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In-Depth Interview: Kevin Kelly, Founding Editor of Wired, Keeper of the Cool Tools Blog, author of "Out of Control" (Required Reading for "The Matrix" Cast). Thinker, Environmentalist & Philosopher Extraordinaire. FASHIONTRIBES POP CULTURE BLOG & PODCAST

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST! The FASHIONTRIBES.com In-Depth Interview with Kevin Kelly, Founding Editor of Wired, Keeper of the "Cool Tools" Blog, author of "Out of Control" (Required Reading for "The Matrix Revisited" Cast). Thinker, Environmentalist & Philosopher Extraordinaire. FASHIONTRIBES POP CULTURE PODCAST - MP3 File

As the original editor of the Whole Earth Review, northern California resident Kevin Kelly (KK.org) has always been driven by a desire to help his fellow humans. “I guess my interest is in learning and helping other people to learn,” he explains.

A one-man force of nature, Kelly was/is also:

• founding editor of Wired magazine (& current on-staff "Senior Maverick")
• author Out of Control: The Rise of New Biology Machines (Neo Biological Civilizations) – required reading for Keanu Reeves & the other actors in The Matrix Revisited before they were allowed to open the original script
• chairman of the All Species Foundation
• Board Member of the the Long Now Foundation
• publisher of the Cool Tools blog which is about “tools that increase possibilities and empower self education”

And you thought you had a lot on your plate.

Fashiontribes got majorly lucky when Kevin recently granted us an interview. Here are the highlights of our discussion, but be sure to check out the podcast (above) to hear all about it from the man himself.

KEVIN'S COOL TOOLS BLOG As editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, which Kelly describes as “a catalogue of possibilities”, he began a personal compendium of tools - “in the largest sense of anything with a handle on one end and possibilities on the other” - which he would send around to friends whenever he uncovered something that he liked. And thanks to blogging & software advances, it was only natural to put his list in blog format. “It’s a way to compensate for the kind of exhaustive inclusiveness of the web where you can hear about everything.  There are a lot of sites that kind of find new things that come up but they are judged by how they look, or how they sound and people put a link up. But there’s not a lot of places where comparative  evaluations are done and where people do the very difficult things of saying, ‘I’ve looked at everything, and this is the best.’ I was interested in something very different. I was interested in stuff that people have used for a long time, or used for a while, and have used many other things - and even after using it for a long while they think it’s fabulous, better, and heads above the others. So, I wanted one place where there was a user-oriented, experienced-based review of stuff.” KK.org/CoolTools

THE CLOCK OF THE LONG NOW PROJECT

  THINKING AHEAD AS A SOCIETY, AND THEN SOME In our ADD-addled society, five minutes is, well, so five minutes ago, a year is an eternity, and a century? Fuhgid’about-it. Kelly sits on the board of the Long Now Foundation (LongNow.org) – along with Roxy Music’s Brian Eno – which is devoted to getting us to think longer term. “It’s about trying to encourage civilization’s length of attention span. It is trying to encourage people to think in terms of multiple generations, to expand our sense of “now” from the last five minutes, the next five minutes or even …the next five years to a longer scale, of, you know, the last ten thousand years, and the next ten thousand years. That’s what we call the Long Now because it’s not the short now, it’s the long now, and as a prompt – as a reminder – of thinking in terms of thousands of years.”

SO WHY 10,000 YEARS…RATHER THAN, SAY 20,000 OR EVEN 5,000? It turns out that, when in doubt, assume you’re halfway there. “Ten thousand years is approximately the age of civilization so we’re about half way. I mean, when you don’t know the duration of something, it’s always a safe bet to guess that you are about half way because statistically that’s probably about where you are.” In the case of where our civilization, we’re about 10,000 years old. “We flipped the past ten thousand years of civilization and say, well …what’s the next ten thousand years? Let’s mirror that and use that as a goal.”

