Blog I'm in Elite Company

Square One Mall in Mississauga has been pretty active lately, with a newly opened "luxury wing."

The new Mississauga Holt Renfrew at Square One had commissioned an illustrator to make portraits of customers on its opening day .

The line was surprisingly short and the illustrator was fortunately quick and skilled. Within twenty minutes, I had mine.

I looked up Monica Smiley of Eightyseventh St. and found that she has had a long career of illustrating cartoons of various famous people.

I am in esteemed company!



She said it is easier when people have a distinguishable feature. Mine happened to be my big orange hat!

Vogue's Anna Wintour's are her giant sunglasses which she wears even indoors. And of course her bob.



Hudson's Bay across the mall wasn't gong to be left out, and was promoting a new make-up line called Teeez that I blogged about here. Un-hip that was, I didn't realize that a Selfie actually meant me pointing an iPhone or some such contraption at myself. I asked the sales girl to take a photo of me instead (actually, I can take a Selfie with my "tablet" computer).

Here I am below in my "Selfie", getting "ready for a revolution" as the poster behind me asks. Little do they know!



I think I look better than Anna Wintour - at least I have a better smile. And my signature look (my big orange straw hat) is a far more interesting than hers, an over-sized pair of dark glasses.


Anna Wintour at the Spring/Summer 2016 Collection
during London Fashion Week

It's funny, these "power women" when it all boils down, are like frightened little girls underneath it all.

Meryl Streep played it perfectly in The Devil Wears Prada, as a fashion mogul who was supposed to be, well, fashioned after Anna Wintour. At the end of the day, this Miranda Priestly/Anna Wintour impersonation was intimidated, and beaten, by a simple college graduate intern. Now, when will this college graduate intern morph into the monster that Streep's character became, and when will she collapse at some point in her career, unable to rise to some "challenge?" And how many ruins will she have stacked behind her of failed marriage(s), family, and feminine happiness?

Here is a photo op (is it one for Hillary or one for Anna?) taken in 2013, where fashion meets (Democrat) politics. What is a then 64-year-old business mogul like Anna Wintour woman smiling like a 12-year-old? And why so deferential to Hillary Clinton (66), who herself is grinning like a mad woman? So much for modern "strong" women.


Anna and Hillary in 2013

What would they do if they came across Martha Washington, who was the same age as them in this portrait below?


Martha Washington, by James Peale, 1796
Mount Vernon Collections

Blog Fun and Vice for the Contemporary Teeez Girl And Where's the Money?

Teeez Girl in Contemporary Neon and Vampire Teeth
Morphing from sugar and spice to vampire and vice

Photo for a promotional card for Teeez Cosmetics to enter a contest to win make-up
She doesn't look like she's having much fun, and doesn't look like much of a teeez
But she does have her vampire teeth ready.

I wrote yesterday about the regular occurrence of the word "fun" in people's vocabulary.

Fun is everywhere these days. On sitcoms, in commercials, on billboards, and on everybody's lips.

I went yesterday to the cosmetics section of the Bay department store, and noticed promotions being handed out for "complementary make-overs" and a chance to win prizes.

"What should I do?"
"Just take a selfie, and send it to us."

Well not being of the "selfie" generation, I asked her to take a photo of me.

I had intended to send it in but it does not qualify, of course, and when I investigated the prize they were promising, it was a Top Shop gift voucher. Top Shop is Hudson Bay's British import, a boring, dark "goth" place where neon colors do not exist, let alone a pretty yellow or red, with over-priced clothes where prices are actually labeled in pounds and dollars, causing confusion at the cashier. It wasn't worth being associated with one of those self-centered selfie-cover-girl-wannabes.

Here is the Instagram page where I could have posted my photo (had it been a true selfie) and won a prize to Hudson Bay's British import.

Back to more serious matters.

I got a promotional card from the selfie regulator, and reading its message of Teeez giving me the power to "create a killer look you can call your own" prompted me to ask her what I think about the "Teeez" brand (is it three or four "eeeeez"?). She didn't look very powerful to me.

"It's fun," said this twenty-something woman who stood in front of me with pink hair.

