| Small Sacrifices |
[20 Aug 2015|12:00pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/08/microbag_trend_it_looked_like_my_purse_was_carrying_a_purse.html At the start of this year, Vogue decreed that Fendi’s Micro Peekaboo nappa leather bag would be the it bag of 2015. At 6 inches wide, 4¼ inches tall, and 2¼ inches deep, the Micro Peekaboo costs $1,550—that’s just over $27 per cubic inch, according to calculations by StyleCaster. These bags can hardly fit an iPhone in them, much less a wallet, sunglasses, tampons, makeup, or any other items required by the modern lady on the go. What’s a gal who wants to embrace the microbag trend but also needs a place to put all her stuff to do? Carry two bags, of course. Last month, Elle helpfully pointed out that the two-purse look was “all over resort runways.” Never one to argue with Elle, I decided to try it.
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| What Happened Here? |
[20 Aug 2015|04:05pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2015/08/local_history_join_slate_s_rebecca_onion_on_a_quest_to_learn_more_about.html For a person who writes about the past for a living, I can be remarkably incurious about the history of the place where I live. I didn’t discover until I was out of college that H.H. Holmes, the serial killer made famous in Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, grew up in my hometown of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, back when he was Herman Webster Mudgett. It’s possible my parents withheld this information to prevent night terrors, but it also took me years to find out about the exodus of farmers in the late 19th century that shaped the local landscape, or the fancy resort hotel that once brought summer visitors, before it burned down in the early 20th century.
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| No Vote Left Behind |
[20 Aug 2015|06:25pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/08/how_the_republicans_can_win_the_election_court_ethnic_contrarians_like_me.html One of the more frustrating aspects of racial politics in America is the way in which vast, variegated groups come to be defined as monoliths. For example, I’m an Asian American, a South Asian American, a person of eastern Bengali descent, and a Brooklyn Nets fan. Though I’m not religiously observant, the Islamic religious tradition was an important part of my upbringing, and it’s drawn me closer to the views of orthodox Christians and Jews on more than a few social issues. I’m a free-market enthusiast who believes in the safety net, and I’m an urban-dwelling nondriver who’d like to cut the federal tax on gasoline. Like most people, including most people of color, I embrace a mishmash of identities and I have lots of half-baked, contradictory views. Because of the magazines I read and the ZIP code in which I live, I’m the kind of voter a conservative candidate might easily overlook. But the issues that matter most to me place me on the right, and I’m guessing that there are other misfits who might be willing to vote as I do if the right candidate were to make the right pitch.
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