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Fashion/Design, Pop Culture

Has Banksy Sold Out?

The other day I was hanging out at Austin’s uber-indie book store Book People and stumbled across a row of Banksy greeting cards.

My initial thought was, “Oh my God…guerrilla artist, now Hallmark?” but then I thought, “Eh, people need to make a living.”

Selling a line of greeting cards of your famous work does seem kind of counter-intuitive to the guerrilla art culture, but who am I to judge? If you Google “Banksy greeting cards“, a link to Banksy’s shop comes up but the link is dead. The search blurb says, “Banksy neither produces or profits from the sale of greeting cards, mugs or photo canvases of his work. He is not represented by any of the commercial galleries…”

I don’t know. What do you guys think? Kind of difficult to trust a guy who made Exit Through the Gift Shop. 

What do you guys think of Banksy? Sell-out, artist, or marketing genius?

 

December 12, 2011 by
Film, Hipstercrite Life

I Used to be a Hollywood Assistant

Over at CultureMap, I wrote a story about my days in LA. Some of you who have hung in there with me might already know this story. Occasionally I get nostalgic and cry like a little bitch about ol’ Hollywood. Either way, I’m happy I left it…

True Hollywood Story: The Life and Death of a Tinsletown Assistant

12.10.11 | 01:00 pm

I used to work in Hollywood — as a personal assistant.

Sometimes it seems like a dream, my time there. A forgotten dream only triggered by a minor chord or someone else’s love letter to Los Angeles. By songs or films that I relate to but that are not my story. Sometimes I drift off in a cloud of romanticized musings of things I did not experience.

It’s much easier to recall your time in Hollywood like one would a movie, giving your story a narrative when in reality, while you were experiencing it, there was no voice guiding the way.

I meet a lot of young people in Austin who want to move to or are about to move to LA. My initial reaction (more…)

December 10, 2011 by
Writing

Hipstercrite Round-Up: The Crazy Girl Edition

Good Magazine
  • (Relationships) The Huffington Post article A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not “Crazy” has been making the rounds this week. In the article, author Yasha Ali earns his gold star bone-ability rating by reminding women that it’s not us, it’s them. “When we are discouraged in our youth and early adulthood from expressing emotion, it causes many of us to remain steadfast in our refusal to express regret when we see someone in pain from our actions.” This article has the exact opposite title of my post Girls Are Crazy Until They Reach the age of 26. When I first read Ali’s article, I thought, “Yeah, but we women need to toughen up a bit.” I had worked for a person very similar to the type Ali describes in his post. He made me feel small anytime I opened my mouth. “Stop acting like a girl!” he’d say. Everything I did was wrong. I wasn’t good enough and he often held my job over my head. It was a difficult time in my life and looking back, I feel that it made me stronger. (more…)
December 8, 2011 by
Writing

Are Bloggers Journalists?

Mashable featured an article today about Oregon blogger Crystal Cox who negatively blogged about The Obsidian Finance Group who in turn sued her for defamation. The blogger, who represented herself in court, lost the case. According to Oregon media laws she is not considered a journalist and therefor not protected. A large deciding factor in this case was that she refused to name an inside source who gave her information, therefore not able to prove her blog was truth. Her punishment for defamation? 2.5 million dollars.

Mashable utilized the story to frame the question- are bloggers journalists?

This is an age old debate that comes up time and time again. It’s a question I rarely think about because I do not consider myself a journalist, but as I delve deeper into the world of freelance writing, I feel this might become more pertinent to me.

My blog has never been a news source. It’s a personal opinion site. Are facts intermingled in there? Yes. Do I try very hard to do my (more…)

December 8, 2011 by
Fashion/Design

Winter Fashion Staples: How To Look Stylish and Not Like Ralphie From A Christmas Story

It’s that time of year. That time where we Texans contemplate if we miss summer or not. 108 degrees or 40 degrees- which would you take?

Yes, Winter is finally here and I am completely not prepared.

I grew up in a town that has 8 month Winters and because of that and moved far, far away, as quickly as I could.  Because of this, I pretend that Winter no longer exists.

Every Winter I think I can get away without a heavy jacket and gloves and every Winter I suffer. Greatly. Or rather the people around me do. They have to listen to my teeth chattering and my exaggerated pleas for survival.

But, this year I’m going to be smart. This week is the first butt-ass cold week of the year and I’m already getting my Winter checklist ready. A checklist that doesn’t involve sweatpants. You know, the one where you can still look stylish and not like a bundled up Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

Check it below.

What are your winter staples?

Sheer Circle Scarf– This is quite possibly the (more…)

December 7, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

Young Entrepreneurs Not to Watch

You know those lists that pop up every so often on Forbes or CNN? The “25 Under 25 to Watch” or “30 Entrepreneurs Under 30”.

