual, silly things like Halloween and snowboarding crowd my somewhat-in-the-near-future-agenda. While my friend and me are discussing what costumes might be cool, and which ones might be overrated (Lady Gaga, durrr), she said that she was going to be a dildo.

Which is great, because she’s not at all revolting or perverted, and she’s a cutie, so she can definitely pull it off. Anyway. She said she went into a sex toy store the other day for research purposes– and strangely enough, the week before I had another conversation with other people about sex stores and its products– and lo and behold, today one of my favorite blogs produce an educational infographic explicating several social studies on the use of sex toys:

After the amazement of this article (i.e. the world’s most expensive dildo is 55,000 $$$), I thought, gee, why are all these things about sex shops and toys happening in my life.

And I remembered this PHENOMENON that most everyone has experienced: the obscure fact or detail you learn about at school, or through a friend, has you all of the sudden seeing it everywhere. It’s like some strange iwndow has opened in your life. And this, as you can see, has nothing really to do with sex toys.

There is a name for it, and it’s as wondrous as the thing itself:

the BAADER MEINHOF PHENOMENON.

from an article on damninteresting.com:

The phenomenon bears some similarity to synchronicity, which is the experience of having a highly meaningful coincidence… such as having someone telephone you while you are thinking about them. Both phenomena invoke a feeling of mild surprise, and cause one to ponder the odds of such an intersection. Both smack of destiny, as though the events were supposed to occur in just that arrangement… as though we’re witnessing yet another domino tip over in a chain of dominoes beyond our reckoning.

It’s too bad my latest B/M occurrence had to be about sex toys. It could have been something less…er… bodily.

Graceee

Funnily enough, I was dreaming about semantics earlier today.

Gotta see this short vid. It’s awesome. You will be in awe, and it will be POSITIVELY AWE-FULL. Full of awe.

Yeah yeah yeah. I got this from Radiolab, who has mind-bending podcasts and interesting-everythings. The video is produced by Will Hoffman and Danielle Mercadante of EVERYNONE, which you should also check out for mind-blowing inspirations– things you notice once in awhile but take for granted, and– well– the magical of every-day…

Graceee

A spoof on Kanye’s recent POWER vid:

See the original here.

Graceee

Woot ballet dramas! Girls are scary! Girl-dancers are scary! Dancing is also scary! Two hot intense girl dancers = uber major thriller scary!

Therefore, I am kind of excited.

Graceee

Trimble Gilbert is a chief of the Caribou People. Learning @ the zoo.

Yesterday, I had a fantastic adventure at the zoo. Usually, I go at least a couple times a year– some feel this is sadomasochistic, and I usually end up sad for animals locked up in their artificial habitat– but it’s there, and I love to look at animals.

In some cases, like snakes, I rather enjoy the privilege of a glass pane between our interaction, but of course if we were inter-special friends I would probably sympathize a lot more.

But I digress; the zoo was fantastic. Little child-monsters running everywhere. One called me a pretty lady, and I was much more flattered, because he was not a gross slimy grown-up male in a bar or the side of the street looking to get some desperate female attention (…yet?). Seeing matching field-trip shirts (brite neon green), the buddy system in action (holding tiny hands), and eavesdropping on the random-est of conversations (“Mommy, when do you pay rent?)”, it was as much as a people-watching day as it was for observing wild creatures dumbed down with heat and the lack of wilderness survival skills. So! great aspects of the zoo-venture witnessed:

A silver-back gorilla transferring fecal matter from the butt to the mouth;

A pooping brown bear;

A peregrine falcon ripping apart pieces of quail;

A braying donkey;

The reticulated python cage was cleaned, and the caretaker crooning to this giant anaconda of a snake while she scrubbed his pool;

And the best: A child who got her head stuck posing in those painted boards with face-holes. She was a snow leopard. Her parents were pissed, and yelling at her to stop screaming as they tried stuffing her head and ears to the other side. It was perfect.

We also chatted with some zoo employees about giving us free taste tests of the most expensive of frozen treats: DIP ‘N DOTS, but it Was Not Happening.

Too bad.

I also went canoeing recently, and spotted several duck lounges where group preening took place, and a big crane lurking a few feet away from our canoe watched us come and go. Seattle is so sweet. I might be celebrating Portland this weekend, too.

GO PACIFIC NORTH WEST

Graceee

My friend and I love to go thrifting. Quite often, we find ourselves transported to the aisles of Value Village, where all the values make a village of a mess in our garages. Anyway, we never really  look for designer pieces; it’s nice to snap up a vintage Dior cardigan, or a silk flower print tunic from Theory– or commonly, some sweet Ferragamo shoes. It’s more of a free-for-all for fun designs, or fun and sleek pieces for our ever-ailing wardrobes (the next season is always a few weeks away… ). After a weekend of heavy plunder, we both discovered that many of what we chose was, embarrassingly enough, from Talbots– which is, as Bryanboy says:

Talbots is renowned for no nonsense “REAL American” womenswear. We’re talking about real real as in real real South Dakota or Wyoming or Idaho or something like that.

And it’s true; which is why the surprise cream of our crop was so startling. Talbots is so 90′s, with the whole vibe of “independent women” goes along with a contradictory “independent housewife” feel– definitely not fierce, glamorous, or remotely glorious to be caught shopping in their traditionally white and red wicker-chairs-faux-modern- designs stores. We figured dressing old was hip ( if you’re under 25 and look like you’re in high school or college). Recently, however, Bryanboy posted about Talbot’s changing style: how it is trying to be fierce, independent, career-women-oriented… their new tagline? We Believe in Tradition Transformed.

Check out Bryanboy’s post for the comparison of then and now.

It’s interesting to see how they’ve shifted from elderly ordinary ladies to young but mature vixens. Where will REAL American women find their clothing now?? Chico’s?

Graceee

via thestylenotebook.com

for Tavi of Style Rookie at her recent Idea City talk. 14 years old, and already giving speeches. She was sweetly nervous, but still articulate for a young lady of her years– check her speech out HERE.

Some takeaways:

Sassy magazine

Does counterculture still exist with the real-time of the Internet picking things up and spreading things around?

Is there an underdog, when people can find others they relate to over the net?

Fashion as dressing for fun, for yourself, rather than impressing a boy or make other girls jealous.

A call for teen girls to speak up and participate!

Wise, Tavi is. What an inspirational being. There is an urge to deface her power with scowls of jealousy– rotten envy– but that just shows how successful she is. Who cares about how other people dress? Being pointlessly critical and snarky reveals your own weakness and insecurities. Being fashionable should be about positive appreciation for the aesthetic– not a competition of brand names, designers, or “fads”. Besides, things from each era cycles and recycles; being the mainstream definition of “unfashionable” can just make you way cool and avant garde.

Graceee

I didn’t know who these marvelous young men were, but my friend clued me into this hilarious 80′s duo, Milli Vanilli. Check their awesome dance moves! WHO CAN RESIST??? See you on the other side of the s’Pacific!

Graceee