Dutch genius and ingenuity at its best -making the familiar even more useful and fun! Here are some of my favorite recent Dutch treats...

TEN Network News, Australia: Playground inspiration at the railway station in Utrecht, The Netherlands. August 11, 2011. http://youtu.be/vZrUuC8j7XY

Dutch genius and ingenuity at its best -making the familiar even more useful and fun! The quickest distance between two points is a slide!

Despite The Netherlands being a small country, size-wise, it's ranked number eight, right behind Sverige (Sweden), in the number of readers coming to my humble blog, and the home of a few readers who fairly regularly send me a head's-up on interesting ideas, news stories, songs and videos.

Blijven die ideeën komen!

Let me take the opportunity to show you some of my favorite recent Dutch treats...

(In case you forgot or weren't reading the blog then, as I've previously mentioned here, The Netherlands is a country that my family has always had a great deal of warm feelings for. We not only knew a few very friendly Dutch emigres in North Miami Beach as I and my sisters were growing up there in the 1970's -esp. me- but one of my two younger sisters studied in Rotterdam at Erasmus University for a semester her junior year at IU -January of 1985- and absolutely LOVED IT.

So much so that four short years later, she had her honeymoon in Amsterdam and the rest of the country after getting married in New Amsterdam -New York!- which is when I first became aware of and a regular subscriber to the salmon-colored New York Observer.)

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KLM Royal Dutch Airlines video: KLM Personal Space Experiment

http://youtu.be/ecDH5uqsKLA

See also: Tribal DDB Amsterdam's social media campaign for KLM.

KLM's Tile & Inspire Journeys of Inspiration ad campaign video:

http://tileyourself.com/

After you select your country from the drop-down menu, make sure that you click the volume control at top right!

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines video: KLM Tile & Inspire: The Making of...

http://youtu.be/aP_bN4xww9s

Photo of a KLM Boeing 777-200 wrapped in customer's quotations and tile portraits.

http://tribalddb.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/KLM-Tiles.jpg

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines video: KLM Fly2Miami (KLM inaugurates direct Amsterdam-Miami flights)

http://youtu.be/9sHY7xrB2Ac

Story is at : How A Tweet Turned Into An In Flight Dance Party

http://socialtimes.com/how-a-tweet-turned-into-an-in-flight-dance-party_b56527

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Armin van Buuren feat. Christian Burns - This Light Between Us (Official Music Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8GHg9v5CeA

http://www.arminvanbuuren.com/

I first posted this video in my January 10th, 2011 post titled Armin van Buuren feat. Christian Burns - This Light Between Us -Official Music Video; Unplugged version with Christian Burns & Eller van Buuren at

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/armin-van-buuren-feat-christian-burns.html

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"Bride Flight" opened in Los Angeles in June, 2011

Bride Flight, U.S. trailer

http://youtu.be/TeoQjFm4610

Directed by Ben Sombogaart

See the official website at: http://www.brideflight.nl/

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This is a pretty amazing article.

The Daily Mail

The land that feminism forgot: They wouldn't dream of working full-time, spend three hours a day drinking coffee and their men pay for everything - have Dutch women found the secret to happiness?

By Liz Jones
Last updated at 11:34 PM on 9th March 2011

Have you wondered what life would be like if feminism had never happened? If we were all housewives? If we were not required to live on our wits and our adrenaline, and were able to take up a hobby? If men were happy to step up to the mark and look after us?

Am I talking about travelling back in time to see what life was like in the Fifties? No, it is much simpler than that. I am catching a flight to Amsterdam.

Read the rest of the post at

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1364690/Have-Dutch-women-secret-happiness.html

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TV4.se Nyheterna video: Kommuner raggar arbetskraft i Holland.

Sverige behöver invandrad arbetskraft. I dag finns det tusentals kvalificerade och arbetslösa invandrare i Sverige. Samtidigt raggar kommunerna arbetskraft utomlands. TV4Nyheternas Lena Sundström har besökt Emigrantmässan i Utrecht.

TV4 Nyheterna reporter Lena Sundström visits an Emigration Fair held in Utrecht, The Netherlands in February that sought to motivate smart and educated Dutch workers to consider emigrating to Sweden, with various parts of the convention space dedicated to different aspects of life in the country, with about 100 cities and towns represented. This fair is very successful as over 700,000 Dutch citizens a year seriously consider emigrating overseas and over 120,000 actually do it.

