Christmas: The one (and only) time of year when it’s socially acceptable to wear the eye-searing combination of red and green together. Man, I love the holidays.

More festive outfits.

If I had a manifesto, I think it would look something like this. Tips for life and living by the great Jonathan Adler, the designer of one of my favorite possessions. This manifesto was called out in this delightful article by Bennett Stein over at the DnA blog.

Now off to find something red and brown to wear tomorrow…

As you may remember around this time last year, I packed my bags and moved downtown for a spell as part of an intense immersive experience for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship. Last year, I and my fellow fellows were carted all over LA, dipping our toes to the “distinct cultural cauldron” that is Los Angeles:  spinning teacups, hiding in Ed Moses paintings, playing Julius Shulman and eating scorpions.

It was maybe one of our best Halloweens of all time. If you don’t know the movie—which turned 10(!) this year—get thee to Netflix.

More scary photos.

When I was about nine, I had a pair of lavender glitter jellies I bought from a place called Splash in St. Louis. I remember wearing them out of the store—which had fish tanks under the dressing rooms, by the way, we were so chic in West County—and watching in delight as they caught the light in the car on the ride home. Each subsequent day, for the rest of the summer, they tore a fresh gash in my feet. I still wore them, of course. You could tell who of us was suffering for our fashion due to our “jellies tattoos”—red, oozing sores in the shapes of decorative scallops. By fall, I was hobbling around the house in a tangle of plastic, yellowed and cracked and caked in a summer’s worth of blood. My mom made me throw them away.

Every time I wear a pair of jellies today, people stop to tell me the same stories. Don’t they tear up your feet? Don’t they smell? I assure you, folks, the jellies of today are not your childhood jellies. Plastic shoe technology has come a long way.

The best jellies are made by Melissa (I buy them from the Brooklyn store Epaulet). This is a Brazilian company that teams up with designers like Zaha Hadid and the Campaña Brothers. The shoes are made from a nontoxic PVC material called MELFLEX which is molded into shape, creating zero waste. They can be recycled at the end of their life. They require zero maintenance—I wash them in the sink with soap and water then put them outside to dry. They’re affordable. They’re vegan. I even like the way they’re packaged.

But how do they feel, you ask? I swear, I’ve never had a Melissa blister. After a few wears, the soles conform to your feet, giving you a cushy fit. With their forgiving curves, they are maybe the best shoes ever for walking. (I wouldn’t wear them if they weren’t, right?). But the best part is, I can wear them all day while I’m schlepping on the streets, then prance into a cocktail party and will immediately get complimented on my shoes. They fit in everywhere.

My newest pair arrived this week. When I opened the box, the smell of lightly-scented plastic brought back all those jellies memories—Splash, the fish tank dressing rooms, the sparkles in the sun, the pain, OH GOD THE PAIN. But this silky duo slipped onto my feet like a pair of cozy socks. I can’t wait to take them for a walk.

A few nights ago Laura Kate and I went to see a screening of Bill Cunningham New York at the Cooper Design Space. You probably know Bill’s work even if you don’t know him by name—he photographs and writes those adorable little trend vignettes in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times that you probably look at before anything else. They’re like comic strips for style-minded adults.

I’m a fan of the brazen and bizarre fashion worn for better or for worse by everyday people (case in point) so I could have watched the film just for the outfits alone. Plus, it’s such a great film about cities. Maybe the best parts of the whole film are watching Bill zoom around town on his Schwinn (no helmet!) and dancing around long-legged women in crosswalks. Each time he’s inside, at a computer, or stopping to eat (not very often for any of those things) you can see how antsy and anxious he is—he just wants to get back outside as soon as possible and check out the parade of outfits.

But the film also says so much about perfecting a craft. This is the life of someone truly devoted to his calling, where every moment of his existence is laser-focused onto doing what he loves. To the point where he lives like a monk in a tiny apartment in Carnegie Hall, surrounded by what seem to be his only possessions: endless metal file cabinets of his negatives. But he gets such joy from his work he has even refused to get paid for it—he notoriously ripped up his first checks from Details. All of it fills you with such hope for keeping at it. This film is a must-see for every creative.

Bill’s giggly, exuberant passion echoed in my head as we stepped out into the light fading slowly above the fashion district. The murky June twilight was doing wonders with the candy-colored signage of the menswear shops. And I did what I always do when that happens. I snapped some photos.

I guess in a way, I’m a street photographer, too. But in the sense that I actually take photos of streets. But as I snapped this shot, I realized that, with the exception of two spindly legs, I hardly ever put people in my photos.

