Mini-Celebrities I Want to Meet in Paris

It’s one of the cool things about living in big cities, the awareness that at any moment one of the people you know by name and face- but have never met before- might be just around the corner.

I’ve got a few people that I’m thinking of reaching out to when I return to Paris, in the hopes of meeting.  It’s a short and eclectic list, but true to me.

If you’re familiar with me (or my Instagram habits) the lack of ‘French Girls of Instagram’ might surprise you, but they’re really more people whose style I admire- it’s hard to want to meet them knowing relatively little about their interests and personality (beyond shared tastes in bathing suits, jeans, and sweaters).
But I wouldn’t say no to a patisserie with Sabina Socol, any day.

So who’s on the list?

• David Lebovitz: I recently finished reading L’Appart and the story of the author’s harrowing journey to owning a Paris apartment really resonated with me, in terms of expatriate growing pains.  And as a big fan of home renovations, I’d love to hear more.
• Rosie McCarthy: Speaking of expatriate growing pains, Rosie’s youtube channel, Not Even French, is a recent favorite discovery of mine.  In her videos, the native New Zealander discusses the surprises (both good and bad) of life in Paris.  She seems like such a lovely person, and I can only imagine how interesting (and informative) a talk with her would be.
• Paul Taylor: I may have shared one of Paul Taylor’s videos in the past, because they’re quite funny.  He’s a British comedian responsible for the What’s Up France?/What the Fuck, France? series.
• Jessie Kanelos Weiner: Jessie Kanelos Weiner is the writer and illustrator of Paris in Stride, a gorgeous book for the dedicated flaneuse (me) who wants to explore Paris. It’s currently hiding in my Mom’s closet for my July 25th birthday.  Sometimes she holds watercolor classes.  And I really want to attend one!

You may have noticed that this list is super expat-heavy.  This isn’t because I have no interest in native Parisians… so much as I think expats subconsciously strike me as being much more approachable.  Parisians have notoriously close social lives and with expats, I have the benefit of a shared language (frequently) and similar experiences.

Mid-week Links

It seems like every time I’ve been posting recently it’s been prefaced by an apology about my lack of consistency.  I’m here again and again with another excuse- you would think being homebound with a bad ankle would lead to more posting rather than less, but instead I’ve just generally been very off my game for the last week.  Thankfully I’m starting to shape up and am more or less ready to rejoin the land of the living/productive, which is good because we’ve got some family trips lined up which I would never for the life of me be missing.
But that does also mean I’m unlikely to be posting consistently for another week and a half.  The boondocks of PA doesn’t even have phone connection, much less WiFi.
See you on the other side!

In the meantime, I’ve amassed a hideous army of motley links from around the interwebs.

Why so many posts about Instagram?

• Intimidatingly stylish Insta-kids. I do not follow these small people but I do have to say that Jayde Robinson looks like the cutest thing ever.
• Is ‘personal taste’ being replaced by an algorithm?
• The Call Me By Your Name x Monet mashup you didn’t know you needed. Summer vibe.
• Some pretty art photos.

Peace and Acceptance:

• “It’s two years after Pulse and too little has changed.”
• On Polyamorous relationships.
• 7 LGBTQIA stories to celebrate Pride

On Films:

• The trouble with Hollywood’s gender flips: “These reboots require women to relive men’s stories instead of fashioning their own. And they’re subtly expected to fix these old films, to neutralize their sexism and infuse them with feminism, to rebuild them into good movies with good politics, too. They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals.”
• The Pop Culture Detective strikes again! The topic: Abduction as Romance.
• The Hate U Give. This looks pretty great.
• What is Cinemascore?

Miscellaneous:

• Real men smell like flowers.
• Testing the new Glossier cloud paints on different skin tones. Dawn looks pretty amazing on darker skin, IMO.
• My personal kama sutra.
• There’s a garden on top of Fenway (how did I miss this?!) and the truth about New Haven’s masked boombox man.

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Friday Links 5/18

Happy Friday! It seems like a pretty good day 9a bit nippy) and I’m looking forward to some exciting doings this weekend.

How about you?

