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 5/11

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 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

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.

Links from the USA

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I arrived home yesterday afternoon and am super jet lagged and being treated to a very New England ice storm.

It’s excellent.  We’re going to see The Last Jedi tonight and I think my excitement will be such that I will stay awake.  I’ve heard lots of interesting things about it but have so far avoided any spoilers.

I have a healthy (and scented!) collection of links this week!

• Quentin Bisch on “a journey to dreams and emotions” and what it means to be a Givaudan-trained perfumer.
• Why perfume descriptions are never about smell (hint- it involves the close link between fragrance and memory)
• The Cult of Le Labo Santal 33. I think it smells like cucumber.
• Zoologist has some new releases– I think Camel sounds very appealing.

The year-end photo compendiums are coming in, here are two favorites…

• The Most 2017 Photos Ever
• The Most Hilarious Wildlife Photos of 2017

On the fashion front:

• What did happen to jeans in 2017? Honestly, whatever it was, I kind of liked it.
• An Instagram account I’ve started following, which gorgeously marries art and fashion/cosmetics.
• Finding one’s sense of style really is a personal journey. I don’t think I could truly define my style beyond ‘things that make me happy and that I like wearing’.

And the more miscellaneous:

• What did you learn this year? I loved reading the comments.
• The Ocean’s 8 trailer has me excited.
• Pantone’s Spring 2018 color trend forecast.
• Some great gift ideas for francophiles (ahem, me) via My Little Paris.
• Excited to see Swing Time on this list of the world’s coolest playgrounds. It inspired me to search for Imagination Station and discover that it was in fact a thing and not just a figment of my childhood imagination. Now that was a playground.
• This clip of the original Fantasia just blew my mind.
• Keeping the NYC Vogue scene alive.
• How to wrap a cat.

Late (Again!) Links

No preamble. Down and dirty style.

• Fortnum & Mason has a superbly beautiful (and fittingly spendy) Rare Tea Wooden Advent Calendar. All I can say is “GIVE ME THAT FUDONG WHITE PEONY KING!!”
• Remember dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail? Well, now it’s a computer game and you can be a yoga instructor.
• As a seltzer lover, I came to the right place.
• Just some photos of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the only celebrity couple that has ever mattered.
• Can we move my next raw materials exam to 9 pm?
• This might be my favorite HONY post ever. This man is the person I aspire to be. I’m ready to be illumined.
• I want this book.
• Sephora’s got a cool new campaign featuring its own employees.
• A quick video with Charlotte Olympia, she of the near-masterpiece footwear (plus bonus puppies!).
• Call me crazy, but I like What’s Happening Down There.
• Find someone who spits water on you the way Jon Stewart spits water on Stephen Colbert (and vice versa).
• Do you play that game where you imagine the stories of strangers you see? If so, this is the Instagram account for you.

Yesterday in Paris

I spent yesterday in Paris and I have to say that it was truly one of the best days I have had on four hours of sleep (the other one being that time our flight to Florida was delayed but we still spent the whole next day at MGM/Disney Studios Hollywood/whatever they’re calling it now).

So the agenda was as follows:

• I went in around 11:30 am, got in a bit after noon and went to the Grand Palais to see the Irving Penn photography exhibit that I missed when it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It was really excellent and I’m very glad that I went. I kind of glided over the photography I was less interested in (the close up portraits of cigarette butts, for example) but I was really into the portraits of artists (Colette! Joan Didion! Always DTF Truman Capote!) and the beautiful nudes (which Facebook subsequently made me take down (free the nipple)).
• After about an hour and a half with Irving Penn, I met Luis (a fellow ISIPCA student) and had a very refreshing Perrier while he had lunch.
• And then we went to the Le Grand Musee du Parfum, which was super cool and overlapped a lot with things we’re learning in school- particularly the historical aspects. It helps that the professor who went through perfume history with us is on the artistic board/board of directors/I’m not sure what for the museum.
• The gift shop had some lovely smelling opportunities, which were continued when we visited Jovoy, a niche-oriented perfume shop that wasn’t too far away.  Another student (Oliver) met up with us there. (My favorite thing I tried was Romanza by Masque Milano, but I already new I’m very into it, so no big new discoveries.
• We went back to Gare St Lazare, stopped at Jo Malone on the way to try to get Luis a sample or Orris & Sandalwood, failed, and then made the trip home to Versailles.

Late Links 9/16: Let’s do this thing!

Hi! Let’s do a quick rundown on my personal life since last Friday links post. I’ve moved to France.

That was shorter than I expected it to be.

Last Friday in America: 9/8

Fuck, that’s scary.

Lots of links, though!

Friday Links: 6/30 Edition

I have a lot of exciting news to share that I can’t share yet because not everyone in my physical life knows the news yet- but stay tuned for a thrilling announcement.
On a less significant but still exciting note: I won $150 dollars off of Dad this morning. It’s been a good day.

Other news: I’m away this weekend and into Tuesday, being back Tuesday night and possibly posting again on Wednesday. So a short hiatus, in honor of Independence Day and family visiting.  So instead of checking in here, do enjoy your barbecues and illegal fireworks, popsicles and movie nights with the family.

Other other news: I’ve been very excited by the growth of the blog in the past few months, and you may remember that last month was the first that views exceeded 1.0k.  This being the last day of the month, you may be interested in an update of the blog views- with 2 more views we will breach 1.0k yet again! Which generally does happen in a day, statistically. But it is early and presumptuous to celebrate, so again stay tuned for Wednesday for the final word.

Now back to the actual links game that we play every Friday: