October | 2009 | Kontrary by Rebecca Thorman – Careers, Business, and Life Advice

Your passion is lost on others

by Rebecca Thorman on October 23Comments Off

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13-year old Tavi posted this excerpt from a Washington Post piece on her blog:

It’s always a bit discombobulating when people raise their voices in anger because they’ve gotten wind that designers are making and selling $25,000 dresses. After all, it’s not as if the existence of a dress that costs as much as a car negates the availability of cute $25 frocks at Target. And it isn’t as though edicts have been issued that all women must now dress like one of the superheroes on Balenciaga’s runway.

For personal and sometimes tortured reasons — I can’t have it so no one else can!

Ignore Fox News?

by Rebecca Thorman on October 22Comments Off

Journalism is taking hits in more places than one. Not only has its validity and usefulness been questioned by the entire blogosphere, but increasingly, its integrity has taken a beating as well. Nowhere do the shiners show up more than upon the face of Fox News, whose incredibly biased coverage on President Obama has raised red flags, all the way up to the White House.

Slate Magazine shared their take this past weekend:

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity and take pains not to load the dice in its own favor.

In Your Capable Hands

by Rebecca Thorman on October 22Comments Off

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For whatever reason, the art of writing seems more fully expressed when published via a typewriter or your own hand. Words seem especially poignant. Like when Mick Jagger tells Andy Warhol, “He will probably look nervous and say ‘Hurry up’ but take little notice.”

Letters of Note via Bruce Mau Blog.

No-nonsense advice from Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz

by Rebecca Thorman on October 21Comments Off

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Ever since Carol Bartz became CEO of Yahoo, I’ve been watching her closely. I love that she’s a woman leading a tech company, I love that she’s outspoken, and despite all her detractors, I think she’s going to do amazing things for Yahoo. Every interview she does is awesome, and I particularly liked these quotes from a recent piece in the New York Times:

When people come to me and say, “I can’t work for so-and-so anymore,” I say, “Well, what have you learned from so-and-so?” People want to take a bad situation and say, “Oh, it’s bad.” No, no. You have to deal with what you’re dealt.

Japanese Poster 1

by Rebecca Thorman on October 21Comments Off

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This print is by far one of my favorites right now and in fact, I bought it and it now hangs above my laptop at home. Artist Valero Doval is based in London and has a devastatingly interesting portfolio. I’m loving some of his newer work too – see Drawers, IncorporealEnergy and HiddenCompositions – and would buy them in an instant if only they were on sale.

Japanese Poster 1 via inPRNT, $40.

The Burning “T”

by Rebecca Thorman on October 20Comments Off

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Normally I don’t go for things that are ridden with deeper, darker associations, but set designer Gary Card’s Burning T was just too powerful to pass up. Created for New York Time’s Tmagazine, Card describes his work as “a burning effigy in a dramatic countryside setting” which “sounded like too much fun not to do.” Other inspirations came from The Wicker Man, a 1973 English cult horror film that features pagan ritual and is a film I will probably never, ever see.

“We lit it with a blowtorch,” Card continues, “and then ran for our lives.”

The result is one of the best sculptural pieces I’ve seen.

Midwest women marry early

by Rebecca Thorman on October 20Comments Off

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In some more research related to my post on feeling pressure to marry early, Pew Demographics reveals some fascinating statistics in their infographic on marriage and divorce. For starters, the numbers back up my assertion that Midwest women marry earlier; a Wisconsin’s woman median age of first marriage at 26 is a full two years earlier than a New York’s woman median age of first marriage at 28.

And in another intriguing twist, it seems that the rate of divorce seems to increase in States where couples marry sooner and is lower in States where couples hold off a couple years, with some interesting exceptions.

Steven Alan Wool Shorts

by Rebecca Thorman on October 20Comments Off

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Just imagine these wool shorts with tights for winter. The designer “eschews the flashy and fleeting in favor of re-worked timeless basics, and old-fashioned tailoring.”

Steven Alan Pip Wool Short via Frances May, $178.

Black Poodle Illustration

by Rebecca Thorman on October 16Comments Off

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Here’s a sweet print to close out the week with. The artist also creates custom pet doodles. Have a fabulous weekend, my friends!

Via LMNOPrint, on Etsy, $15.

Gunmetal Market Bag

by Rebecca Thorman on October 15Comments Off

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This Market Bag would be perfect for a laptop, and the careful pleating dresses up the gunmetal canvas twill just enough.

Via Moop, $93.

Similar, but smaller via Infusion, $79.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

by Rebecca Thorman on October 13Comments Off

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This was a bestseller in France originally and is now a bestseller here as well. It’s not the type of book that you sit on the edge of your seat with, but rather that you pick up and savor slowly.

Renee is a cultured concierge who mulls over great philosophers and acts like she doesn’t, while Paloma is a bourgeois teenager who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday. The two characters are living in the same building, but never interact until mid-way through the book when an event pulls them together. And when that happens, of course, you do start to sit on the edge of your seat, ever so slightly.

Is free good enough?

by Rebecca Thorman on October 1319 Comments

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Just because something’s cheap, does that mean you should buy it? If it’s free, should you use it? The recession means a proliferation of cheap and free, but that often means sacrifice. The social network Facebook is free, but at the sacrifice of quality customer service (not that I don’t love Facebook).

My belief is that everything and everyone is connected, so cheapest is not good enough. It’s why I don’t shop at WalMart, I try to buy organic food, I pay more for a hybrid, and make other conscious buying decisions. If it’s cheap at the same time, that’s all the better.