Over the weekend, the New York Times “Food Issue” featured the ingenious Jonathan Safran Foer’s (“Everything Is Illuminated”) article “Against Meat“. This article is adapted from his coming book, “Eating Animals,” which will be published in November. You can read an interview with him about the project here. Thanks to our friends at Dawnwatch for pointing this out!
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child’s behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer’s profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we’ve told-and the stories we now need to tell. – Amazon.com
This is part 2 of our series about The Green Shows at NYC Fashion week. In this installment we meet Tara St. James of Study, Suki Kramer of Suki, and Eric Dorfman, founder of The Green Shows. Look out for part 3, coming soon!
The Green Shows were an extravaganza of sustainable designers showcased over two days during NYC’s Fashion Week just days ago! Check out part 1 of our series from The Green Shows, featuring yours truly, Chloe Jo Berman from Girlie Girl Army, and designers Bahar Shahpar and Lara Miller. Stay tuned for more!
Tarkan might not yet be a household name in the United States, but with his forthcoming album – star studded with collaborations featuring some of the hottest US artists, it soon will be unforgettable. In Europe, Russia, and especially Turkey, the press has compared his effect to that of Elvis’ on the US in the 1950s. Tarkan, famous for his spellbinding performances, is an award winning German-born, Turkish pop-singer known as the “prince of pop” by the media on the other side of the Atlantic. He has several multi-platinum selling records, with a total of over 15 million albums sold.
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Check out my interview with Tarkan at the Emilie Humanitary fundraiser at Fashion Week in NYC where we discuss his humanitarian, environmental, and animal causes in addition to music such as his fighting of a controversial dam in Turkey and his collaboration with PETA to help animals like strays in Turkey and those typically used in the fur industry.
Tarkan was confronted by PETA in 2008 for wearing fur on the cover of his album. Once he learned of the plight of fur-bearing animals, he made an apology and has sworn it off. He also really enjoyed the Dr. Cow’s vegan cheese I gave him, and I hope to get the opportunity to prepare him a full vegan meal soon!
The April77 party at Oak was on the top-10 parties list (Refinery29) for Fashion’s Night Out, kicking off fashion week. I met up with Tommy Über of April77 at OAK to chat and check out some denim customizing!
Concerning April77’s creator and designer, Brice Partouche being a long-time vegetarian and recent convert to vegan, and making a cruelty-free shoe line, Tommy Über had this to say:
We don’t make any leather... It’s important to see the vision of someone that really carries his personal causes into a clothing line… And that’s why people love April77 – because it’s engaged. – Tommy Über, APRIL77
The current April77 collection does have wool, but Brice personally ensured me that all future collections will be free from animal products.
“I’ve always been anti-fur – I love my pets…and I could never see them being worn. It’s a very human time right now, and what’s the sense in more carnage? There are other things in life to celebrate and design doesn’t have to be draped with dead animals.” – Voctoria Bartlett
John Norris might be one of the most recognizable faces to anyone who liked music during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. John had one of the longest-running VJ careers on MTV, and has incredible perspective on where we stand concerning pop-culture. His environmentalism, veganism, and massive, glitter-crusted Rolodex of important musicians spanning a quarter-century make his perspectives worth considering. I sat down with John recently at the Jivamukti Cafe in NYC to talk about the state of mass media, music, and his personal politics.
I went back-to-school shopping with actor Paul Iacono of the reinvention of Fame! Teen.com TV asked me to take Paul on an eco-friendly shopping spree, where we went thrifting at Buffalo Exchange, checked out some organic cotton at Kaight, explored some cruelty-free accessories at MooShoes, and finished off the day with some vegan ice cream banana splits at Lula’s Sweet Apothecary!
Here is the 3rd and final video in the interview series I did with Davey Havok of AFI. Thank you all for tuning in, and please check back on The Discerning Brute for more exciting interviews, contests, news and lifestyle info!
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