ANNA FONG AND HORACIO NIETO FALL COLLECTIONS
ANNA FONG AND HORACIO NIETO FALL COLLECTIONS
ANNA FONG AND HORACIO NIETO FALL COLLECTIONS
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ChiCagO<br />
PhOtOs<br />
insidE this issuE:<br />
advErtising<br />
WEEK OF May 7, 2009 ChiCago wiCker park edition Vol 1 no 14<br />
katie couric and cbs news get creative<br />
with social media<br />
tabitha hale talks about<br />
the meghan mccain goP<br />
LiKE thE intErnEt, OnLy FLaMMabLE<br />
gaspar marquez | tpburl.com/5svywz<br />
how a grownuP handles a meltdown at<br />
the clinic written bY the bloggess<br />
printed with expliCit permission from eaCh Content proVider<br />
Views expressed in Content do not neCessarily refleCt the Views of the publisher or the printed blog inC.<br />
TM<br />
laurel dailey | tpburl.com/0fwm9q<br />
anna fong and horacio nieto<br />
fall collections<br />
by samm Mackin | 4/20/09 | above the Fray tpburl.com/yrv4fz<br />
In a loft above Milwaukee Ave in Wicker Park, designers<br />
Anna Fong and Horacio Nieto showcased their fall-winter collections<br />
to a small audience in what proved to be quite an intimate<br />
show. Both designers’ offerings were very viable, wearable, and<br />
simple. The collections may not have been extremely avant-garde<br />
or mind blowing but what was offered was a selection of straightforward<br />
pieces with unique details and a certain edge to them.<br />
Anna Fong was inspired by her recent trip to Japan and the<br />
‘80s which she says is absolutley huge in Japan. This influence<br />
manifested itself in the collection in cinched obi-like waistlines<br />
and draped asymmetrical dresses. Pieces that stood out were a<br />
simple, bold, cobalt blue one-shouldered number and a low cut<br />
black dress with a zipper-embellished waistline. Ms. Fong wanted<br />
her collection to be comfortable and versatile and flattering<br />
on any body type which she pointed out as things the modern<br />
woman wants in her wardrobe. She wants a woman to look good and feel good in her designs<br />
no matter what her body type. To combat the on-dragging recession, Anna Fong has used materials<br />
like jersey and knits to keep prices low and she stresses the ability to mix and match her<br />
looks. She describes this collection as being graceful, elegant, and fun.<br />
I asked Ms. Fong for a few words of advice for those aspiring<br />
to work in the fashion industry. She replied that those vying<br />
to work in fashion should keep their options open and to do<br />
what they really love whether it be buying, styling, or creating<br />
your own fashion line. It was also important in her opinion<br />
to expose yourself to as much as possible and to be happy with<br />
what you do.<br />
Horacio Nieto told me that he was exhausted from staying<br />
up late the night before the show sewing and putting the final<br />
touches on his collection. Future royalty was the theme of Mr.<br />
Nieto’s menswear line Arlo and his self-titled womenswear line.<br />
The theme finds itself in details such as ribbon embellishments,<br />
chess pieces on some of the Arlo pieces, and in the rich royal<br />
color choice. Olive green, dark denim, and red were chosen for<br />
the men and amethyst, silvers, and dark blue were chosen for<br />
the women. The men wore lose-fitting trousers with closely cut jackets and T-shirts while the<br />
women donned mainly hourglass-shaped silhouettes with glamorous looks that translated from<br />
the office to a night out.<br />
To play with contrast, Mr. Nieto paired his regal, elegant looks with hand-crocheted pieces<br />
for a very unique look. Another detail that stood out were the shoes that were shown with his<br />
menswear, which were tan boots with green detailing and a series of small buckles. Apparently<br />
the shoes were donated by Fluevog, a local shoe store right in Wicker Park. When asked what he<br />
had to offer in this recession Mr. Nieto replied that his pieces were classics that are versatile and<br />
you can wear them often and all year around. His looks are what I would call modern classics.<br />
Both Horacio Nieto and Anna Fong have gained a good deal of acclaim here in Chicago and<br />
are definitely young designers on the rise. I think they are offering what women are looking for<br />
today’s uncertain times, which is something relatively simple and versatile but with unique embellishments<br />
and details. I look forward to seeing what each designer does next in the future.
2<br />
healTh<br />
swine flu 101<br />
By Plug1 | 4/29/09 | what i’m seeing dot com tpburl.com/yct1rj<br />
The current swine flu outbreak is the spread of a new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus<br />
that was first detected by public health agencies late last month. Outbreaks of an influenzalike<br />
illness were first detected in three areas of Mexico, but the new strain was not clinically<br />
identified as such until a month later in Texas and California, whereupon its presence was<br />
swiftly confirmed in various Mexican states, the U.S. and several other Northern Hemisphere<br />
countries. This week, the new strain was confirmed in Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, New<br />
Zealand and Israel and suspected in many other nations, including South Korea and Austria,<br />
with over 2,500 candidate cases, prompting the WHO to raise their pandemic alert level to 4.<br />
By the way, a level 4 warning officially means that the WHO considers that there is<br />
“sustained human to human transmission;” whereas levels 5 and 6 represent “widespread<br />
human infection.”<br />
Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue.<br />
The current outbreak has shown an increased percentage of patients reporting diarrhea and<br />
vomiting.<br />
The CDC recommends the use of Tamiflu or Relenza for the treatment and/or prevention of<br />
infection with swine influenza viruses, however, the majority of people infected with the virus<br />
make a full recovery without requiring medical attention or antiviral drugs.<br />
PhoTos<br />
follow swine flu’s sPread using google maPs<br />
By nicholas deleon | 4/27/09 | Crunchgear tpburl.com/wf73td<br />
This has been a very exciting year for<br />
things-that-could-kill-us. First it was the<br />
economy that could kill us all; then it was<br />
those Somali pirates who posed a threat to<br />
our very way of life; and now we all should<br />
fear swine flu. Why should we fear la grippe<br />
porcine? Well, it seems to be spreading<br />
around the world pretty swiftly, and it’s<br />
doing a pretty thorough job of wreaking<br />
havoc in Mexico. So, here’s a map!<br />
This Google Map shows confirmed and suspected cases of the virus, H1N1 Swine Flu, as<br />
well as deaths caused by the virus.<br />
As always, Twitter is fairly interesting, watching people freak out in real time.<br />
And, if you’d like hype-free news about Swine Flu, may I suggest Science’s blog? Science’s<br />
coverage is less alarmist than the likes of AP, Reuters, etc.<br />
we back<br />
the bid<br />
and you can too<br />
visit chicago2016.org<br />
Michael Rivera | tpburl.com/k68jmv<br />
mexiCo<br />
PhoTos<br />
GOT sOMeTHinG TO sAY? suBMiT YOuR BlOG fOR PuBliCATiOn<br />
TO BlOGGeRs@THePRinTeDBlOG.COM. we wOn’T GiVe YOu MOneY<br />
(ACTuAllY, we will, BuT iT’s nOT MuCH, YeT), BuT we will GiVe YOu<br />
A sweeT HTMl BADGe.<br />
By natch greyes | 4/26/09 | natch greyes for senate 2020 tpburl.com/qs1k9c<br />
Mexico, that country south of the United<br />
States that most Americans think is a poorer<br />
version of Canada with a drug problem. Of<br />
course, with the Swine Flu outbreak and<br />
subsequent media panic, most Americans now<br />
think of Mexico as a massive quarantine area.<br />
This post will seek to cover two major topics:<br />
Swine Flu and Mexico’s Drug Problem. I’ll also<br />
dry to dispel myths about both of those and<br />
Mexico itself.<br />
First, let’s deal with the irrational media<br />
panic over Swine Flu. (Note: Some of this is<br />
repetition from a previous post).<br />
First, if you’ve never had the (normal) flu, never treated anyone with the (normal) flu, or<br />
never heard of the flu you should look at this CDC Post for dealing with the Swine Flu. Note<br />
that the advice is the exact same as for the Normal Flu.<br />
[Edit: This Section Deleted, please refer to this post instead]<br />
Also, watch the video below, see the long lines? That’s the Mexican health care system, it’s<br />
no surprise that there is a high death rate (although we won’t know more for sure until we get<br />
more data).<br />
Further, you need to realize that (generally) the more rapid the spread of a certain strain of<br />
the flu, the less deadly is that strain. (Think about it: would the strain spread very far if it killed<br />
a high percentage of those who got infected?) Right now, the percentage of deaths for Mexico,<br />
which is bound to be higher than in the U.S., is lower than the typical flu in the U.S. And, there<br />
have been no deaths in the United States. So, panicking (besides not accomplishing anything<br />
anyway) is really, really stupid.<br />
But why, you ask, is this disease spreading so rapidly through Mexico and why does it seem<br />
to be cropping up in certain places in the United States? Well, the outbreak started in Mexico<br />
City, which is a densely packed population. All variants of the flu, like the common cold, are<br />
‘crowd diseases.’ They cannot exist and generally do not spread if originating in isolated, rural<br />
populations. That’s why new strains of the flu typically originate in Asia and South America,<br />
where 3rd World conditions allow the propagation of the disease. Further, this variant of the<br />
Swine Flu most certainly originated in a place where pigs and other farm animals are kept close<br />
by humans, i.e. a 3rd World Style Pig Farm, which, as we know from the Avian Flu makes it<br />
more likely for a human to catch a variant of a disease affecting primarily some other species.<br />
It’s a sad but true fact that since the people who live there don’t understand the concepts of<br />
basic sanitation and therefore don’t employ sanitation techniques that theirs is the place where<br />
these diseases originate, rather than say, North America or Western Europe.<br />
This all relates to the War on Drugs because the effect the Drug Cartels have had on the<br />
