When Oscar de la Renta Told Hillary Clinton Not to Wear Black

When Oscar de la Renta Told Hillary Clinton Not to Wear Black 

“What’s Senator Clinton wearing?” the designer wants to know. It’s Inauguration Day and De la Renta is in his studio, too busy tweaking his new collection to attend the festivities. He is squinting at Chrissy Haldis, a tall, willowy, and by all accounts mannequin-mute brunette who has served as his house model for the past two collections. She stands rotating in slow circles, sheathed in rare, velvety Uzbekistani fabric that, when hemmed and cut, will become a long coat retailing in the neighborhood of $10,000. In De la Renta’s adjoining office, the inauguration is being broadcast over the Internet—there is Laura Bush, pert and stately in a pearly De la Renta cashmere dress, though the designer is currently concerned about the clothes another client, Hillary Clinton, has chosen for the event.

“She’s wearing black,” someone points out.

De la Renta frowns. “What?”

“It’s a black jacket, and a—”

He cuts her off. “Oh, I always tell Senator Clinton . . .” He pauses delicately. “Well, I mean, I’m sure she looks beautiful. Hillary is a beautiful woman. But I always tell her not to wear black. She looks tough in black”—he tenses his fists and jaw to illustrate his point—“and she is more than just a tough lady. The problem is that everything else she has, every other piece of clothing that’s not black, is mine, and with Mrs. Bush also wearing something of mine today . . . ”

After a moment, De la Renta simply laughs. The designer, who grew up under a dictatorship, seems to find politics most compelling, not as an engine of policy and social change, but as a theater of bombastic personalities kept in line by social formality.

“I’m a nonpartisan voter,” he says with a smile. “I vote for the man, not the party. I voted for Clinton, but I voted for Bush. I also voted for Reagan.” He pauses. “Black! I cannot believe she’s wearing black!”

Source : http://blog.longreads.com/2014/10/21/when-oscar-de-la-renta-told-hillary-clinton-not-to-wear-black/

 

The Butterfly Effect

I found my dog outside of the animal receiving center for Animal Care and Control in the Bronx.
It was my first time in the Bronx and I was going for an interview with a nearby doctor. At the time, I was continuing research on my undergraduate thesis in Medical Anthropology, which had brought me to a family practice in the area.
As I walked over to the doctor’s office, I noticed two dogs tied to the scaffolding, as if their owners had just stepped inside a store nearby. The two sat there patiently, waiting, like any other dog who loyally followed along on errands. Yet, when I walked by after my interview, the dogs were still there, and a crowd had gathered.
After a few phone calls to the ASPCA and city shelter, the dogs were brought into Manhattan to go through the process of adoption. The terrified, black and white puppy made quite an impression on me and later that week, I went to pick him up, adopting him myself.
Getting a dog prompted a lot of changes for me, from getting a new job, to moving, to just a general sense of happiness and companionship. While I can’t imagine life without my dog now, I often think about all the small pieces that needed to come together for me to find him that day. One small change, like a rescheduled interview, and he may never have crossed my path.

One Small Change

Do you think everything is connected? Many philosophers, writers, and spiritual guides have claimed that it is. One small change in our day-to-day routines and decisions could add up to alter the trajectory of our lives.
Is it likely to suddenly be discovered as a movie star by turning left instead of right on your usual route to work? Probably not. However, my limited understanding of Chaos Theory, and the commonly known Butterfly Effect, seems to indicate that these small, otherwise overlooked elements could later carry weight as events unfold.
In the Butterfly Effect, initial conditions that exist all play a part in happenings that progress around us. To describe its namesake example, the flap of a butterfly’s wings, one scientist proposed, could affect the course of a hurricane, in addition to all of the other existing conditions at that time: weather, location, winds, and the like. Nothing, it would seem, is too small to have a profound impact on the world.

The Challenge

The idea that everything is connected becomes most interesting when applied to ourselves. Those small, ‘What if?’s suddenly take on grandiose proportions and the possibilities are endless, for the better or for the worse.
For this week’s writing challenge, tell us about your own Butterfly Effect. What’s one small change that could have happened in your life, and how could that have affected everything that you know? To take things further, you can also:

Imagine all of the steps needed to get the seedlings for these two into that exact place.

