A year in smartphone snaps

Dec. 30, 2012
At year's end, I like to take time to look back on all the photos I've taken during the past twelve months. It can be easy to forget the places you've been and all that you've seen -- looking back makes me grateful for highlights that might not have been at the front of my mind otherwise.

This year I also looked at the photos taken with my smartphone, which turned out to be a different kind of retrospective. I don't have an iPhone, so my camera phone kind of stinks -- I use it more to look at things from another angle than anything else. "Real memories" I try to use a proper camera for.

So going through my mobile photo album was equal parts embarrassing, boring, yet also weirdly entertaining -- like cleaning out your belly button or looking back at your search engine history (have I really Googled 'did Anne Hathaway have a nosejob' and 'cash out big booty lyrics'? Yes, yes I have.)

Anyway, just for kicks, I thought I'd share some of the trends I've found from my past year in dumb smartphone photos. 

Perhaps more than anything else, I documented my experimentation with a lot of new nail colors:




I took a crap ton of photos of drinks -- some healthy, most not so much:




I had a lot of meals -- the majority of which were apparently eggs benedict:



I tried wearing bright lipstick -- and I used my phone as a makeshift mirror to check on it obsessively while out and about (still trying to get used to that look):



I window-shopped -- for clothes, sunglasses and shoes -- and sometimes tried stuff on (pretty sure I didn't buy any of these things):



I saw and snapped pics of a lot of cute animals. Mostly dogs, but also peacocks, mounted elk, and baby ostriches:





I took very blurry photos of Weezer, Third Eye Blind, and Jay-Z on stage -- all of whom I saw perform for free at various work events (who said there's a tech bubble?)



Also in that vein of humble bragging (or just brag bragging), I took cellphone photos of some pretty fun firsts: Appearing on TV and getting ready to test-drive the car of the year, the Tesla Model S:



There's a lot more where that came from (I had an extremely nasty pimple inside my ear back in January 2012 that I documented very well) but I will spare you from too much TMI.

Anyway. Here's to more naval gazing moments in 2013. Auld lang syne to you all.

A back to basics reminder

Dec. 17, 2012



These days I've been feeling that my hair is too long, too raggedy, too tangle-prone, and frankly an overall sloppy mess. I mean, the last haircut I had was this past July, and it was one I gave myself over the bathroom sink (so does that even count as a haircut?) 

So I've been thinking a lot lately about splurging on a big professional haircut to just chop it all off. Not quite Anne Hathaway style, but you know, get some kind of a "chic bob" going. Maybe add some subtle layers. A real grown-up look.

And then, I see a photo like the one above of the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. 

I'm putting it here to serve as a reminder to myself that it's never a bad idea to second guess certain impulses that tend to tug on the heartstrings every once in a while -- whether it's "spring for an expensive drastic haircut" or "get fun Katy Perry nail art" or "add a bunch of false hair extensions" or "layer on tons of big blingy 'statement' jewelry." 

Those things look really, really amazing on some people. But if it doesn't quite feel right to you, you are probably better off sticking to the basics. More often than not, that haircut isn't going to change your look as much as you think it will. And no matter what, simple is almost always beautiful.


Camille Paglia on 'Real Housewives' and the 'ferocity of female sexuality'

Oct. 31, 2012

I had a huge revulsion to much of what Camille Paglia said recently in a PBS radio interview promoting her newest book on Art History called Glittering Images. But then again, much of what she said also had me agreeing vehemently with her. Perhaps most importantly, all of what she said had me enthralled and incapable of changing the station. I suppose that's why she's such a prominent figure who has crossed over so successfully from academia to pop culture.

Anyway!

Part of what I loved about her sentiments was how she talked about being an unabashed fan of The Real Housewives series of reality TV shows. Paglia is a serious academic, and of course it's always fun to hear about the "guilty pleasures" of those types of people -- but the key thing here is that she doesn't view The Real Housewives as a guilty pleasure at all. It was all pretty interesting (and a bit validating) for me, as someone who can't get enough of the series myself.

I dug around for more of her Glittering Images press tour after hearing her PBS chat, and found that she went much more in depth with her Housewives obsession in a great interview in Salon.com. 

I've excerpted some of the key bits below (in bold are the interviewer's questions, and the rest are Paglia's comments):

What does inspire you that’s out there now?

Bravo’s “Real Housewives” series! Whoever is doing the photography and editing for “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and also for “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Real Housewives of Orange County” — this is absolutely cutting edge. I can watch the same episode — while I’m cooking and eating dinner – five, six, or seven times. I savor how visually interesting they are — how long each shot lasts and how much information it contains. This is intelligent and sophisticated documentary filmmaking that really needs to be honored.

Documentary? Isn’t it just pop spectacle?

