Keep in touch, okay?

-Lily Q

In November 2008, this so-called Jet-Set Hobo was in Buenos Aires when he filed his first story for True/Slant. It was called ‘From Argentina with Love’, and was in some way concerned with what was the new James Bond movie, ‘A Portion of Condolence’.  If there was any actual film reviewing going on, I think it would have betrayed some disappointment. But greater disappointments were to come.

There could still be ‘A Scintilla of Comfort’. But you’ll have to read/scroll until the end of the piece for that.

For one thing, troubles at MGM indicate that after ‘A Quantum of Solace’ the James Bond series of movies has been suspended …indefinitely! As assiduous followers of this blog can tell you, one of my great, unfulfilled ambitions was to play a villain in a James Bond movie. Any villain. Naturally I would have preferred to be the doomed evil mastermind, but anyone of his windswept and interesting henchman would have sufficed.

This has been true ever since I used to go to the cinema as a toddler back in the 1960s with my rather glamorous mother, who I somehow sensed – even back then – wouldn’t have minded a certain former Edinburgh milkman slipping his JB monogrammed velvet slippers under her bed one fateful night.

It must have been jealousy on my part, but I wanted to turn the tables on Bond, or more literally, feed him to a shark tank, or slice him in two with a laser beam, or pull the levers on him in a remote controlled helicopter on a collision course with a mashing machine – anything to get rid of that infernal Queen & Country prat.

With the combined ages of Messers Connery and Moore now at 163, more recently I’d set my heart on little Daniel Craig. But now even that seems to be in doubt.

Ah, but back in those far-off, heady days of 2008, and at the tender age of just 42, I had other, equally romantic ideas about blogging, and what it might do for what I sometimes laughingly refer to as my career. That is, when I’m absolutely determined to burst the seams of trousers.  These ideas were about the “vision of a contributor and community driven news and opinion websites that would forever change the face of journalism”. And I misquote. Because actually, these weren’t so much ideas as warm, mushy feelings engendered by reading online interviews with our CEO, COO, CTO and all the other chiefs. The guys in the backroom who stop the frurckendeiser from being mixmitized, as I like to put it. I like to put it that way because I can’t be arsed getting to grips with the jargonology. Anyhoo, it all sounded so gee whiz this is straight out of the lab, let’s see what it does, it might change everything.

Like Kim Jong Il, who may not understand precisely how all this nuclear technology works, but sure-as-hell knows he’d like to use it, well, that for me was the blogosphere. I wasn’t quite sure how blogging for True/Slant was going to finally catapult my diabolical alter ego ‘The Jet-Set Hobo’ to literary fame, but I felt it had some part to play.

So, for nearly two years, in fits and starts but fairly regular great bursts of activity, I’ve thrown a lot of stuff at the wall here to see if it would stick. Travel stories straight and twisted, from the high and low end of the social scale; from Florentine restaurant reviews and Budapest’s little Hollywood all the way to gangsters in Belgrade and an assassination in Beirut.

I have regularly cast a rueful eye over the English Channel to comment on the degrading spectacle that British public life seems to have become in the last 15 or 20 years. I’m not a Republican, out to eviscerate the Royal Family, neither am I a toadying colonial.

From time to time, I’ve held forth on what might be called modern manners; such as what to wear when you’re abroad or how to conduct a foreign affair.  Perhaps I should have done a bit more of this sort of material, after all, no offence intended, but take a look around at some of the baseball cap and sweatpants wearing, Cheeto eating contributors and I assume consumers of this site who could certainly use an overhaul, please -nobody-say-makeover.

There’s been my Fiction, which I started to publish late in the game here, just after we all knew the end was nigh. Some of which it must be owed, such as Krakow Nights, is fairly dark matter. They’re all stories that have been told to me, I swear! Your correspondent has always lived a life of blameless domesticity which is why he is also able to turn out work such as his as-if-Jean Cocteau-wrote-a-children’s-book over-a-couple-of-afternoons minor masterpiece, The Wild Cats of Piran.

You see, now we really are getting to the crux of the matter. The Jet-Set Hobo has both literally and figuratively been all over the map since this blog began. Not enough focus, and I suppose if I do return in some shape or form it will be with a tighter focus. But can you blame me, entirely? Since I began this blog in November 08 I’ve lived in and filed reports from Buenos Aires, Auckland, Beirut, London and Budapest.

But wait, there’s more.

