HWH PR NEWSMAKERS

Neither Covid, Nor Vanishing Partners, Nor Supply Shortages, Can Keep Artist Allen Hirsch Away From Introducing His Best HANDL Inventions Yet At CES

HANDL is excited to unveil new HANDL Jewelry which includes handmade pieces by the artist/founder

A person holding a phone to her face

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Las Vegas — In spite of reports of people backing out of attending CES, Allen Hirsch, founder and creator of HANDL, a leading smartphone accessory company, will go ahead with his plans to man booth #60535 in Eureka Park at the Venetian hotel. Allen Hirsch (while fully vaccinated) has just finished his second bout with Covid several weeks ago.

Hirsch recently was forced suddenly to switch from Creative Founder to Operational CEO when his previous partnership vanished abruptly back in July without orienting Hirsch to any aspect of operations and logistics. “I had no experience in this field at all.” Nonetheless in the spirit of HANDL-ing it, Hirsch was able to keep the ship afloat and salvage relationships and supply chain flow to major retailers such as Target.

“HANDL is excited to unveil its new HANDL Jewelry line, which includes handmade pieces by the artist/founder. “This is revolutionary to the fashion/hand jewelry/cell accessory market,” added Hirsch. Coupled with HANDL’s comfortable and versatile elastic and brace system, this is by far the most useful and attractive product in its class. HANDL jewelry is magSafe compatible and removable so you can match your mood or outfit or accessories at will. This will no doubt turn heads and hands going forward.

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Cave Syndrome: A Continuing Problem

Just when we thought it was a little safe to resume some of our outdoor activities, we have to take cover again. Hello Omicron. 

 

Dr. Arthur Bregman, former Chief of Psychiatry of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital for several decades, and now head of the private psychiatric practice of Bregman Medical Group in Coral Gables, Florida, claims “We are seeing a major increase in cases of ‘Cave Syndrome.’ That’s the mental health problem afflicting huge numbers of the population around the world. When I coined the term I had no idea how many people would be traumatized by the pandemic that they stay home all the time because they are scared of the outside world. This is happening all over the world.”

 

In the US, 30% of us adults say it will take them at least a year from now before they feel safe again to leave their homes.

Cave syndrome is an agoraphobia based disorder related to OCD (obsessive comptoulsive disorder) and PTSD.

But there’s a difference. Regular agoraphobia has a lot of different triggers keeping sufferers out of contact with the outside world. But Cave syndrome is specifically caused by pandemic fears. It’s borne of uncertainty from the virus. The compulsive behavior that follows is essentially staying at home even though the rest of the world is springing into action. 

 

Dr. B says some folks have severe cases where they can barely leave the house, they don’t even want to see family. The holidays was a real reckoning for these sufferers. It’s hard to see the compulsion when anxiety about sickness comes from a survival instinct that is present in all humans. In this case, the instinct has gone into overdrive.

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Frameworks, the Miami Based Art Framing And Fabrication Company,

Is Being Featured On “Manufacturing Marvels” TV Show Tonight 

 

SHOW IS AIRING ON FOX BUSINESS NETWORK,

JAN 3, 2021-APPROX 9:30PM CST(10:30 PM EST)

 

 

Miami, Fl—”Manufacturing Marvels,” the TV show that features cutting edge companies that are truly unique, will be showcasing Frameworks tonight because of its “manufacturing marvels’ in the world of interior art design.

 

Frameworks has long been recognized as the premier resource for art curation and creation, framing and fabrication located in the United States.

 

FrameWorks redefines what is possible.  FrameWorks invests heavily in state of the art technology, including large flatbed printers, CNC machines, wall covering printers and dye sublimation metal printers. All production is done in-house at FrameWorks, allowing for greater cost savings to their clients and total control of all aspects of a project.

 

Claire Lardner and Cris Sweeney, founders and owners of Frameworks for the last 30 years, said, “The company has been the leading force behind thousands of creative projects. Our clients inclde luxury resorts, cruise ships, boutique hotels and healthcare facilities of all kinds.”

 

They added that art is a key element to any well-designed interior. In the world of hospitality design, at is the finishig touch that makes a space more memorable.” 

 

FrameWorks tag line is “Limitless Possibilities.’ The FrameWorks team brings this to each and every project, creating out of this world results for their clients.

 

Whether it is a signature lobby piece or thousands of framed images for a cruise ship, no job is too small or too large for Team FrameWorks.

 

FrameWorks collaborates with individuals, interior designers, architects, hotels, cruise ships and healthcare companies to produce fine art packages that enhance their properties.

 

 

FrameWorks

305.443.4581 x7005

4150 SW 74th Court

Miami, FL 33155

www.frameworksmiami.com

Jeff Bezos, with the world at his fingertips.

For Meta or Worse

Big Tech is becoming the government. Can anyone rein in Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Co.?