That's more like her!

I thought she (or her "team") came up with that word in an attempt at translating the Dutch company's made-up word. Later, I searched online dictionaries and Dutch websites and blogs, but none gave me anything for "teeez" - to tease in Dutch is a completely different word). Perhaps it is the Europeans' propensity to incorporate English words into their languages, sometimes with new spellings and even meanings. Or it could just be a smart business strategy to make the word and product sound (American) English (Europe is fascinated by America), giving it more popularity and therefore business success. Well they've landed on our shores and it is a short cross over from Hudson's Bay to Macy's.

"Oh. I like the pink," I said to the pink-wigged teeez girl.

"Thank you [with a pose - she got my joke]."

This counts for the "beauty revolution" that was advertised on the billboard behind the pink-haired rebel.

I found a make-up lady and asked her what was so great about this new make-up.

"I got 'fun' from the girl in pink hair," I quipped.

She laughed and continued with:

"Well we have a large variety of colors and styles. And we are about fun and bold, with a contemporary edge."

Strangely for someone in the teeeze department, this older woman looked dowdy and bland. But then she is the other end of the (very narrow) spectrum where people either look ridiculously cartoonish or depressingly bland.

What happened to the styled and stylish older woman with her well-fitting suits and tailored dresses? Walmart actually sells such clothes as does Sears and they're not expensive. In fact a pair of Levi jeans (or those "lady" jeans which these women love to wear) cost as much, and add to that the durable sweat shirts with patterns on them (often the only bright color in this get-up) and of course the sneakers, or sneaker-type shoes from Naturalizers, and they're're spending close to $1000 to look dowdy.

And there's that word fun again, and after I joked about it (mocked it really). So "fun" is part of the teeez "meaning," as even this sales lady acknowledges. I suppose she has no choice but to use it on the job, even as she looked adult and serious (and bland), to promote the company's "mission." Either that, or she changes jobs and leaves matters to the pink wigs.

I really didn't hear much else of what she said, looking for "a large variety and styles and colors" in the display counter, unimpressed.

Here is what the back of the promotional card says:

Fashion Vendetta gives you the freedom to overpower any fashion dictate and all the beauty ammunition to invent your own sartorial style. Your partner n crime? A collection loaded with full-on metallics, mattes, enticing neons and edgy pastels, along with provocative transparent and changeants. A powerful palette of prêt-à-porter products to create a killer look you can call your own.

Perhaps it is good that young women are encouraged to look attractive. But they are hardly encouraged to look feminine, where instead they're hit with words like "powerful," "killer," "edgy."

The neon-lit young girl on the postcard above hardly looks bold, or even "edgy." She looks frightened and bewildered. What is she supposed to do? What is she supposed to feel? What is she supposed to wear?

Fashion Vendetta for whom? What does a vendetta and killer looks have to do with looking pretty? What is a young girl to do?

There is a horde of people to give her just that information, and to sell her the make-up.

In the meantime she can cake on that make-up and make some wallets very thick.


Soft as Sin Cream Blush going for CAN$27. Not for your average girl.
L'Oreal and Revlon have perfectly good make-up, which I've used for years, for under $15 (and much less when on sale).

Below is the pink-wigged "teeez girl" who answered my questions and who was much sweeter-looking in person than this. I wouldn't have gone near the monster portrayed below. These "contemporary girls" with an "edge" have to play a role, but the truth is they would rather be sweet, feminine and kind.



The irony is of course lost on these opportunists who call their product "cruelty free," but where they psychically mistreat their young staff and all the other girls who walk by their counters.

Peta describes their "cruelty free" products thus:

Looking for compassionate companies that you can depend on to find quality, cruelty-free products? You’ve come to the right place! These are some of the leading go-to brands that you can be sure do not test their products on animals anywhere in the world. They’re also widely available, which means you don’t have to search too hard to find them!

"We'll just tell young girls to look like, and behave like, monsters, but we will be saving the planet as we do so."

But on further investigation I could find nowhere any written documents from Teeez that their products are "free from animal testing." All the references I could find are either anecdotal or the opinion of an obscure blogger.

