Monday, February 16, 2009
woman going insane after missing her flight video
This is a youtube hit today. Everyone is searching for this video about a lady who missed her flight and freaking out over it. Is there more to this video than meets the eye? I don't believe so.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Fracas perfume by Robert Piguet
Fracas products by Robert Piguet
Smells, like sounds and colors spark off emotions, especially when harmoniously combined, like musical chords. Situations and conflicts can also provoke emotions. The overwhelming feelings experienced by audiences of films or plays were already known by the classic Greek tragedians : they called these extreme changes in emotions "catharsis", which can translate as purification.
In his work "Poetics", Aristotle has analysed how the triggering of sudden intense emotional disruptions result in a feeling of renewal, restoration and cleansing. Like a beneficial storm, the cathartis or purification's mysterious psychological process leaves us refreshed and revitalized but transformed.
Works of art capable to bring us to the level of catharsis are few: poems, plays, songs, symphonies, paintings or now films they remain the legacy of giants, the Homer, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Mozart or van Gogh. They are the great timeless classics and speak a universal language. By ephemeral means, true artists have always tried to reach the universal after an often painful emotional journey through their own human natures. Results can sometimes be ambiguous as remarked British art critic Walter Pater (1839-1894) in his writings about the mystery of Mona Lisa , "this beauty into which the soul with all its maladies has passed."
Scientists now know that the sense of smell is not perceived by the cortex of the brain. Smells connect straight into the lower brain, which relates to memories and emotions. As a result, if fragrances do not have any " cognitive" effect, they can have an enormous emotional impact. The same scientists have also found out that women are more receptive to colors and smells than men.
Perfume making, like film making is a new art form. Less acknowledged than the so called "fine arts" perhaps, but a true art form nevertheless. Modern perfume making actually started in the 1920's. New chemical components called "aldehydes" opened the possibilities to create elaborate complex compositions. Aldehydes make fragrance notes "sparkle". Emotions provoked by compositions of well arranged fragrance notes are more intense.
Among the multiple fragrances available today, very few have reached the status of true classics. One of the most famous is Chanel's No.5, actually one of the first "artificial" perfumes deliberately created as a composition. There is no coincidence in the fact that Chanel No.5 has had its popularity enhanced by several emotionally very influential artists. Everyone knows Marilyn Monroe's witty reply when asked once by some journalist what she wore in bed: "Why, Chanel No.5 of course!" Andy Warhol also contributed to make Chanel No.5 into a pop icon when he created several of his world famous silkscreens with the No.5 bottle as a motif.
Less widely known but a true masterpiece, Robert Piguet's Fracas is now gaining in popularity after having for years remained a cult fragrance among the privileged and the happy few. The very concept of Fracas is intentionally disruptive and emotional. Fracas, in French means tumult with nuances that could be conveyed through words like ram, crash, blast, or irrupt. It was intentionally provocative but also intriguing. Like a mystery. Fracas puts you in a mood where you want to know more about the person who wears it: it is insolent but also spell-binding. Emotional, sensuous, carnal and very sexy. You get hypnotized and enchanted.
I discovered Fracas as a young fashion model in New York many years ago. At the time I was wearing some of Kiehl's famous compositions like "Rain" or "Smoke". I also enjoyed a fine citrus fragrance called "Love" which has now disappeared. Coming once into a studio where I was booked, I had the surprise to discover that I would work in the company of one of the models I admired the most, Donna Mitchell. She was surrounded with this fascinating fragrance and I asked her about it. She told me the story of Fracas. In the evening, when I came back home, I had bought my first bottle and started a long love story with this perfume.
Fracas was the creation of Swiss born Robert Piguet (1898-1953) one of the era's most talented fashion designers in Paris. With the cooperation of specialist Germaine Cellier, Piguet had launched his first fragrance, Bandit, in 1945. Cellier and Piguet then started to work on a completely new concept: a fragrance which would be of the utmost elegance but at the same time very provocative and emotionally charged. It came out in 1948. Piguet chose the name Fracas.
