Empire State of Mind

A couple of weeks ago I took the (awesome) Acela Express up to NYC for the ME* Conference. Hosted by Ad Age, the conference confronted the evolution of media as it becomes more digitally focused and personalized. Needless to say, I was in amazing company. If I was more of a big wig, I may have recognized a few more people in the audience, but I did see the Media Director and President of The Martin Agency, and heard several questions being asked from the head of digital at Hearst International. I mean check out this single panel:

Besides being trapped in the beautiful Metropolitan Pavilion all day, I was able to meet my Uncle Al in the city for a wonderful dinner of tapas and wine at Boqueria in Chelsea. Apparently, I did not know dessert like I thought I did because there may not be anything better in the world than Churros con Chocolate.

Image borrowed from hollydanger

He also leant me Seth Godin's new book, Linchpin, which I'm now reading furiously. I love a good motivational business book read admist heart breaking novels.

Fan-crafts-tic!...Does that work?

Austin got this:


So I did this:

Thanks for the inspiration Effortless-Style

Beauty in books

Currently reading another of Jonathan Safran Foer's books: Everything is Illuminated. His writing in this book is strickingly different than his writing in Extremely Close...but I can sense the similarities. He writes from an uncomfortable perspective-in ECIL, it's an (I'm assuming) autistic's 10-year-old mourning point-of-view. In Everything is Illuminated, it is from the POV of a young Ukranian who takes on English as a second language. Read the first paragraph:

"My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, beause that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always speening her. If you want to know why I am always spleeing her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother"

I think the uncomfortable produces beauty.

Some of the next books on my list:
Beauty from a cover..

 Beauty from the unknown..

 Beauty from experiences..

Why yes, I did see something I liked

I know I'm in advertising, but am I the only person freaked out by West Elm's "Take another look at..." emails? I received one from Pottery Barn earlier this week, too. Yes, I've been on both of these sites this week. I didn't add anything to a shopping  cart. I just clicked on a couple of items of interest.

Like, I said, I'm in advertising, and I know that I'm getting this automated e-mail because of the cookies stored on my computer. But I have to wonder if the average person knows what's happening behind the scenes here. Either way, another win for super targeted ad delivery, meanwhile, making my job of traditional media planning a soon to be thing of the past. And another win for West Elm, because now two days later, I'm thinking about those pillows again...

Goodbye, Mark Rothko

Austin said this painting made him feel sad, and therefore, it is no longer living in my "Things I want" bookmark page that I should really take into the digital age and turn into http://www.wists.com/

via allposters

Veterans Day Road Trip

Yesterday, Austin and I drove to Fredrick, MD to take advantage of the fact that the government pays our salaries (Veterans Day). We had reservations for VOLT, Bryan Voltaggio's restaurant. It was everything I hoped for and more. First course, goat cheese butternut squash ravioli paired with a crisp white wine; Second course, chicken sausage and seasonal vegetables including potatoes confit, paired with a light Pinot Noir from St. Lucia (random); Dessert, a gala apple tart with mascarpone ice cream with an amazing dessert wine that complimented it better than I could have wished. Lastly, he sent us home with some cookies, enough for Austin, but all for me:
 

Also, when we were wandering around at the cute shops in Fredrick, I spotted some post it notes that may end up in my mom's stocking for Christmas.


And we attempted a hike, but after decadent food and a glass and a half of wine I let the fact that the trail was covered in slippery leaves be an excuse to head home. I have some pictures of that too, but I'm trying out my dad's old SLR 35mm, so it's going to be a process to get those online.

Guess who's back

I've decided to start blogging again, even if no one reads it. There are three reasons:

1) Looking back at my posts from Spring, I have actually obtained several of the products that I featured. This has made me realize that when I think about what I want long enough before I get it, I will still like the product in 6 months at least.



2) I want to brush up on my writing skills. Lately, the thought that I've been so focused on advertising since the beginning of college has scared me. Living in DC, I am surrounded by incredibly smart people who are well rounded in arts, politics, and whatever their day job is--probably politics, so maybe they just have one other interest. So I decided I should have other interests too. New aspiration keeping me entertained--volunteering to be a grant writer for a non-profit.

3) My final reason for reenergizing this blog is because I have been reading nonstop--a great perk of metro riding. Yesterday I finished The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. I'm not English major, so I'm not going to dissect the inner meaning of the book, but I appreciated the not so happy ending, and the use Spanish scattered throughout the prose to help me relate to the struggles of family lineage and immigration. Before that I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Awesome book that made me rethink what life after death will be like. I also have a slight fasination with books written from a possibly austistic child's point of view--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night is another.

So, anyway, I hope that is reason enough for me to start writing. But since no one is reading except for maybe my mom, I don't really need an excuse, do I?