what's a "heely"?

I get a dorky trade email from the Center for Media Research -- part of the job, I guess -- and today's article linked search engines to online shopping trends. Well, duh. But here's an interesting little chart that was pictured in today's installment:
Now. In my humble opinion, this should be three separate lists (although, as a blogger who uses "found" graphics, I can't complain since I've only to upload one graphic instead of 3). For example, if you look at it too quickly, you might think, hey, why do people go to eBay to buy lingerie and Barbie dolls? That's sort of kinky. And who goes to Home Depot for acne medicine? Doesn't make much sense.

But after I got over the side-by-side silliness of these lists, I did find the consumer trends quite interesting. eBay and craigslist, both user-generated direct commerce websites, were beating out the Waltons for most commonly searched "brands." And why not? There's something kind of comforting about the fact that you know eBay's got whatEVER you could possibly want, from the most absurdly obscure (my old roommate's wall clock, adorned with the logo of a beer company that shares her surname, Angelson) to the most absurdly expensive (Faberge eggs and sportscars). Who knows when Walmart will *ever* change their stock; it's probably as likely that they'll get caught violating trust laws before that happens. (ha!)

Anyway, for your consideration, these lists of search terms.

ain't no party like a sandwich party

I highly recommend hosting a sandwich party for your next special occasion. Tell all of your guests to bring a few servings of their favorite sandwich -- storebought, homemade, whatever -- and you've got an automatically-catered fiesta where everyone can eat *something*, as long as they followed the instructions.

On Saturday several of my closest friends, my sister and I gathered on a soggy afternoon on the Upper East Side to eat sandwiches, drink wine and celebrate my 25th birthday. The menu included:

* ham, muenster cheese, lettuce, pear and honey mustard on croissants (Eliza)

* smoked turkey, american cheese, lettuce, and tomato wraps (Jessica)

* lobster salad + plain bagels (Meredith)
* magical tuna salad + bagels (Meredith)
* lox, cream cheese + bagels (Meredith really outdid herself)

* ham, turkey, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato on fresh-baked baguette from Parisi's bakery [!] (Sammi)

* prosciutto, smoked mozzarella, grilled zucchini on olive/ciabatta bread (Me, Katherine, Sabrina)

* Klondike ice cream sandwiches (clever, Becca!)

Now, as many of you may know, Sandwich is the #1 food on my Top 5 list of foods I'd have with me in perpetuity on a desert island, with no prospect of ever being rescued. In fact, Sandwich can include so many different kinds of food groups, I don't think I even need my other four options. For this same reason, however, Sandwich is a hotly debated answer to the question.

"How can someone just say 'Sandwich' or 'Pasta'," people exclaim. "It's just too broad!"

I disagree. I love me some sandwich.

What are your Top Five?

good one.

I turn 25 years-old tomorrow and have already received a wonderful present: a successful operation for a beloved friend.

Other wonderful things this week and weekend: all five of my closest high school friends in town together for the first time in ages. Lovely fall weather. A moving book of essays and photos from my boss. An exciting season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. Roast chicken at Dixie's house. Sandwich parties.

Off I go into the weekend! Hope you enjoy yours.

anywhere you want

Over the weekend, I found myself on a bench with my friends Dorothy and Eliza, on the other side of a chainlink fence from a makeshift soccer field of concrete, on an island in the middle of Chrystie Street in Chinatown, eating dumplings.

Dorothy, a self-proclaimed "person-who-like-to-ask-questions" turned to me and asked, quite seriously, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?"

It didn't take long for me to answer, but I surprised even myself. I said I'd very much like to be sitting on the back porch of a house that I *owned*, somewhere in New England, reading a book. After quickly scanning in my mind the images I have stored of tropical paradise (El Nido, The Philippines), of urban beauty (Harajuku, Tokyo), or of romantic cityscapes (Paris, France), and art historical centers (Rome, Italy), I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do than pull on an oversized wool sweater and a pair of jeans, sit in a plantation chair and tuck into the pages of a great hardback book. On a breezy afternoon. Must be breezy.

It might've been the moment; as we sat watching the pickup soccer game on the basketball-court-sized playing field, a breeze happened to blow away some of our paper napkins. Dorothy had just given me my own copy of Rohinton Mistry's, *A Fine Balance,* one of the best books I've ever read about any place in Asia, and one that shattered my impressions of India as just that place where curry comes from. So maybe I was thinking about how I'd like to build a real adult library. I don't know.

We never got around to Dorothy and Eliza's places, but now I wish we had. I wonder what the answer to this kind of fantasy question says about a person's state of mind, at any given moment. That my place was one that was easy on the senses, full of green and quiet, makes a lot of sense, considering the chaos of New York right now.

Where would you go, if you could be anywhere?

fashion at the Public Library

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances." - Oscar Wilde

My sister and I attended a lecture held yesterday evening at the New York Public Library, part of the new Fall season of a series called LIVE! at the NYPL, curated by Paul Holdengräber, who is intent, as he says in the introduction to every program, on "making the lions roar." I've been to a few of these so far -- Zadie Smith and Kurt Andersen (see May 2006 archives), Salman Rushdie and Amartya Sen, David Remnick and Paul himself -- and I have not been disappointed.

