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“... each step of the way I think it was a combination of luck, (because in this industry that is like winning the super heroine lottery), but I think that it was Super talen ted... multi faceted... accomplished polyglot ... a combination of being very scrappy and very determined and continuing to hammer at every little crevice I could get into.”

Tasya Teles

By Annabelle Jacoban Photography by Jovon Robers

Tasya Teles is a powerful female role model.

Although she is currently tackling the film industry, she contributes to a number of other spheres. From the business and tech industries to discussions of climate change, women’s rights, and education, Teles has a voice in each.

The actress is perhaps best known for her role as Echo in the CW series The 100, but she is also set to star in the upcoming series Shoresy, coming to Hulu on May 13. It may be surprising that acting wasn’t always on Teles’ radar. Before she decided to tackle the film industry, she was interested in the tech and business industries, receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Finance.

Despite growing up with a passion for the arts and humanities, Telese explains “I thought I would balance myself with finance because I felt that women–that’s one of the areas that we can have more growth in. To understand finances and be able to have those discussions and plan oneself with the knowledge of finance and money is really important.” Even as a teenager, Teles was able to recognize “male dominated” industries and the ways in which they could benefit from the inclusion of women. She claims that “money is power, so I’ll have a voice if I can live in that world.” Shortly after speaking with NY Moves, it became abundantly clear that Teles is concerned with the ways in which women

impact our world, and the root of that lies in educating women. She claims that “it’s really important to talk about education, especially education with women. One of the best tools that we can equip ourselves with is going to school and getting educated.”

One may wonder where Teles’ interest in the tech industry came from. Like many aspects of Teles’ life, she was influenced by her mother: “my mom was one of the leaders in the online space.

In the early 90s/in the late 80s, she did one of the first, or the first, online education course in the world… So we grew up in a very tech house.”

As a result of her mother’s interest in the tech field, Teles notes that she “became a coder and a little bit of a hacker,” a “culture” she describes as being “a bunch of rebels.”

While her mother played a key role in her interest in tech and business, Tele’s mother also instilled core values into her, allowing her to be both a critical thinker and incredibly compassionate.

“My mother is an academic, she’s a world traveler. I grew up traveling the world, but she has really championed and instilled education, curiosity and exploration. She’s kind of endowed me with wisdom and ways of thinking about things differently, being compassionate and curious, which I think is really important especially right now.”

Sometimes curiosity and being a critical thinker, though a blessing, leads us to have insecurities

...SERIOUSLY

s

“... ometimes curiosity and being a critical thinker, though a blessing, leads us to have insecurities because we are hyper aware of everything around us, and we naturally want to question everything... the worst catch-22. It’s like you know that on the other side of this discomfort is comfort. because we are hyper aware of everything around us, and we naturally want to question everything.

Teles speaks to this, calling it “the worst catch-22.”

She notes, “it’s like you know that on the other side of this discomfort is comfort. That part of growth, which is discomfort, is where all the joy and creativity lives because that’s where you find out more things about yourself. That’s when you can see more and you’re curious, and yet we’re all so resistant to it.” This goes back to Tele’s discussion of “the culture of the hacker.” Perhaps hacking became such an interest of Teles’ they are rebels in their field as a result of being curious and critical thinkers. Teles picks up on the ways in which having these qualities can lead us to being seen as “rebellious,” but these are all experiences that contribute to our personal growth. This is perhaps the most valuable insight Teles offers (and there are many!), as this speaks directly to the ways in which change-makers may only succeed if they are “rebellious” rule-breakers. Whether one is becoming a hacker, forcing their way through a traditionally male-dominated industry, or making moves in the film industry, they are bringing about change by disrupting the very foundations that hold them back.

There is something to be said for how young Teles is and how much wisdom she was able to bestow upon us in a mere hour-long interview. The actress is only 37 years old, and is somehow so wise, with a firm grasp on the many layers to the human experience.

Perhaps we may all learn something from Teles’ discussion of personal growth and the ways in which it is the discomfort that holds the “joy and creativity” of life as well as the possibility for personal development.

