Soul Of A Journey

Suzy Menkes's viewpoints on the new Louis Vuitton high jewelry collection was interesting. Lorenz Bäumer's designs were stunningly beautiful. The entire collection of the new jewelry will go on display October 15, 2009 at the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Élysées. Don't miss.

Useful links:
www.lorenzbaumer.com
www.louisvuitton.com

Jewelry Markup On Trial

A retail jeweler's biggest sale almost cost him his business. Here's what went wrong plus a few lessons to help prevent this from happening to you. Great lessons indeed. Thank you Cheryl Kremkow.

Gem dealer Jeffrey Bilgore, who specializes in high-end one-of-a-kind pieces and also has experience as a retail gem buyer, says a 50 percent to 60 percent markup is the norm at this price point.

I feel like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. The outpouring of support from my customers has been overwhelming. My customers know I wouldn't cheat anybody. But now I am afraid to sell anything to anyone of any consequence.
- Jim Jackson

Useful link:
http://equatorianimports.com

Herta Mueller

German author Herta Mueller has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Congratulations!

Useful link:
http://nobelprize.org

Chaim Even Zohar Viewpoint

Chaim was spot on. Consumers are downsizing. They prefer to buy affordable diamonds. What this means for holiday season? Nobody knows.

Useful links:
www.diamondintelligence.com
www.abnamro.com
www.antwerpdiamondbank.com

India's Mobile Markets

Rajesh Jain's viewpoints on India's mobile market was interesting. It was also encouraging to know that mobile is becoming the dominant device for voice, for value-added services, and for mobile Internet.

Useful links:
www.netcore.co.in
http://emergic.org

National Palace Museum Exhibit

Rarely seen artworks from mainland China's Palace Museum have gone on display in Taiwan's National Palace Museum. www.npm.gov.tw

Random Thoughts

Fear is a survival instinct, the inbuilt self-preservation mechanism in all of us. People often ask if I was scared during my record solo voyage around the world. My answer is “yes”. Fear almost certainly kept me alive in the Southern Ocean: it keeps you focused and vigilant. But when I got back to land I felt a different type of fear as, for the first time, I began to see the world in a different way. I had never questioned whether our planet’s resources were limited, and had certainly not stopped my busy sailing schedule to wonder if the way I lived was sustainable. But when I stepped off my beloved trimaran after setting the record in February 2005, I began to see things differently. When you sail around the world you take everything you need for three months. From toothpaste to teabags, from clothes to kitchen roll; what you have is all you have, and if you run out you can’t just pop down to the shops to buy more. You are managing your own little world with its finite, life-sustaining supply of resources. And you’re doing it when you are more exhausted than you have been in your life.

- Ellen MacArthur
www.ellenmacarthurtrust.org

Inspiring, really.

Art Market Update

Georgina Adam's viewpoints on the state of the art market was insightful. I wonder where have all the art speculators gone?

Useful links:
www.sothebys.com
www.wallacecollection.org
http://pinchukartcentre.org
www.whitecube.com
www.theartnewspaper.com
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
www.artcurial.com
www.robilantvoena.com
www.artbasel.com

Economic Stress Index

I really liked AP's Economic Stress Index. I wish they had one for India.

First Iridium Jewelry

Rare-metals manufacturer American Elements has announced that it has begun production of the first-ever jewelry made from pure iridium metal. Check it out.

Useful link:
www.americanelements.com

Nuit Blanche

The city of Paris has begun Nuit Blanche, an annual celebration of contemporary art. Don't miss the fun.

Random Thoughts

As the environmentalist Rob Watson likes to say, “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics.” That’s all she is. You can’t spin her; you can’t sweet-talk her. You can’t say, “Hey, Mother Nature, we’re having a bad recession, could you take a year off?” No, she’s going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate, based on the amount of carbon we put in the atmosphere, and as Watson likes to add: “Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats a thousand.” Ditto the market. The market is just a second-by-second snapshot of the balance between greed and fear. You can’t spin it or sweet-talk it. And you never know when that balance between greed and fear on the dollar is going to tip over into fear in a nonlinear way.