• Why does gender-neutral fashion so often mean typically masculine clothes? The problem with Abercrombie’s new gender-neutral collection.
• Perfumer Ruth Mastenbroek: “I had to memorize more than 2000 ingredients.”
  I feel you, Ruth.
• Well, this is attractive.
• The trailers for The House that Jack Built (Lars von Trier, viewer discretion advised), Bohemian Rhapsody (Yay Queen!), and Blackkklansman (Because Adam Driver is amazing always).
• What a bizarre animation. Potential propaganda for No Shave November?
• The Cumberbatch demands equal pay for female co-stars. I knew there was a reason I liked his strange alien face.
• Black hair, a built in political statement whichever way you slice it (or wear it, I guess).
• Mother’s Day just passed so 2017’s baby name statistics have finally been released. Check out the names that have returned to the charts after years of absence (meaning there were given to less than five children a year) and the most popular names by state (the geographic breakdown is really interesting).
• The incredibly personal dress Thandie Newton wore to the Cannes Solo premiere.
• I found myself nodding in agreement through this entire four minute segment.
• GQ’s amusing send up of some recent photoshop snafus (not naming any names!). What a great way to celebrate the comedy issue.

Links 4/29

It’s been in some ways an absolutely awful day but I’m still pretty content.  To explain the first part of that, I was fueled by food poisoning sometime around 2 am last night and my stomach is still feeling pretty tender.  On top of that, I wasn’t able to find the perfect plantings for my garden urns.  I’m thinking maybe nasturtiums.
To explain the latter part, it’s the birthday of one of my best friends and I got to see her for the first time in what feels like forever.  And in spite of my relative nausea, hanging out and catching up was lovely.

I’m enjoying Middlemarch, A Quiet Place was fantastic, and seeing the Art in Bloom exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday was beautiful and completely brought out my inner elderly white lady.  But what can I say, I love flower shows and I won’t deny it.

I have a scarcity of links this week, and you can decide if that’s good or bad!

• Allure on women in the fragrance industry.  Like fashion, its a business led by men that caters largely to women.
• Certain scents are found to reduce dogs’ stress levels in animal shelters.
• A list of things that intimidate me. Oddly relatable. What would be on your list?
• Self-discovery comes in all shapes and sizes.
• Scientists discover an enzyme that can break down PET plastic.

Truly, that’s all I have. It’s pretty shameful.

BUT

The yoga retreat has been picked!
*drumroll*
RADIANCE SUTRAS FLOW
Man am I ready for some ecstatic dance

I mean, not right now, because I have food poisoning, but in general.

Links 4/07

I hope you had a lovely Saturday. I took a forty minute detour to claim a vegan cinnamon roll, visited the Louvre’s special Delacroix exhibition, and ate a pizza (also vegan).
Keep an eye open for an upcoming ‘best vegan pizzas in Paris’ post. The sequel to the Boston edition- we’ve relocated.

So here’s what’s happening on the interwebs, carefully avoiding the trend for snorting condoms.

• The city of lights from the sky
• I’m fantasizing less about these outfits and more about the swoon worthy descriptions of spring weather
• Body glitter is now the only appropriate use for the Kira Kira filter. I am entranced.
• What happens when you add illustrations to those random snippets of overheard conversations
• I would stay here– books and beds are the only things I need in life
• For it to really be Paris he would have an accordion
• Infernal Affairs and The Departed– for me The Departed wins because Boston, but I have yet to see Infernal Affairs (it’s been on my list SO LONG) so that’s not worth much. It does look excellent, doesn’t it?
• If you’re a Royal Wedding fan, maybe you want to enter this social media contest to suggest its defining ice cream flavor?
• The unstoppable rise of veganism, about which I have mixed feelings (more people want to eat my cinnamon bun but more places sell vegan pizza).
• The benefits of a plant-based diet for health and the environment.
• Congrats to Yale and congrats to Nathan Chen.
• An interview with my favorite makeup artist
• A follow up on the Orientalism inherent in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, and in the broader world of American cinema (with a very interesting segment on 2015’s Met Gala theme).
  “It’s Japan purely as an aesthetic — and another piece of art that treats the East not as a living, breathing half of the planet but as a mirror for the Western imagination.” And perhaps the only thing that will lead to a more fair, just, and equal portrayal of Asians in cinema and pop culture is the spending power of that huge sector of the world population.
• Turkish Rondo in finger snaps
• Molly Ringwald reflects on the problematic legacy of John Hughes movies in the era of #MeToo

Links Actually on Friday: 3/23

I’m getting out a links post actually on Friday, pre-classes, pre-full-day-of-smelling-synthetic-raw-materials.

