Here is Mercedes-Benz FashionWeek as explained by a construction worker across the street from Lincoln Center yesterday, on whom I eavesdropped because I was too scared to talk to anyone else:
I've ridden past the Tiki "Xymposium" hundreds of times on the 704 bus, which connects L.A.'s concrete-laden eastside to its breezy western coast via Santa Monica Boulevard. Every time I'd by chance glance over and see the theater, its fading, sunburned red sign getting shabbier all the time, I'd think that it looked like a good spot to drink oneself to death or to look for someone who owes you money.
Iggy Azalea almost wasn't Internet-famous. Last summer, the native Australian was living in Los Angeles, and after what was supposed to be two weeks in Miami at age 16 had turned into five years spent in four cities throughout the states, she was down to the last of her savings. She had one shot left, and so she used that money to film the music video for "PU$$Y," a song off her first mixtape.
When people respond to modern dance music, chances are they are responding to drops. A drop happens when the beat comes back after temporarily exiting the sound design. In drop-fueled dance music, this happens every few minutes — the beat asserts itself, people freak out, their interest wanes, the song breaks down, the beat dissolves and then drops back in, asserting itself all over again, making people freak out all over again. And over and over and over again.
At about 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, while standing in the Roosevelt Rotunda at the American Museum of Natural History on 81st Street and Central Park West, my friend Sam and I stuff an eighth of psychedelic mushrooms into egg rolls and eat them. It is time for the 2012 Clio Awards, the advertising world's version of the Oscars.
For reasons not related to sports or logic, I was sent across the country to cover the 2011 High Times Medical Cannabis Cup in Denver this past weekend. The event, held in a place called the Exdo Event Center that allegedly transformed into a gay nightclub once the sun set, featured an awards show for 45 indicas, 36 sativas, 50 hybrids, 26 concentrates, and 25 edibles from Colorado dispensaries. If you don't really know what those terms mean, it's okay: this event was primarily for professionals. And no matter how much pot you smoked in college, bro, I can now say with certainty that it does not make you a professional in the field of medical cannabis. There were seminars for legal issues and consumer rights, cultivation lessons, and a panel discussion on the ins and outs of the "Cannabusiness." And there was a giant tent — which required either a Denver medical marijuana card or a vendor's pass to enter — filled with marijuana for medicating purposes. The only rule, once you were in? No selling and no giving away of the marijuana. The tent was only for sharing. Welcome to the Medical Cannabis Cup.
Today we headed over to the Fashion Week tents in Lincoln Center to check out the final collections by the 10 remaining contestants on Project Runway. What was good, what was bad, and what was the biggest surprise of all?
Last night, around 11 p.m., we got into a friend's car and began to drive—on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, then the L.I.E. We briefly considered bagging the whole plan and just making a quick dash to the Hamptons—the season is on!—but we soldiered on, getting deeper and deeper into deepest Queens. We merged onto the Van Wyck Expressway (so many expressways out here! And why is everyone driving so fast!), got briefly flummoxed in Flushing and had to turn around, and then finally made it to the Whitestone Expressway. Then we turned onto 20th Ave., and then back onto the Whitestone Expressway going the other way, and then finally, 14-some-odd miles later, the enormity of the New York Times printing plant in College Point was in sight.