It's not said in the video but one way of looking at this fascination that Sweden holds for some Dutch citizens is that just as kids who grows up in small towns in the U.S. often aims to go to a big city some day to do whatever it is they they aim to do, so it is that for a person who grows-up in a small and congested country like the NL, where land is precious, going to a country with lots of space to breathe sounds appealing.

For someone from NL, the mid-central and northern parts of Sweden -where as I recently wrote, film director David Fincher has recently recorded some scenes in Sollefteå for the new American film version of "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" starring Daniel Craig- can be like visiting another planet.

Space is everywhere, along with hills, mountains and lakes.

And if you're not careful, loneliness.

It's almost disorienting.

February 13, 2011 http://www.nyhetskanalen.se/tv?videoId=1.2015063
Article: http://www.nyheterna.se/1.2014991/2011/02/13/kommuner_soker_arbetskraft_i_holland

Me, I like to think I'm open to new things, but I definitely draw the line at reindeer meat.

That is, unless you can somehow convince me that it tastes just like, yes... chicken.

Or even lamb...

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Bandera, Texas -Cowboy Capital of the World- where my mother's side of the family has lived continuously for over 150 years.

Logo of the Bandera Convention and Visitors Bureau

To quote myself, whether in Iceland or the Hill Country of Bandera, Texas, the Faroe Islands or Holland, "girls love horses..."

And if there are a few things we know about our friends in the land of the Oranje, de nederlandse, one is of them is that Cinzia ♥ horses and Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean.

That is a stone-cold fact you can't deny.

I first discovered Cinzia's earnest YouTube videos a few months ago after seeing it next to one by Eva Skemm, another devout teenage horse lover -from the Faroe Islands- whom I first mentioned in my July 27th post,

My Mischievous Little Swedish Pony: Yes, ponies are still cute & funny, esp. when adults are running after them; Patrik Kittel; Eva Skemm

There's simply nothing like a great horse...

Cinzia video: Horses and Pirates of the Caribbean

http://youtu.be/hg_1amJ3QGo

Cinzia's YouTube Channel : http://www.youtube.com/user/cinzialoverhana

Cinzia's website: http://www.dayrahorses.tk/

Cinzia video: Dare to dream -Dayra horses [300+subs]

http://youtu.be/dCTdWW3Nmo4

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Question: If Miami-Dade County or Broward County had a 'Sister County' sort of deal along the lines of the Sister Cities program, with Amsterdam or Rotterdam -cities where my sister her honeymoon and went to school for a semester while going to IU- and they did an exchange of elected officials and employees, what would happen quicker?

The people from South Florida "accidentally" flooding the city, or the Dutch using common sense and some style to make Miami more sane, livable and possibly, sexier?

Slate

HOME / ARCHITECTURE: WHAT WE BUILD.

Can Cities Save the Planet?

Scientists are skeptical. Planners are hopeful. The Dutch are pragmatic.

By Witold Rybczynski

Posted Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008, at 6:58 AM ET

Winning With Water

According to Timothy Beatley, an urban-planning professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Green Urbanism, the per-capita carbon dioxide emissions of American cities are almost twice as high as those of their European counterparts. Hardly surprising, since European cities are denser and more compact, homes are smaller, and people rely to a far greater extent on mass transit. So if Americans are to significantly reduce their carbon footprint, we will have to do a lot more than switch to reusable shopping bags and recycle our soda cans. But as a recent conference on "urban design after the age of oil" at the University of Pennsylvania (where I teach) demonstrated, there is something of a disconnect between the global-warming problem and the available solutions.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206841/

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Transit Miami

http://www.transitmiami.com/

The Dutch, Beer and Thinking Bike

By Felipe Azenha On May 5, 2011

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure to meet several members of the Dutch delegation that came to Miami for a two-day ThinkBike workshop. The purpose of the ThinkBike workshop was to learn from the expertise of Dutch planners. They came to teach us how we could improve downtown Miami’s bikeability. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the actual workshop, but I was able to make it to the post-seminar cocktail hour. Over a couple of Cold Stellas I spoke with several members from the Dutch delegation, a gentleman from the County Public Works Department, as well as citizens all of whom participated in the seminar. The feedback I recieved was extremely positive.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.transitmiami.com/fdot/the-dutch-beer-and-thinking-bike

By the way, I spotted someone riding one of the Dutch bikes -with the KLM basket- in May in Hollywood, east of The ArtsPark, that I strongly suspect had been stolen

I didn't know what it was, though, since I hadn't read the story yet.

