Looking Sharp!

Via The Moment, Advanced Style is similar to the Sartorialist or Face Hunter but everyone pictured is a senior citizen.  I thought it was sort of gimmicky until I actually saw the pictures- these people look fabulous.  And there's a little more variety to their outfits than the man in a suit with the cuffs rolled up/fashion editor in four inch heels at Sartorialist, although there's still a healthy dose of pocket squares.

Inside Out

When I first saw the premise of this FT blog I was taken aback- Florida prisons let inmates send email? Even if he  is "as innocent of my charge of insider dealing as my beautiful two-year-old triplets ", that's pretty laid back for minimum security! Of course, the joke was on me.


FT: Notes from Inside

My Parents Were Awesome

There's no lack of platforms from which to dispense the idea that Baby Boomers were hipper and more passionate than we are or ever will be; and that nothing truly great had been created in pop culture before their coming of age or will ever be created again now that they've been weighed down with mortgages and children.  Sometimes those very children don't seem to have much interest in proving them wrong.  Case in point: My Parents Were Awesome, featuring pictures of young people in bell bottoms and long vests who are now old people.  A few pictures date back to the pre-LBJ era but not enough for a full My Grandparents Were Awesome site, which I think is a shame.  I'd start it myself if I could track down the lost picture of my paternal grandmother, already well into her fifties in said picture wearing cat-eye glasses and a violently patterned dress, dancing with a man who was not my grandfather and who appeared to be feeling her up.  

How to write badly well

It's not hard to be a mediocre writer; but to be truly awful requires some boldness of spirit.

How to Write Badly Well

Hedcuts

Blogger's Blog of Today is by a woman who draws the pen and ink illustrations in the Wall Street Journal. It's interesting to read her take on a craft that seems to be vanishing in the print world. Here she digs up a drawing of Josip Broz Tito, noting the irony that she drew him many times as a child in the former Yugoslavia and 'years later I get to draw him for the American "voice of capitalism"'.

HEDCUTS

Salty

Was Life Advice from Old People was too heart-warming for you? Shit My Dad Says, the Twitter feed by a guy who lives with his elderly father, was almost able to break my resolve to avoid a Twitter account as long as possible. But I resisted so I can only pass on my favorite of the choice tidbits that made it into other blogs:

My flight lands at 9:30 on Sunday...You want to watch what? What the fuck is mad men? I'm a mad man if you don't pick me the hell up.

Ad Broad: How to get a book deal in 27 days

I haven't been the same since I watched "Helvetica"

I almost missed Tuesday's Blog of Note and part of me wishes I had, because now when I look into the future I see myself falling down a rabbit hole and suddenly realizing I've spent 45 minutes looking at pictures of juiceboxes. I love this calendar!

Packaging of the World

Tell me what to do

"Ask for money and people give you advice, ask for advice and people give you money." If that's true, this guy's website of videos with Mr. Miyagi-like snippets of wisdom from elderly people he encounters must be a real gravy train. I have to say, my grandfather always has good advice- about money, which fabrics are appropriate for which latitude and season, and which beer has the most alcohol and is therefore the most cost effective- and while these clips are charming, I have yet to find any that are so practical.

Life Advice from Old People

Celebrating average

A lot of people think the lives of either themselves or their one friend who's so crazy could make an entertaining television show. There have been times in my life where I've felt like I stumbled into a bit part on one- both of the Aaron Sorkin (I really did trot behind my boss carrying lots of papers and being mildly insubordinate) and Aaron Spelling variety (Girl in Library #3). But if there was a show about my life, it would be sponsored by Fage Yogurt and Netflix. And you know what? I revel in it. These people do too. Here's a representative entry:

Today, while walking to the car, I was disappointed when one of my friends called shotgun before me. The disappointment quickly subsided when I realized that it was my car and I was driving. MLIA

My Life is Average

No more than a Long Islander's

When I saw the title of today's Blogs of Note, I assumed it was one of those stickler blogs where people can post photos of egregiously mispunctuated signs or gently rib their immigrant parents. Instead it's a Japanese guy who wants your help pointing out mistakes in short accounts of his day that he writes in English to practice. He definitely seems like a bit of a nerd but his thoughts are sort of endearing:

A plane flew overhead. I looked up it. I found the moon.

And also

I worked overtime too late for a long time. I came home at 22:30.
I have decided to eat nothing after 22 o'clock. It's my rule.
But, drinking is out of the rule.

So, today's supper was beer.

Is My English Strange?