Maybe I should work in advertising

Because I just came up with the best slogan. I offer it up to the Internets for free:

Rogaine: What do you have to lose?

pretty clever, huh?

watch out Peggy Olsen!

Stimulating the Economy

You may or may not have noticed that the economy and the environment are both kinda in the shiter at the moment. But that doesn’t mean that you have to stop shopping, afterall it's the 'merican way!
This holiday season I decided that I wanted to get some more unique gifts, as well as not contribute to the whole corporate machine thing quite as much, so I bought a lot of handmade gifts. An alternative would be making your own gifts, but most things I make end up looking like a small child’s art project, and the charm of that wears off quickly when the receiver realizes that is in fact the “real gift.” Most of the things I got came from Esty (www.etsy.com):

It all started last December when I needed a new wallet, and ended up buying this handmade one



Then in the height of my George Orwell obsession, I bought these 1984 themed bottle cap magnets


I think I found some good gifts there in that last few months:

For my good friend Joan’s birthday



Joan, btw, is a super-talented art and crafter herself, for x-mas, she gave me this beyond awesome bag and shirt that she made. And whipped up this totally rad scarf for a certain fellow I know.*



Speaking of the fellow, I got him this cool light box and shirt




While the famous food blogger that I live with got, (what else?) this “housewife” apron




My mom usually gives me only the parameters of “something with dragonflies or hummingbirds on it.” I’ve exhausted the supply of dragonfly things in Chinatown, and the embroidered pillow I started a year and a half ago will likely remain under by bed forever, so I found this for her





And most recently, I found the perfect gift for a certain BFF/fellow Michigander/bride-to-be.




*Actually Joan’s made beyond amazing gifts for several people I know, but alas I don’t have pictures of them all. Her whole family is creative and talented in fact-- check out the awesome things her sister makes I know three ladies in NYC who are sporting these bags:

In which I’d prefer that my unborn children not be stereotypes who only read books with sexy covers.

Some would argue that Moby’s entire existence has been a simultaneous cry for both help and attention. But, despite (and maybe at times because of) his antics I always found him kind of endearing. Until know.

Now, he just seems really f-ing clueless. It’s like his heart is in the right place but he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. Which is basically, “I like gay people so much that I hate straight people, because my stereotypes of straight people aren’t as hip and fun as my stereotypes of gay people.”

(Actual Moby quote: “If and when I ever have children, I want gay children…(the gays) have started fewer wars, and they tend to be well educated, fun to hang out with, and they have nice homes, bars, and restaurants.”)

Also annoying is how Moby’s stereotypical unborn gay children are marketed to. You see, kids are totally image conscience, even kids who read, and they can’t go around reading a book from the 1970’s with a cover that reflects at all the decade in which it takes place/was written. "It's a style—it's saying, 'We are exactly who you are. This is the world you'll feel comfortable with. Nothing about this book is going to make you feel awkward to carry it and wear it. It's as sleek and cool and as with-it as you are.'"

No it’s not as cool as you are, and it’s not a pair of jeans or issue of Seventeen, it’s a book for Christ sakes and even kids are that image conciseness. Sure update the cover of a book when new additions are printed, but personally I hate reading books with “Now a Major Motion Picture” and lame movie poster printed on the cover.

Besides, teenage girls will read Forever even without the stupid chick-lit looking cover. That book is H-O-T!

Nine-Eleven

The world has a nostalgia problem, short-term nostalgia problem. At first I thought maybe it was a problem exclusive to my generation. After all, how else do you explain the reemergence of leggings, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake, etc? But every generation has this problem, there are countless baby boomers that can’t let go of the psychedelic music of their hey-day, and hell, all those old people will still tell you war stories if you’ll listen. (Of course it’s interesting the differences in the things that the generations nostalgiasize, but that’s a different topic.)

I have realized recently though that it’s not just a matter of generational nostalgia for glory days past. The collective culture is in love with looking back (but not too far back and not to critically). I don’t have the real answer as to why this is, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that we’ve run out of new ideas. This has been the case with music and movies for years, the amount of sequels, re-makes, and covers or re-appropriation of other media into new forms (the movie based on the play, based on the book) just keeps growing.

Recently though we seem to have a sick nostalgia for tragedy, and not with any good purpose either because the tragedies that we nostalgiasize are either pop culture-y ones, or are simply regurgitations.

The 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love
Really? This is a thing that deserves three floors of the Whitney Museum and countless magazine features? A bunch white people took a lot of drugs, had a lot of sex, and gave the figurative finger to the “man.” Forty years ago. Jesus. What about the civil rights struggles and riots, or what about what’s happening now?

The 10th Anniversary of the Death of Princess Diana
I never really got why anyone in England, much less in America cared about Princess Diana when she was alive. But holding huge memorials 10-years after her and her rich boyfriend died? But she was such a good person! Kind-of. Yes, she did good things, but that was part of her job. Mostly she looked pretty and wore fancy dresses, and lived a very, very, very opulent life from the money of the people of her country (including of course the working poor, since the royal family are paid with tax money).
There are thousands of people living and dead that have made vastly more significant contributions to the lives of oppressed people, yet they get no spotlight. Princess Diana was the Angelina Jolie of 1997, a celebrity who wasn’t 100% self absorbed and therefore was a god.

The 6th Anniversary of 9/11
Yes, 9/11 was a tragedy. And yes it certainly changed ‘merica. It was a scary mess, and losing someone in such a senseless way is probably something that you don’t get over ever, no matter how many years pass. So as a nation and as individuals, sure we should “Never Forget.” Just like we remember the Alamo and Pearl Harbor, right?
The problem is I think we aren’t remembering it in the right way. Throwing a pity party year after year and naming things “freedom” while there’s still a huge hole in the ground and more people have died in the mess of a war that we started in the name of 9/11 than died that day, isn’t honoring anyone, least of all the people they are memorializing.
And in all this looking back, still very few bother to ask why it happened to begin with. In 40 years will the historic memory of 9/11 be a bunch of tacky American flag kitsch and shit called “freedom” instead of the real ways that our greed fucked up the world? Probably.

We can’t look forward, we can’t look at the present, and we don’t know what to look at when we look back.

(Photo: probably one of the only good things that MTV has produced in the last decade, from a series of ads about AIDS, hunger and poverty that we banned)

How to lose friends and alienate people

This seems like a really stupid idea. And even though it makes me want to vomit, I'm guessing it kind of works, only in the way that saying "hey I got some dumbasses to send me free stuff" can be considered advertising. Still if you are looking to get rid of some friends, or just look like a total douche, this is also a good way.