Happy, happy , happy all the time, time, time

I’m most fortunate in that I have a lot of happy places, starting with my own home. Then outside my door, there’s the Boston Public Garden. Around the corner, there’s the Esplanade. What’s not to be happy about?

Branching out a bit, I’m happy when I’m with family and friends, just hanging out. (Bonus points if wine and/or ice cream is involved.) I’m also happy when I’m volunteering at St. Francis House, a local day shelter, that one might think is sort of depressing. But it’s not. Go figure.

Fenway Park is also one of my happy places. Even when the Red Sox lose – which they better not on Patriots’ Day, when I have tickets – I’m pretty much happy to be at there. (It’s also a very happy place to see Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, or the Zac Brown Band in concert.)

Then there’s the fact that I rarely selfie and I’m not on Instagram. So I don’t need any ersatz happy places where I can take a selfie to post to my Insta account.

So I missed the latest phenomenon of pop-up Instagram installations, where Instagrammers can take selfies using a background that’s presumably prettier and wittier than what they can come up with on their own. A pretty sad thought, that…

One of these pop-ups, “Happy Place,” popped up in Boston last week – just a jog across the Public Garden from me – and it’ll be here until June, offering folks the opportunity to take photos of themselves – or have a friend do the honor – jumping for joy in front of a rainbow, about to land in a bowl full of – what? – scrambled eggs? Corn Pops?

Oh, and you’ll pay $30 ($35 during prime times) for the opportunity. Family packs available if Mr. and Mrs. Narcissus and the kids are in town.

Every good organization needs a mission statement, and here’s Happy Place’s, whch – of course – looks much happier on the smiley-face yellow backgroun

HAPPY PLACE was created because we BELIEVE that our world today can use a lot more happiness. To make this DREAM come true, we set out on a journey to create a special place where anyone who walks in is surrounded by all things HAPPY. The first HAPPY PLACE in Los Angeles has been nothing short of a DREAM for us and now we are excited to take the Happiness on Tour and visit cities all around the world. Watching so many visitors of all ages from all around the world come through our doors and leave with a smile, made us WONDER, why not spread the HAPPY?

Since opening and LA, this DREAM come true has been in Toronto and Chicago. As a Bostonian, I suppose I should feel honored. But it’s kind of depressing to think that we needed a Happy Place.

Couldn’t people be happy – and for a lot less? – taking a ride on the Swan Boats, which start up their season in a couple of weeks? Or for free taking pics of themselves with the bronze statues of the Make Way for Ducklings characters? Walk down Charles Street and get yourself an ice cream cone at J.P. Licks. What’s not to be happy about there?

And those are just for starters.

I imagine those from other cities feel the same. Who wouldn’t be happy standing in front of The Bean in Chicago?

But if you google Happy Place, you see that it’s the “most Instagrammable pop-up in America.”

I may be missing the point of selfies and Instagram, but I thought the purpose was to convey that you were somewhere interesting doing something interesting and you wanted the world – or at least your world – to know about it. I thought that people in Insta were trying to showcase their creativity. The very ultra unique-plus lives they live.

Does standing in front of a sign that says “happy” do that?

Sure, the Happy Place is a better location for selfies than some others. Apparently, there’s been a rash of selfie-taking at Auschwitz, with the young folks mugging in front of the Arbeit Macht Freiheit gate. LOL! Or showing off their balance-beam skills by walking along the tracks leading into the death camp. OMG! ROFL!

Admittedly, the Happy Place is better than that.

Still…

As Murray Whyte in the Boston Globe wrote after he’d experienced it:

So this is hell. That’s the thought that kept rumbling in the back of my mind as I made my way through the slapdash innards of a grotty, tacked-together funhouse tailored to the Instagram set. (Source: Boston Globe)

But Murray Whyte is an art critic. A snob. An old guy. In other words, me, if I were an art critic and a guy.

Anyway, the Happy Place is located in the old Marshall’s on Boylston Street, and never have I so longed for a closed store to be once again open than when I read about this hellscape.

And here’s what’s there to make you happy:

— giant high heels, oversize red lips, a dome of fluttering confetti, and a pool of yellow balls beneath an inflatable rainbow, ripe for dunking.

Well, at least now I know it’s a pool of inflatable yellow balls and not Corn Pops.

It’s all meant to max out your contentment meter, organizers say, and all those faces on Instagram surely look happy. So maybe it’s me. But I don’t think so. At one point, Madison Ciccone, a spin instructor in workout gear, played in a canary-yellow bathtub surrounded by rubber duckies while her personal photographer directed her through a series of postable moments: in profile, toe pointed; arms flung gleefully skyward; square to the camera, bright-white teeth flashed in a face-cracking grin.

Oy…

The entire thing sounds so tawdry, so unimaginably grim. I know I’m not the audience, but if that’s your idea of a happy place, then I feel sorry for you.

But I’m interested – in a small “i” sort of way – to learn of its existence. And I thank Murray Whyte – the poor man – for having experienced it for me.

Better safe than sorry?

If I were ultra-rich and/or famous and/or in any way a public figure with a lot of stuff, I’d sure consider having security and maybe even a safe room in my home. Too many stalkers out there. Too many crazies. Too many robbers. Etc. I think I’d want to protect myself.

But I’d be less inclined to want to protect myself from the other sorts of threats out there, the general apocalypse ones (vs. those directed at me personally). WWIII, bio-weapons attack, tsunami taking out the East Coast. (I saw the movie. It was plenty scary.)

As I’ve written before – just a couple of years back in The Rich Are Different From You and Me – if it’s an end-of-the-world-as-we-know it scenario, I don’t want out of the path of destruction; I want in. Drop whatever it is directly on my skull.

And I’m not just saying this because I’m rounding metaphorical third and heading for home, and the truly definitive OUT of life.

Anyway, the rich really are different from you and me, in that they have a ton of dough that they can spend on whatever they damned well please. And I find it interesting to read about whatever they damned well please.

Thus, I was delighted to pick up the latest issue of 1843 (a mag that’s an extra add-on to a subscription to The Economist). Within, I found an article on Al Corbi, a panic-room+ maker.

Corbi’s firm can put together a low-end security make-over of your home for as little as $1,300. But if you want a safe room, a safe wing, a safe house, or a safe compound, well, the price goes up. Way up. Because:

These days survivors don’t just want to survive, they want to thrive. If they have concrete it’s in an urban chic sort of way. As Corbi says: “Imagine the Ritz-Carlton underground.”

Personally, I don’t need to imagine the Ritz-Carton underground or above ground.

There used to be a perfectly nice Ritz Carlton in Boston. A bit old (rich) Yankee. A bit frumpy. A bit fussy.

But my husband and I used to hang out in the bar (which was decorated with eland heads for some reason) and drink French Seventy-Fives. And occasionally we’d have an expensive, mediocre meal there, which, thanks to the cobalt blue glassware, was almost worth it.

The Ritz was a good place to see famous people, too. Like Ted Kennedy and Leonard Nimoy.

Alas, the old Ritz was sold to the Taj, and a new Ritz went up nearby.

I imagine that the new Ritz is like the other Ritzes in the chain around the country.

Years ago, I worked for a company that believed in spending its way into bankruptcy. While we were on the path, travel generally meant staying at pretty swank hotels. Like the Ritz. And, at least at that time, they all looked exactly alike. I remember being on a road trip to roll out a new offering, city- and Ritz-hopping as we rolled our way around the country.

One evening, I was in an elevator heading to my room and I went into a tiny bit of a panic.

Where was I? Was I in Cleveland? Tyson’s Corner? On the set of Groundhog Day?

So, if I did have a panic room, suite, wing…I’d prefer that it not look like the Ritz.

Not that there aren’t other ways to go:

Corbi once built a bunker that contained a simulated sky…Under that sky he will enable people whom he calls “the next Adam and Eve” to survive.

I guess the next Adam and Eve know a bit about genetics, because someone’s set up a safe village, with a staff of 50, which is a “potential human seedbank.”

Selection is rigorous: about half the staff are special ops. Most are incredibly fit – in every sense. As Corbi says, “if you’re going to have an incredibly intelligent and incredibly fit person, why wouldn’t you have them be incredibly good looking too?”

True that, but…

If I were on a plane that was about to be hijacked or otherwise terrorized, I would be more than happy to have a couple of Navy Seals as my seatmates. But if most of the survivors of whatever terrible thing befalls us are mostly Navy Seals, well, one more reason to let myself quietly out the side door of the safe-village.

When it comes to safe rooms, Corbi isn’t the only game in town.

Last November, Mansion Global (no, I don’t subscribe)

Bill Rigdon, president and CEO of Building Consensus and of Panic Room Builders in Newport Beach, California, recently created an elaborate panic room on the bottom floor of an expansive oceanfront estate in La Jolla, California.