By IAN BREMMER

JANUARY 1, 2022

This comes from Graydon Carter’s Air Mail newsletter. While most of us know all this, we never quite think of big tech in this fashion.

After rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, some of the most powerful US institutions sprang into action to punish the leaders of the failed insurrection. But they weren’t the institutions you might expect. Facebook and Twitter suspended the accounts of President Trump for posts praising the rioters. Amazon, Apple, and Google effectively banished Parler, an alternative to Twitter that Trump’s supporters had used to encourage and co-ordinate the attack, by blocking its access to web-hosting services and app stores. Financial service apps, such as PayPal and Stripe, stopped processing payments for the Trump campaign and for accounts that had funded travel expenses to Washington DC for his supporters.

The speed of these technology companies’ reactions stands in stark contrast to the feeble response from the governing institutions. Congress’s efforts to establish a bipartisan, 9/11-style commission failed amid Republican opposition. Law enforcement agencies have been able to arrest some individual rioters but in many cases only by tracking clues they left on social media about their participation in the fiasco.

Nation states have been the primary actors in global affairs for nearly 400 years. That is starting to change, as a handful of large technology companies rival them for geopolitical influence. The aftermath of the January 6 riot serves as the latest proof that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are no longer merely large companies; they have taken control of aspects of society, the economy and national security that were long the exclusive preserve of the state.

The same goes for Chinese technology companies, such as Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent. Non-state actors are increasingly shaping geopolitics, with technology companies in the lead. And although Europe wants to play, its companies do not have the size or geopolitical influence to compete with their American and Chinese counterparts.

Most of the analysis of US-Chinese technological competition, however, is stuck in a statist paradigm. It depicts technology companies as foot soldiers in a conflict between hostile countries. But technology companies are not mere tools in the hands of governments. These companies are increasingly shaping the global environment in which governments operate. They have huge influence over the technologies and services that will drive the next industrial revolution, determine how countries project economic and military power, shape the future of work, and redefine social contracts.

It is time to start thinking of the biggest technology companies as similar to states. These companies exercise a form of sovereignty over a rapidly expanding realm that extends beyond the reach of regulators: digital space. They bring resources to geopolitical competition but face constraints on their power to act. They maintain foreign relations and answer to constituencies, including shareholders, employees, users and advertisers.

They have taken control of aspects of society, the economy and national security that were long the exclusive preserve of the state.

These categories illuminate the choices facing the biggest technology firms as they work to shape global affairs. Will we live in a world where the internet is increasingly fragmented and technology companies serve the interests and goals of the states in which they reside, or will Big Tech decisively wrest control of digital space from governments, freeing itself from national boundaries and emerging as a truly global force? Or could the era of state dominance finally come to an end, supplanted by a techno-elite that assumes responsibility for offering the public goods once provided by governments?

To understand how the struggle for geopolitical influence between technology firms and governments will play out, it is important to grasp the nature of these companies’ power. The tools at their disposal are unique in global affairs, which is why governments are finding it so hard to rein them in.Amazon workers in Germany went on strike to protest low pay and poor working conditions as Prime Day began in 2019. 

Today’s biggest technology firms have two critical advantages that have allowed them to carve out independent geopolitical influence. First, they do not operate or wield power exclusively in physical space. They have created a new dimension in geopolitics — digital space — over which they exercise primary influence. People are increasingly living out their lives in this vast territory, which governments do not and cannot fully control.

The implications of this fact bear on virtually all aspects of civic, economic and private life. In many democracies today, politicians’ ability to gain followers on Facebook and Twitter unlocks the money and political support needed to win office. For a new generation of entrepreneurs, Amazon’s marketplace and web-hosting services, Apple’s app store, Facebook’s ad-targeting tools and Google’s search engine have become indispensable for launching a successful business.

Second, these companies are increasingly providing a full spectrum of both the digital and the real-world products that are required to run a modern society. Currently, just four companies — Alibaba, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — meet the bulk of the world’s demand for cloud services, the essential computing infrastructure that has kept people working and children learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. The future competitiveness of traditional industries will depend on how effectively they seize new opportunities created by 5G networks, AI and massive internet-of-things deployments.

Along with owning the world’s leading search engine and its most popular smartphone operating system, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, dabbles in healthcare, drug development and autonomous vehicles. Amazon’s sprawling ecommerce and logistics network furnishes millions of people with basic consumer goods. In China, Alibaba and Tencent dominate payment systems, social media, video streaming, ecommerce and logistics.

Big Tech’s eclipse of the nation state is not inevitable. Governments are taking steps to tame an unruly digital sphere: whether it is China’s recent moves targeting Alibaba and Ant Group, which derailed what would have been one of the world’s biggest ever initial public offerings; the EU’s attempts to regulate personal data, AI and the large technology firms that it defines as digital “gatekeepers”; the numerous antitrust bills introduced in the US House of Representatives; or India’s continuing pressure on foreign social media companies — the technology industry is facing a political and regulatory backlash on multiple fronts.

