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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Links 6/15

Hi hi hi. I missed the links post last week not because I didn’t have enough to share, just from pure laziness.  So it’s a bit heavy on the links today, but I have broken them down into bite-size and easily digestible categories.

Trailers:

• Robert Redford looking fine.
• How toTrain Your Dragon is trilogy-ing (!), and this time there’s a lady-dragon!
• Jamie Lee Curtis is back for a Halloween sequel!
• Doggies! Apparently service dogs go through intensive training and aren’t just born being helpful little angels?
• I’m considering a post detailing all of the ways the Tim Burton Dumbo trailer is a crime against the original.
• The next installment in the universe of The Conjuring.

Father’s Day:

• A wince-worthy compilation of Dad Jokes.
• The New Dad: What the evolution of stock photos shows about our changing understanding of paternity and parenthood.

Identity:

• On avoiding the box and embracing your multi-faceted self.
• Body positivity is selling you something.
• Raising a feminist (with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Trevor Noah).
• The stifling nature of masculinity today.
• Kate Spade’s Death and suicide contagion
  If you or a loved one or a general acquaintance is struggling with getting through, please reach out to or for help. We’re all in this together.

Miscellaneous:

• How ASMR became an internet phenomenon.
• This Parisian restaurant only lets you in with a baby or a bump.
• I’ve been following this illustrator for a long time and now she’s selling some of her prints of Etsy!
• Bumblebees use scent and color patterns to tell flowers apart.

Links 6/4

Due to a weekend-trip hiatus (NYC was great, thanks), this links post is a bit later than usual.  Coincidentally, many of these links seem to have a bit of an LGBTQ theme.
Happy Pride!

Let’s get the smell stuff out of the way first:

• Auklets are a bird species in which males demonstrate fitness not only by very fancy and sexy crests, but seemingly also by emitting a strong tangerine scent, research finds.
• Study finds that activation of a certain smell receptor speeds the progression of prostate cancer, suggesting new treatment methods via blocking of the receptor.
• Department stores reevaluate traditional beauty and fragrance marketing techniques as the beauty industry changes.

All the feels:

• One of the best things about the cultural shift toward acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles (beyond thousands of people being able to live their truth) is the uptick in adorable stories like this.
• This animated short made me cry.
• If babies wrote travel reviews, too funny.

Film thoughts:

• You may have hard of the Post-Western- are we living in the age of the Post-Hero?
• DC vs Marvel action scenes (and why Marvel’s are so much better). Despite not being a fan of either company, I thought this was a very interesting analysis.
• The Power of the Vampire Myth
• Why Solo isn’t doing as well as previous Star Wars films.

Current events:

• A comedy bit about Mamoudou Gassama, France’s immigrant hero (but mostly about the French).
• Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and my own interracial relationship.

Odds and Ends:

• The ‘twink’ controversy: Why can’t black men be twinks? and Can men be objectified? A response to the ‘twink’ controversy.
• Mental health is a journey: five lessons learned from treatment.
• How to get ride of clutter
• Two lovely children’s books: Prince and Knight and Julian is a Mermaid.
• Oh no.

Second Birthday and Links 5/25

WordPress tells me the blog turned two today, which is adorable and I had no idea.  As such, I have nothing more celebratory than the regularly scheduled Friday links post, rampant cramps, and a beauty hangover from seeing La Sylphide last night.

• The Eat Drink Vegan festival in Pasadena, California is tomorrow. It looks great fun and maybe someday I’ll go!  (If that’s too soon for you (as it is for me 😉 ), the Salt Lake City VegFest is on September 8th.
• USPS is releasing popsicle scratch-and-sniff stamps, just in time for summer. By the way it’s getting up to 88 Fahrenheit here, today.  I think I may need a real popsicle.  It’s good that there’s some vegan Peanut Butter Mud Pie ice cream in the frigo.
• How RuPaul’s Drag Race is broadening the horizons of what it means to be gay in America.  I don’t watch the show but I have a few friends who are absolutely devoted to it. I’m so glad it exists.
• So you want to date a New York Museum?
• The twin trick
• A smorgasbord of trailers I’m excited about: The Happytime Murders (all street, no Sesame), Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Mr. Rogers is iconic- and yes, I understand those two trailers shouldn’t be anywhere near each other), Hearts Beat Loud (so sweet!), Fireworks (from the makers of Your Name), and a Pope Francis documentary.