Despite pursuing a degree in finance and having extensive interest in related fields, Teles decided to tackle the film industry, as it was a new outlet for which she could further explore herself and others.

“Going into acting humbled and humanized me a lot more than I anticipated. I came from finance, and then as I decided to tackle acting, which felt like this giant elephant, I was like “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” But I did and it really introduced me to learning about yourself and how to deal with your emotional systems, your emotional body, your triggers, and also how you have compassion

for other people.” She tells us that this became apparent in her undertaking of the character Echo: “Echo was a ruthless assassin…I’m looking at her and I’m like “How do I connect with that? How do I play her honestly with no judgment?” It brought me into learning about and exploring child soldiers and how they get taken from their families and are forced through this world of violence. That made me have compassion for Echo and it expanded my compassion for acting, taking on characters, and the beauty that it brings to be an actor and really live in someone else’s shoes.”

It is clear that Teles is deeply interested in connecting with other people in every aspect of her life. From finance and the markets, which she claims is “a reflection of emotional states,” to acting and better understanding oneself through the portrayal of another person, Teles is always looking to connect with other people. She claims “that is my biggest passion: connecting with people, challenging people to be curious about themselves and open up, and bring people up…I think every single individual is a mentor–by how you live and the way you act and how you go about your life, you’re just setting examples everyday through your life choices. It’s important to carry that integrity and that awareness–there’s a generation that’s following us and I think people have forgotten that.”

Teles seems to suggest that perhaps having such an interest in the lives of other people and wanting to connect with others is an innately feminine trait: “It’s that estrogen, it’s that connective hormone that we have so much power. Connecting with each other and utilizing it and using each other to grow is the only way. I’m constantly looking for ways to do that more and more and more. When you find like-minded people, then you continue to create that momentum.” Connecting oneself with others and having the compassion to care deeply about other individuals facilitates a sense of community, which is important in any regard but especially amongst women. Using the power within other women as well and your own power to uplift yourself and each other is deeply profound, and a lesson that is perhaps much needed given the current state of women’s rights in The United States.

... but so Laid Back... super cool and... sexy

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contents

profile tasya teles 006 cheers absinthe 018 feature putin 022 feature bitch 026 rant nyc re-invention 030 dish futon fever 034 profile billy howle 036 profile kendra cunningham 042 cover story leslie bibb 046 feature 056 profile tom pelphrey 058 profile karen fukuhara 064 event 2021 power women gala 070 event diversity awards lunch 081 profile eyeglasses 104 LESLIE BIBB IN NYC

BY SPENCER HEYFRON cover credits: Suit: DSquared2 at Cloak Body Chain: Erickson Beamon at Showroom Seven Ring: The Little Things NYC at Flying Solo Scarf: Alexander McQueen

opinion

Watching The River Flow

WITH OUR CAMPAIGN SEASON SEEMINGLY NEVER ENDING, IT SURELY IS TIME TO AIR OUT OUR OLD ILLUSIONS AND PAY HOMAGE TO THE ALPHA FEMALES IN OUR LIVES. OR CAN WE MAKE THE RE-ASSESSMENT TO CHANGE OLD STEREOTYPES FOREVER. The stoop conversation has been a prominent episode during my New York years. I’ve been drunk-and-then-some on stoops reliving drunk-andthen-some college episodes, had dialogues with a cigarette while trying to rationalize living in a city with stoops, and I’ve quit a job or two on a stoop.

A few weeks back, when it was still warm and stoops were underneath the ambiguous drops of an overworked air-conditioner, a coworker and I shared some words on our romantic statuses. It seemed that we had both encountered and become involved with persons who desperately clung to the maintenance of some (perhaps excessive) distance between themselves and us. For him, someone I considered a tried-and-true New York bachelor, it was frustrating that a woman, after months of steady courtship, was desperately moving the situation at an emotional snail’s pace. I, likewise, was being confronted with the insistent rejoinder that my interest and I were nothing more than friends, friends, friends.