- Thomas L. Friedman
www.thomaslfriedman.com
www.ecotech-intl.com

Spot on.

Masters Of Light

The three scientists (Charles Kao + Willard Boyle + George Smith) who harnessed the power of light in ways that turned the Internet into a global phenomenon and launched the digital-camera revolution were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Congratulations! A well deserved prize!

Useful link:
http://nobelprize.org

Cartier Treasures

Cartier Treasures: King of Jewelers, Jewelers to Kings Exhibition is on display at the Palace Museum in Beijing, China September 5, 2009 - November 22, 2009. Don't miss.

Useful links:
www.dpm.org.cn
http://fondation.cartier.com

Global Business BBC

Peter Day's report on President Hugo Chavez's 21st Century Socialism and the impact on country's economy was interesting.

Useful links:
www.iesa.edu.ve
www.avhi.org
www.mercal.gob.ve
http://alopresidente.gob.ve

Man Booker Prize 2009

Hilary Mantel has been named Man Booker Prize winner for her historical novel Wolf Hall. Congratulations!

Useful link:
www.themanbookerprize.com

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba + Bryan Mealer is a moving and exciting story. A must read.

Useful link:

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com

Random Thoughts

Academics, however, like to define investment risk differently, averring that it is the relative volatility of a stock or portfolio of stocks-that is, their volatility as compared to that of a large universe of stocks. Employing data bases and statistical skills, these academics compute with precision the beta of a stock-its relative volatility in the past-and then build arcane investment and capital-allocation theories around this calculation. In their hunger for a single statistic to measure risk, however, they forget a fundamental principle: It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

- Warren Buffett
www.berkshirehathaway.com

Spot on.

Jeff Scher Viewpoint

The hypnotic pleasure of losing yourself in the shadow world was brilliant. Thanks Jeff.

Useful link:
http://fezfilms.net

Archie Andrews

I am a longtime Archie fan. I hope Archie and his gang goes the extra mile global.

Useful links:
www.archiecomics.com
http://icv2.com

Diamond Market Update

Global polished diamond prices seem to be stuck in a very narrow price range. There is certainly not enough demand to push prices higher, and while they haven’t moved lower, our sense is that any minor shock or surprise could send polished diamond prices skidding lower.

- Ken Gassman
www.kennethgassman.com

So true. As Ken rightly put it American market is the key.

Turin Shroud

The Shroud of Turin has been reproduced by an Italian scientist in another attempt to prove that the cloth bearing an image of Christ's face is a fake. What's amazing is the shroud mystery refuses to go away. I truly believe it's an imitation.

If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me.
- Luigi Garlaschelli

Useful links:
www.sindone.org
www.cicap.org

Art News Update

Kate Taylor's viewpoints on Jackson Pollock's iconic Mural was interesting and insightful.

The whole point of Mural was to declare that Jackson Pollock was a great painter. The painting is essentially a big billboard for Jackson Pollock.
- Henry Adams

A hundred people might find 50 different words—and hundreds of different images—in this or any of Pollock’s later work.
- Steven Naifeh

Chris Guillebeau

Chris Guillebeau shares helpful travel tips for free on his site. Check it out.

Useful link:
http://chrisguillebeau.com

Pop Life: Art In A Material World

Few people come to museums. The museum is kind of old-style media, like opera. I’m really interested in making merchandise for ordinary people.
- Takashi Murakami

Check out Pop Life: Art in a Material World at Tate Modern. www.tate.org.uk

Vertebrate Palaeontology

Anthony Barnosky (University of California, Berkeley) + Elizabeth Hadly's (Stanford University) viewpoints on creating whole new ecosystems was interesting. Their proposal to learn from the past environments that went through climatic changes similar in scale to those happening today wasn't such a bad idea. It might work.

Useful links:
www.vertpaleo.org
www.stanford.edu/group/hadlylab

Random Thoughts

Being accepted is the biggest challenge. Every time you stand in front of a new orchestra, you are on trial.

