HOW TO BE DIFFERENT.

May 22, 2013

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Source.

I had an interesting conversation with someone last night about being different.

This someone is a designer, who creates websites for, among others, photographers. Lots of photographers.

“And so they all say this,” my companion said. “They say they view photography as an art, and they want a site that reflects that. So we design something for them that is unique, right? Something artistic, something out of the box? Different?”

And then what happens? I asked.

“Well,” long sigh, “they’ll get the design. And then, they’ll come back and say, ‘yeah…actually, we just really want our site to look like X famous photographer’s site.’”

His gaze clouded.

“If we push back, explain why this design will help distinguish them and make them NOT look like all the rest, then suddenly a “branding expert” friend will appear and back up the client and say that, yeah, what the client really needs is a site that looks just like X famous photographer’s site.”

At this point, he put his head in his hands, and made the sound one makes after one too many frustrating clients.

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Twice by my high school peers, I was voted “Most Changed.” Once during my sophomore year, and again just a couple of years ago, at my high school reunion. Both times, it made me happy, then uncomfortable.

The first time, I had recently gone from a dork like everybody else, all elbows and Cole Haan loafers, to suddenly having boyfriends. It shocked everyone. Especially since said boyfriends weren’t my fellow dorky brethren, but jocky, cocky guys (who all dumped me, but that’s another story). If Rachel Leigh Cook had been a conservative Christian wearing tapered khakis from the Gap instead of being a shy, secretly cool/sexy artist, then you might say my story was a little like She’s All That.

The second time, well, ten years had passed since I saw all those people. And it was lovely! Seriously. But I had bright red hair and was wearing a loud outfit, and everyone I saw was like…whoa! What happened? Where are your Cole Haans? You live in Austin? Are you a liberal? I felt like a unicorn.

Then I was voted “Most Changed” again at the reunion, by my old peers, and couldn’t help but think: “I need to do a better job of communicating who I really am.”

Anyway, just like when I was fifteen, I also thought: “yay! Recognition!” (Isn’t that sad? Twenty freaking eight and still needing the popular kids to like you?) and then almost immediately I was like, “WAIT. You’re making fun of me, aren’t you! Fuck! I fell for it.”

Therein lies the rub: Needing approval ≠ being different.

The reason all those photographers want to look like their more famous peers even though they want to be seen as unique and interesting isn’t so surprising, when you think about it. They (like 15 year-old, 28 year-old, and most likely 76 year-old me) crave that pat on the back, that reassuring “YAY! You’re doing it right!” approval. But approval comes with a price.

I worry that the Internet is slowly making visual and textual automatons of us, or more specifically, me. Trends subconsciously enter my brain, and then my creative output is just like everybody else’s, and sometimes I think the only way to fight that is to forcibly prevent the Internet from getting into my computer, a la Jonathan Franzen.

So I started making this list, because things have been super writer’s blocky for me lately. This happens either when I start caring too much about what the recipient (my client, my editor, you) thinks, or when I experience the occasional wash of apathy that drains the color out of everything I do. So when I crave freshness, to create something different, what exactly do I mean by that? And how to accomplish it?

Here are some ideas I had.

8 Ways to Be Different:

1. WELCOME BOREDOM BACK INTO YOUR LIFE. Being the one person in a public space without a smart phone automatically makes you the most interesting one. I know a guy named Evan who works at the Natural Gardener, grows things, plays French horn, sings, plays ukulele, looks you in the eye when you talk to him…and doesn’t own a cell phone! Not, “doesn’t own a smart phone” – we’re talking NO cellular device of any kind.

I don’t know what Evan does when he’s bored, but whatever it is, it’s not happening on a phone. When he gets bored, he probably goes and does something awesome. Everybody loves Evan.

2. TAKE COMFORT IN BEING THE SAME. I subscribe to the Austin Kleon School that artists, all of them, steal things. Ideas, techniques, identities. By admitting that we’re all basically made of the same stuff, it forces you to focus instead on mastering skills. Which maybe anyone can do, but few have the patience for.

3. REMEMBER THE FEELING YOU HAD WHEN YOU SAW SOMETHING THAT BLEW YOUR MIND. For me, it was discovering Hyperbole and a Half all those years ago. I opened up the site and thought…whoa. I’ve never seen anything like this! Maybe there was a whole underworld of Paintbrush comics out there, but wherever they were, I hadn’t seen them.

