invisible text message break up

Hahaha I couldn't resist... 

Photo stolen from a Jezebel article about how people use fake texting to ignore each other etc. nowadays.

For Students, a Waiting List Is Scant Hope

The NYT seriously loves writing articles like this. And I, sucker that I am, subsequently love reading them.

WSJ: College Grads' Outlook Grim Students Begin the Search Early, Look to 'Plan-B' as Campus Recruitment Falls

"Several years ago the state of Florida could not find enough teachers," Mr. Wallace said, "now we have school districts that are doing massive layoffs."

Meanwhile, business and technical majors are likely to see the most demand, particularly as Wall Street resumes hiring.

A recent survey from 7city Learning, a financial-services training company, found that 76% of Wall Street firms plan to hire more recent graduates than a year ago.

Graduate-school enrollment rose 6% last year and will likely continue to rise this year.

You hardly need to read the article.

"I'm sorry"

From WSJ article "Prince Shows Shame, Rubin Defiance: Former Citigroup Officials Say They, and Regulators, Didn't See Risks; 'I'm Sorry' Three Times", reporting on the "three-hour grilling by a congressional panel scrutinizing the financial crisis":

Mr. Prince departed from his prepared testimony by saying "I'm sorry" three times that the crisis had such a "devastating" impact on the economy, millions of Americans "lost their homes," and "our management team, starting with me," didn't foresee the "unprecedented market collapse."

It's sad, the whole thing, and Mr. Prince recognizes it. This is a good passage. The next one is not as feel-good, but similarly revealing:

Still, Bill Thomas, a Republican former congressman from California who is vice chairman of the panel, which must produce a report on its findings by Dec. 15, compared the former CEO to "a lemming" because of his reluctance to rein in risk-taking as late as mid-2007.

The comment came after Mr. Prince tried to explain his infamous declaration in mid-2007 that "as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing." Mr. Prince was referring to the dangers of leveraged lending for private-equity buyouts, but Mr. Thomas responded: "You weren't going to be the lemming that stopped and said: 'I don't want to keep walking."'

It's a look into the (difficult?) sentiment of the times. Are financial institutions better today then they were in mid-2007?

P.S. I learned how to make blockquotes again!

NYMAG: Lady Gaga

image from nymag

Here are my favorite quotes:

"In those days, I’d wake up at noon in my apartment with my boyfriend and his loud Nikki Sixx hair, jeans on the floor, his stinky sneakers. He’d have his T-shirt on, no boxers. Then he would go do the books at St. Jerome’s. I’d spin vinyl of David Bowie and New York Dolls in my kitchen, then write music with Lady Starlight. Eventually, I’d hear a honk outside my window: his old green Camino with a black hood. I’d run down the stairs yelling, ‘Baby, baby, rev the engine,’ and we’d drive over the Brooklyn Bridge, dress up, meet friends, play more music.” She leans forward. “The Lower East Side has an arrogance, a stench. We walk and talk and live and breathe who we are with such an incredible stench that eventually the stench becomes a reality. Our vanity is a positive thing. It’s made me the woman I am today."

“It’s as if I’ve been shouting at everyone, and now I’m whispering and everybody’s leaning in to hear me,” she says. “I’ve had to shout for so long because I was only given five minutes, but now I’ve got fifteen. Andy said you only needed fifteen minutes.”
"At five-two and 100 pounds, with her hair styled into a mod blonde bob, she looked flush from a strict diet of starvation: 'Pop stars should not eat,' she pronounced"

She always landed the lead: Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Jealous older girls stuck in the chorus began calling her “the Germ.” “They always talked behind her back, like, ‘Gross, she’s the Germ! She’s dirty!’ ” says a classmate. Gaga has often mentioned that she was an outcast in high school, but other than adolescent shenanigans like these, her friends from this Pudding-like crowd do not share this recollection. “She was always popular,” says Julia Lindenthal, Marymount ’04. “I don’t remember her experiencing any social problems or awkwardness.”

“I feel that if I can show my demise artistically to the public, I can somehow cure my own legend,” she explained recently.

“I can have hit records all day, but who fucking cares?” she explained. “A year from now, I could go away, and people might say, ‘Gosh, what ever happened to that girl who never wore pants?’ But how wonderfully memorable 30 years from now, when they say, ‘Do you remember Gaga and her bubbles?’ Because, for a minute, everybody in that room will forget every sad, painful thing in their lives, and they’ll just live in my bubble world.”

see the article here.

PS: Happy 500th post!

Thank God for Rejection

Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were...Rejected

At College Admission Time, Lessons in Thin Envelopes 

read the WSJ article

Dissipating Confidence in the Runway

“Fashion today is an unstructured landscape in which ideas and trends exist concurrently,” said Simon Doonan, the creative director for Barneys New York. The notion, he added, of deconstructing and interpreting the runways for directions is stale, if not archaic. “It just doesn’t work anymore.”