development of Mexico and the Mexican economy. Half the Mexican economy is made of<br />
informal sector (Black Market) jobs. While this is, in large part, street vendors, the Drug Cartels<br />
rake in an estimated $30 billion a year. This money is dispersed as payoffs to police officers and<br />
other drug enforcement officers, resulting in the military having to be used to combat the drug<br />
trade. This, in turn, puts pressure on the Mexican government to fight them as well as find new<br />
sources of revenue to help combat both the money and guns of the Cartels. Unfortunately, in<br />
most places, the Cartels are more powerful than the government and thus violence breaks out<br />
whenever the government tries to wretch back control.<br />
This affects the Swine Flu because first, all drugs weaken the immune system (cold<br />
medicines simply repress your immune system on purpose) and so the flu can spread more<br />
easily. And, since Drug Cartels smuggle people over the border illegally (as side work) they can<br />
also assist in the spread of the disease to various places in the United States.<br />
Also, since the Mexican government is concerned with fighting the War on Drugs it<br />
doesn’t have the extra funds necessary to improve Mexico’s infrastructure, health care or, really,<br />
anything else. And, it’s not likely that the Drug Cartels are going to improve anything other<br />
than what helps them funnel drugs to North America (primarily the United States).<br />
adverTising Bryan Feir | tpburl.com/h5nksm<br />
The PrinTed Blog is PrinTed By John s. swifT Co., inC. www.JohnswifTPrinT.Com (847) 465-3300<br />
Shane Walsh | tpburl.com/rx47fw
humor<br />
iT’s like we’Re liVinG On THe<br />
OReGOn TRAil exCePT nOne Of us<br />
HAs DYsenTeRY YeT<br />
By The Bloggess | 4/21/09 | TheBloggess.com tpburl.com/s5tpg4<br />
Yesterday Hailey’s preschool called to tell me that she had a rash on her stomach and<br />
back so I picked her up and I figured it was probably just a reaction from new detergent but I<br />
thought I’d run her by the Readi-Clinic just in case because it was on the way home and also<br />
there’s a pretzel shop right next to it but when I got there the doctor was all “Uh, this kid has<br />
scarlet fever” and I’m all “The fuck?! Like what Beth died from in Little Women?” except I said<br />
it quietly so Hailey wouldn’t hear me and the doctor was all “It’s very treatable now. Don’t<br />
panic” and I’m all “You know, just because I’m at a Readi-Clinic doesn’t mean I don’t have<br />
money. We have great insurance. I just came here because I wanted a pretzel” and the doctor<br />
was all “No, really. Scarlet Fever isn’t a big deal anymore. It’s basically strep throat with a<br />
rash. Calm down” and I’m all “I AM FUCKING CALM” but I just said that in my head because<br />
I didn’t want to freak out Hailey. Then Hailey’s all “Can I have a Popsicle?” and I’m like “We<br />
are going to set all your stuffed animals on fire when we get home” and then the doctor started<br />
laughing and I’m all “I AM DEADLY SERIOUS” and Hailey said we couldn’t throw Donkey on<br />
the bonfire because he’s her favorite and I’m all “Donkey is the germiest. We’re going to burn<br />
him twice” and then Hailey and the doctor both looked at me like I’m the crazy one and I’m all<br />
“Fine. He’s going in the washing machine. Like, for eighteen cycles.” Then the doctor gave us<br />
a prescription for amoxicillin which is like the sad, weird kid of the antibiotic family and I’m<br />
all “What is this, bush-league? I told you, I have money.” Then he made us leave and I was so<br />
upset that I didn’t even remember to get a pretzel, so basically we’re all suffering.<br />
PS. Hailey is fine and is running around like normal and everything in the entire house is<br />
going in the dishwasher. Then I’m going to burn the dishwasher in an abandoned field. I may<br />
be over-reacting.<br />
PhoTos<br />
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ReADinG is HARD. PiCTuRes ARe PReTTY. suBMiT YOuR<br />
BReATHTAkinG PHOTOs TO PHOTOs@THePRinTeDBlOG.COM.<br />
i Tried To make This PosT gender neuTral<br />
By matt | 4/27/09 | a view from 5280ft tpburl.com/hbnycx<br />
I learned something about myself Friday night.<br />
I learned that, when I’m in an argument, I go for the kill right away. Meaning, if I am in<br />
disagreement with someone and it’s totally obvious that we are going to get into debate, I will<br />
deliver my best line first. Before the other person gets a chance to even think about his (or<br />
hers, because I believe in equality) first argument, BOOM- I hit him or her with the low blow. A<br />
verbal rabbit punch to the back of his or her head. Before they even expected it.<br />
And when I say rabbit punch, please don’t picture a little bunny trying to punch someone.<br />
Thats not what it means.<br />
Example time.<br />
Him/Her: Waterboy was by FAR Adam Sandler’s best movie.<br />
Me: Get the fuck out of here. Out of all four of Sandler’s movies (I don’t count most of his<br />
movies as real movies), an ice skater turned golfer is by far the funniest thing he has thought<br />
of. In all of his movies he pretty much takes a guy and turns him into something different. He<br />
takes a drunk and turns him into a teacher, he takes a hockey player and turns him into a golfer,<br />
he takes a waterboy and turns him into a football player, he takes an asshole and turns him into<br />
a lawyer (I know, not much of a difference, right? HEY OH. Sorry lawyers out there… I was just<br />
kidding). It’s the same shit over and over so I am going to go with the movie with the most cuss<br />
words and call it the best. If there was any nudity, it would trump the cuss words but there’s<br />
not. So there you have it.<br />
Do you see what I did there? At the first sign of there being a debate ahead, I went in and<br />
took care of bid-ness. This strategy is always sure to end an argument before it begins and it is<br />
a sure way to win. If this strategy does not work for you, another strategy I use is to talk louder<br />
than the other person. It’s pretty simple- whatever they say, just talk louder than him (or her)<br />
while he (or she) is saying it. That way, people really only hear you.<br />
So there you have it. I hope these strategies work for you as well as they work for me.<br />
I didn’t count but I hope I got in like, at least 5 “him/her’s” in this post.<br />
Chrystel garipuy | tpburl.com/rswmzh<br />
if YOu Miss OuR THuRsDAY MORninG DisTRiBuTiOn Of THe<br />
PRinTeD BlOG, VisiT www.THePRinTeDBlOG.COM TO DOwnlOAD THe<br />
newsPAPeR fOR THe nexT 100 YeARs.<br />
Janka Mudrakova | tpburl.com/tf07rj<br />
VieWS expReSSed in Content do not neCeSSaRily ReFleCt the VieWS oF the puBliSheR oR the pRinted Blog inC. 3
4<br />
finanCe<br />
inVesTinG in YOuR kiDs’ sTuff<br />
By Jennifer openshaw | 3/31/09 | Blogher.com tpburl.com/hcxk51<br />
Where do investment ideas come from? Something you read in the paper? Something your<br />
broker, or maybe a friend, recommended?<br />
Here’s a thought: What about trying to get some tips from your kids? It can happen.<br />
Any parent who drives children around all day has an all-access pass to a special world —<br />
the world of young consumers. If you listen, you’ll hear what they want, what they are buying,<br />
and — of course — what they want you to buy them. Pay attention to what’s happening in their<br />
world, and you might come up with some good investment ideas of your own (for more on this,<br />
read Rogers Park Montessori School: New Kids on the Stock).<br />
Smells like teen spirit: “Axe — I smell it everywhere,” the mother of a 14-year-old boy<br />
told me. “Axe body spray, Axe body wash, Axe deodorant, Axe hair gel… you get the idea. They<br />
make everything. And every teenaged boy wears that scent.” Axe is everywhere, but where<br />
does it come from? It’s one of the myriad of products made by Dutch consumer products giant<br />
Unilever (UL), traded in the U.S. as an ADR. You know Unilever — they’re the same folks who<br />
bring you your SlimFast.<br />
They wear it well: Under Armour’s (UA) aggressive marketing campaign has apparently<br />
caught on with young boys on the field. Under Armour makes “performance apparel” for sports<br />
like basketball, football, and soccer, and kids wear it with pride. The company recently entered<br />
the running-shoe arena, setting its sights on Nike. Will it succeed?<br />
School of Roxy: The girls who are watching the guys who smell like Axe and wear tight<br />
Under Armour t-shirts are wearing Roxy t-shirts. Sounds like an eighties band, I know, but<br />
it’s one of the many skate/snow board apparel labels owned by surf pioneer Quiksilver (ZQK).<br />
Teenaged girls love Roxy’s tiny t-shirts and hoodies.<br />
Betwixt and Be Tween: Aeropostale (ARO) is a mall store that mothers of tween girls know<br />
all too well. The mother of three young girls told me recently that she’s there so often she’s<br />
memorized the layout of the store near them.<br />
So the next time you get dragged to the store by your children, think of it as research. Who<br />
knows, your next great investment idea might just pop out of one of those shopping bags. It’s a<br />
great example of investing in what you know.<br />
Profile<br />
THe wORlD is full Of inTeResTinG PeOPle. fOR eACH issue we PiCk A<br />
uniQue PeRsOn TO PROfile. sHARe YOuR iDeAs ABOuT sOMeOne TO PROfile<br />
BY wRiTinG PROfile@THePRinTeDBlOG.COM.<br />
www.weseed.com<br />
www.themillionairezone.com<br />
a passionate advocate for working<br />
americans, Jennifer openshaw is cofounder<br />
of stock education site weseed<br />
(www.weseed.com), author of a new<br />
book, The millionaire Zone, and a seasoned<br />
expert in finance and investing. she appears<br />
regularly on oprah, good morning america<br />
and Cnn and has been featured in the new<br />
york Times, usa Today and Business week.<br />
Jennifer has lived her own “rags to riches”<br />
story, getting her first job as a maid in a<br />
motel when she was 14 years old to help<br />
support her family. from these humble but<br />
determined beginnings, she launched and<br />
propelled her career in financial services,<br />
with an mBa from uCla and a job as press<br />
secretary for California’s state Treasurer.<br />
Jennifer has since worked as vice president at Bank of america, senior vice president<br />
