yr an adult

Why can’t you be more like this lady? Bianca Kosoy, creative director of Equinox

by Henry Goldman • August 31, 2012

Bianca Kosoy is a badass. No other way to say it. The NY Times has a brief but enlightening article about Ms. Kosoy, the creative director for Equinox, that high-class, high-style brand of luxury gyms. Now, usually I find stories about cooler-than-everybody ad execs to be obnoxiously overblown. But. after reading about Kosoy’s work and life, I’m convinced she might actually be cooler than everybody.What makes Kosoy so cool? Well, the number one thing that caught my eye was the fact that, while she may be in charge of the image for the country’s highest-profile luxury gym brand she doesn’t work out. In the article she states, “I never work out. I think fitness is a fraud. That’s why I try to make it look like fashion.”

!!!!

Just because she’s a high-powered executive at Equinox, she’s proud of the fact that she’s not into the product. We should all be so bold. Though, it probably helps that she’s good at her job.

A few other awesome things about Kosoy:

… KEEP READING!

cultural studies

People with jobs I want: DJ Khaled, curator of rap radio bangers

by Henry Goldman • August 31, 2012

“This shit special!!!!!!!!” DJ Khaled bellows in his reverb-twisted voice on the intro to “Hip Hop”, a track off his sixth album. After several verses, when the track is winding down, Khaled says it again. If, somehow, the listener had forgotten that the shit was special, Khaled is there to remind us that this shit, indeed, special. Between contributing this grammatically incorrect but still somehow appropriate line, Khaled’s contributions to the track are hard to pin down. He doesn’t rap on the track; that’s handled by hall-of-famers Nas and Scarface, each doing a somber take on Common’s hip-hop-as-a-woman motif. Nor does Khaled produce the beat for the song; the beat was produced by young fruity-loops virtuoso Lex Lugar. There’s even some token old-school scratching. Was that Khaled on the Serato? Nope. That’s DJ Premier, also a hall of famer. Khaled’s only clearly manifest contribution to the song is saying “This shit special,” twice. And that’s what makes him kind of awesome (emphasis on the “kind of”).

… KEEP READING!

Interviews

It’s not all urban farms: a q&a with Achille Bianchi and Michael E. Burdick about living in Detroit

by Henry Goldman • August 27, 2012

A few months ago, responding to the steady stream of media reports about Detroit’s creative/hipster renaissance, I wrote a list of hyperbolic things you could say about “America’s Comeback City.” I just didn’t believe that a small cadre of twentysomethings in live/work lofts and urban farms actually constituted anything more than an anecdote. Anyways, I also included a callout to people who live in Detroit, because, never having been there, I was curious how it felt to live in inquisitive glare of GOOD Magazine and the New York Times Sunday Style Section, while also living in a shrinking, former economic juggernaut of a city. So, after posting the article, I had a nice chat with Achille Bianchi and Michael Burdick, two locals who had a lot to say about the whole thing.

So first off, who are you guys, and how did you each end up in Detroit?

Achille: I’m a journalist and photographer in the city. I’ve been down here for nine years, now. Graduated in 2003, came down here pretty much immediately after I graduated. My sister was down here studying design at the College for Creative Studies and I didn’t have much direction, so I applied for university here, and haven’t left since.

Michael: I grew up outside the city, in a suburb about twenty minutes away. Went to College for Creative Studies for illustration when I was 18 and yeah, also never really left.

So you’ve both been there for a while. I’m curious when you became aware of this media narrative that there was a surge of hip, young people moving to Detroit?

Achille: I can pinpoint that exactly. It was 2009, and actually [Michael’s] boss, Toby Barlow, broke a story about a $500 house in northern Detroit, with a couple friends of ours, Mitch and Gina, who run the Powerhouse Project. And then, kind of before then, 2003 to 2008, there was some cool stuff going on, but no one [nationally] gave a shit. But as soon as that story hit the New York Times, that’s when it all started.

Michael: And then, two years ago, Phil Cooley, the owner of Slows, got on Huffington Post person of the week, or something like that.