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Houston Chronicle

Steffy: U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise

By Loren Steffy

June 8, 2010, 10:13PM

Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.html

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Please be sure to read my blog post of almost a year ago, August 18, 2010, titled Fascinating Deutsche Welle TV video of innovative architect Thomas Rau in Amsterdam, and what he's done with the WWF HQ in The Netherlands

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/fascinating-deutsche-welle-tv-video-of.html which accompanied this interesting video.

Rau Architects video: Thomas Rau on Deutsche Welle TV

http://youtu.be/66ZA-kfjBUA

http://rau.eu/en

RAU Architects YouTube Channel:http://www.youtube.com/user/RAUarchitects

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Video: Holland's most beautiful soccer goals ever TOP 15 [part 3 of 3] [HD],

http://youtu.be/tC5EEE3rKcI

Last year before the 2010 World Cup tourney started in South Africa, I predicted that The Netherlands would win, likely beating Spain 4-2 in the final. C'est la vie.

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This was a real gold nugget of useful information.

Information Professional magazine

The Sirens of Pirate Bay

By Martin Bossenbroek

woensdag, 05 augustus 2009

http://www.informatieprofessional.nl/bijdragen/7388-the-sirens-of-pirate-bay.html

Martin Bossenbroek is directeur Collecties en Dienstverlening van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek

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http://www.dutchdailynews.com/

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Newspaper front pages in The Netherlands: http://en.kiosko.net/nl/

Special thanks to Henry Hudson...

Worst Timing of the Year Award? Yes! Matthew Newton of Forbes.com skewers newest Levi's jean ad - "Romanticizes Youth Riots At The Wrong Time"

Levi's® Legacy (English), July 20, 2011, http://youtu.be/KT16DcHcjRA

Levi's Latest 'Go Forth' Ad Romanticizes Youth Riots At The Wrong Time

Matthew Newton

8/10/2011 @ 01:37PM

As London burns and violence creeps north into Manchester and Birmingham, Levi’s launch of an advertising campaign that features images of rebellious youth clashing with police in riot gear comes at a bad time. That’s the reality the brand is facing with “Legacy,” the latest spot in its often controversial Go Forth series. And according to Creative Review, such synchronicity has led Levi’s to postpone the UK release of the ad.

Read the rest of the post:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewnewton/2011/08/10/levis-latest-go-forth-ad-romanticizes-youth-riots-at-the-wrong-time/

But if it makes them feel any better, a lot of their jeans were stolen from legitimate stores...

Ah, the San Francisco counter-culture approach to selling jeans!

Despite all the inevitable media backlash and offense this ad would be sure to cause, and despite the fact that they won't be running this TV advert in England for obvious reasons, Levi's "Favorited" this ad on their YouTube Channel yesterday.

Yeah, that'll show the critics.

LOL!

And when DO they run this precious Wieden + Kennedy ad on TV in the U.K., anyway, given public sentiment?

Play with fire, you get burned.

Especially when you play with poseur fire!

Channel 4 News video: Reporter Jane Deith describes the police's seven-hour battle of endurance in Manchester, where they were usually on the wrong side of a cat-and-mouse game with looters, to the dismay of shop owners and residents.

http://www.channel4.com/news/manchester-riots-end-after-seven-hour-battle

Charlie Crist reduced to being himself again: Pitchman, just NOT from a pitching mound. At least it's not for Chevy!

SarahRumpfFL video: Charlie Crist's new TV ad!
http://youtu.be/-rcg_-8hB4E

The title of today's post will be somwhat mystifying to you if you didn't see the video of Charlie crist that appeared in my October 8th, 2010 post titled, Another reason to vote against Charlie Crist: his pitching is clearly outside of the 'mainstream'

I first discovered this video above uploaded to YouTube by Winter Park blogger Sarah Rumpf this morning at her SunshineStateSarah blog -clever title!- and then a reference over to it later in the morning at the St. Pete Times Florida politics blog, The Buzz, which you all should have bookmarked by now.

http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com/2011/05/it-was-only-matter-of-time.html http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com/

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/charlie-crist-back-tv-trial-lawyer-pitchman http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/

On the positive side, though some of you who supported Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate last year must surely be disheartened to see your man who was going to take on the partisan Washington establishment reduced to the newest lawyer advertising on TV, at least he wasn't singing and dancing his way thru... a rendition of "See the USA in Your Chevrolet."