of corporate marketing at Bank one, head of marketing for investment firm wilshire<br />
associates, and chief executive of family financial network.<br />
she has gone on to start several successful ventures. in 1999, Jennifer founded women’s<br />
financial network, a financial services company created for women. she now serves as<br />
president of weseed, designed to help people use their passions and professions to make<br />
better investment decisions.<br />
Jennifer also is host of aBC radio’s “winning advice,” aol’s family financial editor and a<br />
member of the young entrepreneurs organization. The governor of California has appointed<br />
her to the prestigious Commission on California state government organization and<br />
economy.<br />
as a proven entrepreneur and powerful voice for “the little guy,” Jennifer knows that<br />
ordinary people often have limited resources but unlimited aspirations. her life’s mission<br />
is to share her secrets of how successful people get ahead and empower middle-income<br />
americans to reach their financial dreams.<br />
PoliTiCs<br />
jennifeR OPensHAw<br />
GOOGle’s CeO GeTs An OffiCiAl<br />
seAT AT PResiDenT OBAMA’s TABle<br />
By adam ostrow | 4/27/09 | mashable tpburl.com/8zc3js<br />
The close ties between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and President Barack Obama are welldocumented.<br />
Schmidt endorsed Obama’s Presidential campaign, and in the months since he has<br />
taken office, the leader of the world’s most popular search engine has also been a guest at the<br />
White House to discuss policy alongside some of the country’s top economists and financiers.<br />
Although Schmidt quickly took his name out of the running to become CTO of the USA<br />
after Obama was elected, today, he’s been officially named to a new role: that of a member of<br />
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.<br />
That group, according to a statement issued today by The White House, will advise<br />
the President on “[formulating] policy in the many areas where understanding of science,<br />
technology, and innovation is key to strengthening our economy and forming policy that works<br />
for the American people.”<br />
It’s worth noting that Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft,<br />
is also on the list of advisers, so fear of Google getting unfair sway with the nation’s Chief<br />
Executive are probably a bit unfounded.<br />
Nonetheless, it probably doesn’t sit well with those that think Google already has just a bit<br />
too much power that the company’s CEO will now have a seat at the President’s table in a role<br />
that will clearly help define tech policy going forward.<br />
kATie COuRiC AnD CBs news GeT<br />
CReATiVe wiTH fACeBOOk PAGes<br />
By Jennifer van grove | 4/22/09 | mashable tpburl.com/43ymbn<br />
Hi there, Facebookers! Katie Couric has a video challenge for you. The CBS Evening News<br />
anchor is putting the upgraded Facebook Pages to good use.<br />
In a 48 second video clip posted to her page, Couric explains that she’s going to be<br />
taking stock of President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office, and she needs your help (and<br />
Facebook juice) to do it.<br />
The challenge, should you choose to accept, is to create a 20 second video on what<br />
Obama’s done wrong or right while in office, and post it to her Facebook Page. The best videos<br />
will be included in a live broadcast from CBSNews.com on April 29 at 7pm EST.<br />
Even though Couric acknowledges that she’s crossing into trendier territories by stating<br />
“my daughters think it’s really funny I have a Facebook Page…funny weird,” we still think<br />
that she’s doing a fantastic job combining her star power with social media savvy to raise her<br />
profile on Facebook and grow the CBS audience through potentially viral channels. The power<br />
of massive comments, likes, and user-created Facebook videos, is that the CBS message gets<br />
dispersed to new audiences (friends of friends) with every act of sharing.<br />
Oddly enough, we’re unable to share the video with you here due to Facebook’s archaic<br />
video sharing limitations (you can only share videos with your Facebook network on Facebook).<br />
But, should you be interested in participating in the challenge, you can watch the video and<br />
participate here.<br />
She’s already hip to YouTube and Digg, now Facebook, so what’s next Couric? A 140<br />
character Twitter challenge (she’s already tweeting as @katiecouric) perhaps? That sounds fun.<br />
PhoTos<br />
reCession gaming: Two hyPer-addiCTive free games<br />
By danielle riendeau | 4/16/09 | gamertell tpburl.com/3n48vx<br />
There’s nothing sweeter than finding fun<br />
on the cheap - or better - for free, especially<br />
when it comes to videogames. Now that<br />
everyone is weary about spending (yes, the<br />
economy is ruining everything, and no one<br />
is immune), finding good, free web-based<br />
games has become a hobby for many. I’m here<br />
to point you in the direction of two that are<br />
particularly compelling - for entirely different<br />
reasons.<br />
The first, I have to admit, is something<br />
I stumbled on while reading Kotaku. ScaryGirl, as it’s called is a robust, gorgeous platformer/<br />
adventure game that looks and plays as if Psychonauts had a baby with Super Mario Brothers<br />
and the old Beetlejuice cartoon was somehow involved. It’s as full-featured (and beautifully<br />
animated) as a good full-priced game, so the fact that you can play it for free - and in your<br />
browser - is pretty fantastic.<br />
On the other end of the spectrum is the juvenile, hilarious Don’t Sh*t Your Pants, which is<br />
a text-based adventure game (though the creators have dubbed it “survival horror”). It centers<br />
on a very simple - and nasty - premise (don’t do number two in your pants) and stars a crudely<br />
drawn dude who looks like he started out life in MS Paint, but no matter - the fact that there<br />
are about nine “achievements” to earn will have you playing until you figure them all out. I<br />
seriously could not stop playing this last night - though I’m not sure what that says about me.<br />
I dare you to try these games and not feel gratified - and if you hate them, well, it didn’t<br />
cost you a penny.<br />
The PrinTed Blog is PrinTed By John s. swifT Co., inC. www.JohnswifTPrinT.Com (847) 465-3300<br />
TeCh<br />
i do noT undersTand These words<br />
By michelle woo | 4/23/09 | michelle woo tpburl.com/4195x3<br />
J. Cook photography | tpburl.com/f67ngz
PhoTos<br />
CulTure<br />
THe wAll PROjeCT<br />
By Joshua karp | 4/30/09 | The Printed Blog tpburl.com/bp3w29<br />
It’s no secret that communication technologies are bridging geographical and cultural gaps.<br />
With a little creativity, they are also proving they have the power to do much more.<br />
In the Phillipines, for example, large-scale demonstrations organized via cell phones and<br />
SMS helped force President Joseph Estrada’s resignation, thus bringing about major political<br />
change without violence.<br />
At the Northwood School in London, students use video conferencing technology to<br />
interact with pupils at primary schools in the U.S. and China. The children are quickly able to<br />
develop more intimate levels of cultural appreciation as a result, learning about Thanksgiving<br />
from children in Texas, and practicing Tai Chi with children in Hong Kong.<br />
The service Videoletters.net captures video messages from former neighbors and friends<br />
throughout the war-torn countries of the Former Yugoslavia, broadcasting them via public<br />
access channels so those who lost contact during conflict can reconnect.<br />
While remarkable and inspiring, these innovative examples lack the power and appeal of<br />
firsthand, personal experience. We do not live in a world of avatars. Our facial expressions are<br />
not emoticons. Existing interfaces for navigating the virtual world continue to evolve, but they<br />
are no substitute for real world interaction.<br />
But what if technology could be harnessed to bend the rules? What if there was an<br />
innovative communications solution that could blur the line between virtual and real world<br />
interaction? What if there was a way to enable large-scale, face-to-face interactions between<br />
citizens all over the world…in real-time? It would be like opening a window into another part of<br />
the world.<br />
Well, that window exists. And that window is a wall.<br />
The Wall is a groundbreaking new project that aims to tear down geographic and cultural<br />
barriers like never before via the construction of monumental “smart” walls in locations around<br />
the globe. Designed to serve as audio-visual gateways, citizens of the world will be able to<br />
see, hear, and interact with their international ‘neighbors’ in an open forum that promotes<br />
empathy, dialogue, and unprecedented human collaboration.<br />
Sound like a lofty goal? The Wall’s inspiring and ambitious mission is founded upon<br />
concrete, achievable pillars set forth by Joshua Karp – entrepreneur, optimist and founder of The<br />
Printed Blog. Joshua believes that the greatest opportunities to change the world start with one<br />
person, a single idea, and the belief that anything is possible.<br />
In 50 cities around the world, 50 interactive video walls will be constructed in large,<br />
open and accessible urban hubs. The walls will be approximately 1000 feet long by 50 feet tall<br />
by 15 feet thick. They will be built using high definition monitors, video cameras, speakers,<br />
and microphones. They will be constructed to be impervious to weather and vandalism, and<br />
designed with respect to each individual city’s unique heritage and urban plan.<br />
How will these walls work? They will interface in tandem with sister walls in other<br />
cities according to a rotation of eight-hour intervals, with schedules made public through a<br />
predetermined schedule.<br />
A man in Chicago will meet face-to-face and interact in real-time with a woman in New<br />
Delhi. A boy in Mosul will play rock, paper, scissors with a girl in Amsterdam. Speeches,<br />
lectures, rallies, protests, discussions, concerts, classes, field trips, commerce, games, love affairs,<br />
arguments and more will occur across the wall…and across the world.<br />