Don’t those lists make you want to barf?

Cut all your hair off and crawl under a rock?

Crawl under a rock and barf and die?

It certainly makes me feel that way.

The funny thing is, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. Shit, I don’t even know how to spell it. I had zero aspirations as a kid of being a start-up mogul or app designer. In fact, when I was a kid, nobody even knew what the f that was. However, as an adult all that has changed. When I read about 23 year olds who are wealthier than shit because they made a website where other people can upload images that users make fun of or because they made a bunch of t-shirts that say words like “cheese” in Helvetica and sell them for $75 online it makes me wonder what the hell I’m doing wrong.

Does it boil down to talent, hard work, luck, or being priveleged? I guess some fall in one or all categories.

a.) (more…)

December 6, 2011 by
Hipstercrite Life

The Stigma of Depression and Anxiety Medicine

I was working on a post about young entrepreneurs and how they make me feel like crawling under a rock and dying, but instead I’m going to write about anxiety.

My mother just called me to tell me that my grandmother is in the ER with high blood pressure. 235 over 98, I believe.

Obviously this got me worried, but the doctors said her blood work, oxygen levels and EKG results are all good. However, they’re going to keep her overnight.

My mother and I immediately assumed that stress is causing my grandmother’s high blood pressure, but the doctor said it wouldn’t make it rise that high. Regardless, I know that her stress and the ways she doesn’t deal with it is at least playing a minor factor in her high blood pressure. A few days ago she did not feel well and she told me it was because of stress.

Grandma has a lot to be stressed about, but don’t we all these days? In my grandmother’s situation she has a partner who has Alzheimer’s. It is something my grandmother has not come (more…)

December 5, 2011 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life

Eastside 4 Life

On my column over at Culture Map today…

Life on the East Side: Becoming a Realist and Learning to Love Where You Live

12.02.11 | 04:45 pm

The other night my boyfriend and I heard a loud boom outside of our house. Within minutes the crash was followed by sirens, one after another. Cops and fire trucks sped by and then stopped at the corner; we peeked out the window but couldn’t tell what was going on.

Concerned, we bundled up and headed outside to investigate. We stood on the corner staring into a sea of red and blue lights, trying to see what the commotion was. Finally, we asked a nearby cop, who informed us that a car had flipped over. We walked back into the house, wondering how the heck someone could flip their car in a 30 mile per hour neighborhood zone.

Fifteen minutes went by and we still heard the cops outside, working away; my curiosity got the best of me, so I went back out to inquire further. (We were told that the driver was ok and driven to the (more…)

December 3, 2011 by
Fashion/Design

The Best Nerdy Glasses for Your Boyfriend

“I want to get a pair of glasses like David Byrne has in the “Once in a Lifetime” music video,” my boyfriend said to me the other day.

If he only knew how long I had been waiting to hear those words come from a man’s lips.

I remember the first time I saw the “Once in a Lifetime” music video. I thought, “One day I want to date a man who dresses like a faux-evangelist.”

Little did I know those days were the beginning of my transformation into a hipster.

The David Byrne “Once in a Lifetime” glasses are not that dissimilar to the George McFly glasses. Another man I had a crush on as a child.

Needless to say you can tell why I’m so excited that my boyfriend want to get- eek, dare I say, hipster glasses.

See, this is the problem with cool glasses. If you want to wear vintage or unique glasses, you get labeled a hipster no matter what. Well, what if you just dig old glasses? What if you’ve wanted to wear old glasses ever since you were a little girl and you really don’t (more…)

December 2, 2011 by
Pop Culture

Hipstercrite Round-Up

I’m going to try something new today. This was an idea I planned for the blog redesign but never got around to doing it until Randall at  The Mojo Wire reminded me.  Thanks, Randall!

Now that I’m a freelance writer and social media manager, I spend a lot of time reading and sharing on the internet. I come across a lot of cool stuff and I guess sharing them on Facebook and Twitter are not enough- I FEEL THE NEED TO SHARE THEM ON MY BLOG TOO!

I’ve always enjoyed Flavorwire’s daily roundup, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Please let me know your thoughts. Do you like? Not like? Should I do daily or once a week or never?

___

–Texts from Bennett was the hot commodity trending on Facebook today. Text messages from a 17 year-old white kid who thinks he’s a Crip never was so funny. Do you guys think it’s real?

-Do you go by the title ‘Happiness Advocate‘? What about ‘Social Media Trailblazer‘? ‘Head Cheese‘? Or how about ‘Douchebag‘? Brazen Careerist talks about the trend of cutesy (more…)

December 1, 2011 by