- John Eliot Gardiner

Spot on.

The Ten Bells

Don’t tell, show. The best advice for wine lovers, really. http://thetenbells.com

Turner Prize Art

Check out the latest exhibition of contemporary artists' work vying for the prestigious £25,000 prize at Tate Britain. www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize

Human Development Report

According to an annual report by the United Nations, Norway is the best place in the world to live. Check out the link UN Human Development Reports

Verdura

The brand is celebrating the 70th anniversary of Fulco Verdura's New York Salon.

Useful link:
www.verdura.com

Random Thoughts

Money grants you freedom, I guess.

- Dasha Zhukova

Spot on.

A Serious Man

Check out Joel and Ethan Coen's new movie, A Serious Man. It's artful and funny.

Useful links:
www.youtube.com/ASeriousManMovie
www.facebook.com/ASeriousMan
www.coenbrothers.net

Jancis Robinson Viewpoint

Jancis Robinson's opinion piece in the Financial Times was insightful.

Useful links:
www.jancisrobinson.com
www.ft.com/arts/columnists/robinson
www.winesearcher.com

The Human Brain Book

Rita Carter's viewpoints on the societal implications of the neuroscience was educational and insightful. A picture says a thousand words. Check out her new book The Human Brain Book

Useful links:
www.ritacarter.co.uk

Maurizio Cattelan

The Economist's profile of Maurizio Cattelan and his artworks was insightful. He is different.

These artists have a monopoly on a product that everybody wants, so they can do whatever they like.
- Massimo de Carlo

Useful link:
www.mauriziocattelan.org

Diamond Beauty Evaluation

Check out GemEx Systems' diamond beauty evaluation via BrillianceScope® Analyzer. Interesting concept. Give it a try. www.gemex.com

Art News Update

Nicholas Fox Weber's opinion piece in the ArtNews was interesting.

This was my way into an appreciation for the Bauhaus’s fundamental values: knowledge of materials, the need for an object to be designed according to its purpose and executed with a respect for human scale, the willingness of businesspeople as well as artists to devote themselves to bettering the experience of others, and the real emotional benefits of such intelligent, moral, generous thinking.

Useful link:
www.albersfoundation.org

Clay Marzo: Just Add Water

Clay Marzo may very well be the first person with Asperger's to have developed a genius for surfing. Check out the documentary. It's educational.

He'll have a schema of many waves that he's ridden before, so he's able to predict what to do in that situation. His brain disconnects from everyday functions, and becomes one with the wave: he'll intuitively know what the wave's doing, so he'll anticipate that, and be ahead of everyone else.
- Dr Tony Attwood

Useful link:
http://surf.quiksilver.com/films

Frederick Forsyth Interview

My financial advisers told me to hedge against inflation by buying either gold or diamonds and I bought gem diamonds because their carat rating can be certified. It was a gross mistake – I invested about £200,000 and got back just £133,000 three years later.

- Frederick Forsyth

Lennart Nilsson

Check out Lennart's stunning photographs at www.lennartnilsson.com

Gary Hamel Viewpoint

Gary was spot on. In most organizations, change comes in two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Change = Pain.

Useful links:
www.garyhamel.com
http://blogs.wsj.com/management

The Jazz For Justice Project

The Jazz for Justice Project's conference titled 'Blood Diamonds, Blood Phones and the Devil’s Gold: Africa’s Resource Curse' at UT Knoxville on the impact of resource mining in Africa and a benefit concert for the people of northern Uganda was educational and insightful.

Useful link:
www.knoxjazzforjustice.org

Azim Premji Viewpoint

The first lesson is that to be successful you have to be challenged by something, and then have the resolve to deal with it. This is the surest way forward. I learnt that challenges, determination and passion is what propel a person. I also learnt that often you have to go out seeking challenges because challenges may not come seeking you. Rarely have I come across a successful entrepreneur, who became an entrepreneur only to make money. In practically all the cases, people became entrepreneurs because there is a challenge that excites them: A challenge to change the world, a challenge to invent, a challenge to create, etc—some deeply captivating challenge that appeals to them personally, but rarely is the desire to make money the prime driver.

