I’m not sure what’s funnier, the fact that the fashion girls at Vogue are picking apart the fashion choices of the new editor of Vanity Fair, or the fact that Women’s Wear Daily and the New York Post are trying to meme it into existence.
“She seemed nervous. The outfit was interesting,” the staffer noted. According to the fashion editor — who omitted Jones’ admirable literary accomplishments from conversation — the incoming editor wore a navy shiftdress strewn with zippers, a garment deemed as “iffy” at best.
Jones’ choice of hosiery proved most offensive, according to the editor. For the occasion, Jones had chosen a pair of tights — not in a neutral black or gray as is common in the halls of Vogue — but rather a pair covered with illustrated, cartoon foxes.
The animal caricatures may have also been too much for Vogue editor in chief and Condé Nast artistic director Anna Wintour, who is said to have fixed one of her trademark stoic glares upon Jones’ hosiery throughout the duration of the staff meeting.
Do we expect fashion people to be catty, so thus they appear to be so? Regardless of what they actually do. As in, does the reporter at WWD report on reactions in this way because that’s what she expects to find, and she knows she’s writing to an audience that also expects it?
Or are fashion people really this way naturally? Without such behavior, we wouldn’t have the expectation.
It’s an interesting thought, something so completely trivial as what one staffer said about someone else’s clothes, but the interference of the article makes me wonder about how much the media has to do with memeing other scandals into being.
Using their power to draw attention to something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.
I think, for example, the author of the WWD piece wanted to flaunt her feminist cred but contrasting the reactions to the new, female editor to the reactions (or lack thereof) of the departing, male editor:
The fashion editor did not remark on Carter’s outfit for the occasion. After 25 years at Vanity Fair’s helm, he walks away from the job with a vibrant legacy that is noted, not for his signature wonk hairstyle, but rather his wrangling of A-list celebrities and publishing of writers including Christopher Hitchens and Dominick Dunne.
However, even a tacked-on feminist ending doesn’t overshadow the meat of the article, which is catty fashion bitches doing what catty fashion bitches do best — ending up in the gossip pages.
And isn’t that the exact opposite of what feminists want to portray themselves as?
Funny, in this case, drawing attention to the situation creates the exact opposite effect as I bet the author wanted.
There’s probably some larger point (heh) in there somewhere about trolls and discipline and the state of our country, but I’m going to ignore it and giggle and peace out for the night.
At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness.
The art: how you do it.
The habit: what you do.
I feel like I’ve developed most of these during my worklife moreso than in school. Even though I was one of those stellar students that everyone liked, school (and by extension, my teachers( never pushed me hard enough to have to tackle the basic arts and habits that make up my day.
That said, it would be worth taking a look at my own daily practices to evaluate what arts are being developed, and what daily practices spring into being.
I never realized what I huge difference the crop can make. The potential difference is rather obvious when it comes to composition (at least, for any of us 90s kids who grew up watching the “formatted for your TV” version of so many movies — I still remember that moment when I realized that the VHS version cropped out 30% of each shot!), since the surface area show of a photo directly impacts what parts of its subject are shown.
However, you wouldn’t think that the crop of a photo would mess with the styling impact of its subject.
Not bad. They look good — no clashing reds — and other than the fact that plaid-clad Wendy is not in the center of the photo, all seems to be well.
Except…Joy’s black boots. They stick out like a sore thumb. Even though they are similar in shape and tone to Joy and Seulgi’s long dark hair, there is something eye-pulling and offputting about those dang boots. They don’t belong in that sea of red.
As a result, the photo seems off balance. This is exacerbated by the fact that the torsos of the girls in the bottom row have been dramatically shortened by the crop, also lending an off-balance feel.
Here’s the original photo:
Much better, right?
Those boots just fade into the background, leaving a naturally-occuring visual hole that would have otherwise been filled by the dark wood of the stops behind the group.
The girls can breathe, the color palette makes sense — the bottle green floor makes a huge difference in offsetting all that red — and the spacing is not overly formal but still balanced.
Generalized inflammation is useless. Usually, pain provides enough useful information to be worth the trouble, but non-localized stress is exactly the opposite. It masks problems. Because it’s not specific, it doesn’t tell you anything useful about what is wrong or what might be causing the stress. It bogs down normal inflammation, and because it makes systems less efficient, causes much more work for the rest of the body.
Localized, acute inflammation — on the other hand — is a fantastic tool. It can lead you to what is wrong, and indicates that your body is working hard on that problem. Localized inflammation is your friend.
Life is kind of like that, too. Lots of low-level, incomprehensible stress is muy no bueno. You can never get a foothold in solving problems of that magnitude.
Specific issues, however, are much easier to identify, parse, and solve one step at a time. This approach is much more painful, and rarely fun, but it’s way more effective in the long run.
NCT 127 released “Limitless” in January 2017. It’s great (although I’m a bit biased — it’s my favorite of their singles). The lyrics are super-inspiring — about pushing yourself and exploring the limits of your talent — and I love when k-pop lyrics bend backwards to focus on their own group instead of singing another version of the generic love song.
