PicoBlog

You’ll have to forgive me here. I’m not much of a restaurant reviewer. I love you all, but when I go out to eat, I’m there for the food and wine…and the company, of course. I’ve also been deep into finishing our apartment renovation, packing things up for our move (a challenging day that began with me turning on my computer and my fairly new MacBook showing the ‘black screen of death,’ aka: my hard drive crashed and everything has been erased), while recovering from a blistering heat wave in Paris where temperatures brûléed the city, hitting 104ºF (40ºC).

Issue No. 129, September 2005I’m feeling very Jack Kerouac, sitting and writing at a neighborhood cafe (the Downbeat on Alvarado) near my house in Echo Park. For geography’s sake, I technically live in Silver Lake, a trendy little enclave next door that surrounds what LA people call a lake (an artificial reservoir, much like the LA River is a winding concrete wash). Maybe Echo Park sounds a little more unapologetic and unpretentious.

I feel so old saying this but last year seriously flew by? I guess our parents were always right when they said time keeps speeding up with age… I spent the month of December playing around with goat’s milk to make the perfect cajeta. Some boozy, some not, some spiced, some plain, some with coconut, the list goes on. My first try went quite well but obviously, as I’m sure you know by now, I had to test out further variations only to stick with a pretty basic and delectable one.

Ruminations on obsessions and hyper-focused consumption, playlists/mixtapes as offerings, and updates on my latest publications. Part LiveJournal nostalgia, part status sheet. Monthly to quarterly, always free. By rhienna renée guedry · Launched 4 years agoNo thanksncG1vNJzZmiqmJ6yr7rAZ6qumqOprqS3jZympmc%3D

In November, we celebrated our 6th anniversary, so we’re reflecting back on how Bob Wayne and other UC faculty raised the funds from the University of California to get this crazy citizen science eDNA thing going when we had no model to follow. Here’s a photo from one of our early workshops where we planned CALeDNA and other conservation genomics activities. And now, 6 years later, we’re thrilled to be able to show our program to state legislators!

Today is the first time in 701 days there is snow on the ground in New York. Beyond that being an excellent argument against me contributing to a Roth-IRA, it is making me very happy, and I’ve had several lovely, chilly walks over the past 24 hours. I’ve always loved the snow. Sledding, snowball fights, skiing, snow forts, and every other snow-based shenanigan were staples of my childhood and too rarely have been highlights of my adult life.

I wrote this piece several years ago for Heroine, Grailed’s woman’s site, but as Heroine has since closed I thought I would share it with you. It was Calvin Klein’s 81st birthday yesterday—this article revisits the early days of his fashion career and how he made minimalism his signature. Klein’s simple modernity can be seen in motion in this clip that I posted on Instagram a few months ago: “Calvin Klein showing three ‘feminine, sexy’ looks from his Spring/Summer 1978 collection—modeled by Jan, Kim Charlton, and Rosie Vela—on ‘The Mike Douglas Show,’ broadcast November 8, 1977.

May’s theme is PINK! In case you missed it, here is last week’s intro. This month, I’m wondering if we can map color trends alongside shifts in societal attitudes. Pink is the color that garners the most sexist reactions. Why does pink read as feminine? Pink’s gendered history is actually all over the place. I learned in The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair, that around the turn of the 20th century, baby boys actually wore pink and baby girls wore blue.

Dear Friend, Camille Charrière is eco-fashion's chicest influencer. The sustainability editor for British Elle, and a major presence on social media, Camille shares sharp, insightful advice and observations on sustainable living.  Anglo-French by birth, she grew up in Paris, where her parents are intellectuals and academics. She earned her law degree in Paris, and moved to London to work for a hedge fund. But her love for creative arts and style was too strong, and in 2010, she quit finance to pursue a career in fashion.