The Wall will inevitably bear witness to horrors and atrocities as well. Thus, it will ensure<br />
we do not turn a blind eye to murder, theft, persecution and injustice. Imagine how much faster<br />
violence would end and peace would come if people stopped averting their eyes.<br />
The Wall presents an opportunity to dissolve barriers between cultures and create an<br />
environment of global discourse on an unprecedented scale. A strong global community<br />
begins with citizens capable of facing realities honestly – and those realities can only be fully<br />
understood through real world interaction.<br />
Where the Internet has facilitated virtual world interaction on a global scale, the Wall<br />
will encourage real world interaction on the same scale. Something remarkable and inspiring,<br />
indeed.<br />
hire me<br />
THis jusT in: THe CuRRenT jOB MARkeT is Awful. we CAn HelP YOu finD<br />
YOuR wAY OuT Of YOuR BATHROBe AnD inTO A GReAT new jOB. senD<br />
A COuPle senTenCes ABOuT YOuRself, YOuR linkeDin PROfile, AnD A<br />
PiCTuRe TO HiReMe@THePRinTeDBlOG.COM.<br />
noTe To readers<br />
Tim yuen / Copywriter<br />
Went to new york to look for a job as a copywriter, came back to Chicago a few<br />
months later due to the economic recession. now working out thanks to my p90x<br />
routine but would rather write copy for advertising agency. Check out my work/<br />
resume at www.timyuenportfolio.com<br />
http://www.linkedin.com/in/timyuen<br />
Bob Johnson / photographer<br />
My photography and writing has been published in the new york times, Star<br />
magazine, newsday, timeout/ny, the new york Resident, playbill.com and more.<br />
My photos also have been featured on aBC’s the View and tMZ. i am seeking a<br />
position that will combine my photography, writing and video skills so that i can<br />
continue to follow my passions in life. http://www.linkedin.com/in/bittenbyazebra<br />
Cover photo Correction<br />
the printed Blog mislabeled the cover photograph<br />
credit in the Chicago loop edition of Vol1 no13. the<br />
correct photographer’s name is Michal Czerwonka. We<br />
regret the error.<br />
tagline Credit<br />
“like the internet, only flammable.”<br />
this tagline was submitted by Marc Muszynski, a<br />
runner-up in our tagline contest.<br />
VieWS expReSSed in Content do not neCeSSaRily ReFleCt the VieWS oF the puBliSheR oR the pRinted Blog inC. 5
6<br />
environmenTal TeChnology<br />
CATCH A GReen fliCk AT A sOlAR<br />
POweReD MOVie THeATeR<br />
By stephanie rogers | 4/26/09 | earthfirst.com tpburl.com/v4fwsx<br />
Next time you’re heading out to see the latest eco flick (hey, there’s a really Oscar-worthy<br />
looking Val Kilmer movie due sometime this year!), you could see it in a solar-powered movie<br />
theater. At least, you can if you live in Livermore, California. Livermore Cinemas has installed<br />
an 18,000 square foot solar installation that will reportedly provide 35% of the theater’s energy<br />
needs, and cut its electric bill by 45%.<br />
Alternative Consumer reports that the system will provide about 190,000 kilowatts of<br />
electricity over the course of a year, and that installation of the system isn’t expected to impact<br />
ticket prices.<br />
But even if it did – would you pay extra? I think the willingness of consumers to spend<br />
an extra fifty cents or so per ticket would encourage more theater owners across the country to<br />
install their own renewable energy systems. I’d definitely go out of my way to patronize a movie<br />
theater that cares enough to install such an impressive solar array.<br />
feaTured PhoTograPher<br />
lAuRel DAileY<br />
floatfasthummingbird.blogspot.com<br />
www.laureldailey.com<br />
right off the bat, allow me to completely alienate 75% of<br />
our readers by stating that i’m a west Coast girl, born and<br />
raised: long Beach by way of oregon. i’ll probably die out<br />
here, in keruoac’s “ragged promised land,” buried under<br />
a pile of unread books, taxidermied antlers and camera<br />
equipment. death by The Big one – an earthquake, that<br />
is. i think about earthquakes at least three times a day,<br />
but come hell or high water, i’m sticking to my guns.<br />
There’s no better place to explore wild unknowns than<br />
here: the conquered desert, embittered metropolitan<br />
constellations under a starless sky.<br />
i was raised in the wild suburbs of oregon and picked up a Pentax k1000 in high school.<br />
once i got my proverbial first taste of the stench that developer chemicals leave on your<br />
skin, i was hooked. a pile of debt and a few years of education later, i’m still shooting every<br />
day.<br />
wim wenders refers to photography as “an act in two directions.” as the shutter releases,<br />
an image is created that contains not only the subject, but also a vague shadow of the<br />
photographer. as The Printed Blog’s Photo editor, it has been my pleasure to cull the depths<br />
of the interwebs to bring you the very best acts in two directions; both the images and the<br />
artists who created them.<br />
an act of defiance in the face of a whimpering economy deserves to be applauded, and<br />
so i’m giving you a standing ovation, TPB, as well as you, the readers, who’ve made this<br />
venture a success thus far. while i’m taking my final bow as Photo editor, i’m confident<br />
that The Printed Blog will blaze right on ahead, exploring those ragged promised lands we<br />
all long for.<br />
PhoTos<br />
Janka Mudrakova | tpburl.com/tf07rj<br />
If you want to see a story go popular, choose<br />
your tweets wisely.<br />
Be a leader and be the first to tweet breaking<br />
news that will soon be heard around the world,<br />
and go on to make history. Find a story,<br />
website or resource with a funny or unique<br />
angle that no one else has spread around yet.<br />
Or, find interesting images that are sure to<br />
captivate and inspire your audience.<br />
Whatever the type of content that you choose<br />
to tweet about, just make sure that it’s so -<br />
awesome that it makes your followers feel they<br />
absolutely have to share it with their friends<br />
too, which brings us to the next point…<br />
Read more from this guide and others at guidespot.com<br />
The PrinTed Blog is PrinTed By John s. swifT Co., inC. www.JohnswifTPrinT.Com (847) 465-3300<br />
it’s your spot in the universe<br />
The Easy Guide To Making Your<br />
Tweets Soar to Popularity<br />
By: granolajoe<br />
tpburl.com/1q35r6<br />
Twitter is about self expression and person-to-person communication, but its power lies in its<br />
capacity as a broadcasting tool. A single tweet carrying the right message can make huge waves<br />
across the Twitterverse, and also spread to other social channels on the Web. However, just<br />
because a random tweet can go viral every once in a while, doesn't mean you can expect<br />
everyone on Twitter to go nuts about everything that you tweet. By following these easy<br />
recommendations, you can ensure that your tweets are of the highest quality and get the best<br />
shot at going popular.<br />
Make Your Tweet Count<br />
Get ReTweeted<br />
Whether you’re a user with a moderate<br />
following or a power user with many<br />
thousands of followers, your tweets depend on<br />
the community to go popular.<br />
When you get retweeted, your story is exposed<br />
to the networks of your friends, gaining more<br />
potential to go popular as more users retweet<br />
it. Not all users will be reading their timelines<br />
at once, but it increases the chance of your<br />
tweet being seen and clicked through.<br />
Keep a steady flow of high quality and<br />
interesting tweets and users will take notice.<br />
You’ll gain a reputation for making great<br />
tweets, get retweeted more often, and you’ll<br />
also gain more followers.<br />
Get Help From Your Followers<br />
and Friends In High Places<br />
You may be a user with a solid following who<br />
has no problem getting retweeted, but you<br />
would still like your content to get more<br />
traction than 6-7 retweets and a few hundred<br />
clicks. That’s where friends come into play.<br />
Don’t make it a habit, but if there is something<br />
that you are really passionate about, ask your<br />
friends for some help.<br />
Also, if you have a friend with a huge following<br />
and your tweet fits their audience, ask if they<br />
would consider a retweet. Occasionally you<br />
may get lucky and won’t even have to ask,<br />
especially if they follow you and take notice.<br />
TeCh<br />
sTRAnGelY, THe MAn in THis<br />
eleCTRifYinG PHOTO is<br />
nOT DeAD TODAY<br />
By Jack loftus | 4/19/09 | gizmodo tpburl.com/kpbz94<br />
Meet Peter Terren. Inspired by The Thinker, he set<br />
out to recreate that classic sculpture using electricity,<br />
wire caging, a conductive foil suit, and a death wish.<br />
Can’t forget the death wish.<br />
Now, we’ve seen Terren and Tesla Down Under’s<br />
work before here at Gizmodo, most notably when he<br />
put his son in a car and zapped it with electricity.<br />
This little project, however, put him in the hot<br />
seat. Note the electricity shooting out of his sneaker.<br />
Lucky for us all, Terren meticulously documented<br />
the entire project with photos and safety-related<br />
commentary (“The wig is not ideal and really needs<br />
a haircut. I couldn’t light it with sparks so fire risk<br />
dr. peter terren<br />
seems low”).<br />
Terren also outfitted some of the tests with a pentagram boundary, which had nothing to<br />
do with Tesla coils or electricity, of course, but certainly heightened the sense of batshit insanity<br />
surrounding this little venture.<br />
quiCk BluB: sTake your soCial media name now<br />
By Jack Peterson | 4/27/09 | marketing Juice tpburl.com/7wmyqv<br />
Remember the circus of cyber<br />
squatting domain names back in<br />
the day? Everyone was scrambling<br />
to own their domain names before<br />
cyber squatters owned them and<br />
held them for ransom $$$. A new<br />
service called “knowem?” checks and registers your brand name, username or vanity URL in the<br />
Social Media space (websites). I just registered my company. Register before the Social Media<br />
land grab comes of age. Do it now or someone will hold you and your company hostage. It’s a<br />
great service that will do all the time consuming username registering for you.