From time to time, I’ve even posted some of my weird little movies online, which must really throw readers who come to True/Slant looking for either, broadly speaking, policy wonks discussing health care reform or otherwise smart people discussing articles with headlines like “Can sex with Dakota Fanning make Bela Lugosi hot again?” (Okay, I’m mixing it up a little there, but a headline like that would be more fun.)

Which brings us neatly to my final ‘beat’. When I’ve had enough of it, I’ve also vented against the mind-dumbing fatuity of celebrity culture. Yet some of my most popular posts have been about celebrities, so I can’t help but think I have failed in some way. I don’t just mean as a writer, but as a person. Because I can’t help watching and commenting on the tawdry parade of low life distraction that it is. For the record, I’m Team Oksana, all the way. So what if she is manipulative and a gold digger, (which I suppose she must be), you can see a train when it’s coming, can’t you? Besides, I never cared much for Mel Gibson and that was cemented for me by his revisionist historical movies. For example, painting the Brits of the War of Revolution as if they were the Gestapo. Plus I used to cringe whenever you’d see his co-stars talking with forced smiles about what a pranky prankster the Gibster was on set. But I digress as I am so wont to do. I’ve said that before too.

Perhaps it’s time for the Rogue Bond movie. Remember the Australian Bond, George Lazenby? Well, imagine him enjoying his sunset years at Strangways health farm, puttering about in a wheelchair, trying to get it on with the nurses. Along I come at the wheel of lawn tractor and crash straight into bank of rhododendrons. Later while recuperating, my character strikes up an unlikely friendship with the octogenarian secret agent, finally getting close enough to strangle him with a stethoscope, or his tie-your-0wn bow-tie. That’d truly be a happy end, for this fantasist at least. But I jest, I’m just jealous.

So anyway, a happy ending for my real future in the virtual sphere? I don’t know. I’ve migrated most of the stuff filed here over to another site, and I’ll be sure to post there when I have the energy and stamina for it. Like about once every five years.

I’m thinking of cancelling my facebook account too incidentally. All these people, putting all their junk out in public, affairs going toxic, surrendering all their personal data to a 26 year old fratboy. Hmm. When did we ever think that was a good idea? Privacy. It’s the new luxury. Besides, it’s occured to me many times how much like high school Facebook is, and I never particularly cared for that either.

So, we’re going to wrap this up, because it’s already 1200 words or so, and I think a good blog post is seldom no more than a thousand, just like eight hours is as long as you ever really can enjoy sitting in a plane, no matter how good the service. This isn’t quite goodbye however. It’s my understanding some of the True/Slant team are going to be asked to stay on in some new, transmogrified version of this site, and I’d quite like to be one of them …so you never know. Hmmm.

Besides, it’s not midnight EST on July 31st just yet, so we’ve time for a few more laughs and some goodbyes.

Stay tuned.

“And with such an amazing field of vision, it makes being judgmental of people who aren’t as cool as you even easier.”

Nice booty! Image by vmiramontes via Flickr

In case your butt isn’t sufficiently curvaceous.

From The Wall Street Journal:

When Tara Rachel Benson went out on a recent night to an album release party in Los Angeles, she put on her makeup, a tight-fitting Herve Leger dress, stiletto heels—and a pair of padded panties.

“It’s part of the whole outfit,” says Ms. Benson, a 25-year-old assistant to a music manager. Wearing the Booty Pop brand of underwear, which contain egg-shaped foam pads to plump up the posterior, “I look better, I feel better, and as a result, I act better,” she says.

Upstart company Booty Pop thinks it has the answer for women who want curves like Beyonce and JLo: padded underwear.

For centuries, women have wriggled into girdles and other slimmers to minimize their rear ends. Now, a fascination with the hind-quarters of celebrities like Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian is fueling a booming market for undergarments that amplify the derrière..

Booty Pop projects it will sell close to 1 million pairs of padded underwear this year.

Make this go away.

Here’s my thoughtful, serious analytical take on the matter. Transplants!

Why mess around with a fake ass that, should you actually undress in front of someone you hope to seduce, will suddenly be…not there? Just buy yourself a permanent butt. Take all that nasty fat from somewhere else on your body, or maybe someone else’s. No biggie.

I’ve considered donating my ass, on occasion, but the sweetie has forbidden it, bless him.