Moreover, technology firms cannot decouple themselves from physical space, where they remain at the mercy of states. The code for the virtual worlds that these companies have created sits in data centres that are located on territory controlled by governments. Companies are subject to national laws. They can be fined or subjected to other sanctions, their websites can be blocked and executives can be arrested if they break the rules.

Politicians’ ability to gain followers on Facebook and Twitter unlocks the money and political support needed to win office.

But as technology grows more sophisticated, states and regulators are increasingly constrained by outdated laws and limited capacity. Digital space is ever growing. Over 64 billion terabytes of digital information was created and stored in 2020, enough to fill some 500 billion smartphones. In its next phase, this “datasphere” will see cars, factories, and entire cities wired with internet-connected sensors trading data. As this realm grows, the ability to control it will slip further beyond the reach of states.

In the United States, a combination of congressional dysfunction and Silicon Valley’s potent lobbying power will probably continue to preclude expansive new regulations that could pose a serious threat to the digital giants. It is different in Europe, where the lack of homegrown cloud, search and social media conglomerates makes passing ambitious legislation easier. And it is certainly different in China, where a recent round of regulatory crackdowns has sent shares of the country’s own technology heavyweights reeling.

Technology companies’ orientations are no less diverse than the states with which they compete. Strands of globalism, nationalism and techno-utopianism often coexist within the same company. Which outlook predominates will have important consequences for global politics and society.

First there are the globalists — firms that built their empires by operating on a truly international scale. These companies, including Apple, Facebook and Google, create and populate digital space, allowing their business presence and revenue streams to become untethered from physical territory. Each grew powerful by hitting on an idea that allowed it to dominate an economically valuable niche and then taking its business worldwide.

The likes of Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent emerged at the top of China’s massive domestic market before setting their sights on global growth. But the idea was the same: set up shop in as many countries as possible, respect local rules and regulations as necessary, and compete fiercely.

The forces of globalism and nationalism sometimes clash with a third camp: the techno-utopians. Some of the world’s most powerful technology firms are headed by charismatic visionaries who see technology not just as a global business opportunity but also as a potentially revolutionary force in human affairs. In contrast to the other two groups, this camp centers more on the personalities and ambitions of technology CEOs rather than the operations of the companies themselves.

Whereas globalists want the state to leave them alone and maintain favorable conditions for global commerce, and national champions see an opportunity to get rich off the state, techno-utopians look to a future in which the nation state paradigm that has dominated geopolitics since the 17th century has been replaced by something different altogether.

Over 64 billion terabytes of digital information was created and stored in 2020, enough to fill some 500 billion smartphones.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is the most recognizable example, with his open ambition to reinvent transportation, link computers to human brains and make humanity a “multiplanetary species” by colonising Mars. Yes, he is also providing space lift capacity to the US government, but he is chiefly focused on dominating near-space orbit and creating a future in which technology companies help societies evolve beyond the concept of nation-states.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has similar tendencies, even if he has become more open to government regulation of online content. Diem, a Facebook-backed digital currency, had to be scaled back dramatically after financial regulators almost universally raised concerns.

As technology companies and governments negotiate for control over digital space, US and Chinese technology giants will operate in one of three geopolitical environments: one in which the state reigns supreme, rewarding the national champions; one in which corporations wrest control from the state over digital space, empowering the globalists; or one in which the state fades away, elevating the techno-utopians.

In the first scenario, the national champions win and the state remains the dominant provider of security, regulation and public goods. Systemic shocks, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, and long-term threats, such as climate change, coupled with a public backlash against the power of technology companies, entrench government authority as the only force that can resolve global challenges. A bipartisan push for regulation in the United States rewards “patriotic” companies that deploy their resources in support of national goals. Beijing and other authoritarian governments double down on cultivating their own national champions, pushing hard for self-sufficiency while competing for influence in important global markets.

In the second scenario, the state holds on but in a weakened condition, paving the way for the ascendancy of the globalists. Unable to keep pace with technological innovation, regulators accept that governments will share sovereignty over digital space with technology firms. Big Tech beats back restrictions that could curtail its overseas operations, arguing that the loss of market opportunities will harm innovation and, ultimately, governments’ ability to create jobs and meet global challenges. Rather than accept a technological cold war, companies press governments to agree on a set of common rules that preserve a global market for hardware, software and data.

The globalists need stability to succeed over the coming decade. Their worst fear is that the US and China will continue to decouple, forcing them to choose sides in an economic war that will raise barriers to their attempts to globalize their businesses. Their fortunes would improve if Washington and Beijing decided that over-regulation risks undercutting the innovation that drives their economies.