Now I have heard it from more than a few female acquaintances that they, like my male friends, are quite content living the life of a bachelorette in the city, and I suppose I’ve accepted that there is, with both sexes, a personality type that demands to be left alone in romantic terms. I think what was most shocking was that I was watching one stock character be confronted with his own previously held-to rationale and that the person forcing this upon him was, in fact a girl. He, now, was in the classically vulnerable position that we grow up thinking is reserved for the female of the species.

I don’t mean this as any insult. I grew up, as much of our generation I think, with television that in some ways clung to the idea of the gallivanting man and the women longing for commitment and stability. We also still had, to an extent, stay-at-home moms. This hold-over from an earlier time has, simultaneous with our ageing and urbanization in New York, given way to something different. Here and now, men and women both equally yearn for a relationship or yearn for casual sex or yearn to be left alone. So is that what felt so strange about hearing this quasi-confession from a man on a stoop in the L.E.S? Was it just the conflict of two generational ideas meeting within one mind? The situation is complicated even further by our other interpersonal relationships: friends who warn against getting tied down, jobs who want us to sacrifice every minute of our lives to better the company (and thus advance our own standing), apartments that are not conducive to private anything. It’s these stress factors that seem to most readily lead to our game-faces, the ways we outwardly oppose ourselves to getting involved.

The game-face is supposed to convey power and stability. It is outward appearance that may betray how we feel inside, but is meant to maintain a sort of dignity. In its name though, you get a more realistic glimpse into what, exactly, we use said face for. It’s a game after all, and being named such, it is detached from reality. How truly useful is something so completely false to our actual sentiment? At the same time, a nation of 300 million visibly frantic folks is not all that desirable either. As a waiter you smile your way through bitchy cubicle-dwellers and French tourists on one of their 8 months of holiday. With our significant others the game-face is to seem interested-enough but not overly into-it. At least this is what everyone tells you.

Everyone, at one point or another and regardless of their integrity, has used the game-face. As a society, in fact, we demand it and demand it

most of all from our celebrities and politicians. Likewise it has come to the point in time where men and women equally share the responsibility of maintaining their outward composure in the public, and to varying degrees, private setting. And while it is employed for differing reasons and to gain varying advantages over our fellow men and to save ourselves from more humiliating defeats, the game-face is at a point where it is causing problems far greater than the ones mulled over by my friend and I on an August stoop.

The whole manner in which we’ve allowed these things to progress is defined by a play of visible and verbal expression, forming an outwardly projected image of a country so wary of the rest of the world that as a nation we’ve taken Lady Liberty on as visage of aggression. And this does, socio-historically, stem from established notions of masculinity. The strangest thing about our current opposition party is that it has adopted a caricature of manliness - and that includes the women: we dole out freedom-bravado across the world because it is the “noble and right thing” while our militaristic actions somewhat belie such a strong and steady masculine hand. These actions are, in fact, nearing hysterics; and this, as I was taught in some highbrowish college film class, is typically reserved for the feminine role.

It is no irony whatsoever that we are currently witnessing the renegotiation of the game-face within our political landscape and that perhaps palpable outrage and emotion directed in appropriate channels and at legitimate villains are not so bad. In light of the male-dominated history of the game-face, is the revolution against it going to be led by women? I think the nonsense of the past years has quite nicely opened up a space in which a more in-tune female sensibility could solidify our nation’s outward standing. While America once reserved hysterics for its women in film and psychology, these men (and some women) we now live with have demonstrated quite the opposite: that rage and vengeance must always be checked against the safety of a greater good and true justice. Who better to dole out justice, anger, and safety than a woman. My mom always reserved her wrathful face for the most desperate transgressions of her authority and this usually involved some quarrel turned brawl between my brothers and me; does this not seem like the most reasoned use of the game-face? Does it not preserve the integrity and initial purpose of the game-face better than its constant employ ultimately diminishing its effectiveness?