PhoTos<br />
lifesTyle<br />
Brandon Showers | tpburl.com/b5cr3p<br />
John parli | tpburl.com/v27zkb<br />
ORGAn DOnOR DOlls ARe MORe<br />
GORY THAn CuTe<br />
By simon Crisp | 4/27/09 | newslite tpburl.com/06g2rp<br />
An artist has created a set of vinyl figures which he hopes will encourage more people to<br />
donate their organs.<br />
David Foox came up with the idea for his ‘Organ Donors’ collection - dolls which<br />
have hearts, lungs, eyeballs and brains for heads - after a family member had a double lung<br />
transplant.<br />
While ‘Uncle Ken’ survived the op, David wanted to use his art to draw attention to organ<br />
donation and started work on the 24 doll collection.<br />
The £10 figures come in ‘blind boxes’ meaning the buyer does not know what they have<br />
got until they open it ... and their gory nature could leave surprised heart attack victims needing<br />
a transplant.<br />
“Human body parts are interchangeable and as much as we know about the body, there is<br />
so much more to learn,” said Foox from Denver.<br />
“It is a conceptual way of dealing with our humanity - whether physical or spiritual. It is<br />
also supposed to be a lighthearted approach to a serious, bloody, and gory issue.”<br />
He says most people have reacted positively to seeing the figures though sometimes people<br />
think they are “spooky” or “freaky.”<br />
The collection can be ordered online.<br />
PoliTiCs<br />
THe TORTuRe PATH<br />
By hunter | 4/21/09 | The daily kos tpburl.com/1yz8n6<br />
I can only fathom that we are supposed to beg.<br />
I think we are supposed to get down on our knees, even grovel for it, and beg that our<br />
nation act in accordance with its own laws, with international laws, and with basic decency.<br />
We among the more expendable classes are supposed to write passionate editorials; we are<br />
supposed to form grass roots movements; we are supposed to make the usual dozens of phone<br />
calls, and be ashamed, and debase ourselves - and then, perhaps, if we are very lucky, and if<br />
we beg enough and with the right arguments and place enough pressure in the right, most<br />
uncomfortable spots, then our own government will relent, and our laws will be followed, and<br />
investigations conducted, and if warranted, those responsible will be prosecuted. And we will<br />
finally as a nation, at long last, reject torture in practice as well as in words.<br />
But they will not do it, unless they are bowed to it by the collective weight of their own<br />
citizens. That seems to be, still, the message: they will not acquiesce unless bludgeoned into<br />
doing it. It is ceded to us to decide if America will have the smallest shard of conscience, and<br />
once again the voices of basic decency will be cast as the unreasonable ones, the foolish ones,<br />
the troublemaking rabble pestering those that know better, and we shall have to rise above it yet<br />
another time.<br />
That is the only conclusion I can come to. It seems transparently obvious to Washington,<br />
to the Obama administration and its allies, to the Republicans and the Democrats of Congress,<br />
to all the very important people working very serious jobs, that while we can with great fanfare<br />
and self-satisfaction no longer torture prisoners in our care -- a war crime, in any context not<br />
involving ourselves -- it is far more challenging a proposition to think that we would actually<br />
take steps to enforce the myriad laws and conventions against it.<br />
And in that sense, torture by the United States of America is as good as legalized, because<br />
we have all but declared that it will never be that illegal, the kind of illegal that leads to<br />
investigations and punishment. It will merely remain a deplorable act -- a war crime, in any<br />
context not involving us doing the torture -- that we will never, ever use, except when we<br />
do, and without consequence. We will not condone it but, like in Serbia, or Guatemala, or<br />
Cambodia, or the thugs of any one of a hundred pissant groups and countries that used the<br />
practice to vicious effect, when to their advantage, we will ignore the laws, the treaties and<br />
conventions, and we will not prosecute our torturers. Or, God forbid, those that specifically<br />
ordered the practice. Or those that sought to legalize it, on pen and paper, with arguments<br />
comprehensible only to sociopaths or monsters.<br />
It apparently needs to be stated, yet again, that this is not a case of seeking vengeance.<br />
When powerful people are caught in illegal acts, it is nearly always the case that they claim<br />
prosecuting them would be “vengeance:” it never enters the minds of our leaders, whether<br />
they be in government or in business, that perhaps the law should be applied to them simply<br />
because it is the law. There always needs to be additional motive attributed; it goes nearly<br />
without saying that, without the additional motives of vengeance, or revenge, or punishment<br />
then naturally those in power are not held to the laws required of the rest of us. You know you<br />
have arrived, in America, when you can break a law at will and have the government itself argue<br />
against your prosecution on the grounds that doing so would be controversial or divisive.<br />
Whether or not any of the parties involved are actually convicted, whether even a single<br />
one of them see a day of jail time is not the question. Whether we preclude that possibility, as<br />
policy of government, is the more damaging question. For in precluding even the possibility<br />
of justice, we immunize the act, and if we immunize the act then it is not, in any meaningful<br />
sense, actually illegal.<br />
It is not about revenge: it is about demonstrating that even for the most powerful among<br />
us, even for our own government, there are laws, and they are not optional. It is about<br />
demonstrating that we are a country in which law has a substance that overrides the credentials<br />
of the person breaking it. It is the brightest shining example of what we as a nation are or are<br />
not: it is our moral measure.<br />
Knowing that torture was condoned in our names is an abominable thing. This parlor<br />
game of moving forward, not backward, of letting bygones be bygones, admitting error, and just<br />
getting the hell on with our days is just as dismal, because this, finally, internalizes the message<br />
that we citizens, our government, and other nations will take from this sorry affair, which is<br />
that while we begrudgingly acquiesce to stopping, we will, even now, refuse to recognize the act<br />
itself as truly criminal.<br />
There is absolutely no pride to be gained in no longer torturing, but blocking justice in<br />
those instances in which we have. It is no act of courage; it is no enlightened position. It is<br />
merely the easiest path, and the one followed in nearly every instance by nations proven to<br />
have committed foul acts. Sorry, but we’re not about to do anything about it. We’ll stop, but in<br />
exchange for stopping we expect the episode to be forgotten. What would count as a war crime<br />
for you other countries counts for us as an internal matter, and we consider it closed.<br />
I do not feel like begging. After years of railing against the practice (to be largely ignored,<br />
because in those days the majority of voices presumed torture to have positive effects, and<br />
therefore be justified), after years of government denial that any such thing was happening (in<br />
spite of clear and demonstrable evidence that it did), the last thing in the world that I feel like<br />
doing is once again begging, at long last, and to the supposed reasonable people that replaced<br />
the last reasonable people, that we actually follow our own goddamn laws, or treat crimes by<br />
our powerful with the same grave manner as we do crimes by anyone else in the nation.<br />
I am fucking sick of it, and I am fucking sick of hearing how we have entered a new age of<br />
enlightenment merely because we have stopped a transparently abominable practice, one that<br />
we condemn with vigor when undertaken by any other nation. I am fucking sick of myself,<br />
my compatriots and the rest of the public having to act as collective conscience for all those in<br />
power that, apparently, have long since evolved past even common sense, much less common<br />
shame.<br />
I know by tomorrow or next week I will relent, and I will start the cause anew, and I will<br />
join all the others in penning yet another fervent message explaining why, at long last -- at long<br />
fucking last -- we cannot simultaneously condemn torture and yet declare a casual, dismissive<br />
amnesty for all those that ordered it, and planned it, and justified it, and executed it, under the<br />
usual theory of the powerful that crimes by the powerful simply cannot be prosecuted lest chaos<br />
or embarrassment ensue.<br />
But for today, I can only say damn you all to hell. Damn you all for making us -- us, of all<br />
people, average citizens with no positions of power, with no power at all save whatever we can<br />
wring out of the thin air, and with nothing at stake but a sense of shared, basic, foundational<br />
morality -- yet again rail for our own country to exercise a shred of the morality, the justice,<br />
the national greatness that it professes for all to hear. I was once outraged; I was, after that,<br />
ashamed; now I am only incredulous. With every passing day my nation acts less like a guiding<br />
beacon, and more like a crook.<br />
PhoTos<br />
Johnny daigneault | tpburl.com/mhqcp2<br />
VieWS expReSSed in Content do not neCeSSaRily ReFleCt the VieWS oF the puBliSheR oR the pRinted Blog inC. 7
PlaylisT<br />
COVeR ARTisTs PlAYlisT<br />
in the spirit of recycling, this week’s playlist features a selection of some excellent and<br />
surprising covers. everything old is new again! For more song covers, check out www.<br />
coversproject.com. and don’t forget to email your favorite song(s) to tpB’s Music editor<br />
amanda nyren at anyren@theprintedblog.<br />
8<br />
“act nice and gentle” - Black Keys<br />
Black Keys do the Kinks’ “Act Nice and Gentle” justice, adding a little<br />
southern rock twang to the mix.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/9fr16y<br />
“Borderline” - the Flaming lips<br />
The Flaming Lips’ cover of my favorite 80s Madonna hit is just as good,<br />
if not better, than the original.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/7gy4st<br />
“i Poke her face” - Kid Cudi w Kanye West<br />
Okay so this Kid Cudi/Kanye West rehash of Lady Gaga’s acoustic “Poker<br />
Face” is really more of a sample than a cover. But when the track is this<br />
good, why quibble?<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/3m2s95<br />
“rave on” - M. Ward<br />
M. Ward has covered David Bowie, Daniel Johnston and Billie Holiday,<br />
but his fresh take on Buddy Holly’s classic “Rave On” is easily his best<br />
adaptation.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/vc0fn2<br />
“20 dollar” - M.i.a.<br />
M.I.A. puts her electropunk warrior princess spin on The Pixies’ cult<br />
classic “Where Is My Mind.”<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/6n0y53<br />
“nobody does it Better” - Radiohead<br />
Thom Yorke’s whiny vocals seem made for this yearning Carly Simon<br />
hit. Plus, the song choice reassures us that Radiohead is not too elitist<br />
to enjoy 70s soft rock.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/kym58j<br />
“superstar” - Sonic youth<br />
Featured in the lovable indie flick Juno, Sonic Youth’s rendition of The<br />
Carpenters’ “Superstar” is a haunting twist on a saccharine power ballad.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/v9fqz7<br />
“Take me to the river” - talking heads<br />
Talking Heads’ version of “Take Me to the River” is arguably more<br />
famous than the original, done by soul man Al Green. Just try singing<br />
this song without picturing David Byrne in his boxy spongebob<br />
squarepants suit.<br />
http://www.tpburl.com/y1578f<br />
PhoTos<br />
adverTising<br />
david Brown<br />
we are hunTed<br />
We are hunted aggregates social networks, p2p networks, music forums and blogs<br />
to compile a chart of the most popular songs in the blogosphere based on sentiment,<br />
expression and advocacy rather than a mere download count. it’s a smart and highly<br />
addictive way to discover new music. here, this week’s top nine emerging songs.<br />
(as of april 29, 2009)<br />
moTh’s wings<br />
Passion PiT<br />
tpburl.com/62g5bv<br />
ares (villains<br />
remix)<br />
BloC ParTy<br />
tpburl.com/m86j7c<br />
Thank you god for<br />
fixing The TaPe...<br />
inTelligenCe<br />
tpburl.com/kdp9xw<br />
adverTising<br />
givin’ uP (don<br />
diaBlo remix<br />
one eskimo<br />
tpburl.com/16gt0r<br />
yellowsTone<br />
Joe and will ask?<br />
tpburl.com/4b2869<br />
heavy Cross<br />
The gossiP<br />
tpburl.com/zxn7gc<br />
The PrinTed Blog is PrinTed By John s. swifT Co., inC. www.JohnswifTPrinT.Com (847) 465-3300<br />
raven (Crookers<br />
remix)<br />
The Proxy<br />
tpburl.com/qfn6dg<br />
leT love rule 2009<br />
(JusTiCe remix)<br />
lenny kraviTZ<br />
tpburl.com/1mbzjk<br />
your way<br />
xu xu fang<br />
tpburl.com/yrfzvj<br />
wAnT TO Tell OuR ReADeRs ABOuT YOuR Business? OuR ADs ARe<br />
CHeAP AnD HYPeR-lOCAl. TO see AD RATes AnD HOw ADVeRTisinG<br />
wiTH THe PRinTeD BlOG will HelP YOuR Business, wRiTe<br />
ADVeRTisinG@THePRinTeDBlOG.COM.