An intriguing, complex and rousing composition of tuberose, jonquil, jasmine, lilac and white iris, Fracas was too disruptive and too carnal not to provoke some hesitations and was not immediately accepted. Robert Piguet unfortunately fell ill shortly after. A perfectionist, he did not want his fashion house to survive him. After selling the expensive real estate, he generously gave a part of the money to his 400 employees and retired in Lausanne where he died in 1953.
Less strict with his fragrances, Robert Piguet accepted the continuation of his line of perfumes. But without the back-up of a powerful commercial organisation, Bandit and Fracas could not really compete with other fragrances from larger companies.
Few fragrances have been copied as much as Fracas. Its influence can be perceived in many recent compositions, which have often tried to provoke similar emotional reactions. Over the years it has remained the secret cult fragrance of many celebrities from different generations : today it is the favorite of icons like Princess Caroline of Monaco, Madonna, Uma Thurman, Courtney Love and many others.
Read more from Georgina Tree
Smells, like sounds and colors spark off emotions, especially when harmoniously combined, like musical chords. Situations and conflicts can also provoke emotions. The overwhelming feelings experienced by audiences of films or plays were already known by the classic Greek tragedians : they called these extreme changes in emotions "catharsis", which can translate as purification.
In his work "Poetics", Aristotle has analysed how the triggering of sudden intense emotional disruptions result in a feeling of renewal, restoration and cleansing. Like a beneficial storm, the cathartis or purification's mysterious psychological process leaves us refreshed and revitalized but transformed.
Works of art capable to bring us to the level of catharsis are few: poems, plays, songs, symphonies, paintings or now films they remain the legacy of giants, the Homer, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Mozart or van Gogh. They are the great timeless classics and speak a universal language. By ephemeral means, true artists have always tried to reach the universal after an often painful emotional journey through their own human natures. Results can sometimes be ambiguous as remarked British art critic Walter Pater (1839-1894) in his writings about the mystery of Mona Lisa , "this beauty into which the soul with all its maladies has passed."
Scientists now know that the sense of smell is not perceived by the cortex of the brain. Smells connect straight into the lower brain, which relates to memories and emotions. As a result, if fragrances do not have any " cognitive" effect, they can have an enormous emotional impact. The same scientists have also found out that women are more receptive to colors and smells than men.
Perfume making, like film making is a new art form. Less acknowledged than the so called "fine arts" perhaps, but a true art form nevertheless. Modern perfume making actually started in the 1920's. New chemical components called "aldehydes" opened the possibilities to create elaborate complex compositions. Aldehydes make fragrance notes "sparkle". Emotions provoked by compositions of well arranged fragrance notes are more intense.
Among the multiple fragrances available today, very few have reached the status of true classics. One of the most famous is Chanel's No.5, actually one of the first "artificial" perfumes deliberately created as a composition. There is no coincidence in the fact that Chanel No.5 has had its popularity enhanced by several emotionally very influential artists. Everyone knows Marilyn Monroe's witty reply when asked once by some journalist what she wore in bed: "Why, Chanel No.5 of course!" Andy Warhol also contributed to make Chanel No.5 into a pop icon when he created several of his world famous silkscreens with the No.5 bottle as a motif.
Less widely known but a true masterpiece, Robert Piguet's Fracas is now gaining in popularity after having for years remained a cult fragrance among the privileged and the happy few. The very concept of Fracas is intentionally disruptive and emotional. Fracas, in French means tumult with nuances that could be conveyed through words like ram, crash, blast, or irrupt. It was intentionally provocative but also intriguing. Like a mystery. Fracas puts you in a mood where you want to know more about the person who wears it: it is insolent but also spell-binding. Emotional, sensuous, carnal and very sexy. You get hypnotized and enchanted.
I discovered Fracas as a young fashion model in New York many years ago. At the time I was wearing some of Kiehl's famous compositions like "Rain" or "Smoke". I also enjoyed a fine citrus fragrance called "Love" which has now disappeared. Coming once into a studio where I was booked, I had the surprise to discover that I would work in the company of one of the models I admired the most, Donna Mitchell. She was surrounded with this fascinating fragrance and I asked her about it. She told me the story of Fracas. In the evening, when I came back home, I had bought my first bottle and started a long love story with this perfume.