- Azim Premji
www.azimpremjifoundation.org
www.wipro.com

Truly inspiring. Really.

Random Thoughts

A typical New York dealer may buy his rough in Russia, send it to China to be manufactured, send it to the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in Carlsbad, California, to have it certified, and back to New York, and then might have it shipped out to Hong Kong to sell it to the Far East market and send the funds back to New York. So New York is essentially part of the global village.

- Hertz Hasenfeld
www.hasenfeld-stein.com

Spot on.

Jim Rogers Viewpoint

I own some gold and I am optimistic about the price of gold but I don’t think I would buy it either. The gold is near its all-time high, I think I would rather buy silver for instance if I had to buy a precious metal. However, I am not buying either at the moment.

- Jim Rogers
www.jimrogers.com

Maybe he is right.

Gustavo Dudamel And Los Angeles Philharmonic

I think we will have a beautiful journey... the most important thing is to enjoy. I'm doing what I love to do.

- Gustavo Dudamel
www.gustavodudamel.com

All the best.

Random Thoughts

When I returned from volunteering at a small school in Moshi Town in Tanzania, I felt helpless. I work in the luxury industry and I wanted to connect luxury to poverty and then use luxury to help out.

- Alethe Clemetson
www.jewelersthatcare.org

Chaim Even Zohar Viewpoint

Chaim's viewpoint on the state of the diamond market was interesting. The current economic crisis may have caused a power shift. It would be interesting to watch De Beers, Bostwana and Russia and their strategy of choice in current economic crisis.

Useful links:
www.debeersgroup.com
www.debswana.com
www.dtc.com
http://eng.alrosa.ru
www.diamondintelligence.com

Wrekin's Ruby

One of the strangest tales in the history of company accounting looks increasingly likely to end with a fabled gem being downgraded to an unusual paper weight. The Gem of Tanzania, a large ruby whose £11m valuation once underpinned the finances of a failed company with yearly turnover of £103m, may be worth as little as £100. It is a paper weight. Period. Visit Bangkok, Jaipur, or Hong Kong and you can buy them for less than £100. Whoever gave the gemstone £11m valuation need a medical checkup. What a joke, really!

The Many Faces Of George Washington

Milton Esterow's article on Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington and the Chinese artist was interesting.

Useful links:
www.nbmaa.org
www.pem.org
www.metmuseum.org

Nanotechnology Art Gallery

Small is big. Now a handful of artists are going smaller still, often applying the tools of nanotechnology to control matter at a molecular level. It's beautiful. Really.

Useful links:
www.nanotech-now.com/nanotechnology-art-gallery.htm
www.willard-wigan.com
www.crisorfescu.com

The 48 Hour Film Project

(via Wiki) The 48 Hour Film Project is a contest in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The winning film will go up against films from around the world.

Useful link:
www.48hourfilm.com

Innovation Tournament

Check out Wipro Technologies + Knowledge @ Wharton's global Innovation Tournament. The tournament is open to participants worldwide. The winners will be selected through a process of elimination and honored in early 2010. The deadline to submit entries is November 6, 2009.

Burma JADE Act Report 2009

This report examines: 1) the key characteristics of the trade of Burmese-origin jadeite and rubies; (2) the progress U.S. agencies have made to restrict imports of Burmese jadeite, rubies, and related jewelry into the U.S. market; and (3) the progress U.S. agencies have made in pursuing international actions, including (a) seeking a World Trade Organization (WTO) waiver of U.S. WTO obligations regarding import restrictions of the JADE Act; (b) securing a United Nations (UN) resolution that expresses the need to address trade in Burmese-origin jadeite, rubies, and related jewelry and calls for a workable certification scheme to prevent such trade; and (c) working to negotiate an international arrangement--similar to the Kimberley Process (which certifies the origins of rough diamonds)--to prevent such trade. Our work incorporated views from U.S. government officials, U.S. and foreign jewelry industry representatives, foreign government officials, and academics with a range of expertise on Burma's economy and political situation.

