I Can Be

I posted this on Thursday May 12, and it disappeared from my blog. I don't know what's going on.

Luckily I had a copy in my email. Sadly all your great comments are gone. If I still have them in my email, I will add them. Please stay with me here, while Alberto and I migrate Visual Vamp anywhere but Google Blogspot.

This Barbie was done for an art exhibit

Barbie has been a doctor, a dentist, a vet and a race car driver,and now the iconic doll that has inspired and entertained little girls for generations takes on the job of architect. With the help of two American Institute of Architects members, Mattel Inc., now has Architect Barbie -- complete with hard hat and blueprints -- to be the latest addition to its ‘’Barbie I Can Be…’’ line of dolls.

This is what Matel produced

I Can Be.

What did you want to be when you were the age to play with dolls? I had dolls, but they were not my favorite toys. My first aspiration came around age 9. I wanted to be a scientist, and bugged my mother to get me a microscope. That was my favorite toy. She also signed me up for some kind of kid's book club, and I got a brand new "All About..." book in the mail every month. Books were my absolute favorite "toys".

My mother's aspiration for me was to become a ballet dancer. I was not so hot about this, though I took classes from age 3 until adulthood, was a "professional" child performer, and continued dancing on stage until my 20's. Everything was not beautiful at the ballet for me, but I marginally stayed in show biz via acting, and ending my career in a 80's pop/rock band in New York, and starting a soft show biz life again in 1995 to the present as a tango dancer.

This is a photo of my mother who was a dancer

The scientist dream segued into wanting to be a doctor. Realities of the cost of med school was the buzz kill my mother interjected into my dreams, so I ratcheted down to wanting to be a nurse. A stint as a Candy Striper at age 15 stifled that dream, I didn't dig the hospital hierarchy then, of nurses being treated like hand maidens to male doctors.

Perhaps my I Can Be ideal was a Gloria Steinem or Dorothy Pitman Hughes doll.

Gloria and Dorothy via

Art school was a logical choice for me. Along with all the dance classes I took as a teenager, I also took Saturday art classes at The Art Students League because I had an affinity for painting and drawing. I applied and was accepted to art school, and that was the leitmotif of my higher education.

I still took my daily dance classes for the sake of physical fitness, and later acting classes and singing lessons because I would occasionally audition for some small thing that caught my interest. Along with the rock band, I was a member of a conceptual performance group headed up by poet Max Blagg and musician/writer Jim Farmer.

My rock and roll days - more HERE - Hair by Danilo my friend at the time

I went to film school for awhile, and took a course in race car driving, and I also dabbled in poetry classes with Edward Field, Erica Jong, Michael Bennet, and Daniel Halpern.

I Can Be a dilettante ha ha. I guess I am a creature of the arts. My collection of I Can Be Barbies would be vast.

I have I had 10,000 jobs and 500 careers.

I would love to hear about your I Can Be stories...How many of us turned out to be what we wanted to be when we were children? How many of us are continually re-inventing ourselves?

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Posted By visual vamp to * v i s u a l * v a m p * at 5/12/2011 08:40:00 AM

Google The Hacker

The Fickle Finger of Fate! Up yours Google!

What would you do if you got an email from an address you never saw, you didn't recognize, and it told you to click on a link, and if you didn't respond your user name would be automatically changed?

I have been schooled to delete things I don't know, because opening the unknown email or link can infect your computer with a hideous virus.

Or what would happen if this email arrived in your Spam box? Do you open Spam if you don't see that it's from someone you know and landed there by mistake? I think not.

Well I'm with you, and what happened to me was that since April 29 I have not been able to sign into my blog.

All kinds of conspiracy theories floated around. Alberto thought Google was behind it. And he was right. Of course customer service for Google blogspot users sucks, so no answer or help was readily available.

Why is Google changing the user name and email to sign into my blog? Has this happened to any of you using blogspot?

Finally after days of sending countless reports to the robots at Google, I got one today instructing me to sign in with this weird email address they assigned me. I did, and had to reset my password, and now I have access again. I tried to change the email address back to my own, and of course they want to send all communication to the weird email they hacked into my blog to give me. Since that is not my email, it is useless, and I certainly am not sending any password info to some random email.

So Google is a stinking hacker. And I give them the huge finger. They caused alot of us some grief this week. I thank Jenny, Erica, Carollynn, and Nicole for all the support, tech and otherwise, and I thank Alberto for always keeping a logical cool head.

We already started migrating my blog to Word Press.

In the meantime, I'll keep posting here and hope that Google is done fucking with me.

