Unlike a lot of weekly email services which seem to be more on the advertisement side of things, Very Short List seems to be genuine recommendations by intelligent people. They focus on “products that deserve attention but haven’t already been subject to giant media pile-ons” meaning, there is a lot here to be discovered. And soon there will be even more with the addition of a Books, Food, and Kids section.
From the first moment I noticed the recently opened neighborhood oddity called The Production
Lounge, I talked and debated
about it non stop. I had so, so many questions and concerns. Firstly,
how can anything like this be created in 2008? The font, the
theme, the colors, the everything couldn’t be perceived as contemporary
by anyone that lived past the year 1995.
More questions and concerns arose after looking at their website, a website that
begins with this thing, a video that could easily, without a single
edit become a Tim and Eric sketch. As I shared the link with more and
more people, they kept asking if there was any way this was one
elaborate joke? Look at owner and director of straight to video horror
film, Knock Knock, Joseph Ariola and you tell me.
But seriously, crappy chairs (that look like Sims outdoor furniture) and
a few tables on a balcony set up to be
a VIP section, with bottle service? Really? Just who does Mr. Ariola think
his clientele will be? According to this, it’s meant to cater to the
area's production teams and film nerds. And as for those of you who are production
company people, you tell me: would you want to hang out in a production
assistant
themed bar after getting off your production assistant gig?
And it’s bid to attract film lovers is as subtle as Build a
Bear workshop is to attracting lovers of teddy bears. I don’t care how
much of a film nerd you are, I don’t think most fans of movies want to
be catered to with directors chair stools, bright lights with gels on
them and a long casting couch that looks
like it might be covered in semen. And this photo was intentionally on put
their site in an attempt to make you actually want to go there.
Other photos on the
site? Try the models section, a completely unexplained section full of head shots of body
builders with fake breasts (not an accusation, we all know
real big tits and body building never go hand and hand). You too are encouraged to bring in a head shot, though it’s not specified if you
have to be a body builder with big breasts. As one friend said, it sounds
like “a plan that encourages stalkers and rapists”.
And lets not
forget the added bonus, which Joe (I'm going to call him Joe now), describes on his site as “the best of all!” Everything is shot live on camera!
What does that even mean? So what, we can watch ourselves share a snide, smug
drink “surrounded by crystal chandeliers, TV monitors, tables and
chairs” – because what girl doesn’t want to be surrounded by 'TV
monitors, tables, and chairs?'
And these are just my musings before
we even set foot in the place. I booked my friends right away, with the
sneaking suspicion that this place was not long for this world.
Soooo, we went for a visit, and yes the place is totally weird and awkward, but our waitress was so completely sweet that I felt guilty making this the worst place to drink (which I expected to – plus, there's kind of a mob front vibe that I might not want to get on the bad side of) so I opted to simply and fairly make it the worst website of the year, though I probably won't find myself drinking here again either.
Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.
Web Sites category pick for the week of 9/29/08
Here's what I said then:
From the Denton empire, that includes Gawker and Defamer which can each get a bit too snarky at time for my stomach, rises Jezebel, a brilliant website aimed at women, but not in that way that television and Hollywood “aim”
things at women but as a genuinely engaging site that intelligent real
women with a sense of humor would (and do) want to read.
I
hope they’re not ashamed to call themselves a feminist website, because
it’s time that word lost its negative connotations. It really just
means you believe that women are equal to men, and since we are equal
we deserve equally great blogs to read.
Jezebel covers real issues like politics
but isn't embarrassed by their love for feminine things. They delight
in diving into other subjects like fashion (which they cover like pros,
citing and praising Italian Vogue instead of something like Lucky magazine), celebrity (never, ever getting bitchy about
weight but fairly pointing out their bull----), and in one of my
favorite recurring columns, Fine Lines, about young adult books (like this week’s
Forever) that we read in our pre teen years.
There are also Project
Runway and America’s Next Top Model breakdowns, and constantly keep us
up to date with interesting tidbits of the world’s going ons.
This
is one of the best blogs out there, and a small victory in positive
female voices in media that I can revel in compared to the dismal
female characters I’ve encountered in all the new fall TV shows: Bone thin, humorless women who are far far too young for their jobs and painfully dull. Sure their meant to be strong (clearly – they’re all wearing ass-boring suits) but do they all have to be so cardboard?
