Everything else is just a cap

A terrible tagline by any stretch.

Here's this company, La Coppola Storta, a bespoke Sicilian hat company that makes caps to order, from any material on earth, including fabrics near and dear to your heart in the style of your choosing - and all there is to say is "Everything else is just a cap?"

Hmm....This bears some thinking.

What is a hat, if not an outward symbol of one's personal flair and style? As a child, I used to read Tintin comics religiously, and he used to wear a Coppola style newsboy cap. My mother made me knickers, I was so obsessed with the exploits of this young reporter and his dog - I had a cap that went with it (I never had the London Fog trench coat, though).

A hat is old-fashioned - in a good way. Like walks in the park, going to church on Sundays, carrying a hankerchief, opening doors for ladies, courtship, pints at the pub, Sunday drives, horse and carriages, open air markets, trolley cars, reading the newspaper, telegraphs, public telephones. I would guess there is a hearty air of nostalgia at work here - after all, a hat is just a hat, an object, a fashion piece. But there is something about the Coppola Storta that conjures up a more straightforward life, of harvests and hard work and family. A time and place without blackberries, cell phones email and the like. Headspace. Wrap your head around something, where is your head at...

And then this idea of being able to transform a beloved object into a hat that you can wear again - a second life, an new existence. We all would like to beleive that when we die, it's not the end. That our spirit lives on, we travel further (and hopefully upwards, enlightenment wise). And here is a product that offers a chance at redemption, a way of giving a second chance to a beloved scarf, blanket, jacket or shirt.

Mass Transit and the Xmas crunch

It's day 2 of the MTA transit strike, and boy is it cold outside.

Having missed my last Adhouse class to attend a Christmas get together out in Greenwich, CT, I don't have any specific products or services to muse about - which is a bit of relief, let me say. Because I spend far too much time ruminating about advertising as it is. Though, as Steven Pressfield says in his excellent little tome "The Art of War," "There's no mystery to turning Pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pro and we do it. Simple as that." Write, work, play, practice, do it - or don't. But don't talk about it. Just get it done.

So, in the spirit of the warrior and the hunter and the artisan, I once again rededicate myself to the craft of writing, to the invocation of the Muse.

I woke up yesterday early - at 6:00 a.m. It was still grey halflight, and I was slightly sodden still with booze's embrace. And yet, it was quiet. Too quiet, and there was the faint thrumming of helicopter blades. Which, living near the Williamsburg Bridge as I do, could only mean one thing. The MTA had gone on strike. There would be no trains, and no busses that day, and perhaps, for days to come.

Now, living and working downtown as I do, it's certainly not the greatest inconvenience that could befall me, personally as Manhattanite. In fact, as I walked to work that morning, it occurred to me that it was something of a novelty. With HOV checkpoints manned by police, the city was eerily empty of traffic. Crossing bowery, a rusty van pulled up tot he curb, and dispensed two hipsters in North Face puffies, clearly having hopped aride with some stranger who needed the extra passengers. And I thought, there is New York at it's finest - strangers getting along, and bonding together (as when the lights went out several years ago) to help get things done. It's just too small a place, and there are too many of us for everyone to do go it alone. We need each other. I mused lazily about the possibilities - chance encounters of strangers falling in love in a cab ride downtown to the financial district. Later, speaking with my mom, she told of riding with a stranger who was only one small degree away - having been the friend of a former officemate. Not to mention the girl on her way to the methadone clinic uptown, a visit that simply could not be postponed or rescheduled, strike or no strike.

But then you think of all those who waited three or more hours in traffic, just to get to the jobs they need so desperatly to pay their bills. And the frigid, arctic wind...and you start thinking this strike thing kinda sucks afterall.