In the final scenario, the oft-predicted erosion of the state comes to pass. The techno-utopians capitalize on widespread disillusionment with governments that have failed to create prosperity and stability, drawing citizens into a digital economy that reduces the role of the state. Confidence in the dollar as a global reserve currency erodes or collapses. Cryptocurrencies prove too much for regulators to control and they gain wide acceptance, undermining governments’ sway over the financial world. The disintegration of centralized authority renders the world substantially less capable of addressing transnational challenges.

The implications of a world in which techno-utopians call the shots are the hardest to tease out, in part because people are so accustomed to thinking of the state as the principal problem-solving actor. Governments would not go down without a fight. And the erosion of the US government’s authority would not give techno-utopians free rein; the Chinese state would also need to suffer a collapse in domestic credibility.

As US-Chinese competition grows more entrenched, these firms will wield their leverage more proactively. If they manage to establish themselves as “the indispensable companies”— much like the US considers itself “the indispensable nation”— the national champions will push for greater government subsidies and preferential treatment over their rivals. The globalists will argue that governments will be unable to sustain economic and technological competitiveness over the long haul if they turn inward and adopt a bunker mentality.

And the techno-utopians? They will be happy to work quietly, biding their time. While the national champions and the globalists duke it out over who will shape government policy, the techno-utopians will use traditional companies and decentralised projects such as ethereum, the world’s second-most popular blockchain after bitcoin, to explore new frontiers in digital space, such as the metaverse, or new approaches to providing essential services. They will strike an understanding tone when the US Congress hauls them in every now and then to denounce their egos and power, taking minimal steps to appease policymakers but deploying aggressive lobbying efforts to undermine any efforts by Washington to bring them to heel.

This does not mean that societies are heading towards a future that witnesses the demise of the nation state, the end of governments and the dissolution of borders. But it is simply no longer tenable to talk about big technology companies as pawns their government masters can move around on a geopolitical chessboard. They are increasingly geopolitical actors themselves.

Ian Bremmer is a political scientist and the author of several books, including the best-seller Us vs. Them: The Failure of GlobalismFOREIGN

This is my New Year’s Gift To You. I watch this once a month. It’s 9 years old and and forever a treasure.

https://youtu.be/HQl7saQjetk

This is my New Year’s Gift To You. I watch this once a month. It’s 9 years old and and forever a treasure.

https://youtu.be/HQl7saQjetk

From her newsletter

Do Men Really Lose Weight Faster Than Women?

By Katie Couric Media

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If you’re a woman who’s tried to lose weight alongside your male partner, you might’ve noticed that the pounds seem to drop off way faster for him than they do for you. It’s a frustrating situation: You’re strenuously avoiding sweets every night and not seeing the scale move, and he eats one less bagel a week, then sees impressive results. 

We asked trainer Larysa DiDio (who’s trained Katie herself) for her take on the great gender weight debate: Do men really lose weight faster than women and, if so, why? Here’s her thoughts.

Katie Couric:  Is it true that men lose weight faster than women, or are women just imagining this phenomenon? 

Larysa DiDio: Yes! At least at first. In a British Journal of Nutrition Study, when men and women were put on the same weight-loss program, the men lost twice as much weight and 3x as much body fat as the women, in 3 months. But the good news is, if the women stuck to the program, the weight loss evened out at the 6-month mark, with men just slightly in the lead.

What part does metabolism play? What can women do to boost theirs?

It plays a huge role! Men naturally have more lean muscle mass than women, thanks to testosterone. That boosts their metabolisms not only while they work out, but while they’re at rest as well. The best things that women can do — in this order — to increase their metabolism is:

• weight train with challenging weights
• interval train to burn calories speedily
• eat lean protein, which helps to increase muscle
• eat small meals every 3-4 hours, to keep your blood sugar stable

Some say that there’s an optical illusion at play and, because men tend to carry excess weight around their abdomen, it’s just more noticeable when they lose it — have you found that to be the case?

Yes and no. Actually, men win in both ways here. They really do lose more weight…and when they do lose it, because they hold most of their weight in their bellies, it’s much more immediately noticeable. This also serves as a huge plus because it boosts their motivation and confidence, causing them to want to keep going!

We all know we need to diet and exercise to lose weight — is one more important than the other?

I’d say diet comes first, then exercise — but a combination of both is optimal. You can exercise like crazy, but if you’re not eating well, you’ll never lose the weight. If you diet but don’t exercise, it may take you longer to lose weight than with the combo of the two, but you’ll still lose it. You just won’t look as good from the outside, because the exercise also builds muscle, makes you look more toned, and lowers body fat.

So many fitness trends cycle through in popularity – what have you found to be the most effective and, more importantly, healthiest approach to losing weight?

For fitness, I love cross training. I believe the more varied your exercise routine is, the stronger and healthier your body is. This is what I normally recommend for my clients.