It would only be for scientific purposes, research, the advancement of knowledge. All that.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Booty Pops Help Fake a Big Butt (patspapers.com)

Image by Linda N. via Flickr

Well, it’s true. Women are shoe-obsessed, according to a British study of 3,000 women:

In analyzing the spending of some 3,000 women, a British pollster finds the average female buys seven new pairs of shoes a year, and for a 67-year period. At close to $400 annually — which may even be lowballing when it comes to North American women — the grand lifetime total tops $26,000.

It’s an astounding figure, to be sure. But with no male comparison, critics say it’s yet another example of shoe purchases having become shorthand for female frivolity.

“It really is a very feminist issue,” says Elizabeth Semmelhack, senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. “Men’s excesses are often seen as somehow positive — ‘He works hard, so of course he should have that Rolex’ — whereas women are constantly belittled for them.”

The new survey, conducted by OnePoll for Gocompare.com, doesn’t address male shoe budgets.

Pollsters do, however, report that a quarter of women rarely divulge their shoe purchases to their partner “as he doesn’t understand their obsession,” and that “predictably, 29 per cent of ladies say shoes are the one thing they can’t resist buying, regardless of whether they can afford them.”

This year, I’ve beat the average — nine (so far.) Two pair of athletic shoes; three pairs of flats; a pair of dressy pumps and three pairs of sandals. That’s not typical for me and seven of those (she whimpered) were on sale. None cost more than $100. It adds up, but the number, for me anyway, is less the issue than their longevity.

I blogged here about the recent loss of our local shoe repairman, Mike, who closed his shop a month ago. I keep my shoes (and clothing) for many years, sometimes decades; a pair of monk-straps and loafers date to 1996 and still — thanks to Mike — look new.

Every women knows that new shoes are are easy place to indulge quickly and painlessly. No calories! You can gain — or lose — 5, 10 or 50 pounds — and still wear gorgeous shoes.

Unlike much of life, new shoes are forgiving. If you’re anything over a size 12, looking for beautiful, well-made clothing, good luck with that. Buying shoes doesn’t demand squeezing into a dressing room, or waiting for one. And, if decently made and cared for, they last, unlike much clothing that stains, tears or can’t be altered.

Men, too, have their sprees.

For my Dad, it was safari jackets and Irish tweed hats (and pipes.) The sweetie has an enormous collection of caps that I know will only expand further — and all those golf games add up to serious coin.

They just don’t fit into a closet.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Your Shoes Turn Him On: What’s Hot, What’s Not (marieclaire.com)
• How German Orthopedic Sandals Became Trendy (atomiurl.com)
• Buying shoes costs the average woman £16,000 (newslite.tv)
• Seeing a Celebrity Endorse a Pair of Shoes Alters a Woman’s Brain, Scientists Say [Shut Up, Science] (gawker.com)

A little bit closer to my home in Budapest, and I submit for your attention, Kristyna Koci, Chief Negotiator for the Czech Republic’s ruling political party, the Public Affairs party.

I kid you not. The photograph is taken from a just released 2011 calendar put out by the Czech Public Affairs party. Certainly it’ll be in the stores well in time for Christmas, (which the Czechs don’t particularly believe in, a majority registering themselves as atheist in census polls – whatever you may have heard about Good King Wenceslas on the feast of Stephen.) “Women’s political influence is growing. Why not show we are women who aren’t afraid of being sexy?” said Marketa Reedova, the party’s candidate for Mayor of Prague.

Following on from my last post, it must seem like the Jet-Set Hobo has sex on the brain. Well hey, no more than usual. It’s not like I’m inventing this stuff, it is just what flits across my radar. Anyway, it might be too sweeping a generalisation to say the women of Central and European Europe are, how shall we say, tres formidable, but there you go. One would have to be blind or deliberately obtuse not to notice how many drop dead gorgeous women there are in places like Prague, Budapest, Kiev, Warsaw and so on. But as traditionally feminine as they may be in their dress and often rather demure manner, don’t let that fool you. It seems to me – and please accept that these are broad sweeping generalisations – that women fared better than men during both communism and in its aftermath. While so many of the menfolk are still today sitting in darkened rooms drinking vodka in front of the TV and watching reruns of Starsky and Hutch, Eastern European gals are out there wrestling the bear of life with all they’ve got, and winning. If there’s a lesson or moral to be drawn from this, I’m not quite sure what it is. But here on the ground, it’s certainly hard to ignore.

Make some noise if that minivan looks a little too familiar.