The iconic advertising song first sung in the early 1950's by Dinah Shore on her eponymous TV show sponsored by Chevy, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show -how's that for synergy?- and more recently, sung by the cast of Fox-TV's Glee, following the Super Bowl, which I featured here on February 6th in a post titled, Going Old School & New School: 'See the USA in Your Chevrolet' TV ad - Dinah Shore in 1952, 'Glee' cast in 2011http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/going-old-school-new-school-see-usa-in.html

In a word: Brilliant!

See the USA in Your Chevrolet - Dinah Shore, 1952 http://youtu.be/iK43-ERSwwM



The Cast of Glee "See the USA in Your Chevrolet"
2011 TV ad in show following Super Bowl 45 http://youtu.be/JD7EsyYlqlU

For those of you who had never heard of or seen the original iconic Dinah Shore Madison Avenue classic, you're welcome.


That song was literally trapped in my brain over the weekend, and seemed to keep coming out as I hit one red light after another while traveling thru our local tri-partite ocean-side kingdom of Aventura, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

The part that I kept singing at the intersection -alone- waiting for the traffic light to turn green?

Traveling East, Travelling West
Wherever you go Chevy service is best
Southward or North, near place or far
There's a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car

Ironically, the law offices of popular South Florida lawyer/TV pitchman David W. Singer, so famous for his TV ads during Florida Marlins telecasts, are located down the street from me on U.S.-1, near Hollywood Elementary School.

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Not Breaking News: In this area, we have some east-west crossings of U.S.-1 that seem to last all of three seconds -and not a second longer.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahRumpfFL

For some fascinating videos on older cars, please see AutomobileHistoryUSA's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AutomobileHistoryUSA

Here's one to give you an idea of what awaits you:



The Highway of Tomorrow: The Pennsylvania Turnpike (1951) sponsored by Chevrolet, in Technicolor
http://youtu.be/ohtUiPZ0xSc

http://www.vintagechevrolet.org/

BMW Mini-Cooper ad: Mini vs. Monster (3D Commercial with Monster Trucks!); hilarious!

Glassworks (Amsterdam) video: Mini vs. Monster: The New Mini Family
(3D Commercial with Monster Trucks!); Directed by Robert Jitzmark. Filmed at Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada.
http://youtu.be/KZ0PRAVgcyY

No Minis were harmed in the making of this wonderful ad!

Dutch advertising agency BSUR enlisted the creative forces at the Amsterdam office of Glassworks and Stockholm production company Camp David to team together to help create the first stereoscopic TV commercial to ever air in The Netherlands.
And the results are both impressive and hilarious.



Official MINI vs. Monster (The Making of...) HD
http://youtu.be/8W4YvqvcS-0

For more information:

www.mini.com

http://www.glassworksamsterdam.nl/

http://www.campdavidfilm.com/

http://www.bsur.com/

Going Old School & New School: 'See the USA in Your Chevrolet' TV ad - Dinah Shore in 1952, 'Glee' cast in 2011

The Cast of Glee "See the USA in Your Chevrolet"
2011 TV ad in show following Super Bowl 45 http://youtu.be/JD7EsyYlqlU


In a word: Brilliant!


See the USA in Your Chevrolet - Dinah Shore, 1952 http://youtu.be/iK43-ERSwwM

For those of you who had never heard of or seen the original iconic Dinah Shore Madison Avenue classic, you're welcome.

Since I'm a big believer in source material to give you the appropriate context, if you watch this, you will learn more than you could want about the new 1953 Chevrolets -and see where the songs appears in the scheme of things.
The entire song was from A Great New Star (1952), with Dinah starting to sing it just after the 10:19 mark.







Chevrolet TV commercial of 1965, featuring the cast of NBC-TV's Bonanza, The Man From UNCLE, and ABC-TV's Bewitched, the latter of which was sponsored by Chevrolet its first season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRHinTPu5I


Below, you can hear the 'See the USA' jingle segue into the opening credits of the 1964 season of Bewitched



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnDF3-Forms

The Nordiska Kompaniet Dept. Store in downtown Stockholm has a surprise guest in its Christmas window display: a small squatter!