This writer from Vancouver Sun's Beauty Bar "informs" us:

Our tester was especially pleased with the fact this brand claims to not be tested on animals. And the majority of the Teeez Cosmetics products appear to be free of parabens and dermatologist tested.

Where is the "claim" of the product's apparent freedom from those alarming chemicals? Where are the dermatologists' statements vouching for the safety of these products? And what about the "minority" Teeez Cosmetics which contain these ominous chemicals, and what do/could they do - cause our skin to fall off?

So who has the back, or more precisely the skin, of these young girls, including the pink-haired promoters?

Blog Fun and Vice for the Contemporary Teeez Girl And Where's the Money?

Teeez Girl in Contemporary Neon and Vampire Teeth
Morphing from sugar and spice to vampire and vice

Photo for a promotional card for Teeez Cosmetics to enter a contest to win make-up
She doesn't look like she's having much fun, and doesn't look like much of a teeez
But she does have her vampire teeth ready.

I wrote yesterday about the regular occurrence of the word "fun" in people's vocabulary.

Fun is everywhere these days. On sitcoms, in commercials, on billboards, and on everybody's lips.

I went yesterday to the cosmetics section of the Bay department store, and noticed promotions being handed out for "complementary make-overs" and a chance to win prizes.

"What should I do?"
"Just take a selfie, and send it to us."

Well not being of the "selfie" generation, I asked her to take a photo of me.

I had intended to send it in but it does not qualify, of course, and when I investigated the prize they were promising, a Top Shop gift voucher (Top Shop is a boring, dark "goth" place with over-priced clothes from Britain where prices are actually labeled in pounds and dollars, causing confusion at the cashier) it wasn't worth being associated with one of those self-centered selfie-cover-girl-wannabes.

Here is the Instagram page where I could have posted my photo (had it been a true selfie) and won a prize to Hudson Bay's British import.

Back to more serious matters.

I got a promotional card from the selfie regulator, and reading its message of Teeez giving me the power to "create a killer look you can call your own" prompted me to ask her what i thinks about the "Teeez" brand (is it three or four "eeeeez"?). She didn't look very powerful to me.

"It's fun," said this twenty-something woman who stood in front of me with pink hair.

That's more like her!

I thought she (or her "team") came up with that word in an attempt at translating the Dutch company's made-up word. Later, I searched online dictionaries and Dutch websites and blogs, but none gave me anything for "teeez" - to tease in Dutch is a completely different word). Perhaps it is the Europeans' propensity to incorporate English words into their languages, sometimes with new spellings and even meanings. Or it could just be a smart business strategy to make the word and product sound (American) English (Europe is fascinated by America), giving it more popularity and therefore business success. Well they've landed on our shores and it is a short cross over from Hudson's Bay to Macy's.

"Oh. I like the pink," I said to the pink-wigged teeez girl.

"Thank you [with a pose - she got my joke]."

This counts for the "beauty revolution" that was advertised on the billboard behind the pink-haired rebel.

I found a make-up lady and asked her what was so great about this new make-up.

"I got 'fun' from the girl in pink hair," I quipped.

She laughed and continued with:

"Well we have a large variety of colors and styles. And we are about fun and bold, with a contemporary edge."

Strangely for someone in the teeeze department, this older woman looked dowdy and bland. But then she s the other end of the (very narrow) spectrum where people either loo ridiculously cartoonish or depressingly bland.

What happened to the styled and stylish older woman with her well-fitting suits and tailored dresses? Walmart actually sells such clothes as does Sears and they're not expensive. In fact a pair of Levi jeans (or those "lady" jeans which these women love to wear) cost as much, and add to that the durable sweat shirts with patterns on them (often the only bright color in this get-up) and of course the sneakers, or sneaker-type shoes from Naturalizers, and they're're spending close to $1000 to look dowdy.

And there's that word fun again, and after I joked about it (mocked it really). So "fun" is part of the teeez "meaning," as even this sales lady acknowledges. I suppose she has no choice but to use it on the job, even as she looked adult and serious (and bland), to promote the company's "mission." Either that, or she changes jobs and leaves matters to the pink wigs.