Not to sound like a prude or anything, but do these Baby Gap mannequins look just a little bit slutty? He’s popping, like, 20 collars and looking ready for date rape at a frat party and she’s practically hip thrusting at potential buyers. That, for the record, is what hookers do. I’ve read.

Image via Wikipedia

Friday morning I arose to the bracing news that the LeBron James controversy had spawned a brand new controversy even more ridiculous than the original controversy (which, if I understand it correctly, had something to do with a basketball player changing teams).

The new controversy is about—are you ready for this? I’m not sure I am—a font.

A font called Comic Sans.

It seems the owner of James’ old team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, one Dan Gilbert, had written on the team’s website a choleric screed accusing James of betrayal, cowardice, narcissism and being not nice.

That doesn’t matter. What matters is he wrote it in Comic Sans.

Twitter and Facebook went wild. Turns out there are multitudes of people who have deeply felt opinions on Comic Sans. Basically, they despise it. Helvetica they don’t mind. Garamond Italic Condensed gets them only mildly perturbed. But Comic Sans makes them insane. They want to kill Comic Sans.

A few sample screams from Twitter:

LawrenceAugust: Writing a serious attack on someone in Comic Sans is like flipping someone off with your pinky.

louiscalade: stop using COMIC SANS. its one of the UGLIEST UGLIEST FONTS EVER. an eyesore. a design disaster.

jsmooth995: nobody who posts official statements in Comic Sans MS should be running an NBA team

As you can see, there are varying degrees of Comic Sans hatred. The fontamentalists find it despicable and loathsome no matter how it is used. Just a total disgrace. Others merely find it inappropriately frivolous for messages considered very serious, such as, apparently, those involving basketball.

There is even a website called Ban Comic Sans. I’m sure I’ll get around to reading it some day in the very near future.

In the meantime, I’d just like to say that Comic Sans is fine. It’s sansational. It’s a funny font. (The creator, Microsoft designer Vincent Connare, says he based it on comic-book lettering) What could be bad about a font that’s funny? I say we need more funny fonts, not fewer, fonts that make the populace giggle instead of going all pompous and serif-conscious on us. Fonts that don’t have to bend forward to get their comic effects.

I’d also like to say I’m disappointed that when Dan Gilbert was attacked for his outrageous font choice, he didn’t just reply, “Hey, I was being cavalier.” But what can you expect from a businessman?

Yesterday, I never heard of Comic Sans. But now I’m its greatest defender. I am the Joan of Arc of Comic Sans. I’m going to make Comic Sans the standard font for all my documents, including codicils to my will and declarations of war against foreign countries.

Now if I could only figure out a way to get this damn post into Comic Sans.

fake denim leggings, yeah? Image by Idhren via Flickr

I came late to the 80’s revival legging fashion parade.

At first I couldn’t understand why stockings suddenly went out of style. I didn’t understand the bare skin between the ankle and the top of the foot. But then I saw that leggings can provide texture that no hose or stocking can.  Leggings are also thicker than stockings but not as thick as pants, so I slowly became receptive to their usefulness. The cuteness of tunics over leggings was not lost on me, and then one day, a friend wore fake denim leggings on a hot day and I became a fan.

My like of leggings had to do with the usefulness of the accessory, despite modern outfits for ladies these days being utterly useless when it comes to pockets. When I wear leggings I have a dilemma. If I were to wear the leggings right, I can’t wear a bottom or top that has pockets. (Or I just haven’t found the right clothing options?) When I bring this up to my other female friends, they look at me strangely, not understanding my need for pockets. Somewhere over the past couple of years, my female peers began hating pockets and I never got the memo.  Why dislike pockets?

Pockets are useful. You put things in pockets. Chapstick. Change. A hair tie. Tissues. Keys. Items easily lost in a large purse. If I wanted to run to the corner store or buy some alcohol, I don’t want to take a bag – a large accessory. I want some folds in my clothes that hold these items on me, for quick access.

With the comeback in leggings, fashion has also brought back the cross body purse,… understandably, because there are no pockets on women’s outfits. I have always loved cross body purses as a way to carry all my EQ. I believed these purses were “safer” until an earlier mugging in my neighborhood was made more complicated by the woman’s cross body bag, and she got beaten up for it. The police at the subsequent CAPS meeting explained how these types of bags make it harder for you to give your purse to the mugger, and harder for the muggers to snatch it. You can get strangled by your bag, and if the mugger gets frustrated, he can punch and kick you  while you are entangled in the straps. An unpleasant thought.