So if, like my friend’s photographer clients above, being creatively different is a fear thing, think back to your personal creative paradigm shifters and the way they made you feel.

4. READ THIS BOOK.

5. GO OUTSIDE FOR LONG, EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME and don’t Tweet it. Let those memories be your secret stash. (Every writer needs a secret stash.) I totally violate this rule all the time. But I’m getting better.

6. ABSORB INFORMATION/ART IN SINGULAR WAYS. I.e., in ways that don’t allow you to get distracted, like the good ol’ newspaper. My designer friend with all those photographers cited a super interesting-sounding story about brain research, and the depth of knowledge that sinks in when you read things on paper vs. online. (If you are out there designer friend, send me the link to that!) From your deep knowledge comes richer output.

7. GET INSPIRED BY EVERYONE HERE.

8. KISS YOUR THOUGHTS GOOD-BYE. Easier said than done. But when I need to clear all the BS away, and start channeling the ghost of creativity, nothing works like a good mind-quieting meditation. And you all know my favorite place for that.

If all else fails, you could always cannonball on top of a manatee and most certainly achieve notoriety, if not creative freshness! (Though I’m not sure I’d recommend that.)

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i was made + RENEGADE CRAFT FAIR

May 17, 2013

Attention world!

This beautiful thing:

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…is my friend Katie.

Katie is an artist, an expert kale preparer, a jewelry designer, and possibly a life coach.

She and her shop, i was made — antiquey, gilded baubles of animal bones and old-timey illustrations — will be at Renegade Craft Fair this weekend.

THIS is her stuff:

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Renegade Craft Fair is like offline Etsy: tables and tables and tables of delightfully handmade stuff, hawked by the artists themselves. It is also free, and goes on 11a-7p this Saturday + Sunday at Palmer Events Center.

If you are there, look for Katie! Look for Citygram too, one of the official event sponsors!

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THE SOUND AND THE CURRY: AUSTIN FOOD + WINE FEST

May 16, 2013

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Hello, old sport!

(Bear with me, Reader. I haven’t even seen Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby yet, but as you can see, my inner English major is rearing its dorky head. Just like how people dress up as hobbits for Lord of the Rings screenings, what would you think of me going to see Great Gatsby dressed as Daisy Buchanan and speaking only in 1920s slang? I’m only halfway kidding about this.)

Courtesy of the very generous Simi Wines, Megan and I went to the Austin Food + Wine Fest a few weekends ago. Now, I’ll be honest with you. I have a hard time writing about stuff like this. Whenever I’m supposed to interview a chef or something, it’s like I figuratively curl up in their lap and say “tell me a story!” And then I write about their story, and that’s that.

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Much more difficult, I find, to describe just the food itself in a way that isn’t immediately obvious. “This taco is meaty!” “This cake is sweet!” No joke, that is how I would write about all food, were it not for my trusty thesaurus.

Which is why I always loved Josh Ozersky when he and I were doing that food show last year. Remember that? He was always so descriptive with food, narrating each bite with a historian’s sensibility, and he could tell you for example which New York hamburgers’ meat patties were served exactly flush with their buns, and which were not. That, my friends, is some serious attention to detail.

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Anyway, it’s also hard to write about Austin Food + Wine Fest because, let’s face it — it’s people eating and drinking all day. As I overheard one attendee say, “this seems like an event the Real Housewives would go to.” So true! And like a Real Housewife, it’s all too easy to get tipsy and not remember any of the specific, delicious samples that you tried, lost in a haze of Pinot Grigio. So let’s hold lacquered hands, and try to piece things together.

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Exhibit A: Sampling champagne slushees.

Early on at the fest, we ran into my Citygram editor Chris Perez, there on the left. He was there with My Well Fed Life blogger and freelance food writer Veronica Meewes, who possesses an amazing tattoo.

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Banksy!

So we joined forces, Megan, Chris, Veronica and I, and behaved like one does at these things:

“DID YOU SEE THAT PORK SLIDER WALK BY? I must have that pork slider.”

“No – the beet taco! Turn away from the slider! Get in this line with me and let’s eat a beet taco!!”

“F-k the beet taco, I’m eating this jalapeno-infused chocolate drizzled with a balsamic white wine reduction.”

“Wha?? Where did that come from?”

“Too late, let’s wash everything down with 18 wine samples.”