• Welcome to space. Meet Steve.
• Congratulations to John Oliver (and best wishes to Marlon Bundo and Wesley).
  Love is love.
• …There’s going to be a live-action Lady and the Tramp.  Can someone please explain why CGI counts as live action? And can someone also please explain why, in general?
• The beauty and power of fandoms. Read it for the first, introductory segment alone.
• A super interesting read on the ‘brand-influencer power struggle’. An examination of the rise of Instagram influencers and bloggers as fashion personalities, how they’re compensated, what it means, and how it’s changing.
• Honest Trailers does it again.  On the slate this week: every Wes Anderson movie. One of my pet favorite directors and they get his idiosyncrasies so right.
• “Visitors are encouraged to create drawings, one of which will be interpreted into a personalized Diptyque scent.” Diptyque is opening an interactive shop in Soho! I’ll have to visit once I’m back in the US (because lord knows there aren’t enough Diptyque shops in Paris).  Don’t want to miss out on the fun? You can also submit online.
• “I will insist on my grandchildren referring to me as Grandmamá, with extra emphasis on the á.” All the Glamorous Things I Will Do When I AM A Rich Old Lady. Honestly- goals. But also, don’t wait! Get that Burmese python now! Or, you know, perfect your posture).
• Roland Mouret on his scent preferences and his newish perfume, Une Amourette.
• Olivia de Havilland, 101, alive, and very much kicking. I watched In This Our Life, featuring her and Bette Davis, this week while studying. Not the best movie ever but watching them was like visiting two old friends of mine.

Links for the two test week

It’s been such a week so I’m just going to throw some links on here and run. Seriously, right from vacation into double killer exams.  When it feel like a long week and it’s only Tuesday you know you’re in trouble.

But I bought my flight home, wheee!

• A children’s book to teach about the huge and overwhelming emotional spectrum. Hooray for raising emotionally literate and empathetic children.
• It’s Luckyscent’s 15 year anniversary- and they’re welcoming some cool store exclusives!
• This instagram account makes beautiful patterns from everyday objects. One step up from freakebana?
• My favorite Oscar speeches!- Guillermo del Toro and Frances McDormand (I just watched the latter again (for the fourth time? Still so powerful. #InclusionRider).
• I shared an essay about Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon a week or two ago- and he seems pretty charming in person. And he has a cute belly.
• Wait, are they going to make a film from Chekhov’s The Seagull? Because that would be amazing. Also, how many films is Saoirse Ronan in this year? Also Annette Bening.
• Heartwarming story of the week: A tiny little girl transfixed by the National Portrait Gallery’s portrait of Michelle Obama meets her idol.
• My favorite, sent to me by my college roommate (whose birthday was yesterday, Happy Birthday, Lily!)- the largest ever analysis of film dialogue by gender. It reminds me of how my Mom has stopped watching films exclusively about white men (she made a recent exception for Call Me By Your Name) and now finds that most films she watches are about black men. The lack of substantial female roles in the film industry is really astonishing.

Links 2/17

A links post with a one day delay. I’ve officially started on a two week break (but can’t get too excited because we have two exams the week we get back) and I’m debating whether I should go to The Catacombs today or take a joint trip to Maison de Balzac and the Monet Marmottan Museum. It’s a rough life full of hard choices.

