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But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This fight is for everything.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

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T R E 4 5 O N

You cannot shame the shameless.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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Republicans do not pay their debts.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / They tell me I was born there, but I really don’t remember

They tell me I was born there, but I really don’t remember

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Give these people tax cuts tout suite (via via):

It’s all very cordial: In the fall, Mr. Mellon and Ms. Hanley Mellon, 36, plan to introduce Hanley Mellon, their own clothing line.

They are not exactly starting from the gutter. Mr. Mellon, who comes from the Mellon and Drexel families of Bank of New York Mellon and Drexel Burnham Lambert, grew up in New York City, Palm Beach and Northeast Harbor, Me., and went to the University of Pennsylvania. The walls of the pad he and Ms. Hanley Mellon share at the Pierre are lined with paintings by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Peter Beard and, Mr. Mellon said, “Taylor Swift.”

[….]

Mr. Mellon’s initial foray into fashion was as the creative director of Jimmy Choo’s collection of men’s shoes. After Tamara Mellon, whom he met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 1997, decided she no longer wanted a men’s line…

[….]

“I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

What are the chances that a 99 percenter goes from AA to a high-end fashion venture (covered by the Times)?

Reader Interactions

171Comments

  3. 3.

    Violet

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. … It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

    WTF? She’s never been and yet “it touches your soul to visit and smell the smells”? Is she insane?

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

    The rich really are different. Can you picture these words coming out of your mouth?

  5. 5.

    Jewish Steel

    I saw variants on

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,”

    on Twitter last night and wondered. Now I know. Jeeze.

  9. 9.

    Tokyokie

    Oooh, she knows Africa because she saw the Streep-Redford film a few times. Oh yeah? Well I saw all the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan AND Jungle Jim movies! (Maybe the Bomba the Jungle Boy films as well, although that might have supposed to have been India. Hard to tell hot, humid forests apart, you know. Don’t remember any piranha, so it probably wasn’t South America.) Admittedly, Tarzan’s New York Adventure doesn’t provide the insight that collecting some guy’s photographs does, but still, one wants to immerse oneself but not to the point of actually visiting some backwater where the room service is lousy and the hotel staff doesn’t speak English.

  12. 12.

    Tommy

    The Hanley Mellon line will have 10 pieces of clothing, including a coat and blouses meant to be wardrobe staples for a jet-set life, priced from $250 to $2,000. Each collection will be inspired by a different place in the world, with New York City being the first.

    Isn’t that the money quote. Look I like nice cloths. I have custom made Tom James and Brooks Brother suits. Oh how I like my shoes. I am sitting here in $125 Merrell sandals (that you can run or hike in).

    But really, only ten items of cloths up to $2,000. I am pretty sure that market is already covered. Seems like a vanity project to me and the NYT just bought in to it with a long article.

  14. 14.

    opiejeanne

    @Jewish Steel: I’m reading Ratking right now, the first book of the Aurelio Zen series by Dibkin, and this is almost exactly what a wealthy Italian heiress says early in the book, just not about Africa.

  16. 16.

    PurpleGirl

    If Ms. Hanley Mellon wants to immerse herself in the sights and smells of Africa by all means she should visit the markets and bazaars of the continent and sleep without a insect net. Really take some risks of bringing home a parasite…

  17. 17.

    scottinnj

    There is also this Gem in today’s Wall Street Journal
    Top Earners Feel the Bite of Tax Increases

    Rob Babek, partner in charge of Marcum LLP’s Los Angeles office, said several of his clients have seen their tax bills increase by $100,000 or more. One business owner saw hers rise from around $600,000 in 2012 to more than $700,000, driven mainly by changes in investment-tax rates on the $2 million in dividends she received from her firm.

    “She was really shocked by the increase,” Mr. Babek said. “That one hit home.”

    1) Bless her heart but if you made $2m don’t you think you would ask your advisor “How Much Tax Am I Going To Pay”

    2) After the NY Times article and this, I think tomorrow I’m going into the stock market and I will go long guillotine manufacturers.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    You missed this gem:

    But Mr. Mellon is an unabashed fan of embracing new technologies, including Bitcoin, which the company accepts as payment and to which he was introduced by the venture capitalists Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

    Bitcoin. Winklevi. Of course.