"It includes tunnels so the two young children can escape and a door to trap the intruders," he said. "I did another project for a client on Saint Cloud Road in Bel-Air that has a tunnel to the canyon." (Source: Mansion Global)

Folks want their panic rooms to be gussied up. Pay $300K for the room itself, another $300K to furnish it.

Chris Cosban, the owner of Long Island, New York-based Covert Interiors…mentioned a panic room that is decked out like a 1920s speakeasy and another that’s in a Ralph Lauren style.

I would not want to spend a panic eternity in a space designed to look like a speakeasy or a Ralph Lauren prepster clubhouse.

$300K, by the way, is the low end of the high end.

Back to Al Corbi:

He recently finished a US$100-million "exotic protective environment" that added a 30,000-square-foot wing to a 70,000-square-foot house in the United States.

Some of the details are plenty bizarro. One safe room builder “created a safe room that featured 500 wrist watch winders for a client’s billion-dollar collection.”

Well, I suppose if you have a billion dollars worth of watches, you’d need 500 watch winders. But until I read this article, I’d never heard of a watch winder, other than the stem of a watch.

But, of course, you want to protect what you want to protect. One company “has made safes for shoes, wine, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and even cigars (a humidor was incorporated).”

I suppose the thinking here is that if you want my shoes – or my cigars – you’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Safe safes find homes in safe room, safe suites, and, of course, those safe villages that are springing up.

The Vivos Group’s Vivos xPoint, which is in South Dakota, has more than 575 private bunkers, each of them 2,200 square feet.

Vivos also has “communities” in Germany and South Korea. The one in Germany has a swimming pool, by the way.

These bunker communities are built to withstand nuclear war, chemical attack, weather disasters, and class warfare. You never know when the have-nots will decide they want to get their grubby little mitts on wrist watch winders.

Better safe than sorry.

Home Opener, 2014

Five years ago today, I spent the day in Providence with my friend Marie.

I met Marie during our freshman year in high school, so by April 2014 we were Fifty Year Friends. And a lot of that Fifty Year Friendship was spent hanging around talking. We liked talking family and friends. We liked talking books. We liked talking politics. And we liked talking baseball.

This trip to Providence was so that we could watch the Red Sox Home Opener together.

Since we couldn’t be at the game, I brought Fenway Franks, Cracker Jacks, and a package of Hoods Sports Bars, a chocolate covered vanilla ice cream nothing that is a must when you’re at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox had won the World Series in 2013, so the Home Opener came with bigger than usual ceremony and hoopla, including the distribution of the championship rings.

Marie was housebound by this point. More specifically, second-floor-bound. But she managed to make it from her bedroom into the little second-floor TV room to watch the game with me.

When I was downstairs in the kitchen, preparing our feast, I asked Marie’s daughter – a nurse – what was going on.

It was pretty clear to me that Marie was end-stage.

“They don’t ask.” Anne shook her head. “And I don’t tell.”

The three of us watched the opening ceremony and the game, chatting during much of it. Marie was barely eating at this point, but she managed to get down most of her hot dog and Sports Bar. She dozed in and out.

I hung around for dinner – Chinese food, brought in by an old friend of Marie and her husband, John. Jenna, like me, was a widow. Her husband had died a year before, mine two months earlier.

After dinner, John drove me to the train station. We beat around the bush a bit, but I knew that he knew. And he knew that I knew that he knew. Marie didn’t have long.

The next time I saw Marie, a week later, she was out of her home and in hospice.

I visited her there a few times, Marie drifting in and out of lucidity. Sometimes herself – wanting to know what was going on with you – and other times pretty much out of it. (Which I had pretty much gotten used to during my husband’s last days.)

The last time I saw Marie was on Saturday, April 19th.

Still in and out, more out than in.

Marie’s genius was for family and friendship, and there was a steady stream of friends and family coming in and out. But I hung in, just being there.

We were able to talk a bit.

I asked Marie whether it was scary, and she said no. She told me that she was waiting for a signal from her parents that it was time. I told her I loved her, and how much our Fifty Year Friendship had meant to me.

I was wearing a pink flowered challis scarf.

Marie told me that she loved that scarf. “You’ve had that a long time.”

“Yes,” I told her, “About 10 years.”

“No,” she said. “You’ve had it a lot longer.”

When I got home that night, I noticed a picture of me and my sibs that was taken at my mother’s 65th birthday party. That would have been in 1984. So, I’d had the scarf for at least 30 years.

A friend who knows your clothing better than you do is a real friend…

I wept all the way on that drive back to Boston.

That night, Marie was put under palliative sedation. So no more visitors, other than her husband, kids and sister. She died the following week.

After we learned Marie had died, I was on the phone with another high school friend.

Kim had seen Marie in hospice shortly after I had left.

As I said, Marie was in and out of lucidity, but here’s what she asked Kim:

“Do you think I’ll be well enough to go to Ireland with Maureen to bring Jim’s ashes?”

Obviously, this was an out of it moment. But what can you say about a friend who, on her deathbed, is showing her love and concern for you?

That, my friend, is a friend.

2014 was a really rotten year.

I lost my husband. I lost Marie.

And to cap it all off, the Red Sox ended up in the cellar of the AL East.

I had to look it up, but they lost that Home Opener that we’d watched together, too.

Five years goes fast.

Life goes on, and it’s good.

John and Jenna are married now.

Last year, the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 2013.

Marie would have really liked that team.

Today, I’m wearing that scarf in her honor.

Damn, I miss my Fifty Year Friend..

Pancake & Syrup Peeps? That’s just plain WRONG!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Fan o’ Peeps.

Mostly I’m an originalist. It’s not Easter as far as I’m concerned unless I’ve bitten the head off a fresh, yellow chick Peep. I’m also down with the yellow chick Peeps sitting on a chocolate marshmallow nest. Adding chocolate just makes it Peep perfection.

I’m also okay with seasonal Peeps: snow Peeps at Christmas, jack o’lantern Peeps for Halloween.

Plus I’m an admirer of those who create Peep-o-Ramas, dioramas that depict scenes from popular culture, works of art, etc. – constructed primarily out of Peeps. For years, the Washington Post ran an annual Peeps Diorama Contest that drew many witty and brilliant entries. Alas, they packed it in a couple of years ago. Fortunately, the idea had caught on, and a number of other groups have picked up the slack. As Easter nears, I will be on the lookout for the Best of 2019.

There are some recipes that are based on Peeps. Weird, but…I’ve never baked or otherwise created a dessert that involves Peeps, but never say never.

Where I do draw a firm line is at this year’s ghastly flavored Peeps.

Cotton Candy? Pancakes & Syrup? Party Cake? Root Beer Float? Say it isn’t so!

But wait, there’s more! And they’re even worse. Chocolate Caramel Swirl. And – yikes – Tropical Fruit Punch, the color (bright red) and flavor (sweet yuck) of Hawaiian Punch.

I did love Hawaiian Punch as a kid, but talk about a “flavor” that has not even the vaguest of resemblances to anything found in nature. Not that a cherry Life Saver tastes like an actual cherry. And grape-flavored anything just tastes like grape-flavored anything. Distinctive, but nothing to do with grapes.

It’s been decades – many decades – since I last took a swig of Hawaiian Punch, and I can still remember the cloyingly sweet taste.

So Tropical Fruit Punch Peeps? No, no, a thousand times no.

And what in God’s name does Party Cake taste like? Bland no-taste white cake?

Does Pancakes & Syrup mean that Peeps are now a breakfast food? Not that I haven’t had Peeps for breakfast, but come on.

Part of my problem is that I’m not a big fan of brand extensions. They’re fine up to a point, but they always end up going too far.

Plain or peanut, I love M&M’s. I’m fine with their creating special color mixes for different holidays. Someday, for some occasion – perhaps my funeral? – I wouldn’t mind having personalized monogrammed M&Ms. (Blue, green, and orange, maybe? Some can say MER, other RIP.) And I sort of like the coconut version.

But why gunk up near-perfection with Pretzel, Caramel, and Crispy?

Not to mention the dark chocolate ones. 

Generally, I prefer dark to milk chocolate. But Dark Chocolate M&M’s just don’t taste like M&M’s.

Don’t get me going on the multiple versions of toothpaste and cold medicine. One of the reasons I patronize my local non-chain pharmacy – other than that they are just wonderful – is that, unlike CVS, they don’t have hundreds of variations on a toothpaste and cold medicine theme. The less time I spent debating whitener vs. tartar vs. breath freshener, or wondering what combination of sore throat, nasal congestion, and hacking cough my impending cold is composed of, the better.

Too Many Choices!

And when it comes to those flavored Peeps, Too Many BAD Choices!

Oh, I suppose that they’ll sell plenty of the new Peeps on the block, if only for the novelty. But, yuck. Just luck. I’d like to have been a fly on the wall of some of those focus groups. Just imagine the flavors that were rejected. Bubble Gum? Cap’n Crunch? Mountain Dew?

I remain committed to Peeps, and look forward to biting the head off that first yellow chick. A taste and consistency like no other, in a good way.