PhoTos<br />
CiTy life<br />
unsluMMinG<br />
By vmichael | 4/13/09 | Time Tells tpburl.com/twvpdc<br />
I am reading Michael Meyer’s The Last Days of Old Beijing which is an excellent journal<br />
about the death and life of a traditional Beijing hutong, which is a narrow lane of courtyard<br />
houses. I was reading about how the planners and developers considered these areas slums even<br />
though they functioned extremely well and served more as incubators of improvement and socialization<br />
than harbingers of decay. Yet crime statistics that “proved” the area was overcrowded<br />
were enough to mark it for demolition.<br />
As Meyer described it, I thought immediately of Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of Great American<br />
Cities and the story of Boston’s North End, which was statistically a slum but visibly NOT. I<br />
only had to turn the page and Meyer told of Herbert Gans’ 1959 article on Boston’s North End<br />
and Jacobs’ coverage of the same subject and her wonderful term for what was happening in<br />
these traditional “stable, low-rent areas:” Unslumming.<br />
Wow. There it is. For the last quarter century we have had only the term “gentrification”<br />
but the problem with that term is that it describes something that can happen with old buildings<br />
- like much of the near north side of Chicago or Wicker Park - OR with new buildings, like<br />
those unprotected areas near Old Town and Wicker Park where the values rise so fast and high<br />
that the developers are putting up $2 million Lollapallazzos on spec. Like this one on Burling.<br />
Which is probably $5 million.<br />
But “unslumming” DOESN’T happen with new buildings. It only happens with old buildings.<br />
I had forgotten Jacobs’ term, but it exactly describes what happened in North Kenwood<br />
and Oakland in the early 1990s, which I chronicled in Future Anterior four years ago ( http://<br />
www.arch.columbia.edu/futureanterior/past_issues/vol_2_2_2005.htm).<br />
In Meyers’ Dazhalan hutong in Beijing, as in the 1950s North End and 1990s North Kenwood,<br />
people with middle-class aspirations were unslumming their neighborhoods by rebuilding<br />
them bit by bit and little by little and with the existing buildings. But - as Meyers quotes<br />
Jacobs - such neighborhoods are doomed because no one is making a fortune on them. No<br />
fortunes, no big plans, no developers, just tons and tons of incremental improvements in safety,<br />
in socialization, in economic strength, in morality and education. A brilliant story of reclaimed<br />
humanity and human progress, but one with no place in our limited, clumsy economy.<br />
It’s funny. In politics this Spring, the LOSERS are whining about socialism but when it<br />
comes to real estate development, it works the same under socialism and capitalism. I noticed<br />
it when I first went to China in 2003: In communist China huge skyscrapers were built not<br />
because they were needed but because there were pension funds that needed to invest in real<br />
estate, whereas in capitalist USA huge skyscrapers were built not because they were needed but<br />
because there were pension funds that needed to invest in real estate.<br />
Neither country makes room for the aspiring middle class that wants to do what Jacobs<br />
counseled: Save the people and fix the buildings. But in socialist China, that approach doesn’t<br />
show enough progress fast enough for government officials and it doesn’t show enough profit<br />
for wealthy developers. In capitalist USA, that approach doesn’t show enough progress fast<br />
enough for government officials and it doesn’t show enough profit for wealthy developers. So<br />
you see the difference, right? Right?<br />
Preservation as we know it today derives from a postwar effort to rebuild with what was<br />
already there. It was opposed to centralized planning in the form of urban renewal and it was<br />
opposed to catastrophic development in the form of big projects. Preservation actually points<br />
the way toward a third economics, a democratic economics that frees us from the clumsy hands<br />
of the cadres and the equally clumsy hands of the hedge fund managers, from the destructive<br />
tendencies of two outdated approaches to city building.<br />
PhoTos<br />
anna donlan | tpburl.com/pcr8s3<br />
Kari otero | tpburl.com/qrz1sh<br />
PoliTiCs<br />
THe MeGHAn MCCAin GOP<br />
By Tabitha hale | 4/21/09 | Pink elephant Pundit tpburl.com/c8zqs6<br />
So if we learned one thing from Meghan McCain it’s that the GOP is like, so not relevant.<br />
Her dad showed us that moderates are wholly ineffective because they never really know who<br />
they are appealing to. What ends up happening is that they appeal to no one. When your<br />
platform is murky, your ideals are blurry, <strong>AND</strong> you are uncool, you just don’t stand a chance.<br />
People will choose the real thing over Democrat Lite.<br />
Meghan McCain is the DEFINITION of a moderate. What she DOES do well is embody the<br />
typical uninvolved voter. The masses thrive on superficiality, no matter how much those that<br />
are paying attention bemoan the ignorance. Melissa Clouthier says it well:<br />
Republicans need to do better. they need to be more principled and more defined and also appeal to<br />
people who find smooth talking, fine suits, fabulous mascara and superficial trappings important. to<br />
ignore either part of this puzzle will cause us to lose again.<br />
That hurts, doesn’t it? However, the problem we’re running into is that we tried to appeal<br />
to the superficial crowd without making sure they were prepared for the national spotlight.<br />
Republicans have a propensity to devour their own - if they’re good at nothing else, they’re<br />
good at self-destruction. Which is what they’ve effectively done.<br />
I’m a conservative first. I ended up with the GOP simply because, like most conservatives,<br />
I tend to vote with a lesser of two evils mentality. I think a lot of us are fed up with voting<br />
AGAINST people. It’s high time we had someone to vote FOR. A GOP that represents McCain<br />
style “big tent” Republicans does nothing but turn us into Democrats… and further alienate the<br />
base.<br />
What the GOP seems to forget is that liberty is NOT a partisan issue. It is NOT something<br />
that belongs to Conservatives - it transcends race, gender, sexuality, and politics. What we’re<br />
seeing is the buy-in to the Democratic lie that liberty is a government issue, when it is truly a<br />
human issue that the government in its current form infringes upon.<br />
Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House posted what should have been a depressing article.<br />
Oddly enough, I was slightly energized by the end of it. The depressing part was that even under<br />
the most conservative American President in history, government did not shrink. Reagan said<br />
that once government is there, it never goes away. And it’s entirely too true. This is not a new<br />
problem - this has been a long time coming. Pure logic - when something keeps growing, and<br />
never shrinks, it is eventually going to get too big. And the GOP can stand around preaching<br />
small government all day long, but the hard truth is that they have not EVER been able to make<br />
it happen. The fact that their credibility has been completely blown away is not going to help<br />
win elections. Moran refers to the GOP hope that Obama will in effect win the next election for<br />
them the “illusion of opportunity”… and I have to admit that I don’t think he’s all wrong.<br />
The reason I’m inspired? It kind of chased away my sense of fear. Why should our<br />
principles be tied to a party? There is little logic to our fear of a GOP failure. As conservatives,<br />
we should understand that no insitution is ever “too big” to fail. We’re willing to let bankers,<br />
the auto industry, and everyone else fail in the name of capitalism… why are we any different?<br />
Do we TRULY believe that in the absence of the GOP another would not rise up? The majority<br />
of our country is center right. The hole left in the absence of the GOP WILL be filled - our<br />
country is not going to just hand itself over to a one party system.<br />
I had someone on Twitter tell me that if the GOP dies “America will be consumed by<br />
neoleft darkness. The world will be a jungle. Civilization will be finished!” Can we say dramatic<br />
much? It’s exactly this kind of fear that keeps us voting for McCains in the hope of hanging on<br />
by a thread instead of starting over. It happened with the Whigs, and it can happen again.<br />
I’m not saying that we should throw the GOP out the window. I’m not saying we should all<br />
put on tin foil hats and start running around trying to run for Congress. All I’m saying is that<br />
the death of the GOP does NOT mean the death of America - that if the recent conservative/<br />
libertarian movements are any indicator, there will be a quick rise of another party. Maybe it<br />
would be nice to have the GOP out of the way to give someone else a chance.<br />
Just hypothesizing here folks. Liberty is non-partisan. I think that we should strive to be as<br />
well… why would you hang on to a sinking ship when you can jump off and build a new one?<br />
Thoughts?<br />
PhoTos<br />
feaTured Blogger<br />
TABiTHA HAle<br />
http://pinkelephantpundit.com<br />
http://smartgirlpolitics.org<br />
http://twitter.com/pinkelephantpun<br />
Tabitha hale is a new face on the political scene. a<br />
25-year-old college grad, she is a recent addition to the<br />
conservative political blogosphere. since returning to<br />
her home state of north Carolina, she has made her<br />
voice heard as the Pink elephant Pundit and gained<br />
exposure for her unapologetic approach to political<br />
commentary as well as for her self-proclaimed<br />
obsession with social media. she holds a special<br />
affection for Twitter, where roughly 20,000 followers<br />
check her updates daily.<br />
Chris Kitahara | tpburl.com/7z0tw6<br />
although serious about her beliefs, Tabitha makes light of her addiction to all things political.<br />
“i refer to myself as a future recovering political junkie,” she says. some of her current projects<br />
include writing for Pink elephant Pundit and american issues Project and working as a board<br />
member of smart girl Politics, an active grassroots organization supporting conservative<br />
women. her most recent undertaking is an internet radio show launching this week on rfC<br />
radio, aptly titled “raisin’ hale.” despite the rapid growth of smart girl Politics and the buzz<br />
surrounding hale, grassroots politics doesn’t pay the bills just yet. she still juggles a 40 hour-aweek<br />
job and active church life in addition to what she refers to as her “political alter ego.”<br />
“There’s life outside of politics. That’s how i plan to keep it,” she says. This is just the beginning<br />
for hale, who doesn’t plan on going anywhere. “i’m trying to be a voice and say things that need<br />
to be said – it’s a passion. i’ll be around for a while.”<br />
VieWS expReSSed in Content do not neCeSSaRily ReFleCt the VieWS oF the puBliSheR oR the pRinted Blog inC. 9