  20. 20.

    Tommy

    @Violet: I was wrong in my other comment about the “money quote.” I didn’t get to where you got to, cause well I got sick of my stomach. I can’t imagine how I’d ever say that. Oh I watched Out of Africa, I feel I know/understand the continent. I’ve lived in seven states (midwest, deep south, east coast) in this nation and visited many more and I don’t feel like I know it.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    Having read the John Carter books and seen Total Recall, Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, am totally immersed in the Red Planet.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @DougJ, top:

    Give these people tax cuts tout suite (via via):

    DougJ, if you’re going to use a French phrase, s.v.p. use the right one: tout de suite

    /pédant

  23. 23.

    opiejeanne

    @Tokyokie: I watched Ramah of the Jungle as well as Tarzan, AND I’ve been to the LA County arboretum where they shot a lot of those

  27. 27.

    Hunter Gathers

    I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it

    isn’t much different than:

    As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.

    That’s the beauty (or tragedy) of Teh Stupid: It knows no bounds.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @Violet: There’s also ““Now we just need a hashtag,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said.”

    For the woman that has everything. Jaysus.

    Also

    “In the old days you’d have to travel to India or China for inspiration, and these days you’ve just got Pinterest boards and you can create looks from home,” he said. He does have an Instagram account, asliceofmellon, despite believing that “technology has made us lazy.”

    Mere coherence must be hard to maintain in the social stratosphere.

  29. 29.

    Violet

    Last line in the article:

    “Now we just need a hashtag,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said.

    I’m sure people could help them with that!

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, these people have inherited fucking millions and talk about how great Africa is, but have never been?

    What was holding them back from making a trip? It surely wan’t that they could not afford to actually smell the smells of Lagos or Kinshasa or Dar es Salaam by GOING THERE is it?

    Oh, btw, the author of this piece needs the tumbrel ride worse than the subjects.

  33. 33.

    Tommy

    @scav: Stunning. I am not rich enough to travel to African or India for a month to experience the culture and do research for a product line. Their lack of caring to experience it when they can is stunning. I mean if you had the funds, and they do, wouldn’t that be pretty darn cool.

    I might head to Flickr or someplace cause I can’t afford to travel. They can and they don’t care.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    Force Hanley Mellon and Olympia Drexel Mellon — those aren’t children’s names, those are law firms.

  36. 36.

    ulee

    I used to get high. When I lived in the city I told my upstairs neighbor that it made me paranoid. “That sounds like a trust issue.” he said. Yup.

  37. 37.

    Lyrebird

    And while Hemingway’s African-set stories are (imnsho) some of his best writing, he’s an American writer, largely talking about foreigners going to African countries, hiring a few guides, shooting animals, & working out their complicated social intrigues w/each other. (the tourists)

    I had a hard time believing the gal was not engaging in (self-)satire when I saw that reference. I mean, couldn’t ya go for Chinua Achebe or even Nadine Gordimer? Diop or someone would take more effort…

    ETA: yes I can attest that visiting West Africa at least can be done with not-too-huge amounts of cash… just go where you know someone to help you through the airport transition, read the relevant Lonely Planet guide backwards and forwards, and go!

  38. 38.

    Poopyman

    I watched George of the Jungle, and boy! could I smell the smell. I was totally immersed in it. That and Jonny Quest.

    Hey Villago! Looks like tumbrel rides have gotten really popular around here. Congrats on leading the charge.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    Will they put out a Benghazi line of fashions made of Kevlar?

    (Inquiring minds really don’t care.)

  41. 41.

    Fuzzy

    Bunny and Binky need another tax shelter. A new clothing line’s grand opening only their 500 “closest” friends will be invited to attend. Lets crash with our best zombie rags and make-up and smear shit all over them.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Violet:
    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

    Hemingway and I are from the same home town. My best friend in kindergarten lived in the Hemingway birthplace. Hemingway and I went to the same high school. Doesn’t mean I died in the snows of fucking Kilimanjaro, does it now?

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The walls of the pad he and Ms. Hanley Mellon share at the Pierre

    “pad”? their “pad” at the Pierre? Is someone auditioning to write for Madmen?

    After Tamara Mellon, whom he met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 1997

    which I guess isn’t anonymous anymore. Isn’t that against the rules?