This is not to say that the games we play with our faces are to be discarded. In a very base historical survey we can see a rich history of societies decking their warriors in masks so as to ward off those wishing to do them harm – the Met has rooms full of this stuff. But there are no warriors anymore, people don’t take the masks off in many respects and, hey, are we looking to be like the greedy bastards in Twilight Zone Season 5, episode 25, “The Masks?” American men have spent too many decades addressing the world with their game-faces; we’ve spent too long toying with the emotions of women, other men, and other nations with a resolve to not let any glimpse of vulnerability or emotion. Like my friend on the stoop and the revelation that a women was playing him back in this manner, is it not an ideal time to rethink the ways in which we, as a society, glare out from stoops playing ceaseless games with screwed up faces?

By Kyle Valenta

mamoonah ellison PUBLISHER

richard ellison

EDITOR IN CHIEF

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ART DIRECTOR

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cheers

“Absinthe, I adore you, truly!

It seems, when I drink you, I inhale the young forest’s soul, During the beautiful green season.”

Raoul Ponchon 1848 - 1937

French poet & friend to Rimbaud,

Absinthe is an anise (liquorice) flavored drink named after the plant, Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood. The plant ranges from two to four feet in length with grayish green leaves, yellow flowers, produces a strong odor and is quite bitter in taste.

Wormwood has been mentioned throughout history, from the Greek physician Galen in the second century A.D., to several places within the bible, and has been known primarily as a medicinal aide for various ailments.

It is allegedly believed that modern absinthe was created by a French doctor by the name of Pierre Ordinaire in 1792.

Fleeing from France during the revolution, he settled in the small village of Couvet, in western Switzerland. Finding wormwood growing throughout the Val-de-Travers region, he began experimenting with his own version of an absinthe elixir. Using wormwood, and various other herbs like: anise, hyssop, dittany, sweet flag, Melissa (a kind of mint), he created an extremely popular drink that was used as a general cure-all and was given its infamous nickname, La Fee Verte (The Green Fairy). As it turns out, the Henriod sisters had been selling absinthe as early as 1769 as a medicinal elixir in Switzerland before Dr. Ordinaire had even arrived. Yet it was the good doctor that made the drink well known and was the first to promote its wide spread use.

In 1797, a Major Henri Dubied bought the Henriod sisters’ recipe and started a small, eight by four meter distillery in Couvet with his son Marcellin and son-in law Henri-Louis Pernod. In 1805, Pernod opened a larger absinthe factory/distillery across the Swiss border in Pontarlier, France, thereby creating the first distillery of an anisebased liqueur in France.

From 1844-47, French soldiers fighting in Algeria were given

rations of absinthe as a fever preventative (mixed with wine or water, absinthe was believed to kill microbes). Subsequently, upon the return of thousands of soldiers to Paris, they brought their taste for anise with them to café’s and restaurants. By the turn of the century, the Pernod factory was producing and distributing 30,000 liters of absinthe all over the world. By 1910, France consumed 36,000,000 liters of the green drink a year.

With the rise of absinthe consumption throughout Europe during the 19th and 20th century, particularly throughout France, a Bohemian cult like status arose around the drink thanks to it being romanticized (as well as consumed) by arrays of writers, poets, and artists throughout Paris and other cultural hubs throughout the world.

Artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Lautrec painted several pieces in hues of green and portrayed absinthe drinkers (from women to homeless drunks on the street) and the drink itself in different mediums.

Writers like Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dawson, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Marie Verlaine drank insatiable amounts of the seductive drink and wrote about its ability to create intense levels of drunkenness (and supposed hallucinatory states of enhanced perceptions and experiences) in their poetry, stories, and novels.

Although absinthe did contain high levels of alcohol, between 50-70%, depending on the specific recipe used, it did not cause hallucinatory effects, as many rumors had endorsed over time. The chemical thujone (a convulsant, harmful in high doses), found in wormwood, did not actually cause psychedelic effects and was not as harmful and or toxic as doctors and prohibitionists believed it to be.

Nevertheless, absinthe became the first drink to specifically be

outlawed by different countries.