No way, on those other flavors.

When it comes to Peeps, the original is still the greatest.

Denim panties? Make no ssense whatsoever

My sister Trish is a dedicated follower of pricey, out there fashion. She has a truly impeccable eye for finding the latest outré outrage. So without further ado, I give you Y/Project’s Denim Panties, available at the cut rate price of $315 from Ssense.

That, is they’re available if you wear size 4, 6, or 8, since Ssense claims that they’re all out of 10’s (Large), 12’s (XL), and 14’s (XXL ) – at least that’s are how I interpret their sizing. Of course, I used the LL Bean size chart size as a point of comparison, and I can only imagine that the correlation between women who buy jeans from LL Bean and those in the market for denim panties for $315 is just about zero. Whatever the “true” sizes these panties come in, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ssense wasn’t stocking a ton in those hefty-gal sizes to begin with.

What is there to say about these denim panties, other than that they look supremely uncomfortable, not to mention just plain ridiculous.

Back in the day – 50 years and 30 pounds ago - I wore cut-off jeans, which we made for ourselves by cutting off jeans once the knees gave out and the bottoms got torn-and-worn, and wearing the frayed and fraying shorts. As I recall, once the pocket started drifting down below the jean-line, this was an early-warning that your butt cheeks were likely starting to hang out the backside. So it was time to rag-bag the shorts. As I also recall, in 1973, I made the mistake of wearing a pair on the streets of Izmir, Turkey and ended up with my thigh being grabbed by a young Turk.

Cut-offs were supposedly comfortable. After all, in hot weather, they were so much cooler than wearing long-form jeans. But denim  cut-offs were heavy and sweaty. They chafed. They rode up. Young Turk thigh-grabber aside, they were anything but comfortable.

As undies (with, no surprise, limited butt coverage) I suspect they’re even worse.

And speaking of comfort, the model wearing them is also wearing 6 inch heels. At least in my cut-off wearing days, we were smart enough to wear them with Dr. Scholl’s sandals or thongs. (That’s what flip-flops were called in the pre-historic era when I was wearing cut-offs. This was before anyone conceived of what we now know of as a thong, speaking of non-comfortable attire. Not that I know that up close and personal, but I do have a pretty good imagination.)

My sisters and I did a bit of text speculation on what occasion these denim panties would be worn.

My sister Kath cracked the code: “Dukes of Hazard” fetish party?

I’d rather not think about what that soiree would entail, but it’s not a far reach to think that a next-gen Daisy Duke would up the panty and wear a pair. Even though they sort of resemble a chastity belt. Just saying.

The retailer that’s selling these is Ssense, the retail antithesis of LL Bean. (That is, other than that both seem to specialize in unisex apparel.)

Their site is a total trip. The sort of trip you’d expect from a retailer that styles itself as not your “typical e-commerce entity as we explore the nexus of content, commerce, and culture.”

Hey, the nexus of content, commerce, and culture? Sounds like Pink Slip. Maybe I can get a gig or two there? A few pieces from the LL Bean, zaftig, old geezer perspective.

Here’s a bit from a recent blog post:

The designer’s strength for not just referencing references (and legacy), but destabilising them. Hybrid fashion’s pedigree is pure machine—though admirably and never shyly useless by nature. Because hybrid fashion is intentionally designed to perform a simple task—to wear—but achieved in an overcomplicated way, like Rube Goldberg machines. (Source: Ssense)

Referencing references? For a moment there I thought I had stumbled on a lit-crit deconstructionist website. (The section above was extracted from a para that also talked about Exquisite Corpses and futurist doilies…)

This post also included this pic of “future wear”.Don’t know if futurist doilies is a subset of future wear, but I do suspect that, as hideous as this dress is, it’s a lot more comfortable and practical than those denim panties. Comfy shoes, too! Extra points!

Hot Pockets!

Somehow, when I was exploring the college entrance bribing scandal (Affirmative Action for Rich Folks), I missed the bit of news that one of those rich folks caught up in was a Hot Pockets heiress.

This has been breathlessly reported in some quarters as the inventor of Hot Pockets being among  the accused. But that’s not the case.

Michelle Janavs didn’t invent Hot Pockets. Kudos for that goes to Paul Merage (her father) and David Merage (her uncle), who developed the concept in the early 1980’s and sold the business to Nestle in 2002 for over $2 biillion. But Hot Pockets is the ur-source of the fortune that meant that Janavs had the dough (hah!) to try to bribe her kids’ way into college.

According to the federal complaint, Janavs paid $100,000 for Singer to help a daughter cheat on her ACT in 2017 and get into USC as a purported beach volleyball player. Earlier this year, prosecutors allege, she paid $50,000 for another daughter to cheat on the exam. (Source: LA Times)

One might think that someone associated with the invention of Hot Pockets would want to maintain a low life profile, in general. I mean, would you want to be associated with Hot Pockets?

It’s not like some inventions that, while a bit quirky, aren’t outright bad for you. I seem to recall my husband mentioning that he went to school with someone whose family fortune was based on the traffic cone. Jim also had a classmate at some point along the line who descended from someone who made a ton on those dry cleaner wire hangers with the cardboard hanger thingy on them.

And if I’m not imagining it, my sister Trish knew someone whose family developed the technology behind stone-washed jeans.

But if you’re looking for proof that Balzac was at least partially correct when he wrote that “behind every great fortune there’s a crime”, look no further than the crime against good taste that is the Hot Pocket.

I mean, I like grease, sodium, molten cheese, convenience and fake food as much as anyone, but even I draw the line at Hot Pocket. Seriously, I tried one more than 30 years ago, and the roof of my mouth is still scabbed over and I have residual sodium poisoning on the tip of my tongue.

But I guess when you think of it, Hot Pockets being involved in the college admissions scandal does make some sort of sense.

Hot Pockets is for those looking for a shortcut, the easy way out. Why throw together a meal when you can pop a Hot Pocket or two in the microwave?

Most folks caught with a freezer-full of Hot Pocket would be coming up with excuses and/or be ashamed. So it is, presumably, with those who photoshopped their kids’ heads onto the bodies of water polo players, or had someone correct their kids’ SATs for them. Surely, they’re making excuses – it’s all a game; everyone looks for an edge – and, perhaps, when they’re not being protected by those pricey lawyers running interference for them, in and out of the courthouse, they’re feeling a tiny smidge of remorse, of out and out shame.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that someone caught with a freezer-full of Hot Pockets would turn on the person who discovered this crime against culinary decency and go ballistic, as I’m sure some of the admissions scandal parents have done: they’re pissed at that guy Singer who engineered the whole debacle; pissed at the press…

As for the kids involved, just think about it.

Sure, at least some of them knew what was going on. Don’t you have to sign something on the Common App that says you did it all by your lonesome? Or something along those lines. But these are kids who’ve been fed a steady diet of privilege and corner cutting their entire lives. Only now they’re finding out that, just like Hot Pockets, lying and cheating are bad for you.

WOW, just wow.

Shortly after notorious budget airline ValuJet crashed in the Everglades – where the bodies were supposedly eaten by alligators – I was on a United red-eye back to Boston from the West Coast. When the pilot got on to introduce himself, he thanked the passengers for flying United. Without naming names, he then pointed out that it might cost more to fly United, but you get what you paid for with respect to safety, as opposed to those shifty cheapo outfits, with their used planes, poorly trained pilots, shoddy maintenance, and propensity to carry poorly-stowed, poorly-secured chemical oxygen generators. The kind that could easily blow up in mid-flight.

Pilot Bob was clearly going off-script with his ad libbed ad for United, but we all got the point.

You’re taking your life in your own hands whenever you step out of the house, but you really don’t want to play fast and loose with air safety. (As Boeing is now finding out…)

Anyway, I did fly AirTran (which was acquired by not-so-great-ValueJet after the doomed alligator flight so that they would no longer have to use the ValueJet name) a few times, but always felt it was a bit sketchy. (Forget safety: on one flight the food service consisted of a human dog biscuit.)

But I haven’t flown a lot on discount airlines.

Not that they’re unsafe. Mostly, they’re fine. But you do sacrifice creature comfort. (Now that the best food you get in steerage on most flights is a human dog biscuit equivalent, that offering no longer distinguishes bargain airlines.)

All this said, if I lived in Europe, I’m sure I’d be barreling around on RyanAir, which is what my niece M did when she spent a college semester in Galway.

M’s latest trip was a spring break jaunt that combined Ireland and Iceland. (M is quite the contrarian. When hordes of college kids head for sun and fun, M is impervious to lousy weather.)

M didn’t fly WOW Air, a budget Iceland-based airline, on any of her legs, but some of her classmates did. Lucky for them, their spring break ended last weekend, so they all got home.

What I do know is that, when I head to Iceland this fall, it will most decidedly not be on WOW. That’s because yesterday, they ceased operations, stranding folks in Iceland trying to get out of Iceland, and folks in the US trying to get in to Iceland.

