carrie*connects

Julie Powell Talks Food Blogging With MediaBistro

 
I must admit that I haven't had time to see the new Julie & Julia film starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams- but it's definitely tops on my to-do list.  Both actresses are my fav's and I love the concept of the movie - an aspiring writer, Julie Powell, desperately in need of some zest in her life decides to blend a love of cooking with her passion for writing.  The result:  Powell cooked her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and kept a well documented and very popular blog about it.

What resulted was a book and what looks like an amazing film - just goes to show the power of the blog!   Powell talked with MediaBistro recently about her media odyssey - below are a few highlights ~ but be sure to read the whole interview here.

Powell says:  "I was a frustrated writer. I majored in fiction writing in college and wanted to be a writer, and nothing was happening with that. I pretty much stopped writing by the time I was 29 and was feeling extraordinarily unfulfilled. So I had this midnight revelation that I would cook my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which came out of talking about going to cooking school. But I didn't have the money and didn't think I wanted to be a chef or anything like that. I did want to learn how to cook well, and Mastering was obviously a great way to do that.

I had no notion of what a blog could do and what the medium was really capable of at the time. I kind of chanced into it. I just was in the right place and time.

I started on a pretty instant level because I thought I was writing for family and friends. I would write, "Here's what I'm cooking." And then I would have some side notes about what was happening in my life. People ended up being interested in the food, but really interested in the other stuff. Then, I realized that I had all these readers interested in the gory details of my daily life; that's what they were following, and they wanted to learn more about that. "Tell me about how shitty you feel about your job, and tell me more about your pet snake," [readers said]. By that time, this bar had been set in terms of intimacy, which was very important to the development of the tone of the blog."

Also check out Julie Powell current blog.

Links | Now On Our Other Blogs

Now on our other blogs, these scintillating stories that I know you won't want to miss!

On Bloomacious: 

Bebe's New Fall Ad Campaign is inspired by The Tudors

Chrisitian Siriano Rolls Out a New Collection (of color!) with Victoria's Secret

The US v. John Lennon ~  a VH1 Documentary you'll want to see

Basking in the Dog Days of Summer ~ some end of Summer ideas to max out the fun!

on Bloomacious Digs:

Monte Design has a very cool glider for the nursery ~ rockers have never been this cool.

on Bloomacious Cafe:

Member Pooja Renee Motl discusses the new film, Julia & Julia

and offers a recipe for Heirloom Tomato Salad that looks just scrumptious!

Events | Boston MFA Hosts a Giant Karaoke Party

I love this event - a giant dancing and karaoke party held on the Museum of Fine Art in Boston's front lawn to kick off what sounds like an interesting exhibit.

As described by the museum: ""Seeing Songs" presents an eclectic mix of work—mainly from the Museum's collections—that draws on music as inspiration, focusing on abstract as well as representational art and connections to musical forms as varied as classical, jazz, and pop.

From lyrical works on paper by Wassily Kandinsky and a painting by Stuart Davis that depicts music as gesture and improvisation, to recent videos by Gillian Wearing and Candice Breitz that explore the relationship between pop stars and their fans, this exhibition brings together an international group of artists in whose work we see songs."

The Vogue-ing party included a giant screen and a Madonna impersonator which celebrated one of the key pieces by artist Candice Breitz’s - a video installation entitled "Queen (A Portrait of Madonna)".

One thing to note: A stated goal of both the installation and the event was to involve younger people with the museum - they publicized it through social media like Twitter and Facebook, ect to this end.   So I thought it was kind of interesting that the main musical icons featured were Madonna, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond - all artists over 50 that I wouldn't necessarily associate with a your typical urban youth - I would see Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas perhaps as more appropriate, however perhaps they have not achieved iconic status yet in the eyes of the museum.  Here's a video of the dancing and singing. 

Twit Notes: Kevin Spacey Tries, Fails to Explain Twitter to David Letterman

Kevin Spacey is always fresh and funny - and his appearance on David Letterman last night was no exception. Love this clip in which he tries to explain the nuances of Twitter (which apparently even Elizabeth Taylor and Larry King have mastered) to a non-tech friendly Dave.

