Winter Blues

I was delighted to see this gentleman just I stopped off the Subway platform at Roosevelt Island. I photographed him last September, in a similarly colorful orange suit. He told me, " The young men, don't do what I do" and that he dresses up everyday and matches everything down to his socks and shoes. He has been doing this for over 35 years and has been featured in Esquire magazine. I took a small video of him above, and even though it is hard to hear what he is saying, you can sense the joy he takes in dressing from his great smile and charm.

Also Check out this Q&A I did with Forbes for some insight on why I started Advanced Style. CLICK HERE

On the Grid

[Image: 020 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

Dutch photographer Gerco de Ruijter recently got in touch with an extraordinary series of aerial photographs called Baumschule—some of which, he explains, were taken using a camera mounted on a fishing rod.

The series features "32 photographs of tree nurseries and grid forests in the Netherlands."

[Image: 010 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

"How abstract can a landscape become while remaining a landscape?" de Ruijter asked himself. "I tried to find the answer to this question during extended travels, by searching for a fully natural landscape, not manmade, and lacking any cultural presence. I found these 'natural-born' sites in New Mexico—deserts formed by rocks and sand and all forms of erosion. A barren landscape, too, with scarce vegetation."

[Image: 014 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

But this same research—a quest for a kind of inhuman authenticity of the surrounding terrain—eventually brought him to the hyper-artificial landscapes of tree farms and nurseries in the Netherlands.

[Image: 005 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

He thus set about visually documenting what he calls "the Dutch culturally defined landscape":

The Dutch landscape was efficiently drawn with functionality in mind on the drawing boards of urban and rural planners. Tulip fields, hothouses, land worked by farmers on tractors with their GPS handy.

As de Ruijter goes on to explain, even though the project seeks to document "an extremely defined cultural landscape, it is the abnormalities that jump into view."

[Image: 009 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

Returning to the original question—"How abstract can a landscape become while remaining a landscape?"—de Ruijter suggests that "all of these objects arranged to form rows create a new form of abstraction, not because of the image’s emptiness but, to the contrary, because of the presence of so many 'things,' and their patterns and rhythms," as if we could farm and harvest barcodes directly from the ground.

[Images: 007 and 032, all by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

Indeed, "I found an enormous variety of visual elements," he adds. "They show up not just because of the different seasons, but also through the stratification of the land. Trees, soil, holes. The combination of a tight grid and the camera’s central perspective results in a distinct depth, while on a cloudy day fore and background may slide into each other."

[Image: 002 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

To take these photos, de Ruijter used both kite photography and even "a long fishing rod."

He describes how the process worked: "On top of this rod is a 2.5" x 2.5" camera with a wide-angle lens. A self-timer is adjusted to give me enough time to telescope the rod and manoeuver the camera above the subject. The frame of the image begins in front of my own shoes and measures roughly 30' x 30'."

[Image: 001 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

It is fascinating to see, though, when the arboreal vitality of the trees overcomes the grid they're planted in, to become fractally expressive of a different formal logic, one that exceeds any agricultural formatting of the landscape.

[Image: 028 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist].

I should also point out that I recently found some great views of a tree farm on Google Maps, a strangely dot-matrix landscape that appears more cryptographic than botanical—an emergent garden of living QR codes.

[Image: 008 by Gerco de Ruijter, 28" x 28", from Baumschule (2008-2010), courtesy of the artist, a great example of how the "fore and background may slide into each other," as the photographer describes it].

Gerco de Ruijter's Baumschule series is currently on display in its entirety at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, where it opened last week. It closes on April 10.

Choke Points and Kill Switches

[Image: Courtesy of Terremark, via the Atlantic].

Andrew Blum has a short piece up at the Atlantic today about the geography of "internet choke points," and the threat of a "kill switch" that would allow countries (like Egypt) to turn off the internet on a national scale.

After all, Blum writes, "it's worth remembering that the Internet is a physical network," with physical vulnerabilities. "It matters who controls the nodes." Indeed, he adds, "what's often forgotten is that those networks actually have to physically connect—one router to another—often through something as simple and tangible as a yellow-jacketed fiber-optic cable. It's safe to suspect a network engineer in Egypt had a few of them dangling in his hands last night.