The travel advisory on WOW Air’s website also states that all of the airline’s flights have been canceled. The low-fare airline was founded in November 2011 and had its inaugural flight in May 2012.

“Passengers are advised to check available flights with other airlines,” the WOW Air statement said. “Some airlines may offer flights at a reduced rate, so-called rescue fares, in light of the circumstances.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Iceland Air – bless their hearts – was offering discounts to strandees. And those who canceled their plans outright, once they got canceled out from under them, may be able to get refunds. According to the WOW, depending on how you booked your flight, this may be a possibility through your credit card company or travel company, if you booked a passage. If you’re looking for a direcrt refund from the bankrupt, now defunct airline itself, well, get in line.

Anyway, some airlines seem to be have found a way to offer bargain fares while building a sustainable business model, but with WOW European flights costing only $100 or so… Just doesn’t seem viable.

My first flight to Europe was in 1973. I paid $206 (under-26 discount) on BOAC (precursor to British Air). Even at the time, this was a bargain. And $206 today is worth a lot less than it was then.

I feel sorry for those whose trips got screwed up. But I guess this is the risk you you get when you fly bargain air, especially on an airline whose color is fuchsia. (At least there was a never any alligator risk…)

If something’s too good to be true, maybe it really is too good to be true

I want to be a part of it, New York, New York

With the exception of the fraud currently occupying the White House, and the trove of grifters he’s related to and associated with, I love a great imposter story.

There was Ferdinand Waldo DeMara, a fellow from Massachusetts, who throughout his career ran up a pretty impressive string of impersonations: monk (Trappist and Benedictine), Marine, prison warden, psychologist, MD, college professor. In the movie based on this exploits, The Great Imposter, Tony Curtis played DeMara. Most entertaining.

Then there was Frank Abagnale, who as a kid between the ages of 15-21 was a check kiter who impersonated a doctor, a lawyer, and an airline pilot. His saga was told in Catch Me If You Can, and he got to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Abagnale went straight and became a very successful consultant on fraud prevention. Who better.

Unlike DeMara and Abagnale, some folks don’t branch out and pretend to be in different professions. They just run a single con.

One day, about 10 years ago, I walked out my front door and saw a lot of commotion a few doors down. The FBI was looking for “Clark Rockefeller”, a conman who got by pretending to be a Rockefeller. (He even managed to con a pretty smart cookie – HBS grad, I believe – into marrying and having a baby with him.)

And then there was the fellow who buzzed around glitzy Manhattan society pretending to be Sidney Poitier’s son.

In this latter category – those running a great pretender con, but not actually trying to palm themselves off as someone with knowledge, skills, and ability, falls Anna Sorokin.

Anna came on the Manhattan scene in her early twenties, pretending to be a German heiress, and duping people into paying her way, lending her money, letting her stay for free in pricey hotels until her heire$$ money could make it to the States, etc.

After high-flying around for nearly a year – trips to Marrakech and to Omaha (for the Berkshire-Hathaway annual with Warren B) – Sorokin landed in the fairly unpleasant precincts of Riker’s Island. And now she’s in court, charged with swindling “friends, banks and hotels out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a taste of the high life in Manhattan.”

Before pulling a modest beige turtleneck over her ensemble, Sorokin showed up for the first day of her trial wearing a fairly low-cut fashionista dress, which will give you a tiny hint about the wiles she used to pull her con off.

Anyway, her lawyer offered something of a Twinkie-defense for her:

In his opening statement, her attorney Todd Spodek quoted from a number of Frank Sinatra's famous tracks to argue that his client was 'just trying to make it' in New York and 'wanted to create a life for herself.'

…Spodek told the court: 'Sinatra said, "I will make a brand new start in New York, if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere" because the opportunities in New York are endless.

'Anna had to kick down the door to get her chance at life. Just like Sinatra had to do it his way, Anna had to do it her way,' he said of the Russian-born woman who tried to pass herself off as a German heiress with a fortune of $60 million.  (Source: AP, via Daily Mail UK – yes, I’m embarrassed to say, I do occasionally read it.)

O-kay…

I guess we have different definitions of ‘just trying to make it.’ Mine involve things like getting an education, developing your skills, having a job. Those sorts of boring things.

And while there’s plenty of evidence that Frank Sinatra could be a Mafia-loving, sleazy POS, he had plenty of talent and he worked at it. Sure, he did it his way, but not, as far as I know, conning people out of money or pretending to be something he wasn’t.

But Spodek insisted that all Sorokin was trying to do was to receive the same opportunities afforded to the rich.

Well, wouldn’t we all like the “same opportunities afforded to the rich.” But, guess what? That’s life. And as the recent college admissions scandal is showing us, sometimes the rich don’t even get away with the opportunities afforded to them. So there.

'Through her sheer ingenuity, she created a life she wanted for herself,' the attorney said, as Sorokin expressionless sat at the defense table.

Sheer ingenuity? That’s one way to look at it.  How about sheer brazen dishonesty? Sheer ability to “read” her audience and figure out what people want to hear. Nobody’s going to front hundreds of thousands of dollars to the “nothing” daughter of a German truck-driver, which is what Sorokin turns out to be. But an heiress? Now you’re talking. I guess that is pretty sheer and pretty ingenious. (And, sorry, but I really don’t have a ton of sympathy for those she’s duped.)

'Unorthodox, possibly unethical, but this is the life she’s chosen to live.'

And now it’s likely that “the life she’s chosen to live” is going to end her up in the Big House.

As for that slinky black dress? Hey, orange is still the new black, isn’t it?

I’m fine with Men Only, but this is so blech

He didn’t go out of his way to find famous people out and about, but my husband was amazingly good at celebrity spotting. One of his early finds was Sy Sperling, whose famous ad claimed “I’m not only the president of Hair Club for Men, I’m also a client.”

We saw Sy while eating out at the late lamented Magic Pan creperie in Newbury Street somewhere in the 1980’s when the ads were fresh, new and ubiquitous. (And my husband already a couldn’t-care-less bald guy. A very cute one, I might add.)

While some women do experience baldness, it’s mostly a male issue, and I’m all for them having their own club. Not that there’s anything wrong with being bald. In fact, as the daughter, widow, and sister (times 2) of bald men, I’m rather fond of bald. Not to mention that some of my best friends are bald. (Yes, I’m talkin’ about you, Sean.)

But I understand the many men are bothered when their scalp starts showing big time, and I’m happy there are products, services, and clubs that cater to them.

I can also see why men going through divorce might want to work with an attorney who specializes in working with men. The issues are often different than they are for women, especially when it comes to custody. So I get the appeal.

In this, I agree with lawyer/pundit/writer/twitter guy Elie Mystal, who had a recent article on Above The Law (where he’s an editor) that focused on a law practice in Virginia that does guy law, and bills itself as “The Firm For Men”. He’s not an advocate for such firms, mind you. Just that he gets it, as do I.

But where Elie parts company with ‘sure, fine, have at it’ is the ads which are, well, pretty freaking extreme. (You can find them on the home page banner, if you’re so inclined.)

Like the one that shows a black and white video of a naked woman getting into the shower. The voice over asks the question “Has She Gone Psycho?” If she has, well, who ya gonna call? Why, The Firm for Men.

Now, maybe their advertising firm has forgotten that a woman was stabbed to death in the black and white movie Psycho, and they’re just using a woman getting into a shower (in a black and white video) because. Ah, nope.

Given that spousal abuse is a pretty serious issue (and, yes, sometimes it’s a woman doing the abusing, and sometimes it’s occurring in a gay couple), the Psycho trope is a pretty terrible card to play.

(And lest we forget: Norman Bates turned into a psycho-killer because of his dear old mom, Norma Bates….Just another woman gone psycho, I guess.)

Another ad shows a honey in a gilded hard hat, swinging a gilded pickax (when she’s not hanging onto a gilded shovel), picking dollar bills out of the thin air she’s standing in. If you, Mr. Man, want to “Stop the Gold Diggers Today”, you need to call The Firm for Men. (“She can dig her own gold. You worked too hard for yours.”)

Something tells me that type of men who would be attracted to The Firm for Men aren’t the type of men that gold diggers glom on to. But maybe they do a subspecialty in sugar daddies.

Then there’s the positioning on their web site:

…[we] work consistently to level the playing field so that men’s rights aren’t infringed upon through draconian and biased interpretation and implementation of the law.

That’s because the law has a “soft spot” for women; the system gives them “the upper hand” (when, as we well know, psycho women get a flashing blade repeatedly jammed into their upper torso; and gold diggers, well, they no doubt deserve the back of the hand, not the upper hand).

The overall vibe of the site is a bit bro-ish, and a bit Trumpy – there’s a version of the U.S. flag embedded in their logo. And their point of view seems a tad bit straight-white-male as endangered species.

Anyway, distinguishing your firm by focusing on a niche may be good marketing. So, bravo. And if men want to deal with lawyers that specialize in family issues from a male perspective, go for it.