I really didn't hear much else of what she said, looking for "a large variety and styles and colors" in the display counter, unimpressed.

Here is what the back of the promotional card says:

Fashion Vendetta gives you the freedom to overpower any fashion dictate and all the beauty ammunition to invent your own sartorial style. Your partner n crime? A collection loaded with full-on metallics, mattes, enticing neons and edgy pastels, along with provocative transparent and changeants. A powerful palette of prêt-à-porter products to create a killer look you can call your own.

Perhaps it s good that young women are encouraged to look attractive. But they are hardly encouraged to look feminine, where instead they're hit with words like "powerful," "killer," "edgy."

The neon-lit young girl on the postcard hardly looks bold, or even "edgy." She looks frightened and bewildered. What is she supposed to do? What is she supposed to feel? What is she supposed to wear?

Fashion Vendetta for whom? What does a vendetta and killer looks have to do with looking pretty? What is a young girl to do?

There is a horde of people to give her just that information, and to sell her the make-up.

In the meantime she can cake on that make-up and make some wallets very thick.


Soft as Sin Cream Blush going for CAN$27. Not for your average girl.
L'Oreal and Revlon have perfectly good make-up, which I've used for years, for under $15 (and much less when on sale).

Here is the Instagram page where I could have posted my photo (had it been a true selfie) and won a prize to Hudson Bay's British import Top Shop, a boring, dark "goth" place where neon colors do not exist, let alone a pretty yellow or red. And the over-priced clothes are actually labeled in pounds and dollars, causing confusion at the cashier.

Below is the pink-wigged "teeez girl" who answered my questions and who was much sweeter-looking in person than this. I wouldn't have gone near the monster portrayed below. These "contemporary girls" with an "edge" have to play a role, but the truth is they would rather be sweet, feminine and kind.



The irony is of course lost on these opportunists who call their product "cruelty free," but where they psychically mistreat their young staff and all the other girls who walk by their counters.

Peta describes their "cruelty free" products thus:

Looking for compassionate companies that you can depend on to find quality, cruelty-free products? You’ve come to the right place! These are some of the leading go-to brands that you can be sure do not test their products on animals anywhere in the world. They’re also widely available, which means you don’t have to search too hard to find them!

"We'll just tell young girls to look like, and behave like, monsters, but we will be saving the planet as we do so."

But on further investigation I could find nowhere any written documents from Teeez that their products are "free from animal testing." All the references I could find are either anecdotal or the opinion of an obscure blogger.

This writer from Vancouver Sun's Beauty Bar "informs" us:

Our tester was especially pleased with the fact this brand claims to not be tested on animals. And the majority of the Teeez Cosmetics products appear to be free of parabens and dermatologist tested.

Where is the "claim" of the product's apparent freedom from those alarming chemicals? Where are the dermatologists' statements vouching for the safety of these products? And what about the "minority" Teeez Cosmetics which contain these ominous chemicals, and what do/could they do - cause our skin to fall off?

So who has the back, or more precisely the skin, of these young girls, including the pink-haired promoters?

Blog Fun

Fun is everywhere these days. On sitcoms, in commercials, on billboards, and on everybody's lips.

It is the result of a culture which has nothing serious to think about, or to fight for. We don't take religion seriously, nor family (unless it is the "inclusive" families of aggressive homosexuals) nor country. We are easily bullied and easily coerced by the loudest voice in the group.

So there s nothing left but to have FUN.

Here is the word's origin, and history, from the online Thesaurus.com:

fun 1680s, v., "to cheat, hoax," probably a variant of M.E. fon "befool" (c.1400), later "trick, hoax, practical joke," of uncertain origin. Stigmatized by Johnson as "a low cant word." Older sense is preserved in phrase to make fun of and funny money "counterfeit bills" (1938, though this may be more for the sake of the rhyme); sense of "amusement" is 1727.

It doesn't look like much "fun."

But, all the contemporary synonyms given by the thesaurus are light, bright and airy:

amusing
enjoyable
entertaining
lively
pleasants
boisterous
convivial
diverting
merry
witty

Yet, people rarely seem to be having fun, in a mirthful, merry, boisterous way. What does that say about our times?