The sound mixing on this one is different from a lot of k-pop. It’s dirty, grotty, grimy, built on an unrelenting bass line that creates a layer of underlying noise, which is both transcended by (notably singers Doyoung and Taeil) and mirrored in (Taeyong’s deep rap talent) the vocals to fantastic effect. It’s surprising, ESPECIALLY for a k-pop group out of SM Entertainment.
This comeback came with two music videos, of which the dance performance version is far stronger. The choreography is stellar, and of course the NCT boys perform it flawlessly. Plus, Taeil wears a jacket that looks like a shark.
You really can’t go wrong with sharks.
But apparently something HAS gone wrong in NCT-land, because 127 released a new version of “Limitless” this week and it violates quite a number of conventions.
It’s been over 6 months since the original Limitless comeback, and NCT 127 has gone through an entirely new era of music since then. (Cherry Bomb, for those of you who aren’t stalking them on YouTube like I am.)
The entire concept of NCT 127 was to promote based in Seoul, and this video is in Japanese. In fact, not only are the lyrics changed to Japanese, but the mix is different (bright and futuristic) and an entirely new video has been shot, that keeps the grotty NCT 127 trappings but makes them shinier (and one presumes more friendly to the Japanese market).
Twice has been cleaning up in Japan recently, and I could see SM jumping on that model. NCT 127’s Yuta is from Osaka, and he’s very charismatic in the way that Twice’s Japanese members also are.
NCT 127 is no longer confined to promoting in Seoul. Rather, they’re being sent out farther in Asia to promote. They’ve also been attending fanmeetings in Thailand.
This means that like the defunct concepts of Super Junior (one constantly rotating group of juniors to splinter off new groups each year) and EXO (one group, but two simultaneously-promoting subunits), the NCT concept is also dead. NCT was created to be a group with limitless members, breaking off into subunits based on geographical region and/or other concepts. NCT U was “proof of concept,” showcasing SM’s willingness to experiment with musical styles and their dedication to finding Actual Rappers. NCT 127 was the flagship, promoting in Seoul — but which hasn’t caught fire in Korea yet. (Wake up, Korea, these boys are great.) And then there’s NCT Dream, a SuJu-like group made up of the teenage members of the NCT overgroup.
I suspect that Ten, the Thai member of NCT who so far has only debuted with NCT U, was tapped to be the leader of the NCT-Thai group. SM held auditions in Thailand in Spring/Summer 2016. Nothing has materialized yet. Ten’s behavior in backstage videos (fun, but not necessarily leader material) and his “only” 4 million view SM Station test case, Dream in a Dream, probably put the nail in that coffin.
SM does a lot of A/B testing before they unleash a concept onto the world, and it’s looking like the concept of an ever-expanding worldwide NCT will not happen. Also, NCT stopped introducing themselves with “To the world…” which is sad because it was super endearing.
Anyway, while I’m glad that NCT 127 is sticking around, and I’m glad that SM is putting backing behind them, I’m a little sad to see the weird NCT concept go by the wayside.
After months of looking and weeks of trying, I found an apartment today. One that I have the option to sign for 6 months, even though I’d be willing to go for a full year.
I sign the lease tomorrow.
How long did it take me to make that decision? About 10 minutes.
All the other places that I looked at are listed on a whiteboard in my Airbnb, pro-and-con’d within an inch of their lives.
This one has a great interior but the rent is really expensive. That one has the space that I’m looking for but the front window looks into the recycling center. This other one has a gas stove and beautiful light fixtures, but let’s be honest, it’s way more space than I need or could use.
If I narrowed the decision, and made it “that apartment versus keep looking for apartments,” the latter won every time.
None were the apartment that I wanted.
The decision to pick any of the was difficult.
Then I found “the one” (even though I don’t believe in “the one”).
Sure, this new one has an event center next door with unknown levels of partying, and a view that’s pretty terrible, and a busy street outside, but it had every other major thing I was looking for, plus a certain charm of its own. The kind of alchemy that reflects the “soul” of a space.
This decision? Easy.
Maybe it was the byproduct of having looked at so many options that I knew what was out there, what was worth jumping on, and what is realistically in my price range.
Maybe it was choice fatigue (but I doubt it).
Maybe this landlord was especially persuasive (he wasn’t).
This place was clearly the best.
The moral of this story is that pro/con lists are only useful when you have to make decisions between a bunch of sub-optimal choices.
…about seeing complete black in the rearview mirror.
Driving at night is it’s own kind of fun. Even when you’re driving over familiar territory, the darkness casts a sense of mystery and adventure over the journey — you’re never quite sure where the next bend will lead, or if there’s a deer chomping grass on the side of the road, or whether the next oncoming car has its brights on.
Tonight, I had the pleasure of being the only car on my stretch of the road for a ways. There was nothing but black in my rearview mirror, not even a reflective road sign.
I felt accomplished for passing a slow car and leaving it behind me, but I also love that feeling of being the only one out there. No headlights, no problems.
I want to escape into a misty forest at dawn and run toward the light that spills through the trees. I want to cloak myself in velvet and swim into a glittering nebula. I want to discover the truth of God and the universe.
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