Hasta La Ideas

MGM Resorts has finally made it official and have filed a demolition request for Norman Foster‘s unopened Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas, something they’d hinted at last month, and before then back in the fall of last year, and had likely started considering way back in 2009 when construction defects were discovered too late and the project had to be massively scaled down. The company is still viciously fighting in court with the general contractor, Perini Building, who they claim made a number of massive errors which caused unsafe, unstable conditions and resulted in an unfinished building that cost nearly $300 million but is still unusable. However, it’s that ongoing legal fight that may stall the demolition itself, for as long as the battle continues in court, the Las Vegas Sun reports that the county can’t authorize the building’s destruction, thus likely extending this whole story by at least another year or two. For their part, Perini Building, who will not sign on to exploding the Harmon, believes that MGM wants the demolition as soon as possible to help cover up evidence of the design errors that had plagued the project from the start. The company also believes that the building can not only be repaired, but that it is currently safe, disputing research funded by MGM that found much to the contrary. Should MGM be able to wrangle their way around the legal system and get the county to agree to bringing down Foster’s hotel, the Sun reports that the company expects the demolition to take roughly six months, with five more months following to remove all the rubble and return it to the vacant lot it once was.

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An actual request or simply a publicity stunt? Either way, retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is getting some nice attention this week after a statement they released asking Michael Sorrentino, one of the stars of the reality television seriesThe Jersey Shore and who is most often referred to by his nickname, “The Situation”, to stop wearing clothing made by their company. And not only do they want him to stop, but they’ve offered to pay him not to wear their clothing. According to the Wall Street Journal, after a staffer saw an episode of the hit MTV show wherein Serrentino was wearing a visibly-branded A&F shirt, CEO Mike Jeffries decided this might damage “the aspirational nature of the brand” and cooked up the scheme to try to pay to end it. Though Jeffries also added, “We’re having a lot of fun with it,” explaining that the whole thing might not be entirely serious. Here’s the company’s full statement:

We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino’s association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans. We have therefore offered a substantial payment to Michael ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino and the producers of MTV’s The Jersey Shore to have the character wear an alternate brand. We have also extended this offer to other members of the cast, and are urgently waiting a response.

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The Huffington Post receives more than a bit of criticism about its journalism practices, but recently it found itself in a different sort of boiling kettle, enraging the anti-spec work crowd. The site recently launched a contest to design a new logo for their political wing, HuffPost Politics. Users would submit logos and the winner would see their branding used “all over the interwebs.” The sticking point, of course, is that a) they were digging for free design and b) so free that said winner wouldn’t even ever see a dime for their work. Given that the Huffington Post is now owned by the AOL empire, a company with a few dollars behind it, the whole thing stuck in the collective craw of those who find spec work appalling. AntiSpec heeded the call by requesting that people speak out against the contest, which resulted in hundreds of comments blasting the site on the contest’s page, an even greater number of conversations about it on social networks, and media pickups from the likes of AdWeek, Politico, and Forbes, all in the space of roughly 24 hours. Ultimately, HuffPo backed down, closing the contest early and releasing something that sort of vaguely resembles an apology, but in the eyes of AntiSpec, doesn’t quite go the distance: “I find HuffPo’s statement a little blah in all honesty.” Feel free to judge for yourself, as here’s the site’s official pull-away from the contest:

We asked fans of HuffPost Politics to submit suggestions for social media icon designs as a fun way of enabling them to express their passion for politics — and for HuffPost. As readers of our site know, we frequently engage our community with requests for feedback and suggestions. So while AOL Huffington Post Media Group employs an in-house team of more than 30 talented designers, we felt this would be a lighthearted way to encourage HuffPost Politics users to express another side of their talents.

Though they also make mention that readers should “stay tuned to see the competition finalists in the coming days,” so perhaps they’re just closing down early to quiet the angry buzz and will just pick a winner from the stash they’d already received.

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Now that it’s nearly been a full week since the “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” closed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the full reports on the triumphant, record-setting success it was for the museum are starting to come out. First, the Met issued a full total count of visitors who passed through the exhibition: a whopping 661,509, placing it at number eight in their Top 10 list of most popular shows they’ve ever had in their 141-year history. Among that nearly three-quarters of million people, it’s been announced that 23,000 wound up signing up for memberships somewhere along the way, which go from anywhere between $70 and $550. As the Wall Street Journal writes, this being more than double the amount who signed up last year over the same period of time, is sure to give the museum a nice boost, particularly in the face of continued rocky financial times. However, it wasn’t all good news in the membership department. DNAinfo reports that a letter was sent out this week to all members, apologizing that they’d stopped letting them cut in line this past weekend while the museum was thronged with last minute visitors, which sometimes resulted in lines lasting up to five hours just to get into the exhibit. “Our goal throughout this period of high demand was to balance our commitments to access and safety, for both our visitors and our collections,” wrote director Thomas Campbell in his conciliatory letter. But in the end, it’s assumed that even though those last minute straggling members were miffed, they still stayed put and stuck it out. Finally, Jezebel recently took a look at the numbers, did some analysis, and came up with a rough estimation of how much the Met raked in over the short run of the exhibition: $14,603,862. Not too shabby at all. Though one can assume that some of that was eaten up a bit with the overhead of hiring more security, paying staff overtime and just leaving the museum open for so many additional hours (cooling that building down with A/C certainly can’t be cheap).

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I am looking to hire some students to help with the assembling, making, collating, stuffing and other handiwork required for various UPPERCASE projects. Projects include preparing envelopes of goodies, assembling handmade books, button-making and other hands-on tasks as required throughout the year. Work will begin immediately and be concentrated in August and once the school year begins, it would be on a per project or as-needed basis. Please email me if you are interested. janine at uppercasemagazine dot com.

Please note this is for local Calgarians, with preference given to students. Most work will happen in the UPPERCASE studio downtown.