Blum specifically refers to a high-security building in Miami owned by Terremark; it is "the physical meeting point for more than 160 networks from around the world," and thus just one example of what Blum calls an internet "choke point." These international networks "meet there because of the building's excellent security, its redundant power systems, and its thick concrete walls, designed to survive a category 5 hurricane. But above all, they meet there because the building is 'carrier-neutral.' It's a Switzerland of the Internet, an unallied territory where competing networks can connect to each other."

But, as he points out, this neutrality is by no means guaranteed—and is even now subject to change.

Landscape Futures Super-Media

[Image: For a project at the Bartlett School of Architecture's Unit 11, presented and discussed at the Landscape Futures Super-Workshop, Rina Kukaj explored a series of aerial landscapes—a "purification blanket"—that would act as a distributed atmospheric filter for the city].

Two write-ups of the Landscape Futures Super-Workshop have appeared. In one, Nate Berg, writing for Domus, refers to what he calls "a new shared and experimental approach to curating" that helped to animate the super-workshop's various events. In another, Friends of the Pleistocene describe their burgeoning research project into the debris basins on the edge of the city, a "long-term project to map their locations and create a typology of their forms," which kicked off during the super-workshop.

Each debris basin "exists as a 'signaling device,'” they write.

Each announces that geologic change unfolds here, right here, in continuous and unpredictable ways. Each basin also exemplifies the best human attempt to build, plan for and contain the potentially uncontainable: the material reality of geologic time and force. When flowing debris activates these basins, an incredible shape-shifting occurs: the force and materiality of geologic time actually become perceivable. Solid becomes liquid, the far becomes near, virtual becomes actual, top becomes bottom, and a precarious equilibrium loses its poise as the habitable instantly becomes uninhabitable.

They cite the classic essay, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains,” also previously mentioned here on BLDGBLOG, where write John McPhee introduces us to the terrestrial instability of the ground beneath and around greater Los Angeles. In the process, he specifically describes the often bizarre spatial defenses through which houses can survive in the fallout paths of rockslides, debris slugs, and other forms of geologic "mass wasting."

[Image: Landscape Futures Super-Workshop students visit a debris dam at the top of Pine Cone Road].

The outermost suburbs of L.A. have reached what McPhee calls the “real-estate line of maximum advance” against the dark bulk of the San Gabriels—a range “divided by faults, defined by faults, and framed by them.” The San Gabriels “are nearly twice as high as Mt. Katahdin or Mt. Washington,” he points out, “and are much closer to the sea. From base platform to summit, the San Gabriels are three thousand feet higher than the Rockies.” However, they are also “disintegrating at a rate that is also among the fastest in the world.”

The San Gabriels produce, in the process, extraordinary rockslides: “On the average, about seven tons disappear from each acre each year—coming off the mountains and heading for town.” These slides are known as debris slugs, and they “amass in stream valleys and more or less resemble fresh concrete. They consist of water mixed with a good deal of solid material, most of which is above sand size. Some of it is Chevrolet size.” Debris slugs have been known to contain “propane tanks, outbuildings, picnic tables, canyon live oaks, alders, sycamores, cottonwoods, a Lincoln Continental, an Oldsmobile, and countless boulders five feet thick.” And all of it comes crashing down—frequently going right through people’s houses.

[Image: The debris dam & basin at the strikingly beautiful Deukmejian Wilderness Park].

In the face of “this heaving violence of wet cement,” as McPhee describes it, new architectural techniques have become urgently necessary. “At least one family,” for instance, “has experienced so many debris flows coming through their back yard that they long ago installed overhead doors in the rear end of their built-in garage. To guide the flows, they put deflection walls in their back yard. Now when the boulders come they open both ends of their garage, and the debris goes through to the street.” The house becomes a mechanism through which mobile geology violently flows.

Mazes of street barriers, deflection walls, overhead doors, feeder channels, concrete crib structures—these emerging typologies are not just limited to the domestic world. The whole city’s in on it. Los Angeles County “began digging pits to catch debris,” McPhee explains, surrounding itself with a necklace of voids in order to counteract an earth that moves.