I hate carrying a purse though, and I know I am not alone in this. Sure, clothes without back pockets make my ass look better, but I already have my mate so am no longer advertising myself to the male population by wearing skin-tight pants.

Is there a way to make clothes for women that include pockets without appearing bulky?  Instead of rehashing old styles from the past 100 years, can we make something new and creative? Some kind of functional clothing, with pockets?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I find this both helpful and a little sad — that anyone so trusts a bunch of strangers and so lacks self-confidence.

From The New York Times:

Not long ago, people turned to fashion magazines for advice. Now they are turning to one another. Web sites like Fashism and Go Try It On, both less than a year old, are picking up where fashion blogs have left off, and are making fashion more immediate and personal.

The premise is simple enough: Upload a photo of yourself wearing a particular outfit. Ask a question or share some details about your look. Users then rate your outfit by clicking “I like it” or “I hate it” on Fashism (or “Wear It” or “Change It” on Go Try It On).

Would-be Rachel Zoes can also comment. It’s similar to that Web site Hot or Not, where users rate one another’s sex appeal. But these sites are geared for fashion and, more refreshingly, are largely free of the snark or harsh judgments that plague earlier crowd-sourcing sites.

“It’s for people who want a quick second opinion,” said Marissa Evans, 26, a former Web analyst and strategist in New York, who started Go Try It On. Ms. Evans employs a small team of moderators to ensure civility. “I really wanted to build a site that is helpful, not hurtful,” she said.

If you’re not sure about a look, who do you turn to for advice or feedback?

Or do you simply trust your own judgment?

Or…not care how you look?

Related articles by Zemanta

• A Startup That Can Help You Dress Better (businessinsider.com)

Russian spies plead guilty opening way for spy swap: All 10 Russian spy suspects have pleaded guilty in a move that could open the way for a possible spy swap deal between Russia and the US. The defendants each announced their pleas to conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. An 11th defendant was a fugitive after he fled authorities in Cyprus following his release on bail. It is thought prosecutors were going to drop the more serious charges of money laundering as long as the group pleaded guilty to acting as agents of a foreign government. In return, they will have to leave the country.

via Russian spies plead guilty opening way for spy swap – Telegraph.

I’ve always wanted to be a secret agent. Now more than ever. (Only now, in my rich fantasy life I can’t figure out if I want to be a Russian spy in America, or an American spy in Russia. I don’t think there’d be all that much difference frankly.) Anyway, I want that job. I mean, who wouldn’t right? It’s a glamorous existence with a great exit strategy. And I’m more cut out for it than most. For what is a spy if not an actor, with some journalistic instincts? I hear a lot of talk, but I can keep a secret. (Which is why I hear a lot of talk).

Hell, I’ve even played a Russian secret agent living in Washington for TNT. That’s me in character below, getting out of a Soviet era limousine, a thing of great beauty – unlike the bloke in front of it.

Anyway, I’ll say it again. I want to be a spy. I want to go to clandestine meetings in nightclubs brimming with leggy supermodels and exchange briefcases under the table. I want to speak with a devastatingly sexy accent and be tempted into a honeytrap with a woman like Anna Kuschenko, I want to have wives in three different states, I want to speak English, Russian and American and fly Gulfstream from Moscow to Miami where I gamble at casinos all night but still somehow keep enough money aside for a little (okay very large) dacha in the country when I retire in a few years. I want to drive fast everywhere and sleep late if at all and get a bit too cocky for my own good. And best of all, when I am finally discovered by authorities and indicted in money laundering and espionage, the worst I want to happen is to be incarcerated a few days in you know, ‘tennis prison’. While I’m inside, I’d like the world’s media to do my job for me – and pave the way for a book and movie deal of my so-called glamorous life. Then, after that starts to pall, I’d like to be able travel back home and be lauded as a national hero, and all because I am being ‘traded’ for my some of my opposite number from the CIA or KGB or such. I’d like the governments of Russia and the US, a Real dictatorship and a Pretend democracy, to announce they’re going to do this and for the disenfranchised, bewildered populus (populi?) of both countries just to let it slide by, another weird billboard on the highway of corruption that is contemporary political life. I just saw the movie Kick-Ass, and well, you know how much the lead character wanted to be a Super-Hero, that’s how much the Jet-Set Hobo wants to be a Spy. So, if you’re in the spy recruiting racket and appreciate discretion, do find a way to get in touch. The secret catchphrase will be: “The summers in Budapest are always unpredictable.”