- From a NYTimes article

This is exactly what I've been thinking recently -- re the majority of what I'm seeing on the runway in the past seasons (much less magazine editorials), I've had the feeling of "oh, that's pretty... but nothing I've never seen before."* Granted there must be plenty of designers doing new things, but they're not showing in the fashion tents to Hamish, Anna, Carine etc. I know I've logged quite a few posts on NY fashion week recently, but I don't feel like NY Fashion Week runways have conveyed anything new yet. I'm still waiting for something this season - something amazing, something fantasmical. Maybe next season...

*Exception: McQueen's amazing alien dresses last season. RIP.

Year of the Tiger!!!

 HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

Plaza 66, Shanghai
Selected by Shanghaiist (Chinese New Year in Shanghai)

One day, I want to be in China to celebrate. I bet it's so exciting and full of life!

Hehe, I love fluffy articles like this ("In Hong Kong, Love's at War With Tradition Valentine's Day, New Year Clash; Moms' Heartburn") in the WSJ.

"For Benny Li, a popular Hong Kong television and newspaper commentator, there's little room for compromise. "For Chinese people, the Lunar New Year is the most important event of the year," he says, calling Western holidays like Mother's Day, Father's Day and Valentine's Day "merely artificial creations."

Haha Benny tells it like it is.

Gemma Ward

Hubbub in the fashion/modeling industry about Gemma Ward not walking in shows this season because she's gained weight since she first started... at age FOURTEEN. She is now TWENTY-TWO.

Photo: AP Photo/Courtesy Vogue, Steven Meisel/ Ward (second from right) at 16, on the cover of Vogue in September 2004 with Gisele, Daria and Natalia.

Then and now:

 Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Patrick Mcmullan/ Gemma wearing a body-skimming silver gown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Gala.

Photo: Gaye Gerard / Getty Images

I think she looks gorgeous now. Before, she was beautiful, but she was also literally pre-pubescent. That's not maintain-able in the long term.

Page Six Magazine writes:

For several years, however, Ward's career continued to boom. In 2007, Forbes estimated that she had earned $3 million that year, and in June she paid $1.525 million for a three-bedroom co-op in the East Village. In New York City, she hung out with the hip Australian expat crowd at the Nolita eatery Ruby's, sipped rosé at the Maritime Hotel and suffered from permanent jet lag.

"Her moment's over," said the IMG source. "She's not coming back."

I write:

Eh, I'd say good riddance. She made her money and fame and now she can get out and hopefully branch into acting, which she's currently trying to do. You can't be 16 forever, right? Although when she was, my gosh was her face exquisite. She really had a special look, no wonder every model booker went gaga over her.

Photo: Courtesy Hearst/ Chris Moore/Catwalking/Getty Images/ Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan/ Ward in her heyday as a cover girl; and on the Chanel runway (inset) where she was called "fat." (In denim bikini.)

Photo: MIKE DISCIULLO/Bauer-Griffin/ Five years later, walking in the East Village.

Volcker Rule

I'm trending a bit business-heavy this week, but I'm trying to understand the administration's recently proposed Volcker Rule and formulate an educated opinion on it... so far, I'm thinking "no".

Here's an easy-read article to git some of that knowledge:

China's Banker Pay Could Use Some Incentives - from WSJ

 

China, meet U.S. Helloooo, disparity. WSJ article.

Michael Pollan

From the writer of In Defense of Food (“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”) comes Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.

An excerpt from his interview about Food Rules with the NY Times' Well Blog:

“Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.” That gets at a lot of our issues. I love French fries, and I also know if I ate French fries every day it would not be a good thing. One of our problems is that foods that are labor or money intensive have gotten very cheap and easy to procure. French fries are a great example. They are a tremendous pain to make. Wash the potatoes, fry potatoes, get rid of the oil, clean up the mess. If you made them yourself you’d have them about once a month, and that’s probably about right. The fact that labor has been removed from special occasion food has made us treat it as everyday food. One way to curb that and still enjoy those foods is to make them. Try to make your own Twinkie. I don’t even know if you can. I imagine it would be pretty difficult. How do you get the cream in there?"

Well what do you know, Fay and I (er okay, all Fay while I sat there) made and ate some cookies last night. Who knew she is just as impatient as me while baking!

Another great bit:

"Some of these rules require absolutely no explanation. “If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.” “It’s not food if it’s served through the window of your car.” “It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language.” Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles. Another one I like, “The banquet is in the first bite.” Economists call this the law of diminishing marginal utility. When you realize the real pleasure in food comes in the first couple bites, and it diminishes thereafter, that’s a kind of reminder to focus on the experience, enjoy those first bites, and as you get into the 20th bite, you’re talking calories and not pleasure. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that."

