The Visa Diaries

I am not usually on the bleeding edge of trends. An early adopter maybe, but there’s always a bunch of funky ‘kids’ in Williamsburg or Shoreditch or wherever doing anything before me. Which incidentally reminds me of a joke I heard recently about those Williamsburg hipsters:

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: You don’t know???

Ha!

Anyway, back to our story. In light of all this, I was completely thrilled when my friend Christy invited me to go see a hot up and coming band last thursday. Not only are hot and up and coming (and my resident hispter-at-work Noah had not even heard of them yet) but they are locals from my new home-sweet-some Brooklyn. For all those reasons I was disposed to like them, but then on top of all that, they have about the best band name I have heard in a long time: Yeasayer.

It may not sound like much, but I think the world is in need of a little saying yes these days. A little more ’sure, we can work that out’ and a little less ‘not my problem, mate.’ A little more of, “yes I care, yes I am engaged, yes I want to take action and make even a small difference.” “No, I am not too cool for school!” (see, that double negative there, is like a yes

Yes is more than a word, it is a very powerful attitude that influences how we are in the world. I recently spent 2 days at a corporate offsite for a client, which was perhaps a bit corporate for my taste, but was facilitated by some very cool improv actors who had all sorts of pearls of improv wisdom. One of the groud rules of improv, apparently, is to take everything done by other actors as ‘offerings’ and go, ‘yes, and…’ as opposed to ‘that’s stupid!’ or just ignoring it, which are called ‘blocks.’ We all know blockers, don’t we, and boy who wants to hang out with them? ‘Yes’ allows creative flow, ‘no’ cuts it right off. The more we say ‘yes’ to the offers already on the table in our lives, the more will come into our life in unpredicatable ways. Equally, the more we refuse offers, the safer and more predictable, along with stuck and boring, it becomes. They called accepting offers ‘allowing yourself to be changed by others’, which I also think the world could use a little more of these days.

There is also that famous story about how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met in a show of hers in a gallery in London. She had a piece that required visitors to climb a ladder to read something on the ceiling. It was a framed piece of paper that said, “Yes.” Lennon recalled later, “So it was positive. I felt relieved.”

In light of this positive spirit, I said “yes” to a lovely Yeasayer tee-shirt, which I am happily wearing as I write this. Oh, and the music was great too. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/yeasayer

Oh dear. sigh. Has it really been so long? I know it must be bad when my father of all people says to me, “Kate, you’ve basically shut down visa diaries, haven’t you?” My father is not a man who is waiting for his latest dose of shopping gossip, so for him to notice – ouch.

Good thing Carter wrote just a little while ago, or else I would really only be hearing the lonely echo of my own tappity-taps on the keyboard. Good thing she wrote… except for the fact that she has just (and justly) shamed my more consumeristic and less socially conscious urges. How am I supposed to gloat about a new pair of shoes or sunglasses now that she has reduced them to nothing but a pile of toxic chemical inputs and permanent landfill outputs?? Ironically, I happen to be doing a project for a major cosmetics brand at work, and as a result have been buying all sorts of new make-up… not that I would tell you all about my peacock liquid eyeliner, or my new ‘deep throat’ blusher, because then I’d be shamed off the Internet – the shallow one who still bought lipgloss as the planet was burning…

Ok ok, I’m sure that’s a little extreme. I know that we are all making pained noises about the planet, while we semi-abashedly continue to buy take-out for every meal and forget to bring our eco-bags to Whole Foods. I am not the only one. But still, let’s have a think about less toxic lipgloss alternatives in the world of shopping and consumption. I mean honestly, there are a million and one ways to spend our money, and surely we can still shop and be decent global citizens at the same time.

Perhaps this is a good time to test out my theory that high design is good for the planet. Here’s why I think so: highly designed things are more expensive, so they create more wealth – more gdp, which is what the capitalists care about – with fewer natural resources. Plus, well designed and made products should also work better and be more pleasing to have around, so they generally raise satisfaction in using and owning them, and we will hang on to them longer. A truly classic design never goes out of style, and if for some reason it no longer fits into your home, it will be snapped up on eBay quicker than you can say “mid-century modern.”

For example, if I could afford it, I would buy this chair from Linge Roset:

I have seriously been coveting this chair for almost 10 years, since I first saw it in the swanky Istanbul house of some Eurotrash friends of mine. Since it costs, like, mega-bucks, a couple of years ago I bought a pair of knock-offs at Urban Outfitters. They have the same general shape, but are missing the extra excessive cotton padding and pillow-y down-y feel. Result: as soon as I can afford it, I will buy the Ligne Rosset original, and get rid of my knock-offs. Hopefully not just trash them, hopefully pass them along, but still. The point is that it would have just been better to buy the real, good object that I wanted to begin with, and then keep that forever.

So, how is my Post-Lipglossist theory shaping up? I admit that probably there is still some hard scholarship to be done, but basically I think Post-Lipglossism is just a fancy word for that age old wisdom: Two Zaras do not a Prada make…! er, um, I mean quality is better than quantity…