Thank you for listening, or for listening in. This whole site is bugged you know, but one of these days we’re going to find that goddamn mole.

Image via Wikipedia

Would you wear a seersucker suit?

The sweetie, who is of Mexican ancestry, has one in blue and cream, bought at Rubensteins, one of New Orleans’ oldest department stores, founded in 1924. He wears it with classic white suede bucks, cream socks, a white shirt and light-colored tie. It looks great. I love the confidence it takes to wear this classic, southern, American style.

He last wore it on June 21 to honor a venerable New York Times tradition (where he works) — seersucker day. He got some funny looks on the commuter train, but a few nods and thumbs-up.

Here’s some advice how…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Haspel to Expand into Men’s Outerwear (eon.businesswire.com)
• Celebrate a Century of American Style by Showing off How You “Sport Your Seersucker” (eon.businesswire.com)

Image via Wikipedia

A new column over at Salon is offering advice on women and work, and this question — can I stare? — provoked 163 comments after the writer weighed in:

Look, is it cool that the woman you work with wears tight things that may or may not be appropriate for work, depending on what kind of office you work in, how the clothes fit her and other things that have to do with the context of her culture, general style and, frankly, body type (thank you, Lane Bryant for making an issue out of that banned ad and its reflective bias)? Maybe, I don’t know.  What I know is definitely uncool is for you, a young, straight man in the workplace — not a minority unless it is Opposite Day — to take umbrage with a female colleague’s apparel choices. Because, frankly, what Perla in accounting wears to work so she can cover her bits and feed her family is really none of your business — even if your erection disagrees. If she’s violating a dress code rule that she’d been briefed on at the time of her hire, somebody in H.R. will talk to her, and she’ll probably be embarrassed and start wearing a scarf.

I don’t think so.

If you insist on displaying your cleavage, why wouldn’t men stare? Isn’t that the point? Why should women dress so provocatively yet whine when they — provoke — attention?

Your colleagues, let alone your customers or clients, don’t need to see your breasts.

Do they?

Related articles by Zemanta

• The 6 Rules of Cleavage (lifescript.com)
• Top 10 Items You’re Too Old to Wear (lifescript.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Ah, Americans love a good romance.  It’s our most popular genre of literature.  If you consider romantic comedies, it’s one of our most popular genres of film.  And there are a plethora of reality TV shows, from “Buy the Dress” to the seemingly unstoppable “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette.”  But a huge part of the ideology of  romance is the US is not so much about the smoochy smoochy mushy stuff, but about the romance of individualism.

Think about it.  How many weddings have you been to where the couple said: We wanted to do something different.  So they had their wedding in a falling down farmhouse in Tuscany or a warehouse in Brooklyn.  They wore red, or jeans and tee shirts.  They hiked a mountain or got married underwater.  I have a friend whose daughter is trying to get married- as in perform the ceremony- while skydiving.

And the wedding isn’t the only place to display the romance of individualism.  Proposals are getting increasingly elaborate and “unique.”  In fact, potential grooms are told that if they don’t propose in a unique way, they will regret it for the rest of their lives.  According to RomanceTips,

After all, you want the proposal to be very original and memorable. You want her to marvel at your creativity and planning. After all, you only ask someone to marry you once. You want her to have a great story to tell to her mother, girlfriends, and, someday, your children.

The increasingly elaborate proposal now must involve a trip somewhere, or a thousand candles in the backyard, or skywriting, or a nationally televised sporting event, or anything that marks the groom as “unique” and “creative.”  One of the interesting things about the “traditional” marriage proposal as we know it, the down on bended knee in a restaurant, is it was invented by the diamond industry as a way to mark the diamond as a not everyday item, as sacred if you will.  Prior to the 1940s, proposals were between grooms and prospective father-in-laws and did not involve an elaborate ritual.  But with the increasing popularity of the diamond engagement ring, in part because of the brilliance of DeBeers’ “Diamonds are forever” advertising campaign, the diamond sellers thought they should sell a special way of presenting their goods.  In order to really sell us the ritual, DeBeers didn’t just sell it in ads, but convinced Hollywood to put the bended knee proposal into their movies.