Fracas was the creation of Swiss born Robert Piguet (1898-1953) one of the era's most talented fashion designers in Paris. With the cooperation of specialist Germaine Cellier, Piguet had launched his first fragrance, Bandit, in 1945. Cellier and Piguet then started to work on a completely new concept: a fragrance which would be of the utmost elegance but at the same time very provocative and emotionally charged. It came out in 1948. Piguet chose the name Fracas.
An intriguing, complex and rousing composition of tuberose, jonquil, jasmine, lilac and white iris, Fracas was too disruptive and too carnal not to provoke some hesitations and was not immediately accepted. Robert Piguet unfortunately fell ill shortly after. A perfectionist, he did not want his fashion house to survive him. After selling the expensive real estate, he generously gave a part of the money to his 400 employees and retired in Lausanne where he died in 1953.
Less strict with his fragrances, Robert Piguet accepted the continuation of his line of perfumes. But without the back-up of a powerful commercial organisation, Bandit and Fracas could not really compete with other fragrances from larger companies.
Few fragrances have been copied as much as Fracas. Its influence can be perceived in many recent compositions, which have often tried to provoke similar emotional reactions. Over the years it has remained the secret cult fragrance of many celebrities from different generations : today it is the favorite of icons like Princess Caroline of Monaco, Madonna, Uma Thurman, Courtney Love and many others.
Read more from Georgina Tree
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Clarence King - Diane Rehm Show - Martha Sandweiss - "Passing Strange"
Clarence King was a famed explorer, scientist, and hero of late nineteenth century history. But the blue-eyed and fair-skinned King also led a secret double life passing as a black man. A historian examines the secret King only revealed on his deathbed to his black wife of thirteen years. - as reported by The Diane Rehm Show.
You can listen to the segement at
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/02/11.php#24678
Here's Martha Sandweiss's new book on the subject.
Photo Credit : The New York Times. Photo by Sage Sohier.
“Passing Strange” tells an astounding true story that would beggar most novelists’ imaginations. It exposes the bizarre secret life of a well-known historical figure, but that secret is its least sensational aspect. The secret was hidden in plain sight until Martha A. Sandweiss, the deductive historian who pieced together this narrative, happened to notice it. Her great accomplishment is to have explored not only how the 19th-century explorer and scientist Clarence King reinvented himself but also why that reinvention was so singularly American. Best of all are Ms. Sandweiss’s insights into what King’s deception and its consequences really mean.
Clarence King has often been written about by historians, but mostly in academic books about the mapping and geological exploration of the American West. He also turns up in biographies and literary histories, since he moved in glittering circles and was once widely held in high regard. He was called “the best and the brightest man of his generation” by one close friend, Secretary of State John Hay.
Hay went even further: “This polished trifler, this exquisite wit, who diffused over every conversation in which he was engaged an iridescent mist of epigram and persiflage, was one of the greatest savants of his time.” Another admirer put it this way: “The trouble with King is that his description of the sunset spoils the original.”
King was a blond blueblood from Newport who distinguished himself at an early age. He traveled West in the 1860s, found work with the California State Geological Survey, helped to map the Sierras and became geologist in charge of the United States Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel in 1867, when he was 25. He then became a familiar luminary in both New York and Washington. But his early years of roaming were just a prelude to what seems to have been a permanently rootless state.
Or so it seemed to his friends, who became used to his unexpected absences and thought of him as a perennial bachelor. Their impressions of him went no further. What they did not know was that when King was not living in various clubs and hotels, he was married and the father of five children. He was deeply devoted to his wife, Ada, a black woman 19 years his junior. This blue-eyed man, descended from signers of the Magna Carta, had successfully cultivated the impression that he was black too.
The existence of Ada and their children became publicly known only in 1933, at a trial in which Ada tried to recover the trust fund she had been promised by Clarence. He had been dead for more than 30 years, so the shock waves generated by the trial were considerable. Most dramatic, in Ms. Sandweiss’s account, is the way that revisionists demoted Clarence from hero to “tragic hero,” not to mention “the most lavishly overpraised man of his time,” upon discovering the he had been married to a former slave. This was typical of the sickening headlines surrounding the trial: “Mammy Bares Life as Wife of Scientist.”