Your Thoughts Please

A reader sent this photo to me with this thought bubble:

"I'm a long time admirer of Bunny Williams and John Roselli, but in photos, that green wallpaper in the Bee Line showroom looks like something curdled and nasty at the bottom of a fridge."

This post is not about the photo or Mrs. Williams or Mr. Roselli. Their work is great and they are tried and true and proven icons I respect. At this point in their careers, and I think it's great that they try new ideas that are edgy. And the gentle reader does give the benefit of the doubt that perhaps in person this looks awesome.

And I am not faulting the reader who sent me the photo or the thought bubble. He was a major design influence himself and he is entitled to his opinion, which I respect and value.

The point of this post is how do we critique the work of professionals (and God forbid, even each other!) without being bitchy, envious, or snarky? There are quite a few blogs that regularly feature posts, being cranky Debbie Downers about another person's achievements. None of these bloggers are published (except by themselves, or by each other, or on other blogs), or really working in the design field as a bona fide professional. Their witty blogs are their claim to fame, which they earn, and I respect their hard work and dedication, and even have a good laugh sometimes.

Are successful people and celebs fair game to say just anything about? Including just heaping on praise because they are successful and known, something most of us want to be? How do we critique something with honor, have an opposing opinion on taste, and do it with decency, and respect, as adults keeping it relevant?

I reckon if the pithy blogger naysayers were included in the very books or mags they bash, or got free product from the companies they ridicule, they might be writing those blog posts with the dulcet tones of decor blog baby talk in the form of praise.

I have been a smart ass on my blog too, and I have made mistakes with stupid immature posts. And I do leave a smart ass comment or two on other blogs. But I have tried to learn from my mistakes, and change, to grow and find a better way to express an honest opinion about something. I don't want to go all Mary Sunshine and just j'dore everything darlings, but I don't want to bash something I don't care for just for the sake of sounding all fresh mouth and cute, and be the blogger seeking popularity for misguided reasons.

Of course there is an unspoken rule that we shalt not critique other bloggers, because after all we are sensitive and get our feelings hurt easily, though you would never know it by the way it gets dished out, and after all it's "just blogging" for your fun and our enjoyment. But Oy vey! The private e-mails among us bloggers talking about each other are priceless in candor and snark!

Perhaps if the smarty pants ones had to come up with a book, get someone to publish it, and then try to sell it, or perhaps if their work or homes were published and up for praise and/or damnation, or perhaps if they invested hard earned money and ideas in a company that made and sold a product, or had someone pay them thousands of dollars and trust them to decorate a home, they might see what it's like on the other side of their funny critical posts.

Another thing is that you may not think anyone "famous" is reading our little blogs from bum fuck nowhere. But they are. The first week I blogged, I made some snippy "funny" remarks in a post about a well known designer on TV. And guess what? He wrote to me personally after he saw the post, and was fucking gracious! Famous people have feelings too, and our comments and our blogs do affect them. Our words have consequence, something I learned the hard way from my own blog mistakes. I am a smart ass, but I am not a hater, or a "hurter".

Stay with me here (this is convoluted): I just had an email from a well known "decor personality" who was disappointed by a silly snarky comment of a blogger on another blog about that "personality", because the famous one always thought that the blogger who left the comment was "friendly" towards them in the past, and was bothered by less than friendly comment. This blogger might have gotten something from the already successful and famous "personality", maybe a chance to be published, but now I doubt that that blogger would be the first to come to mind for any professional courtesy that might be extended. The consequence of our words indeed! There are lots of talented "nice" and non trouble makers out there for the powers that be to give opportunities to.

I was watching Top Model the other night. The girls are so young. One poor girl really just didn't dig another one, and it escalated into a nasty verbal exchange in front of the client. Tyra was livid and wanted to eliminate the one who misspoke in front of the client. Her thoughts are that if you don't like something, you shut up (shut your lips were her words) publicly and be professional in front of your peers and your clients. In private you can say what you want. The judges voted to keep the girl in the competition. They said everyone deserves a second chance.

Though my blog is personal. I do write it in public, and in many ways I consider my readers my peers, and many of you are professionals, even if blogging is your profession so to speak. I really have tried to be a better person and a better blogger, and I do appreciate your giving me a second chance. It is a learned skill to offer a difference of opinion with tact, and constructive criticism, and humor. And I am still learning. And I do slip sometimes when my nerves finally get worked, and my comment can get snippy. And I have always apologized, and offered to take down any comment, if the blogger wrote to me and expressed distress.