Achille: So, I’d say 2008-2010 was the “ruin porn” era, and the 2010 to present is the “hope porn” era.

… KEEP READING!

In the News

Quote of the day

by Henry Goldman • August 23, 2012

“I’m always finding myself clarifying, he’s not gay, he’s not straight, he’s an ocean-deep, planetwide labyrinth of kinks and turns. He represents the part of all of us that doesn’t get turned on by Budweiser ads, and sometimes feels a little lost because of it, but that heroically, CHARGES ON in the discovery of himself.”

- Dan Harmon, on Community character Dean Pelton, during his REDDIT AMA yesterday, via Splitsider. If you haven’t already, now would be a fine time to read our ‘Does Community get adulthood right?’ post.

I'm living my life wrong

I am outraged (for, like, 10 minutes, before going back to dicking around on the internet)

by Henry Goldman • August 16, 2012

Earlier, this week, like many of those hooked to the reflective glare of the internet, I was riveted by a Tumblr post by NYC-based comedy writer Matt Fisher entitled, “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court”. In a straightforward way, Mr. Fisher outlined how his sister’s greedy, shitty insurance company did everything in its power to avoid paying a claim, essentially acting the way greedy insurance companies always do, all the time. Not only was the story equal parts heartbreaking and infuriating, it also inspired me to take action.

What kind of action, you ask? Did I research advocacy groups that are fighting for insurance reform, to which I could donate my time? Well, um, no. Did I get a group of my friends together to take up arms, come up with our cleverest anti-vampire-capitalism slogans (i.e. ,“Quit playing CLAIMS with my heart”), sharpie them onto cardboard signs and then go march on the nearest Progressive management office? Again, I did not. That would be a lot of work. So what did I do?

I retweeted Eugene Mirman’s tweet about it, and then went on with my day.

… KEEP READING!

In the News

Bonus quote of the day

by Henry Goldman • August 14, 2012

“The obstacle course and attacks from fellow competitors would teach them that life is hard and that especially when money is involved, people can be cruel. And fighting for a seat only to find that your chair is worth $200, while the guy next to you randomly sat on one worth $10,000 — that would teach youngsters that life is often unfair and inexplicable. Educational television at its finest.”

- from a review of the TOTALLY EXTREME TV version of musical chairs, ‘Oh Sit’! I guess Jamie Kennedy is still around, which doesn’t make me feel anything at all.

In the News

Quote of the day

by Henry Goldman • August 14, 2012

“It probably sounds really fucking pretentious, but I think that people’s inability to distinguish between “need” and “want” is a very real problem. And I don’t ever want to be the guy cluttering my apartment with a lot of garbage that makes me happy for only a few days until the next thing comes along. I’ve read all those studies about money and happiness and every one I’ve read says that spending on experiential things rather than material things is the best way to get joy from money, so I try to do that with the money I save.”

- West Coast Gawker Editor Cord Jefferson on why he doesn’t spend money on stuff

In the News

Quote (about politics) of the day

by Henry Goldman • August 10, 2012

“I just wish we weren’t debating gay marriage in the parking lot of a fast-food joint. If we’re going to debate gay marriage at Chick-fil-A, then the results should count. Like, if we can boycott Chick-fil-A enough that it closes, then gay marriage should be legal.”

From Esquire’s Q+A with Comedian W. Kamau Bell. That’s pretty much the last thing anyone should ever say about Chik-fil-A on the internet.

Where should you live?

Why you should live abroad

by Dan Abbe • August 10, 2012

At the beginning of 2009, I moved from San Francisco to Tokyo. I was 24, and I had some fairly idealistic motivations to go: boredom with my job! a long-distance relationship! an interest in photography! The first two reasons exhausted themselves pretty quickly, although the third one has kept me here until today. No matter what reasons you have, though, I think it’s worth living outside of the U.S. for some time if you can make it happen. Here are a few reasons why:

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modern adults

The 7 types of new adults you know

by Henry Goldman • August 10, 2012

Writing about adults and adulthood, I’ve been especially interested in the general archetypes of young people that keep coming up. While every person is a unique snowflake and all that, I mostly find that as our generation comes of age, there are only a few different categories that people fit into. That’s probably how it is for most eras, and there’s no reason for millennials to think that they’re special (except for the fact that everyone has told us that we’re special our entire lives). For a generation supposedly marked by self-reliance and individualism (if you read the papers), pretty much everyone I meet can be placed into a small handful of categories. And, since I’m assuming you’re as judgmental as I am, I thought it would be helpful if I broke down the various types of people you know (if you live in a major city), so that when you meet a new person, you can quickly and easily put them into a category, and befriend or dismiss them appropriately.