“Good idea.”

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I’m serious, Reader – this is how people, people like myself, talk at these things. It’s overwhelming. But incredibly tasty.

Take, for example – the beet taco! Doesn’t that sound…odd? It was, in fact, our favorite sample of the day. Another surprise? It came from Hickory Street! I had no idea they were foodie-ish.

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We swung by Simi’s booth, and chatted a bit with Chef Kolin Vazzoler, who has a terribly exciting last name. Don’t you get excited when you see double z’s? I do.

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Kolin served us a fried chicken skin — a chip-like substance — topped with mushroom puree and dried cherry. He also handed us glasses of pinot noir to pair it with, prompting Megan and I to pretend like we were very knowledgeable oenophiles. “An excellent choice!” we cried. And we weren’t lying. It was excellent.

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Now, given the choice between salty and sweet, I’ll take the former any day. I don’t have a sweet tooth; I’m like a horse with a salt lick. Which is why I breezed straight past all the cake balls/tiny pies/cookies on sticks/champagne slushees/etc. and made a beeline for anything covered in salami or cheese.

As you can see, I was successful:

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Salami courtesy San Francisco-based Columbus, who I had to look up on the Internet because I was too busy stuffing my face to write their name down.

But for me, the main delight of the Austin Food + Wine Fest were wine demos by bad boy sommelier Mark Oldman, who got busted in Austin last year for jaywalking:

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A warrant for Mark’s arrest, proudly displayed on his demo table.

Oh, I wish I had a good picture, or better yet a video Reader, of Mark Oldman! I went to his AF+W demo last year too, and it basically consists of every person drinking five glasses of wine each while Mark tells jokes and makes champagne bottles explode with a sword. He does educate you, too, pointing out various wine regions and why the price points of some wines are more or less than others, but I go because he is so damn entertaining, the anti-snob of the wine world. If he comes back next year – provided he isn’t in jail – you’ll love him.

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I suppose that’s the reason I go to Austin Food + Wine Fest, because the people are interesting. To have such singular focus, on a type of food, a type of wine, and work at it for years. Don’t get me wrong: I go for the samples, too. But when your taste buds inevitably exhaust, you start looking around at all the people making it, and wonder: What brought you here? What piqued your interest in salami / wine / tiny pies? Do you ever tire of it? Are you in it for the artistry of food? Is there an artistry of food? Or is it just a lizard-brain type of thing, a pleasure response rather than an intellectual one? Are you in it for the service? The way people close their eyes and get dreamy when they bite your food? Is it weird when people grab your samples and jam it in their mouths without saying thanks? Or are you over that? Is the real joy in slicing a sharpened knife through a slab of cured meat, feeling the slices fall cleanly away?

Maybe it’s all of these things.

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MY YOGA CLASS!

May 6, 2013

TDYblog

My yoga class is here!

Starting this coming Wednesday, I have a weekly class at Four Elements Austin, a jaw-droppingly gorgeous studio in downtown Austin (here’s a pic). Light-filled and perched two floors above street level, Four Elements is both a floor yoga and aerial yoga space! For now I’m just teaching floor, but possibly down the road, aerial yoga too.

My Wednesday night class is happy hour time, starting at 6:30p. It’s called Tech Detox Yoga, and is the kind of yoga class I always wanted someone to teach me: Poses, mantras, and breath work to flush out all those technology particles that build up during the day, and to work out any stiffness in your hips/butts/shoulders/wrists that come from sitting at your desk!  I know that whenever I’ve been working at a computer all day, or even just after a good plunge down the social media rabbit hole, I feel off, and so that’s what this class is designed to address. This is an all levels class, with modifications you can tailor to your own body, so bring a friend! Bring Grandma! (Never underestimate Grandma.)

Sign up here. 

**A NOTE ON PARKING**

If you work downtown and are in walking to distance to Four Elements, that’s ideal. If you don’t, it’s street parking on Congress, so give yourself plenty of time to find a spot. You’ll want to park near Manuel’s, between 3rd and 4th (or as close as you can get).

**STUDIO ENTRANCE**

Is right next door to Manuel’s – literally to the right if you’re outside facing the building. The door to Four Elements doesn’t face outward the street, but is tucked into the entryway, so just look for all the yoga-y looking stuff on our front window. Open door, walk up stairs to second floor, and there you are!

