Recently by Karen

She must be bored with her singing-dancing-acting-fashiondesigning-babymaking-Ashtangayogapracticing lifestyle. Because she is now a film director too.

At this year's Berlinale Madonna debuted her directing skills in "Filth and Wisdom." I haven't seen it and I'm not sure I want to. (Except for the fact that Gogol Bordello is in it as themselves with Eugene Hutz in a lead role. That does intrigue me somewhat.)

Last weekend I had the opportunity to do makeup for a runway show (that's me applying makeup in the photo). It was for a new menswear line called Conference of Birds designed by stylist Andrew Holden.

ENK International, in collaboration with IMG (producer of the Fashion Week that takes place in Bryant park twice a year), decided to produce a men's fashion week in advance of Fashion Week for the very first time. Men's fashion often takes the backseat during Fashion Week so this was a way of bringing much-needed attention to menswear designers.

This was my first runway show. Doing a menswear show was a great way of getting my feet wet since the work doesn't involve the intricate makeup designs that so often appear in the women's shows. It's pretty much limited to redness, blemish, dryness, and shine control. Women's shows will definitely be more stressful because you often have to do difficult things (i.e. red lips, winged black eyeliner) very quickly. I can easily spend half an hour doing red lips on a model for a photo shoot, but for a fashion show you only have a couple of minutes. It will definitely be good practice for me. I'm usually such a perfectionist that I spend much longer than I need to on most jobs, so fashion shows will be a great way to teach me speed and accuracy.

I will be posting some of the runway photos to my professional site soon for those of you who want to see my work in action.

I have left you all anxiously awaiting the results of classes 2 and 3. But do not fret! I have not forgotten! We simply thought we had lost our digital camera somewhere between Bushwick and Massachusetts only to find that it was indeed in our computer bag this whole time! Even though Stephen had already checked there twice before! My suspicion is that the technology elves crept in to our apartment in the middle of the night and returned our digital camera so that I could keep blogging.

Click on the pictures to enlarge:

Day 2

I had my first portrait drawing class at Cooper Union tonight. I have only ever taken one art class (Intro to Drawing at NYU) and that was five years ago. I was nervous to start drawing again. I was worried about how my work would compare to the other students. I had to keep reminding myself that no matter how brilliant the other students might be, ultimately I am taking this class to improve my skills. It is about commitment to create.

For the next eight weeks I will draw on Monday nights for three hours. I would never do that alone in the comfort of my apartment. It is far more likely that I would come home from work and start doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen. These are, of course, important tasks in the interest of good hygiene and cooking excellence. They absolutely need to be done. And the sense of joy I feel whilst snuggling in my dryer-sheet-fresh-bedding or reaching for my favorite cooking knife (thanks Ron Popeil!) straight from the magnetic strip can be so satisfying! But all that progress and happiness dies so quickly. Clothes and dishes will always be dirty again. And washing them over and over again will certainly never elevate their maximal level of cleanliness, ultimately causing frustration and a bad attitude about cleaning.

So.

But.

If I keep drawing I will continue to get better. And there will always be room for more improvement.

So, in closing, drawing (much like cleaning) is bound to be an endless task, but promises to be much more fun and rewarding. I think it might even make me happier.

Oh, and if you're wondering, that drawing of me up above? (Yes, that's supposed to be me.) That is my attempt at a self portrait without looking in the mirror. It was our first assignment. I won't be illustrating New Yorker covers any time soon, but I am happy to say my walls will look less bare. Even if my life is dirtier because of it.

Violet Fire...a Nikola Tesla multi-media opera?

I don't know whether I should be impressed or appalled.

As it turns out, the mysterious mansion that is located on my old block on Gates Avenue in Bed-Stuy is called Gibbs Mansion. Probably owned by someone wealthy named Gibb in the 1850's, "the once-dilapidated mansion has been transformed into service-enriched housing for low-income community residents living with HIV/AIDS." Mystery solved!

Ah, reminiscing about Bed-Stuy architecture always brings me back to Broken Angel, featured in Dave Chappelle's Block Party for those of you who have never had the pleasure of living in Bed-Stuy. I've always wanted to see the documentary Broken Angel (1991) by Margot Niederland. Has anyone seen this?