  45. 45.

    Violet

    If you click over to the actual NYT article, there’s a picture of the couple. Her jeans have holes in the knees. They’re this rich and she has studiously placed holes in her clothes. I bet they cost $500 at least.

  46. 46.

    Poopyman

    I’m sure these are heirs of old Andy Mellon, and as a Pittsburgh native, I was thinking of apologizing for foisting these creatures on the world. But seeing as Mellon and Andy Carnegie made their fortunes on the backs of my peoples (including grandparents), I’m thinking they should apologize to me.

    At least Carnegie spread his money around for the common good.

  48. 48.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jewish Steel: Would that we were gilded. I’m thinking of the great gilded age barons like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Morgans, and the great collections they amassed. Yeah, it sucked to be labor, but we got the Cloisters, MoMa and the Morgan Library out if it. I shudder to think what this crew will bequeath. This age is aluminum foil.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    @Violet

    A little shamefacedly admit to having very distant relations (by way of marriage) in Argentina who have an entire tea set made of platinum.

  56. 56.

    Tommy

    @Violet: I have said I like nice cloths and shoes. I lost 15 pounds a few years ago and needed to buy new jeans. I wanted brand name at the Gap, not whatever the other stuff is. I didn’t mine faded jeans, I prefer them. Also more comfortable. But when I saw I had to pay MORE for jeans with more wear I was like “dude I am getting old. My jeans used to get that way cause you know I wore them.”

  57. 57.

    Douglas Wayne Wieboldt

    I’ve never been rich. Yet I can rejoice in the myriad ways that I can quench my thirst, nibble on delicious priceless little noshes and much later in the evening Gallup a whole lot food that isn’t sustainable – or better yet threatened. So now that I can imagine these things, oh just fuck – they will never understand those of us who don’t have what they do… They mock us, but demand respect. My brain is fried. Do you suppose that they might consider it a delicacy?

  59. 59.

    PurpleGirl

    @Violet: You beat me to mentioning that detail. I hate rich people who wear jeans like that. Do they think they’re slumming, pretending to be poor or what? I know actual poor people who wouldn’t been seen in jeans like that.

  62. 62.

    scottinnj

    Actually googling this Mellon guy is fascinating, he seems to be a walking example of the “fools and money” theory. I can’t tell if he is the world’s biggest douchebag or the the world’s greatest performance artists, this stuff is just beyond parody:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/13/sanitizing-bitcoin-coin-validation/

    You can add Matt Mellon, descendant of the famed banking family, to the ranks of the Bitcoin believers. The 49-year-old former chairman for the New York Republican Party’s Finance Committee decided in April that he wanted to get in on the Bitcoin frenzy and called the Winklevoss twins for advice. They linked him up with Alex Waters, a former core Bitcoin developer and the then chief technology officer of Bitinstant, the currently-defunct exchange into which the twins invested $1.5 million. Waters instructed Mellon to buy a new Apple laptop, buy his Bitcoin and then put them into cold storage on USB drives kept at various locations around the States. Mellon says he got the “Bitcoin bug,” losing hours of sleep each night pondering Bitcoin’s possibilities. He and Waters started a conversation about how to make Bitcoin more legitimate in the eyes of banks and the government, so that it can take off and become the hundreds-billion market that investors such as the Winklevoss twins predict.

    On a Monday afternoon in Manhattan, Mellon is showing a bit of his real world sway. The “power room” at the Four Seasons Restaurant on 52nd Street has kept its kitchen open an hour beyond its usual closing time for lunch to accommodate the Coin Validation founders’ team.

  64. 64.

    gogol's wife

    I thought the author was ridiculing them a bit, especially when his wife had to correct him when he said they had some art by “Taylor Swift” on the wall. But then why write about them?

  65. 65.

    Bmaccnm

    @PurpleGirl: Bot flies. Diesel fumes. Shit. Big flying bugs with no names. Suppurating wounds. No medicines. Chickens. Cattle wandering through the village, and don’t you dare touch them because they belong to someone a lot more important than you. Baboons. Donkeys. Freshly turned soil. Freshly cut pineapples. Their clothes smell like this?

  67. 67.

    eemom

    There are those on this blog who have dissed Three Dog Night, but I vehemently disagree.