But there’s something undeniably creepy and sleazy about these guys. There really is a way to get your story across without showing the naked woman – who, by the way, doesn’t look in the least psycho – in the shower. The Firm for Men somehow decided not to go that route.

Consider me bleched out by all this.

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If I were a British barrister, I would be doffing my wig to my sister Trish for sending this one my way. (And to Elie Mystal who is always worth a read and a listen.)

Eat dirt and die, but without your phone to record it

I have had the excellent good fortune to have consumed many wonderful meals in my life, and many of those many wonderful meals were consumed in wonderful, often pricey, sometimes foodie, and occasionally bordering on precious, restaurants.

But the older I get, the more likely I am to opt for a restaurant where I can get, say, roast chicken and garlic mashed potatoes. Hold the infusion. Hold the froth. Hold the nasturtium. Hold the odd pairings Hold the minimalist portions.

Not that I’ve lost all sense of adventure, but mostly I’d prefer that the plate that gets plunked down lands with a satisfying plunk. That I recognize the food. That it’s substantial enough that I can lustily dig my fork in – and take something home in a doggy bag to enojy the next night.

So I was just as happy that an upcoming restaurant, Conversation, will be opening up in another month or so in Seattle, not in Boston.

Some of what Conversation has to offer is regular old foodie:

…a foie gras dish with a counterintuitive texture: “light, airy, cold.” The various influences will come together in dishes like lamb en croute with spring peas, tsukemono pickles, and crispy prosciutto—a blend of French (lamb en croute), Japanese (tsukemono), and modernist techniques (the peas will come in various textures, including freeze-dried). (Source: Seattle Met, via – I think – my friend John W)

Hey, it’s not roast chicken and garlic mashed, but this stuff doesn’t sound all that weird. (Okay, light and airy foie gras does sound sort of weird.) And I mostly feel about modernist food techniques the way I feel about modernist writing techniques. Ah, not now thanks. Maybe later. (Likely never.)

But Conversation will also feature:

…“soils” (edible dirt made from foodstuffs.

Having googled “edible dirt” and “edible soil”, I now realize that this stuff has been around for a while. The recipes run the gamut from the decidedly pedestrian non-foodie (because any recipe with Cool Whip and Oreos as ingredients ain’t never going to pass for foodie) to ultra foodie-plus (leeks and black barley powder…).

But while a mashup of Oreos and Cool Whip doesn’t sound half-bad, why would you want to puree up a bunch of olives, mushrooms, and whatever “foodstuffs” you have in mind so that it’s the consistency of soil. Isn’t part of the fun of eating the actual real-life consistency of food? Why turn it into glorified baby food, or some nutritional glop created for the old, infirm, and toothless. Okay, when I’m old, infirm, and toothless, I’ll likely be begging for edible soils. But for now, it sounds way too much like soylent green. And as we’ve all known since 1973, “soylent green is people.”

Remember man that thou art dust and all that, but I’d just as soon take a hard pass.

On the other hand, Conversation will feature a non-foodstuff that’s a little more conversation a little less edible soil. Their concept is creating a digital-free zone.

In this digital era where text messaging and screen swiping threaten the allure of face-to-face quality time, Conversation intends to create an environment where human connection takes priority.”

The owners, including head chef Derek Simcik are:

…also playing with the idea of having someone come around and gather people’s phones and lock them away for the duration of dinner. “I guess you could call it a tableside phone valet,” says Simcik”

Well, I’m all in favor of conversation. It’s something that I enjoy and – get this – actually excel at. Sure, I’ve been known to whip out my phone in a restaurant, mainly when a question comes up in conversation that calls for immediate information. Say you’re talking about the Mickey Mouse Club and someone needs to know whether Annette Funicello is still alive. (Answer: No. She d)ied in 2013.) Or someone else wants to know which team the Red Sox beat in the World Series in 2007. (How soon we forget: it was the Colorado Rockies.) On occasion, it’s something a bit brainier. Like the difference between synecdoche and metonymy. (Hey, you’ve got a phone. Look it up for yourself. But for metonymy, think “container for the thing contained.”)

But “information, please” at the table is only mildly annoying, especially given that most of the diners are craving the info as much as the person doing the looking up is.

But sending texts, checking emails, or – even worse – holding a conversation with someone who’s not there. JUST SAY NO. Unless it’s something really important – your house just got struck by lightning or your daughter’s baby came early – why is the person who’s not there more important than the company who’s present?

Locking the phones away is a bit contrived, but Conversation may be on to something. Although I know if I were there, and saw “soils” on the menu, I would be sorely tempted to surreptitiously snap a quick pic and text it off to someone who would appreciate it. A fellow roast chicken with mashed non-foodie…OMG. FFS. Get a load of this!

Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Safety features really shouldn’t be “nice to haves”

The recent Ethiopian Airlines crash killed 157 people. Five months earlier, 189 died when a Lion Air (Indonesia) plane took a nosedive.

When the Lion Air flight was crashing, the pilots were frantically looking through the manual trying to figure out what to do. Not clear yet whether the Ethiopian Airlines pilots were doing the same.

But if airline manuals are anything like software manuals used to be, then frantically searching for a fix when in dire peril is unlikely to yield much of anything, other than continuing to be in dire peril. Until you’re no longer in dire peril.

The commonality between the Lion and Ethiopian crashes is that both involved a Boeing 737 Max plane.

It is not yet known what caused the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 five months earlier, both after erratic takeoffs. But investigators are looking at whether a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeing’s 737 Max series may have been partly to blame. (Source: NY Times)

It turns out that Boeing had some safety features that might have helped pilots cope with the stalling problems. Unfortunately, they were optional. Unfortunately-squared, neither Lion nor Ethiopian opted to purchase these upgrades.

Oh.

Some blame, of course, goes to the airlines for not springing for these safety features. Not the items to cheap out on. Not a surprise, I guess, from Lion Air. They’re a budget airline and they cheap out on everything. But Ethiopian Airlines is the largest (and by some measures the best) carrier in Africa. What were they doing cheaping out on safety?

But Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Why would you leave safety to chance? Seems really foolish, given that nothing’s going to hurt an airlines brand, reputation, stock price and finances than the appearance (not to mention the reality) of being hinky about safety.

Play around with charging airlines purchasing your planes for niceties. That would be things like more comfortable headrests, better fabric on the seats, device-charging stations, toilets that smell better.

After all, no one wants to leave any money on the table. If an airline is willing to pay a bit more for a heating system that does a better job than blowing pure hot or pure cold on passengers, or seats that recline without crushing the laptop of the person in the seat behind, then aircraft manufacturers should have at it.

Why should Boeing be any less of a nickel-and-dimer than the airlines themselves which, these days, squeeze every possible bit of extra revenue out of passengers. (It’s just a matter of time before the folks in steerage start getting charged for that miniscule bag of pretzels and gulp of soda. And would anyone be surprised by toilets that require swiping your credit card?)

Since the crashes, nothing good has happened to Boeing.

Airlines have grounded the 737 Max’s in their fleets. The first order cancellation for the Max’s just happened. Boeing’s stock price has plummeted. The FBI has gotten involved in an investigation to determine whether there was anything going untoward with the certification process for these planes. One can imagine that there’s litigation on the horizon. Maybe even a few Boeing heads will roll.

So, in return for the small-change revenue they clawed out of the airlines willing to pay for the extra safety features, Boeing lost big time.

Making some safety features optional add-ons probably seemed like a good idea when the product manager came up with it. Not so much any longer.

Safety features should be built-in features, not nice-to-have add-ons. Too bad Boeing had to learn this the hard way. Even worse, too bad the 189 Lion Air dead, and the 157 lost on Ethiopian Airlines, didn’t get to learn the lesson at all.

I love to go a-wandering, my $10K backpack on my back

I grew up in the days before the backpack was used for anything other than camping. As kids, we did have an old Boy Scout rucksack, the cast-off of an older cousin, which we used when we were playing World War II.

Then, in the early 70’s, in the great era of Let’s Go Europe/cheap-flights-young-folks-hitting-the-road, everyone who took one of those cheap flights to Europe had all their stuff in a backpack. I was one of those everyones.

And here’s the red Kelty backpack I carried on my back:

This held everything I took with me for my 5 month jaunt through Europe – a couple of pairs of jeans, one sweater (a very pretty dark fuchsia that I got at Macy’s in NYC), one long sleeved shirt (blue plaid – from Spags), a couple of tee-shirts, undies and socks, a blue checked knit dress (a dress was required for getting into St. Peter’s), a bathing suit, a nightgown, socks and undies, cap and gloves, a few personal items (towel, toothbrush etc.), a pen and notebook.

And our camping gear: two-person tent, sleeping bag, egg-crate foam bedroll, tiny little Gaz Bleu one burner stove, cookware, water bottles, etc. Joyce (my traveling companion) and I took turns toting the tent vs. the cook-stuff. I also had some sort of rain-cover for the backpack. Good thing.