• Forget the trope of traveling backwards in time, travel into the future and explore one decision you’ve made today that might have a huge effect on your life in 10, 20, 30 years.
• The concept of everything being connected — or everything being one — can be pretty emotionally invigorating for some. Do you think everything and everyone is connected? How do you relate to that idea?
• Take things to a grander scale. Imagine one small change in the history of the planet, and venture into some science fiction about how things would be different. Similarly, conjure up a few characters and, in your tale, explore how one’s activity may relate to another, and so on.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with, and the domino effect as you inspire others to participate!
Source : http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/the-butterfly-effect/

Blogging 201: Get Read All Over

Over the past few days, you’ve been brainstorming about your brand and thinking about the elements of a well-designed site, from colors and fonts to background.
None of that matters if readers can’t view your site properly across various devices. We’re a culture on the go — no longer just reading on desktop computers, but consuming information on the phones in our pockets, and sharing thoughts from iPads at 35,000 feet.

Today’s assignment: make sure your site is mobile-friendly, and familiarize yourself with the features of responsive design.

Why?

• Because a responsive theme allows your site to look great on all screen sizes, from computer to tablet to phone.
• Because there are tools built in to WordPress.com to make this easy — there’s no need to know web development to have a mobile-friendly site.

According to Pew Research, mobile device use continues to increase around the world. In the beginning of 2014, 58 percent of adults in the US owned a smartphone; in many countries, that percentage is even higher. And you know what? They’re reading your blog on it — on the subway, in line, in the bathroom*, and just before they go to sleep at night.
In the Theme Showcase, you can choose from many themes that support responsive design: they’re built to look great across all devices, and “respond” to different screen sizes to ensure a seamless reading experience. (While some older themes aren’t responsive, these days all new themes are.) If you’re not sure if your theme is mobile-ready, check its description page; you can also search for responsive themes by filter.
*Like you’ve never done this.

Test different sizes right from your computer

You can use the Customizer to “test” your site on different devices — this not only allows you to see how responsive design works, you can also play with options to find the perfect mix that makes you happy on the big screen and the small.
To launch the Customizer, hover over your site’s name in the top-left corner of the screen, and click on Customize. In the panel that opens, you’ll see these three symbols near the bottom:

From left to right, these represent desktop view, tablet view, and smartphone view. Clicking between them emulates the look of your content on different screens, and you can see what your blog looks like in various sizes. Go ahead, click on one of them. What do you see? Then click on another view. What changes?

If you have a responsive theme…

… you may find that want to make some changes — that font you loved might be too cramped on an iPhone, or you might not love the way your header changes on your Nexus. Sometimes, responsive themes move and condense different elements of your blog to create a better mobile experience, so you’ll want to make sure your widgets and menus work well in all cases.
Make tweaks in the Customizer, and preview them on different screen sizes to make sure you’re satisfied with your blog’s look across all kinds of devices.

If you don’t have a responsive theme…

…ensure your site looks good on phones and tablets by enabling Minileven, a mobile-specific theme based on the Twenty Eleven theme. Any WordPress.com bloggers can use Minileven for their mobile site without affecting their standard theme; your blog will detect when a reader is viewing it on a phone or tablet and automatically show the mobile site.

Note: you don’t have to activate Minileven if your current theme is already responsive — you’ll see a note in your Dashboard if it is.

Minileven has a clean design and pulls in your custom header (along with other tweaks, like your custom colors of CSS), to give your mobile blog a personalized feel that’s simple and readable. To make sure it’s enabled, go to the Appearance → Mobile tab in your Dashboard and select “Yes” next to the “Enable mobile theme” button, then head to the Customizer to preview it.
To see the difference, take a look at your site both with and without Minileven. If you know you have a lot of readers accessing your site on the go, consider trying a responsive theme — refer to yesterday’s assignment for info on how to preview different themes.
Questions? Ask away! For more convo, head to The Commons, where your co-bloggers can check out your blog on their own phones and tablets, and give you a heads-up if your mobile experience could use an adjustment.