    For example, I have this on my iphone alarm….somehow it is perfect to wake up to.

  69. 69.

    Tommy

    @PurpleGirl: My favorite pair of jeans are from Britches of Georgetown. About ten years old. A couple holes that were not in them when I bought them. Wear and tear. I’d never think if we went on a date they’d be “cool” to wear. But I like them to lounge around in. Maybe a beer at my local bar. That wearing jeans with rips and holes in them is “cool” to people worth millions, where you buy them for five times what I bought them for, god I will never understand this.

  70. 70.

    Violet

    @PurpleGirl: They’re trend-followers. For some reason it’s trendy to wear jeans with holes in them so that’s what she’s wearing. That’s a bad tell for people who want to be fashion designers. She’s already a follower not a leader.

  71. 71.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    @ulee:

    If Hemingway was here he’d have the answer. The village square.

    If Hemingway was here, he’d eat his shotgun again.

    I’m ready for the meteor strike, myself.

  72. 72.

    TerryC

    @Tommy: “But really, only ten items of cloths up to $2,000. I am pretty sure that market is already covered. Seems like a vanity project to me and the NYT just bought in to it with a long article.”

    A slightly upscale Hard Rock Cafe series of t-shirts.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Poopyman:

    I don’t think I ever heard of him, but a quick look at Google tells me he was married to Cheryl Tiegs and, before that, to one of the fascination Cushing sisters. Nice to be collected by the Mellons and share wall space (at the “pad”) with Taylor Swift’s paintings.*

    *How long until the Mellons acquire an original GWB of his feet, or Putin, or similar?

  74. 74.

    Firebert

    Anybody with works by Damien Hirst hanging in their pad is already demonstrably aesthetically-challenged.

  75. 75.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

    She should start with Somalia. It’s just like West Palm, Greenwich and the Pierre.

  76. 76.

    Tommy

    @ulee: I wasn’t meaning that as sexist or rude comment. I worked retail in college in the late 80s. When I go into a retail store I treat those people working with total respect.

    I know it is a tough job for a low wage. More flies with honey. Being rude to them doesn’t seem to get me anything. Being polite, well it gets me help. I’d do it anyway, but dual benefit.

  77. 77.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ulee:

    Nope, can’t claim that. In fact, I never met him (although I did once meet his sister Marcella, I think her name was) — he abandoned Oak Park long before I was born.

    However, when I worked in radio, I did interview his first wife, Hadley. I guess that could count as fighting Papa (albeit he had been dead for a decade or more by then).

  80. 80.

    schrodinger's cat

    If you read any of the fashion mags like Vogue or Bazaar you will realize that heirs and heiresses starting a new fashion line is nothing out of the ordinary. Also too wives/girlfriends of Russian oligarchs in London.

    Many famous fashion bloggers are wives/daughters of rich men. Their shoes and bags are worth more than most peoples salaries.

  81. 81.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Totally OT… I managed to trip down a flight of stairs this morning and skin my chin and palms. lucky that’s the extent of the damage but I still feel like an idiot.

  82. 82.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Keith G:

    First a priest channels Lenard Cohen during a wedding homily.

    Oh, I saw that a day or two ago and loved it! But didn’t know the source. For some reason, I thought it was from somewhere in Canada (probably because Leonard Cohen is Canadian, as if that were a reason). Even this non-believer was misty-eyed.

  83. 83.

    Violet

    @Poopyman:

    And who the fuck is Peter Beard? I’ve googled and seen some of his work. The question remains.

    He’s another inherited-wealth rich guy. From Wikipedia:

    Peter Beard’s photographs of Africa, African animals, and the journals that often integrate his photographs have been widely shown and published since the 1970s. His grandmother, Ruth (Hill) Beard, married, as her second husband, Pierre Lorillard IV, who was a tobacco magnate and is credited with helping to popularize the tuxedo. A great-grandfather, James Jerome Hill, was founder of the Great Northern Railway in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Railroads, in part, provided the infrastructure for colonization both in the United States and Africa, promoting expansion into undeveloped frontiers. James Jerome Hill made his fortune in the railroad business, leaving as legacy both money, colonialism and art to his great-grandson Peter. While not rejecting money from this trust, Beard laments the expansion of Western capitalism into Africa

    I’m sure the Mellons feel very comfortable with his art on their walls.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TheMightyTrowel: Yeek! All my extremities are tingling sympathetically just reading about it. Hope there’s no lasting damage. (I’ve had occasions where I’ve tripped or slipped and fallen on my arse in public, and in almost every case, the thing most damaged was my dignity.)

