I don’t read Jezebel much, but they’ve got a great post about the author’s personal experience with being a full-time fashion model.
I often reflected on the fact that studies show that women, after looking at fashion magazines — full of pictures of girls very much like me, sometimes even pictures of me — feel bad about themselves. I also often wondered why it is, given this fact, that we buy the magazines again next month.
I’m glad I never paid any attention to fashion magazines. I’ve skimmed through them in college and have studied the history of advertising in various seminars, and I definitely see why there is an addiction to the visual appeal of rail-thin models in various states of fetishized undress — I also sense many of the guys I know who are into fashion look at these magazines for that sole reason.
It took me a very long time to reconcile the apparent disconnect between the consistent wonderfulness of the many people I was working with, and the persistent awfulness of the position of abject and total disempowerment that I, like any non-super model, occupied — to realize that the problems of the modeling industry are not in fact personal, but structural.
Via clusterflock.
Steve Brown, curator and heavy lifter, has put my pieces from the current Here & Now gallery show at Brigade up for sale. Please check it out.
‘As, if you will give the permission, does this love you speak of, M. Tine’s grand love. It means only the attachment. Tine is attached, fanatically. Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith.’
Steeply made motions of weary familiarity. ‘Herrrrrre we go.’
Marathe ignored this. ‘Are we not all of us fanatics? I say only what you of the U.S.A. only pretend you do not know. Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you, die. Your nation outlives you. A cause outlives you.’ (Wallace, 107)
In The Mood For Love – 2000
Eight of my portraits will be featured in an upcoming group exhibition at Clothing Brigade in Cleveland, Ohio. A big thank you to Steve Brown for making it happen. Please check it out if you can.
My friends at Yoyonation made it onto a WSJ feature about yo-yos.
Pat Cuartero, 28, of New York, left a six-figure gig as a technology programmer at Merrill Lynch in 2006 to pursue yo-yoing full time. Before he got out of Wall Street, Mr. Cuartero regularly toted his favorite yo-yos in his suit pockets and in briefcases. He regularly spun two-handed while on conference calls.
Now, he runs a company called YoYoNation that sells yo-yos, organizes competitions and plays host to online discussion forums. Mr. Cuartero, who specializes in two-handed play, boasts palms white with calluses and middle fingers with permanent string indentations. He says that though his wrists ache sometimes, “I’ve never been happier.”
They’ve also got some video coverage of Pat and the Yoyonation crew.
The Washington Post is reporting that the makers of Croc shoes are running out of business.
The company had expanded to meet demand, but financially pressed customers cut back. Last year the company lost $185.1 million, slashed roughly 2,000 jobs and scrambled to find money to pay down millions in debt. Now it’s stuck with a surplus of shoes, and its auditors have wondered if it can stay afloat. It has until the end of September to pay off its debt.
A fashion faux pas will soon be laid to rest.
Burn After Reading – 2008
I just heard about this off-road sidecar racing deal so I had to go searchin’ for some answers.
Via ThisIsIndexed. Thanks for the link that helped me find this, Shimone.
Macworld takes a look back at Neuromancer, by William Gibson, and compares truth with fiction to see what has become a reality since its publication in 1984. I’ve always loved the juxtaposition between small trivia about Mr. Gibson and the work he produces.
Apparently Gibson had very little knowledge of technology and computers.
Despite, or possibly because of this, his vision has proved to be stunningly plausible.
Although I can’t say for certain this is true, when I met him last year he had expressed that until much later in his life he was adverse to technology.
Illustrations of characters from The Wire
Check out these awesome illustrations of The Wire.