When I was a teenager, practically no one outside of the garment industry and/or downtown LA knew about American Apparel. As I was interested in starting my own clothing line, my internet research landed me at the American Apparel website (it looked far different then than it does today). They produced sweatshop-free comfy cotton clothing in nice cuts. It was the first time that I saw a basic t-shirt that was really designed for a woman's body. I was thrilled and I wanted to try their products but it was for a wholesale market only at the time. Sure, you could find printed shirts in stores that used t-shirts manufactured by American Apparel, but I wasn't really into cotton baby tees with sassy sayings written across the chest in pink glittery letters such as, "I'm hotter than your girlfriend." Those shirts ruined the very things that I liked so much about the American Apparel garments in the first place: the lack of advertising (whether for the brand or for one's own ridiculous self image).

A few years ago American Apparel became a retail establishment. I remember when people first noticed the store and wondered what it was. I already knew. And I was really excited.

Simultaneously, American Apparel started to run advertisements in newspapers and magazines. The ads involved predominantly young women dressed in 1970's style cotton outfits (tube socks, terry cloth, running shorts, etc.) in what appeared to be polaroid snapshots taken in someone's home. I loved their advertising campaign. It didn't reek of the contrived overpolished content that I was used to seeing in advertisements. They felt unstaged and carefree.

As American Apparel has expanded and grown in popularity, their advertisements have become more prevalent and more racy. On their website they even have a section called Recent & Provocative Ads, which is hilarious because all of their ads are provocative. There is also a Models of American Apparel page where you can watch slideshows of all of their scantily clad models. (These are a must see.)

Am I the only one who wonders if all this T&A is really necessary? I thought their ad campaign was sexy to begin with. It seems to me that they are leaning toward the raunchy side at this point.

At work today I had a problem connecting to the scanner. The error message told me that my computer was "unable to locate the TWAIN source." This prompted me to ask our IT consultant what TWAIN meant. As he could explain only TWAIN's function but not what it stood for, I was forced to consult Wikipedia to satiate my hunger for knowledge.

As it turns out, TWAIN is an acronym for "Technology (or Toolkit or Thing) Without An (or Any) Intelligent (or Important or Interesting) Name". This is my new favorite acronym.

What's your favorite acronym? Is it a recursive acronym?

Whether or not you think graffiti qualifies as art or if it merits jail time, you should be appalled by the tactics of the NYPD Anti-Graffiti Initiative. The campaign's newest posters are all over the subways: bright yellow background with a graphic of handcuffs next to bold black letters that proclaim "VANDALISM IS A CRIME." That's not the worst part. The NYPD is offering a "reward up to $500 for the arrest and conviction of anyone who commits Graffiti Vandalism." (And yes, in case you were wondering, the G and V are actually capitalized on the poster. If capitalizing random words makes them more important, I would think that rape should be capitalized before graffiti vandalism ever is). Not to mention that the only other NYPD posters offering rewards are for information leading to the arrests of wanted criminals. But that's not the worst part either. The worst part is that the NYPD is asking citizens to "call 911 to report crimes in progress." Really? You want people to tie up 911 operators with phone calls reporting petty crimes when no one's life is actually being endangered? Why can't all graffiti informants call 311 whether the crime is in progress or not? If there is a dedicated graffiti clean up Task Force that has access to the 311 system "to track and monitor all graffiti complaints on a daily basis", why should anyone divert the city's emergency resources for something which doesn't really qualify as an emergency? God forbid that the latest victim of violent crime in NYC can't get help because the emergency operators are busy coordinating with the police to take down the latest tagger in the neighborhood.

The crafty people of Who's Alive and Who's Dead have taken the guesswork out of knowing which celebrities are alive and which ones are dead with their catalogue of actors, musicians, politicians, athletes, and other well-knowns.

How can you be sure if someone is alive or dead? Simply check under the 'Status' heading next to any celebrity's name to find out. Alternately, the adorable little RIP tombstone icon to the left of a name is a solid indication that the person in question is dead. And if you're wondering if your favorite celeb will be dying anytime soon, the 80+ icon will give you a quick handle on how much remaining life he/she might have left.

Just know that currently there are only 2,275 records. We can only hope that they will expand their database to include more celebrities for even more fun.

