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Lord Byron: Not just Byronic, vampiric

John Polidori was the personal physician to George Gordon, Lord Byron. Byron was often horrible to him. Polidori felt his famous client was sucking the life out of him, so he wrote The Vampyre in 1819 (Dracula by Bram Stoker was published in 1897). Read The Poet, The Physician, and The Birth of the Modern Vampire.

In Italy, people who wear glasses are called quattr’occhi (four eyes). Angelo Flaccavento finds glass-wearing individuals to be the height of elegance and charm. We don’t know how true that is, but we like to think so. Thanks to Lali for the link.

In America, people can take their pets everywhere by flashing a card claiming that they are “emotional support animals”. This is an insult to our cats, who regard us as their emotional support animal. Read the hilarious investigative report by Patricia Marx. In the photo above, she tests the emotional support card by taking an alpaca to the drugstore.

For years there have been rumors that the Swedish retailing giant H&M would open in Manila. Many months ago, construction began on its first store at Megasmall. Signs around the site said it would open “in the fall”. As far as we know, there are only three seasons in the Philippines, and fall isn’t one of them. Yes, you read it right, three seasons. Hot and sunny, hot and raining, or hot, sunny AND raining, like today, when traffic went straight to hell again.

Back in August, our friend the publicist of H&M got fed up with our frequent queries (Is it opening yet? Is it opening yet? Is it opening yet?) and invited us to the showroom of H&M in Makati.

The showroom contains the store’s current collections, but they’re not for sale. It was set up so fashion editors and stylists could borrow outfits for photo shoots. This beats having to go to a branch and signing out for the clothes.

In case you’ve ever wondered what happens to the clothes that get loaned out for fashion shoots and celebrities’ public appearances, they are returned to the racks and sold to the public. Unless they’re dirty, in which case they’re cleaned first. According to the H&M showroom manager, the clothes they lend out are not sold afterwards.

According to the billboard on the highway, H&M finally opens on Friday, 17 October.

We’re curious to know how the entry of Uniqlo, H&M and other foreign brands with competitive prices has affected the sales of local retail brands.

Nyahahahaa!!! Assortment of unattractive gloating noises!

You can’t buy them in galleries. You can’t buy them at auction. You can buy a Geraldine Javier artwork for a million bucks but these earrings are priceless.

We don’t have space in our apartment for artworks (Unlike our friend the BLB who rents apartments for his collections), so we ask artists to make earrings for us. So far we’ve got a Leo Abaya, some James Reyeses, and now this Geraldine Javier. Which reminds us of her pieces from a couple of years ago.

New designs from Shoes by Kai: part-bootie, part-espadrille, in handwoven fabrics from Abra. We like asymmetry. Especially if it costs just Php700 a pair.

It occurred to us that they are of the same style, just different colors.

Therefore we can wear an unmatched pair. Do not try this unless you are fine with being mistaken for a crazy person.

These are velour frames that Leo Abaya bought in Osaka. We brought them to our optometrist Nella Sarabia, who added our prescription lenses. Rene came along and had three pairs of glasses made—frames and lenses, total Php5,000 for the lot.

Nella’s shop is at UP Shopping Center in the Diliman campus; call 435 5685 to make an appointment.

Last week we asked for ideas regarding the disposition of our used, non-vintage, plastic eyeglasses. We took silentfollower’s suggestion and made labels for the stuff.