CHANEL No. 5 ad thats pretty beautiful...

CHANEL N* 5 (Extended) from Foro Dinastías on Vimeo.

7 Reasons to Remain Silent

I dont talk in class, unless I am the teacher. As a student, I sit there with a sometimes knitted brow, occasionally nodding or sniffling a half-laugh if its called for... but I hardly ever, ever speak, unless spoken to. Apparently this is detrimental to my career as a graduate student, so I need to think about why it is I do this...so here goes...

I dont speak in class because:

1) I am not sure what I am going to say is correct or worth hearing.
2) I am probably wrong.
3) I dont want to compete with the talkers, I dont want to interrupt anyone’s rant, even if I think they are wrong and/or overly confident and/or absurd, which is often the case.
4) I didnt read carefully enough so asking a question may accidentally reveal this.
5) I am not really that interested in what I am learning.
6) I dont want to be judged, even though sitting there in silence does not totally absolve me of this I suppose.
7) I dont want people to know what I think.


Writing this list just convinced me again to remain silent... and I like this quote by Lincoln:

{Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.} -Abraham Lincoln

and finally I leave you with this quote from Liz Lemon from the show 30Rock, which I think I love even more than the Lincoln quote....{SUCK IT NERDS!}.

charm school

We had a conversation about charm. Then, a few weeks later, feeling unsatisfactory on the topic, I started another conversation about charm and what it is to be charming. Things are still unresolved, which, incidentally, probably makes me uncharming, but here goes anyway...

Firstly, for some reason, I think of it as an adjective to describe men not women, but I think that might just be me.

Secondly, what is it exactly? Does it require one to be extraordinarily sparkly or just ordinarily lovely? should one be quirky? or mild? smiling seems key. should one be witty or reserved and attentive? a leader of the conversation or just a breezy delightful partner in a chat? shallow or deep?

or is this just stupid? is it an old Great Gatsbyish term that needs no explanation.

Anyway, do you think of this word as a pejorative term that connotes some unsavory agenda? or is this a compliment?

or maybe I will just know it when I see it.

**click on the title of this post to link back to the last post I wrote about charm in 2006.

self

How do you separate your personal desires from what your parents want for you? What are we but responses to our parents issues? We either perpetuate their issues, rebel against them or turn them into something positive, or negative. But they are always there, hanging heavy like a soaking wet towel that never dries. Hopefully as time rolls on it becomes easier to distinguish ourselves from our parents shortcomings, but I dont think I believe that we can truly ever wriggle free.

P.S.-this is an old post that I wanted to re-post in case you missed it.

Reverse Birds

Maybe its because I can recognize people from the back from a mile away...but I just love these Reverse Birds photos via {A Cup Of Jo Blog}...click on the title of this post for the images.

A Big Laugh

I once worked in a design studio. The studio was open plan. So, it was just one big space that several artists rented out-all doing different things. So we were all in one space, eclectic, eccentric and everyone thinking they were more high-minded than the next guy.

There was a man named Harry who worked in the space next to my space. He was one of the most esthetically driven people I have ever met, but very very impractical. He once told me to clear the desk off of all of the papers and magazines I was working on, just so it would be clean. He was a minimalist. He was a minimalist. He often had a vase of white tulips on his desk. He loved Basquiat and sushi from the Food Emporium. He stole our cokes in the fridge. He never paid the bills. He walked around with no shoes on, just socks and even if I could not see his feet, I knew he had no shoes on, because he was suspiciously quiet when he walked. He talked on a portable phone and had it on speaker, but held it up to his ear. He sometimes tucked himself away in his boxes of organized clutter and set up a chair and slept. We followed the snore and we found him. He never finished anything but he had new ideas every day. He was the editor of a quarterly magazine, but it only came out once a year. He owned two apartments next to one another in the West Village. He once told me he hated money. He had a wife named Marion, but they weren’t married.

But most of all, Harry laughed. He laughed so loud and deep that when you heard his laugh, you wished you were laughing too. His laugh started with a drawn out {Ha}, then a pause, and then more {Hahahahah’s} followed. It carried through stairwells, through walls and doors and into reluctant hearts who he owed money to. Harry died this week and the world is less one very big laugh.

remove bouche

There is a quote about women’s fashion that I cannot find, but it goes something like this. {Before you leave the house, when you are fully dressed, remove one accessory, or article of clothing}.

The idea here is to emphasize minimal elegance.

Well, I have taken this idea and applied it to emails and it seems to be serving me well.

I always write too much to the wrong people and so, right before I send the email, I remove one sentence. The one sentence that is a little too strong, a little too iffy or bold or soul bearing. There is always one.