I have one tattoo in progress which I am rather fond of, but I refuse to have just any old tattoo artist finish it. (The tattoo parlor closest to my apartment in Bushwick seems to have a very different aesthetic than what I am going for.) If you're wondering why I've been walking around for three years with an unfinished tattoo, it is because I had my work done in Hamburg, Germany. And the reason that it wasn't completed while I was there? Because tattoos are fucking expensive. (Where do all of those tattoo-crazed hipsters get their cash for all that ink?) So, I'll have to go back to Hamburg, Germany to Tattoo Nouveau. The website is in German, but there's a handy icon of a British flag in the upper right corner that allows you to read the site in English. You should check out Robert's work, particularly page 3 of his portfolio. There you will find a meager portion of his awesome Alfonse Mucha work. Of course you will see some bad tattoos in the mix of things as you go through the gallery, but it's not the tattoo artist's fault that the clients have such bad taste. Don't even get me started on 9/11 memorial tattoos. One tattoo phenomenon that continues to baffle me involves portraiture of deceased loved ones. I have often seen men with a portrait of their dead child on their upper arm. I just imagine someone looking at one of those bad K-Mart portrait photos of their child that they had taken for a Christmas card the year before and thinking that inking his kid's face on his arm will keep the memories alive. I think it's more creepy than it is sweet. Speaking of sweet. Check out this guy's eyelid tattoos. I think I am speechless. Nothing could beat that. Other than finger mustache tattoos! I have learned this evening that this is somewhat of a trend that has taken the hipster world by storm. During my research on finger mustache tattoos, I stumbled across an image of a tattoo that was done completely in white ink at a tattoo parlor in Finland. (I am starting to think that all of the best tattoo parlors are in Europe.) I have always wondered if a white tattoo would be successful. Now we have proof. Perhaps I will be popping over to Lahti, Finland after my next trip to Hamburg, Germany. If you want to keep up on the current tattoo trends, you should check out InkedBlog and Needled. And, as an added bonus, you will come across many hot tattooed hipster girls. (Not that there's any shortage of that in NYC.)

I've been sitting in front of this computer for hours raking the internet for some makeup resource gem that I must keep missing. But no. There is no such gem.

These are the things that you will find if you search for makeup artistry on the internet:
1) Sephora (I know it's hard to believe, but most people who work there have never done makeup artistry prior to their employment at Sephora.)
2) web pages for bad makeup artists
3) makeup schools offering $10,000 courses that last a few weeks (I wish I was kidding.)
4) makeup forums filled with people who think they're makeup artists (But they're not.)

It's all a load of shit. Is there no place that provides real collaboration, advice, and networking for people who are talented and serious artists?

Don't even get me started on finding real makeup jobs. The only makeup jobs posted on the internet involve selling makeup to old ladies in department stores. It's like being a therapist in an old folks' home except you get the added bonus of convincing some shriveled old lady that spending hundreds of dollars on makeup will magically restore her youth to the likeness of a Hollywood starlet.

Then there's MAC. What once was a pro MUA line, turned into a consumer brand posing as a pro line. I don't mean to say that the pro artists who work for MAC don't do amazing things, because they do. And, in case you're wondering, MAC's pro artists don't work at their stores; they're the ones that get hired to do really well-paid shit for famous clients all around the world. It's just so depressing to see 45 year old women with their 12 year old daughters sporting the same porn-star-meets-drag-queen-meets-Long-Island-girl makeup when they leave the MAC stores together.

So no one seems to think that I will ever blog. Some even question my existence. But tonight is the night that I prove everyone wrong.

As it is Sunday night yet once again, I am pondering my devotion to my office job as Monday morning draws nearer and nearer. Last Monday I called in sick. I wasn't really sick, just sick of my job. Besides, who's to say that a job can't make you legitimately ill? In fact, my boss has caused me to roll my eyes with much more frequency than is natural. Surely that is a sign of some sort of fatal disease. Which means that I must flee from my job as quickly as possible. But then there's that whole money issue.

But I won't elaborate on that topic for fear of reiterating Stephen's points in his "I hate money" post. You may just refer to his post at this point to touch on my sentiments.

As for my grand plans for this blog, I'm not sure what my angle is going to be yet. Clearly, Sam is the music-blogger. Then there's Ryan who is the tech-blogger. Dylan is the pop-culture-blogger. And Stephen of course is the writer-blogger. What do you want to hear about? (I'm very good at complaining. Bitchy-blogger?)