Shoe Sales Up Despite Recession

Today’s article in the NYTimes by Stephanie Rosenbloom about why despite the crap economy women will never stop buying shoes to make ourselves feel better (duh) is really just an excuse for me to post this classic YouTube video:

These shoes rule. These shoes suck!

Also, on a somewhat shoe-shopping related note: I’m going to LUCKY SHOPS today!  Talk about ridiculous logic — to pay $35 in admission to SHOP, but hey, there’s nothing like drunk-shopping (all that free booze!) with friends and finding Rachel Comey boots at 70% off like I did last year.  It’s kind of brilliant because not only is Lucky making $$$ off the ticketing, the vendors make money from people who are hearing that little voice in the back of their heads saying, “You just paid to BE HERE so you better BUY SOMETHING to make it WORTH IT.”  It’s exactly the kind of reasoning that makes marketers wet their pants!

TIWYF Eat N’ Tweet on VendrTV

Check it out!  From VendrTV’s Dan Delaney:

Great episode.  Thanks for the coverage, Dan!

A Year Later

From The New York Times

I really love these crowdsourced mood visualizations of words that the New York Times has been running the past year or so, after introducing it as a neat way to gauge how people felt about the recession.  Today they’re using it to visualize how people are feeling one year after the election of President Obama.  You can see the discrepancies between Democrats and Republicans by clicking on the appropriate tabs, and there’s really no surprise there that the blues seem to feel a lot more optimistic and hopeful than the reds.  I also watched the HBO premier of By The People last night, which documented the Obama campaign’s path to victory in last year’s election and I have to say I was (again) really moved by the democratic process.  Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that I just recently took the oath of allegiance and became an American citizen last week.  Maybe I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses, but I honestly feel that despite the financial dumpster we find ourselves in today (a consequence of our collective bad decisions in years past), I at least feel like I’m sitting on a bus with my seatbelt fastened and I actually trust the driver.  I look back on the W-era and remember that distinct feeling of dread, like something really bad was going to happen and he was going to drive us all off a cliff.  In a way he kind of did.  Thank god I had a rope.  So my word for the Times?  Motivated.

Bored To Death = Televised Stuff White People Like?

Is it just me or is the HBO show Bored to Death basically one long shout-out of the list of things on Stuff White People Like?  I almost spat out my anti-oxidant rich can of Ito En green tea when I was watching last Sunday’s episode where the Jonathan Ames character played by Jason Schwartzman finds a bottle of Kombucha left behind by a couple of Park Slope lesbian scam artists and comments on how it’s “really expensive” and how the words on the labels are written so convincingly.  Kombucha!  It’s just too spot-on!

The show is practically a visual smörgasbord of everything listed in Christian Lander’s blog-turned-book.  A fake version of the Park Slop Food Co-op has already made an appearance (#48), along with references to vegan sperm (#32), difficult breakups (#70), modern furniture (#79), having gay friends (#88), book deals (#92), making out on yoga mats (#15) and of course, a copious amount of weed (#33), which is practically a character in the show.  A few things from the show that Lander should consider adding to his list are therapy, graphic novels and of course, kombucha!

I actually do quite like the show, mainly because it’s fun to recognize all the locations shot around my borough, but even my white boyfriend — I know, we’re such a cliché! (#11) –  said it was kind of eerie how given that the majority of Brooklyn is non-white (64%), there is rarely an even slightly tan person on the show!  I guess there was Romany Malco as a gay escort in that one episode…but c’mon, even he seems like he walked off the list of white obsessions!  I guess it all comes full circle when you think about the fact that #10 on the list of Stuff White People Like is Wes Anderson Movies, and we all know who routinely stars in those.  It’s apparently been picked up for a second season, so I guess we can look forward to more Amesian self-referential humor!

In a Chemical World

Scientists have long been lamenting the decline of hands-on science in our schools and homes in today’s highly restrictive era of code oranges.  With the proliferation of meth labs and the ongoing fear of invisible terrorists brewing lord-knows-what in suburban garages, the government’s crackdown on chemicals and activities deemed “unsafe” has sadly resulted in the slow asphyxiation of amateur science.  Robert Bruce Thompson, advocate of home science and author of MAKE:Books’ Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments said at a conference last year, “Basically what they’ve done is defanged everything to the point where it’s entirely 99% safe, but in doing that they’ve also eliminated the ability to learn anything about chemistry.”

All very gloomy news indeed.  But we also know from Newton’s Third Law of Motion, that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  So while schoolchildren are no longer encouraged to blow things up in their back yards, steampunk-influenced hipsters around the world cannot get enough of beakers, test-tubes and apothecary jars as part of their home décor.  There’s the authentic vintage kind you see strewn about sawdusty bars with subway tiles, and then there’s the kitschy ha-ha kind like the cocktail chemistry set picture above.  It’s kind of interesting to see all these Orgo flunkies get super excited by the prospect of playing with a Bunsen burner and trying to be molecular gastronomists at home.  Even if you can’t memorize the Periodic Table of Elements if your life depended on it, at least you can look the part and parrot some scientific info off the television.  Are lab coats the new black?

Gratuitous Blur video below that has nothing to do with anything.  Just nostalgic.

Parisian Bike-Sharing a Bust

Really depressing article in yesterday’s NYTimes about how Paris’ bike-sharing system, Vélib’, has been met with theft and vandalism, with a whopping 80% of their initial fleet of bikes needing repair or gone missing:

“The symbol of a fixed-up, eco-friendly city has become a new source for criminality,” Le Monde mourned in an editorial over the summer. “The Vélib’ was aimed at civilizing city travel. It has increased incivilities.”