• 2 days of strength training (with 10 mins of cardio)
• 3 days of cardio (20-45 mins)..change up the activity
• 1 day of extracurricular (workout class, martial arts, Pilates, yoga, etc)
• And a day of rest

What do you consistently see women doing in terms of exercise that just isn’t productive for healthy weight loss?

There are so many, including:

• Starving themselves
• Taking weight-loss pills
• Doing too much heavy HIIT [high impact interval training] exercise
• Training with weights that are too light
• Overtraining
• Relying primarily on mind/body exercises (think: yoga)
• Doing too much LISS [low intensity steady state] cardio

What’s your advice for frustrated women watching their partners lose weight faster than they are?

Move out for 3 months! Just kidding. Honestly, they need to make sure they keep their emotional eating in control. It’s actually helpful to check in with their partner and watch how guys focus on their tasks and don’t overthink the diet process. I often coach my female clients to “diet like a guy.” A woman will come home and complain that she ate half of a pecan pie for lunch because she was stressed at work. When guys go into “diet mode,” they hunker down and just do it, without overthinking. There’s no wiggle room for them. Also I think that just being kind to yourself and knowing that the guy might lose it a little faster — at first, at least — is helpful.

If that doesn’t work, maybe bring in a little friendly competition — or have some pizzas delivered to your partner’s office

Hey there!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas with your family. If you’re working this week I’m sure it feels like no one else is working and everyone seems to be on vacation. It may feel like you’re wasting time, with no ability to make any progress, right?

Wrong! The fact that work is a ghost town right now can totally be used to your advantage! The way I like to think about it is now is the time to

Get your
House in
Order and your
Shit
Together

That’s right! Get your house in order and your shit together. Now is the perfect time to plan for 2022, tie up any loose ends from 2021, set your goals, clear your desk, clean out your office, and get ready for your best year yet. In an effort to increase my accountability and share with you my goals for the coming year, I have outlined my objectives and key results (OKRs) for the year here! The time when no one else is around is a perfect time to look inward, do an assessment of how well you did in 2021 on your goals, and prepare your goals and objectives for the year to come.

Good luck navigating the GHOST town to set yourself up for success in 2022, and I wish you a very happy and healthy New Year to you and your family!

All the best,

Dave

Dave Kerpen
Co-CEO, Apprentice
CEO, Remembering.Live
Executive Chairman, Florence Health

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The story below comes from tech newsletter Mashable.

Will 2022 be the year you finally put a (smart) ring on it?

With Oura and Movano set to duke it out for market share, we may soon have one smart ring to rule them all.By Rachel Kraus  on December 28, 2021

Movano smart rings are the newest fashionable offerings in the smart ring arena. Credit: Movano

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Finger-worn wearables are so hot right now. Smart rings, the lovechild of jewelry and fitness trackers, are designed for anyone who longs to log health metrics without the bulk and annoyance of a notification-happy computer on their wrist.

But in contrast to the many screen-based options in the fitness tracker space, smart rings have been thin on the ground so far. Your main choice as of December 2021 was the pricey Oura ($300 for the second generation model, plus a $6 monthly subscription for ongoing health insights). Celebrities such as Jack Dorsey and Gwyneth Paltrow are among Oura’s devotees.

But as of January 2022, the smart ring universe is expanding. Health wearables company Molano just announced its first product, the Movano Ring, which will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Yes, Omicron notwithstanding, CES is still going ahead.)

The Movano tracks sleep and activity metrics, and is working to gain FDA clearance to monitor vital signs such as body temperature — something even the latest Oura can’t provide yet. Movano’s companion app is focused on combining these metrics to predict how you’ll be feeling on any given day. Tracking body temperature isn’t just good for figuring out when you have a fever. It could also be useful for anyone who is trying — or not trying — to get pregnant.

Here is the scoop on what really happened with NFT’s at Art Basel. My good friend, Robin Raskin, wrote the article about this subject for Techonomy, the new tech newsletter that seems to beating out many others for getting an increasing number of readers. Maybe it’s because their posts are so relevant and timely. I knew Robin was working on this story because she called to ask me what happened with NFT’s at Art Basel. I immediately referred her to Dan Mikesell of Blackdove and co-founder of Fountainhead Arts, because he is very involved in the emerging art world. I knew she would be in good hands. I copied and pasted the article for you. The photos are not exactly in the right order. Oops!

By Robin Raskin  |  December 17, 2021, 1:25 PM  |  Techonomy Exclusive

•

If life imitates art (Oscar Wilde) then NFTs imitate both art and life. NFTs, if you haven’t heard, are digital things — art, music, video, and even, sometimes, physical things, that you can purchase, collect, own and display. Your proof of ownership is stored on a blockchain and you can trade or sell whenever you can find somebody else to buy it. But the NFT craze, which along with its crypto parent has created much new wealth, is decisively blending with the traditional worlds of wealth.