• Yara Shahidi was on Stephen Colbert, is turning 18, having a voting party, and is an amazingly well-spoken individual. I know it’s a cliche to say this, but we need more people like her in the world.
• In spite of my issues with The Shape of Water, I do think it’s a bit unfair to sum it up as ‘the film where the woman has sex with a fish’. That being said, someone designed a dildo inspired by Fish God. You can find anything on the internet and this is why we don’t deserve nice things.
• The inspiring knitwear of Prabal Gurung’s Fall 2018 collection.
• The Obamas’ official portraits have been unveiled at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. They’re both pretty amazing, both from an historical and artistic standpoint.
  Buuuut: here’s a counterpoint and a deeper reading.
• Wisecrack on how Monty Python shaped modern comedy (via postmodernism, the comedy of the absurd, and political satire).
• A thought-provoking personal essay about an ‘accidental wedding dress’ and accepting that life rarely/never comes with the closure of a settled and final happy ending.
• Similarly, this comic on the numerous ways to fill your heart and live a meaningful and love-filled life.
• A surreal video of a very fluffy doggo swimming underwater.
• The Louvre has created a Valentine’s-inspired Pinterest board. I’m particularly in love (no pun intended) the Antonio Canova’s sculpture of Cupid and Psyche.
• I’m not planing on watching the newly reimagined/animated Peter Rabbit film ever, but there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle about a scene involving food allergies. I don’t think there’s much to be upset about but part of the reason I am steering clear of the film is that even from the trailer it struck me as being crass and mean-spirited. And I wasn’t even a Beatrix Potter kid.
• And… a Disneyland social club is being sued for using ‘mafia-like’ intimidation tactics. What even is this world and what are people? Watch out for the White Rabbits or you’ll be swimming with the… flounder?
• Reaffirming my goal to spend less time on my phone and computer.
• I didn’t cry at this animated short, but I won’t lie- it did give me the feels.

Saturday Links (and an aside on pastry)

I am indeed more sane today! It’s amazing what a Chipotle burrito can do to pull back together the resolute American spirit.

And as goes my stress- I had my favorite pastry and a beautiful pear for breakfast today, went to the pastel exhibit at Petit Palais that I was looking forward to, bought a few things that I’ve been searching for (for years), and have a classic financier tucked in my desk for breakfast tomorrow (with a persimmon and maybe some chocolate (?).
So what is a classic financier I hear you ask? The almond one. My bakery had a pistachio-chocolate one (half and half), the almond, and a cherry one.  How does one choose?
Well, I like fruit in pastry, but I usually have fresh fruit with my breakfast (I stole an excellent pear from my landlords today) and didn’t want to be outfruitied.  And then I was considering pistachio, but when I got there realized I wasn’t feeling chocolate.  It’s always best to start with the classic anyway.

So life is good.

Here are my links

• 5 Questions You Should Ask at Your Next Job Interview: Honestly these are so excellent (and reassuring given the underway-ness of my internship search. I’m prepared.)
• The stigma around therapy for mental illness. Such a great essay. I remember opening up and deciding to be upfront about my anxiety and anorexia in college. I continue to be and it’s made my life so much better.
• The nominations for the Dorian Awards, presented by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, are so much more interesting (and in line with my preferences) than the Golden Globes ones. Check it out.
• Freakebana: the art of arranging random shit. There’s a (beautiful) instagram for everything.
• More #art. By which I mean a hilarious food instagram account.
• I’m so glad they did Black Narcissus on Alicia Malone’s Classic Film Club. One of my favorite movies ever. Extra points for the male love interest’s short shorts and for the pushy pony photobombing at the end of the film.
• The value of “white space” in your daily routine. Okay. But how much white space do you really need? Because I feel like I need A LOT.
• Barack Obama; cool dad (but not as cool as mine).
• Women’s Freestyle Vaulting. It’s like someone took a peek into my awesome imagination.

Last Links of 2017

Happy New Year’s (Eve) depending on where you are!

This is the last selection of links for the year of 2017, and it’s a blessedly short one.

Do you have New Year’s plans? It’s been bitterly cold here in Boston and will continue to be so tonight, so my evening looks like a cuddly warm stay at home affair. If I manage to stay up past 9:30. Jet lag. It’s still real.

• Speaking of 2017 (good riddance?) a parting look at all of the random pop culture moments you may have forgotten. Including the Sesame Street cover of Despacito.
• MovieBob trashes The Greatest Showman and I’m here for it.
• Other things that I’m here for? This beautiful collection of Italian cuisine-themed jewelry designed by Alison Lou. The collection name? Mama Mia.
• The importance of female creators in the niche perfume industry.
• The Reasonable Toddler, an adorable/hysterical series of illustrations by Lucy Kinsley.
• This Last Jedi training featurette (no spoilers) makes me want to be a badass.
• Loving Angelica Dass’s work (see top image). Here’s her Ted Talk.