Sub city.

Sub City New York from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo

This video is about that moment in New York when you emerge from the subway and find yourself in a new and sometimes unexpected world. Nothing is better…

My ode to timelapse videos.

I love timelapse videos (hence this previous post) – but this video is beyond love for me. The City That Never Sleeps provides us with gorgeous still images everyday, but no one still moment can define it. This timelapse combines thousands of still images and gets about as close as possible. I really should start calling this blog an “ode to New York City” I think…

Snow in the city.

Via Sunday Morning Tumblr

Even the holidays are more glamorous in black and white.

Pretty in pink.

via Hey I'm Anna

The making of a New Yorker.

In “The Making of a New Yorker” author John Steinbeck writes something that encompasses a lot of my summer experience in New York City…

ew York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theatre, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy. I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than anyplace else…

via A Society Story

Drop cap artwork from www.dailydropcap.com

What the King of the beach says.

I read Vanity Fair for the interviews. It seems like when they go talk to a celeb or just some random guy on the street, usually VF reporters get something good and, more importantly, real to come out of their sources’ mouths.

I liked a recent interview by Bill Bradley done for the article Wavves: We May Sing About Smoking Pot, but My Mom Likes King of the Beach. In it lead-man for the Wavves, Nathan Williams, says…

“Every time you open your eyes in New York, you see a weird guy or a beautiful woman.”

via The Sartorialist

Flea finds.

ver the past few years I have lost hours days of my life just clicking through blogs – blogrolls have to be the most fascinating procrastination device ever invented.

Some of the blogs that always instantly capture my time, and subsequently my attention, are design blogs. Interior decor, fashion, photos, layouts, prints – you name it, I love it. Even though I’m no design expert in any of these categories, I do think I have always had an eye for what looks good and how to make things interesting. After all, I am the direct product of a mother who only needs a bucket of paint, a spatula, and a piece of newspaper to redecorate an entire house. The creativity gene is there, even if it is not quite trained.

So this weekend I took a lesson from some of my favorite design blogs and I went on a mission in Manhattan. Let’s call it Mission: One-of-a-Kind.

The best home decor and fashion finds are never from a department store or off the shelf at Crate and Barrel, the best finds are things no one else can have (and not because of price tag discrimination) and from places no one else knows. Those were the things I set off to find and the places I wanted to discover. Cue: dun, dun, dun, dun dun dun – Mission: One-of-a-Kind music.

If you know Manhattan, then you know all about the Shake Shack on the upper-west-side. The place has the best 3,000 calorie chocolate milkshakes in the world. Ironically I like to run there on Sundays. My path from Morningside Park, t0 Central Park, and then to the calorie count killer takes me through an “organic” flea market (what organic and flea market mean together I still don’t know). So I decided this Sunday I would bypass the shake and instead go shop with the ‘greenies.’

Rain and a poor sense of direction prevented me from making it to the organic flea market, but instead led me to an even better find – a secret flea market in the depths of a public school basement. Getting lost lead me to exactly where I wanted to be.  Literally the lady ‘guarding’ the door said, “So glad you came…” in the sweetest grandma voice ever, and then “…don’t tell our secret” like some creature out of a horror-flick. I’m pretty sure I can outrun the seventy-year-old woman, but I will keep the secret just in case (and so no one else can get my goods)!

So was Mission: One-of-a-Kind successful? Absolutely. Pictured (COMING SOON) are my favorite finds: drawings of NYC circa 1934. These sketches were made on the back of book pages and have handwritten notes from the artist of what city scene each depicts. I can’t wait to frame these in my first apartment… umm, when exactly will I be sucking it up and moving out of the sorority house?

