Author Archives: Jason

About Jason

Jason R. Koepke is Founder and Data Strategist at GNT LLC, a risk-analysis and data strategy firm that provides analytical and technical services to the public and private sectors. His work and research has been featured in the academic, financial, and technical industries.

Things I Learned This Week

Among the things I learned this week:

* Little J.B., a singer who I love from and tried to find more of based on his performance from Super Bad @ 65: A Tribute To James Brown, is Lee Fields (whom I have a few albums). (Courtesy: The New Yorker)

* Stops don’t make sense with country-wide ETFs for anything but day trading because of what it would take for a major price change. (Courtesy: YM)

* The Apollo is a lot smaller than I expected, and seventeen year olds can rock the house. (Courtesy: Wycliffe Gordon’s Jazz A La Carte)

* There is another type of gin, and it is fantastic. (Courtesy: ZS, JSK, and NYC)

* Not enough parents teach their children, some of whom are grown, how to enjoy a meal. (YM’s A and MS’ N)

* Myrna Loy modeled for Gil Elvgren. (Courtesy: Martignette and Meisel)

Taking My Shoe Conversations to the Web and in Monologue Form

The New Yorker has an excellent article by Lauren Collins on Christian Louboutin in the March 28, 2011, issue–an issue that features a gorgeous cover. The entire article is worth reading, but here are two quotes that made it into my circle-and-rip-the-page-out category:

Louboutin, however, is not sympathetic to complaints about the deleterious effects of high heels on locomotion. He told me a story about a client who, having bought her first pair of his heels, was forced to slacken the pace of her morning walk. “She began to notice the little details of her neighborhood for the first time,” he said, proudly.

This is a different and more positive spin to the high-heels-are-painful line of thinking I make, which is that if you are walking or on your feet long enough that you feel pain, you are dating the wrong guy.

Also:

“When a woman buys a pair of shoes, she never looks at the shoe,” Louboutin said. “She stands up and looks in the mirror, she looks at the breast, the ass, from the front, from the side, blah blah blah. if she likes herself, then she considers the shoe.”