Salon.com > Dale Hrabi

Ringing up baby

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:14:00 +0000

"Babies know so little about what's going on, sweetie," says posh infant-togs designer Lucy Sykes of the new compulsion among urbanites to pamper their indifferent newborns in luxury. "It's really for the parents." A former fashion editor and socialite sister to "Bergdorf Blondes" author Plum, she has a point: To date, no infant has actually requested a $45 bottle of Burberry Baby Touch Eau de Toilette Spray. Or signaled his approval of the $1,240 Louis Vuitton Diaper bag. Or wept because Citibabes, the new private club for New York City parents with a $2,000 annual fee, declined to let him crawl into its prestigious walls. Still, as Sykes, who describes her fall/winter line as perfect for "a nice baby tea at the Carlyle Hotel," confesses, "A lot of my Manhattan friends are spending so much on their babies they can't afford to go out for dinner anymore!"

The biggest loser

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:29:00 +0000

I first joined Jenny Craig to become a better writer. At least that's what I told myself in the spring of 2003 when, in an effort to reach a new spiritual state of pennilessness, I was drafting a novel. My heroine was a suburban mom, her hands full with an array of psychic, gay children. Though increasingly pudgy due to a harrowing string-cheese addiction, she worked as a diet counselor at the fictitious "Right-for-Me Weight Loss Center." How neatly mortifying, I thought: a chubby diet expert. She might as well have been a vegetarian werewolf, compelled to ravage endive.

My attempts to render the supportive yet bitchy atmosphere of my imagined diet center, however, were ringing false. ("Have you been completely honest with us, Myrna? It says here you've been limiting yourself to six popcorn kernels, popped, for your daily snack.") I grew blocked, writing less each day, too easily diverted by pizza and life's rich pageant of dust. To get off my impasse'd ass, I decided I better check out a real diet center, maybe even go undercover as a client, assuming I could pass as fat.

Out of the closet and behind the gate

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 20:43:00 +0000

Each year, a growing number of Americans agrees to be locked behind bars.

They check in at manned guardhouses, waiting to be sealed inside their gated communities, where they obey countless rules written into their deeds. They grow only approved flowers and walk dogs no taller than 16 inches. They choose window treatments with trepidation, afraid a peeping neighbor might report a deviant swag to their homeowner's association -- which can and will foreclose on rebels. They endure these indignities for one reason: order. "In the end, it's not about security at all," says Mary Gail Snyder, a professor of urban studies at the University of New Orleans and co-author of "Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States." "Most gated communities are incredibly easy to break into. The appeal is really about control."

But more than just a way to escape the chaos of real life, these enclaves are also becoming ghettos, increasingly targeted to specific groups. Golf addicts lock themselves away in sand-trapped communities such as Colorado's Fox Acres. Sections of the Los Angeles suburb Monterey Park are specially feng-shui'd to serve the Asian population.

Macchiato morons

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:04:00 +0000

Do the people at Starbucks think we're all morons?

Judging from their latest initiative, a 22-page booklet called "Make It Your Drink: A Guide to Starbucks' Beverages," they've decided that Americans are meek, anxiety-wracked naifs who need shitloads of coaching when it comes to ordering coffee. The booklet's mission: to help us "build confidence in beverage ordering."

Huh?

This wallet-sized volume, which recently debuted in all 5,690 U.S. outlets as part of a huge promotion called "Customize Your Cup," seemingly has two goals: 1) to teach ever more panicky Americans how to bark out precise commands like "grande, quad, ristretto, nonfat dry cappuccino" with perfect Starbucksian diction; 2) to encourage us to spend more on pricey flourishes. Extra shots. Noxious flavored syrups. Luxurious ice.

"If you're nervous about ordering," the booklet murmurs with no detectable irony, "don't be."

Who knew beverages were so terrifying? Who knew we were so dense? Simultaneously patronizing and intimidating, the booklet begins by reviewing the "lingo," 38 key ordering terms from the exotic ("misto," Italian for "mixed") to the folksy (diner-slang descendants such as "with legs" for "to go"). It moves on to tackle espresso dilemmas and syntax challenges (should you specify cup size before or after syrup selection?). A special milk section reminds you that "the moo is where you can be most expressive."