Råttan mitt bland NK:s mjukisdjur
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/inrikes/article8291800.ab

NK is Nordiska Kompaniet, the larger-than-life Swedish department store company with hugely popular locations in downtown Stockholm and Göteborg, that is, in ways that are hard to fathom for many Western consumers under the age of forty who never knew that era, both a mythical and magical name in the world of consumer retailing, and an aspirational lifestyle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordiska_Kompaniet
In Swedish: http://www.nk.se/
In English: http://www.nk.se/en/nk-stockholm/

NK Vintersaga - 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4r7gvi96kU

Much more than almost any other current department store I can think of, NK is like the old-fashioned dept. stores that, in the United States, used to populate large northern cities, as well as Atlanta, large cities in California and a handful of other larger cities, where the promotional activities within the store as well as the print/TV/radio advertising campaigns were a staple of both everyday amusement and general conversation among the local citizenry.

Personal evaluations were made not only on the quality and service of the stores, but also of their ad campaigns, not unlike frank discussions of sports teams or favorite players, whether in a hot-streak or in a slump, and if the latter, what would be needed to change the dynamic?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianmontone/4338039892/

My sense of things from reading about that era and talking to people very involved in top-tier advertising agencies from the 1950's thru the late '80's, is that people then had a much stronger sense of loyalty to some dept. stores and an equally strong animus or aversion towards patronizing others, often built over personal slights years before, or in some cases, longstanding racial prejudice not easily forgotten.

Now, it's largely about the cost of an item and where you can it cheapest, NOT the retail experience, and I'm as guilty as anyone else, even though I wish it weren't so.

Until the mid-1960's, when the upwardly mobile suburbs and their growing affluence beckoned them, especially in the growing Sunbelt states -until the notion of a large downtown department store without a large nearby parking garage seemed patently absurd on its face- they often played a larger role in a city's commerce and business image than you might think because of the variety of professionals who worked there and who were available to pitch-in and lend their expertise to community groups like the Junior League, United Way, et al.
These professionals were the key to the dept. stores protecting and preserving their upscale image.

For most of the 1970's, I lived four blocks south of the 163rd Street Shopping Center in North Miami Beach, when it was an open-air mall, long before it had a fabric roof erected over it as part of a massive renovation in 1979.

Everyday for years, I walked thru it twice a day on my way to and from JFK Jr, High and NMBHS, so I knew every single inch of it, as did my friends, especially the Burdine's,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdines where I worked part-time while in high school and while back from IU in the summer a few years later.

http://mall-hall-of-fame.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mall_at_163rd_Street
http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories_shopping

See this amazing JFK speech -delivered at 163rd Street!- on, of all things, Castro's Cuba
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/JFK+Pre-Pres/1960/002PREPRES12SPEECHES_60OCT18a.htm

http://www.labelscar.com/



Katie Couric, circa 1984, reporting from the former 163rd Street Shopping Center in North Miami Beach on the subject of shopping mall crime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbpHgMvM918


The sorts of dept. stores that I'm thinking of, and which applies to NK's now, are the sort of place that would have been the go-to store for not only visiting tourists, but the local smart-set as well, especially twenty-somethings finally coming into some money and eager to spend a little of it on themselves for an emotional pick me-up, a suit for a man an evening dress for a woman.
Or a new electronic device that promised to change your life, like a VCR.

That sort of dept. store, regardless of where it was located, were also where many of our common sense notions of contemporary consumer behavior first came into play, and in the case of women's fashion, were often deliberately reversed just to catch the attention of influential young would-be fashionistas of the time, whose word-of-mouth was golden in that pre-cell phone and Internet era.

Quite sensibly, some upscale dept. stores created a group of female teen 'insiders,' a talkative and opinionated bunch whose minds and imaginations they plumbed and mined for insight into teen tastes and aspirations, as a sort of in-house focus group.

For instance, the Burdines Teen Board, which when I was still at NMB, had some of my friends on it.
If only those girls had blogs back then, they'd be mini-media moguls!

http://absolutboston.se/
http://www.labelscar.com/
http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/fashion/

FYI, circa 2007, the Top 100 Fashion Blogs may've looked like this:
http://www.customizedgirl.com/blog/?p=9

A newer perspective on the most popular fashion blogs, especially those in Europe, can be found at the updated list at popular blogging network Bloglovin.
http://www.bloglovin.com/

There's some pretty amazing things there by some very creative and perceptive people.

