Welcome! About Lara:


  • Link to her bio, photos, rates and information for clients

    Known as Refined Beauty and described by some as a "modern-day Courtesan", Lara is a travel, play companion and lover to high profile gentlemen around the world. She was recently interviewed in the UK Sunday Times (Style). Her blog entries have been featured on Gawker, GridSkipper and Hotel Chatter.

Link to Lara:


Travel blogs roundup: Central Park and a helmet cam

When I am somewhat quiet here, it usually means I'm up to something :) But I will share some exciting new adventures with you on the week of the 21st, and launch a new hotel photo album next week.

Meanwhile, Jet Set Blog joined the travel blog network at Blogads, a group of some of the best independent travel blogs on the web. Check out some of this week's headlines from other travel blogs on the network:

How to Fall in Love with the Biggest City in the World in Just Two Weeks (Travel Blogs)

Central Park - Fall Foilage (A Guy in New York)

SportVue MC2 Head-mounted Display (Treknologies)

Bratwurst cart at 54th and 5th wins Vendy (NewYorkology)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

Not for the shy ones...

Sofitel_bathroom A reader of the blog forwarded me an interesting -- to say the least :) picture of a New Zealand hotel bathroom from Queenstown Sofitel.

It looks like the décor made the news last month but I somehow missed it (the link will launch a video from a local news channel) Hmmm, maybe I've watched a bit too much Lord of the Rings, but it sounds like something I would have expected to see in a Reykjavik nightclub rather than a New Zealand hotel :)

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

Halloween costume

Goldfinger I hesitated posting about it since the "costume" is easily recognizable... There is a catch however -- this may be my costume this weekend, or it could have been my costume from a previous year. I won't be any more specific than that ;)

And yes, although I am no golden girl, I briefly became entangled into someone's "web of sin" a while back without even realizing it. Fortunately there was no kiss of death :)

Lyrics

Goldfinger
He's the man, the man with the Midas touch
A spider's touch

Such a cold finger
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in

Golden words he will pour in your ear
But his lies can't disguise what you fear
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her
It's the kiss of death ...

From Mister Goldfinger
Pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold
This heart is cold

Golden words he will pour in your ear
But his lies can't disguise what you fear
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her
It's the kiss of death ...

From Mister Goldfinger
Pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold
This heart is cold
He loves only gold
Only gold
He loves gold
He loves only gold
Only gold
He loves gold

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

Better late than never: travel picture update

I promised several weeks ago I would upload some pictures from various 2005 trips starting from Amsterdam, London and Mykonos.

The pictures were taken at Amsterdam's Supperclub, The Dylan, Notting Hill Carnival in London, and the streets of Mykonos. You'll also read about The Dylan, that happens to be my favorite Amsterdam hotel, in an upcoming interview. Shhhh!Shhhh

Stay tuned!

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

Some thoughts on movie studios and piracy

(Quote) A recent study by Student Monitor LLC, which tracks trends on college campuses, found 67% of undergraduates are either "in favor" of downloading pirated music or movies, or find it "acceptable because everyone does it." And it's not just kids -- the head of one music label privately admits his father uses Mr. Johansen's program to duplicate rental DVDs "so he doesn't have to pay late charges."

Jon You got to love those studies. Particularly when they get rehashed by the Wall St Journal on its October 15 article about Jon Lech Johansen, the famous Norwegian hacker responsible for the release of the DVD decryption tool DeCSS 6 years ago.

I am going to be provocative as usual and argue this whole piracy talk is a scam. Why? Because the emerging business models in digital media will make piracy obsolete. The ball is already rolling: if you can subscribe to Netflix for less than $20/month, and Yahoo Music for about $5/month will someone please explain to me where is the incentive for piracy?

Emma pointed out to me the real reason the big studios are crying wolf has more to do with politics: they are seeking to aggressively position themselves so they can sell the SAME content several times. Once for mobile entertainment, another time for the home, and so on and so forth.

I once asked a senior media executive (who was also my lover) why they don't sell platform-independent consumer licenses to movies rather than actual, physical DVDs or other media. He replied: "are you crazy? We want to be able to re-release our old libraries every time we adopt a new format: from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray to whatever!"

They basically want to sell you the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies again and again and again... Oh wait, that's probably a bad example since Lucas and Peter Jackson already do that by continually adding deleted scenes and digital effects :)

But I think the flat rate model for entertainment will eventually prevail just like it did in the telecom field. But that's another subject for another day!

Hmmm... Come to think of it, maybe I should start considering a flat rate for my clients ;)

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

Emma's introduction

by Emma herself:

Lara is my closest female friend. I am a techie as well and met her several years ago during the Silicon Valley tech boom. We clicked. We started to bond because we found ourselves navigating a male dominated industry. We discovered our personalities were complementary and grew closer together. She is like a sister to me and I've been her confidante almost since the beginning of her escorting career.

We've joked about having me contribute to her blog but I was always a bit skeptical. For one, although I am attracted to adventure, I don't have Lara's lifestyle and tend to live vicariously through her. However, I decided to accept Lara's invitation to join the blog with one condition: no censorship in situations where I may appear somewhat critical of her choices :-)

I know her more human, sensitive and private side. Her emotional ups and downs. Her real world dating stories, outside of her "Lara" persona. Those are comical at times! Like her dinner date at Cru a few weeks ago with a famous NYC socialite who, unaware of her secret life, found her lacking in "drama". I told her she should interview for the CIA :-) Of course it didn't help she chose to talk about the Santa Fe Institute during their main course! Lara, you should have known better! I swear, she is such a nerd sometimes! But so am I... You can only imagine what happens every time she visits me in San Francisco!

We also do fun stuff together. Like the $250 black tie de Young gala event the other night. Or our trip to the Black Rock desert for the Burning Man festival back in 2004 where Lara tried psychedelic mushrooms for the first time (she didn't tell you that, but she didn't mind me telling you either)

Speaking of Burning Man, I filmed a giant Tesla Coil in action during Decompression, the annual post-BM event in San Francisco the other day. I wonder what happened to Dr MegaVolt. I haven't seen him around in years. His shows were always spectacular. The clip was edited by Lara and is available below as a Quicktime file.

It's kind of exciting contributing here after being a passive reader all this time. I look forward interacting with you all. Just keep in mind I am not an escort :-)

Emma.LD at gmail dot com

Tesla_coil

de Young Gala Opening in San Francisco

I flew to San Francisco Friday evening to join my friend Emma for the gala opening of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The museum officially opened to the public Saturday. It was designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron (regular readers may recall my November 2004 blog post about their extraordinary work for the Dominus winery in Napa). Their de Young design was somewhat controversial but I believe it will integrate organically into the surrounding gardens when the museum's copper surface becomes oxidized. Kind of like an old machine left in the garden...

Anyway, I'll return at some point in the near future to appreciate the art without the crowds (and without being handicapped by the champagne!)

Until then, I wanted to share with you Emma's short video of the Cirque du Soleil midnight act from Friday's gala. The performance was in front of the giant photographic mural commissioned from German artist Gerhard Richter (I believe the mural's cost was around $1 million)

If you have already visited the de Young, please feel free to share your opinion below.

See you again later in the week! I'm also trying to convince Emma to contribute to the blog since she is my best friend and confidante... I figured if I announced this in advance I would have a better chance at twisting her arm!

Jet Set Lara, exploring the Science of Pleasure ;)

30 sec Quicktime de Young Video:

Deyoung_gala

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