My sister, who has been in the Sartorialist in 2007, is in the Sartorialist again this year. She's photo #5 from the top (wearing sunglasses.)
At Thakoon: The Sartorialist at the Ready-to-Wear Fashion Shows on Style.com
Recently in Personal Category
I've been using Parallels.com to run Windows XP and Ubuntu virtually on my Mac for a while and it's been pretty good, albeit slow as I haven't been able to give the VMs more than 512MB RAM due to my older MBP's RAM limitations.
Recently I needed to upgrade to the newest Parallels, which was an extra charge.
I went to the Parallels.com website and was sent to element5.com, which is the ecommerce vendor Parallels uses. I purchased the upgrade and waited for my new key. I was told 12 hrs max.
4 days goes by. No word from element5 or Parallels.
Finally I contact Parallels support and the support person,tells me that my order was declined. I was not notified of this. Why was I not notified? Then support tells me that I have to contact Element 5 for support. Why Element 5? I purchased the software from Parallels, not Element 5.
The worst part of all of this is the Element 5 website, which is run by Digital River, who is in the business of selling software online, does not use SSL for any of the username/passwords that they are requesting that users input on their site.
If this is the real state of affairs with Parallels, I'm moving to VMWare.
As you can see, I've finally fully upgraded to MT 4.01 with a new design. My old weblog design was many years old and with the help of a good friend (thank you BA!) I'm finally in 2008.
My comments should be working as well (although I'm still getting a lot of comment spam and I may need to turn off anonymous comments if I can't fix this) so please test my comments.
I've finally gotten a moment to upgrade my blog to MT 4.01. It was actually very easy and painless. Let's hope the comments are now working? Please help me test by leaving a comment.
My hosting provider (Dreamhost, who I recommend) has informed me that my mt-comments.cgi script is taking up too many resources on my hosted server so they had to turn it off. That means no one can comment to my blog until I fix that.
I like MT but I'm not sure I want to upgrade to 4.0 and it's not clear to me that moving to 4.0 will fix this issue. In any case, please give me a bit of time to fix my blog comment software.
W. David Marx, proprietor of many interesting websites including Néomarxisme and Néojaponisme, and I will be speaking with Prof. Jennifer Urban of USC at the USC Global Conference this weekend on Saturday the 27th on the topic of user-generated content in Japan. If you'll be attending, please be sure to say hello.
Our family friend and long-time New Yorker Kazuko has passed away. I will miss you Kazuko-san.
Simon Doonan wrote a nice obituary in The New York Observer.
When Kazuko first came to New York from Japan in 1968, to study drama at N.Y.U. on a Fulbright scholarship no less, the town was knee-deep in freaks. They lived la vie bohème, little knowing that the loft spaces where they ate, shagged, staged their happenings and wrote their poems would, less than half a century later, be occupied by hedge-fund dudes and the like.
New York cannot afford to lose any more wackadoos. When a great eccentric leaves Manhattan, especially one as sweet, kind, talented and demented as Kazuko, one can only hope and pray that a new one, maybe some loopy Harajuku gal with Kazuko’s extreme arty sensibility and lack of preconceived ideas, is waiting in the wings to take her place. Fingers crossed. New York is nothing without the Kazukos of the world.
Sayonara, Sweet Kazuko: Jewelry Designer, Loveable Kook | The New York Observer
The NY Times also has a short obituary for her.
Ms. Oshima was born in Tokyo on Jan. 4, 1942, and came to the United States when she was in her early 20s. Her early career was as a video artist and photographer, and she was a familiar presence in Manhattan’s Downtown art scene. She was a narrator on the soundtrack of the documentary film “Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945,” released in 1970.
Kazuko Oshima, Designer of Stone Jewelry, Dies at 65 - New York Times
Last night I went to the wake of my friends' father here in Tokyo, a man who used to be a prominent government employee (ex-ambassador). I was able to catch up with a group of friends which was more than small solace.
Today I wake up to the news of another old friend's passing in an accident in Southeast Asia. He left us doing what he loved, which is all I can hope for any of us, but he left us too early.
It has been a while since a passing has moved me like these have. I am not myself for the moment.
U-sama, rest in peace.
Nat, rest in peace.
Everyone else, please don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them.
I'm on vacation this week (July 23-27) in Japan at a conference help by the US-Japan Leadership Program. I'll try to blog a bit but can't make promises. I am reachable by email/IM as usual.
My sister, Aya Kanai, is profiled at Worship Worthy,
"an all female-authored daily newsletter and lifestyle blogsite targeted toward women, featuring continuously updated news, images and analysis of New York’s hippest fashion, trends, events and products to tastemakers and fashion forward city dwellers."
I had to look up a word, "louboutins", that my sister used in her interview.
