-
Cigarette Marketing
I thought you dear readers might be interested in a little post I wrote over at our Market blog about how frustrating ordering cigarettes has become because of the new rules. You can read it right here.
-
A Farm Wedding
Like many of you, I spent last weekend at a wedding. Fortunately for me, the wedding was in the Midwest and I got to rent a speedy car to drive speedily around turns and through beautiful fields, all at Midwest prices (Mazda Miata = $15/day). At said wedding, my mom told my aunt that it should really be featured in a magazine. To which my aunt said:
“or maybe just on Rachael’s blog?”
Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, fame has come a knockin’.
So here are a few photos from this farm wedding, which it truly was in the most relaxed and well-loved way possible. One of those where the wine is serve-yourself, the lemonade is conveniently close to the keg of beer, the bride & groom decide to catch a ride to the hotel with their cousins, and everything relies on weather. Herein is included, of course, a photo of the outdoor bathroom that used a tree stump as its base and my other favorite innovation of theirs: linoleum dance floor (for just the right clickty-clack of the heels).
[slideshow]
-
I like this album cover.
-
$99, 700
That’s how much we are now officially in debt to Harvard University. Shall we ask for $300 more to make it a nice number of zeros?
So what’s the plan? Do we cut all costs, tighten our belts, move out of our city apartment, and start an all-out fight to pay it off? Or do we sigh, and note that it’s annually tax deductible after all, jot down a fifteen year plan, and take that two week trip this fall? Loans give me sort of a sick feeling. They make things feel delusional: I look at my bank account, I look at my wallet, and see what I “have” but in reality, I don’t truly have a right to any of those numbers.
What does $1,000 mean to you? What do you imagine when you hear it? Do you ever plan to give away $1,000, in one clean check to one fine cause? Do you see it as a source of much, or sort of negligible amount that seems to scurry away? If someone asked you to pick between your plans for the weekend, and receiving $1000, which answer would spring to mind? Can you imagine surprising your best friend with a plane ticket, just so you can visit each other? Would not eating out at all for six months be worth the money you’d save?
Like most people, my spending efforts are a study in contrasts. $1000 does not cover one month’s rent for our apartment in Boston. It is 8 solid trips to the grocery store–the cheap one, where I stock up for a two-week hit, but if I go to Whole Foods,which is much closer to my apartment, it seems to go much quicker.
Money can really be a rather delightfully powerful thing. As a small business owner I know what purchases can mean to the person behind the counter, so I really love to buy things from businesses I admire, or appreciate,or just find important. I love to call in to Emerson College Radio (which happens to be one of my Top Ten Favorite Things about Boston) and pledge during their pledge drive. I have several friends working for nonprofits who must raise their incomes every year, and it sort of shocks me that I personally can be part of paying their salaries.
When we are young and perhaps poorer than we think we might be in the future, it can seem easier to pretend that we don’t have any money at all, besides (and this part is mumbled) the money we spend everyday. I bet if we saw the total amount of money that has passed through our bank accounts so far in our lifetime, we would be stunned. All of that went somewhere.
Photo by The Sartoralist.
-
When I get olda
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMophHw6iX4]
I’ve been singing this a lot. Joe’s annoyed. (The best part about these K’naan music videos is reading the international comments on their YouTube page.)
-
Louis Boston
The new Louis Boston eatery looks like a lovely place for a summer lunch. Opening mid June, Sam’s will also gives you an excuse to see the store’s new building on Fan Pier (below).
In other Boston food news, we went to Myers + Chang, just across the bridge in the South End, for Joe’s graduation dinner and it was truly delicious. Their theme is asian diner which seems to me the very definition of funky, or at least what I’ve always wanted it to mean. I loved it and can’t wait to go back in the fall. If you need an excuse to go, on Sundays they do $1 oysters with $1 PBRs (tall boys, even).
PS And of course I can NOT wait to try Saus when we get back. Say the words “frites” + “mayonnaise-based sauces” + “open late” and I will nominate you for mayor of Boston.
-
MmmBop
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmG0DqhfDbY]
Something new, for those of us who will never stop loving the Hanson boys.
-
Miranda July’s Cut Outs
Lately I’ve really wanted to have a touristy photo-op cut-out at the market. Me really wanting something I could never do by myself means I hassle Joe on a semi-regular basis, and make comments that make my idea sound really cool, like “I think Marc Jacobs just did this exact thing in Paris,” or “Doesn’t this seem very Christo and Jeanne-Claude to you?” Touristy photo-op cut-outs are actually very hard to google properly, but I mean something along the lines of this:
I’m imagining something more family friendly, obviously (is that a demon casually resting between them?). Maybe it could have a shark, a ship caption, a mermaid swimming below, Pop Eye peeking around the corner…
All that to say, I thought of my genius idea again when I saw Miranda July’s new interactive art in Union Square Park.
In typical July fashion, it’s very personal and involved and somehow both cute and disturbing:
For most of the exhibit, I think the real genius is: You get to stand on something. If there’s one thing we’ve established about the human race, it’s that we love to stand on stuff.
You can read an interview with her about the project at Artinfo, see a few more pictures here, I first saw it on the indefatigable Chris Glass.
(Apologies to the dear couple in the top picture, I have no idea who you are, or where I got that photo. Thanks for sharing your experience with the www.)
-
Pinterest
New visual-cataloging and sharing site, Pinterest (of the likes of fffound). Lovely palette, smoothly organized, snaps your mess of “inspiration, I’m sure I’ll do something with this someday” images right into place. Currently it’s invite only, which is why I’m not sharing already changed my life. But the sight of my computer’s desktop tells me I could really use something like this.
Seen on Oh Joy!
-
Commenced
After all the ceremonies of our youth, graduation still manages to hit you right in the heart with solemnity, joy, tingles of progress and new beginnings.
The yard.
Every school carried something into the ceremony (School of government = globe-balls; business school = flags). The Graduate School of Design (architecture & landscape) took the cake with LEGO plots. {Photo from my friend Birgit.}
Tiered skirt, tiered graduation seating in the GSD building.
One LEGO flower stands tall among the celebratory drinks afterwards.