  A CLOCK THAT GOES TO 11 In order to encourage people to think longer term, the foundation is building a mechanical, electricity-free clock designed by artist Danny Hillis that will tick for 10,000 years. Essentially a digital, binary mechanical computer, Kelly believes it could have been constructed by medieval craftsmen, and will be able to be repaired by anyone who examines it in the future. “It is to keep ticking for ten thousand years to encourage people to think about what you would use a clock [for] that could run for ten thousand years; why you would need it, what is happening over that time scale.” From the iconic picture of the atom bomb to pictures of the earth shot from space, the clock is fundamentally about provoking a perspective. “It’s a kind of iconicgraphic emblem that …kind of lodges in your mind, and you begin to think about the fact that, well, yeah, they should be thinking about it in the next ten thousand years.”  LongNow.org

A VIEW OF THE FUTURE In a conversation in which Hillis told Jonas Salk – inventor of the polio vaccine – about his clock, Salk responded by asking: "Think about what problem you are trying to solve. What question are you really trying to ask?" As he pondered the fact that he had never really thought of the clock as a question, Hillis came to the conclusion that: “It was more of an answer, although I wasn't sure to what.” According to Kelly, what the clock stands for is the best way to view the future – a way for Hillis to unshrink his future. Growing up, Hillis was of the mind that the future was going to happen in the year 2000. “But it was never moving ahead so, you know when he was in the 60s,  2000 seemed far away, and then in the 80s it was still 2000, which is only 20 years away. And then in the 90’s, 2000 was only ten years away, so the future kept shrinking. And he wanted the future to kind of basically keep expanding. So, making the clock was a way to kind of expand the future.”

THE ALL SPECIES FOUNDATION

AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE The quixotic All-Species - All-Species.org - project is about learning the names and functions of every species on the planet. “We are sending probes into other planets and yet we have not even systematically catalogued what’s on Earth,” says Kelly, pointing out the amount of money spent cataloguing species on Earth is less than the cost of glassware in most labs. Because of the lack of a central depository for names and synonyms, many discoveries have been re-discovered & even re-named in different languages; in other words, it’s a complete mess.  He also explains that we have somewhat of a moral obligation to honor that which supports us and “to be present and not know or be aware of - or acknowledge - all the things that support us, and to eradicate things that we don’t even know… let alone to make use of that knowledge which we also need to do in terms of managing eco-systems and as we try and make stuff like cities and deltas.” Cataloguing everything is crucial to understanding the “big picture”…of which we currently only know about five percent.

ADD TAXONOMISTS TO THE ENDANGERED LIST  Part of the reason for the glacial pace of cataloguing is that there are simply not enough taxonomists – around 10,000 worldwide, and falling.  “It requires way too much schooling to do it the classical way,” explains Kelly, about the labor-intensive work of identifying & declaring a new species. “The way that it is done has not changed in a hundred years. It’s not very efficient.” Some, such as Dan Janzen, Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, have suggested recruiting local apprentices or “parataxonomists” to assist the experts in all the initial inventory efforts & sorting of specimens – everything prior to the expert identification. An entomologist from the California Academy of Sciences (CalAcademy.org), Brian Fisher, who is attempting to catalog all the ants of Madagascar (an island off of Africa), has been successfully employing locally-trained, “barefoot” taxonomists, “to great success…and at a scale that nobody ever thought possible before,” notes Kelly. “I think that we should do something more creative with the money we have now and hire people: natives and indigenous people in other parts of the world. We have lots of biological knowledge. We can actually employ them to bring into science their knowledge of what’s there and so the cost of this, actually, is not very great. It’s more of a willpower to dedicate tens of millions of dollars, maybe even hundreds of millions, which is still overall not very large in the budget of science.”