Highlights of the report include:
-The Burmese jadeite and ruby trades are very different from one another and significantly involve China and Thailand.
-U.S. agencies have taken some steps but have not shown that they are effectively restricting imports of Burmese-origin rubies, jadeite, and related jewelry while allowing imports of non-Burmese-origin goods.
-U.S. agencies have made no discernible progress in gaining international support to prevent global trade in Burmese-origin rubies, jadeite, and related jewelry.
-Agency officials said there are serious impediments to achieving this objective, such as lack of international support and the inherent difficulty in identifying the country of origin for rubies and ruby jewelry. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-987

Moscow Biennale Of Contemporary Art 2009

Jean-Hubert Martin's latest project, Against Exclusion, opened in Moscow, introducing Anish Kapoor and Spencer Tunick, to be joined by underappreciated Russians such as Valery Koshlyakov and Alexandr Brodsky, as well as artists from African villages, aboriginal tribal chieftans, and Afghan carpet weavers. www.3rd.moscowbiennale.ru

Reverse Graffiti

According to British artist Paul Curtis (aka Moose), the world is a mess. His signature technique is cleaning. www.reversegraffitiproject.com

Project H Design

Check out Emily Pilloton's Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, a unique tool that delivers efficient design solutions.

Useful link:
http://projecthdesign.org

Cambridge 800

Quentin Blake's 70-foot-long work celebrating the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University was brilliant.

Useful link:
www.quentinblake.com

Luke Johnson Viewpoint

Most intelligent entrepreneurs and executives desire to invest their work with meaning. They like the idea of improving the world while earning a living. And many of us who mostly shuffle paper secretly admire those in the Hard Industries, who manufacture things, in spite of all the obstacles. So true!

Useful links:
www.lukejohnson.org
www.riskcapitalpartners.co.uk
www.channel4.com

Living Climate Change

Living Climate Change is an open forum. It's also a place to show, discuss, and share compelling and provocative thoughts and ideas about the future.

Useful link:
http://livingclimatechange.com

Global Business BBC

Peter Day's viewpoints on the future shape of new media was interesting. Expect rule-breaking disruptive innovation.

Useful links:
www.telegraph.co.uk
www.mediatique.co.uk
www.buzzmachine.com
www.benkler.org
www.4ip.org.uk

David Sibley

If you're out in the park and you notice from 100 feet away a tree with unusual flowers or an odd leaf shape or interesting bark, these books require you to walk up to the tree, take a twig in your hand and go through a series of steps. It's at least five minutes until you come up with an answer. And immediately you lose sight of the whole tree and you lose sight of what attracted your attention in the first place. Taking a step back and looking at the whole tree, then looking at a few more trees and flipping through the pages of my book, you quickly start to see that all the maples have similarly shaped leaves and fruit and that all the oaks have acorns.

- David Allen Sibley

Useful link:
www.sibleyguides.com

Just like gem identification. Really.

Art And Politics In China

Katie Hill's viewpoints on arts and politics in China was insightful.

Mary Delany And Her Circle

A must visit show.

Useful link:
http://ycba.yale.edu
www.janewildgoose.co.uk
www.britishmuseum.org

Art Market Update

Check out a new collection of contemporary art galleries in Los Angeles. The place is full of colorful characters.

Useful links:
www.beneventolosangeles.com
www.khastoo.com
www.overduinandkite.com
www.circus-gallery.com

Petra Finds 507.55-carat Rough Diamond

It has been reported that a 507.55 carat white diamond has been found at the Cullinan mine in South Africa.

Useful link:

www.petradiamonds.com

Gold Loans

While pawning the family jewels would be a sign of distress in the West, trading gold for cash increasingly is viewed in India as the equivalent of taking out a home equity loan to expand a business or simply to buy things. It's true. It's easy. Period.

Useful links:
www.manappuram.com
www.muthootfinance.com
www.gold.org

Can't Remember What I Forgot

Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research by Sue Halpern is a wonderful book for everyone. A must read.