  85. 85.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @SiubhanDuinne: I did it at work, so all my colleagues got to see me nearly faint because, for all the things I do well, looking at my own blood is not one of them. Yikes.

  86. 86.

    Violet

    @TheMightyTrowel: Glad that’s all that happened! That can be dangerous. You might feel some new aches and pains tomorrow or the next day. Pay attention as it can sometimes take a day or two for things to show up. Don’t hesitate to see a doctor if something feels a little off.

  93. 93.

    Cervantes

    Yes, the article is fluff and its subjects are vapid. It’s the NYT.

    @Violet:

    She’s never been and yet “it touches your soul to visit and smell the smells”? Is she insane?

    I suspect the writer did not quote her in full.

    @gogol’s wife:

    I thought the author was ridiculing them a bit

    Given who the writer is, I doubt it.

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Oh, btw, the author of this piece needs the tumbrel ride worse than the subjects.

    A bit harsh.

    She’s a young writer with college loans “given the opportunity” to write for the NYT “Style” section. One of her recent pieces for them was about trends in pubic-hair management.

    If she’s writing the same stuff in ten years, or still writing for the “Style” section, then maybe.

  96. 96.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Violet: It’s gonna be super fun tomorrow because i am flying to the UK – so 30 hours in transit/in economy whilst covered in bruises! Huzzah!

  99. 99.

    Violet

    @Cervantes:

    I suspect the writer did not quote her in full.

    You can suspect all you want. All we know is what’s on the page. I suspect the writer quoted her verbatim. The entire quote sounds like a complete thought. There’s no reason to think it’s been edited or abbreviated.

    Can’t believe this gem wasn’t noted earlier:

    the Hanley-Mellons’s wedding in 2010, an elopement of sorts at Diane von Furstenberg’s house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas.

    Who doesn’t elope at Diane von Furstenberg’s house? Right up there with Vegas.

  100. 100.

    opiejeanne

    @Tokyokie: actually, I was a costumer when we lived near SF, and I made childrens’ dance clothing for sale at a local shop. I had the name Leapfrog before anyone else did.

  101. 101.

    PurpleGirl

    @efgoldman: She wants to really immerse herself in Africa. Well, doesn’t that mean living in Africa, not in a western-style hotel, but in a hut or tent, or small building and experience living a different way. And in living that way you expose yourself to insects that will alter your medical status.

  102. 102.

    gogol's wife

    @Cervantes:

    Oh, I didn’t remember that she also penned that hard-hitting piece on pubic-hair trends. That was a real high point for the NYT. I couldn’t believe it.

  103. 103.

    Violet

    @TheMightyTrowel: Oh, man. That sounds miserable. Drink plenty of fluids and try to sleep. If you tolerate pain relievers/anti-inflammatories, then maybe that’s a good time to take some.

  105. 105.

    scav

    There’s enough vapidity and superficiality to go around in that gem of an article. The depths of faux and pseudo these paragons have attained: “wardrobe staples for a jet-set life” designed by people that can’t be bothered to go. I’m almost persuaded the absent at the interview one-year-old (carefully noted as such — although the location of the teacup Yorkie is distressing left unaccounted for) would actually have added some intellectual depth.

  111. 111.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Violet: too young, too female, too boston and too far from WVA to be John Cole, but perhaps we share the klutz gene

    ETA: I’m also much more a volvo driver than a subaru fan, if you’re looking for lesbian stereotypes.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @TheMightyTrowel:
    We all need a trademarkable trait. Yours seems a bit much though.
    Mine is being publicly wrong. I think of it as more of an art rather than a trait.

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Lyrebird:

    I had a hard time believing the gal was not engaging in (self-)satire when I saw that reference. I mean, couldn’t ya go for Chinua Achebe or even Nadine Gordimer? Diop or someone would take more effort…

    Alexander McCall Smith….

  116. 116.

