Thursday, April 21, 2011

My Proust Questionaire for Die Zeit

The Berlin based newspaper, Die Zeit, recently invited me to answer their Proust Questionaire for bloggers. I was a bit tongue-in-cheek in my responses and so I'm not sure how it translated! So I thought I'd put it here in English. You can read it below if you like.

What in the 19th Century salons are now blogs. In this sense, we have the tradition of the legendary Marcel Proust questionnaire for our favorite bloggers back to life. The choice-New Yorker, blogger and photographer Katya Moorman, shows in her blog Styledefined a mix of street style, nightlife, and of trends from the streets of New York. Meanwhile, both the blogger and her blog has almost cult status there, which was named even by French Vogue as one of the best style blogs.
What is a perfect blog for you?
One that isn't boring! Just because you CAN have a blog doesn't mean you should!
If you’re going to assault the world with your opinions/musings/"art", please make it
worth our while! Show me something new and with an original point of view and never
post fashion campaigns with your obsequious comments…then you’re just “working for
the man” for free.

Which blogger do you most identify with? Myself

What is your favourite occupation online?
Answering questions for foreign publications. And reading other people’s diaries while drinking gin & tonics.

What is your favourite occupation offline?
Answering questions for foreign publications. And reading other people’s diaries while
drinking gin & tonics.

On what occasion do you write lies? See above


Who is your favourite hero in the web? I can’t say on the web per se so I will change the
question to who is my favourite hero that I don’t personally know. And my answer is:
currently it’s Tom Ford. I thought he was a great designer and then his film, A Single
Man, blew me away. It’s the most gorgeous film I’ve ever seen. I admire his work ethic,
creativity, fearlessness and pr/marketing savvy.


Who is your favourite hero in real life? My heros in real life are the old school drag queens
that I party with at Vandam on Sunday nights. They went out on an edge to express
themselves when it was still risky to do so and continue to be themselves when some
consider it cartoonish or passé. I have great respect for those who go against the cultural
grain –with wit, a sense of humor and mad style!

Which characteristics do you like about the people you meet in the web? What I like is
the opportunity to meet them. Twitter is amazing in that way….but ultimately my
relationships are in real life or in the nightclubs…which aren’t exactly “real life”
either…


Which characteristics do you like about people you meet in real life?
I like interacting with people in real life much more because it's much easier to spot a
lie once someone has had a few cocktails. There isn't much transparency in the world of
online alter egos.


What do you like least in the web? The time suck. I could waste the day away between
Twitter, Facebook, online shopping, email and checking the current prices of AAPL and
BIDU


What annoys you most about bloggers?
Many fashion bloggers are boring and narcissistic in person. But what really annoys me is when they don’t bother with proper spelling and grammar.

What annoys you most about yourself?
That I live in a hell of my own making. The industry moves so fast that sometimes if you take a second to blink, you miss out on an opportunity, or if you don't go to a party you could miss that great picture, etc.


Your happiest moment as a blogger? I don’t know if was my happiest moment but my blog
was chosen for French Vogue’s round up of the best fashion blogs in the world. And
mine was the only one featured from New York. That made me pretty happy.

Which was your greatest achievement as a blogger?
Hmmm... last summer J&B Whisky was doing a special promotion for the Manhattan Cocktail in Madrid. They selected me as one of 4 people considered to be “iconic New Yorkers”. So they sent me to a party in Madrid and it was first class all the way: hotel, airplane etc and my photos were blown up the size of the walls. It was amazing!

Which skill you would like to have?
To be invisible. And to be able to be “beamed up” as a mode of transportation a la Star
Trek.

Which blogger would you like to be when you could be reborn?
The highest paid.

Your greatest extravagance?
Quitting a secure job I hated, selling my house, and moving back to NYC, the most expensive city in the US, just as the economy collapsed – and deciding to continue to work freelance and develop my photography and blog instead of look for a new job.


Your present state of mind?
Cautiously optimistic and slightly acerbic.


What is your motto?
There is no “try”, either you do or you don’t.

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