The city’s debris pits are “quarries, in a sense, but exceedingly bizarre quarries, in that the rock [is] meant to come to them.” They are strange attractors, sometimes “ten times as large as the largest pyramid at Giza.”

[Image: Deflection walls protect houses not from terrorist attack or from runaway automobiles, but from geology: rocks spalling off the nearby hills and rolling through the neighborhood; photo by Friends of the Pleistocene].

Easily one of the most fascinating aspects of our field trip was seeing the sheer quantity of concrete deflection walls—aka Jersey barriers—that have come to line whole streets and front yards in these mountainous neighborhoods.

Objects now more popularly associated with anti-terror measures, these barriers are actually there to protect Los Angeles residents from geology. In many cases, private homes are all but invisible behind monolithic concrete barriers, surely begging a more elegant—not to mention permanent—architectural solution.

Entire, gently curving suburban roadway networks have thus been turned into emergency deflection labyrinths, extending the geometric logic of the debris basins above them.

In any case, I look forward to the results of Friends of the Pleistocene's research, and their post is worth reading in full.

More Beauty and Style Secrets from Stylish 60 Somethings

With this winter weather I thought it would be a good time to post beauty and style secrets from two more stylish 60 somethings. If you have been following Advanced Style for a while now, you have probably come across Debra Rapoport and Tziporah Salamon. Here are their responses to the questions along with some video inspiration as well.

[Tziporah Salamon]

1. How old are you? What are your concerns with your appearance as you get older. What is your attitude towards aging?
I AM 60 YEARS OLD. MY CONCERNS ABOUT MY APPEARANCE ARE THE SAME AS THEY ALWAYS WERE: TO LOOK MY BEST, TO LOOK HEALTHY AND RADIANT, TO REMAIN FIT AND LEAN AND TONED AND IN SHAPE, TO FEEL MY BEST. A WOMAN IS LIKE FINE WINE - ONLY GETS BETTER WITH TIME.
2.How do you take care of your skin, keep it looking healthy. Are you worried about wrinkles and aging skin?

I'VE ALWAYS USED GOOD PRODUCTS THAT I BELIEVE IN. MAINLY ORGANIC AND ALL-NATURAL. OF COURSE, I SEE THE WRINKLES AND MY SKIN AGING AND CHANGING. AND I GET A TWINGE OF REGRET OR ALARM- FOR A MINUTE. THEN I GO ON ABOUT MY BUSINESS AND FORGET ABOUT IT.

3. How do you keep your hair looking healthy. Do you color your hair? What is your thoughts on gray hair?

I THINK IT ALL STARTS WITH DIET AND TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF. I EAT A SIMPLE DIET OF ORGANIC VEGETABLES, GRAINS, BEANS, TOFU, SEAWEED, FRUIT AND FISH. I BIKE. I RUN. I DANCE.

I MOVE. I STAY ACTIVE AND INTERESTED AND PURSUE WHAT I LOVE. NO, I DON'T COLOR MY HAIR. I'VE BEEN LUCKY THAT IT'S ONLY NOW STARTING TO TURN GREY. AND I THINK I WILL PROBABLY NOT COLOR IT - I LIKE THE WAY GREY HAIR LOOKS ON SOME WOMEN AND I HOPE I AM ONE OF THOSE WOMEN. I AM A PERFECTIONIST ABOUT THE CUT AND I GO TO THIS INCREDIBLE HAIRDRESSER , CHUCK CITRIN, WHO KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO CUT IT AND DOES A GREAT JOB EVERY TIME.

4.How has your style changed as you have gotten older. Do you feel more free to experiment with style. How do you get out of a style rut?

I'VE ALWAYS HAD A STRONG SENSE OF STYLE. I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN WHAT LOOKS BEST ON ME AND I'VE ALWAYS BEAT TO MY OWN DRUM. IT'S BEEN THE ONE CONSTANT THROUGHOUT MY LIFE.

HAVING GROWN UP TO INCREDIBLY GIFTED PARENTS WHO MADE ALL MY CLOTHES, I WAS THE BEST DRESSED GIRL IN TOWN FROM DAY ONE. I STILL PLAY DRESS UP EVERYDAY. I STILL GET A THRILL OUT OF PUTTING TOGETHER OUTFITS. I STILL REJOICE WHEN I FIND SOMETHING I LOVE THAT SETS MY HEART ON FIRE.