Yesterday's talk, however, was about fashion.

I'm not ashamed. I like clothes. I really like people-watching. And I love understanding real, personal style. So I went to see Tim Gunn, Martha Nelson and Andre Léon Talley gather to celebrate Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' new celebrity Look Book, and discuss where the fashion industry is headed in our age of social networking, YouTube and bloggers.
The panelists were optimistic about the future because they believe fashion has become accessible to more than just industry insiders. They spoke about the "phenomenon" of Project Runway, and the "democratization" of the art form, but noted that fashion is now virtually indistinguishable from entertainment. Can you think of the last magazine you saw without a famous actress on on the cover? I can't.

They continued to make observations about the past, present and future of fashion. A young man asked about how the modern fashion world compared to that of the 70s and 80s, when Studio 54, Warhol, Halston and other infamous personalities were lurking around the city at night in a haze of glamour, drugs and elitism. Andre Léon Talley [of Vogue] answered that he thought fashion was rather more substantive now -- exhausting, almost -- because there isn't as much of a "Scene" surrounding the bi-annual tent shows. "You don't go to a show at 1pm and then linger for hours drinking coffee and lounging around until another show at 10pm," he said. "There's no time for that. There's too much to see. It's very exciting."

And the future? Martha Nelson, the Founding editor of In Style magazine, made remarks about what the internet would do to, and for, the fashion world. "You don't need $250,000 to produce a show in the tents anymore," she said. "You can produce your own show on YouTube...the people who are going to survive in this industry are the ones who embrace the rise technology and new creative avenues." I really loved this. I think it's true for most creative industries -- true for artists who ought to have a website, writers who ought to have clippings online and even for performing artists. I wish that Martha could have spoken more about this aspect of the future of art and media, but there was no time. Andre Léon Talley is one long stream-of-eccentric-consciousness, and spent a lot of time talking. And being hilarious.

between the towers

In 1974, a tightrope artist called Phillipe Petit walked between the Twin Towers, which were at that time still under construction. This is a print from the children's book written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, entitled, "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." It won the Caldecott Medal for most distinguished American picture book for children in 2004.

My memories of the World Trade Center are peppered with images of storefronts and ironwrought sculptures; it was a place where we used to eat as a family at McDonald's and shop at The Children's Place, after my father was released from his occasional business meetings in the south tower. I can remember strolling there with my mother, and craning my neck until it cramped looking at the endless reflective windows, squinting into the sun.

I was not in New York City five years ago today, and so I have no personal recollection of the city on a day they say was very much like today, beautiful and clear, the chill of autumn floating in the air. What I do have is the distinct sense that no matter where you were, you can remember exactly how you felt when you found out that "9.11" was happening.

Things changed that day. For now, on this most terrible occasion, I like to think of the tightrope artist, a quarter of a mile in the sky, walking from one building to another, making a promise to himself, to his friends and to the onlookers below, that once he got to the other side, everything would be okay.

full moon

I've been conspicuously absent from blog posting this week, and I blame it on events surrounding yesterday night's full moon. I'm really not that superstitious; but I do take very seriously the moon's cycle, and always, always, the dangers of driving.

A close family friend, a second "mother" and mentor, has gotten very ill, very suddenly, and I'm not sure how to write about it. In the six months that I have been posting to this blog, I've been careful not to expose too much about my personal life. Beside the fact that I work in a place that requires its employees to sign a confidentiality statement, and in spite of my temptation to vent the daily frustrations of twenty-something lifestyle in New York City, this will never be a tell-all weblog, or a diary. But the news of this sickness over the holiday weekend has so dramatically shifted the way I look at the city, my job and my daily dealings with people, that I felt it was only appropriate to post about it for a little.

One of the most interesting things about confronting sickness is that people make efforts to take ownership of some part of the coping process. Everyone goes into "very helpful mode." One person organizes the meals or cleans the house thoroughly, while another takes medical notes and executes all the notifying of family and friends. When you lose control to an unknown - in this case a cancer that is never predictable, and mostly incurable - you try and seize it in some other part of your life.

As a result, I've been completely antisocial this week. What I've seized as my way of coping with the news is a kind of control of my social schedule. If I don't see anyone, or call them back, I don't have to recount my hours at the hospital this weekend, and I don't have to review and retell the medical facts yet another time. It's as though it's not happening at all...until I get a call from my "second mother's" daughter, a high school classmate and friend, and all I want to do is throw myself into learning, knowing, processing whatever facts there are, finding loopholes in diagnoses, dreaming up the most thoughtful thing I can possibly provide to help personalize a hospital room.

Now that the immediate trauma of finding this all out has passed -- tears shed, best and worst case scenarios imagined, cigarettes smoked -- and the real long-term questions set in, I wonder how to incorporate it into my daily life. I can't wallow in sympathy and self-pity for long, but I also feel enormously guilty living a life while another fabulous one is unfairly confined to an airless room in an old New York hospital.

Though hopefully she had a view of the full moon, which was, for what it's worth, incredibly beautiful.