Blog Freedom at Holt's

I asked the Holt's perfume lady about the Creed perfume.

"It is a Holt's exclusive," she told me.

Only at Holt's. Creed!

All You Need is To Believe.

Creed Perfume, Luxury Line: Only at Holt's

I asked the saleswoman what the price of a perfume was - "Fleurissimo, or anything with rose scent in it," I asked her, having seen the rose graphics on the perfume.

75ml, with costs $409, and with the 13% Ontario sales tax, reaches $462.

"Don't you have any 50 or 30 mls?" I ask, a little taken aback. I am used to hearing exorbitant prices for designer fragrances, but this takes the cake - or the perfume!

"Well, some have 30 ml travel sizes. The Spring Flower is for $246."

The $246 with the 13% sales tax comes to $277.

And since when is a 30 ml perfume considered "travel size?"

"You're better off buying the 75ml. You get more than twice the value for you money," she said.

She didn't bat an eye. After all, she's not there to converse and joke with customers. She's there to sell.

I found another scent, with "rose" notes, but without the "complementary" 30ml, called Fleurssimo. It started off surprisingly aggressive, but then diluted into a soapy smell.

The Holt's website describes it thus:

Revel in a real-life storybook romance with Fleurissimo Eau de Parfum. The classic floral fragrance commissioned by a royal prince for his American starlet-turned-princess on their wedding day. Created to compliment the bride’s royal bouquet of white flowers as she walked down the aisle, Fleurissimo is a magnificent blend of Hollywood glamour and European royalty. A sumptuous mix of Tuberose, Violet, Florentine Iris and Bulgarian Rose, this regal fragrance will bring out the princess in any woman.

I wonder who is this "royal prince?" Of course it is the Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. I cannot imagine Grace Kelley with this insipid perfume.


Cargo Pants and Luxury Scents

The new "luxury" store at Square One has its (slow) flux of shoppers. This couple was also looking at Creed perfumes.

Perhaps this couple, even with the scruffy cargo pants, thinks it will be royalty if it shops among the regal ghosts. Square One has made a major advertising pitch into neighboring towns and cities. There are some retirement communities in the Mississauga area with moneyed elderly (often looking like scruffy teenagers). As well, there are some relatively wealthy communities, of people fleeing the multi-culti horror of bigger cities like Mississauga and Toronto to the relative quiet and civility of the smaller towns, with easy commuting networks.

How often will an elderly couple, or a moneyed professional, make it to Holt's to buy a $500 perfume? Even with irregular, but expensive, purchases, the final revenue cannot be profitable for the store.

Also the Holt's prices both online and in store are about 1 1/4 times more expensive: even before the 13% Ontario sales tax - $409 vs. $325.

This looks like a scam to make up for other losses in Square One: Add a surcharge to the exclusive, expensive, luxury items to offset the other losses in the mall. Those rich clients wont notice or, more likely, wont feel the difference!

These costs also affect those rich foreign customers which Square One has spent extensive time and money to attract. This foreigner cliente translates to Chinese and Indian (but mostly Chinese). But, the Chinese economy, with its secretive strategy, and even false information, doesn't tell us the whole story. Things are not great out there. And no-one ever really knows how the Indian economy is doing, which now includes those call centers, where people's money is dragged out of them one interest rate increase at a time, and which provides countless Indians with their monthly survival checks.

They also have links to Canada beyond their telephone calls. Many of their family members have traveled those thousands of miles to take part in this great economic and cultural experiment called multiculturalism. And they crowd the Walmart which the savvy Square One promoters haven't removed from this luxury store (Square One is touted as the only mall with both a Walmart and the "luxury" store Holt's under one roof. Imagine that!). These Walmart shoppers barely enter those great doors of luxury shopping, and I doubt the Holt shoppers have much interest in what Walmart has to offer. The difference is jarring. Walmart is over-crowded with a cacophony of languages and customers going for the daily sales and cheap(er) groceries. Holt's, even during its opening days, is empty and eerily quiet.