Earlier this month, at Art Basel in Miami, the crypto and art worlds converged, in a  multitude of parties, events, conferences and glitz-outs. At a minimum, Miami reinforced its status as the hottest place (in all senses) for everything wealthy and glittery. Ultimately, Art Basel may have been transformed, perhaps forever, by the technorati. And the NFT contingent insisted that NFT art will be attached to the world of high art forever after, for better or worse. 

Miami for those few days in early December was reminiscent of the story of the blind man and the elephant, depending on which part of the festivities you touched. Jon Wayne Gurman, the father of WooshiWorld, a new NFT property he hopes will become a physical property and series of merchandise, attended both the Art Basel show and the many surrounding NFT events. “Art Basel was very boring compared to the energy and excitement generated at the NFT events,” he said. 

Jordan French, editor of Grit Daily and an events producer, took a page from the Art Basel playbook by co-locating there the Token Society, a crypto-VIP gathering. Its speakers spanned both the art world and that of NFTs. The soiree included creators, comedians, TV hosts, and as well as the usual hangers-on. French promoted it as a “classy” event, worthy of Miami’s see and be seen vibe.

Meeting of the Token Society (photo by Jordan French)

Akbar Hamid’s PR firm, 5th Column, is a rising star for helping NFT properties get launched and noticed. What jazzed him the most in Miami Beach was the feeling that he was witnessing the birth of a work in progress. “You know you were hearing brilliant ideas that have not been realized yet, “ he told me. Hamid’s clients included  Sandbox, whose party-event featured Blond:ish.  His other client, Wax, appeared at NFT BZEL event that Hamid helped organize. Wax’s William Quigley was a featured speaker. It aimed to cross-pollinate entertainment, investment, and collecting to create a conference covering a spectrum from “NFT for newbies” to a roadmap to the future. Aku — a helmeted digital explorer whose story is told across 10 NFT “chapters” – was unveiled by former MLB player Micah Johnson (who made $2 million during his own debut NFT sale in March). Fans and collectors of Bored Ape Yacht Club, whose owners include a roster of celebrities, celebrated their newfound status over BAYC-branded beers.

With 4000 attendees, NFT BZL was probably the largest of the numerous NFT soirees. (Confusingly, both #NFTBASEL and #NFTBZA were other events.)

The DNA connecting NFTs and the art world is clear. You create a piece of art and instead of framing it, mint it into an NFT, which you can sell at any number of sites like Rarible and OpenSea.  This past March, the gavel heard round the world was sounded by the venerable Christies auction house, when when it sold an NFT created by the relatively-unknown Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple,  for an astonishing $69.3 million. With that gavel thump, Beeple became the third most valuable living artist at auction, after Jeff Koons and David Hockney.  At Art Basel, 255–year-old Christie’s partnered with 6-month-old  nftnow in Miami to produce The Gateway, a music art celebration heralding the NFT world.

The Miami Art Week is summed up in a tweet from Janet Lee.

NFTs weren’t the sole province of sideshows. Humans + Machines: NFTs and the Ever-Evolving World of Art exhibited at Art Basel proper, with an interactive show built on the energy-efficient blockchain Tezos. Guests created their own NFTs by fusing their video-captured likeness with an algorithm and then selecting the visual image they found most engaging. More than 4,500 unique NFTs were thus populated.

Growing the NFT Ecosystem

Daniel Mikesell, an art collector-cum-technologist, seized the moment with his company Blackdove.  It has a top-of-the-line platform aiming to create world-class display frames for NFT art. It wants to liberate NFT art from its paltry home on your mobile phone and turn it into a beautiful true collectible displayed in the same way you’d display any piece of fine art.  “I’m not judgemental about the importance of the value of art, “ says Mikesell. “It’s in the eye of the beholder,” he says when comparing NFTs to physical art. (Many NFTs are not the slightest bit visually or artistically sophisticated.) But, Mikesell believes NFTs need to be showcased somewhere else than the screen of a phone to be enjoyed and properly shown to others.  “When you buy a painting, you don’t carry it around with you. Why would you want artwork you collect to stay on your phone?”

Mikesell suggested that this year’s Art Basel Miami was not a takeover of traditional art fairs but rather the beginning of a true melding of the worlds of physical artworks and NFTs. Many artists, he noted, are showcasing real-life artworks side by side with NFT digital counterparts.

The Great Co-mingling

For the FOMO crowd, it was hard to know where to be. The Information reported on the scene in a piece called The NFTS that Ate Miami: “The Winklevoss twins sauntered through a private waterfront mansion dressed identically. DJ Khaled bellowed “Gem-in-i” and “Cryp-to” from the stage. NFT pioneer Beeple, pop star Macy Gray, and Larsa Pippen, ex-wife of Scottie and ex-friend of Kim Kardashian, all made appearances.”  Artist Jason Keath, founder of NFT Fresh, summarized for The Information:“A lot of people walking around with millions of dollars of JPEGs in their pockets.”

