intellectual properties

i’m off to the woods until tuesday. have a great weekend!

ppssst.

only two days left to vote.

http://www.sanfranciscofashionawards.com/index.php?/online-voting/vote-here/

somebody asked why i should win this particular award. well, compared to the current frontrunner, i almost exclusively blog about san francisco fashion designers and SF events and almost never post anything about corporate labels, because i support independent fashion. i think that makes me a better candidate to represent the SF Fashion Awards than someone who blogs about everything from Gucci to Nike but just happens to live in San Francisco.

on the subcultural

i wanted to tie this into my last post on fashion and style, but it got too messy (not to mention long), so this is its own tangent. recently, electrolicious said:

In many ways, subcultures are like church: an existing community that you can come into, be nurtured by, and find comfort in. Cultural decisions get easier because on a certain level your choices are narrower. Your fashion? It’s something like this. The music you like? Here’s your genre — pick your favorites. The movies you enjoy? The events you go to every weekend? It’s laid out for you like a map.

– from a private post, with permission. she goes on to talk about how this can be a GOOD thing for many people, at least for a while, and how some level of conformity is not always negative, especially for (young) people looking for community or connection. and i don’t disagree.

this is particularly pertinent to me right now as a) i’m headed to the pinnacle of my sub-subculture this weekend and b) someone who left one of my subcultures a couple of years ago has now decided to come back after some time off alone figuring out who he was without the group context/structure/calendar/fashion/taste to define him, and he said it was a necessary experience after having those things determined for him by the subculture for many years. this caused me to wonder if i also need to take a conscious break (not going to burning man this year is definitely part of that), or at least intentionally give myself a lot more space.

i go back and forth on a huge arc with how i feel about the “i know where to go/what to do/what to wear/what to listen to” in my own subculture, between the comfort she describes (and also in a city like SF, having a subcultural filter for events/happenings is kind of nice - otherwise, the amount of possibilities can be kind of overwhelming!), and also feeling extremely creeped out and jaded. i’m even more creeped out by the people who don’t ever get creeped out by their own non-conformist conformity, or who don’t ever even look at it humorously and get offended when you make jokes about it. a while ago i said something dissident about the subculture, and one of my friends (lovingly) joked “Sometimes don’t you think Amy’s just pretending to be part of our crew?” sometimes, i wonder if i am. i wonder if i let myself be more of a “joiner” than i naturally am because of the positive benefits, but then still always push back against it.

whether this tribal type self-branding is an intrinsic part of human nature, or a response to culture (nurture), especially modern consumer culture, or whether are they so intertwined it’s indistinguishable has been the subject of many books and dissertations. i know people are tempted to recommend books in response to this post (such as “urban tribes“). i’m interested i hearing more about personal thoughts/experience (anonymously or not. if you’re reading this on facebook, you can also click through and respond anonymously on my blog). is the reason you conform to YOUR subculture (however or whatever that means to you) because of what she describes there, the comfort level, which does sometimes ironically result in you “finding yourself”? does the subculture choice you’ve made FEEL like it’s responding to something that comes from the inside (it fits your spirit/personality), or like a response to things from the outside (rebellion or assimilation)?

on fashion and style

since i got nominated for best fashion blogger but am now LOSING IN THE POLL (please vote if you have not yet!), i figure i should write something current on the subject before i take off for the holiday weekend, and i do have a lot of things to say on this. oh yes, i do. for those of you who care not about such topics, maybe skip this post. you are allowed to not care about fashion, about having a personal style, or maybe you like to unabashedly follow trends (in fact, this seems to be a distinct choice on the part of some people) and/or wear the exact same hoodie and jeans for 5 years. i don’t actually care what other people wear. i really only care what i’m wearing. so please don’t take my own fashion values as judgmental. it’s really not.

i also acknowledge that i am only a fashion WEARER, not a fashion professional, i never went to fashion school, and perhaps people who are in the ‘industry’ might disagree with some of the things i say here. this is all my personal POV as a fashion consumer, so take it from that perspective.

a couple of days ago m/o and i were discussing the details and motivations in developing, maintaining and then changing a “personal style”, and the philosophies and difficulties of doing so. these are some items related to that topic, some specific, some not.

Continue reading »

red update

a little over a year ago (holy crap) i wrote a long post about how i get my hair so red, and keep it red, which a fair number of my other bright hair coloring friends told me was helpful, so here’s an update.  since then, i discovered a permanent red haircolor that is really awesome, so for those of you also in the extreme red-headed category, sometimes or always, partially or wholly, or if you have dark hair and want awesome red highlights, this is also for you: L’Oreal Exellence HiColor Red HiLights in Magenta. they have various shades of high-pigment red, but this is the one i’m using that most matches my former dye color. i assume the reason that i never found this before, and that no hairstylist i ever asked knew about a bright red permanent color, is because i’m white and all my haircolorists were white, and this product is made and sold for black hair (african american, asian, latina, etc.).  it wasn’t until a huge beauty supply warehouse which pretty much only sells african american hair products opened up down the street from me in west oakland that i discovered this on the shelf. i’m sure it’s sold in other beauty supply places (not drug stores), i just never looked in the african-american section.

the upsides: no need to bleach my hair before coloring, as the dye lifts and colors at the same time, so the whole process takes less than 45 minutes. also, not a total mess to apply like Special Effects - applies like a regular hair dye, no red dye splattered all over the place. rinses clean. also - cheap! $4.50 for the tube of dye plus $1.50 for a small bottle of developer = $6 to color my hair.