THE GOOD NEWS: THE PLUMMETING COST OF DNA SEQUENCING Another problem with species identification is the mindboggling amount: possibly 50 million species - of which we have catalogued about six to date. “So it was just as obvious that you wanted to have technology brought to this process, partly maybe pattern recognition, partly ways in which you could accelerate the dissemination of news,” says Kelly, explaining that as the cost of sequencing technology continues to drop, combined with J. Craig Venter’s advances in so-called “shotgun sampling” (a cost-effective “shortcut” way of identifying the DNA sequence - VenterInstitute.org), we’ll soon be able to sequence a base pair for around a penny. “You will soon be able to sequence the entire genome of an organism, or at least the crucial identifying part for a few cents.” In other words, simply by identifying an organism’s DNA, you can confirm whether or not it’s a new discovery. “Just taking a little snippet of a specimen and processing it, you can pretty well classify what it is, whether you know it or not, and whether you have seen it before.” Which means the good news is that, in Kelly’s estimation, we should be able to catalog the remaining 45 million or so species in a fraction of the time it took to do the first 6 million – around 25 years.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT IN MINDSET Until recently, society has pretty much failed to recognize the benefits of cataloguing. “People have not thought that it was worth doing, that there is no value in it,” he explains. “It was also derided as sort of stamp collecting. It was just people finding something, and seeing how many they could add to.” Yet, through the study of Ecology, for about the last twenty years we are finally waking up to the fact that previously unrecognized species are essential parts of a working ecosystem – a working whole – and when species go missing, imbalances occur. “If you were missing some of tiny species that you would often not even know about, that it could upset or tip the balance, or take into disequilibrium the entire ecology. And so there became more of an appreciation to try to find out what are all the parts, and then that became interesting.”

MAKE WAY FOR THE AGE OF BIOLOGY Although we have recently entered the century of biology, Kelly believes it has yet to hit the street level. “You still can’t do genetic hacking very easily,” he explains. “We do not have garage science where you can do your own sequencing. I monitor that arrival, but it has not yet come, not yet arrived. When that happens that would be huge. I think this intersection of collaborative social software [such as Wikipedia, Flickr & Friendster] is extremely powerful - lots of experiments going on. Something more interesting than Google will happen there.”

THE GAME DESIGNER AS THEOLOGIAN

WALK A MILE IN ANOTHER PERSON’S…TECHNOLOGY? Just as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (World-of-Dawkins.com) imagined switching places with a gene and viewing the world from that perspective – and discovered a brutal, Hobbesian world of molecules competing for scarce resources and space as they attempt to create more of their same kind – so Kelly is trying to view the world through the eyes of technology, and figure out what technology wants. “I’m wrestling with several perspectives in my own mind about what technology means to us. What does it ultimately bring us? What is its role in the cosmos and, you know, what relation if any does it have to God? We spend a lot of time thinking about the role of nature in our lives …what it means.  We spend lot of time thinking about maybe even the role of technology in humans, but, where does it fit into the ultimate larger scale of things in the cosmos? What is technology?”

SO WHAT DOES TECHNOLOGY WANT, ANYWAY? Apparently, the same things we humanoids want. “I think remarkably [technology] wants things very similar to what life wants. It wants to increase diversity, it wants increased energy density, it wants to optimize the evolvability, which is a big thing…It basically wants to evolve faster. It wants choices and I think that’s, in the end, what technology brings to us... is that it increases our options and possibilities. Which is, I think, a very, very good thing - if not a divine thing.” Quoting techie/environmentalist (and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog) Stewart Brand (Well.com) – “We are as Gods, and might as well get good at it” – Kelly points out that technology has imbued us with godlike traits. “I think what technology brings us is the power of a creator … of Godhood …of actually having freedom to make a world. And in that sense it’s divine, in the sense it’s a mirror or a completion of creation … in the sense that we have the full power of creator.”

THE GAME DESIGNER AS THEOLOGIAN So how exactly are we-the-people dealing with being gods? Why not ask an expert: a video game designer. In interviews, Kelly has stated in interviews [such as an interesting one in cyberstage.org] that rather than talking to philosophers or economists, he would rather chat with someone actually doing the dirty work of attempting replicate an economy world. “Game designers are practicing amateur theology as they try and figure out the rules of their creation, and they’re much broader theologians because of that. Because they are not just in an armchair trying to contemplate things, they actually wrestle with things like prime causes, whether the casualty of chain or field, all these things.  What’s deterministic, and what’s not. They actually get to try things out this way, unlike most philosophers in the past, they decided to use their brain. I mean … the difference is like sort of imagining a fully realized building - a cathedral that is something you build in your mind - versus really building one.”