Square One is connecting with the Art and Culture Centre of Mississauga, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, by displaying images from the gallery's current exhibition "Pattern Migrations" in its "luxury wing." It features work by Muslim artists. It is of course the perfect exhibition and title for this ambitious mall where cultures mingle (and migrate) together to go SHOPPING!

Orwell's 1984 showed us how populations can be seduced to ignore, or lose the ability to notice and react to, mis-information through false wars (enemies that don't exist) falsified language and various forms of placation. Shopping (window shopping) didn't figure n Orwell's list but it certainly is part of our Brave New World.

"War is Peace!" Say Orwell's characters.

"Shopping is Freedom!" we say.

The realty, of course is closer to: "Window Shopping is Freedom," which doesn't buy any freedom at all.


Young multi-culti men, probably students from the nearby Sheridan College, walking by the Bus Depot which is an intricate regional network for cheap and efficient transportation



Zooming around in a luxury sports car. The mall's parking lot has a handful of BMW, Mercedes and Lexus cars, including quite a few of the corresponding SUVs.



Pattern Migration: Square One's Luxury Shopping Wing



Chinese and Others: Designer Shorts and Tiffany Store



Turbans and Patterns



Equal Black Patterns, 24/7



Only at Holt's



I am also a Holt's Shopper!

Blog Alexandra Poppies

These are Alexandra poppies, growing by the Chappell House in Riverwood Conservancy. This wonderful park/forest is a mere twenty-five minutes from Mississauga. Just take the 26 bus East, and ask to stop by the Conservancy (or at the Erindale Go Station).

Labs and Lives

The Complaint of Peace

By: Erasmus of Rotterdam
From: The Complaint of Peace

Plato somewhere says, that when grecians war with grecians, (notwithstanding they were separate and independent dynasties) it is not a war, but an insurrection. He would not consider them as a separate people, because they were united in name and by vicinity. And yet the christians will call it a war, and a just and necessary war too, which, on the most trifling occasion, with such soldiery and such weapons, one people professing christianity, wages war with another people holding exactly the same creed, and professing the same christianity.

The laws of some heathen nations ordained, that he who should stain his sword with a brother’s blood, should be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the common sewer. Now they are no less strongly united as brothers whom Christ has fraternized, than those who are related by consanguinity. And yet, in war, there is a reward instead of punishment for murdering a brother. Wretched is the alternative forced upon us by war. He who conquers is a murderer of his brother; and he who is conquered, dies equally guilty of fratricide, because he did his best to commit it.

After all this unchristian cruelty, and all this inconsistency, the christian warriors execrate the Turks as a tribe of unbelievers, strangers to Christ; just as if, while they act in this manner, they were christians themselves; or as if there could be a more agreeable sight to the turks than to behold the christians running each other through the body with the bayonet. The turks, say the christians, sacrifice to the devil; but, as there can be no victim so acceptable to the devil as a christian sacrificed by a christian, are not you, my good christian, sacrificing to the devil as much as the turk? Indeed, the evil one has in this case the pleasure of two victims at a time, since he who sacrifices is no less his victim than he who is sacrificed by the hand of a christian and the sword of war. If any one favours the turks, and wishes to be on good terms with the devil, let him offer up such victims as these.

But I am well aware of the excuse which men, ever ingenious in devising mischief to themselves as well as others, offer in extenuation of their conduct in going to war. They allege, that they are compelled to it; that they are dragged against their will to war. I answer them, deal fairly; pull off the mask; throw away all false colours; consult your own heart, and you will find that anger, ambition, and folly are the compulsory force that has dragged you to war, and not any necessity; unless indeed you call the insatiable cravings of a covetous mind, necessity.

Reserve your outside pretences to deceive the thoughtless vulgar. God is not mocked with paint and varnish. Solemn days and forms of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving, are appointed. Loud petitions are offered up to heaven for peace. The priests and the people roar out as vociferously as they can “give peace in our time, O Lord! We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord.” Might not the Lord very justly answer and say, “why mock ye me, ye hypocrites? You fast and pray that I would avert a calamity which you have brought upon your own heads. You are deprecating an evil, of which yourselves are the authors.”