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Megan Fox in NYT Magazine; Men's Fashion

If you go to the homepage of the NYT Magazine right now, and scroll down a bit, you'll find a video interviewing Megan Fox for about 6 minutes. I couldn't find a way to direct link to the video or to embed it, but in it she once again proves that she's not just a pretty face. Between her pretty logical and mathematically sound reasoning on why she's usually the Mean Girl and her comments on comic books (long a haven for nerds), Megan Fox is someone I'll continue to keep my eye on.

Though I do take umbrage with the cat lady comments. Ah, so be it.

Additionally, I've been really bathing in menswear fashion photos lately. I found a few blogs thanks to this article from the NYT that Steve linked me to. And via those blogs I've started learning designers and finding other places to look at and read about men's fashion. It's a world that keeps reeling me in. May I recommend:

  • A Continuous Lean: Probably the best of the bunch I found, but it's focus on Made in America is a little off putting to me. Not because I don't believe in American quality, or the benefits of keeping your money local, but because I don't think it's fair to ignore the ingenuity and quality coming out of other countries.
  • Fine and Dandy Shop: My other new favorite and a little more personable than ACL. It's recent interview with A New York Dandy's John Wellington turned me onto V Man magazine. Which I hope to pick up a copy of this week while on vacation.
  • Kauffmann Mercantile: Found this via ACL and while it's less fashion and more gear, definitely an interesting blog to follow if you're interested in the history of good quality products and design (often times also common place).
  • Glenn O'Brien: O'Brien is GQ's Style Guy and was recently interviewed by ACL. (Through which I found out about designer Thom Browne, not to be confused with another designer I'm a fan of, Tom Ford.) Anyway - O'Brien's advice seems pretty well grounded and his discussions of style are entertaining as much as they are informative. He also writes for The GQ Eye feature.
  • NYT Sunday Styles: Finally there's the Sunday Styles section of the NYT. I remember a few years ago when Steve and I sat around ogling their annual (I think) publication focused purely on men's fashion. Now I've bookmarked it and will check it every week.

Dressed to Impress
August 31, 2009 11:08 AM

At the mall yesterday was a kiosk selling overpriced belt buckles. Because I'm easily impressed and swayed, I bought one. This one: batmanbuckle.jpg

You could have guessed from the previous entry re: Batman: Arkham Asylum that I'm a big fan. (BTW - that game is really awesome.)

I also longed for this Wonder Woman buckle and promptly added it to my Amazon wishlist (where it was more than half off the price the kiosk was selling it for - but I did get a free belt!)

wwbuckle.jpg

Sure, I feel a little ridiculous. But I also love it. A lot. I find myself hitching my thumb over the belt while walking down the hall to call attention to just how cool I am.

I also pass by a window every morning which has action figures lined up along the sill. Mostly Scooby-Doo and Star Wars from what I can tell, but it's had me wanting even more badly my own few superhero figures. Yesterday I bought my first one. Not surprisingly of Batman. There are a few other DC heroes I'd like to have, and I haven't seen any Marvel statues, but Bats is proudly hanging out on my upper bookshelf. Classically colored in royal blue and gray.

Cute/Nerd
August 23, 2009 9:30 PM

I put my cats on Cute As Hell: Grover and Abby. Go give them cute points!

Otherwise I bring you this: empsfm.jpg

A billboard I saw the other day for the EMP/SFM museums. Which are connected. I thought it was pretty great. It's an odd combination to be sure (admission to one gets you admission to the other, I believe - so it's definitely encouraged to pair the two). Except when you realize the only thing in the EMP that would interest people of all ages is the room with lots of instruments to play. Otherwise it's all Jimi Hendrix, obscure NW music memorabilia, and whatever random exhibit is on display. AKA really just for music nerds. Because while Hendrix still has cultural currency, I've never met anyone who's not a music nerd who would care enough to go visit his guitars.

Google Street View
August 16, 2009 9:45 PM

Just found this essay via UrHo. Interesting essay about how we use art, interpret it, and what we learn from it - by an artist who collects snapshots from Google Street View. (author: Jon Rafman).

"Initially, I was attracted to the noisy amateur aesthetic of the raw images. Street Views evoked an urgency I felt was present in earlier street photography. With its supposedly neutral gaze, the Street View photography had a spontaneous quality unspoiled by the sensitivities or agendas of a human photographer. It was tempting to see the images as a neutral and privileged representation of reality--as though the Street Views, wrenched from any social context other than geospatial contiguity, were able to perform true docu-photography, capturing fragments of reality stripped of all cultural intentions."

GNH
May 13, 2009 5:25 PM

Have you heard about this? I heard about it just today when I watched Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. I don't think there's any country besides Bhutan which measures Gross National Happiness, but can you imagine how our world would be different if there were?

I particularly like this part from the Wikipedia article: Bhutan ranked 8th out of 178 countries in Subjective Well-Being, a metric that has been used by many psychologists since 1997.[2] In fact, it is the only country in the top 20 "happiest" countries that has a very low GDP.

Obviously there are plenty of criticisms of using something so subjective as happiness to measure success (when success itself is arguably subjective given the part of the world you're in and the values you hold). But then, there is also plenty of criticism available for a focus on GDP.

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