(Drop cap art via www.thedailydropcap.com)

Young, educated, and working for nada.

ount me out of compaining about the supposed slave labor of internships – I love my current intern position and, not only do I get a paycheck every two weeks, but I also get housing (in NYC that is worth more than anything). I can, however, sympathize with my unpaid intern pals. These are the friends who forgo eating real meals, and instead make friends with the hotdog vendors on the streets so they can get a dog at discount. They are having a rough summer trying to get the full experience of a good internship and the ultimate adventure of life in The City. A few days ago Huffington Post College posted a short documentary by Jett Wells all about their frustration…

This is a problem getting more and more media attention lately. I have a simple solution for companies who want interns, but will be slapped with labor violations because they simply can’t afford to pay them like real employees (yeah, I’m looking at you journalism) - why not offer scholarships?

Screw trying to compete with the salaries accounting, finance, and marketing interns make ($20 plus dollars/hr… gasp – they can really “make it rain” in the intern world), just offer us a $1,000 bonus at the end of the summer if interns complete their job to a satisfactory level. Sure $1,000 isn’t enough to compensate for an intern’s summer or rent, utilities, food, and travel expenses, but it is something. I’ve worked unpaid nternships while simultaneously working paid jobs – it’s the only way for me to make it through the year without starving, call me guilty. If I had a little money incentive, maybe I would have spent more time in the newsroom and less time working for tips at the local golf course while serving old men beer. Who knows, maybe companies could get more out of their interns and interns wouldn’t be crying at the end of the summer when assessing their drained bank accounts.

(Drop cap art from www.dailydropcap.com)

Happy hump day.

surprise ball on Vimeo by kate spade new york

ize does doesn’t matter. The best places in New York to shop are not always the GINORMOUS department stores or multi-level mazes on Broadway. Sometimes the best places are narrow store fronts that require you to ‘suck-in’ and turn sideways to let another shopper squeeze by. They are marked by conspicuous signs. And they are found by navigating the “mean” back alleys of Soho and West Village. So Happy Hump Day – here’s a video from two great shops I have enjoyed visiting in New York. In this video the team at Kate Spade New York (hello well-known designer name) shows you the magic of a “special ball” from kiosk (hello new find).

Speaking of Kate Spade…

Whoever is running the Kate Spade social media marketing projects – applause to you. Obviously I am liking your video on vimeo, but the other content you have is so much fun too: behind the scenes photos, an aesthetically designed facebook page, a blog titled ‘Things We Love‘ AND a shout out to a St. Louis business (that I am obsessed with) – there is only one thing I can imagine still wanting… an invitation for a job! Hire me, I’m in love!

(Drop cap art from www.dailydropcap.com)

I’m leaving on a jet plane.

ou should never stop answering the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? I fully believe the moment you stop answering that question is the moment your dreams die (ok, a bit dramatic, I know). When you were a kid, no one ever expected you to answer it logically (probably why my answer of ‘writer’ always worked when I was little… not so funny now is it Mom and Dad?). But as you grow up people judge your answer by its plausibility, security, and social acceptance. I know where my limits lie, but that doesn’t mean I can’t plan for an ideal world…

It's a good thing I like airports.

So, what do I want to be when I grow up? Easy. A jet setter.

If I was a jet setter this is what my weekend would look like:

On Saturday I would fly to Santorini and check into a hotel with a room like this,

I would open my balcony door to see this,

I would wear this vintage suit, carry this bag, and hide behind these,

I would spend the afternoon by this beach and the sun’s dying hours by this pool,

I would meet this (or this) man for a dinner and look this glamourous,

I would take him to a local place and we would dance till dawn.

On Sunday I would camp out at this cafe and read this book,

And on Sunday night I would look this good on my red eye to Charles De Gulle or JFK, because every good jet setter knows Sunday night must end and Monday morning must begin either in Paris or NYC.

Sadly I am not someone who gets the pleasure of connecting flights and stamped passport pages (yet) – but this weekend have no doubt that I will pretend to be. I’ll substitute island shores for Central Park and I’ll wear my Ray Bans purchased in Chinatown. Fake it till you make it, right?

(Drop cap art from dailydropcap.com)