I would love your thoughts, but please this is not an invitation for the anon hate comments to commence in a free-for-all hate party. I will turn on moderation for this post if it gets out of hand. If a civil and pertinent anon comment comes in, I will publish it. And remember if you have something personally to say to me because you dislike me, please feel free to email me at mizvtheb@yahoo.com and I will be happy too discuss it with you.

Front Page News ~ Your Blog Is Passed Its Expiration Date

This made the front page of The New York Times today HERE

Basically it reports that young people say blogs are out and pretty much useless. And we all seem to go the way of the younger regarding tech stuff.

Remember when we all felt so hip and happening when we figured out how to blog?

Your thoughts please.

Your Thoughts Please

Taxidermy is definitely a design trend that seems to be staying around. Your thoughts please.

Image of the home of Vanessa Traina featured in Harper's Bazaar via La Maison Fou.

The Dust Ruffle and Bed Skirt Controversy

Do you remember way back in blog time in 2008 when Joni from Cote de Texas did a post about skirted tables that started a huge debate that ultimately led to podcast she stars on called "The Skirted Roundtable."

Holy dust ruffle!
Charlotte Moss

Well clutch your pearls, there seems to be another great controversy brewing regarding dust ruffles and bed skirts.

Joni's lovely deep drop bedspread

It seems that not only are bed skirts (I hate the word dust ruffle - why would anyone want anything described as dust?) out of fashion with the Lonny-Rue-Apartment Therapy set, but they are unsanitary too with worries of attracting bed bugs.

A tailored bedspread with a deep drop skirt

Glam bed skirt - Temple St. Clair

Mmmm.. Personally I have no dust ruffle in the guest bedroom because the iron four poster bed did not require one visually. The bed in our master bedroom does have a dust ruffle. This bed has a headboard and a metal bed frame and box spring, and I don't think it would look very good without the bed skirt. I even tried the white bed spread with the huge skirted drop ala Joni, but found it too cumbersome. Damn I should have sold it on eBay sooner! Now who will want it?

Eddie Ross used a tailored bed skirt
in this pretty traditional bedroom

I came across the following article by Sara Ruffin Costello:

A headboard with a bed frame needs a bed skirt

"So the other night I went over to my friend Miles Redd's house for a TV party. Curled up in his seraglio-inspired space, I took in the visual splendor—the towering four-poster mirrored bed with striped silk taffeta upholstery, the wall-to-wall caramel cashmere underfoot, the yards of couture curtains across simple French windows and the endless originality—which all added up to a tailored, comfortable, no-grandmother-in-sight inner sanctum.

Fishing for free decorating, I submitted to my old friend, "How can I get a little piece of the Miles magic?"

Miles Redd's bed sans bed skirt
But what's up with the padding?

"Oh, please," he said. "This old shoebox?"

"Well, yes..."

And then, with the precision of a brain surgeon, he said, "An exposed box spring is like a fly in the soup...unsightly. Cover your box spring with a decadent fabric...touch of luxe darling...every room needs it, especially the bedroom."

I sat up and took note. By God, I realized, the filthy, pointless dust ruffle of '80s Shabby Chicdom is dead. Long live the tailored box-spring cover!

Ditching the dust ruffle diminishes your chances of bedding down with bugs. (A floor-grazing bed skirt is like a hospitable stairway for bed bugs.)"

Miles Redd - This Old Shoebox

Well! What do you all think of that???!!! First of all that tag line: So the other night I went over to my friend Miles Redd's house! Well smell her! In a good way of course.

Miles Redd four poster bed

Four poster beds look good without a bed skirt. The proportions of the bed suit this choice.

Miles Redd used a dust ruffle! Alert the media!

Bed with headboards and box springs seem to need the bed skirt to give it a finished look. Of course a platform bed with a mattress only, would look ridiculous with a bed skirt.

Miles Redd in Domino
The bedroom that launched the careers of blog decorators
Swoon! J'dore! Copy!

Modern interiors seem to fare better without a dust ruffle. Even the word is too granny for the hip decorating spawned by Domino.

But what about the majority of the world dwelling in suburban traditional homes with traditional bedrooms, or gasp, bedroom sets?

Can a dust ruffle or bed skirt be done right, just as Joni thinks doing a skirted table can be done right? You hardly see skirted tables anymore except at events and weddings. Will the bed skirt become as extinct as the table skirt?

Tom Scheerer's stainless-steel bed doesn't need much
besides crisp sheets and a white cotton slip cover for the box spring

Will they give up their bed-in-the-bag that includes the matching dust ruffle? Can they get behind a box spring slip cover?

No dust ruffle for Jonathan Adler and Liberace

Will there be bed skirt and dust ruffle burnings to alleviate the bed bug pandemic!!!! Will there be a new podcast show called "The Dusty Ruffle" or "The Skirted Bed"?????