the downsides: is BRIGHT, but not necessarily RICH. Special Effects, when applied over bleached hair, is a super deep, rich color. this is more bright and shiny at first, but then seems to fade and become dull, even though i only wash my hair 1-2x a week, like every regular hair color i’ve ever applied. also, Special Effects is a toxic free, cruelty free pigment that is safe and tested on humans. i’m pretty sure anything made by L’Oreal is not.

the current method: i’m using the L’Oreal only to color when my roots grow out, because i’d have to bleach and recolor then anyway. on top of that, i apply a custom mixture of Special Effects Blood Red and conditioner when i shower, which adds a layer of color and shine on top and keeps it from fading, but only shampoo if i feel like my hair REALLY needs it, which isn’t often. this does cause some of the pigment to bleed, getting on the towels and pillows and the occassional shirt collar, but not nearly as much as when my whole head was colored with pigment.

you can make your own color conditioner by adding Special Effects (or Manic Panic or any other of the punky colored hair pigments - NOT chemical hair dye) to whatever conditioner you normally use. this way, if you buy natural shampoo/conditioner, you can have an all natural color enhancing conditioner instead of the ones you would buy at the drug store, and it’s cheaper. i think a 25% color/75% conditioner (by volume) mix is good to REALLY keep the color true if you have a full head of crazy color like mine, but you don’t need to add that much dye to get a tint, and can do it MUCH lighter if you just wanted to add highlights to your natural hair. obviously this doesn’t work for blondes, but if you have darker hair and want to add a tint of red, or purple, or blue….make your own.

wanderlust: quenching scheduled

several months ago i created a savings account with the login ‘wanderlust’.  since then, i’ve been squirreling away money. i’ve written before how my desire to travel has been almost painful at times, and i decided earlier this year that i wouldn’t let it torture me anymore, economic bubbles bursting or not.  a bunch of my friends took off for europe last week, and that pretty much made my pent up wanderlust overflow. it has been more than 6 years since jay and i have taken any kind of extended vacation, and we both really need it. i am blessed to have a well-paying job and flexible boss so that i can now report that some long-awaited adventures have been booked.

this weekend, i purchased 2 sets of plane tickets.  first, to Puerto Vallerta, Mexico in mid-August, to join my parents on their first ever get-on-a-plane-and-go-somewhere vacation. just a long weekend, but still exciting.  i might get to swim with dolphins!

and just now, i purchased two tickets to europe for mid-september to mid-october, during which time i will celebrate my 33rd birthday.  1 month.  sfo->amsterdam->berlin, germany->prague, czech republic->vienna, austria->budapest, hungary->amsterdam->sfo. to say i am excited is a severe understatement.

shameless plug: vote for me : SF fashion awards

i know i’ve been slacking on the blog posts lately, but please forgive me long enough to VOTE FOR ME in the SF Fashion Awards for Best Blogger. note that when you fill out the poll, you have to hit EACH ORANGE BUTTON. then it shows you the current results!

i also want to plug my dear friends Miranda Caroligne (fashion), Miss Velvet Cream (fashion), Bad Unkl Sista (costumes), Kyle Hailey (photog), Sequoia&Gita (fashion/photog), Missing Piece (fashion show/event producer), Jodie Adele (jewelry), K.Holden (blogger@sflovestory) and most especially, DEL GERONIMO (event producer/photog), who produces this event and i can only assume added my name to the list.

SF Fashion Awards, originally uploaded by wetribe.

live large

~via

\m/ in baghdad

one day after work last week jason picked me up and we went to the berkeley marina for a walk. toward the end, he asked a question to the effect of “so why do you think people care so much about what is going on in Iran?”. there are democratic atrocities happening all over the world, every day, that Americans ignore.

my answer was two part:

1. we had an election stolen from us. we know how it feels. we are still angry. there is empathy.

2. throughout the GW years there was always the threat of war with Iran, and i think even though the Obama administration is less warlike, that threat is not gone. in most American minds, it is the next war. so now that the country is imploding, if this does not come out well, if the conservatives succeed in stealing this, is it not evident that there will be a call to war on the part of those in the American government who believe that is the right action? while Amercians support “democracy” and “freedom” and human rights for everyone, everywhere, and we are all grieving for the loss of these things in Iran right now, we cannot deny that, collectively, a large part of the attention right now is selfish: we do not want ourselves another war.

.::.

last night we watched the documentary “Heavy Metal in Baghdad“, about perhaps the only heavy metal Iraqi band ever, and what happened to the members once the war started. it’s a humanitarian piece, and not even really political. a well done docu, a totally unbiased look at the effect of our war on Iraqi people just like you and me. listening to them yearn for their homeland, saying that they’d rather die in Baghdad than live in “less than zero” refugee status in Syria where they have nothing and no one, seeing them struggle to even survive, let alone be musicians and artists, as we in America have the freedom to be, is heartbreaking. i think the most popular reviewer on netflix summed it up best: “I never gave a sh!t about the war until I saw this. This documentary really shows the human condition there and not the crap you see in the news.”

metalhead or not, watching this while sh!t is going down in Iran gives it a lot of current meaning. will Iran end up like Iraq? is that where this is headed? please, gods, do not let it be so.

a poem from the rooftops of Iran

with a heavy sigh on this beautiful sunny sunday here in oakland, as i pray for iran in the only way i know how, i am so grateful for my life.