    Violet

    @TheMightyTrowel: I saw something on the Today Show quite awhile now about an actual klutz gene. The were teasing whatever the female host’s name is because apparently she’s klutzy and she was saying, “See! It’s not my fault! It’s my genes!”

  117. 117.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Ruckus: Mostly I just walk into walls and doorways. Sometimes I trip over nothing. Once I just fell over, flat onto the ground, during a lecture (that I was giving) because I stepped on a m&m on the floor and slipped.

  118. 118.

    WereBear

    It’s really no wonder these kinds of people don’t understand why anyone struggles in grinding poverty.

    They should just call someone they met in rehab, watch a few DVDs, create a cunning little clothing line, and get some coverage in the NYT.

    They must just WANT to be poor!

  119. 119.

    Mr Snark

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

    Well, I heard the drums echoing tonight
    But Ms Hanley Mellon only heard whispers of some quiet conversation
    Hmm, It’s Gonna take some time to do the things we never have

  120. 120.

    opiejeanne

    @Cervantes: both are photographers. I just forgot that Peter was the first name, and I had already posted when I realized the first name wasn’t George.

    I’m riding in a car, writing on my phone.

  121. 121.

    Cervantes

    @Violet:

    @Cervantes: I suspect the writer did not quote her in full.

    You can suspect all you want. All we know is what’s on the page. I suspect the writer quoted her verbatim.

    OK.

    The entire quote sounds like a complete thought. There’s no reason to think it’s been edited or abbreviated.

    But to me, even your own interjections (“WTF?” and “Is she insane?”) indicate otherwise.

  123. 123.

    muddy

    I know an upper middle-class privileged girl who went to Africa with her new MBA to help the poor people make micro business plans etc. She said the shack slums were “picturesque”. Helping the poors was not much fun (lazy ingrates you see), so she quickly changed to a tech job. Leveraged that into a bigger tech business, and is now a giant fish in that small pond. Wanted to name the new African business after a Native American tribe from the area she grew up in. She is not at all associated with this tribe or even know someone from it. wtf

    I was thinking the other day how the people over there are probably annoyed and oppressed enough with their own elites, without importing fresh new ones from America.

  124. 124.

    Violet

    @Cervantes:

    She’s a young writer with college loans “given the opportunity” to write for the NYT “Style” section. One of her recent pieces for them was about trends in pubic-hair management.

    Got curious about your assertion. A minute of googling finds that she graduated in 1998 from The Evergreen State College. She may still have college loans but hopefully 16 years after graduation they’re not still astronomical. If she went to college at the usual age, that would make her around 38 now. She has published two books and written for a wide variety of publications, so the NYT isn’t her first opportunity.

  128. 128.

    Cervantes

    @Violet: Did not say the NYT was her first opportunity, just that it is an opportunity, and, “Style” section or not, I can understand her doing what pays the bills.

    And yes, to some people, she may be as old as the hills — but to me, she’s a young writer.

  130. 130.

    Violet

    @Cervantes: I think her complete thought indicates she’s mentally mixed up. I abbreviated her complete quote for emphasis, but the meaning was not changed. She says she has a “deep affinity for Africa” but hasn’t ever been. Then follows by saying you have to immerse yourself in the place to understand it.

    How does she know she has a deep affinity for it if she’s never been but to have that deep understanding you have to go? And why, if she does have a deep affinity for it, has she never visited? It certainly isn’t money that’s keeping her from it. The whole statement is a loop from which there is no exit. It’s a big fat WTF and she sounds insane.

    Either go or don’t, but don’t use fancy words to describe your longing and affinity for the place if you can’t be bothered to go in all your 36 years when money isn’t an issue. These people could hop on a plane and go for a long weekend if they wanted. The clearly do not want to go.

  131. 131.

    Violet

    @Cervantes: Of course it’s “an opportunity”. Everything can be viewed that way.

    How old does she have to be before you don’t consider her young anymore? Is it an age thing (a concrete number) or number of years experience? Or something else?

    You also wrote:

    If she’s writing the same stuff in ten years, or still writing for the “Style” section, then maybe.

    Does the fact that she’s been writing for longer than a new college grad change this statement at all?

  134. 134.

    Cervantes

    @kc:

    The next kid is going to be Manley Helen Hanley Mellon.

    Mellon’s daughter from a previous marriage goes by “Minty” …

  135. 135.