100,000 AMATEUR THEOLOGIANS An extremely popular 3-D virtual world is Second Life (SecondLife.com), built & owned by its inhabitants which now number close to 100,000 around the world. The developers sell a virtual plot of land, and a number of people are even making a living as real estate brokers in Second Life, buying the  land from Second Life & developing it & putting homes on it, which they then rent or re-sell. “It’s the future. absolutely where things will be headed. The point about the Second Life economy is that it’s a real economy, it’s not a virtual economy. It’s a real economy in a virtual world, and you know, it’s sort of like The Matrix…How far down do you want to go?” Like the “real” world, Second Lifer’s socialize, eat, drink, party and even rent movies to watch…as their Second Life avatar. “It’s only inevitable that someone has a second life version in Second Life.”

What is surprising is how, well, mundane the Second Life worlds seem.  In a realm where gravity is optional and the rules of physics need not apply, I was surprised that instead of breaking new ground creatively, the Second Life worlds seemed to merely mimick real life…minus the nasty social diseases – a phenomenon which Kelly credits to two facts: 1) you need enough participants – a critical mass, and 2) the newness of the experience. “I think that’s partly education. The first movies were basically films of plays or theatre. And I think in the beginning that most of the worlds are strange enough, and there are enough of new things going on that you want to have something familiar and you don’t have to make the world completely new. As people become familiar and maybe a little bored with that, then they’ll head into more fantastical places where they have different physics and everything.  I think if you just start off right away being creative with physics and other kind of outlandish things, it’s very disorienting and you kind of limit that number of people. So, I think that will be a matter of education over time… So I think incrementally you’ll begin to see drastic alterations - but not initially.”

WHAT SURPRISES KEVIN

GOOGLE AD SENSE: BIG VALUE IN SMALL BOXES Those ubiquitous vanilla blocks of Google text ads – the content of which is customized to whatever is on the site – are actually quite innovative. Kelly admits that even as recently as five years ago, he never would have predicted that they would have been so successful. “We thought that advertising worked primarily in terms of conveying emotion and brands, and awareness. And with the Google ad Sense, and the Google key word where they’re making their billions of dollars, they realized there was a service retail market. There was this huge market of more boring kind of ads, which were context driven.” Reading a blog about strategies for taking a standardized test? Lo and behold, there are Google ads promoting various ways to improve your SAT (a standardized test for American High Schoolers, typically part of US universities’ admissions criteria).  “It was all about affinity, adjacency - about contextual, boring text ads that had such power. This was a surprise to me that it would work at that scale. It’s like classified advertising, a few lines of text, but you put them everywhere next to things that you’re reading about, and they actually read these ads because we never had that experience.” Unlike standard print media such as newspaper, where an article about the World Trade Center is next to an ad about flower pots, Google ad words have harnessed the power of context, creating value for the reader. “The idea that if you actually made a very, very contextual text ad right next to what you are reading about - that it can actually bring tremendous value to you as a reader - I just had never thought that that would work.”

THE HYPERTEXT LINK: CREATING ORDER THROUGH ASSOCIATION Kelly’s pick for one of the most important inventions of the last hundred years? Drumroll…the hypertext link. “I think we don’t recognize how powerful that idea has been, how new it actually is; new as a mechanical working thing, and the extent to which it has transformed our intellectual and conceptual life of the mind.” The hypertext link has helped to make accessible the vast sea of information that is the internet – a prime example of which is Wikipedia, a world encyclopedia that anyone can change and update. “I would not have thought that Wikipedia could have worked. That was just something that could not work in theory because you’re allowing anybody in the world to change an encyclopedia article.” Rather than disintigrating into a chaotic free-for-all, Wikipedia is a resounding success. “Any 18 year-old jerk who just gets the computer can go in and change the article instantly. I was like, ‘how is that going to work? How are you going to have something that is going to be of an authority on things if anybody can go in and change it?’ It just didn’t seem like that was feasible, and yet, look at it, it’s astounding.”