The early episodes of that series were bland and dull, even amateurish. Through trial and error, they eventually found a technical groove. It’s not just the sensational drama. As a soap opera fan, I’ve been in the depths of gloom for over 20 years as TV soaps declined.

...My grandmothers watched soaps, even though they barely spoke English. In the 1970s, I wrote down great lines from TV soaps. That’s when they were aimed at stay-at-home moms — all the tear-jerking emotion from the women’s pictures of the Lana Turner era. But there was this terrible decline when soaps suddenly wanted respectability — so then came the socially conscious message scripts and the crime drama. And they really missed the boat, because in the ’90s, drag queens got big!

...But the soap operas played it prim and safe. They receded and receded, and now they’re dead. The producers didn’t catch what was happening. The mass audience wanted theatricality and flamboyance! And that’s what this Bravo “Real Housewives” series is supplying in spades. I don’t like reality shows and have never watched them, but I’m addicted to “Real Housewives” because it’s authentic old-time soap opera reborn!

But beyond that, the shows are all about glamour — make up, hair, fashion. And sex! They show women trying to balance being sexy with being mothers. Most of the women on “Real Housewives of New Jersey” never went to college. So it’s great to see strong and outspoken women who are outside the elite zone of attaché-carrying careerists working their way up on Wall Street.

And these shows are archetypal bitch fests! I read a few months ago that Gloria Steinem hates “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and would be glad to picket it. Well, there’s the big difference between Steinem and me. She sees the show as a distortion of women, while I see it as a revelation of the deep truth about female sexuality. Right there is the proof of why feminism has faded. Those second-wave feminists had a utopian view of women — they constantly asserted that anything negative about women is a projection by men. That’s not what I see on “Real Houswives”! It’s like the Discovery Channel — sending a camera to the African savannah to watch the cheetahs stalking the gazelles! What you’re seeing is the primal battles going on among women. Men are marginalized on these shows — they’re eye candy, to use Obama’s phrase, on the borderlines of the ferocity of female sexuality.

...The class issues on those shows fascinate me. They’re all aggressive climbers. Some seem to be making a lot of money, others are constantly going bankrupt. They’re trying to figure out how to live as big as they possibly can.

And the McMansions!

Those crazy houses. But then you look at the other end of TV obsessions — it’s “Mad Men,” with a sort of cool Manhattan new money, or a show like “Downton Abbey,” which celebrates old-fashioned aristocracy.

I can’t watch them — they’re claustrophobic. I feel they’re dead visually as well as in terms of their scripts and content. We’re trapped in a derivative period of remakes and retro-this and retro-that. It’s all over “cool” — which is exactly what’s affecting the fine arts, too.

You’ve always said that. That a cool, jejune kind of urban sensibility ruins art.

Right! I can’t stand it. Now Andy Cohen, the executive producer of the “Real Housewives” series, is like an old-fashioned vaudevillian. The vaudeville era fed into Hollywood all those character actors who fleshed out movies for decades — like Thelma Ritter or Jack Benny. Vaudeville was live entertainment, often without microphones, where you had to go out there with a positive attitude and sell yourself. You had just a few minutes to entertain a noisy crowd and try to get rehired by the manager. As the host of “Watch What Happens Live” (which follows the “Real Housewives” episodes), Andy Cohen has that kind of exuberant energy. And it’s so amazing how openly and militantly gay he is!



The art of paring down decisions

Sept. 5, 2012
Who else remembers Doug Funny's very pared-down closet?

The WiFi was abysmal during my latest cross-country flight, so it's good that in the airport I picked up the October issue of Vanity Fair. This issue was, by the way, really heavily focused on Silicon Valley, with lots of pieces on startup founders, tech executives, and a full profile of Y Combinator, which was interesting (and I have to say pretty validating, even though I like to rib the old media types at VF from time to time.) 

A particularly interesting article was Michael Lewis' in-depth profile of President Obama. Lewis asked one question several times during the six month period that he interviewed the President, and I think it's one that could work well for other high-profile interview subjects: 

"Assume that in 30 minutes you will stop being president. I will take your place. Prepare me. Teach me how to be president."

The first couple times this question came up, Lewis says Obama's answers were a bit "dull and expected." But during one sit-down discussion aboard Air Force One, the President opened up with specific advice that I think could be useful for many of us regardless of political affiliation. I'm not sure that blue and gray suits are my thing, but maybe it's something I should look into:

This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. "You have to exercise," he said, for instance. "Or at some point you'll just break down." 

You also need to remove from your life the day-to day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. "You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits," he said. "I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make." He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one's ability to make further decisions. It's why shopping is so exhausting. 

"You need to focus your decision-making energy. you need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia."

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