hands up in the air for the big city

i’m back from my 72 hours in NYC. It was lovely. I headed up Thursday morning, attended a conference Thursday aft, all day Friday & Saturday and then just bummed around this morning with my friend. here are some lists from my time in NYC:

food consumed:
corned beef sandwich (carnegie deli)
cheesecake (NY style dense rich goodness)
free range buffalo burger (so far from home!)
hot knish from a food cart
an indian feast (chicken korma, lamb biriyani, palak paneer make my heart sing!)
big slice of NY pizza
bagel with cream cheese and lox
amazing italian apps including ricotta-stuffed fresh mozzarella, risotto balls, and salame
great conference snacks including bomboloni, crackers with brie and pepper marmelade, fresh fruit, and yummy teas
ale (at mcsorley’s, the oldest bar in nyc)

sights experienced:
rockefeller plaza (30 rock theme played in my head!)
5th avenue
central park
times square
the hottest salsa dancing in manhattan at iguana lounge

the conference itself was incredible.

i heard from the creative director from method detergent/soap who shared an awesome vision for the triple bottom line and talked about recent advertising successes filled with snarky writing and clever ideas.

druga5 who wrote an incredibly clever script for the sara silverman ad called the great schlep to get jewish kids to get visit their grandparents and convince them to vote for obama.

i’d heard about driverless cars, but one of the panel presenters blew my mind with his vision of reimagined cities that will change the urban landscape.

i developed a well-rounded crush (intellectual and otherwise) on Jonathan Harris, creator of this awesome exhibit at MoMA, thinker of deep thoughts, artist, creative genius. i tried to talk to him afterwards. it didn’t really work.  sigh.

there were more, but those were my favorites. i left feeling great hope for the world. we’re all created in God’s image, with a little glimmer of his glory that is unique from everyone else’s. this conference showcased people who were using their gifts, their glory, in ways to really redeem the world, to shape public opinion, to persuade, encourage and bring shalom. i was not expecting to leave feeling so optimistic. i love my industry and i want to keep finding creative solutions as life keeps shifting and changing. i want to point others to what is true, good and beautiful and i want to do it in surprising ways.

a beautiful food blog

so, i’m on gwenyth paltrow’s email list, goop, which is really wonderful. this week’s featured a bunch of cool food blogs. i opened them all up in different tabs and when i got to this one, i couldn’t close it. this is the best image from it. i think it looks delicious and i love that font! i just wanted to share! 🙂

saris and self-deception

when i first moved into my awesome townhouse, i didn’t know my roomates and wasn’t sure how to build rapport.  I noticed that they liked to watch reality TV.  I rolled my eyes, kept up with my busy schedule and figured that we’d never be friends because i wouldn’t be caught dead watching something so trashy.

a few weeks ago, on a dark rainy weeknight, i found myself doing design work all alone and decided to meander to the living room.  once there, my roomate turned on the real housewives of D.C.  oh well, i thought, it’s just background noise.

within 10 minutes, i was sucked in.  the characters were beautiful, believable and their interpersonal drama was hilarious.  after a few minutes, my roomate explained to me that this season captures, in its entirety, the crashing the state dinner by the salahi couple last november.  now i was really hooked.  we watched one or two episodes leading up to the dinner including the preparation (hair, makeup, sari) the night of.  i wasn’t able to watch the following week’s episode until tonight.

i was not disappointed!  the hour was reality tv at its finest.  sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  the whole episode felt like a shakespearian play: complex characters, gossip, intrigue, dashed expectations.  it was all there.  i was shocked to see it all unfold in front of me in such fine detail.  the other women on the show were shocked by the couple’s brazen disregard for social conduct and the law.  watching them gossip and discuss the evening was entertaining, but the real thing that drew me in were the close up shots of the salahis themselves.  wow.  they were at all times totally out of step with reality and unrepentant.

i just listened to a tim keller sermon on saul’s self-deception in I samuel.  saul has been charged with a task by God and instead of obeying, he sneaks around the issue, twisting his disobedience into a supposed sacrifice for God.  the story is strange, but TK helped me to see that it is chilling.  saul chooses to slide into self-deception, convincing himself that he’s done nothing wrong and is in fact serving God.  he also explained how we are all capable of such twisting if we aren’t grounded in Truth.

the salahis are an incredible real-life example (truly, they live down the street) of self-deception at its finest.  the couple lies to themselves, to the cameras, to the DHS committee, to their friends and all of America.  they get a lawyer to lie for them and when faced with very straightforward questions, they plead the fifth and leave.  it is incredible.  later, when confronted in love by their friends, the salahis deny any feelings of shame, choose not to show remorse, and demand that the people close to them ignore the situation and treat them as if nothing has happened.

i want to embody truth.  i want to identify it in each situation, i want to live in and with it, i want to attract truthful people to myself.  and i want to know Truth, Jesus, and be found in Him.  save me from my self-deception.

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PS anybody want to be my tareq for halloween?