Betsey Burnham doesn't use a bed skirt

Chime in! Bed skirts yes or no! Discuss! Dust ruffles over and out?

Martha Stewart don't need no stinking bed skirt or box spring slip cover

Kelly Wearstler doesn't have her slip showing


Even shabby chic can go skirtless

Apartment Therapy eschews the wrapped bed

Go HERE to see the whole article.

How Do You Like To Be Talked To?

There is a trend in decor blogs to write snappy and sassy monologues. It reminds me of the old days of the first famous gossip columnists Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell.

Louella Parsons with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball

Is the pretend voice of the blogger, the way they really talk? Decorno was the original fresh mouth trash talking cool girl. I never met her, but I heard her on the radio and I saw photos of her, and she didn't speak the way she wrote, or look like the cool hipster she portrayed on her blog.

Elaine Miller who was Decorno

Since the demise of Decorno (whose blog was great), there are a whole slew of girls trying to be snappy, savvy, and snarky. Some swear alot.

And decor blog speak is spilling over into the online decor magazines like Lonny, and the eagerly awaited Rue Magazine. Both are written by lovely talented people, and I am sure they do not greet one another saying: Hello, lovely! How smashing to see you! Do we need more than the fantasy of pretty decor pictures to satisfy our hum drum lives? Do we also need copy that reads like a knock off of Carrie Bradshaw?

Rue Magazine coming in September

Oh the use of cute endearments to address the reader! Hello darlings, sweeties, noodles, lovelies, little monsters, dweebs, etc. How did this get so popular and necessary?

Hab.........ly J'dore! Trademarked of course!

The third person blogs are strange and disconnecting, you know when the person refers to themselves in the third person. Like: The Vamp j'dores X Y M.., xo xo.

And the uber gay chat is another voice, all winky winky, smirky sly smiles.

Bobby Trendy talks in the third person
Painting by Paul Richmond

Or the "professional" girl-speak, aligning oneself with magazine worthy editors and designers in hopes that their light will polish a thin veneer of pretend posing.

So chic! Hermes throw! Elle Decor! Domino! House Beautiful!

We cannot forget the educated voices either, erudite and knowing, using words like whilst and yonder, and always wearing a liberal arts education on the proverbial unravelled sleeve.

Wearing your education for all to see

Or fairie tale speak. Everything in fairie tale speak is very very romantic.

So romantic - just like a fairie tale!

I have met some bloggers who have a distinct blog voice manufactured for the gentle reader, and they do not talk like this in person. No swearing, no wisecracks, no sugary endearments, no posing to be super smart or chic or famous. Just nice intelligent-lovely-interesting-talented people with a lovely way of expressing themselves.

Walter Winchell had the original gossip girl voice

I guess having a manufactured blog voice is a way to be entertaining, or to have a rich fantasy life. And there are some blogs that are send-ups and written as fiction by fictional authors. These don't count along with the blogs I am thinking of, since they are clearly a work of pretend. I'm talking about real people blogging about their lives in unreal voices.

Lady Blah Blah
Here

Do we need to blog in a perceived voice of a magazine writer or TV personality, or whatever voice we think of as being snappy repartee?

Louella Parsons surrounded by Hollywood stars

I have struggled with finding my "blog voice". I swear in real life. I'm a New Yorker of a certain era when it was part of the lexicon. And my mother swore like a sailor. Yet when I blog using the F swear word, it falls flat, and certain anon stalkers call me out on it, saying I'm too old to swear and trying too hard, to be what, fucking cool?

I try to talk to you as I am. And to use spell check. And to have some semblance of grammar. And to honestly say what I mean.

I think it must be exhausting to constantly write in decor blog speak. And it certainly gets tiresome to read it. And I don't like it magazines either. The first few reads are fun and entertaining, but then it gets a bit empty.

Hedda Hopper

If you write in a special voice for your blog, why did you choose to do it? Is it a burden to keep it up, or is it easier and fun to write in a voice different than your own.

And readers, how do you like to be talked to?

TMI

"We're so in love with ourselves, and we're selling, selling, selling."

From an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times HERE


Sharing is a good thing. And there's no dishonor in selling. Do you ever feel uneasy that you have shared too much about yourself on a blog or Facebook or Twitter? Or that you have to constantly sell yourself (your product, your service, your skill, your opinion)? Does it make you queasy?

I meet bloggers and readers frequently, because I am on display in the fishbowl of pretties that is the shop I work in. I love meeting them, and having a real life encounter. The funny thing is when they tell me all the things they know about me from the blog. I'm stunned and touched that they remember the details, or even care.