Is this the best roles they can come up with for women, god it almost makes one praise The Closer
(which started as a guilty pleasure for Jim until it became just too,
too terrible to continue watching, but still, at least they let her
have a personality even though its as a neurotic shrew who loves
candy). But… I digress.
You would expect a website called 365 Halloween to be fairly useless, one of those all advertisement pages that links to overpriced online cheap costume sites. However, to my delight, the blog is extremely helpful with clever recipes like this gross out bleeding intestines and these adorable breakfast mummies and link to great craft ideas like these from The Swell Life.
Like the spunky innovators they’ve always been, Viktor and Rolf shook things up and embraced the new with their Spring 2009 collection. If you’ve ever dreamed of sitting in the front row, or anywhere in the same building for that matter as one of the duo’s fun and fantastical show, now you can. Or at least you can view as anyone else would, from Carine Roitfeld to Viktor and Rolf devotee Tilda Swinton.
The digital show, which cost as much as a live one to put on, with over 50 technicians employed to make it right, stars Shalom Harlow and … Shalom Harlow, the raven haired pallid beauty wears all the Swarovsky crystal encrusted creations. Granted, even with the wild black and white geometric leggings and bold striped ruffles, this is one of the team’s more modest servings, it’s still a grand display of fun fashion.
Sarafina, my co-worker who has been invaluable with her recommendations sent me a link to Refinery 29 the other day. The entry was about Anna May Wong (see this week's female style icon) but the entire fashion site is totally great.
Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.
From the Denton empire, that includes Gawker and Defamer which can each get a bit too snarky at time for my stomach, rises Jezebel, a brilliant website aimed at women, but not in that way that television and Hollywood “aim” things at women but as a genuinely engaging site that intelligent real women with a sense of humor would (and do) want to read.
I hope they’re not ashamed to call themselves a feminist website, because it’s time that word lost its negative connotations. It really just means you believe that women are equal to men, and since we are equal we deserve equally great blogs to read.
Jezebel covers real issues like politics but isn't embarrassed by their love for feminine things. They delight in diving into other subjects like fashion (which they cover like pros, citing and praising Italian Vogue instead of something like Lucky magazine), celebrity (never, ever getting bitchy about
weight but fairly pointing out their bull----), and in one of my
favorite recurring columns, Fine Lines, about young adult books (like this week’s
Forever) that we read in our pre teen years.
There are also Project
Runway and America’s Next Top Model breakdowns, and constantly keep us
up to date with interesting tidbits of the world’s going ons.
This is one of the best blogs out there, and a small victory in positive female voices in media that I can revel in compared to the dismal female characters I’ve encountered in all the new fall TV shows: Bone thin, humorless women who are far far too young for their jobs and painfully dull. Sure their meant to be strong (clearly – they’re all wearing ass-boring suits) but do they all have to be so cardboard?
Is this the best roles they can come up with for women, god it almost makes one praise The Closer (which started as a guilty pleasure for Jim until it became just too, too terrible to continue watching, but still, at least they let her have a personality even though its as a neurotic shrew who loves candy). But… I digress.
Or what if her beautiful illustrations of major cities were murals in an airport? I think our country needs to be more pretty and if I were in charge I’d start with Natsko Seki.
God, you’ve got to love obsessed people, especially when their preoccupations result in something as magically wonderful as Pandora Radio. It’s an on line station where they pick a variety of music based on your tastes. And it’s not just the typical or always what you’d expect, in fact they went about the research in a highly scientific way:
“we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song….we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day…”
There are some limitations. You can only fast forward so many songs within a play list within an hour, and often times the site itself has has technical difficulties when I’ve tried to log on. I also stubbornly refuse to accept the truth that The Eagles are somewhat like my beloved Fleetwood Mac but I am not surprised to find that very little in this world is like Nick Cave as much as the man himself (by the way have you gotten your tickets for his Oct 4th show??).
Seriously take some time enjoying getting your horizons broadened by this site. Plus, it works at offices that don’t allow streaming media, so use it liberally at work to drown out any body else’s ipod that you may not want to hear. Pandora Radio makes me wish I had nothing but idle computer time on my hands.