I'd love to point out to Kev that Twitter etiquette goes that those 800,000+ following him should get a reciprocal follow from him - hmmm - to date he follows *4* people!!  ahhhh!  Celebs :-)

Paul McCartney Makes a Splash In New York

Imagine you're hanging out at the office, working - Facebooking - Twittering away and all of a sudden some guy starts playing his guitar really really loudly just outside your window.  And then it actually sounds like someone is playing drums and base!!  You rush to the window to offer the dude a few choice expletives and - wow - realize that it's Paul McCartney hanging out on the Late Show marquee playing music. 

Surreal? Yeah - a little - but not so much for the Big Apple.  A fabulous publicity stunt?  Yep!   McCartney's spontaneous concert garnered him pics on all the major news networks and on countless blogs and websites - whereas a similar planned event in Central Park or at Rockefeller Plaza would have been more or less digested into the panorama of constant activity in NYC.  Good show Paul.  Love the shots of the cell phone behind him below, and the images of people looking down on the event from the offices above taking pictures - wonder how many Facebook pages those ended up on. 

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Another Ode to Michael - the EternalMoonwalk Site is Just Fabulous

Yes, I've been on a Michael Jackson video binge the past few weeks - remembering anew, much like the rest of the world, what it was that made us pay so much attention to this guy in the first place.  I will absolutely never forget the first time I saw Thriller, and further than that, watching that Motown Anniversary Special when Michael first showed us the Moonwalk.  It stays permanently in my heart along with so many other cultural time capsule events from that era.

Funny, while gazillions of people have been backsliding across kitchen floors over the years since that first telecast, no one was ever able to work out the step quite like Mike.  But perhaps 99.9% of the fun is imagining that we can.  Now Studio Brussel has put together a brilliant, whiz bang project that involves the entire globe of MJ fans - and fancy that it came together in just the past ten days - amazing.

The site, eternalmoonwalk.com is an amalgamation of videos collected from all over the world and features people, cartoons, cats, dogs, goats .... yeah - if you can imagine it - it's there, moonwalking in 20 second clips from right to left.  The concept for the site alone is priceless, but then you add in the good natured creativity of the thousands of clips that have been collected from guys and gals just like you and me who are featured and you have some sheer brilliance - and a lot of laughs to get you through an afternoon.  Clever features include buttons you can hit to create Jacksonesque whoops and calls - all the while set to the Billie Jean beat. 

But before you click over you have to check out this very creative video from Abeja Mariposa who culled together archival footage of dancers from the 20th Century who were moonwalker pioneers - it's really quite amazing.

Pop Culture | Holly Madison Marries the Travelocity Gnome

In what seems like a fairly unlikely co-branding partnership Holly Madison hooked up with the Travelocity Gnome over the weekend for a fun spirited "nuptials" ceremony.  The photo opp was in support of Holly's Peepshow at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.  Judging from the photos a fun time was had by all.

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Events | Sean Combs White Party Move to Los Angeles

Find more photos like this on Bloomacious Cafe
Sean Combs and Ashton Kutcher teamed up to throw the annual White Party over the weekend - this year the event was in support of "Malaria No More".  It was also the first time the iconic party was hosted in Los Angeles - and the location, a private residence in the hills really was a lovely one. 

A lavish swimming pool was the perfect place for performers to create a sense of celebration by swinging over the water and dancing in giant plastic bubbles.

There was also no end of branding and promotional opportunities as companies like Ciroc, Georges Duboeuf, Lab Series Skincare, Starbucks, Lia Sophia, Sean John and more offered celebrity gifting areas.

In keeping with the theme white furniture and draping was used to create a sense of drama, while white food that included white cupcakes, white wine, even white candy was offered to guest.

Technology Trendcaster | Become a Sociopath ~ It's the Latest Thing!

I recieved an invitation this morning to join the new social network StyleCaster (which sounds suspiciously like a column that I write called Trendcaster on Bloomacious.com) - naturally I immediately zoomed over to take a look and post my mug on my own page.  

While the site doesn't seem all that different from our own network Bloomacious Cafe it apparently is embedded with lots of watching and listening devices that when explained in the video below makes me yearn for a nice long nap. 

Terms like "associated neuro network"  and "associative dynamics" are a far cry from my favorite phrase "me likey!"  but they mean similar things.

If there's any doubt after listening to this explanation that networks are the new blogs (which are the new magazines) then take a sneak peek at Fashionair which is girding up to launch soon.