The “Bobo”

This is a new term for me, but it’s very well-established (according to my mom and @aziziz). It’s short for “bourgeois bohemian” and translates perfectly to North America. How it hasn’t caught on in with people our age, I have no idea, because it describes like, half the young people in most cities. They wear bespoke artisan chambray shirts and vintage sunglasses, craft aftershave, read Monocle; when they travel, they have a retro-style duffel bag that was handmade by some guy they met at a party for a startup; when they go out drinking, it’s mixology bars that serve artisan cocktails, using small batch alcohols, where they’ll pronounce to their friends salvos like, “Bulleit has a great name, but it’s really just a pedestrian whiskey.”

You probably know a lot of people like this, and for lack of a better term, you might have referred to them as some qualified kind of hipsters, like, “I mean, he dresses like a hipster, but he’s not the grungy kind, crashing on the couch of some warehouse. He has, like, a really nice loft.” I’m talking about the guy who works in advertising with a fedora. He’s a bobo. Same with the girl taking Instagrams for her Tumblr about pop-up restaurants. She’s a bobo. And that dude with 50$ Benny Gold sweatshirt, the $200 Huf Limited sneakers, the sleeve tattoo and and the throwback Jansport backpack? He’s a bobo. Can we all start using this term, please? Derisively, like the way people used to use the term “yuppie” in the 80s? Because even if these bobos are your friends, or you’re actually one or I’m actually one (I mean, I know I probably am), we can all agree that they’re worth our surface level scorn, right?… KEEP READING!

Video

Video of the day

by Henry Goldman • August 9, 2012

Whether or not you’re interested in new jack everyman rappers, the skit at the beginning of the video is as instantly like-able as a sportscenter commercial. via @the_bg

Where should you live?

Some things I learned at Summer Commune

by A. Nicole Kelly • August 7, 2012

Summer Commune is a mobile intentional community which brought 20 “new adults” from cities (including San Francisco, LA, London, and Vancouver) to Moscow, Idaho (pop. 24,000) this year. Communers hang out, work virtually, go on field trips, and produce community events. A. Nicole Kelly is one of this year’s organizers who wanted to share a bit about this last summer. We previously covered Summer Commune earlier this year, in an interview with fellow organizer Joshua Heller.

I had hoped Summer Commune would help me feel creative—energized and inspired by like-minded people. I thought Summer Commune was my DIY writer’s residency. But while I do feel creative, inspired, and energized, and while this summer has been productive for my work, it’s turned out less like an artists’ commune and more like existential summer camp.

Most everyone drawn here seems to be at a crossroads. Summer Commune is this liminal space in which we’re figuring things out, asking what we want, defining what we don’t, and then trying to imagine what that looks like. We’re trying to change the ways we think about living.

… KEEP READING!

modern adults

How old is too old for the ultimate bro pad?

by Henry Goldman • August 7, 2012

There was this article this weekend in the paper about these four dudes in New York. All close enough to 40 that we might as well just call them 40. They live together in a giant 2-story apartment in Astoria, Queens, and have lived together in various apartments since graduating college. In 1994. The house itself sounds like a coo place for four bachelors, with rooms that don’t share walls, 3 bathrooms, a garden and bunch of nerd gear (dvd collections, collectible toys, role playing games). And the guys don’t seem like weirdos. They all have jobs, artistic pursuits and their time as roommates has turned them into an extended family. And I can’t imagine I’m the only guy who would read that article and think, “Well, that sounds pretty good.”

… KEEP READING!