When I look back fifty years from now at all my thousands of photos, stored in their rows of file cabinets on the internet, will it really matter that I got yet another shot of the Eastern Columbia building, as gorgeous as she is? (I mean, she is kinda the Anna Wintour of Los Angeles buildings.) Or will I want to remember the guy in the seersucker suit standing on the terrazzo near the entrance? Bill Cunningham taught me that if I want to truly be studying urbanism, I also need to be looking at who’s walking in front of those buildings. It’s the people who make the cities.

That night on the street, I went to aim the other direction, towards the funny handpainted signs of Italian Corner. But this time, I tilted the camera just so, and put Laura Kate into the shot.

More photos of streets (and other things!) here.

“Do you think it’s a problem that every time we’re together we buy stuff?” My friend Sonja was concerned as we navigated the pastel canyons of vintage dresses. I looked at us, each balancing a produce basket on our hip piled high with Pendleton wool shirts, neon pink blankets, buttery red sandals, and a $5 sundress crawling with tree frogs. I didn’t think we had anything to be worried about.

More Rose Bowl photos.

I’m still buzzing from the amazing response to last weekend’s City Listening II (and the success of the Dwell on Design conference, and the fun of emceeing the LABC’s Los Angeles Architectural Awards…I’m telling you, it was quite a week!). We’ll have a full recap of the evening, including photos, very soon, until then, you can read this review by Mike Neal at Architizer.

But before all that, I just wanted to show you this beautiful photo by Monica Orozco, which was taken at the very end of the night, and take a quick moment to thank my two lovely co-hosts—or as you can see from this photo, maybe three lovely co-hosts—Marissa Gluck and Haily Zaki. These ladies are two of the smartest, hardest-working, most creative forces of nature in this city. Over the last two years they have organized and strategized and materialized dozens of events with huge smiles on their faces and strong cocktails in their hands (except, you know, when Haily got knocked up). And in the process, they’ve also become two of my dearest friends. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring! And on that note, here’s what I read at the event to open it up:  Our de LaB manifesto, in rhyme, of course.

The de LaB Manifesto

We were tired of PowerPoints and panels and pretense
Sick of working the room at lame-ass design events
Tired of the stodginess that came with such happenings
We wanted to know what our neighbors were making

La Brea was picked as an arbitrary line,
But we knew wherever we drew it someone would mind
We welcome the Westsiders, they’re not ostracized
As long as they don’t lie about not crossing the 405

What began as a drinking club quickly turned civic
Our visions for the city became more optimistic
Don’t get me wrong, we still like the drinking
Alcohol is liquid innovation to fuel design thinking

de Lab gets people out of cars and into their city
Introduces neighbors and promotes collaborativity
I know that’s not a word, I invented it myself
de LaB is DIY: We do it ourselves

For design in LA we will walk and ride bikes
We take buses and trains and take LA River hikes
We’re a committed gang of creators who can make a difference
We’re raising a new generation of Los Angeles urbanists

Your support has been amazing for the events we’ve had before
There’s a whole LA out there we haven’t begun to explore
All we need is your support…
…actually, no, we really need your money

By drawing a line through the city, divided
We ended up making it feel more united
We love LA so much it makes us feel giddy
Now sit back, have a drink (that part is important!) and listen to your city

Thanks to everyone for coming and for supporting de LaB!

This falls under the category of truly amazing: Austrian designer Gottfried Mangione actually captured the entire unboxing of his Gelatobaby Patch (as well as other assorted bonus prizes, as you can see.) Do you want one? Think about your ideal flavor combination and drop me a line!

If I had this information about ten years sooner, I would never, ever have considered that little foray into advertising.

Yep, I think maybe the best day of my career so far was when two pairs of Ecco Biom running shoes—in beetroot and sustainable white yak leather. Yes, yak. Yes, yak—arrived on my doorstep along with an assignment: Run.

Run as far and as fast as you possibly can in a month’s time. Follow the training program developed by Danish triathlete Torbjørn Sindball. Wear these shoes, listen to your feet. And write about it for ID.

Now I’m no Ironman (you’ve tagged along with me on my 25K trail run last summer, and I ran the LA half-marathon in December), but in the last year I’ve gotten more serious about running than I ever have before. And there was something so different about doing this activity I loved and knew was good for me, and truly paying attention to how it felt, how I felt, for my job. And then being rewarded—financially, yes, but physically, too—in the end. And did I mention yet that these pretty pink shoes are absolutely adorable?

You can read all about how I ran, I ran so far away, in “Less Cushion for the Pushin’” over at ID. Coincidentally—don’t you love how every article I link to has a little editorial appendix nowadays—ID has a brand-new editor, one Jesse Ashlock, who was previously my editor at VMAN and has a pretty incredible story about getting in a brutal bike accident but leaving the ER because it was too expensive. Congrats, Jesse (and I hope all your scars ended up looking cool)!