Or have you ever gotten together with a friend who reads your blog, and you start to talk about this and that, and you feel redundant, like maybe they already read it on the blog so it's old hat, or you feel like you're repeating yourself?

Or have you met bloggers who are prolific posters and writers and in person they are shy and can hardly speak? Or that they are virtual shut-ins who never travel anywhere, and prefer not to go anywhere.

Let me tell you that getting bloggers together is not easy. Most prefer life behind the screen. With Skype, and all the other social media, no one really has to go anywhere to have a public presence. And perhaps no one has the time since we spend a major part of our day on the computer.

Frankly I'm amazed by these blog conventions like Blog Her. Who goes to these things? And why? I'd love to have a blog meet up where all we do is talk, and eat, and drink, and hang out, or maybe go on a bloggers house tour, but please no business style networking, giving out cards, name tags, or selling.

Okay I'm off on a tangent here, so back to the article about writing a profile for the social media.

What do you think is TMI (too much information), or TMS (too much selling)? Or is there no limit because we are all truly interested in other people's lives.

I'm up for a good discussion, so in the word of the now defunct Decorno: Discuss.

The Value Of A Family

It's so funny, that I can see a cute pillow and go off on a tangent. These Family Pillows are available at Chiasso HERE

They are adorable, and I love the way each possible family configuration is included.

Family. The blended family. A family made by adopting. The traditional family made by giving birth. The family of just two people without children. The empty nest family. The single person family who has pets. The family formed by a circle of friends. The family at the workplace. or at school.

This morning on the local news it was announced that the state legislature is wrapping it up for the Summer recess, and that a number of bills are piling up to be pushed through at the last minute.

One of them involves preventing same sex couples from adopting. This deeply saddens and disturbs me, that the value of a family is not being understood and supported.

What do you think about what makes a family?

The Teo Jasmin Look Book And Life After Blogging

Did you ever have those random moments when you think about life after blogging? Like what would you do if you didn't write or read blogs?

Does it ever get so overwhelming, so many blogs so little time? Do you still have the joy and excitement of creating and researching and photo gathering and editing and writing and sharing a post, or does it feel like an obligation akin to homework?

Are you a Wonder Woman or Superman, juggling blogging, a home life, maybe kids, maybe a job, and making it seem easy peasy and upbeat under the guise of your manufactured blog personality?

Do you live up to the image, the brand, the personality, your blog has created?

Things have been dicey at Casa Vamp. Alberto has been in and out of the hospital this week. He is fine, and will only get better. But a little jog like this in the road of daily routine can take you down rabbit holes you can't possibly imagine having time to go down into.

Blogging? Who has time? Answering e-mails? Who has the energy?

And yet when a night or two of sleep is accomplished, and the will to open the lap top reemerges, and I find the inbox jammed with messages of love and support, well I just can't imagine life after blogging and without my blog friendships.

So back to blogging today, and among all the personal messages and great blog comments I got a lovely note from the French company Teo Jasmin.

Teo Jasmin is a fabulous emporium of Pop Art images used in all manner of home decor and on fashion accessories too.

All of these images come from their web site, and I love how they show you to use Pop Art in decorating, mixing old and new forms.

The wit and the color add up to a sophisticated, yet accessible look.

I'm sure you can see by adding one piece of great Pop Art you can really add drama and excitement to a room.

It can be whimiscal and romantic too, and the nice thing is you can change out the art when the mood changes, and you know for us visual vamps this is imperative!

If you are a designer dealing with commercial spaces, Teo Jasmin is a valuable resourse, and they have a to-the-trade program HERE.

Shop owners can also inquire about wholesale prices for this fabulous merchandise.

The 2010 line features objects using the images of Wonder Woman and Superman.

The whole scope of images you can get from Teo Jasmin is international. And personal too. They will transform your images into Pop Art HERE.

They have a totally global view in their design policy.

Téo Jasmin, is THE trend setting online store for home decoration. Items include: wallets and pouches for women, fashion cushions, fashion handbags, gift ideas, interior design ideas, Pop Art, frames, and fabulous armchairs and settees. It's a fun site to peruse.

Global decorating is the way to go.

It becomes personal when you bring a little bit of another place into your space.

Sacs à mains, coussin déco, tableau déco - find out what they mean when you go to Teo Jasmin!

I hope you enjoyed this Paris inspired Look Book.

I think there are many good ideas that could be incorporated by both the professional and the home decorator.

And Alberto and I send you a big Pop Art kiss and a tango hug, and thank you for being there!