Rethos.com - matthewaquilone's News Feed

Not Your Average Lunch Lady

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:59:22 -0400

Here's a piece I wrote with Pamela Enz:

I’m a public school kid, a “Cement Baby,” Brooklyn born and raised. I was a late comer to school lunch though, always being sent off with a brown bag or more likely running home for lunch since I lived close to my school, could see it in fact from my bedroom window. It was that kind of neighborhood, a thorough network of moms, friends, front stoops and kitchen tables. Rather what edifies the soul lately is the rapidly diminishing role the mainstream media is playing in dictating the discussion. Time and again we have seen how the bloviators, pundits and talking heads have gotten it wrong – from Hilary’s New Hampshire upset, to Obama’s certain demise at the hands of his Pastor, to Giu...

Skyline, Verizon Line

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:15:06 -0400

Just a short rant this time. If you live near the Brooklyn waterfront like I do you know what a treasure the New York skyline is. Most cities are known by a single building or monument – think Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, even the Hollywood sign in L.A. New York, too big for any one thing to ever represent, is symbolized by the city itself, the cheek by jowl mishmosh of its architecture as much as its citizenry, its denizenry, its ever changing expan...

Get Real - Towards A Compassionate Medical Marijuana Policy

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:05:40 -0500

Isn’t it finally time for a compassionate medical marijuana policy? For too long the issue has been held up by cultural prejudices and long held political grudges. It’s the old hippie/square square-off and its time now to get over it and act like adults when it comes to health care. In a country where there are still open wounds over the Civil War, and in a world where millennium-old grudges are still at play in the Middle East and elsewhere, it’s no surprise that irritations over Jane Fonda and burned draft cards still ring loud and clear in our politics today. Wha...

Strange Bedfellows or How I stopped worrying and learned to love Wal-Mart (not!)

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:28:52 -0500

My hometown has yet to receive a Wal-Mart, so shopping at one is still kind of exotic to me. I never would have thought I could buy underwear, motor oil, frozen shrimp and a crossbow all in one place. Brooklyn, far behind on the mega-store curve but catching up quickly, still has none. In northeastern Pennsylvania, where my folks bought a house a few years ago, there is the first and only Wal-Mart I have ever visited.

Cellphones are the new cigarettes â€“ redux (Cellphones are the new TV)

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:24:41 -0500

Had to add a little something to an earlier post. Was watching Ken Auletta on C. Rose the other night discussing his experiences at the Google Campus for an article he wrote for the New Yorker (?). The topic quickly shifted to cellphones and the big question was â€“ Will advertising work on cellphones? My answer is another question â€“ WHEN will advertising work on cellphones? Certainly the producers and advertisers will find a way. Television was and remains the greatest accomplishment for the advertising industry â€“ in fact it really created the ad in...

Fashion/Compassion - Ad/dressing the soul

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:31:23 -0500

For a few years I was an creative executive at Donna Karan International. Since then I have become acutely concerned with the role of the fashion and design industries in our world today. The following is a reflection on some of those issues”

Fashion is all about innovation. The history of fashion is the history of change, and over time the cycle has accelerated. Yearly changes have become seasonal and within each season are now three or four deliveries, bringing the impetus for wardrobe renewals to every few weeks. Granted it is only the most fashion obsessed and fi...

MLK DAY

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:15:22 -0500

In honor of Martin Luther King Junior the Metropolitan Museum of Art was open today, on a Monday when it is usually closed. It was a rare treat. Despite the fact that some big swaths of the museum were closed, Asian Art, the American Wing, numerous individual galleries among them, the museum was well attended but not crowded. The museum is still pay what you wish, they will still gladly check your coat, and the cafeteria is actually one of the better places of its kind to eat on the Upper East Side. It is very close to being another one of the great public institutions that make our...

Libraries

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:40:43 -0500

Libraries are the mark of a civilized society. They are an example of the best that we can do. Free, public, uncensored – they must be all these things if they are truly to live up to their promise and their purpose. They are a mark of public trust, in our confidence in ourselves to pursue knowledge and understanding, in our committment to self-determination. I was raised to believe that these were American ideals. That we needn’t fear ourselves, that we needn’t fear our minds being led astray by ideas, that our minds would be led back to themselves, to the best o...

Cellphones are the new cigarettes

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:39:10 -0500

They don’t want to make a cellphone that lasts, and they don’t want it to be just a phone. It can’t simply serve a purpose, it has to create a need. It has to enter our lives from moment to moment, to reorganize our lives according to what it needs, what its object is. Unnecessary functions: games, pictures, text messages are new ways to parcel out time, new things that need to be checked and checked again. We live in a world of updates. A restless world never content to have what is has. No moment then is complete without checking in, confirming, updating, reply...