lifesTyle<br />
BiG in jAPAn: enViROnMenTAllY<br />
fRienDlY Bikinis MADe Of PlAsTiC<br />
BOTTles<br />
By serkan Toto | 4/17/09 | Crunchgear tpburl.com/4wn1c7<br />
Tokyo-based chemical company Asahi Kasei, a corporate giant with 25,000 employees,<br />
has announced an environmentally friendly product of the very special kind: swimsuits [JP].<br />
The lovely ladies you can see on the picture (Ayumi Kura, 20, on the left and eighteen-year-old<br />
Shi Weng Lu on the right) are wearing bikinis made of polyethylene tephthalate. Polyethylene<br />
tephthalate (PET) is the stuff they use to make plastic bottles.<br />
Asahi Kasei claims the swimsuits they make from PET (marketed under the brand name<br />
Sunplay ECO) are very quick to dry and offer a high level of elasticity. I bet they do. The<br />
company also says that compared to conventional swimwear, Sunplay products have a better<br />
environmental footprint by using less oil and releasing less carbon dioxide in the production<br />
process.<br />
Unfortunately, Asahi Kasei hasn’t said yet when the new swimwear will be sold and if it will<br />
find its way outside Japan, too.<br />
PhoTos<br />
Too faT To fly (BuT noT Too Tall?)<br />
By harriet | 4/18/09 | feed me! tpburl.com/ntxh4q<br />
My daughter took a flight recently and sat next to a man who she guessed was over seven<br />
feet tall. No lie. And because there was no elbow rest between their seats, she spent the flight<br />
hunched into a corner of her seat.<br />
You can be damn sure this gentleman was not charged for two seats. And yet anyone who<br />
now flies United who takes up more than his or her allotted seat centimeters due to weight will<br />
be charged for two seats. So flying fat will cost you double, but flying tall won’t.<br />
I find United’s new policy offensive and discriminatory on many levels. If you do too,<br />
consider following the directions in the form letter below, which was created by Marilyn Wann,<br />
to protest. Because you better believe that if United gets away with this, all the major carriers<br />
will start imposing a fat flyers’ penalty. And who’s to say what’s “too fat” to fly with a single<br />
ticket? Down the line, could ticket agents be whipping out BMI charts when you get your<br />
boarding pass? I put nothing past this fatphobic society (and the airlines’ desperation to turn a<br />
profit).<br />
10<br />
hi:<br />
united airlines is the last of the major carriers to announce proudly a policy of charging fat passengers<br />
double.<br />
they say they received 700 complaints last year (out of 80 million passengers carried) from thin<br />
people who did not like having a fat person sit next to them and perhaps take up some of their<br />
seat space.<br />
i am convinced that the 700 fat seatmates who didn’t complain were not too happy about the situation,<br />
either. people in the fat pride community have decided to try and beat that 700 complaints<br />
statistic.<br />
i’m writing to ask you and the people you know to complain at united.com about this costly and<br />
discriminatory targeting of one demographic group. if this policy stands, it means fat people have<br />
less right to interstate air travel than other people. everybody deserves a safe and comfortable<br />
chair on an airplane, at an affordable price!<br />
here’s the link for Customer Relations.<br />
expect to be asked to fill in some irksome required fields:<br />
- if you don’t have a united frequent flier number, you can use mine: 00229870823.<br />
- For flight info, i just put 4/15/2009 (the day united announced its policy).<br />
- For departure and return cities, i put San Francisco in both slots.<br />
please copy your complaint letter to my e-mail address, so we can keep count as we approach<br />
and pass 700.<br />
thanks tons! - [insert your name and e-mail address]<br />
Janka Mudrakova | tpburl.com/tf07rj<br />
life wiTHOuT eVenTs is like A COOkie wiTHOuT CHOCOlATe<br />
CHiPs. sO sHARe YOuR eVenTs wiTH THe wORlD, Be THeY leCTuRes,<br />
COnCeRTs, PlAYs, sPORTinG eVenTs, ZePHYR lAunCHes, OR MARTY<br />
MCflY fAn CluB MeeTinGs BY senDinG An eMAil TO eVenTs@<br />
THePRinTeDBlOG.COM.<br />
google kind of love or why TBid and i are going To The<br />
shooTing range<br />
By amanda | 4/27/09 | noisiest Passenger tpburl.com/xrpf3w<br />
I’m really good at beginning relationships - open, adventurous, and unavailable enough to<br />
stay interesting.<br />
The problem begins when I start to like the guy. Because people who really like and grow<br />
to love each other tend to want to spend time together. Sometimes they want to hear each<br />
other’s voices before they drift off to sleep or share the most banal details of their days and feel<br />
captivating and supported. Occasionally, they just want to be around with no purpose but to<br />
say, “I could do nothing with you all day, and it would be something.”<br />
Over a year into dating TBID, I’m starting to get itchy. Some article I once read talked about<br />
how new love is intoxicating, but lovers develop a tolerance over time. That explains those<br />
moments when the person who made your heart skip a beat starts raising your blood pressure.<br />
You realize your significant other has the potential to be significantly annoying.<br />
“If he says ‘initiative’ in five syllables one more time,” you tell yourself, “I am so outta<br />
here.”<br />
Still, TBID rarely annoys me. (We’ll give that a few more months). What does bother me<br />
is that I worry that we don’t spend enough time together. Then again, that may be why this<br />
relationship is working. Is that a problem?<br />
Do two committed people who live five express stops from each other normally talk<br />
everyday? TBID and I don’t always. Because we both have our own creative and professional<br />
pursuits outside of our jobs, we often spend one weekend day apart and one together. During<br />
the work-week, we’ll generally see each other once.<br />
This wasn’t the case in my previous relationship. Giddy goo-ga in the beginning, the<br />
ex-boyfriend and I spent a ridiculous amount of time together. The fall I began tutoring and<br />
freelancing, he started to complain that I always seemed distracted and that we didn’t spend<br />
as much time together. But my new pursuits thrilled me. The relationship, for various reasons,<br />
slowly gathered dust and eventually became something I used to be in.<br />
Alone time is a godsend and a necessity, even more so for me than TBID. Yet I wish I could<br />
demarcate what time is his, mine, and ours with ours somehow growing at the same time as our<br />
creative output. It’s not balancing the national budget or anything, but it’s hard.<br />
The latest initiative (that’s “initiative” in four syllables) in our relationship is a shared<br />
Google calendar and list of stuff to do. This way, neither TBID nor I can ever shrug and resolve<br />
that, “Nope. There’s absolutely nothing to do in NYC today.” The list includes boxes for who<br />
thought of the idea, where it is, when it is, price, and why on Earth you’d want to do this<br />
activity as a couple.<br />
No one has used, “Because we’re dating, so you just have to” in that last box yet, though<br />
I’m certainly considering it for this Make Your Own Yarn Animals workshop I heard about.<br />
Events go on the calendar after we’ve officially IMed, emailed, or mentioned them to each<br />
other and received a yes.<br />
This new system has been successful so far. The best part of this is that TBID came up with<br />
the system - not me, the control freak. No wonder he’s always toward the top of my to-do list.<br />
PhoTos<br />
TwiTTeR is THe new fACeBOOk. fOllOw OuR TweeTs AT<br />
TwiTTeR.COM/THePRinTeDBlOG.<br />
we weRe jusT kiDDinG, fACeBOOk. nO AMOunT Of TweeTs<br />
CAn eVeR RePlACe YOu. BeCOMe A fAn Of THe PRinTeD BlOG BY<br />
seARCHinG fOR us On THe BesT sOCiAl neTwORkinG siTe On THe<br />
PlAneT.<br />
The PrinTed Blog is PrinTed By John s. swifT Co., inC. www.JohnswifTPrinT.Com (847) 465-3300<br />
Kaisern Chen | tpburl.com/dkpsqg
kim shows off her sunBurn!<br />
By liz | 4/17/09 | TheseBootsaremadeforstalking.com tpburl.com/mdfby8<br />
Kim Kardashian needs some aloe vera asap!<br />
The reality-TV star posted photos on her blog of her extreme sunburn from falling asleep in<br />
the sun in Mexico.<br />
“PLEASE HELP ME! I am so sunburned!” Kardashian wrote on her Twitter page. “I fell asleep<br />
with huge glasses on yesterday! This tan line is not ok!!!”<br />
She added, “I’m going to have to hide from cameras for days. I usually never get red, I<br />
always get dark. It hurts!”<br />
She then asks for some post-burning advice, “Do u guys have any remedies I can try to<br />
help ease the pain and get rid of the redness? … I will never wear sunglasses when sunbathing<br />
again!”<br />
Go with the spray tan next time Kim!<br />
PhoTos<br />
wind-uP viBraTor gives greener orgasms<br />
Zoltan Fodor | tpburl.com/rfzk0x<br />
By simon Crisp | 4/27/09 | newlite tpburl.com/k35604<br />
A vibrator powered by a hand<br />
crank (no pun intended) has gone on<br />
sale as the world’s first wind-up sex toy.<br />
Makers say the ‘Earth Angel<br />
Vibrator’ is made from recycled<br />
materials and can give an hour of<br />
eco-gasmic power for 8 minutes of<br />
cranking.<br />
Users wind a built-in handle to<br />
charge the £65 device and can select<br />
from 4 speeds of vibration or store the energy for another time.<br />
One user said: “It feels good to be doing my bit for the environment and now my husband<br />
doesn’t keep asking what we need all the batteries for when we are at the supermarket.”<br />
Bonny Hall of sex toy website LoveHoney added: “It may sound like a wind-up, but going green<br />
has never been this sexy.”<br />
“i Tell my husBand i’m going To The gym & insTead go To a<br />
Pole danCing Class.”<br />
By Brandy | 4/27/09 | it’s like i’m... mmmagic! tpburl.com/jhtsdg<br />
It’s Monday, so you know the drill. Read past Monday (or Sunday!) posts in January,<br />
February and March to get caught up. Also remember to keep the secrets coming and let other<br />
people know about the project. I thought it was interesting that this week there were TWO<br />
submissions (sent within hours of each other) both relating to the Vegas meet up!<br />
1. I am secretly married. My family has no idea. They do not like my husband. We have a child<br />
together. I have no idea how to break the news to them. I cannot live this lie anymore….<br />
2. I’ve been having some gynaecological issues the past couple of years. I wouldn’t mind if it<br />
turned out I was infertile, because then I would have a valid reason for not ever giving birth to<br />
something without being judged for it. The whole pregnancy thing terrifies me.<br />
3. I’m at a point in life where I feel like I have no friends. So many have moved away or simply<br />
moved on. I’m lonely for girlfriends, and I wish I remembered how to make them.<br />
4. I’d like to go to the Bloggers in Sin City meetup, but don’t think I’m cool enough.<br />
5. In all my friendships, I am always the better friend. The one who tries harder, gives more,<br />