The Kelty was pretty much the top of the line backpack at the time – I might have paid as much as $100 or so for it - and it stood the test of plenty of rough treatment during those months of hitchhiking, camping, and hosteling.

At one point, however – somewhere in the Greek islands? – one of the wire coils that held the waist-strap in place came off. I tried to repair it the old fashioned way: using my teeth. The result, no surprise, was a chipped front tooth. But the fix worked; the coil held for the remainder of the trip.

Somewhere along the line, the Kelty and I parted company. I know I used it for storage for a while, but then it was gone…

Since then, I’ve had a number of casual backpacks, from small utilitarian to corporate logo to good for carrying a laptop to fancy tapestry to lug a bunch of groceries. Most of these backpacks are still with me, but my principal go-to is my Anello. It’s good for a small grocery run, an overnight, a carryon bag holding essentials. It cost about $60. Love it!

So I like backpacks just fine.

But I am not in the market for the Louis Vuitton extra-large backpack.

First off, unless I really don’t see this as a backpack. It looks more like something that you might want to sling across the back of a pack mule. I guess that technically makes it a backpack, but once you put something in it, it looks like it would be too heavy to heft onto your bath. Not to mention that you’d be walking off balance all the time, no?

In general, none of the features have any particular appeal to me:

Crafted from a rich fabrication of gray fleece and embossed with the label’s classic monogram pattern, the enormous carryall features a top-flap closure along with two side pockets that look spacious enough to accommodate a bottle of bubbly or fine wine. (Source: NY Post)

Fleece?

That doesn’t sound like an especially practical fabric for a backpack. Talk about not being able to survive in the elements. Out in the rain with that over-sized sucker, imagine what it would weigh once it started to absorb water. Yikes!

Smaller details like the silver LV logo keychain pay tribute to an iconic heritage that is as timeless as it is lux.

I’m way too much of a city girl to carry my keychain dangling off my backpack. So no thanks.

But what makes this a really “key hero piece” – whatever that means – is the price tag: a whopping $10,000.

I think that if I do feel the need for another backpack, I’ll invest in an updated Kelty. That’s enough of a “key hero piece” for me.

Meanwhile, a ginormous backpack full of thanks to my sister Trish for pointing this one out to me. And no, you won’t be getting one for your birthday.

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Thank you, Dave from the blog Going RV Way who figured out and shared his workaround for embedding an image in a post – a capability of the blogging utility Open Live Writer that disappeared in January.

Well, if Thomas Südhof's wearing Birkenstock’s…

Paul Samuelson was a Nobel Prize winning economist, the founder of modern economics. But he was perhaps best known as co-author of the intro economics text book used pretty much by everyone who took intro to economics anytime between 1948 and 2010.

At one point, later in his career, Samuelson did an ad for a moving company. I’m pretty sure the ad was on the radio, and I seem to recall a print (small b&w) version. But I can’t remember the moving company. And I can’t remember whether the ad was local. (Samuelson was a professor at MIT.) But I distinctly remember that there was an ad, and that there was some blowback around it – if only because people made fun of it. I mean, what made Samuelson an expert on moving companies?

Once I got done making fun of the ad, which I did with my husband the economist, I forgot all about it.

That is, until I saw an ad for Birkenstock that just appeared in The New Yorker. Their spokesmodel? Nobel Prize winning biochemist Thomas Südhof.

Although, to some degree I fit their historic brainy, lefty, Cambridge-y profile, I’ve never owned a pair of Birks.

Some of my best friends, however, are Birkenstock wearers. And a few years back, when Birkenstocks had something of a brand bump, for a while becoming the “it” sandal, my sister(s) – I think both of them – got Birkenstocks, as did my niece Molly.

I don’t know what my holdout was. Maybe that they just didn’t look like they’d fit my feet (the only part of my anatomy that’s long and narrow).

Anyway, I was surprised see an ad for them in The New Yorker. Not that New Yorker readers don’t, at least some proportion of them, match up with the brainy, lefty, Cambridge-y profile I imagine. I’ll bet that Paul Samuelson wore Birkenstocks. But there’s also something of an urbanity about The New Yorker that doesn’t immediately scream Birkenstock.

Nevertheless, there it was, in the expensive upfront section, a full page, four-color ad for Birkenstocks featuring Thomas Südhof.

I had never heard of Thomas Südhof, but it’s never a surprise when I don’t know who the celebrity is who’s pictured in the ad for the pricey watch, the pricey car, the pricey hotel.

To begin with, I don’t have fabulous facial recognition – that was my husband’s bailiwick. We’d be watching a movie, and he’d see someone in the background and ask, “Is that Dana Wynter?” Since I could never remember whether Dana Wynter was a man or a woman – always getting him/her confused with Dana Andrews – I was no help there.

And then there are always celebrity holes in what is otherwise my fairly broad and not all that shallow name recognition – i.e., I’ve heard of them and vaguely know what they’re famous for - for famous people.

Seriously, until she and her husband cheated their kids’ way into USC, I was apparently the only person on the face of the earth who didn’t know who Lori Loughlin was.

Anyway, I was curious about what Birkenstock was up to with this ad, which featured an informal portrait of Südhof, wearing his black leather Birks, taken in his office at Stanford, as well as a close up of the sandals (off of his feet) that showed them to be well worn and sweat-stained.

Were there other famous people I’d never heard of out there touting their Birkenstocks?

Well, seems that Birkenstock is running what they’re calling a Personality Campaign:

The BIRKENSTOCK Personality Campaign

… is about diversity and character featuring authentic individuals in their own BIRKENSTOCKs.

Character? Authentic individuals? Well, I’ll be darned. That leaves Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo something-or-other out. (Not that I would have recognized them either. Nor would I have known their daughters who are, I guess, full-time influencers now that they’ve left USC to avoid anticipated scorn.)

BIRKENSTOCK is a truly universal brand; worn all over the world, by all kinds of people regardless of age, gender or race. Worn Birkenstocks take on the life of their owner, representing the many years and thousands of steps in one’s life. They become a part of your story. They are your story.

British photographer Jack Davison travelled around the world with the aim of capturing these stories. He created authentic and truly intimate portraits of real protagonists and their real Birkenstocks in their real surroundings.

Real protagonists?

I haven’t read such hooey since I picked up the J. Peterman catalog that a neighbor left in our building’s recycle basket.

Give me a real antagonist, any old day.

Anyway, here’s the list:

The portraits showcase photographer Ryan McGinley shot at his agent’s house in New York, his second home, actress Luna Picoli-Truffaut in her mother’s house in Paris, Ballerina Romany Pajdak in a training room in London, free skier Tom Leitner in his house, somewhere in Bavaria and New York filmmaker Sean Frank. Further portraits feature Thomas Südhof, Nobel Prize Laureate of Physiology or Medicine in his Stanford University office and Louise Constein in her favorite Berlin park.

I may have heard of Sean Frank. Maybe. But I guess I just don’t known many authentic protagonists. And Louise Constein? Who dat? Her “bio”, later in the page, says that she’s a teenager. That’s it.

I googled and found out that she’s a model, but, she’s no Luna Picoli–Truffaut.

By the way, I didn’t see a ton of diversity. Sean Frank is the only person-of-color on the list.

Me? Think I’ll stick with my tried and true Clark’s. Plenty brainy, lefty, and Cambridge-y. And I don’t need to be an authentic protagonist to wear them. Or a teenager, either.

As hobbies go…

Other than all these years writing my Pink Slip posts, I’ve never really been a hobbiest. No stamps. No coins. No butterflies. I don’t collect matchbook covers. I’m not an expert on the films of Truffaut. I’m more of a dabbler, I suppose: shallow-dive, transient interest in a lot of little things.

Nonetheless, I enjoy hearing about the hobbies of others. And the odder-ball the better.

Thus, I was delighted to learn of one Tim O’Donovan:

…who has meticulously tabulated the British royal family’s engagements with pencil and paper every day for 40 years. (Source: NY Times)

Mr. O’Donovan, who is 87, doesn’t hold an official position. He just keeps an eye out for who’s showing up for events like:

• The Autumn Dinner of the Fishmongers’ Company,
• The opening of the Pattern Weaving Shed in Peebles, Scotland
• The opening of the Dumfries House Maze
• The dedication of a window at the Church of St. Martin in the Bull Ring

Keeping up with the royals at “work” is a tough non-job, and nobody really has to do it. But Mr. O’ – a retired insurance broker – was, as a man of middle age, looking for a hobby.

He found his fodder in the Court Circular, an account of the royals’ engagements that appears in The Times of London. He decided to clip each one, paste it in a ledger and run the numbers, releasing his first results at the end of 1979.

“It was just a fascination with what they actually did,” he said. “Some of them work extremely hard.”

Mr. O’Donovan – despite the Irish name – sounds every bit the British gentlemen: a royal lover, a royal watcher, and someone who attends the same church as the Queen. (They have a nodding acquaintance.) When talking about himself, he even refers to himself as “one”.