Fundamentally what makes a project like Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org) work is that it’s easier to contribute positively rather than to harm it.  Kelly credits internet scribe Clay Shirky (Shirky.com) for the insight that it’s easier to heal Wikipedia than it is to damage it. “The revert function is the single button that you click; it actually takes less energy than to type stuff and to mess it up. So when you have the healing being energetically cheaper than the vandalism, it gives great power to this thing. It is easier for people to monitor, watch, attend it, it became a very low cost thing to do which was to be the keeper of a particular article or whatever. So that is something that should not work in practice, should not work in theory, but actually work in practice.”

OUT OF CONTROL: CIVILIZATION 2.0 The real power of the link, it turns out, is the power to harness what countless individuals are up to, and transform it into a mass effort. “That’s what links have sort of unleashed - is a way for some very interesting things to happen where many people with their own little interests and agendas are building very, very large scale things. Enabled by the link, the new frontier is the power of many, working in tandem, but without centralized control.

Ultimately, the link and the new frontier are at the heart of culture. “It is a type of civilization…which is much more about the conceptual, mental, the meaning of things, the relations that we have, the intangible version…All the stuff that touches on this intangible world of the mind, that’s where all this is happening. Second Life is an example of that. Very intangible, very virtual, … the media is all in this world, you know the information, science, the mind. That’s where we’re living, and I don’t think our physical civilization is going to change very much, but the mental civilization that we live in will,” explains Kelly. “Civilization version 2.0.”

For more info on Kevin, his Cool Tools blog, and everything else he's up to, visit KK.org.

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Pop Culture Kevin Kelly Wired Magazine Long Now Foundation All Species Organization Brian Eno Fashion Danny Hillis Clock of the Long Now Cool Tools Richard Dawkins Second Life Accessories Podcast Fashion Expert

Not in NYC for the New Year's Eve 2006 Ball Drop in Times Square...along w/a million of Your Closest Pals? MSN Video Has 26 Cameras & Multiple Streams Beaming 6 Hours of Live Action. Just Crack the Bubbly & Log On in Comfort. FASHIONTRIBES BLOG & PODCAST

PODCAST: THE FASHIONTRIBES INTERVIEW WITH REED PRICE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF MSN VIDEO WHICH HAS COMPLETE COVERAGE - & 6 HOURS OF STREAMING CONTENT (WHICH YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE!) - ON THE OFFICIAL DOINGS AT TIMES SQUARE FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE 2006! - MP3 File

The next best thing to being there - and possibly better, given a) you get to forgo the fight to stake out your spot starting early in the morning; b) the freezing weather; c) the fact you're standing around with at least a million others - is watching it from the comfort of your couch. “For the second year running, we’re giving New Year’s revelers around the world a unique view of Times Square,” said Rob Bennett, product unit manager for MSN® Video, TV and Movies, which will be covering the official doings on 42nd Street at MSN.com/NewYears. “Last year viewers spent 45 minutes on average watching the celebration on MSN Video and this year we are making it even more interactive by giving consumers the opportunity to choose the camera angles and the events to focus on, instantly shaping their New Year’s Eve experience.”

(Photo from Times Square Alliance*)

Adds Steve Sterling, executive producer of the MSN Video Times Square New Year’s Eve Celebration: "We are very excited to be producing this one-of-a-kind view of the ultimate New Year’s Eve experience live from Times Square, the most historic and thrilling place to ring in the New Year. This webcast clearly provides a broader, more extensive New Year’s Eve Times Square program than any other medium can offer. We can’t wait for webcast viewers to see New Year’s Eve their way on MSN Video.”

Three popular co-hosts will positioned throughout Times Square for the best coverage of the festivities, which will provide live commentary & even help you create your own New Year's Eve Program:

• Romeo Host of Romeo on the Radio on New York’s No. 1 radio station, Z100
•    Angela LaGreca Award-winning comedian from ABC's popular show The View
• Brandi Williams Entertainment reporter and host of Ultimate Poker Challenge

Starting 7 pm NY time (4 in Cali) at MSN.com/NewYears, the multi-stream, multi-camera broadcast will cover 6 hours of:

• the performances & celebrations happening in and around Times Square
• exclusive online entertainment appearances
• an all-access backstage pass to Little Steven’s Underground Garage Live at the Hard Rock Café, where Steven Van Zandt (“The Sopranos,” Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Sirius Satellite Radio’s “Little Steven’s Underground Garage”) will perform.
• live performances by The Woggles, The Charms, The Chesterfield Kings, The Troggs, The Mooney Suzuki and The New York Dolls
• flashbacks of 2005
• your two cents - email in your comments or questions about the evening’s performances and celebrations and well-wishes for the coming year, which will be interspersed with coverage of the New Year’s Eve countdown, ball drop, Times Square festivities and general crowd frenzy

MSN.com/NewYears

*The Times Square Alliance, TimesSquareNYC.org, and Countdown Entertainment - which represents One Times Square and the New Year's Eve Ball - are working to save the energy, edge & distinctiveness that have made Times Square a cultural & urban icon.

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Fashiontribes Files New York New Year's Eve 2006 Times Square Ball Drop MSN Video Times Square Alliance Fashion Reed Price, Editor in Chief of MSN Video Countdown Entertainment Podcast Interview Parties & Entertaining Fashion Expert

Enter a Parallel Universe this New Year's Eve, Courtesy of EricRice.com's 6 Straight Hours of Live Chaos, Straight from the Virtual World of Second Life. It's Crazy Virtual & Time for Rowra, Man. FASHIONTRIBES BLOG

Feel like partying without the usual hassle of getting decked out, interacting with annoying drunks, finding a designated driver, or even the usual & inevitable chore of getting that one completely drunk pal safely home?

Eric Rice of EricRice.com is the man of the hour (or should I say hours?).

His live Broadcast/Podcast/Virtual Worldcast will be coming to you straight from Second Life - SecondLife.com - a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents, which now number 100,000 strong. It's a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity.

For New Year's Eve, Eric promises six straight hours of "sexy ltable dancing, euro-dancing, money-making, and a dance party." And a slammin' Nickelback song, used without permission, thankyou.

SECOND LIFE NEW YEAR'S PARTY INFO:

• WHEN: Starts 8 pm Cali time (11 pm NY time) on New Year's Eve 2006
• WHERE: Spin Martin's estate in Palulop (117/231), Second Life - SecondLife.com
• STREAM: http://kssx.com:8000
• FOR MORE INFO: EricRice.com

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Fashiontribes Files Eric Rice Second Life New Year's Eve 2006 Virtual Party Fashion Fashion Expert

Less than Enthused About Spending New Year's Getting Wasted & Kissing Questionable Types at the Stroke of Midnight? NYC's Jivamukti Yoga Center Has a Booze-Free & More Spiritual Alternative to Ringing in the New Year. FASHIONTRIBES BLOG

 

For the 17th year in a row, NYC's Jivamukti will provide a yogic place of refuge for all on New Year's Eve. Called "Mauna" - the yogic practice of silence - a no-talking rule will be in effect from 9:00pm-12:00am. All the practice rooms will be open and available to provide a space for individual reflection on this special evening.

At midnight, everyone chants "Loka Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu" ("May All Beings Everywhere Be Happy & Free") together 108 times, followed by inspirational talks from the likes of Jivamukti founders Sharon Gannon & David Life, as well as Kristina Pao Cheng and David Gluck. And then they break out the vegan snacks, as well as the famous Jivamukti News Year's Eve Yummy Vegan Chai.

