Yes, It Is A Recession

How to Fabulize Your Wardrobe

I was in a café with some friends recently when the French Waitress, employing her Charming French Accent to good affect, approached a member of our group.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But may I ask you a very intimate question?”
“Uh, yes,” responded my surprised friend.
Conversation ceased immediately. We were all all ears.
“Who is your shirt?” asked the serveuse.
My friend gave the name of a designer. The other members of our table, disappointed, resumed talking.
“At least you didn’t have to say Forever 21,” I quipped.
“Or H&M, like the rest of my wardrobe,” she replied.
This little episode set a thought process going in my brain. Why not Forever 21*, but with a twist?

Toujours Ving-et-un

Per Sempre Vent-uno

Immer Einundzwanzig

Sounds...mysterious. Foreign. Stylish. I should write ad copy for a living.
Really what I’m doing is borrowing a technique from the cosmetics industry, where making up vaguely French-sounding names and throwing in a few redundant accents for good measure has long been industry practice. Consider: Hydrience, Prevage, Curél, Pharmagel’s Eye Beauté (yes, beauté is a French word but why not “beauty”?).

Target has long been mocked as Targé, but other options are: Die Zie, La Cible or L’Objectif. I particularly like L’Objectif. It sounds so Central Intelligence Agency.

Consider: La Vielle Marine; Die Lücke; Nove Ovest.** If you’re wearing H&M, be sure to say Hennes and Mauritz–most people won’t figure that out. Or go one better and Swedish it up with Hennes och Mauritz. Uniqlo is already hipster-fabulous. To out-hipster the hipsters means learning a little Japanese pronunciation: Kabushiki-gaisha yunikuro. Better yet: 株式会社ユニクロ.

*Their despicable labour practices is why not, but that’s for another post
** I make no claims as to the legitimacy of these translations¬–but then, neither do many retailers with theirs.

This is a fantastic short film about tailor and business owner Martin Greenfield of GGG Clothiers, which I found on http://racked.com
The beauty of independently-owned businesses and the artform of making custom suits.


Martin the Tailor from Ed David on Vimeo.

Ventilation: A new feature where I vent

Operatic elephant, monkey, & walrus

An Open Letter to PBS

Dear PBS:

We’ve all survived yet another PBS fundraiser. And yet again, by some unfathomable logic, you’ve replaced your regular programming. The shows that I regularly watch were M.I.A. Instead, there were televised abominations. I’d rather have my eyelids glued open while being forced to watch back-to-back “Everybody Loves Raymond” re-runs than suffer through your fundraising fare.

I do not want to see:

1. Irish dancers in any configuration
2. André Rieu in any configuration
3. Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert
4. Any musical act from the 60s reunited in concert
5. Sarah Brightman
6. The Three Tenors
7. Anyone lecturing in an extremely earnest manner about staying young & living longer & with more money & feeling better & being happy because we "deserve" to.

No one should ever have to see or hear (especially hear) Sarah Brightman. PBS, if you show Sarah Brightman again, I am going to report you the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

I will not send you money when you continue to replace Nature on Sunday evenings. If you want money from me, show Nature at 8 p.m, regular programming. Or show more Nature. I want elephants, monkeys, and walruses, not their operatic equivalents.

When PBS fundraises, they target Boomers. This is the only possible explanation for the re-re-re-re-re-re-repeats of shows featuring Pete Seeger, Petula Clark, Jimi Hendrix, Roy Orbison, and “My Music: My Generation–The 60s.” I think Jimi Hendrix was a genius. I like Roy Orbison. But no one who watches PBS needs to see these tired old programs again. Especially Boomers, who already spend too much time wallowing in nostalgia and trying desperately to maintain a semblance of their long-vanished youth.

PBS, you are alienating an entire generation–mine–which will one day, when the Boomers run out of money after they’ve spent all theirs on plastic surgery, Botox, and gas for their SUVs, be your fundraising target. Think about this.

But perhaps I am not giving PBS enough credit. Perhaps they are employing a level of reverse psychology too sophisticated for me to grasp: they want to annoy me. They’re hoping I’ll become so annoyed that I’ll pay them to make The Three Tenors go away.

Okay, PBS, you win. How much will it cost to ensure that you never, ever show The Three Tenors again? Ever?

Name your price. I hope you take credit cards. And I still want the free tote bag.

Bad Woman

This here is a skull that's part of the collection of a certain Ivy League university in New York City (not naming names, of course). Rest assured, this is a real skull and not a cast. The words "Bad Woman" are written across the top (along with, unfortunately, now-unreadable text). Who was this woman? Who knows. Maybe she was a thief, a prostitute, mentally ill, diseased, or just poor. Or intelligent. Or stubborn. Or all of the above. For whatever reason, her skull was deemed worthy of preservation and thusly labeled.

Keep in mind that the aforenotmentioned University only became co-ed in 1983, so she probably gained "admittance" before the rest of us. (I don't know when she joined their collection).

Examples such as this make me glad that, as misogynistic as the world still is, I'm alive now and no one will write "Bad Woman" on my skull once I've passed away. Unless I say so, dammit.

If being intelligent and stubborn equals a Bad Woman, then the writing's already there.

*Many thanks to Amanda for taking this shot for me*