“One started this thing because one was curious,” he said.

As one is.

“One has had a huge amount of enjoyment out of doing it.”

As one does.

“…because one has met people one would never have met before.

As one would.

“It has widened one’s life, in a way.”

Well, one is quite impressed by this, one might say.

Each year, Mr. O’Donovan publishes a table that shows what all the main royals – the Queen, Prince Philip, their children and spouses, Wills, Kate, Harry, and Meaghan – have been up to in terms of how many official appearances they’ve made. He does this because he believes it’s worthwhile to keep a chronicle of royal goings-and-comings. But he doesn’t approve of the way in which his list is used, which is to set off a tabloid firestorm about who’s dogging it.

One year it was Camilla who, with a mere 243 appearances, was dubbed the “laziest” member of the fam. Another year, when William’s position dropped down in the tables – a year in which he had a full-time job in the military and had two toddlers at home – he was snarkily criticized as being “Workshy Wills”.

Tut, tut.

Because the tabloids jump all over Mr. O’Donovan’s table each year, the royal family has in the past hinted that they’d prefer that he back off. But there has been no official request from Buckingham Palace that he cease and desist – a request that Mr. O’Donovan would honor – so he forges on.

Other than do an occasional ooh and aww over the kids of Kate and Wills, have an occasional chuckle over Prince Charles total stuff-shirtedness, and hold to my opinion that Harry is cuter than his brother, I’m not a particular royal watcher. (I’ll amend this statement: I am an avid watcher of the Netflix series, The Crown, which follows the life of Queen E.)

I get that royals are good for tourism. And that there’s nothing wrong with traditions – up to a point. But I’m just as glad to live in a country without a monarchy, and find the super-infatuation with the British royals pretty weird – especially when the infatuation is that of Americans and/or the Irish.

If I were a Brit, I’m pretty sure I’d be on the side of “let’s stop paying these lay-abouts and get with the 21st century.

For the record, for 2018, Princess Anne was the champ-een royal worker bee, logging:

…a whopping 447 domestic appearances and another 71 overseas engagements throughout 2018, which is more than Prince William, Prince Harry and Duchess Kate combined. (Source: AOL)

Anne beat out her brother Charles, who was the top working dog in 2017. The top four was rounded out by bros Edward and Andrew.

No surprise that they’re edging out the old folks. Queen E is in her early 90’s, Prince Phillip is 97. And no surprise that the younger folks have other things to do with their lives.

And I guess, for all of them, it beats working at real jobs.

I know that smiling and nodding at the opening of the Pattern Weaving Shed in Peebles, Scotland, might be a wee bit boring. But you don’t have to put up with endless meetings, politicking, non-stop emails, market failures, commuting, underperforming underlings, and dreadful bosses (unless the Queen is more of a bee-yotch than she appears to be). Maybe they have to worry about when they’ll get their next raise, but they don’t have to worry about anyone competing, All About Eve-like, with someone gunning for their job.

Anyway, carry on Tim O’Donovan. For the Brits, I’m sure it’s useful to seeing in black and white just what they’re paying for.

The WWW and I

Last week marked the 30th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee submitting his proposal for the creation of the World-Wide Web.

The Internet had been around for a while – since 1969 – but it was largely a collection of networked computers used by governments, researchers, and scientists. What Berners-Lee introduced was the notion of web pages, which made the Internet accessible and useful to the rest of us.

On the www anniversary, Berners-Lee was in the news for his comments warning of the need for action to address the web’s “downward plunge to a dysfunctional future.”

Sir Tim said people had realised how their data could be "manipulated" after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

However, he said he felt problems such as data breaches, hacking and misinformation could be tackled.

In an open letter also published on Monday, the web's creator acknowledged that many people doubted the web could be a force for good.

He had his own anxieties about the web's future, he told the BBC: "I'm very concerned about nastiness and misinformation spreading."

But he said he felt that people were beginning to better understand the risks they faced as web users.

In his letter, Sir Tim outlined three specific areas of "dysfunction" that he said were harming the web today:

• malicious activity such as hacking and harassment
• problematic system design such as business models that reward clickbait
• unintended consequences, such as aggressive or polarised discussions

These things could be dealt with, in part, through new laws and systems that limit bad behaviour online, he said. (Source: The BBC)

I fear the same things Berners-Lee does. (What he said!) And I’m all in favor of having the Internet clean up its act. But the 30th anniversary also got me thinking about what it was like back in the early going.

Even before the Internet was a “thing” that we spoke about, there were networks, and you used them to access mainframe computers.

In the mid-1970’s, before I went back to business school, I worked as a gofer in a bank. One of the things I occasionally had to go for was economic data from a company called Data Resources, Inc. 

The first time I tried to get at some of that data – unemployment rates in New England states, as I recall – it was via a dial-up connection, using some sort of odd pre-PC terminal, the system crashed. I thought I had done something wrong.

Fast forward a couple of years, and, while in business school, I used a timesharing program, on the Internet (before I knew it was the Internet) to run forecasting models for an econometrics course I was taking. That course led to my first post-business school job: creating (really terrible) forecasting models for businesses.

We worked on paper-based computer terminals, attached to a mainframe computer. If we wanted to work from home over the weekend, we could tote a 40 pound terminal home and dial-up the mainframe at a really low-slow rate. The connection was always lousy, and it was nearly impossible to get work done. Plus there was the problem of hyper-extending all the muscles in your arms lugging the “portable” terminal around. 

Over time, the paper-based terminals gave way to screens. And then there were PC’s that we used in lieu of terminals. And there was something called client-server, in which some of the computing power moved from the mainframe to smaller computers known as servers.

But whether it was paper-terminal to mainframe, or PC to server, what we were mostly doing was communicating with a computer, not with each other. And we were doing all this communicating using command lines or lines of code, not via some spiffy easy-peasy interface (even after PC’s made things a bit easy-peasier and spiffier).

Somewhere in the middle of the shift from paper-based terminals to PCs, I went to a company – Wang – that had a wonderful internal email system. Sure, if we wanted to speak with a client or someone outside the fold, we picked up a phone. But if we wanted to reach out to anyone in the company, we sent them an email. It was just great.

During my next stop along the magical mystery tour that was my career, the World Wide Web was born.

It took us a while to figure out what to do with it.

For most of us, the WWW and the Internet – which had now pretty much fused in our brains – meant that we needed to have a web presence. That meant putting up a couple of crude pages that provided the world with some basic information on your company and its products. (I can still remember what that first website for that company looked like. Dark, gloomy and ugly.)

Soon enough, the designs got better, web developer became a job category, and sites became more elaborate. But they were still primarily for providing marketing information online. eCommerce? Say what?

At the same time, Internet-based email systems were being introduced. Suddenly, you could communicate not just with your colleagues within the walls, but with customers, partners, vendors, and your friends and family. Exciting at first, but quickly taken for granted.

My next stop was at a company – BBN Planet –> GTE Internetworking –> Genuity that, in fact, was instrumental in the invention and development of the Internet back in the late 1960’s. (And was also the place where the @ sign for use in emails was first deployed.)

By the time I got there – the late 90’s – the World Wide Web, pushed along, by the way, by porn sites demanding better bandwidth and better graphics, eCommerce was starting to be a thing.

And despite all the spectacular failures – pets.com, kozmo.com – that eCommerce thing finally started to catch on. And even if you didn’t sell your wares online – and I always worked for companies with technology-based products with big price tags and long sales cycles, so not candidates for online commerce – your website was a lot more than just informational. It was for relationship building, for customer support, and for anything else you could think of.

And now? Even though you no longer have to type “www” in, the World-Wide Web is just about everything. It’s how we communicate with everyone, learn stuff, figure out answers to questions ultra-trivial and ultra-important, buy stuff, sell stuff, entertain ourselves, keep up with the news, stay in touch with everyone and everything.

I don’t miss the old days of primitive dial ups and ugly informational websites in the least. The Internet/World-Wide Web is great, and the benefits mostly outweigh the downsides. But those downsides are out there. And they’re big. And they’re really downside-y.

We need to listen very clearly to Tim Berners-Lee.

Meanwhile, thanks for the web, Tim.

Time to start wearing a burqa grocery shopping

I do my best to ignore them, but I really despise the ads that pop up whenever and wherever you are on line.

Oh, I don’t mind if Amazon suggests a book purchase. Sometimes it’s actual useful. But most of it… Just because I searched for something doesn’t mean that my interest has sustained itself beyond the nanosecond where I was curious, and had my curiosity satisfied by finding something about something. Please don’t keep reminding me. And that includes the cylindrical pillow I looked for on Wayfair a few weeks ago. Unless you’re capable of delivering me an orange cylindrical pillow that’s 14” long – and it doesn’t seem to me that even Wayfair, with a stockpile of virtual goodies that seems to stretch to infinity and beyond, can deliver this particular good – stop with the cylindrical pillow popups, why don’t you?