Even Time Magazine and Conde Nast went ga-ga over the high celeb quotient and meteoric  rise of NFTs. Interviewing Diplo, the Grammy Award winning DJ, Conde Nast explained what inspired him to buy a Bored Ape NFT: “I like the apes the most because they remind me of the stuff I collected as a kid, like Ninja Turtles. And it feels cool to have one — I can show it to Post Malone at a party, and he’ll be like, “Oh cool, you got that one?” It’s kind of silly, but it’s a flex — like buying a really nice outfit.”

Andy Fischer Wright, an academic, nails some of the oddities of the moment in his treatise   “Art Imitates Life, NFT Verifies Art.”

Alas, The Rich are Not Immune

Seeing, being seen, and being seen owning the trendiest most whimsical and perhaps evanescent collectible may have come at a cost to some who were there. The rich and connected are no more immune to COVID-19 than to a money-drenched fad. One investor in the know told me that many of the crypto crowd were using fake proof of vaccinations cobbled together from QR codes. Another told me that eight of his colleagues left Miami with the Omicron variant.

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Tell It Like It Is Dave

I offer this edition of DigiDame to Grace Mirabella, a pioneer in fashion journalism. I was just starting out when she was named editor of Vogue. She succeeded Diana Vreeland and preceded Anna Wintour. After several decades at Vogue, she started her own magazine, Mirabella. Bravo to a woman who had the most rewarding and fruitful career. The following is from the New York Times.

Grace Mirabella, Who Brought Vogue Down to Earth, Dies at 92

In her 17 years at the helm of the fashion magazine, she took a more practical-minded approach, in line with a rise in women’s participation in the work force.

By Phyllis MessingerDec. 23, 2021

Grace Mirabella, who as editor in chief transformed Vogue magazine from a glittery, color-splashed paean to the spirit of the 1960s into a more sensible adviser to women entering the work force in the 1970s and ’80s, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 92. 

The death was confirmed by her stepson Anthony Cahan.

Ms. Mirabella went on to found Mirabella, a magazine for women as interested in culture and travel as in clothes and interior design. But she made her biggest impact at Vogue. Her years there, from 1971 to 1988, coincided with women’s increasing financial independence. Many women were among the first in their families to work outside the home and were looking for guidance on a range of issues, starting with what to wear to their new jobs. Go-go boots and love beads would not do; they needed more practical clothes that fit their new lifestyles.

At the same time, as these women participated in the broader world, their interests widened, too. But Vogue, under its flamboyant editor Diana Vreeland, had entered the ’70s still stuck in the ’60s. The magazine’s circulation was falling, and advertising along with it.

Even so, Ms. Vreeland’s firing by Vogue’s publisher, Condé Nast, in 1971 came without warning. The move was so abrupt that Ms. Mirabella, Ms. Vreeland’s second in command, was notified of her promotion while on a photo shoot in California.

Where Ms. Vreeland was colorful, electric and theatrical, Ms. Mirabella was pragmatic and businesslike. Her mandate was to change the character of the magazine, and Vogue quickly took on the values of its new editor, becoming more accessible and down to earth.

To signal the new mood, Ms. Mirabella had the red walls of the editor’s office repainted beige, and she often wore tailored beige clothes to work.

“I’m not a clothes girl if it means talking about them all the time,” she said in an interview shortly after her appointment. “But I think they’re interesting, and I have quite a lot of them.”

Ms. Mirabella’s Vogue emphasized the natural in hairstyles, makeup and clothing over artifice — the spare designs of Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani over fashion as fantasy or work of art.

The magazine added sections on the arts, fitness, health and beauty while keeping its emphasis on fashion. Circulation tripled during Ms. Mirabella’s tenure, to more than 1.2 million in 1988 from 400,000 in 1971.

But while she was considered the most powerful woman in fashion, she kept the focus on fashion and not herself, said Samir Husni, a professor of journalism and director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism. “She was an icon, a legacy,” Professor Husni said in an interview for this obituary.

She was also hard-working.

“Nobody,” he said, “ever wrote a book about her, ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’” a reference to the novel, later made into a movie, based on Ms. Mirabella’s successor at Vogue, Anna Wintour. “She wore the Prada without the devil.”

By the mid-1980s, though, the pendulum of fashion had swung again. There was new money and a new interest in the comings and goings of celebrities. Fashion was becoming more about trendiness, and Vogue was not reflecting these sensibilities.

Though it still dominated the world of fashion magazines, Vogue was facing new competition. One of its competitors, American Elle, had become a force almost overnight, with an emphasis on a youthful European approach.

Elle was introduced in September 1985; by the end of the next year, its paid circulation was 861,000. In June 1988, Ms. Mirabella was ousted — as abruptly as Ms. Vreeland had been before her — and replaced with Ms. Wintour, 20 years her junior. Ms. Wintour had been creative director at Vogue from 1983 to 1986 before becoming editor of British Vogue and then House & Garden (which was renamed HG in 1988).