There have been so many movies and TV shows made about the inter-relationships of people working at dept. stores that even if you lived in a small town in the '50's that was bereft of that sort of upscale and sophisticated operation, you knew what it was like by cinema osmosis, so you knew EXACTLY what you were missing out on.
Which is part of why you wanted to leave Dodge, pronto!

For me, growing-up in South Florida, far from a traditional hotbed of holiday window displays like what you saw in films or TV, the closest to anything like it that I had any first-hand experience came with the Marshall Field's stores in Chicagoland in the mid-'80's, when I lived in Evanston and Wilmette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Field%27s

On a slightly smaller scale compared to the huge flagship State Street store in downtown Chicago, the Loop, where my talented fashion-forward friend Madeleine Moulton worked, that included the Marshall Field's in Evanston that was located not far from where I lived.

In 1986, that was where I first bought a favorite red Lacoste sweater before catching an early holiday flight to Miami -a sweater that populated many Christmas photos for years- in order to be down here when my nephew Mario was born a week before Christmas.

That was not unlike an earlier red one I bought at the-then L.S. Ayres at the College Mall in Bloomington, that populated many photos of me and various friends at IU and several memorable dates from 1979-'84.

You might want to read my May 26, 2007 post at South Beach Hoosier titled
South Florida's epidemic apathy shows itself once again.

It was about the Macy's store -the old Burdines store- in downtown Miami on Flagler Street, and the shabby conditions of downtown Miami, and Macy's purchase of Marshall Field's and its effect on Chicago area consumers.
That was a follow-up on something that Transit Miami founder Gabriel Lopez-Bernal had written on the subject on his popular blog.
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/05/while-marshall-fields-loyalists-fight.html

http://www.transitmiami.com/

http://bobmiami.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/bob-prediction-macys-downtown-will-get-revamped/

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?s=1f53638a57498918e3b9f1e1ca54bdd5&f=513

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http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/

http://www.youtube.com/user/NordiskaKompanietTV

Sorry this reads so blah but my original post here on NK's and the role of department stores vanished when my computer crashed this morning, so I will try to re-post it later if I can.

First ever full-length ad-wrapped train run in New York City is for Target's promotion of new store in Harlem opening July 25th

First ever full-length ad-wrapped train run in New York City is for Target's promotion of new store opening in Harlem on July 25th. Ten cars decorated at a cost of $250,000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W34Mc5KvDw



Read the entire story at: http://www.startribune.com/business/97445589.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

From Bergman's Sweden to Mod cotton fashions in the blink of an eye; BBC's 5 LIVE as a chaser; RFD Greenwich Village on TCM; Leona Lewis and Colbie Caillat's ads for Cotton Producers Institute

Today for your education and amusement comes this very interesting insight into late 1960's advertising and fashion and New York City living, in the form of a short ten-minute industrial film called RFD Greenwich Village.


https://archive.org/details/0574_RFD_Greenwich_Village_08_01_00_24
advertising, Manhattan, late-1960's fashion, New York City, travel, social life, consumerism, home design, Bleeker Street, NYC architecture, O. Henry's, The Village Gate, Village Purple Onion, Ye Waverly Inn, Circle in the Square theater

I first saw it on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) over the weekend as "filler" immediately following a showing of Ingmar Bergman's celebrated 1966 film, Persona.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827/

It was produced by the industry group, Cotton Producers Institute, which the next year became Cotton Incorporated, which first made all those great feel-good TV ads in the 1970's for cotton clothing, emphasizing The Fabric of Our Lives.
"The touch/The feel of cotton/The fabric of our lives."
http://www.cottoninc.com/CottonGrowerArticles/

Here are their newest commercials from April for that famous advertising campaign featuring singers Leona Lewis and Colbie Caillat.

The Fabric of Leona's Life (High Quality): 30

http://youtu.be/ncFkelvp2ho

The Fabric of Colbie's Life (High Quality): 30

http://youtu.be/Eba_ofOU0LA

See also: Leona Lewis and Colbie Caillat talk FASHION
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0jmd_leona-lewis-and-colbie-caillat-talk_shortfilms

See other commercials from the series at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CottonFabricOfMyLife

Because I hadn't seen Persona in many years and it was coming on after midnight, I chose to record it while I listened via the Internet to the BBC's 5 live programming while trying to fall asleep, something which I have become addicted to doing since the beginning of the year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two

Because of the five-hour time difference between South Florida and London, when I flip it on after watching ESPN's Baseball Tonight, it's their Breakfast show with Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty, or if it's a bit later, Victoria Derbyshire.