Useful link:

www.suehalpern.net

Hedgeable

Hedgeable, an investment start-up has come up with a neat gimmick to draw attention to its launch: a nationwide contest to find the three investors whose portfolios lost the most value between October 2007, when stockmarkets began to tumble, and March 2009, when they hit bottom. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Hats off to Michael Kane!

Useful link:
www.hedgeable.com

Random Thoughts

In the past, we thought that the carbon dioxide in the bubbles just gave the wine an acidic bite and a little tingle on the tongue, but this study shows that it is much more than this. Glasses that encourage more bubbles to come up are going to be better. At the bottom of proper champagne glasses, they put a little bit of (rough) glass, which encourages the nucleation of the flow of bubbles.

- Dr Jamie Goode
www.wineanorak.com

It's good to know.

London Design Festival 2009

Old is new again. www.londondesignfestival.com

John Cassidy Viewpoint

John Cassidy's opinion piece in the New Yorker was spot on. A number of explanations have been proposed for the great boom and bust, most of which focus on greed, overconfidence, and downright stupidity on the part of mortgage lenders, investment bankers, and Wall Street C.E.O.s. According to a common narrative, we have lived through a textbook instance of the madness of crowds. If this were all there was to it, we could rest more comfortably: greed can be controlled, with some difficulty, admittedly; overconfidence gets punctured; even stupid people can be educated. Unfortunately, the real causes of the crisis are much scarier and less amenable to reform: they have to do with the inner logic of an economy like ours. The root problem is what might be termed “rational irrationality”—behavior that, on the individual level, is perfectly reasonable but that, when aggregated in the marketplace, produces calamity. So true!

Useful link:
http://hyunsongshin.org

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman's 'Shape of Jazz to Come' is still as relevant as ever.

Useful link:
www.ornettecoleman.com
www.jalc.org

Grown In Detroit

Grown in Detroit, a documentary by two Dutch filmmakers was brilliant. Inspiring, really.

Useful links:
http://grownindetroit.filmmij.nl
www.grownindetroit.tv

Random Thoughts

It's the perfect time for Faberge to come back. In the eyes of customers, other brands have become devalued and suffered a loss of identity. Customers want uniqueness and provenance.

- Mark Dunhill
www.faberge.com

Spot on.

Project 10 To The 100th

Check out Google's new project '10 to the 100th', which is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.

Read My Pins

Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box by Madeleine Albright offers a whole new side of Secretary Albright.

Useful links:

www.thealbrightgroupllc.com

www.albrightcapital.com

Diamond Market Update

Historically, Americans revert to their prior shopping patterns after a recession. And one fact is irrefutable: Americans are born to spend.

- Ken Gassman
www.kennethgassman.com

So true!

The World's Most Expensive Blackberry

Check out Alexander Amosu's most expensive BlackBerry with specially cut diamonds.

Useful link:
www.amosu.co.uk

Tyler Brule

I found Tyler Brule's viewpoints on culture and travels very interesting.

Useful link:
www.beingtylerbrule.com

Change By Design

Check out Tim Brown's innovative approach. www.ideo.com/cbd

Wine Buying

Jeffrey M. O'Brien writes: There's an oft-repeated bit of eno-philosophy that says the wine business is immune to recession because people drink in good times and bad. But it turns out there's a caveat: In bad times such as these, they mostly drink the cheap stuff. That means vintners who sell wine for $10 or less are raking in money, but everyone else is getting squeezed -- which can be a very good thing for the savvy wine buyer. From restaurants to tasting rooms, clearinghouses to supermarkets, high-end wines -- some of which were impossible to get a few years ago -- are suddenly within reach.

So true!

Luke Johnson Viewpoint

Humour and charm are a surprisingly powerful combination as a means of ascent in life. I have met a number of entrepreneurs who have built fortunes on the back of their wit and general popularity – and not much else.

- Luke Johnson

Useful links:
www.ft.com/comment/columnists/lukejohnson
www.lukejohnson.org
www.riskcapitalpartners.co.uk
www.channel4.com

Spot on.

