Tonight I want to tell you about one of my favorite contemporary artists, Maira Kalman. In addition to works like the one shown above, you may recognize her famous “newyorkistan” cover for the New Yorker. 
Watching your pennies? Aren't we all ...
So, it’s a recession. Huge markdowns and deals abound – if you are one of the lucky souls with any disposable income at all, take a look at the below (more after the jump!):
Undersea Volcano Explosion. Photo by Dana Stephenson/Getty Images
What you’re looking at is the eruption of an underwater volcano in the South Pacific, near the island of Tonga. The explosion, on March 19th, sent plumes of smoke, ash, and steam up to 100M into the air, but posed no danger to nearby island residents.
When was the last time you saw an image like this? More photos of the event can be found at The Big Picture, a photo blog by boston.com. If you’ve never checked out Big Picture before, I highly recommend bookmarking it and making it a regular pitstop. This blog puts up a photo series of new global events/people/places every few days, and the images are truly stunning – some of the finest photography you’ll see on the web.
Enjoy!
The glorious ball of fire is my fear
The fact that I’m afraid of the sun is no secret. In fact, as you may have noticed (I’ve only referenced it about 500 times), I’m pale. Borderline albino, really. To be perfectly honest, I’ve actually had the sales girls at department stores tell me their lines don’t make a tinted foundation for my skin tone.
What you may not realize is why I’m so frightened of UV rays. It’s actually not vanity – it’s health. My skin tone means that I’m at a very elevated risk for skin cancer, a fact that has been driven home by my family’s health history. I’ve had very close family members who have had melanoma removed (one of them, my sister, while she was in her early teens).
But even I’m not immune to the lure of sunkissed skin. A tan looks healthy, and accentuates the muscle tone I’ve been working so hard on this diet to accentuate. So, in my quest for a dermatologist-approved glow, I’ve become a self tanner addict.
Some of my favorites, after the jump!
Yikes. Apparently even recessionista-friendly chains are starting to take a hit. According to Bloomberg.com:
Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe’s second-largest clothing retailer, reported its first quarterly profit drop in more than five years as the strengthening dollar cut into margins and the economic contraction deterred shoppers.
The shares fell the most since December after H&M said first-quarter net income slid 12 percent to 2.58 billion kronor ($320 million), missing the 2.98 billion-kronor median estimate of nine analysts. Sales at stores open at least a year declined 8 percent in February, the seventh straight drop, H&M also said.
You can read the full article here.
I’ve definitely stopped my nightly habit of popping into H&M to see what’s new on the racks. Suddenly purchasing a trendy, $20 shirt I will likely wear only two or three times seems as frivolous and unnecessary as more lux purchases.
Have you all cut back your shopping?
Sports fans in southeastern Michigan are faced with the ultimate dilemma this year: what’s more sacred, Opening Day or Good Friday? Due to the quirks of the religious calendar, Major League Baseball’s opening day has fallen on one of the most somber holy days in the Christian calendar. Granted, it’s easy enough to pass up on that ballpark hot dog, but Tigers fans are faced with a particularly knotty problem. Opening Day games for the Tigers traditionally start in the early afternoon –their game against the Texas Rangers is slated to start at 1:05 pm.
Unfortunately for Catholic sports fans, however, Good Friday mass is also traditionally held between 12 pm and 3 pm. In a heavily Catholic town like Detroit, that has a lot of devoted and devout sports fans up in arms, particularly as this is the only MLB game being held during Christian holy hours.
God or the game? I’m not touching that decision. Perhaps the Archdiocese would like to take pity on sports fans by holding a mass in the stadium at noon? Good luck, folks…
Thanks to our good friend Taco for bringing this to my attention.
Are you SURE I'm a red snapper?
Like most foodies, I LOVE seafood. What’s not to love? But I recently read a great article in Conservation (which is, incidentally, a terrific magazine), entitled “Impostor Fish” that suggests that we should all wonder what we’re really eating when we order a pricey plate of fish. The problem? Mislabeling of fish. Fish are mislabeled as they come in the ports, and mislabeled as they’re sold to the consumers, so that while you may be told you’re buying wild salmon, you may really be buying farmed salmon, and if you buy red snapper? Heaven only knows what you’re getting.
I’m sure you’ve all heard that bit of beauty wisdom that holds that your hands are becoming the first place where you show age, now that people are actually starting to wear sunblock on their faces and necks regularly. Hands are the next anti-aging frontier, and mine get put through the mill with harsh soaps, UV light, and general abuse (where DID that scrape on my knuckle come from?) with disturbing regularity. This is a problem about which I’m becoming increasingly neurotic as time goes on and yet about which I have done little to nothing. The time has come, ladies. Hand cream it is.
The main problem I find with hand cream is getting a cream that’s strong enough to stay put and provide moisture for some decent length of time without making me feel like I’m going to leave grease all over everything I touch. This is the primary reason I’m so bad about using it. Here are a few that do the job.
Disclaimer: lest you think Lily and I are shilling for Flirt!, let me assure you our back-to-back reviews were written independently and are a happy coincidence. I just logged on to post my review, and here I see my fellow blogger has beaten me to the punch! Great minds, after all. With that out of the way, on to our regularly scheduled programming…
So in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t watched the news, read a paper, visited a website or talked to another human being during the past year, the economy is stinking right now. Big shocker, I know! How is the economy effecting this Femme? While I used to love having the freedom to drop 30 bucks on an impulse Sephora purchase, those days are loooooooong gone. Like most people in America, I’m cutting back on frivolous spending and tightening my purse strings.
Ok, enough of the gloom and doom. It’s time for the silver lining. Rather than wave goodbye to fun, new products forever, I’m determined to make some limoncello martinis out of lemons, ladies. This is an opportunity to find fun, affordable options that fit within out budgets.
Enter Flirt!
True beauty lovers seem to be divided into two camps on the issue of color: those who think makeup should be understated and virtually undetectable, and those who think that some cheery hues are a great way to liven up a look.
I am decidedly in the second group. Unfortunately, however, I’m also pale, pale, pale – pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes, pale lips. So, while I envy women (like my friends of African American or Southeast Asian ancestry) who can wear brilliantly gorgeous colors, I find myself having to temper my love of pigment either by using sheer products or mix them with brown/black/cream shades. Yawn.
Well, one color trend I’ve been determined to master is blue eye colors. I’ve tried blue mascaras, various shades of blue shadows and about six different blue eyeliners. Somehow, I could never quite pull the look off – at best, I looked like a clown. At worst, I looked like Retro 1984 Barbie.
That said, there’s one gigantic exception to the above rule: the FLIRT! Lash-a-delic Fast Defining Mascara and Lash-a-delic Limited Edition Dream Eyes palette (I’d link you, but both are launching in April 2009, so they’re not on the Web yet).
FLIRT! Lash-a-delic Fast Defining Mascara (I used Groovy Blue)