I find myself increasingly refraining from doing an in-the-moment, ad hoc search – especially if it’s a bit walk-on-the-wild-side-y – just so I won’t get inundated with ads.

Fortunately, I’m off of Facebook, which spares me those ad assaults.

But I do order stuff on line with some frequency. And you’d think that, if I ordered a pair of sneakers, surely the Internet – in its infinite wisdom – should be aware that I don’t want to order the exact same thing the day after. Or are they preying on the elderly, hoping that I won’t remember that I ordered aqua and purple sneakers, and go ahead and purchase the same thing 24 hours later? Then when two pairs of them show up on my doorstep, I’ll just figure what the hell. I now have a lifetime supply of aqua and purple sneakers.

I don’t like being spied on, thanks. And I don’t like those spying on me to make suggestions to me based on their mindless, indiscriminate sleuthing.

If I don’t like it online, I’m really not enamored with the idea of it happening IRL when I’m actually in a store.

A few years ago, the big worry was that, when you were walking around checking out the merch, you’d start getting info coming at your via your smartphone. Then there were the talking shelves that were going to figure out who you were because you were carrying a store card that you’d swiped each time you checked out – in hopes of actually achieving the mythic goal of getting a discount – and were going to start whispering sweet buy-me nothings as you strolled by.

Not to mention the spycams on every corner, which are great if you’re trying to catch a thief, but are pretty creepy if you’re not.

Well, things are about to get worse. Much worse.

An article by Hiawatha Bray in The Boston Globe the other day details what’s next up, now that we’ve becoming inured to the idea of someone picking our brains so they can pick our pockets:

…a Chicago company called Cooler Screens figures you won’t mind if they put cameras into the refrigerated display cases in retail stores. The cameras aren’t there to prevent you from stealing soda pop. Instead, they’re part of a facial-profiling system that tries to guess what you’ll buy next, based on how you look.

The doors on a Cooler Screens refrigerator are LCD video screens that display images of the items inside the case, so a customer can see what’s available. The screens also show animated ads, like the ones that pop up on a Web browser. They decide which ads to show by studying video images of the customers. (Source: Boston Globe)

The possibilities Bray outlined in his article were uncanny. Was I among a select group of Globe readers who saw this spot-on scenario in the article, or did every reader see this:

A middle-age woman might see a suggestion that she pick up a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to go with her Diet Coke.

All I can say is that I rarely buy Diet Coke anymore, and it’s Ben & Jerry’s fro-yo. Cherry Garcia, if you must know.

I guess this is just an indication of how paranoid I’ve become that someone could actually get me to believe that The Globe knows it’s online readers so well that we’ll be getting customized add-ish power-of-suggestion embeds in our articles. (Hope I’m not giving them any idea. It’s really just a matter of time…)

Cooler Screens it testing its concept in a number of stores. Fortunately, their Boston outlets are not among the chosen few. Yet.

Me? I’m thinking of getting myself a outfitted with a shopping burqa. And note to self: start wearing sunglasses when I’m pushing my shopping cart around. Hopefully that will stymie the retinal scanning that some marketer would like to do.

Seriously, is there anyplace where our privacy is intact anymore? Guess I’ll have to go ask Alexa…

It’s the Ides of March. Other than at Pink Slip, where it’s the Eve of the Eve of Paddy’s Day

I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in any big way. I haven’t been to the parade in years. I haven’t made a corned beef and cabbage dinner in decades. I may or may not wear anything green on the day itself. If I take a walk, and it’s pleasant out, I’ll wear my Red Sox cap with the green B and the shamrock on the back. Probably.

But over the weekend, I’m sure I’ll drink a cup of Barry’s tea. I’m sure I’ll have a slab of soda bread. I’m sure I’ll play all sorts of Irish music – from the cornball but always entertaining Clancy Brothers to the rockin’ and heartbreaking Cranberries. From the polished but wonderful Chieftains to authentic session recordings from Ti Neachtain in Galway

If you want to read what I think about Ireland, about being Irish American (half), about St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll find it here – my last year’s post, which includes links to all of Pink Slip’s Paddy’s Day pieces. (Some are pretty good.)

And as a gift in honor of the day, here’s a recipe for Barm Brack, an Irish teacake that was known in my family as Daddy’s Favorite:

Pour 2 cups of boiling water over one pound of raisins. Cool.

After it’s cool, add 2 teaspoons baking soda to the raisins & water.

Mix: 2 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons shortening (I used Crisco), and 2 eggs.

Drain the raisins & water, saving the water. Add the water to the batter and mix well.

Add 3 cups of flour. Mix well.

Add the raisins and 1/2 cup of walnuts.

Bake for approximately 1 hour at either 350 degrees or 375 degrees, in a 13x9” pan. The temperature will depend on your oven, and/or your pan. I used the higher temp, as I was using a metal pan. The brack took 55 minutes to bake.

Once the cake cools, you may want to sprinkle/sift a small amount of confectioner’s sugar on the cake.

This is a really simple and tasty little recipe. It reminds me of my father. It reminds me of home. And, more recently, it reminds me of Ireland.

I never knew it was called barm brack until a couple of years ago when, after all these trips to Ireland, I finally decided to order it in an Irish tea room. I took one look, and then one bite, and realized that what I was eating was Daddy’s Favorite. Who knew?

The recipe above is my non-Irish mother’s, but I’m guessing it originated with my grandmother or one of my Irish great grandmothers.

Anyway, I made a pan last week.

I was going to an elderly friend’s house for lunch. There are three of us who do this regularly. We used to go out, but our friend is a bit frail – nearing 90 – so these days, we bring lunch and eat in. It was my turn to make desert, and I knew that the main course was going to be Shepherd’s Pie. So I thought I’d keep with the Irish theme. Thus, the brack.

I used my mother’s handwritten recipe. I used my mother’s large Pyrex “Early American” (cocoa-brown with eagles on it) mixing bowl to mix everything up in, and her 13x9” aluminum baking pan to bake it in.

It was yummy.

Beware the Ides of March, but have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Hipsters all look alike? Snap, snap.

A Brandeis mathematician recently completed some dense, equation-filled analysis that led to the conclusion that:

…in a bid to make that all-important "countercultural statement", hipsters can end up looking alike. (Source: The Register, by way of my brother-in-law Rick. So a doff of the beanie to Rick.)

As someone who lives in a hipster-rich area – I mean, we’re no Brooklyn, but Boston/Cambridge/Somerville does have its share of hipsters – I am here to tell you that those Brandeis researchers could have saved themselves the time and trouble of doing all that work (and writing it up in a 34 page paper, yet) and just shown a few denizens of hipster-ville a couple of lineups and ask if they could distinguish one hipster from the other.

A summary of the research was published in The MIT Review, along with an image of, well, a generic hipster.

Shortly after their article appeared, The Review heard from an aggrieved reader:

"We promptly got a furious email from a man who said he was the guy in the photo that ran with the story. He accused us of slandering him, presumably by implying he was a hipster, and of using the pic without his permission. (He wasn't too complimentary about the story, either.)"

I don’t know if calling someone a hipster counts as slander, exactly. It’s not like calling some guy an incel or a Bernie bro. But still, the young man felt that he and his image – a stock photo from Getty of a good looking guy in a flannel shirt and knit cap (the sort of knit cap that is of late known as a beanie) had been used and abused.

By the way, back in the day, a knit cap was called a watch cap. A knit cap with a pom-pom was called a pom-pom hat. And a beanie was something worn by a college freshman who might have been a classmate of Dobie Gillis, or by Catholic school girls.

But now watch caps, knit caps, and pom-pom hats all seem to be called beanie. As a grammar school parochial school beanie wearer, I’m not buying it.

(I’m still having a picture issue with my blog, but in the post below, I’ve included a couple of beanie beanies, along with the generic hipster pic that appeared in The Review.)

But. I. Digress.

After The Review received the complaint from the don’t-call-me-a-hipster guy, editor Giden Lichfield wanted to make sure that they’d used the image properly. So his folks reviewed the image license, and then contacted Getty to make sure that the model had officially released use of his image:

The stock photo giant checked the model release and lo! The guy in the image wasn't even the same dude who was complaining. "He'd misidentified himself," Lichfield said.

Sure, sometimes in a crowd scene, or fuzzy snapshot, or photo from ancient history, you may think that you’re looking at a picture of yourself. Or not. But seriously. How often have you looked at what is a really clear current picture and not recognized yourself. Talk about face blind.

"All of which just proves the story we ran: hipsters look so much alike that they can’t even tell themselves apart from each other."

Hah! I say, hah, hah! (That, or I’m snapping my fingers, Beatnik hipster style. Snap, snap.)

------------------------------------------------------

Hiawatha Bray of The Boston Globe had an interesting article on this subject in which he gets into the neural network underpinnings of the research. If you’re interested in more than just making fun of hipsters, it’s worth a read.