Wildlife Finder

Check out Sir David Attenborough's favourite moments from BBC's famed natural history unit.

Useful links:
www.bbc.co.uk/wildlifefinder
www.davidattenborough.co.uk

Hope Diamond In New Setting

See footage of the Hope Diamond in its new setting, including an interview with winning designer Maurice Galli.

Useful links:
www.mnh.si.edu
www.smithsonianchannel.com

The Poetry Of Time

Check out The Poetry of Time, a visual anthology of Van Cleef and Arpels' contribution to watchmaking. www.vancleef-arpels.com

One Hundred Years Of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez's seminal novel One Hundred Years of Solitude has been chosen by international writers as the most influential book. It's an amazing book. It's a masterpiece. Really.

Useful link:
www.wasafiri.org

Art News

Anyone who believes the art market has been felled by the financial crisis should have been in New York earlier this month for the seasonal auctions of Chinese bronzes, furniture and ceramics. The salerooms at Sotheby's and Christie's were overflowing with bidders, more than three-quarters of them from Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. Extra Mandarin-speakers, all of them fluent and young, had been taken on specially to handle additional telephone bidding from Asia.

- Economist
www.economist.com

Useful links:
www.sothebys.com
www.christies.com

I guess confidence has returned to the market.

Random Thoughts

If you are intelligent the market will teach you caution and fortitude, sharpen your wits, and reduce your pride. If you are foolish and refuse to learn a lesson, it will ridicule you, laugh you to scorn, break you, and toss you on the rubbish-heap.

- Frank J. Williams

Spot on.

Synthetic Colored Diamond Market Update

I think synthetic diamonds in a variety of color ranges are catching the attention of price sensitive Indians. I hope dealers and jewelers disclose treatments and sell the stones with proper description/identification.

Useful link:
www.gjepc.org

Men’s Earrings

More and more men are wearing earrings. Sign of the times, I guess.

Bill Cunningham Viewpoint

On the Street / The Look. Shoes that make a statement is back. I liked it. Thanks Bill.

Art Market Update

Souren Melikian's viewpoints on Chinese buyers at the auction market was interesting. Stunning news, really.

Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.asia.si.edu

How To Lie With Statistics

How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff is a great book that explains how experts use statistics to deceive consumers. The principles it puts forth are still valid today. Really. A must read.

L Prize

Philips is confident that the product submitted meets or exceeds all of the criteria for the L Prize.

- Rudy Provoost, Philips Lighting

Useful links:
www.lightingprize.org
www.lighting.philips.com
www.rpi.edu
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl

Only a lot more time shall tell.

Maira Kalman Viewpoint

I always look forward to seeing what Maira has created. Her artwork creations are always outstanding, brilliant and inspiring. Thanks Maira.

Useful links:
www.mairakalman.com
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com

Random Thoughts

Our experience is that not everyone who undergoes our programme becomes an entrepreneur. The average is around 52-54%, and in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, it’s 85%. So everyone cannot do it. At one time, there was supposed to be an inverse relationship between a person’s education and his or her chances of becoming an entrepreneur. But things are now changing. In high-tech sectors like biotech and computer sciences, highly educated people have made a mark. If you have a big idea and the capability to execute it, you can be an entrepreneur. But if you have low tolerance level towards business upheavals or turbulence, entrepreneurship is not for you.

- Dinesh Awasthi
www.ediindia.org

Spot on.

Staffordshire Hoard

One-of-a-kind find, really. Check out the Anglo-Saxon treasure at the the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.

Useful links:
www.bmag.org.uk
www.britishmuseum.org

Room For Debate

Our spending is currently equal to the entire economies of China and India added together and then doubled.
- Fareed Zakaria
www.fareedzakaria.com

If Americans don’t start buying a lot of stuff again, can the world economy be saved? What’s the global Plan B? Check out the different viewpoints from these experts: Juliet Schor + Bernard Baumohl + Michael Pettis + Lawrence Glickman + Desmond Lachman.