5.Any advice you would give to others who are concerned with aging…

EMBRACE IT! CELEBRATE LIFE AND THE YEARS THAT YOU GET TO LIVE IT.

I LOOK AT GEORGIA O'KEEFE AS MY STYLE INSPIRATION. SHE WAS STUNNING AS A YOUNG WOMAN. AND SHE WAS GORGEOUS AS AN OLD WOMAN - WRINKLES AND ALL. WHAT REFINEMENT!

WHAT BEAUTY! WHAT ELEGANCE!

Debra Rapoport

Here are Debra Rapoport's responses. Debra is a healer and reflexologist, feel free to email with any health and style concerns at Debrathenutritionista@gmail.com .


1.I am 65 plus...and you can't help wondering why your skin is no longer youthful. So I do the best I can and allow myself to accept what I can't change. I do not want to make any additions or changes to my face/skin.Economically, it is not my priority.

I inherited pretty good skin from my mother.

I have never spent time in the sun but skin changes as the collagen decreases.

Since I have never been a beach person I don't worry about how I look in a bathing suit. I look good in clothes and I love to be dressed My attitude towards aging is to go gracefully and have as much fun as you can. It can't be avoided.

2.I feel very youthful as I am health and have to aches or pains.

I care for my skin with very few commercial product. I cleans and moisturize mainly with olive oil, coconut oil or jojoba oil. I I use product I go for Weleda or Dr. Hauschka. Also Pratima which are very pure Ayurvedic products sold on line or from a location on Green St. NYC .

I have worn make up since I am very young and I think it does protect the skin but I do clean my skin at night. I have never been a sun worshipper so have been protected from dangerous rays since very young. My mother knew back then in the late 40's.

I don't like the wrinkles but dislike the sagging skin more. I have just accepted it. YOGA helps too; doing inversions and stretching and strengthening the facial muscles.

As the say "better to smile than to frown" .

3.I do color my hair for years. I like grey hair if it is healthy. I have considered growing mine out because I think I am almost ALL white...so I add the pink for fun. Perhaps soon I will go white.

I keep hair short...have almost always had short hair. The hair gets finer and softer with age so short is better, for me.

I use simple shampoos, much product, different brands, always trying something new but also apply coconut oil or olive oil for shine and to feed the hair.

4.I have always dressed up. I find the seasons have more influence than age. In winter it is harder to wear certain things because you are usually hidden under coats. So I allow the coat/hats/scarves be the statement.

I may dress a bit more "grown up" now because I want to dress to suit myself but I don't want to look foolish. I often will wear youthful things such as short skits but done properly for my age and body type. It is very important to address your body type and know what looks good on you. Really look at yourself and don't judge yourself harshly, but give a good look.

5.To help get out of a rut try thrifting. I like to THRIFT because I will try things on that I may not see or bother with in a store. But thrifting at the right price, I can take a chance, try to make something work, alter it or pass it on.

Try colors you ordinarily wouldn't wear. Even if you just do it as an accessory; not an entire garment. Try accessories you would not normally wear...like a hat, a belt. I know as we get older belts are often a problem.

I think being active and involved allows us to feel better about ourselves. Doing regular exercise keeps us aware of our body and thus feel better. Eating well and simply is very important as we advance in order to maintain our health. This allows us to physically feel well, have mental acuity and balanced energy.

Getting some form of regular body work is excellent for keeping well, balanced and fit.

Find what is fun and go for it. Dressing up everyday gives us a focus for each day. It can be simple but feel good and enjoy the process.

Nest Factory

[Image: A swiftlet nesting house in Thailand; photo by Alexander S. Heitkamp, courtesy of Wikipedia].

"This drab, windowless concrete facade does not conceal an electricity substation, data servers, or a high security detention center," Nicola Twilley writes over at GOOD. It is, instead, a living birds' nest factory, an emerging building type that has "spread across Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and even Cambodia, towering above traditional one-story structures and transforming the urban landscape." Their purpose? To foster the production of swiftlet nests, used in Chinese bird's nest soup.

