This week's Charlotte Creative Loafing ran a lovely column on the meaning and importance of respecting and tolerating other religions, a particularly emotional topic in the American South's Bible Belt.
Right next to an ad depicting the Buddha in headphones for a club called Dharma.
Religious leaders are so hot right now.
Whoops!
Here's the close-up:
One can apparently receive a Ph.D in Booty.
Would the Christian equivalent to this club be a space called, "On the Mount," or "Eucharist," and feature images of Jesus as the DJ? Or doing the robot on the dance floor? Because I would go to that club. That club would have the best wine.
The things we write when we are young, and wish to be important. The things we write because we cannot make sense of what we see in terrible moments when the safety of adulthood fails us. The things that are too real to comprehend. The things that become dim and somewhat surreal, abused and exploited. The things we think about in passing when a low-flying jet dots the horizon. The things we wish. The things we know. The things we can never know. 9/11/2002 Entry We are at Ground Zero, in New York, my mother and I. It is June, 2002. My face pressed against a cold metal gate; I thought I smelled the salt of a thousand tears seeping into my skin. Though the summer heat pounded, the fence remained cool to the touch. It was deep, this scar. I could see the layers of subway ruined, six or seven stories of floor barely in tact from the fall. Metal beams were hauled away, and a solitary flag hung by a cross of steel. Tiny, it was, compared to the damage surrounding it. I thought Ground Zero to be smaller, the size of a few football fields. I thought the destruction not so massive as shown on the flashing television screen. I thought wrong. Eyes jaded to modern movie effects, I was shaken. It's more than I could have feared. My tears joined those staining the brutal ground, dripping slowly onto the fence guarding the unguarded. A child hugs his mother's hand next to me, and asks, "Why are you crying?" I look at him, as his mother wipes her own tears and says, "Remember it. This is history." I part through the crowd to cling to my own mother's hand.
I'm sure this is what Roehampton University had in mind when they planned for search engine optimization.
One of these things is not like the other.
(In all seriousness, two things in life that I love unflinchingly are David Bowie and Roehampton University. Both have brought me great joy, great tears and great hours of reflection. If you participate in any activity involving these two topics you are very lucky indeed.)
I cannot get enough of this video. 100 years of East London fashion in 100 seconds. I want all of her clothes on my body. The length of her skirts going up and down and the first instance of pants is well played. Looking at this, it seems mens' fashion is more about fit; the basic suit doesn't really change much until after the war years.
My London readers can head to the new Westfield on Sept. 13th and pick up their own looks. And if you see the featured lovely lady's 2011 black blazer for sale, hook a flâneur up!
Here are my favs from this selection of 100 years:
We should all wear more hats.
Not gonna lie; I would wear this every. single. day. You would get so sick of seeing me in this.