And now the “uniqueness” of our romances must be displayed not just in the weddings themselves and the proposals, but in the ritual “first date.”  According to a story in today’s New York Times, a new dating site allows single New Yorkers to propose their first date rather than the usual dating profiles of “likes” and “dislikes.”  The first dates proposed are not only highly idiosyncratic, but they tend to happen in waves.  In other words, the hip, young New Yorkers looking for the perfectly individualistic romance are doing the exact same things as other hip young New Yorkers looking for the same thing.

New data from a Web site suggests that not only do many people plan similar dates, but like lemmings, they also collectively migrate from one theme to the next. In March, scores of New Yorkers opted to have their first dates over tacos: fish tacos, dried cricket tacos, taco tours of Brooklyn, even post-surfing tacos at Rockaway Beach in Queens. But by month’s end, tacos went out of vogue, and fondue became the fare of choice for first dates. In mid-April, singles relinquished their cheese forks and embraced bring-your-own-beer dates instead. A few weeks later, outings for lobster rolls were all the rage. By mid-May daters cooled on lobster rolls and were eating oysters.

The interesting thing is not that primarily educated, primarily white, primarily young New Yorkers would all engage in the same sort of activities.  Sociologists have shown over and over again that our position in the social world determines our “taste.”  What’s interesting is that they are so committed to seeing romance, the most formulaic of undertakings, as a chance to express individualism.

Avoiding romance in the US at this point in time is a bit like avoiding taxes.  The government grants us rights and privileges based on marital status (over a 1,000 of them).   Gay and lesbian Americans, at least the ones who are primarily white and educated themselves, fight bitterly for the “right” to marry.  Most of our culture is obsessed with “true love” and “happily ever after.”   And so, even though most Americans are in fact unmarried, those of us who are part of the ruling romantic elite- or at least would like to be- do what everyone is supposed to do:

We go on a date, fall in love, get married.

At some level of the cultural unconscious, we know we are in fact doing exactly what is expected of us, what everyone ought to be doing.  And so, we attempt to both march lockstep with the ruling ideology of romance and simultaneously mark it as “our own.”  Imagine lemmings each in a different brightly colored wig as they fall off the cliff that is true love.

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Well quelle surprise, the ‘Jet-Set Hobo’ is still here blogging away when just a few weeks ago we all thought this whole enterprise would be shut down and moved on. Like a gypsy caravan in cyberspace. I digress but yes, I’m still here. At least until the 31st of July instead of it all ending today that is, which was when I thought the proverbial axe would fall. So I’m hanging on by a very thin thread as usual. I’m not (only) referring to this blog of course. Oh well never mind, mustn’t grumble.

I know people who have it much worse. A NZ journalist friend of mine who has been living in Yemen springs to mind. He and his Yemenese/Yemenite? girlfriend were mobbed a few days ago, in Yemen. Well where else? They were surrounded by a crowd of about 60 angry blokes, all chanting and calling her a whore. My reporter mate and his girlfriend were already trying to leave in a hurry because he had been given 72 hours to get out of the country. It sounds to me like they narrowly avoided a stoning.  Even lawyers, guns and money only go so far.

At least I don’t have those kinds of problems. Nope, the problem I have, apparently, is that this column is just well, too damned all-over-the-place. Too fractured. In Plainspeak, if I can tighten the focus in an interesting way, I might possibly go forward with whatever wholly worthy endeavour morphs out of this site.

For one thing, I’m not even sure I’m so in love with the name anymore, Jet-Set Hobo that is. It would make a great name for a trendy clothing label. Otherwise it’s just a whimsical sounding umbrella name. As for the content, well there’s a fair bit of travelogue, some scathing sociopolitical commentary, opinionated coverage of the British esp London political and social scenes, some bits of quite, er, adult-orientated fiction, samples of my zany tv and arty film work and projects, all mixed up with spirited essays extolling the finer things in life and the occasional trashing of a someone or something in celebrity ‘culture’… I know. It makes me dizzy too.

The $64000 question then.  (Just a number I’m throwing out there.) Which, if any of this ‘vain parcel of strivings’ should I be focusing on ladies and gentlemen? Because ‘your man in Budapest’ is perplexed. I need to focus – but as must be obvious from this meandering blog I like to be tangential. It really is what I think Sherlock Holmes referred to as quite a three pipe problem. So dear, patient reader if you do have any thoughts about what you like or dislike about this page…

Put them on a postcard please, or below in the comments section.

