Posts

On not getting into the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion

From this article by Nicolai Ouroussoff : "But traumatic events have a way of making you see things more clearly. When Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop opened in SoHo three months after the World Trade Center attacks, it was immediately lampooned as a symbol of the fashion world’s clueless self-absorption. The shop was dominated by a swooping stage that was conceived as a great communal theater, a kind of melding of shopping and civic life. Instead, it conjured Champagne-swilling fashionistas parading across a stage, oblivious to the suffering around them. The Chanel Pavilion may be less convoluted in its aims, but its message is no less noxious." Maybe it's just as well I didn't go inside! Here's my take on something even more noxious

Barack Obama and the Power of Positive Discrimination

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Thank you to Peiheng Tsai for this cellphone image, taken in Union Square, NY, 1:18am on November 5 It's the day after the election. With the line "the election wasn't about color, it was about the economy" being bandied about, I, as a person of color, beg to differ. BARACK OBAMA: The Power of Positive Discrimination is my take on my FastCompany blog. In that post you'll see I also mention Little Person (that's dwarf or short statured person - but never midget) Dan who, like Obama, is doing great things for his minority group - by being out there, and being successful. Celebrate our differences, because as Obama shows, they're the true catalysts of change. Watch Dan in action . Speaking of little people, I saw one enter the same pizza place I was in. I found myself avoiding looking at him for fear of being rude - how many of us know that feeling? OK, now imagine you are that little person, feeling people's eyes shift away from you but knowing you are

How to do Centuries NOT

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Pictured: Not doing a century in Alaska with winter riding expert Simon Rakower of All Weather Sports I DON'T do centuries. I find lotsa miles boring. I generally do the middling option - 50-60. Even on PACTOUR events (but for that, I am always working in some capacity so can usually wag out and save face). My technique for a) getting fit and b) meeting almost everyone at some point and c) getting back early enough to still have most of the day at my disposal - is to only do the 50-60 option. The drill: leave earlyish but not real early. Hammer with the fast guys as they catch you, hanging on for long enough to impress (but BEFORE you start slipping back). Bid them adieu, drop back, take a rest, mingle and chat with different groups bringing up the rear. Wait for the next fast group. Repeat until you've worked yourself all the way to the back. By this time you've finished early enough, you've had several good hard sprints, which are better than one long middling slog (

Peter Melov, Live Food Activist and Sal Anthony, Soft Capitalist

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I've just posted some multimedia about this intriguing, outspoken and let's face it, super buff Aussie social activist, Peter Melov: MOVIE: Peter Melov Live Food Cooking Class - 3-part video showing us how to make his signature chocolate balls, loaves and not fishes Photo Gallery of the class Melov's credo: Coconut! "A medium chain saturated fat that is understood by the human body." However, he is adamant his cooking is really just to sweeten people up for his real message, that of social awareness about the sinister politics of the food pyramid - and what he believes are the lies and propaganda we ingest along with bad food, thereby supporting big Pharma, conglomerates and other organizations that feed the need for greed. "My family think I'm crazy," he says. His family are medicos and apparently "obese, got acne, health issues ..." I met Peter after eyeing off his caco-nib-studded chocolate balls at the Bondi Junction weekend market

New York Fashion Week: Folding and Tucking with Telfar Clemens and Bike Friday

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Fashion designer Telfar Clemens tests out the Bike Friday tikit PHOTO GALLERY    Small wheels, tall models MOVIE CLIPS   Playlist The casting (7 mins)  Young NY models audition for the show, including riding the tikitTM! The show (10 mins)  20 minutes of fame as 250  fashionistas converge on Telfar's lunchtime showing I just finished filming a collaboration between Bike Friday and young fashion designer Telfar Clemens at New York Fashion Week. No, that's not Telfar above, that's Pavel, one of the young models at the show, who you may see brooding from giant CK billboards. The photo is meant to show our comparative heights: if he's the Empire State Building, I am in comparison, the illegal taco cart in parked in the cutter. Below is a shot of me and Telfar Clemens, with one of the monogrammed tikits we loaned him for his show. Read the full monty below ... JUST WHO IS TELFAR, I hear you mutter as you tuck your Armani cravat under your h

Turning 46 in the Big Apple

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Two score and six years ago ... my parents did the default here I am. I've just landed in NYC after 4 months of rabid customer evangelizing downunder . I was met at the airport by a Manhattan midnight cowboy who immediately whisked me off to the house of superlative bi bim bap to celebrate, Gam Mi Ok . It's the best, most healthy Asian square meal ever, in a round bowl (vegetarians can always refuse the meat). Just before I got off the plane, my lawyer James von Boeckmann (the nicest lawyer you'll ever meet, 541-485-0912) called and told me my greencard petition finally got approved. Unbelieveable! It's the end of a longish road. Rather than waiting years going the traditional employer route, I opted to self-petition using the faster, riskier route: National Interest Waiver. What is NIW? You have to show "exceptional ability" (the rung above it, extraordinary ability, is for young Einsteins and Nobel Laureates) and that your work is in the national interest. H

One less car. One more parking space for you.

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That's what this t-shirt says. Think it will help calm road rage? I whipped it up using the Design-O-Matic t-shirt designer at www.remo.com.au Read my take on REMO and view the movie clip