I’m so excited, you guys. It’s going to be like this! Not really, but how awesome is that little kid?

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WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CLOTHING? (+ LIST OF ETHICAL SHOPPING IN AUSTIN)

May 3, 2013

Ugh, as if!

Last night on Fresh Air, there was an interview that gave me a lot to think about.

In light of the pretty horrifying Bangladesh clothing factory collapse, Terry Gross spoke with Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. They talked mostly about the human rights and environmental cost of living in a fast fashion culture, and how many of the industry’s problems echo similar problems the same ones food had — and the huge locavore / organic movement that sprang up in response.

I was riveted for the whole interview, and thought about the relationship I have with clothes. It’s not all that great.

Unlike food, I don’t really have any hard and fast clothing policies. Nothing’s off limits, and there are plenty of garments from China / Bangladesh / etc. hanging in my closet. Part of the reason for this is because we’ve really come to value clothes as a deeply-held expression of our individuality and artistry, so we shop more than we did a generation ago. We crave variety as a result: I eat up style blogs like the next person. I like it when I think my outfit is unique.

One thing Elizabeth said in the interview really struck me. She said that when she started the book, she owned 350 items of clothing. “Three hundred fifty!!” I sputtered. Then, I counted the clothing in my closet and drawers.

Turns out, I own 150 pieces of clothing.

Which BLEW my mind. I consider my closet on the smallish side, and I don’t shop all that frequently. But sifting through pieces, I also realized how much of my closet was filler. Clothes I’ve long stopped wearing; clothes I never should have bought in the first place.

I remember when my friend Indiana wrote a moving, heartfelt post on growing up poor and getting addicted to cheap clothing, which led to maxed out credit cards, rented storage to contain all of her garments, and a rock bottom moment of sorts that forced her to reassess her relationship to clothing.  It was one of the first times I had ever read a style blogger say, “hey, maybe all these outfits aren’t what they’re cracked up to be,” and I really admired her for that, because I think it’s an unpopular stance to have in the style blogging world. To call attention to all that consumption.

I’ve spent years trying to figure out “my style,” and I think it’s an ever-shifting thing with no center. But I’m attracted to the idea lately of just being a classic dresser, something I never thought I’d say, simply because it’s easier to invest in a few, ethically-made, quality pieces and be done with it. You know?

I’ll admit: fashion is fun, trying on different identities and pretending to be various people. Am I a hippie today? How about a 60s mod? Etc. But, I’ve always felt a little sheepish getting ridiculously cheap clothing, and now I know why. Elizabeth mentioned that the Bangladesh factory she went undercover in paid their workers $37/month. And then that factory collapsed on people, and that’s the real cost.

Which brings me to Austin. There are tons of places to eat ethically. But where can you shop ethically? It’s tough. Here’s a starter list:

-Noonday Collection (WOW)

-Good & Fair Clothing, who visited with Austin Eavesdropper last year

-ATown, which carries Raven + Lily, a conscious clothing brand

-Purse & Clutch

-Hill Country Hill Tribers

-Ten Thousand Villages

-Tons of Austin handmade shops on this Etsy Austin page

-And from Lauren Modery at Hipstercrite, a great case for shopping at American Apparel

(There’s also fabric to consider too, which seems to be the larger ethical challenge. We find our local clothing producers, but a local fabric-maker? THAT is a tall order. I’ve been Googling around, and haven’t found any in Austin. If you are aware of any, let me know.)

Here’s the last point I want to make about this. Like food, some people can only afford to buy cheap clothing. I get that. I grew up positively begging my mom to take me to GapKids, and my wish wasn’t granted until I was in 5th grade because we couldn’t afford it. Until then, Mom made a lot of my clothes, which I thought was super uncool then, but which I think is ridiculously cool now.

So there’s no need to demonize people on a tight budget. This is simply about shifting one’s relationship to clothing: to think the next time we swipe our card at Zara (gah, a store whose style I admittedly crave) or H&M, just like we started thinking about GMO’s and factory beef and things like that. I know we were all so jazzed to get H&M here last year so I feel like the preachy grandma for raining on our parade. Sorry!

But, I’m going to start putting a little more thought into this. I don’t put any thought into the ethics of my shopping now, so anything will be an improvement.

I’d also really love to know what you guys think about all this too. What’s your relationship to clothing?

PHOTO // Via Glamour

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