Appearance and Respect

“Mr. Greenfield first grasped the importance of appearances while trying to survive the Holocaust. When he was 14, he and his father, mother, two sisters and a brother were taken from their home in Pavlova, in what was then Czechoslovakia, and later delivered to Auschwitz.

He was assigned to wash clothes in the camp’s alteration shop, and one day he accidentally ripped an SS officer’s shirt, an affront for which he was beaten. The officer threw the shirt at Mr. Greenfield, who mended it and started wearing it instead of the uniforms the other prisoners wore. From then on, he said, the guards and prisoners began treating him with respect.

“He looked like a somebody,” said Jay Greenfield, 52, Mr. Greenfield’s oldest son and the executive vice president of the company, Martin Greenfield Clothiers, explaining that his father attributes his survival to that shirt. The rest of Mr. Greenfield’s family perished in the camp, though he did not find that out immediately and spent two years after the war looking for them.”

A Tailor, Called Upon by Designers and Politicians – The New York Times

Artist in the Spotlight: Winston Chmielinski

The fine folks at The Society Global highlighted an upcoming New York artist, Winston Chmielinski. Instantly, he’s one of my favorites. Culturites, you have good taste!

Artist’s Website: www.wi-ch.com

Star of David

Organizer #1: What about different food options for the luncheon, (thoughtful pause) what about kosher food?
Organizer #2: Good idea, but how will we be able to tell who wants to eat kosher?
University staff: We could just make black armbands with the Star of David on them. (collective gasps in the room) What?

–Columbia University

Single Digits

I don’t think I’ve ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never ‘before before’.

-Fred Varjak

Bliss

Holly Golightly: Did I tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am? 
Fred: Yes.

For All The Right Reasons

Holly Golightly: I’ll tell you one thing, Fred, darling… I’d marry you for your money in a minute. Would you marry me for my money? 
Fred: In a minute. 
Holly Golightly: I guess it’s pretty lucky neither of us is rich.
Fred: Yeah.

Cool Sweater

Came upon this in some random photo album on Facebook while wasting time: the coolest vest ever.  Okay.  Maybe it would be cooler if it was Luigi (from Super Mario Bros.) instead of a pirate.  Still, good attempt:

The Classics

[Kramer lying on couch, reading.]

Jerry: Are you reading my VCR manual?
Kramer: Well, we can’t all be reading the classics, Professor High Brow.

Madoff: Humanity’s Paramount

Psychologists wonder why people are endowed with the ability to learn the part of Hamlet or understand calculus when neither skill was of much use to mankind in the primitive conditions where his intellect was shaped. [...] The solution: we use our intellects not to solve practical problems but to outwit eachother. Deceiving people, detesting deceit, understanding people’s motives, manipulating people–these are what the intellect is used for.

Perhaps Bernard Madoff, as the glorious product of human evolution that he is, should be praised for having outwitted others to the tune of billions of dollars.

Flowing Pixels

Street art, NYC:

Via Kanye West.

Nas ft. Keri Hilson – Hero

This is the most mind-blowing track I’ve heard all year:

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It’s off Nas and DJ Green Lantern’s The Nigger Tape. (Mixtape download link here.)

Thank you Bernard Madoff

Thank you Bernard Madoff.

Now all of my mother’s half-brained friends who mindlessly watch ABC’sThe View are going to think that hedge fund managers are shady. Your newsworthy fraud is now so widely-discussed that Elizabeth Hasselbeck has felt the need to weigh in. Great PR for the industry.

Staten Island Historians Piece Together Genealogy Of Wu-Tang Clan

NEW YORK—In what many are calling the most comprehensive study of its kind, Staten Island historians Robert Wilburn and Charles Tinsley have successfully traced the lines of the infamous Wu-Tang Clan all the way back to 1993 A.D.

“During its height, the Wu-Tang Clan acquired a great deal of wealth and notoriety,” Wilburn said. “One need only look at Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s dental records to get a sense of the incredible treasures they possessed.”

Staten Island Historians Piece Together Genealogy Of Wu-Tang Clan – The Onion

GREAT NEWS (If you love Michael Bloomberg)

This is awesome.

I, for one, welcome our new Bloomberg overlord.

Roasts

Obama roasts McCain:

McCain roasts Obama: