Earlier today, I pulled over to the side of the road to take a photograph. A van drove up close behind me, then swerved around while the driver glared at me. The driver parked the van at the gas station next to where I’d parked. He got out of the car, holding a stack of what looked like newspapers. Then he walked toward me. Then he stopped. Then he opened what appeared to be the door of a newspaper vending machine and stuffed what looked like newspapers inside. I got out of my car and headed for the place that I wanted to photograph. Then I took a photograph. Then I circled back. The man had been holding a stack of adult newspapers, and he’d inserted them into an adult newspaper vending machine. I opened the door of the vending machine and took out one of the newspapers. (It was free.) Then I got back in my car and drove home. Then I sat down and read the adult newspaper. There was an ad in it titled “INTERCOURSE CALIFORNIA.” It was from someone in search of an investor to invest in a “Startup Porno Co.” They wanted “35K and up.” They said it would take “6 months to 1 year 4return.” I didn’t invest my money. I closed the adult newspaper.
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I realized looking back over 2019’s photos that I hadn’t taken a lot of selfies, so one of my goals in 2020 is to take more of those. I mostly post them on Instagram, and they don’t always include my head.
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If you haven’t yet read Kashmir Hill’s frightening peek into the monetization of facial recognition, do: “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.” What if there was nowhere in the world you could hide?
“‘It’s creepy what they’re doing, but there will be many more of these companies. There is no monopoly on math,’ said Al Gidari, a privacy professor at Stanford Law School. ‘Absent a very strong federal privacy law, we’re all screwed.’”
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Had a great time walking around West Hollywood today and visiting a very cool store that I’ll be writing about soon. This dog training hood retails for $425. Perfect for the canine-minded fetishist in your life.
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My favorite firearm is Cabot Guns The Icon. It’s Frank Gehry-esque. A 1911. “Meticulously transformed entirely from block stainless steel,” and elegant af. A work of art isn’t cheap. It’s $4,995.
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The new Netflix documentary about Aaron Hernandez, “Killer Inside,” is 100% gripping and fascinating. I’m not really sure why this limited series is so compelling, since it’s not the most artful series ever created, but it doesn’t shy away from allowing the story to be complex, layered, and unspool over time. Watch it.
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Vanity Fair’s Mark Harris has a great take on why Jennifer Lopez got shut out of best supporting actress in the Academy Award nominations. According to him, Lopez did everything wrong.
“She dared to play a character who used her sexuality as a professional survival tool and didn’t regret it; she committed the unforgivable sin of being sympathetic and then not; she took her public image and spectacularly amplified and reworked it to suit a complicated character. That is not what Academy voters want from J. Lo. What they want is for her to scrub off her makeup and play a poor mother dying of something who tries to find someone to take care of her kids. They want a role that says, Look how serious I am. Look how willing I am to punish myself for you. That kind of self-abasement has always been something Academy voters love to see from actresses; even if we set aside the grim social implications of that kind of thinking, what remains is a disappointing limitation of vision. The Academy has never been good at looking at a performance like the one Lopez gives in Hustlers and understanding that it is as serious, committed, and carefully crafted as the kind of stuff it usually likes. Actors, of all people, should know better.”
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As pointed out by Scott Galloway, this list has some interesting, counter-intuitive strategies for reaching your goals. My favorite one is #11: Counting Backwards. Instead of propelling yourself forward through time, it asks you to set a future goal and strategize backwards. You may have done this before, but this method suggests you break things down by the numbers, including, at the end, what your goal is for this minute.
“11. Count Backward
You can use simple numbers to help you visualize your goals and make them into actions. Starting with five, come up with a goal you have for five years from now. Move down to four: What do you want to have accomplished four months from now? Three weeks? Two days? One day, one hour, this minute? How do these activities relate to each other? This number-goal-puzzle can give you clarity when everything else is unsteady.”
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This is one of my favorite photos of Los Angeles. It’s Hollywood when it was Hollywoodland. It’s the Herculean effort it took to create what’s here now. It’s omnipresent and never the same. According to TIME:
“The 50-ft.-tall lettering, which was lit by thousands of flashing light bulbs, was erected as an advertisement not for the movie-making mecca, but for a housing development called Hollywoodland.”
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Hi Susannah
At the onset thank you for writing the below blog.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2012/06/08/how-to-sell-yourself/#630bb2136843
Let me give you a quick background of why I am writing to you - I am good at sales, having demonstrated over achievements of targets YoY, however my growth within my company has been limited. And when talking to one of my friend yesterday he had an interesting remark to make - Those who are good at selling to others are usually bad at selling themselves, and they do not realize it.
That triggered my thinking, and I started reading, and first article I came across was your blog that left me stunned.
Your #Tip1 and #Tip2 both were eye openers for me.
I do not follow either as prescribed in your blog.
This blew me away, and I was compelled to reach to you.
Thank you again ! I am based in Dubai. If you ever plan to visit Dubai , do let me know.
It will be an honor to meet you and host you in Dubai.
Your fan !
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Fascinating. How is this real? Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is selling a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina. It costs $75, and here’s the backstory:
“This candle started as a joke between perfumer Douglas Little and GP—the two were working on a fragrance, and she blurted out, ‘Uhhh..this smells like a vagina’—but evolved into a funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected scent. (That turned out to be perfect as a candle—we did a test run at an In goop Health, and it sold out within hours.) It’s a blend of geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed that puts us in mind of fantasy, seduction, and a sophisticated warmth.”
The Cut has some very funny reviews.
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Finally saw “Joker.” “The King of Comedy” meets “Taxi Driver” meets “Logan.” A triumphant performance wrapped inside a decent movie. A celebration of mayhem, murder, and insanity. Grimly nihilistic but sometimes gorgeous. The best parts are when Joaquin Phoenix dances. The third act stumbles, then resurrects itself. The point, if there is one: Sometimes it’s up to madmen to change the world.
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The other day, I came across an ad — I think maybe it was on Instagram — for Writers Blok, which is basically like a co-working space, but for writers. From the website: “We function like a gym or a yoga studio, using a set schedule to help our writers break their projects into bite-sized portions. Writing is like exercise: more effective in small doses and better in a group setting.” I found the idea annoying and stupid, so much so that I tweeted about it: “What kind of crackhead wants to write when other people are around.” I added a GIF of Tim Gunn making a gagging face to my tweet to emphasize my point. This morning, I had a phone call with my agent. Afterwards, I decided to do some outlining work on the project we’d discussed. But I decided to do it in a place that I knew would be both filled with people and noisy. It was a pretty counter-intuitive choice for an INFP. My theory was this: The context might be so agitating that it would encourage me to get some work done at a high rate of speed. In a cacophony of sounds and motion, I might be less likely to ruminate or rehash. Compelled by a desire to get the hell out, I’d get my shit done. As it turned out, my guess was pretty much right. My auto-experiment was a relative success. I’ll likely do it again. (See also: this LA Times story.)
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In a recent post, Sree Sreenivasan, a visiting professor of digital innovation at Stony Brook, asked: “What are three tools, platforms, services, skills you’d like to work on/explore/use more/get better at in 2020?” Mine are:
TikTok. I haven’t tried it yet.
Video. I’d like to improve my video skills.
Podcasting. I have a meeting tomorrow about a podcasting project.
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As I mentioned here previously, I was interviewed for an essay that appears in Sex and Journalism: Critical, Global Perspectives. Titled “‘In a Pink Ghetto’: How Female News Workers Define Sex Journalism” and written by Belinda Middleweek, the chapter seeks to define sex journalism and identify its practitioners. They are predominantly female and mostly freelancers. I was one of those interviewed for the piece, and it was interesting to read her insights. In her conclusion, she writes, quoting me (Interviewee 4): “‘When does the first sex journalist win a Pulitzer?’ (Interviewee 4). My answer? Never in this pink ghetto.” Middleweek isn’t launching a criticism here or looking down her nose at sex journalism and those who do it. She’s merely observing that between the gender of sex journalists and the ghettoization of sex journalism in the news landscape, it may be unlikely that one of its own could be given one of journalism’s highest honors. I, for one, disagree with Middleweek. Or, at least, I hold out hope that sex journalism will one day rise out of the pink ghetto in which it exists, and someday one of us will win a Pulitzer. The unknown is when.
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I was thinking about starting a newsletter focusing on the vices beat—from the adult industry to gambling trends to the luxury firearms market, all of which I’ve covered on my Forbes blog and elsewhere—but then I checked out the “Legal Policies” for the newsletter platform I’d be most likely to use: Mailchimp. Their “Acceptable Use Policy” prohibits, among other things, “Pornography/sexually explicit content”; they’re freaked out by “Escort services, mail-order bride/spouse finders, international marriage brokers, and other similar sites and services,” “Hookup, swinger, or sexual encounter sites or services,” and “Gambling services or products”; and they scrutinize content that mentions “Adult entertainment/novelty items.”
Anyone have any suggestions for another newsletter platform?
Email me: susannahbreslin at gmail dot com.
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