About Design Shrine & Ty Wenzel
Hello, I’m Ty Wenzel, author (Behind Bars: The Straight-Up Tales of a Big City Bartender, St. Martin’s Press), Web Developer/Hosting Provider, Home Decor fanatic and architecture buff. In my past life (the late 80s and 90s) I was a freelance fashion forecaster, fashion coordinator for Bloomingdale’s and a fashion editor for Cosmopolitan magazine in New York. I studied Fashion Design in New York.
I started Design Shrine (the blog) as a place to save my favorite blog posts that I find interesting, web development ideas and shopping arenas where modern, retro and all beautiful things come together. As time went by, people started asking me for advice on home decor, how to’s and so forth - thus this blog sort of took off.
This blog is made up of my own posts (Featured stories, Best Of, Style for Under $100, etc.), but a lot of our posts are also from some of the best resources on the internet. So instead of looking through thousands of blogs about style, trends, etc., you can just come here and see what I’ve found to make life easier for you. I update daily, travel extensively in search of style and research like a mad-woman.
If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear it!
Ty Wenzel
Design Shrine
Howdy, Ty
I’m reading your book, also My Kind of Place by Susan Orlean. I just finished My Life In France by Julia Child.
I found your book in the non fiction section of the library while researching whisky and spirits. A great find. You have a great talent of stiching the attention of the reader into the fabric of your story. Your humor and character and insights are imbibing, heh.
I don’t drink. I don’t go to meeting, or preach sobriety. Consistuency is a value in my life and I can’t maintain both worlds.
Hi Max — Thanks for reading my book! It was a difficult time when I wrote it, having just ended my bartending career and having a newborn. I hope I didn’t come off as too surly (lol) but if Anthony Bordain can do it, so can I, I figure. I didn’t sugarcoat any of my experiences… it is what it is. My main objective was to capture the Bowery before the gentrification of it took permanent hold. It was a wonderful, crazy place. I was glad I was part of it. And having not served a drink at a bar in a long while now, I am not as bitter - but somehow, yes, it is true, I do miss it.
Consistuency is a good thing
xo ty
Howdy TY
I finished your book - Behind Bars. It is provokingly insightful! I don’t know how you kept your head above it all to put it down so well.
I think you are like all of us, if we wonder what’s going on, and why are we invested here. In your case the big ball was rolling, you chased it down, and kept it in play - for ten years.
You’re a beautiful young lady with a lot of salt… As John Fogerty sez, “Keep on Chooglin.”
Hey again, Max!
Golly, so sweet of you to read my book and contact me here. I have to admit, writing Behind Bars was trying. I had just finished over a decade in bartending, was bitter beyond belief, had a newborn and sleep-deprived the whole time. It was hard. If I had to write it over again, I doubt it would be quite so jaundiced, but that was then.
I’ve been asked to write a sequel of Behind Bars, but in the Hamptons, where I tended bar briefly. I just couldn’t do it for another decade for literary fodder. Even though I thought by now I’d be missing “the life.” As fun as it was, I don’t miss it one bit!
xo ty
Howdy Ty
I suspect tis isn’t the forum you want to communicate with strangers… but it is raining to beat hell outside< I found a site you might be interested in - or probably, know about- it’s the Abobe Media Player. It has reams of digital design stuff.
Why does your peeps avatar have tape on it”s mouth,heh?
max
Hey Max,
The avatars are automatically generated, I’m afraid, since I don’t have an avatar system in yet.
Yeah, I’ve been to the Adobe Media Player site - I do use their exchange system where you can download lots of stuff. Especially for photoshop!
Hope you’ve been well!
ty
Thanks for the kind words and links to // BarryBlog //. I have just discovered your blog and have some catching up to do. Take care Ty.
Hey Barry — Thank you! Your blog is very inspirational to me and I love to share the love. Have a wonderful summer and keep up the wonderful work!
xo ty