More vomit-inducing images after the jump. Enticing, right? [Homotography]

A prototype of jeans designed for the Baby Boomer set from Henry-Lee and Co.

I don’t know why it took so long to get to this point, but it looks like jeans makers are finally starting to recognize that women in their 40s and older like to wear premium denim, too, but we don’t want our choices to consist of jeans so skinny and tight that they cause nerve damage on one end to the dreaded mom jeans on the other.

As the youngest boomer turns 46 this year, demand for hip jeans with a bit more give is on the rise. With roughly 76 million baby boomers accounting for half of consumer spending, denim-makers are waking up to the fact that there is money to be made in women’s jeans that fit middle-age hips and thighs while still looking cool.

via Baby Boomer denim: Chicago firm enters jeans scene

Was it really so difficult to devise something in-between, a style that isn’t so low-cut and snug that wearers risk an obscenity citation nor so high, bulky and pleated that anyone unfortunate enough to don them is a shoo-in for “What Not to Wear?” If you’ve ever had to devote an entire day to jeans shopping, then you know the answer is yes. Apparently we have California to blame for this state of affairs. As the birthplace of jeans, the state’s culture continues to influence design and even today, “the business is still steeped in the land of face lifts and celebrities,” according to the Chicago Tribune. “No shopper wants to buy fat jeans.”

Leave it up to the sensible Midwest to find a solution. Chicago-based Henry-Lee and Co. in August is coming out with a line of jeans called Henry & Bell, priced at about $145.  Available in jeggings, straight jeans and boot cut, “the fabric is made with four-way stretch XFIT Lycra, a cross-weave that claims to hold its shape better than other stretch denim,” the Tribune says.

This sounds a lot more promising than the jeans in the marketplace now, and though it’s more than I’d like to spend, I might be willing to do so if they fit just right. A couple of years ago I needed a new pair and decided to try as many different brands at as many different price points as my sanity would allow. My shopping trip started on a sour note when a saleswoman approached me as I was perusing a pair of 7 for All Mankind jeans and told me to not even bother trying them on, as they weren’t made for people who looked like me. I didn’t know whether to be offended or thankful. Gap’s Long & Lean made me look neither, I couldn’t find a Levi’s style that worked and the story was the same with a slew of jeans in the $150-$200 range. I ended up getting lucky with Lucky Brand and a pair from iT.

But a girl can’t live on old jeans alone, so I’m looking forward to these jeans for my “middle-age hips and thighs,” even though that description once again both offends me and sparks a sense of gratitude. I hope they work because since mom jeans are a definite no, my other choice might involve a trip to a nerve damage specialist.

His midget shoes.

At just under 5′4″, Medvedev is the world’s shortest president. Posing next to the suit-busting Arnold Schwarzenegger, he could look like a frail lilliputian rather than a modernizing force on par with Peter the Great (who was, quite tall, by the way).

But if you look at photographs from the meetings, Medvedev looks like he’s about as tall as Arnie, who is a full 9 inches taller.

How did Dima do it?

Well, first of all, Dima got heels. According to Russian press reports, the Presidential closet is filled with shoes that have about a 2.5-inch heel.(About an inch is standard on men’s shoes.) That does not exclude the potential for another, hidden heel, though it’s unclear what that would look like.

Then, there are the photographic tricks, according to a former Kremlin photographer. According to him, Medvedev prefers shorter photographers because they have to shoot from a lower position, thereby elongating his stature. He tries to stand close to the other guy, because that also hides the difference in height, as does photography with a telephoto (or long-focus) lens.

Because image is everything.

via NewsRU.ru

Or at least the fashion world has.

Cotillard graces the cover of the July 2010 issue of Vogue wearing a plum Dior sheathe, visible lacy bra and a perfectly coiffed  dark chestnut bob. The actress, who gained widespread acclaim – and an Oscar – for playing Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, appears chic and channels old-world glamour in the spread. The article itself paints Cotillard in an extremely positive light – portraying her as a modern renaissance woman, a talented artist and fashion icon.

But just two years ago in 2008, she wasn’t the nation’s darling – rather just the opposite when she voiced some interesting thoughts on 9/11.

We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours,” she said in an interview in France, the Huffington Post story said. “It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed.”

The footage of Cotillard making these claims was discovered in France.

In the same interview, Cotillard also called the twin towers “money pits” and said that demolishing them was easier than modernizing them.

The beautiful and the damned, it seems – but when Vogue forgives, the rest of the world is sure to follow.