What to do when your jerk friends wreck your housemate’s bike?
Write the Ethicist! BTW, if you’re not an advice-column loving freak like myself, the Ethicist is written once a week by Randy Cohen for the New York Times. Unsurprisingly, he answers ethical questions. Here’s the second question today:
I rent a house with seven other college students who gave me permission to host a party. After the party, we learned that a housemate’s borrowed bike, left in a downstairs hallway, had been vandalized, presumably by a party guest. Given that no one will confess to the crime, am I responsible for the repairs? KAVITA VINEKAR, PHILADELPHIA
And then take it to Bike Church!
Update: Vinekar and a housemate took the bike to the nonprofit Neighborhood Bike Works, which provides tools and instructions for bicycle repair. The burden of buying a part and fixing the bike was shared by some of the housemates and the bike’s owner.
Yay, Neighborhood Bike Works, silly national advice column shoutout! What’s the ethical thing to do? Well, let’s just say that if it was followed by my college housemates, I would soon be receiving a half-liter of codeine cough syrup in the mail with a letter saying “Sorry about that one time I invited all the freshmen over.”
Click through the link to read Cohen’s advice!
What To Do This Weekend
Ah, the mysterious gods of getting-a-great-tan seem to be smiling upon us this weekend. The forecast predicts lots o’ sunshine and springtime temps that never dip under 75– so happy campers are we, in PW Styleblog Land.
The Piazza: kind of dumb
The Piazza: Kind of empty, no?
OK, I’m a mean jerk, but somebody’s got to say it:
The Piazza is dumb.
Am I the only person writing in Philadelphia that thinks this? Yeah, it’s shiny and pretty, but there’s what, like ten billion blogs here and a dozen-odd media outlets and everybody is all sunshine, lollipops and handjobs about flooding the market with high-priced retail with niche appeal? It doesn’t seem sustainable.
Not sustainable in a, you know, conscious, solar-power-using, hip way. It’s more like sustainable in a “How on earth can most of these places keep up with the costs of a storefront long-term?” way.
Free Stuff Friday
Happy Friday, kittens. Despite this week being a short one, I’m ready for the weekend to begin. I bet y’all are too.
But since we’ve all got to suffer through just a few more hours till happy hour, let’s try to make the best of it with Free Stuff Friday, our weekly extension of gratitude to our readers.
Today’s prize is, as usual, courtesy of MAC cosmetics. Virgin Kiss lipglass is from MAC’s Rose Romance line. It’s a “sheer pink with multi-dimensional pearl,” which, in layman’s terms means it’s pretty pale pink and a little shiny. You’ll love it, I swear. It’s perfect on it’s own but still shear enough to be worn on top of lipstick to add shine.
So how do you get it? Send an email to epalan@philadelphiaweekly.com with the subject line “FREE STUFF FRIDAY!” In the body of the email include a link to the funniest cat video you can find on the internet. We’ll post the winner’s video in our Friday Catty Hour before we head out for the weekend.
Funky Friday
When I was younger, I was somewhat always jealous of the spelling bee kids. I never understood how exactly I was supposed to get involved in one, and I’d probably do very poorly as I can only really spell a word right if I can see what it looks like. A lot of times I’ll write a word down on paper before I commit to telling someone how it’s spelled. So, without further adieu, here are the cool kids. The Scripps National Spelling Bee Kids. Also here’s footage of the final word being spelled correctly.
Prince Harry has arrived for his First official visit to The United States. Glamour magazine wants to know if you are charmed by accents. In Harry’s case I’m going to have to go right ahead and say many women…and men for that matter, are.
The New York Times has pictures up of what to expect this summer, while Good Morning America highlights the fact that Bob Hope is getting a new stamp! I can smell the weekend. Can you?
Let’s talk about socks, baby
I kind of love over-the-knee socks. They’re the one weird outlier in all of fashion in which you look sluttier by covering more skin. Last Friday, I wore a pair that come up to about my mid-thigh (well, when I continually tug them up, anyway) with a short skirt that I wear frequently, and observed that I got checked out/hollered at a lot more than I do when wearing the skirt alone.
In the spirit of this, and partially spurred by a recently-released ad for a new American Apparel product that I’m just going to put after the jump to be safe, here’s a roundup of strange socks and tights you may not know existed.
Bebaroque fringe thigh high: Urban Outfitters
If you ever wanted to dance like a monster on Sesame Street, these are the ones for you.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO EMILY’S MOM: Mom, you mentioned that you read this blog. Please stop reading this post now, do not click on the jump. Anyone at work, also, might want to not click the jump.
If the cardigan doesn’t fit, you must acquit
We said that we’d keep you up to date on the Trovata vs. Forever 21 trial (for why this is an interesting trial, we wrote about it in more detail in April), but it seems that jury found it as hard a question as the rest of us. California Apparel News reports:
A U.S. District Court judge declared a mistrial early on May 27 in the trade dress suit filed by contemporary brand Trovata against fast-fashion retail giant Forever 21 Inc.
Judge James V. Selna dismissed the jury after it failed to come to a decision. The jury had been deliberating since May 21. Trovata attorney Frank Colucci said he will request a new trial.
While the picture above is pretty damning, the question the jury was deliberating wasn’t so straightforward as “Did Forever 21 knock off Trovata’s designs?” Because, look, they clearly did. The problem is, at the moment, that isn’t flat-out illegal, which is why Forever 21 is such a successful company.
Trovata is trying a different tack, suing Forver 21 using an area of copyright law called “trade dress” that nobody in the fashion industry has tried yet, and it’s a stickier situation.
Trade dress is the mistier side of copyright protection. Normal trademark law covers logos and words, trade dress is all about the ‘feel,’ the packaging, the design. If you try to sue someone for trade dress infringement, you have to prove not only that the other guy copied you, but that you have some way of packaging things that people associate only with you (the red, curvy Coke bottle, for example), and the other guy copied you with the intent of having people pick up his red, curvy Croke bottle thinking it was Coke.
Here’s an example of how trade dress has been used in past legal decisions:
Strike A Pose
People magazine asks “Who wore it better?” While PopEater asks if celebs’ clothing choices are a hit or miss.
Vanity Fair has a slideshow featuring side by side comparisons of Michelle Obama’s clothing and Jackie O’s. The clothing styles are closer than I ever thought they were. Turns out calling Michelle the new Jackie isn’t a stretch at all.
Also on their website, Vanity Fair has pictures of Jessica Simpson, supposedly proving that she hasn’t gained any weight. I’m more drawn to the retrospective of Mario Testino’s work.
Lastly, the New York Times ran an article on photo retouching. Perhaps these images don’t even qualify as photos at all.
Wrap your giant creepy bunny presents in this
Really liking the idea of these new wrapping papers from the drawing board of Shauna Alterio and Stephen Loidolt, who comprise Philly’s design duo Something’s Hiding in Here. We’ve mentioned them before for their mustaches…
Incidentally, the couple was recently featured on Etsy’s new home tour video series, “There’s No Place Like Here…” giving the internet a look at their enviable renovated Philly loft space. Including their globe collection.
Here’s the video…
I was sure I’d seen that globe collection somewhere before, and indeed, the couple’s digs had been featured on Design Sponge, ReadyMade Magazine, Apartment Therapy Chicago and other big-traffic blogs.
But I’m confused, Apartment Therapy thinks they’re from Pittsburgh? It’s clearly the same space, and that issue didn’t come out too long ago… ah well, write it off to out-of-staters.
Something’s hiding in here etsy