Broken down gently, networks allow companies to watch the patterns and flows of their members - whom they friend, what they comment on.  We've done the same thing for the past 6 months through our networks and it's not quite as scientific or reliable as the Sociocast guys would like you to believe. 

Networks do provide a venue in which individuals can enjoy a club-like camaraderie- they also can serve as a TV station, a community blog, a messaging system and a newsletter - and are the next step beyond Facebook and Twitter.

Fashion PR | What's Better Than a Fab Louis Vuitton Ad Starring Madonna? A *leaked* LV Madonna Ad

 
The fashion world is abuzz about this "leaked" Louis Vuitton ad starring Madonna in her bunny ears (you may recall the ones she wore to the Met Gala a few weeks back).  While readers of The Fashion Spot swear its authentic, one has to ponder the intensive amount of airbrushing the Material Girl has recieved in this shot.  Depending on your perspective it looks either very dreamy or barely recognizable.  I personally love the rich colors and to be frank it hardly matters at this point whether it's the actual photo that will show up in the September issue of Vogue or not - the picture is being posted on thousands of websites and blogs as we speak in a clever viral PR campaign.

Irresistable Squib ~ Paris Hilton Breaks Up With Doug Reinhardt Via Publicist

I seem to find myself writing about Paris Hilton a lot lately.  Over on Bloomacious.com we conducted a hotness poll last week about the celebutant's image to see if she's still in - the result to date:  about 83% of our readers don't think Paris still has it - but they were envious of her fantastic closet (Paris provided a video tour for MySpace recently that is mighty impressive).

Whether she's still red hot or not, she always seems to keep cropping up in the news, leaving us to believe that her publicist, Dawn Miller, has her work cut out for her on a fairly consistent basis.

Last week, I, and many in the PR world, were mighty amused by this squib which ran in SFGate's The Dish, and gives an overview of correspondence between Paris' representatives and People Magazine. 

Paris started dating Doug Reinhardt (from The Hills) last year and has made quite a show of their relationship - even holding a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in which photographers were obliged to snap the two in various stages of lip-lock (or pre-lock as above, taken just a few short weeks ago).

Of the relationship The Gate writes:

"...Hilton made it clear the romance is over on Wednesday, announcing through her representative that she is no longer in a relationship with Reinhardt.

The spokesperson told People.com, "In response to the inquiry on whether Paris Hilton has split up with Doug Reinhardt, yes, this is true they are no longer together. They remain friends and ask that you please respect their privacy."

However, despite the public confirmation of a split, it looks as though Hilton forgot to tell the most important person -- her boyfriend.

When quizzed about the break-up by E! Online, Reinhardt replied, "No, that's not true. Everything is OK between us.""

Yikes ... but this brings to mind another public dumping a few years back when Matt Damon announced he'd stopped seeing Minnie Driver on Oprah - without telling poor Minnie. 

Oh well, that news is so last week, the Paris PR train has chugged into yet another station as she offers another (revealing) house tour via our pals over at Access Hollywood that has many buzzing:

Branding | Burberry Blazes A Trail In NYC

In a spectacular branding coup for a fashion house, Burberry lit up the Manhattan skyline last night with Burberry Day (or should it have been Burberry night?) We posted a good many photos of the fabulous Burberry clad celerbities who attended over at Bloomacious.com a little while ago, but thought it would be fun to show some images of the fashion editors and others who attended.  Below is Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, Teen Vogue Editor in Chief Amy Astley, and Time Style & Design Editor Kate Betts.

Elle MacPherson and Aspen Watches Team Up

From the Luxist, the news that Elle McPherson helped launch the new line of Aspen watches.  They write:

"The new Swiss watch company Aspen Jewelry & Watches does not have a real relationship with the ski town Aspen, Colorado for which the watches are named. They do however have a license to use the "Aspen" name in connection with watches, exclusively in certain areas. They recently released their first watch, the Aspen One in Aspen Colorado (of course). There to help announce the new timepiece was business woman and supermodel Elle Macpherson.

A face like hers is enough to draw attention, and better yet she was there to donate an almost $50,000 diamond version of the Aspen One watch to a local non-profit, the Challenge Aspen and Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club (AVSC). They will sell the watch (auction likely) to raise money for ski trips to families with members who have disabilities."

Read the entire story here >>