Nicola explains that these nest farms are, in effect, surrogate geological formations: "the buildings are intended to mimic caves," she writes, where the swiftlets would normally live, "with a carefully spaced matrix of wooden rafters replacing the ledges and crannies of a cave ceiling, and detailed attention paid to internal temperature, humidity, and even sound."

They are, in effect, part of what could be called a saliva industry, as the nests are made from swiftlet saliva. A spitshop, say, instead of a sweatshop. Mechanize this one step further, and full-scale 3D saliva-printing might not be far off...

Machine Vitrine

[Image: The spidery and self-supporting Cavity Mechanism #4 w/ Glass Dome by Dan Grayber, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

Artist Dan Grayber has a new show on display in Oakland, at Johansson Projects. It features an ingenious collection of spring-loaded devices that play on ideas of architecture, tension, mechanics, and space.

[Image: Cavity Mechanism #2 w/ Glass Dome by Dan Grayber, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

They are more like booby traps—their only spatial purpose to support themselves in states of high tension—or re-tuned Vitruvian readymades sealed in glass.

[Image: Cavity Mechanism #6 w/ Glass Dome by Dan Grayber, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

Grayber's Cavity Mechanism #6 w/ Glass Dome, for instance, "is a pair of spring loaded mechanisms that wedge themselves into the inside of a cavity (the glass dome in this case), suspending themselves. Cable running between pair maintains tension on both mechanisms. If cable were to fail, both mechanisms would fall."

[Images: (top) Cavity Mechanism #5 w/ Glass Dome; (middle and bottom) Cavity Mechanism #3 w/ Glass Dome; all by Dan Grayber, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

As the gallery describes his work, "Dan Grayber isolates machinery from its usual role of fulfilling human needs through placing it in an eternal mode of self-perpetuation. His safety-orange powder coated objects endlessly assure their survival through completing the simple and essential task of holding oneself up. These sculptures, which create problems as they solve them, exude a sovereign elegance, the dignity of not having to justify themselves to an outside source."

[Image: Untitled (fishbowl) Mechanism by Dan Grayber, courtesy of the artist].

This notion of a "sovereignty" of the object is a compelling one: the aloof, isolated, self-supporting nature of these pieces is done away with utterly the instant they are pulled from their glass domes.

Forced out of what could be called the tautology of the dome—a precise space of limitations in which each mechanism can perform itself endlessly—these arachnid-like devices become functionally useless.

They become not sovereign at all, but parasites robbed of their original, enabling context.

[Image: Column Mechanism #1 by Dan Grayber, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

An example of Grayber's experiments with this latter spatial condition is Column Mechanism #1.

Removed from the glass vitrine and installed directly on a concrete wall, it "consists of central tensioning mechanisms and eight 'satellite' contact objects, in pairs. Tension created from central mechanism is run through pulleys on each pair of 'satellite' objects, pulling them together, creating tension that squeezes column and supports central piece."

Similarly, the "centrally located springs" of Drywall Mechanism #2 "use bicycle brake lines to carry tension of springs to the outer mechanisms. Outer mechanisms have points that when tensioned simultaneously gently dig into wall surface."

[Images: Drywall Mechanism #2 by Dan Grayber, courtesy of the artist].

These latter examples also raise the intriguing possibility of a Dan Grayber installation disguised as everyday construction or architectural testing equipment: devices attached to drywall and concrete, like something straight out of a box from Home Depot. Until you notice the intricate systems of bike cables and tension lines, and the strangely functionless beauty of the forms poised just slightly on the right side of snapping...

[Image: Cavity Mechanism #1 w/ Glass Dome by Dan Grayber, courtesy of the artist].

The gallery will be hosting an opening reception on February 4, in case you're in Oakland and want to stop by; tell them you read about it on BLDGBLOG.

How Do You Feel About Aging? Secrets From Ladies In Their 60s

I asked a group of women in their 60s, five questions dealing with aging, beauty and style. I usually give tips from ladies in their 80s and 90s, so it was interesting to hear the perspective of women who are just beginning to think about how aging affects their attitude and appearance. Here are the questions I asked, feel free to respond with your own answers in the comments section of the post.

1. How old are you? What are your concerns with your appearance as you get older. What is your attitude towards aging?

2.How do you take care of your skin, keep it looking healthy. Are you worried about wrinkles and aging skin?