And then you head home, head clear & om'd out - passing the staggering drunks and giving thanks for the fact that it's them & not you with a blinding hangover to look forward to. JivamuktiYoga.com

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Fashiontribes Files Jivamukti Yoga Center New Year's Eve Mauna New York Fashion Fashion Expert

Nicole Richie and Mayle-2 Ft Faves-Rachel's Pop Fashion Resolution: Stars that shined in the New Year-Fashiontribes Pop Fashion Blog

Our it-girl this year is undoubtedly Nicole Richie.  Her savvy sense of style-she launched Johnson shorts into a boom-is always enviable.  This simple, straight Mayle dress is perfect Nicole.  The simple cut and colour make us wish we had snapped one up.

-Rachel

Fashiontribes Fashion

Fashiontribes Fashion Expert Style Lifestyle Nicole Richie Celebrity Style Shopping

Fall Fashion Style Lifestyle Shopping

A bodysuit with jeans? Rachel's Fashion Resolution: The New Year deserves a braver me-Fashiontribes Fashion

We like a little fashion adventure.  While I am sure that I will have many detractors, I am currently craving a one-piece.  Yes, a bodysuit.  From a lace Lover one with a little bib to the easy-to-throw-on American Apparel cotton bodysuit with a halter neck and a simple scoop back, the look really rocks my world with jeans.  I Bonus points for the leg holes peaking out slightly.

-Rachel

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Fashiontribes Fashion Expert Style Lifestyle Store Report Items We Idolize Lover Bodysuit American Apparel Shopping

Fall Fashion Style Lifestyle Shopping

Grapes Are One of the Most Pesticided Crops on Earth. Enjoy Your Vino Free of Chemicals with Some Organically or Biodynamically Grown Wine from NYC's Appellation. FASHIONTRIBES FOOD BLOG

 

While many of the best wines have always been produced organically, the fact has been kept under wraps because of the bad rap organic vino has gotten. Now that winedrinkers are finally seeing the light, there are more and more resources - right out in the open! - for wines free of pesticides, herbicides & other earth- and human-unfriendly additives.

Appellation in NYC supports organic and biodynamic (it's like organic that goes to 11 what with planting & harvesting in concert with the moon cycles or some such thing). Fortunately, the results are worth the New Age voodoo. Why not try some for yourself? AppellationNYC.com via Coolhunting.com

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Organic & Biodynamic Wine Parties & Entertaining Appellation Fashion Fashion Expert

Chewy, yummy Rice Krispie Snowmen-Rachel's Sweet Tooth Resolution: Snow Critters for a joyous New Year-Fashiontribes Sweet Tooth Blog

RICE KRISPIE SNOWMEN

• 3 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 Package Regular Marshmallows
• 6 Cups of Rice Krispies Cereal

Decorate the Snowmen:

• Red Shoe String Licorice
• Frosting Gell in a tube (green or red)
• Little Mint Chocolate Candies
• Red Hots (Get these by the cookie decorations)

Now your ready! Make The Rice Krispie Mix As Normal Now, roll one large ball, and one smaller ball out of the mix. (I lightly coat my fingers with butter as this can get very sticky!) Stack them on top of one another. Take a piece of the shoestring licorice and wrap it around the middle of the two balls (scarf) Take a chocolate covered mint and use it for the hat. Add two red hots for the buttons. Put the face on with either your red or green frosting gell. Now you have a Rice Krispie Snowman! These are great to make for Kids Schools. Make sure you allow yourself plenty of time to make these treats.

They can be time consuming. Great to do on a Sunday afternoon during winter! You can make them large or little depending on your needs.

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No Capes! Edna Mode May Have Squashed Mr. Incredible's Cape Fantasies for his New Superhero Outfit, But Then Again, You're Not Faced with the Possibility of Gruesome Death by Cape. An Adorable Knitted one From La Redoute. FASHIONTRIBES FASHION BLOG

 

For a superhero, donning a cape may be dashing, but as the heroes' personal couturier pointed out, capes can be hazardous to your health: getting sucked into a passing jet engine & other dangers of over-accessorized superhero'dom.