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.

Friday Links 5/11

Happy Friday and Happy Mother’s Day weekend!
Do you have any plans?
In a few hours we (my parents and I) will be going up to Belfast, Maine to spend the weekend with my Aunt Susan and Bill, whose mother owns an alpaca farm.  There will be alpaca shearing, vegan food, and tactful discussions about Infinity War without mentioning to movie fan Bill (it’s so nice to be around other movie fans) that I never plan to see it.

I’ve been reading a lot, falling behind on the films I have checked out from the library, gardening for hours a day, and enjoying the springly weather. I also cooked some interesting pancakes yesterday so that  have foods when I return next week. I will report back.

What’s happening on the worldwide web?

• Speaking of movie people, this film looks like it could be amazing. Also really excited for The Seagull, an adaptation of one of the few Chekhov pieces I’e actually read.
• A beautiful essay that I’m at a loss as to how to describe.
• The Duchess of Northumberland sounds like a fun lady- she created the garden at Alnwick Castle, possible the deadliest garden in the world.
• How does Deadpool always win the promotion game? This is genius.
• One of the greatest things about being back in America is the access to SNL’s youtube uploads. I know the main story (DESERVEDLY) is the release of This is America by Donald Glover- but let’s not forget about the Barbie skit.
• #MeToo and Junot Diaz: Cycles of victimization and victimizing, sexual harassment, celebrity and race.
• When two celebrity ladies (internet fashion personae?) give birth in close succession and get together to share their experiences with the early days of motherhood.
• I love this Public Place Meditation Guide– it’s very closely related to some wisdom my mother shared with me years ago: practice seeing the divinity in everyone around you.
• A mathematical model may explain how two brains agree on the experiential profile of smells.
• Possibly the most charming interview I’ve ever seen. I think I may have just fallen in love with all three of these men.
• Have you liked any pages created by Russian bots?Ask Facebook.
• A complex algorithm predicts the likelihood of final season Game of Thrones deaths. Bye, Daenerys.
• An amazing photograph. I love whales.

Links Friday: Not So Much

Again a pretty light Friday but at least it’s actually a Friday this time!
The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow and I went to the beach twice this week, as it’s the only reasonable place to be when the weather is over 80 degrees.  And I finished Middlemarch this morning.  Very exciting.

And say to my new beluga desktop background.

• Vacation inspiration from the ever-fabulous Tracee Ellis Ross.
• There’s a Reformation store coming to Boston!
• From Crystals to Horoscopes: The Rise of Spirituality in a Skeptical World.  The intersections of wellness, spirituality, and woowoo stuff always fascinates me.
• This film looks super cute.
• Need some self-care reminders? @tinycarebot has you covered.
• On DwtS, Adam Rippon cha chas to RuPaul’s Sissy that Walk. It’s pretty good (although their connection could be better ;P )
  And Mirai’s salsa.
  No, I don’t actually watch Dancing with the Stars.
• I’m a fan of this style of girl names. What would you pick for this couple?

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 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.

Links on a Monday

My links are 3 days late and I haven’t been posting but GUESS WHY !
I’ve been on a field trip.

More details coming soon.

• “We all harbor the knowledge, however covertly, that we’re going to die, but when it comes to small talk, I am the angel of death.”- What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party, by Kate Bowler (a woman struggling with Stage IV cancer)
•  Game Over, Man looks terrible. But I kind of want to see it. ‘So bad it’s good’ potential?
• Speaking of ‘So bad it’s good’, do I need to watch the Oscar-nominated Boss Baby? Wisecrack just did a video on it’s ‘accidental’ philosophy, which I found really interesting.
• Some pretty jewelry– I’m particularly attracted to the thin gold chokers.
• I Had to Break Up With My Career Coach
• A hysterical survey of the problematic history of black actors dying (often first) onscreen. And congrats to LL Cool J!
• There is no snack more appropriate for the Me Too Generation than a chip that tells women to eat more damn quietly. Good job, Doritos.
  Will there also be a super-crunchy ship so that we can all be alerted when a Real Man is eating?