3. How do you keep your hair looking healthy. Do you color your hair? What is your thoughts on gray hair?

4.How has your style changed as you have gotten older. Do you feel more free to experiment with style. How do you get out of a style rut?

5.Any advice you would give to others who are concerned with aging…

Anything else you ‘d like to add?

I will post the rest of the responses next week, for now enjoy these two hat loving ladies!

[Judith Boyd of The Style Crone]

1. I am 67 years old and most of the time I feel positive about aging. I feel fortunate to be alive as I have lost several dear friends over the past few years. Aware of my mortality and loss, I am grateful for this time of life. At times I am bothered by the changes that aging brings, as it is difficult not to internalize our culture's sometimes negative perceptions of older people. However, I believe that we are changing these perceptions so that a 20 year old and an 80 year old are both viewed as beautiful, just different. Ilona on Advanced Style presents the perfect role model for all of us to emulate. Loving and accepting myself is the first step in this process. My life is filled with vibrant people and experiences, so worrying about what aging brings does not serve me. I practice consciously focusing on creativity and expressing myself in the present.

2. I have a very healthy lifestyle. I believe my skin reflects my health in general, so I focus on taking care of myself. I eat a plant based diet and drink lots of water. I am devoted to yoga, and do something physical every day. I also meditate, practice mindfulness and focus on gratitude. All of this contributes to my health, which includes my skin. I use relatively inexpensive/natural products and have a routine day and night to clean and moisturize my skin. Our culture is youth obsessed, so it's difficult to avoid fear with aging. But as I mentioned above, worrying doesn't improve my appearance or my enjoyment of life.

3. My hair is short and I have it cut once per month. My hair has been cut to wear with hats since the early 80's, as I wear a chapeau every day and feel naked without my hat companion for the day. Again, my hair reflects my overall health, so that is always my focus. I color my hair, and at times I am tempted to go grey. Especially when I see Jenny in all her glory on Advanced Style. But for now, I'm happy with my red hair and who knows what I will do in the future. I love that we can support, celebrate and appreciate the choices of all.

4. As I've gotten older I have become more creative and more focused on self expression. I think that since I don't work full time in the health care industry at this point in my life, I can explore possibilities and stretch, expand, take risks. I have been known to change jobs when 'hat wearing' wasn't appreciated in the work environment. I wanted a 'hat friendly' environment and still do. Now I also desire a 'crone friendly' environment. So self expression has been a part of my life for a long time, and I am not fearful of experimenting with style. At this time I feel more freedom to do so without the confines of my job. My children are adults, so I can focus on myself and my desires to a larger degree. The internet provides a diversity of ideas from across the globe, and inspiration can be found everywhere.

5. I understand concern for aging and it's difficult to avoid. However, I would rather explore and enjoy all the possibilities available during this gift, this time of life, this world of creativity and potential. For today is all that we have and we have a choice as to how we spend our time and our resources. First of all, be compassionate with yourself and others and flow to the next best and wonderful experience that presents itself. I also love meeting new and interesting people from diverse backgrounds. Is there a better way to learn and grow? As long as I am healthy, aging is a fascinating adventure.

Thank you for this opportunity to express myself!

How old are you?

67

What are your concerns with your appearance as you get older.

Nora Ephron said it best. "I feel bad about my neck."

What is your attitude towards aging?

We have a detente.

2.How do you take care of your skin, keep it looking healthy?

I have had the same regimen since the 1970s.

1. I clean my face with Pond's Cold Cream. That get's the dirt out.

2. I wash with Clinique Mild Facial Soap in the bar form. It's rich and creamy. Then I rinse about 5 times.

3. I apply Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion.

4. I always use sun block and hats to keep the sun off my face.

Are you worried about wrinkles and aging skin?

I'm not sitting around chewing my fingernails over it. That would make my fingernails look old.

3. How do you keep your hair looking healthy.

I rinse with Guinness Stout which I have on tap -- and I go to a very good salon.

Do you color your hair?

Only my hairdresser knows for sure.

What is your thoughts on gray hair?

It looks good on other women.

4.How has your style changed as you have gotten older.

I have always had a sense of style, but now I know I have a sense of style.