But for those whose perils are limited to the chills & thrills of a daily commute, this knitted beauty by Comptoir des Cotonniers is a cape worth risking life & limb for. LaRedoute.com

- Lesley Scott

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Bananas and Strawberiies and Gold Chain? Some weird milkshake? No...Rachel's Jewelry Resolution: Big Bling/New Year-Fashiontribes Jewelry Blog

I love the combo of crochet and metal, and this little number ups the game.  The Crocheted fruit hangs gently off the chain, which not only makes a lovely little piece of jewelry, but makes us nostalgic for Wonka's Runts.  Nic and Mel's Crocheted Fruit and Gold Chain Necklace is a little splashy, but hey-what strange fruits aren't?

-RAchel

Fashiontribes Fashion

Fashiontribes Fashion Expert Style Lifestyle Store Report Items We Idolize Nic and Mel Fruit and Gold Chain Necklace Jewelry Shopping

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Encourage a pen-pal-give the gift of cute stationary-Rachel's Gifting Resolution: Make your friends smile this New Year-Fashiontribes Gifting Blog

Nothing says friendship like a little snail mail every once in a while.  E-mail is all fine and dandy, but we relish the thought of recieving a little something-something in the mail.  A handwritten letter is where it's at, folks.  So bestow your friend with the ability to write you-yes, a gift in sorts for yourself.  With snazzy record and cassette stationary, you know it's a gift that will be music to everyone's ears.

-Rachel

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A Respectable Citizen with a Punk Past? Who Wouldn't Love to Receive a Silver Skull Business Card Holder by Douglas Little & Co. FASHIONTRIBES GIFT BLOG

A charming, Victorian-inspired way to keep business cards handy at work, or perfect as place card holders at a groovy gathering. via Coolhunting.com & available at Barney's 212.833.2426.

- Lesley Scott

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Satin and silver and duffels..oh my..Rachel's Accessory Resolution: A New Year of funkier stuff-Fashiontribes Accessories Blog

I, like a raccoon, enjoy things bright and sparkly.  Right up my alley, then, is Marc Jacob's Bauletto Bag-a pastiche of bright purple satin, leather and pink satin.  The straps-two small ones, perfect for the forearm hold and a leather shoulder strap-are easy and thick.  What can't Marc do?

-Rachel

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Fashiontribes Fashion Expert Style Lifestyle Store Report Items We Idolize Marc Jacobs Medium Satin Bauletto Bag Bags Shopping

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Stadium Seating? Really? Rachel's Lifestyle Resolution: Organize your house in the New Year-Fashiontribes Home Decor Blog

Seating usually poses quite a quandary at gatherings.  To much seating, and you are encouraging people to stick to the comfortable conversation of fewer people.  Not enough and everyone seems stiff and uncomfortable.  Our solution?  A couple sets of stadium seating.  Nail them to a temporary platform, and you have fun modular seating and the ability to multiply seats rather quickly.  If your really a buff, these Veteran's Stadium Seats from Philly's old field are ideal.

-Rachel

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Unlike the Days When You Walked Five Miles in Bare Feet to School - in the Snow - Today's Well Dressed Schoolgirl Schleps Her Electronics in Luella for Sony's Buckled VAIO Laptop Bag. FASHIONTRIBES ACCESSORIES & FASHION BLOG

Recognizing the growing influence of girls on the market for tech, Sony teamed up with fashion designer Luella Bartley in an explicit nod to the fact that "women's influence on consumer electronics is growing rapidly and Sony has made a strong commitment to cater to this segment."

Whatever. This bag is so chic, I would even tote it around sans laptop.  SonyStyle.com

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Fashiontribes Files Luella Bartley Luella for Sony Laptop Bags Accessories Fashion Fashion Expert

McQueen Croc Stilletos? Sounds like a perfect experiment for Rachel's Fashion Resolution: Slightly higher heels in the New Year-Fashiontribes Shoe Blog

-Alexander McQueen Green Crocodile Stilletos-

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