The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.

I really hope that the Bixi system in N. America doesn’t meet the same fate.

Samuel Bollendorff for The New York Times

TIWYF Eat N’ Tweet a Sweet Success!

Fierce competition today in the TIWYF Eat N’ Tweet Food Truck Challenge!  Nick McGlynn won after coming armed with a Vespa, GPS and of course, Twitter.  Another motivated couple were biking their way from truck to truck, not even waiting for the @tiwyf Twitter feed to announce the special or location!  But we were probably MOST blown away by competitive eater Will Millender (a.k.a. @bigwillthechamp) who came in SECOND while doing the contest on foot!  WOW!  Now that’s the competitive spirit.  Thanks to everyone who participated in the challenge — and remember, even though the winner has been announced, the TIWYF Specials are available all day long until selling out!

Thanks again to the six incredible food trucks who rocked it today with their heartstoppingly delicious delights!  Also, a big shout out to Kayoko of UMAMIMART and Zach of Midtown Lunch for their awesome coverage and support!

Wafels & Dinges - Ultimate Wafel Ice Cream Sandwich

Big Will at the Cupcake Stop ordering the Cinnamon Roll Cupcake

Yassir of the Bistro Truck serving up his Big Mouth Bistro Burger

TIWYF Special: Big Mouth Bistro Burger

Nick McGlynn eating the Cravings Mash-Up @ The Cravings Truck

Super Duper Dessert Nachos by The Treats Truck

Kim Ima of the Treats Truck rocks the Dessert Nachos

Van Leeuwen Team & their Decadent Michel Cluizel Brownie Sundae

GOOD.is/Cities

Exciting news from GOOD Magazine newsletter today that they’re launching a series of category-specific platforms for thought and action in conjunction with IBM.  Their first category to launch last month was Cities, which you can check out at GOOD.is/Cities.  We’re especially psyched to see some of the great ideas that were generated during the Velocity salon in Grand Rapids be shared as part of a bigger online brainstorm on how to make cities better places to live in.  Have an amazing idea for improving city life while being kind to the planet? Tweet it to @GOOD with hashtag #cityideas and share the wealth. Also in the Cities platform, check out our beer buddy Josh McManus’ urban dispatch from Paris as he travels around Europe for a month on the Marshall Fellowship.  Josh is the co-founder of CreateHere in Chattanooga — an inspiring organization that’s been instrumental in the city’s energetic revitalization.  He kind of rules.

Finally, a long overdue but heartfelt shout-out to all the wonderful people of Grand Rapids who helped us on our Urban Spelunking mission. You know who you are and how much we ♥ you!

 

This Is Why We’ve Been Getting Fatter

Mark your calendars, New Yorkers.  The food truck event we’ve been putting together at warp speed the last few weeks for the launch of the blog-turned-book This is Why You’re Fat is finally upon us.  The book curated by Jessica Amason and Richard Blakely will hit stores next week, and to promote it we got six super awesome food trucks in NYC to create a heartburn-worthy special for a contest next Thursday. The lineup includes The Treats Truck, Wafels & Dinges, the Cravings Truck, Cupcake Stop, The Bistro Truck, and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream — all run by incredibly kind and hardworking people who have been busting their butts trying to make our city a more delicious place to live in.

So check @tiwyf on Twitter on 10/29 starting at 11am for posts on what each truck is gonna be serving up and then run to be the first in line.  The first five people to order the TIWYF special at each truck will receive a free book, and the first one to hit up all six trucks and tweet pics of themselves actually eating the stuff will win a private food truck party for 25 friends!   We’re excited that the buzz has already started to build for this on Grub Street, Midtown Lunch, and even a column in Crain’s New York.  We’ll be running around from truck to truck on that day too so come say hi if you see two frazzled Asians handing out books and magnets!

FreshDirect x Robin Hood

Feed more than just yourself this Thanksgiving!  FreshDirect & Robin Hood have teamed up for the goal of helping to feed the more than 120,000 New Yorkers in need this holiday season.  A $50 donation allows FreshDirect to deliver a full Thanksgiving meal for a hungry family of 8.  We’re talking 12-14lb turkey, mash, gravy, cornbread, yams, beans, juice, the works.

As a FreshDirect evangelist as well as a longtime supporter of Robin Hood, this is a match that makes total sense to me.  As an urban grocery delivery service, FreshDirect has always been very responsive to the needs of its customers.  When we complained about the number of boxes, they improved their packaging.  When we asked for more locally sourced products, they delivered.  Robin Hood has been fighting poverty in NYC since 1988, using sound investment principles.  And unlike many other charities, 100% of your contributions to Robin Hood go directly into their programs because their Board of Directors underwrites all of the costs of operation.  That means your money isn’t going into their overhead, but directly to the people who need it the most.  They are also deeply accountable, constantly measuring impact and not hesitating to pull the plug on a program that isn’t delivering.

The fact that I’m even blogging about this now and that after my contribution I was immediately able to share it on Facebook is certainly one indication that they’ve got their marketing right.  It probably helps that they have Gwyneth Paltrow on the board too, but for me it was really their awesome artist collaboration holiday cards program that first drew me in.  And hello, how amazing is this library by Maira Kalman?