Do you feel more free to experiment with style.

Yes, now I can wear funny things on my head.

How do you get out of a style rut?

I don't do ruts.

5.Any advice you would give to others who are concerned with aging…

Exercise, eat right, take care of your skin and hair and don't wear old-lady pants with elastic waist bands.

Anything else you ‘d like to add?

The most important thing to maintain is a sense of humor.

A Pair Of Good Gloves

One of my favorite things about looking through my grandma's drawers as a kid was sorting through her old gloves. Gloves can make a statement by adding a hint of color,elegance, and fun to an outfit.Check out the ladies above. What is your favorite pair?

Advanced Style On The Subject Of Bullying

[Philip in inspired clothing]

The other day I received an email from Philip,in South Carolina, on the subject of being teased and bullied for dressing unconventionally. I had just had a conversation with some of my "Advanced Style" ladies about this, so it was the perfect time to reflect on this important and especially relevant issue. I usually keep the blog pretty light but I wanted to share Philip's email and my response with all of you and give you the opportunity to share your thoughts . Please join the conversation by commenting below. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Philip writes:
Dear Ari and Advanced Style Women,

I am a young gay male in my 20s currently living in South Carolina. Since I was young I have loved to express myself and I learned about style from my grandmother. She would wear large jewelry and dresses with bold patterns on them. Every since I was young I have been teased on picked on for the way I express myself through my clothing and style. What advice would you give to someone who is being teased or laughed at by people daily for the way they dress? How do you deal with the negativity? 

Philip 

Columbia, South Carolina 

Hi Philip,

Thanks so much for writing in. I have had the same experience as you, digging in my grandparent's wardrobe and wearing colorful and patterned shirts throughout middle school and junior high. There was a moment in High School where I toned down my style, but I wish I had kept on expressing myself. I have learned a lot from the ladies that I meet In New York. They sometimes get laughed and stared at, but they continue to dress up ad ignore the negativity, in fact 90 year old Ilona responds, by saying, " I did this for you, to make you smile." 

I was teased in High School but had the support of a creative group of friends and a wonderful mom and grandmother. If you don't feel comfortable dressing up how you want, take small steps towards expressing these ideas. I used to wear fun hats, like my grandfather's fishing hats and vests. Do what makes you feel comfortable and know that you will have your whole life to dress up. Sometimes I would wear something a bit more conservative but wear a colorful pair of socks. Remember you can dress up at home, make videos, start a blog and share your style with others.

It is important to express yourself and dressing up is only one facet of the creative process. If the bullying gets too much, put your ideas to paper, take photos. I  used to draw pictures of extravagant ladies and it would help to get my ideas out. Remember that there are many people like you and try and connect to them. Stay confident and remain an individual. It is your individuality that will take you places. It definitely gets easier as you get older and stay true to yourself. 

Best,

Ari Seth Cohen

Ari,

Your reply really means a lot to me. I keep reading it over and over. Today I went to school feeling a bit paranoid, but I kept thinking about what one of your amazing lady friends said once, "at least once they walk by you and laugh at you they will remember you. you will had made an impact." I would love to hear what the ladies have to say about my issue, and I'm sure many other young peoples same issue. You can include my name if you would like.  Your blog has become a huge inspiration for me. I am thankful that you are finding these ladies and I'm thankful for these ladies bravery and fearlessness to live their lives so boldly. 

Thanks Again...

Philip 


Some insight from the ladies...

Irene

The other day I had tea with the lovely lady above. Irene and I met on the bus after I asked if I could take her photo. She has great style and a wonderful outlook on life. She writes on her website, "In another life I would be like an Argentine Tango dancer. I'm still gearing up for my Grand Finale in this one." Advanced Style is an attitude. The people I meet are fighters. They continue to challenge themselves and  push past obstacles that come their way.

Irene wrote in to share these words with all the Advanced Stylers:

TO ADVANCEDSTYLERS

 I realize that I am preaching to the choir by addressing these comments to Ari’s Girls – after all, we are writing a how-to manual (documented lovingly by Ari) for our contemporaries, present day boomers & beyond.Leaving youth for middle years is tough. What can possibly compensate for having been Belle of the Ball?