I'll actually be compiling and sharing my own personal "Best of" 5 live morning shows soon, along with links and podcast info to share some of the best programming I've heard in ages, and which makes listening to stolid NPR an even less-likely decision once you've gotten used to their style, verve and imagination -and honesty.
And it's all LIVE. 

That's why I used the word addictive earlier, since I now find myself going to sleep with lots of traffic updates on what's what on the M6 and where the lorries have flipped over like they always did on cue on the DC Beltway and I-270 in Maryland at the worst possible times -morning rush.

Take a listen for yourself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live/

While taping Persona on the tube, from London I heard a series of news bites on a new study along with some compelling interviews with adults and kids on the affect of parental drinking in front of children. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sybc6#synopsis

I don't mind telling you that some of it nearly had me in tears, since I recognized the outline of so many of these stories and revelations from first-hand observations among my own family and circle of friends here in South Florida and while going to school at IU in Bloomington, where I sometimes went on weekend trips with friends back to their hometowns all across the Midwest.


(To the best of my knowledge, my alma mater, North Miami Beach High School, had no cheerleaders or high-achieving girls get pregnant by teachers while I was there from 1976-'79, but apparently, judging by what I heard on those weekend visits so many years ago, NMB's kind of normalcy was anything but the norm in some of the Midwestern towns I visited, which seemed more like David Lynch film sets, with high school Driver's Education instructors actually leaving their wives for 17-year old girls.
Turns out I was more right about NMB being very "square" than I ever knew when I lived there.)

Frankly, the consistent high-quality programming at 5 live makes the prospect of ever returning to listening to a regularly-scheduled NPR program high unlikely, especially since I can always go to the Diane Rehm Show archives or podcasts on weekends if an author or topic I'm interested in is on her popular show, which I listened to regularly for 21 years. But no more.


After I finally saw RFD Greenwich Village on Monday, I must've watched it 2-3 more times to capture all the nostalgia, kitsch and sharp writing, and snapped a few screen-shots to share with you here in the future as well.


Tuesday, I decided to look for it elsewhere, and I struck gold via this video at the Internet Archive.


Best phrase of the film, at 01:47, "Suburban living on an urban landscape."

At 05:55, tell me that doesn't look like a young Bill Clinton!Best line of the film at 09:56,

"Today, Greenwich Village is the postmark for many "countrified cosmopolitans," people who prefer small-town casualness to rigid metropolitan dress for men, and their suburban counterparts."

The parties depicted here, particularly the courtyard parties, reminded me of living in Bloomington and Chicago/Evanston in the '80's, and in the case of the latter, the fabulous parties my older friends in advertising or retail threw with relish and aplomb, as well as friends who were 20-something Junior League legacies on The North Shore, and who looked like they stepped straight out of the new 1986 J.G. Hook catalog or a 1985 issue of Town & Country magazine.

For the record, as anyone who knows me from that period of time can attest, I've always liked and been a sucker for that look, hence my particular fondness while at IU for sorority girls at Delta Gamma and over at Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Smart, sporty, practical and fun-loving personality to spare!

Image-wise for the above parties, picture 27-year old clones of Sela Ward or Janine Turner, to name two of my favorite actresses.
http://www.xyface.com/celeb-sela-ward
http://www.janineturner.com/ 
@JanineTurner https://twitter.com/JanineTurner

'Nuff said!

Sela Ward

More, December 2005/January 2006;
Sela Ward - "At 49, I've learned that beautiful word no."

Homesick: A Memoir by Sela Ward
http://www.selawardtv.com/homesick.html

I'll have a post pretty soon on Janine's very interesting and principled efforts of late to promote the lasting lessons from The Federalist Papers to young people, along with her daughter, Juliette.
Obviously, I support that effort 100%.

(I've previously written about Janine and Sela and her book over at my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/03/janine-turner-on-c-span-2s-book-tv-sun.html and http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/search?q=sela+ward)


For more on 1960's advertising and fashion photos, see Found in Mama's Basement:
http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/

advertising, Manhattan, late-1960's fashion, New York City, travel, social life, consumerism, home design, Bleeker Street, NYC architecture, O. Henry's, The Village Gate, Village Purple Onion, Ye Waverly Inn, Circle in the Square theater