I agree. And I liked how he talked about diminishing marginal utility.

A first for me re: Avatar

They're undeniably good looking, even for Na'vi

Made to appeal to humans? Their facial bone structure is so interesting; particularly their noses; particularly the bridge.

On New Years Eve, I saw Avatar again in theatres with my younger sister and some family friends. It's the first movie I've ever seen twice in theatres, so that's saying something! The second time, I could recognize the flaws more -- overly caricatured characters, repeated/obvious underlying storyline, weak dialogue -- but I also appreciated everything else it is (a visually explosive, wonderful journey into their world) for a second time. And it was fun to watch it again with someone else for their first viewing. I wonder how the 'fanboy' network is receiving this film, because that'll somewhat determine if and how the Pandoran world lives on in ours.

The amount of research gone into creating this film is admirable, down to the linguistically sound Na'vi language created especially for Avatar, as explained in a Vanity Fair article. "Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon," summarizes another article. Now that is probably up to the fanboys and fangirls.

Clearly I was very affected by this movie. Anyone else? It's not just me, right?

You Look Smart

Fluffy NYT article about how younger men are now into dressing better:

Dressing for Success, Again

 "And at Topman, the men’s branch of the popular Topshop, the category it calls “smart” clothing — dressier togs that straddle work and play — has been one of the best performers in its new New York store.

“I think it’s a reaction against the homogeneity of casual wear,” said Gordon Henderson, the design director of Topman. “There’s nowhere to go with that in terms of personality, whereas a suit sets you apart. And now there are suits that are cut for young people. There’s never been that before, so it’s new to them.”"

I like that phrase, "smart clothing". Shouldn't all clothing be smart, in the original sense of the word?

The Business of Lady Gaga

"She is directing every frame of her music and her life, imagining how clips will appear on YouTube and what people will tweet after she appears on the VMAs," says Dumenco in a Forbes article with the subtitle "Lady Gaga isn't the music industry's new Madonna. She's its new business model."

The woman is truly a genius in more ways than one. Here we have another celebrity hyperaware of the power of media and using it to consciously shape her image to her liking.

Although honestly, I think Gaga's a bit overexposed, what with taking on everything from guest appearances on Gossip Girl to collaborating on earphones with Dre and songs with Beyonce to helping launch whatever products in Singapore.

Nevertheless, I still do love her and also actually respect her much.

*

Mac's newest campaign, "From Our Lips," will launch in March and promote "MAC Viva Glam Gaga Lipstick," at $14. Proceeds to be donated to the MAC AIDS Fund.

*Note color of face v. hand
**Also, I am loving these sunglasses... where can I get these?

By The Numbers: What Women CEOs Are Earning

Slideshow of Top Paid Women CEOS compiled by Forbes

#1 is Andrea Jung of Avon -- no surprise there.

Dreams Of Burton

I want to go to the MoMA and see this Tim Burton's retrospective. When I was at TFF, I saw a collection of drawings (they were photocopied, but still very cool) that Fellini did called Fellini's Dreams. Very whimsical and intriguing.

I saw a documentary at TFF about Disney animation and its revival in the 90's. Footage was put together from the goofy animators in their office, pre-Little Mermaid and such. Captured among the many staff members was Burton, a scruffy, dark-haired man who was so pale he looked like he hadn't left the studio in ages. Which, at that point, he probably hadn't because this was before he started his own production company and such. Anyway, check out these pictures and read the article in NYMag.

Increasing the energy efficiency of supply chains

McKinsey just did a study on this topic, and it makes me wish so hard that I knew enough to add to the conversation or add a comment on this article. Isn't it amazing how there's SO MUCH to learn and understand in the world?

Growing number of families in China making use of solar energy

Rows of solar collectors line the roofs of many buildings in China.

Due to a combination of research and development, market competition, and government incentives in China, models designed for families of three start at around 1500 Yuan or US$200 – about 70-80 percent less than the least expensive models in the United States. (High-end models have higher capacities and are able to seamlessly switch between solar and gas power.) Chinese companies also are apparently helping push down the price of solar panels – by almost half over the last year – in other countries, according to a recent New York Times article.

Check out the entire blog article.

MM via VF

What a handsome couple.

Vanity Fair has written an article about Mad Men with wonderful pictorals. Of course, it was only a matter of time.

I'm not sure if it's because they played with Photoshop a touch too much, but doesn't it look like there's something... off in these photos with Jon Hamm and January Jones' faces? Maybe they just are better captured by video than camera...