All of this has long been a matter of record. It took Ms. Sandweiss to pinpoint and explore the fact that Clarence went further than merely marrying Ada and concealing her existence from his friends. He also adopted the name Clarence Todd, under which he married Ada, and claimed to be a Pullman porter, a job held exclusively by black workers. Employment on a train helped explain to Ada why he was so well traveled and so frequently absent from home. (Later he would claim to be a clerk and a steelworker too.)
Ms. Sandweiss constructs the life of the heretofore unknown young Ada, extrapolating from very scant evidence to create a remarkably solid portrait. Ada came from Georgia, was born pre-Emancipation and traveled to New York City to live as a domestic and children’s nursemaid. In other words, she went from one set of strictures to another, and only with Clarence did she achieve some kind of autonomy in a middle-class household. This article was written by Janet Maslin of the New York Times. You can read more here - New York Times
You can listen to the segement at
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/02/11.php#24678
Here's Martha Sandweiss's new book on the subject.
Photo Credit : The New York Times. Photo by Sage Sohier.“Passing Strange” tells an astounding true story that would beggar most novelists’ imaginations. It exposes the bizarre secret life of a well-known historical figure, but that secret is its least sensational aspect. The secret was hidden in plain sight until Martha A. Sandweiss, the deductive historian who pieced together this narrative, happened to notice it. Her great accomplishment is to have explored not only how the 19th-century explorer and scientist Clarence King reinvented himself but also why that reinvention was so singularly American. Best of all are Ms. Sandweiss’s insights into what King’s deception and its consequences really mean.
Clarence King has often been written about by historians, but mostly in academic books about the mapping and geological exploration of the American West. He also turns up in biographies and literary histories, since he moved in glittering circles and was once widely held in high regard. He was called “the best and the brightest man of his generation” by one close friend, Secretary of State John Hay.
Hay went even further: “This polished trifler, this exquisite wit, who diffused over every conversation in which he was engaged an iridescent mist of epigram and persiflage, was one of the greatest savants of his time.” Another admirer put it this way: “The trouble with King is that his description of the sunset spoils the original.”
King was a blond blueblood from Newport who distinguished himself at an early age. He traveled West in the 1860s, found work with the California State Geological Survey, helped to map the Sierras and became geologist in charge of the United States Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel in 1867, when he was 25. He then became a familiar luminary in both New York and Washington. But his early years of roaming were just a prelude to what seems to have been a permanently rootless state.
Or so it seemed to his friends, who became used to his unexpected absences and thought of him as a perennial bachelor. Their impressions of him went no further. What they did not know was that when King was not living in various clubs and hotels, he was married and the father of five children. He was deeply devoted to his wife, Ada, a black woman 19 years his junior. This blue-eyed man, descended from signers of the Magna Carta, had successfully cultivated the impression that he was black too.
The existence of Ada and their children became publicly known only in 1933, at a trial in which Ada tried to recover the trust fund she had been promised by Clarence. He had been dead for more than 30 years, so the shock waves generated by the trial were considerable. Most dramatic, in Ms. Sandweiss’s account, is the way that revisionists demoted Clarence from hero to “tragic hero,” not to mention “the most lavishly overpraised man of his time,” upon discovering the he had been married to a former slave. This was typical of the sickening headlines surrounding the trial: “Mammy Bares Life as Wife of Scientist.”
All of this has long been a matter of record. It took Ms. Sandweiss to pinpoint and explore the fact that Clarence went further than merely marrying Ada and concealing her existence from his friends. He also adopted the name Clarence Todd, under which he married Ada, and claimed to be a Pullman porter, a job held exclusively by black workers. Employment on a train helped explain to Ada why he was so well traveled and so frequently absent from home. (Later he would claim to be a clerk and a steelworker too.)
Ms. Sandweiss constructs the life of the heretofore unknown young Ada, extrapolating from very scant evidence to create a remarkably solid portrait. Ada came from Georgia, was born pre-Emancipation and traveled to New York City to live as a domestic and children’s nursemaid. In other words, she went from one set of strictures to another, and only with Clarence did she achieve some kind of autonomy in a middle-class household. This article was written by Janet Maslin of the New York Times. You can read more here - New York Times
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