    Violet

    Just saw the picture again and noticed that Matthew Mellon is wearing patterned leggings. Yes, really.

  142. 142.

    Violet

    @Tehanu: He did indeed. Apparently he lives there part time now. He looks like a Ralph Lauren model. Rich and good looking. Poor guy. Tough life.

  147. 147.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Who doesn’t elope at Diane von Furstenberg’s house? Right up there with Vegas.

    Only if you’ve got an Elvis impersonator officiating.

  150. 150.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    What a vomit-making article about vomit-making people. By the way, she looks anorexic. He just looks like a fool.

  152. 152.

    Violet

    @Fort Geek: Ha! That made me laugh.

    Out of curiosity I gave their vanity project website a click and took a look around. This is for real:

    WONDERING WHAT WE HAVE BEEN UP TO?
    fall 2014
    Wednesday Apr,9th 2014

    If you have been wondering why you have not heard from us- let me start by explaining- we are a very small, but EFFECTIVE and CREATIVE and BRILLIANT (if I do say so myself), team here at HANLEY MELLON-

    We have been working day to night preparing our Fall 2014 women’s ready to wear collection and collaborating with some INCREDIBLE TALENT to do so- the fruits of which, I cannot wait to share…

    The photos are ready (and beautiful!) and Spring vacation with the family is finished (and was, as always, time well spent)- so I am back and ready to pick up where I left off to continue sharing our story and musings here on HANLEYMELLON.com… Speak again next week!

    I hope you too have had a great few weeks xxNicole

    #BRILLIANT_AND_EFFECTIVE_TUMBRELS

  154. 154.

    Petorado

    “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it …”

    “… especially the apartheid part. I soooo love looking down my nose at whole classes of people and knowing that the social order will prevent us from ever mixing.”

  155. 155.

    Violet

    Oh dear god. I went to their “About” page. They actually use the hashtag #RichLife. Yes, seriously.

  156. 156.

    Chris T.

    I’ve never been a Mellon, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for them. I’ve read every biography, we visited Carnegie Hall, I’ve listened to recordings. When do I get my inheritance?

    [do I need a /snark tag?]

  159. 159.

    El Cid

    Just remember — the super-rich and social uppermost classes are accustomed to having their statements taken seriously simply because of who uttered them; this notion that their statements are to be weighed upon their own merits is outside their lived experience (other than maybe their college classrooms, maybe).

  160. 160.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    Take a look on their website at “Matthew Mellon’s 50th Birthday Party”. Every Euro-trash and Trustfund Baby was at the party, as well as Lindsay Lohan. I wonder how much they had to pay her – in coke or cash – to show up?

  163. 163.

    Glocksman

    Diane von Furstenberg

    Escaped Nazi war criminal or something?
    Oh, wait that’s Ilse Koch.
    Is she related to the US Koch brothers or do they just act alike?

  165. 165.

    Glocksman

    @Fort Geek:

    I get the French Revolution references WRT tumbrels, but I’m midwestern enough to prefer old fashioned copper jacketed lead.
    As in ‘When the Revolution comes, you’ll be among the first against the wall, motherfucker’. :)

  167. 167.

    Jado

    @Violet:

    HOW DARE YOU, YOU PEON!!!!!

    SHE is RICH. You will show respect, or she will have your congressman on the line in five minutes to increase your taxes.

    It’s almost like you don’t understand how this all works…

  168. 168.

    Tone in DC

    Creative, effective AND brilliant.

    And modest, to boot.

    From that photo at the Times, it must be true for these particular 1 percenters that you can never be too rich or too thin.

    Never mind the damn paintings and photos.

  169. 169.

    WaterGirl

    @TheMightyTrowel: No fall has ever been as embarrassing to me as the one I took in the eight grade. I was walking up the stairs at school and I could see the boy I liked was watching me, so I was trying really hard to look cool, and I tripped on the top step. All these years later and I can remember it like yesterday.

    No would-be girlfriends watching you at work? Then you’ll be fine! Though it is a drag that you will have to take a trip with all the aches and pains.

  170. 170.

    WaterGirl

    @Cervantes:

    Nate Silver’s running a piece on pubic hair as well, although he is not the author.

    Wow. Now that is a sentence I would never have expected to see.

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