listens longer. Telling someone they need to be a better friend makes me sound like I’m in<br />
primary school but I’m exhausted.<br />
6. I read the secret last week about someone admitting they had a blog crush. I have one too.<br />
I’m 100% male with a crush on a female blogger and am not sure I should tell her. I wonder if<br />
the girl from last week was talking about me?<br />
7. I totally want to go to the blogging meet up in Vegas but I feel like everyone already is friends<br />
and I’m the odd man (well, okay woman) out.<br />
8. I never masturbate. Ever. I always hear about girls being shy about how much they get off, but<br />
unless I’m having actual sex with someone else- it just doesn’t happen. I feel like such a freak<br />
for admitting this but I have no idea how to make myself “happy”.<br />
9. I’ve been blogging for six years and my blogroll is out of control. I want to delete it but feel like<br />
I will hurt a lot of people’s feelings if I do. And I know someone will tell me that people really<br />
won’t care if they are deleted if you explain why- and I have to say (here’s my second secret!!),<br />
I’m always sort of bummed out when I’m deleted from someone else’s blogroll so I’m trying<br />
to avoid making people feel how I felt.<br />
10. I sometimes buy clothes, wear them (with the tags hidden!) and return them for cash.<br />
PhoTos<br />
ChirP off<br />
For each issue we post a question on our twitter feed and these are your answers.<br />
post your opinion to our questions and you might be featured in our next issue at<br />
twitter.com/theprintedblog.<br />
@THePRinTeDBlOG AskeD: if YOu COulD nAMe susAn BOYle’s fiRsT<br />
AlBuM, wHAT wOulD YOu CAll iT?<br />
@breeanelyse Songs From Behind the Paper Bag<br />
@tjwrighter “Swan Song”<br />
@edwarddomain Susan's 1st album: "I told you fu**ers I was good!”<br />
@danielcollins “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”<br />
@rushbomb “Like a Fine Wine”<br />
@Jayferris Boyle Poppin’: Susan re-imagines 13 Britney Spears classics.<br />
@Braxtonmedia Susan Boyle: Hag to Riches<br />
@msdarkstar The Melody of True Beauty<br />
@hollywoodjane Scotch & Soda.<br />
@clevelandsaplum “this record better get me bloody laid”<br />
andreas de lara | tpburl.com/8r4063<br />
Kaisern Chen | tpburl.com/dkpsqg<br />
VieWS expReSSed in Content do not neCeSSaRily ReFleCt the VieWS oF the puBliSheR oR the pRinted Blog inC. 11
ChiCagO<br />
anna PulleY:<br />
sex Journo extraordinaire<br />
by raven Moore | | the Writerbabe series tpburl.com/z379p5<br />
i met anna a loooong time ago at a Chicago reader singles<br />
meet up. no. we weren’t meeting each other there. we both went at<br />
the suggestion of my best friend, whom you’ll meet later. the meet<br />
up was lame, but the company wasn’t.<br />
nevertheless, we parted ways. fast forward years later - we<br />
meet up again.<br />
this time, we’re at a an association for women Journalists shin<br />
dig. so, to properly make good use of our gen y networking skills -<br />
anna and i become facebook buddies.<br />
anna made a great inaugural interview for “10 minutes with…”<br />
because, well - she’s pretty cool. she’s a 26 year old writer and occasional<br />
(ok, not so occasional) sex and relationships journalist.<br />
besides that, she’s a Chicago/wicker park transplant, originally<br />
hailing from tucson, arizona. anna’s written for a number of publications<br />
including Centerstage and the aspect ratio. i am not sure how<br />
anna has survived the past several years enduring Chicago winters,<br />
but let’s hope she doesn’t leave anytime soon.<br />
needless to say, i think you’ll enjoy what anna has in store - i<br />
know i did.<br />
• • •<br />
What’s the hardest thing about writing on the subject of sex?<br />
photo provided by anna pulley<br />
trying to come up with more interesting names for vagina.<br />
bearded clam? squish mitten? actually, it’s trying to find the balance between bawdy and insightful. and<br />
trying to convince people to get over the inherent shame that’s been ingrained in us, about our bodies, about<br />
what’s “normal” sexually, etc.<br />
a lot of sex writing i read is written like a pamphlet you’d get from your oral hygienist, which is informative,<br />
yes, but also a grade-a snoozefest. one of the things i often strive for is to make sex funny, because<br />
it is. especially when you’re writing about things like obama-shaped dildos.<br />
What’s your most controversial article? and, why was it so?<br />
i wrote an article for Queerky called sci-fi or outcry. many people in the queer community were outraged<br />
about a short film called the gendercator, saying it was trans-phobic, hateful, etc., except very few<br />
people had actually seen the movie (i was the only person who had formally reviewed the film, which may<br />
have changed since then).<br />
the real reason people were up in arms and trying to get this film banned from the festival circuits was<br />
because of the filmmaker’s politics, not her (admittedly terrible, but not in an offensive way) short film.<br />
i also happened to know the other filmmakers who were leading the charge against the gendercator,<br />
having just interviewed them, so i was way more involved than i wanted to be. and i was amazed that the<br />
queer community, which is usually very inclusive, almost to a laughable extent, (as witnessed by the evergrowing<br />
acronym lgbtQQi…) was suddenly trying to censor something that many had never even seen.<br />
if you were 3 search engine terms, what would they be?<br />
“mario lopez” is consistently the top search engine term that leads people to my blog . the second is<br />
“is the apocalypse near?” the third is, “fucking ironic doesn’t it dude?” i realize these are literal answers but<br />
i feel that if google says so, it’s probably true.<br />
how’d you get into freelance writing?<br />
during a lapse of unemployment and in the middle of a huge break up, i suddenly had lots of time on<br />
my hands. so i went to Craigslist and browsed around the missed Connections section, the ads for used coffee<br />
tables and then after i’d exhausted those, the writing gigs.<br />
i started doing film reviews for the aspect ratio that way, even though i don’t really like movies, or<br />
watch them really, except over the holidays when my family tries to stave off the inevitable awkwardness of<br />
our togetherness by taking us to see Juno.<br />
after i’d been doing that for a while, i got hooked up with Centerstage through my roommate at the<br />
time, who happened to know one of the editors. a little while later, i was bragging to that same editor about<br />
how i had just gotten a gig that would pay me to masturbate (reviewing sex toys for early to bed) and she<br />
asked me if i wanted to write a sex and dating column.<br />
the moral of the story is to talk about masturbation with as many people as possible.<br />
What should people know about freelance writing before they start?<br />
it really is about networking, which is quite cruel, considering the solitary nature of writing. but you’d<br />
be wise to get your ass out there and talk to people, everyone - even your mom’s dog sitter and the 16-yearold<br />
boy who sells empanadas on ashland. you never know where a potential connection could come from.<br />
What are your future plans? Latest news?<br />
i’m going to be a panelist for the Chicago history museum’s sex series on april 22nd (from 7-8:30pm),<br />
to talk about online dating. i’m also going to be writing for the Chicago tribune’s new blog/social networking<br />
site Chicago now, which will launch may 1st. and i’m going to be writing about sex/relationships for tonic<br />
news which is a do-gooder website.<br />
and i’m in the process of trying to get the red eye to let me be their relationship columnist. fingers<br />
crossed!<br />
What have you learned about Chicago through your writing?<br />
that gay male leather bars are really quite charming. and that there are still some bar atms that dispense<br />
$10 bills. i’ve actually learned so much about Chicago through writing about it — it gets me out of the<br />
house.<br />
if i weren’t writing about Chicago’s latest bar/texmex restaurant/naked girls reading event, i probably<br />
would have languished at home watching buffy the Vampire slayer and eating tofutti Cuties.<br />
how come you don’t have a blog?<br />
one could argue that i have too many blogs. i don’t write in my main one often because i can’t quite<br />
draw that line between boring personal information about me and shameless self-promotion. i’m always<br />
going back and forth on whether to write about something, asking things like “is this relevant? does anyone<br />
care?” even if only 4 people are reading it. i apparently can’t just write for myself and the glory that is blogging.<br />
not easily, anyway.<br />
i also “write” for a pictorial blog called that’s punny, and the now defunct stuff bisexuals like . i twitter<br />
. i used to write for the examiner , which is essentially a blog. there’s even a myspace blog floating about<br />
that i refuse to delete for some unknown reason.<br />
When did you first consider yourself a writer?<br />
i’ve never not considered myself a writer, which is weird because i’m incredibly fickle about pretty<br />
much everything else, and is probably why i’m bisexual. and why i use double negatives, even though i<br />
should know better.<br />
tell me something people might not expect from you.<br />
i won a $10 gift card at the talent show in high school for writing and performing a revenge song about<br />
my ex-boyfriend, who was also performing that night.<br />
What’s the biggest thing influencing your work?<br />
i read promiscuously. it’s so inspiring to see the ways people shape words and ideas. i just started<br />
audacia ray’s “naked on the internet,” which is amazing. i’m a huge fan of nerve (the big bang is my sex<br />
bible). diablo Cody’s Candy girl is fantastic. salon.com, thefrisky.com, feministing, gracethespot.com - i’m<br />
always on the lookout for new blogs to read in lieu of getting work done.<br />
What would you like to see change in the world of journalism/writing?<br />
more representation by women, that’s for sure. i’d also like to see the online realm be less like the wild<br />
west, with rampant online misogyny and general hate-fueled comments where people aren’t held accountable<br />
because of anonymity.<br />
feministing recently posted a great reference list of ways that women were taking back the internet .<br />
you should check it out. of course, it does serve as a reminder that racism, sexism, bigotry are very much<br />
alive and well, despite the fact that we’re supposedly living in a “post-race” society. the huffington post<br />
recently called lindsay lohan and sam ronson a post-gay couple. what?<br />
if you weren’t writing - what would you be doing?<br />
trying to get my mom to stop saying “expresso.” oh, and bringing better educational options to illinois<br />
families (http://www.incschools.org).<br />
12<br />
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Your cartoon or suggest a striP, email it to content@<br />
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