“Ah, fame. For most, alas, that shiny notion is ever fleeting. Especially these days, when folks get famous simply for showing up. It wasn’t always that way of course — once upon another time you actually had to have done something notable to become a bold-faced name — but the era of earning your place in the constellation seems to now be more the exception rather than the rule.

Or maybe not. In Astoria, Queens, on the site of the old Kaufman Studios, there’s a place called The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. I know this because it was founded by the great Tony Bennett and his wife, public school teacher Susan Benedetto. I had the great pleasure of shaking seven answers out of the legendary saloon singer prior to his Arsht Center engagement early last month. And it was there where the man himself bemoaned the fact that kids these days seldom have a chance to develop their talents before being thrust into the limelight.

Call me a fogy if you want, but I think they’re on to something. Someone suitably trained in the arts will have a much better chance at maintaining the poise it takes not just to make it, but to keep making it. To stay on top past the usual 15-minute expiration date. And perhaps, to have a career as illustrious as that of Mr. Bennett, who’s been staging for six decades.

Think about it. That’s nearly three times as long as the lives of the current crop of young Hollywood stars. I won’t pretend to know whether or not, say, Zac Efron or Blake Lively will be breathlessly spoken of 10 or even 20 years from now. But I will say this: without being grounded, there’s a damn good chance that they — and those like them — will fly off the map the minute the next big thing comes along.

So what, right? That’s Darwin for you, and it applies to all kinds of species, no matter how much they may or may not be fawned over. Still, there’s something a little less than fortifying about all this sugary insta-fame. And a steady diet of celebrity snack food can’t possibly leave us — or them — nourished enough to handle whatever life brings.

And therein lies the rub. Life, in all its myriad joys and disappointments, loves and losses, hopes and dreams and fears, that’s really what it’s all about. Not how many folks see you or know your name, but how you live when no one’s looking. What kind of code you adhere to (if any), and the way you move through this world of ours. If you’re worrying about how your hair looks in front of a sea of paparazzi, it’s unlikely you’ll be thinking about the center of your own gravity.

So, what to do? Well, there’s that mirror of course, which each of us has to face each day, not to see how we look, but how we see ourselves. How to see beyond and beneath and into the deep within. It’s a daring and difficult place to peer into, which is why few manage to do so. Yet, it’s a cinch that if you summon the courage to face yourself, you can face anyone and anything, anywhere, ever.

Go ahead. I dare you.”

“The global recession was made in America. [But] the recovery is being made in Asia.

[Let's] take a quick tour of the world economic recovery room: First stop is the rich, mature economies — the U.S., Europe and Japan. None are healthy yet, but the U.S. is doing better than the others.

The U.S. economy is growing, helped by a mix of insulin (the fiscal and monetary stimulus) and sugar (the eagerness of businesses to rebuild depleted inventories). By the standards of past recoveries, though, it isn’t growing very fast.

American consumers, turning thrifty, are reluctant to spend. Banks are reluctant to lend. Employers are reluctant to hire. Government is reluctant to administer more stimulus.

Yet forecasters at J.P. Morgan Chase, more optimistic than some others, predict that U.S. output of goods and services, its gross domestic product, will be back to pre-recession levels by mid-2010. Europe and Japan won’t reach that point until well into 2012.

Europe still looks ill. The recession was deeper there, and fiscal and monetary stimulus less aggressive than in the U.S. and China. Its businesses are more dependent on banks than U.S. firms, and European banks haven’t been—or haven’t been forced to be—as open about their losses or as quick to bolster capital cushions. (Greece anyone?)

And now the sinners of Europe, economies that were living and borrowing well above their means, are being forced to repent: Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal. Because they share a currency, the euro, and have surrendered interest-rate setting to the European Central Bank…their ability to keep borrowing cheaply to cushion weak economies is in doubt.

Japan is harder to read… But is now benefiting from its proximity to China. Japan’s exports to China, which surpassed the U.S. as its biggest market last year, were 80% higher in January than in the same month last year…encouraging, but the persistent threats of deflation and political paralysis cloud its outlook.

Wander now to the new wing of the recovery room, the emerging markets of Asia. They’re not only out of bed, they’re back at work and doing push-ups.

China led the way, demonstrating that one advantage of an authoritarian government is that it can inject massive doses of stimulus quickly and order banks to lend. The policy has been so successful that the Chinese central bank now is restraining bank lending to avoid over-stimulating the economy and provoking bubbles in asset markets.

The other countries in the neighborhood are benefiting, offsetting some of the weakness in exports to the U.S. by exporting more to China or drawing more tourists from China. Among Asian economies, those more tightly linked to China—such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore—have been growing fastest.

But Asian consumers are doing their part, too. Auto sales in Malaysia in January were up 33% from a year earlier, for instance; India’s were up 50%. In contrast, U.S. vehicle sales were up only 6% in January.

Indeed, one milestone passed without much notice during the crisis. Emerging-market consumers, more numerous and better off than they were a couple of decades ago, outspent American consumers for the first time in modern history.

Asia cannot propel world growth by itself, though. Its economies remain dependent on exports, and that means they, too, are watching, waiting and hoping for a revival of consumer spending and business investment in the mature-economies recovery room. ”

via Wall Street Journal

Alexis Mincolla: “My Roots Will Always Be in Nightlife”

“With his hands in everything from the Overthrow to late-night party hosting and even creating his signature health drink, Alexis Mincolla has a frenetic lifestyle that doesn’t end when the sun goes down.

“I like to think my roots will always be in nightlife,” said Mincolla.

“My saurian imagination tends to take flight as the sun goes down.”

Mincolla made his mark on the Miami scene through his wildly popular off-beat party “Black Sundays” at Bella Rose. And though there are a number of party-goers still on the waiting list to be memorialized through photographs depicting their faux murder that are then made into a short film, Mincolla said the party is short-term.

“A party like that only really has a shelf life of about a year,” said Mincolla. “It would be like if a company ran an ad campaign too long.”

Mincolla said he creates projects based on his own “discontent” for what currently exists. These projects include gearing up for the launch of the Overthrow Castle in Wynwood and creating his own signature drink: Prometheus Springs.

The world’s first capsaicin spiced elixir is now lining the shelves at Whole Foods throughout Florida and may pop up during this weekend’s South Beach Food & Wine Festival.

“I live by the code of, ‘Create like a god, command like a king and work like a slave,’” said Mincolla. “Unlike most in the industry, I’m not one to sleep all day. When the sun comes up, I’m all business.”

“It might come across as a bit pretentious at first, but I believe each and everyone of us has the innate ability to create like a god, so don’t take that the wrong way,” he said.”