Mixed Bag

Coffee as art. Being very fond of our java in its many forms, this caught my attention, because it is coffee that appeals to the visual sense as well as taste and smell.


I do enjoy 'art' that does have sensation for more than one sense, visual that is tactile, taste and smell, sound and vision, for example. Perhaps that's why 'scratch & sniff' advertising became so popular.

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Now this just confuses. Let's try to follow it: Design house Ralph Lauren hires a model, uses her as a face of Lauren for some time as she has appeared in many Lauren shoots over the years. Recently a photoshopped ad disaster was shown with this particular model appearing unbelievably thin, so much so, that one would believe the only thing going for her is a fat head. Lauren came under attack for the ad. It started to receive web attention, going viral, and they issued cease & desist orders to ISPs hosting webs that spread the image under what would appear to be fair copyright use of the image. Lauren had to back off their cease & desist tactics and actually admitted to being involved with the ad image being manipulated to a point of obvious unreality. The real topper for this is that they fired the model in the picture.

The reason: They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn't fit in their clothes anymore," she said. (Fillipa) Hamilton, a 5'10'' model, reportedly weighs only 120 pounds.

So let me get this straight. Ralph Lauren fired the model because they had to photoshop the ad image of her to the point where she looked totally emaciated because they only want people with anorexia to buy their line and since Fillipa Hamilton is only genetically blessed with a thin body, she doesn't qualify to work with them anymore because she doesn't fit the ideal Lauren image.

Other links on this, all of which contain images of the ad:
http://boingboing.net/2009/10/06/the-criticism-that-r.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/08/searching-for-the-sk.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/10/14/2009-10-14_model_fired_for_being_too_fat.html#ixzz0TueSS2PX
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/filippa-hamilton-ralph-la_n_320396.html

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Yes, I really needed to read that modern mankind does not measure up to it Neanderthal predecessors. Thank you for the head shot.

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X1