In an interview after the move, S.I. Newhouse Jr., the chairman of Condé Nast, made no apologies, saying it was time to “reposition Vogue for the ’90s.”

“There have been clear lines of what was high fashion and casual fashion,” Mr. Newhouse said. “I think those lines are less apparent now. I think the change in the 1990s, when we look back, will be as decisive as the shift from the ’60s to the ’70s.”

A few months later, Ms. Mirabella announced that she would launch her own publication. Mirabella magazine, which was backed by Rupert Murdoch, was meant to be about “much more than clothes or interior design,” she wrote in the inaugural issue, dated May 1989. It was to be about style, she said, which “informs every aspect of our lives,” and it would offer serious articles along with fashion and beauty advice.

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Ms. Mirabella never explicitly stated what age group her magazine was aimed at, but she did say that it was targeted at educated women concerned with politics, psychology and business.

She left the magazine in 1996 to lecture and do freelance writing. The magazine, which never turned a profit and often struggled to find a coherent voice, was shut down in 2000.

But Professor Husni said that the mere existence of the magazine reflected Ms. Mirabella’s stature in the industry. “I give a lot of credit to Rupert Murdoch,” he said. “When you’re on your way out, no one honors you. But that’s how important she was.”

Marie Grace Mirabella was born on June 10, 1929, in Newark, the daughter of Anthony Mirabella, a sales manager for a liquor importing company, and Florence (Belfatto) Mirabella, who had immigrated from Italy.

Shortly after graduating from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, she joined the executive training program at Macy’s. She then briefly worked at Saks Fifth Avenue before taking a job at Vogue in 1952 verifying store credits in photo captions.

She was on the public relations staff of the designers Simonetta & Fabiani in Rome from 1954 to 1955 before returning to Vogue in 1955 as the shopping editor, searching small shops for unusual fare. With a reputation for working hard, she climbed her way up through a succession of jobs at the magazine.

In November 1974 she married William G. Cahan, a thoracic surgeon who specialized in breast and lung cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Dr. Cahan was an early leader in national efforts to combat smoking.

In addition to her stepson Anthony Cahan, she is survived by another stepson, Christopher Cahan; seven step-grandchildren; and three step-great-grandchildren.

In her book “In and Out of Vogue” (1995), written with Judith Warner, Ms. Mirabella settled some scores from her days at the magazine. She described Ms. Wintour as “a vision of skinniness in black sunglasses and Chanel suits” and claimed that the photographer Richard Avedon had “achieved some of his best results with girls who were utterly strung out on dope.”

As to the reasons she was pushed from her perch, she wrote that the 1980s were “an emperor-has-no-clothes era, start to finish.” Clothes, she said, “were about labels, designers were about being celebrities, and it was all, on a bigger and bigger scale, about money.”

Fashion had degenerated, she wrote, “into a self-reverential game full of jokes and pastiches that amused the fashion community enormously and did nothing at all for the woman shopping and trying to find something to wear.”

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

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Happy Holidays To Everyone

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Author and screenwriter Joan Didion died this week at 87. Joan Didion put Miami under a microscope 30 years ago — and saw the city of today | Editorial by the Miami Herald Editorial Board.

Famed author Joan Didion died this week, more than 30 years after Miami caught her eye, and she turned her sharp, insightful sense of observation on us.

Didion began visiting the city in 1985 to soak in what made it tick. By 1987 she had published her book, simply titled “Miami.” It made a splash.

The Los Angeles Times’ obituary described Didion — a California girl — as a “novelist and screenwriter who chronicled American culture and consciousness with cool detachment, humor and a brittle awareness of disorder.”

Cuban exiles and their impact on Miami, socially and politically, were at the crux of Didion’s book, but “Miami” also talked about the newly built Metrorail, the shame of Overtown, drug dealers everywhere and the dreamers and scammers that this lured — and still does.

She was one of the first literary voices, before Tom Wolfe tried with “Back to Blood,” to notice there is something unusual and unique about us. Something that happens when a city channels Casablanca, a place where refugees, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans turn a foreign city into an outpost of the political upheaval in their homelands. And how that influences that rest of us.

Here’s a review of “Miami” from the Los Angeles Times in 1987:

“The theme of Joan Didion’s book is the powerfully seductive exploration of the political maelstrom in Miami. She sees, in the vortex plotting by exiles against Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua and in the splintering rivalries among the exiles themselves, something far beyond ideology. They have become, she argues — so vividly that you can smell every crushed frangipani blossom — an invasion, a tropicalization of the causes dear to the American Right; a contamination, if you like … Miami is us.”

Back then, Miami was called the city of the future, this nation’s future. And Didion was astute enough to see it first

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