 Entering advanced years is tougher, yet can be softened by clarity that sometimes comes only with age. Having been there, done that, I would like to share some basic stuff born of experience:

 Could this transition be regarded as an adventure rather that a struggle? Metaphors for fighting are of limited value when faced with a losing battle.

 GUIDELINES FOR WOMEN OF WISDOM (WOWs)

 AUTHENTICITY

 We are like snowflakes – uniquely exquisite and unique – one-of-a kind divine creations

 INTEGRITY

 To thy highest self be true

 BEAUTY

 Since the eyes mirror the soul, where else is beauty but in the eyes of the beholder?

 WIT

 Many a Hollywood star or historical icon continues to bewitch and bedazzle her public!

Think Bette Davis. Think Martha Graham. Think Cleopatra.

 THANK YOU - IRENE

Spaces of Food #5: Madeira Odorless Fish Market and the Tempelhof Ministry of Food

With just a few more hours left in GOOD's weeklong festival of food-writing, I thought I'd throw one more post out there: two projects by Lik San Chan.

[Image: From the Madeira Odorless Fish Market by Lik San Chan].

The first is the Madeira Odorless Fish Market, from 2006.

Camara de Lobos, Madeira, Chan explains, "is a fishing village located 10km west of the capital, Funchal. The fishing community is quickly dwindling into poverty as Funchal provides its own facilities for fish vending businesses. Camara de Lobos remains the only place in the world where the Black Scabbard fish industry can be self sustained, yet the fishermen still receive second hand pay for their catch as most of it is sold in Funchal."

[Image: Two more sections from the Madeira Odorless Fish Market by Lik San Chan].

Accordingly, the Odorless Fish Market "provides a place where their catch can be sold directly. The programme consists of a fish market, smokery, fish cookery school cum restaurant run by the fishermen community. Its architecture is technically driven to control Smell, Ventilation and Cooling, to provide a building with a greatly reduced smell of fish. The heart of the architecture is a solar chimney system which uses the consistent madeiran sun to, ironically, ventilate/cool the building."

It is a spatially self-deodorizing architecture of thermal air control.

The second of Chan's projects that I want to look at quickly here is the so-called Tempelhof Ministry of Food, from 2010.

[Image: From the Tempelhof Ministry of Food by Lik San Chan].

"Tempelhof Ministry of Food is a bread and fish production community situated on the old airfield of Tempelhof Airport," Chan writes.

More specifically, "the proposal is a joint venture between Edeka and the Berlin State, seeking to help Berlin's current problems of unemployment and social disparity." Local residents can produce their own food, cultivating "a spirit of co-existence and community, which they bring back to other Berliners."

[Image: From the Tempelhof Ministry of Food by Lik San Chan].

Of course, it takes more than simply activating a vegetation layer in Photoshop to create a realistic urban food infrastructure, but the technical realization of the images—as well as the historic context of the Berlin Airlift, when Tempelhof effectively became an emergency food-distribution center—make it interesting enough for a quick look.

[Images: From the Tempelhof Ministry of Food by Lik San Chan].

Indeed, as much as I like the narrative background for the Tempelhof project, it's simply too hard to tell if there is more to the proposal's otherwise impressive imagery to suggest a financially realistic and socially sustainable intervention into Berlin's existing systems of urban food production.

[Image: From the Tempelhof Ministry of Food by Lik San Chan].

Put another way, it's one thing to create, analyze, or even editorially promote architectural projects as narrative ideas—that is, as scenario plans for future landscapes—but it's another thing to look at whether or not such proposals do, in fact, operate successfully as solutions to the problems they highlight.

In any case, the spatial and atmospheric implications of food are foregrounded by both projects, though it is the deliberately complicated, Rube Goldberg-like sectional ventilation chambers seen in the Odorless Fish Market that seem most worthy of further exploration.

—Spaces of Food #5: Madeira Odorless Fish Market and the Tempelhof Ministry of Food
—Spaces of Food #4: Betel Nut Beauties
—Spaces of Food #3: The Mushroom Tunnel of Mittagong
—Spaces of Food #2: Inflatable Greenhouses on the Moon
—Spaces of Food #1: Agriculture On-The-Go and the Reformatting of the Planet