Don’t worry, this isn’t a series of pictures of us (although that would be amazing). In fact, this is a portrait series by Gabriela Herman, who’s captured several bloggers. We haven’t heard of many of the people featured – but ignore us, we’re luddites trapped in a bloggers body – but it’s a beautiful looking set of shots. (Swissmiss)

“Rockaway Taco, A Selby Film. Shot on location in Rockaway Queens on August 31st, 2010″

NPR worked a sad story on the closing of a U.S.A institution. “After selling cotton to textile factories for almost 150 years, the S.M. Whitney Co., run by descendants of cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney, is set to close… Whitney has just 190 bales of cotton left. At its peak, the company brokered deals for 80,000 bales annually. Whitney says he got a lot of business by talking with farmers…”

U.S.A. cotton just got much smaller. Audio available online as well.

“Alex Gibney  delivers a visually arresting look at the crumbling façade of Sumo wrestling and exposes searing and violent truths about this ancient and revered sport. Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) offers up a buoyant and revealing angle on the repercussions of baby names. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp) balance levity and candor with their eye-opening profile of underachieving kids incentivized to learn with cold hard cash.”

DETAILS Magazine has honored us with a nomination in the “Product Spotlight” category of their 2010 Fashion Blog Awards. We need your vote!

“The pursuit of great style is a lifelong endeavor, but thankfully there are invaluable guides you can look to for help. We’ve combed through thousands of blogs and handpicked the best—check out the nominees out to discover where to shop, how to dress, whom to emulate, what mistakes to avoid, and, of course, loads of gorgeous photography.j“

The Blog Awards run on Details.com July 16th and run through August 17th. From there, the votes will be tallied.

Spread the word and vote for Selectism in the “Product Spotlight” category. We love you all.

“From an old New England recipe.”

Rarely, in our discussion of heritage and Americana do we touch on toiletries. We don’t discuss shampoos much anyway. Sure, the occasional shaving product has struck our fancy, and here and there a fragrance might spark interest.

J.R. Liggett’s doesn’t do anything fancy. It’s a company born from a personal discovery – of that above mentioned recipe – and natural growth. As a bar shampoo, it’s something out of the contemporary norm. As an product, Liggett’s shampoo flows from old tradition, even if as a brand there isn’t standing on heritage (commercially available since 1985).

Best of all, it works and doesn’t irritate a sensitive scalp.

This story has been making the rounds on the tech sites the last day or so. London’s Berkely Hotel is offering some of it’s guests a special 3000$US room rate that includes a well stocked iPad for use during your stay. “When the iPad comes out in the UK later this month, the hotel will offer the iPad to its guests staying in certain suites during their staLast weekend marked the introduction of an iPad in the suites, which are offered for reading the daily newspapers, or visiting the local attractions as chosen by the hotel’s Concierge. This comes after another hotel chain, the InterContinental, started using iPads in hotel lobbies across London, New York, Buckhead Atlanta and Hong Kong, to give directions for nearby venues and attractions.” (gizmodo)

Is it cheaper to buy your own iPad? Yes. Will this lead to iPads as a commodity? I hope so.

Ah. A celebration. Today is Steve McQueen’s birthday and in honor of him NOWNESS delivers a photo essay on his romance off screen. “In 1956, Steve McQueen was just another good-looking village beatnik, studying at the Actors Studio and dabbling in theater. Then he crossed paths with Neile Adams on a Manhattan sidewalk. A rising Broadway star, Adams was known around town as beautiful, sharp, independent and driven. Their chemistry was immediate and electrifying, and they connected over their troubled childhoods: Born in Beech Grove, Indiana, Terrence Steven McQueen came of age in a boys’ reform school, while the Manila-born Adams survived a POW camp in the Philippines. McQueen drove her on the back of his Triumph and introduced her to the village scene of the 1950s, the coffee houses, poetry circles and speakeasies.”

Reviewed in yesterday’s NYT, the FDR Suite Restoration Project at Harvard University. It’s a fascinating premise – exposing turn of the century college life through a period room and not just any period room, President Roosevelt’s room – even if it isn’t entirely new.

The website hits a personal nerve. While a graduate student, my then girlfriend (now a highly decorated doctoral candidate in Cambridge) produced a thesis on dorm life in women’s colleges. Her focus was on Smith, and we ended up spending some time researching male counterparts. That this room was FDR’s hardly matters, it is wickedly indicative of upper crust scholastic life during the period. And, as such a rich and wonderful addition to some other fantastic house museums surrounding campus (including the Longfellow home).

Nothing has built the idea of the dorm room as snapshot of college life as fully as the FDR Suite Restoration in digital form, and in my humble opinion it is a fantastic public history outlet. Spend a little time with it over the weekend and take a trip to Harvard, circa 1900.

From the people that brought us ROOT, Art in the Age presents The Farm.

Philadelphia boutique Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has taken on the mission of restoring a 200-year old, 72-acre farm in New Hampshire. Opening on February 5, 2010, The Farm documents through anecdote and object daily life on the property. The new initiative is spearheaded by former Philadelphian turned farm manager Robin McDowell.

On the farm, Art in the Age explores the production of its own organic produce, as well as fostering local partnership and undertaking new conservation projects. Running through March 21, 2010, The Farm presents the plans and progress made in New Hampshire at the Philadelphia flag ship.

Certainly something outside the norm of the average store initiative.

Art in the Age is located at 116 North 3rd, Philadelphia, PA.