The Swiss banned absinthe in 1910. In 1912, the United States made absinthe illegal as well. In 1915, the production, circulation, and sale of absinthe was made illegal in France. Today, the sale and production of absinthe is highly regulated by the European Union based upon thujone levels and several distillers have found loopholes in the marketing of absinthe in order to avoid legal problems (in France, a liquor marketed as absinthe is still illegal but with a different name the producer is free and clear). Yet absinthe is still illegal in the United States.

The production and importation of absinthe that contains grand wormwood is illegal, yet the possession and or consumption of absinthe in the United States is technically not a crime.

Set an old fashioned but simple absinthe glass on the bar with a slotted steel spoon balanced on top and an imperfect cube of brown sugar gently resting in the center. Then slowly allow about an ounce worth of Absynthe Camargo, (a Brazilian absinthe that is 54% alcohol and contains a legal amount of thujone and a species of wormwood that is legal to sell within liquors in the United States) to drip slowly onto the sugar, spoon, and into the glass.

The absinthe is then lit with a match, with a lovely blue glow that enhances the deep green liquid sitting at the bottom of the glass. Water is then dripped onto the sugar, thereby allowing the bitter flavor of the absinthe to become somewhat diluted with the sugar’s sweetness.

What’s left is a strong, anise flavored drink that certainly gives you a decent buzz and a sense of pride in your homage to the Bohemian artists and writers that began a love affair with this sumptuous lady all so many years ago.

By Francis Elman

O

SPENCER HEYFRON WAS born and raised in England, relocated to New York City to pursue a career in photogra- phy fteen years ago while producing portraits—his portrait of Will Arnett winning him a place in American Photography 27. Warm praise from celebrity subjects have included “Who’s the F**king Lumberjack” from Rahm Emmanuel; “That’s some f**king

contributors

t r i b tO rs

TONY GALE is an award wining NYC based photographer, in addition to working with Moves he shoots for a variety of editorial, corporate and advertising clients. He is a Sony Artisan of Imagery, a Manfrotto Ambassador, an X-Rite Coloratti and the APA National President. For fun and work he travels and has been to all 50 states and all over the world.

JOVON ROBERTS is an editorial portrait, commercial advertising, industrial, photographer from a small southern town just a few minutes south of Charleston, South Carolina called Hollywood, SC He’s also an avid Marvel movie fan! C.

SEAN GLEASON was born in Washington DC and grew up in London where he is currently based. He studied photography at the renowned Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and went on to assist many great photographers including David Sims and Mario Sorrenti. He has shot for many of the worlds top publications including Elle, Interview, Vogue, Tatler, GQ.

HANNAH LOPEZ is a 5-star South Florida photographer who specializes in emotive photography. With a strong focus on family, motherhood, and lifestyle.

Hannah brings an elevated experience to her all of her sessions making them fun, interactive, and comfortable.

beard” from Broadway legend Patti Lupone; and “F**k man, you’re quick” from Samuel L. Jackson. Something in Spencer’s persona relaxes people! Must be the beard.

ALISON DYER is a Los Angeles-based photographer best known for her fresh and funky celebrity and studio portraiture. While caring for her horses and goats in her Glendale hills home, Alison lives a fantastically dualistic life with her star-studded shooting assignments and her constant globetrotting.

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© SAIC. All rights reserved.

feature

Mr Putin

By Fiona Hill & Clifford G. Gaddy

WHO IS MR. PUTIN? This question has never been fully answered. Vladimir Putin has been Russia’s dominant political figure for more than a dozen years since he first became prime minister and then president in 1999–2000. But in the years Putin has been in power we have seen almost no additional information provided about his background beyond what is available in early biographies.

These relate that Vladimir Putin was born in the Soviet city of Leningrad in October 1952 and was his parents’ only surviving child.

Putin’s childhood was spent in Leningrad, where his youthful pursuits included training first in sambo (a martial art combining judo and wrestling that was first developed by the Soviet Red Army) and then in judo. After school, Putin studied law at Leningrad State University, graduated in 1975, and immediately joined the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. He was posted to Dresden in East Germany in 1985, after completing a year of study at the KGB’s academy in Moscow. He was recalled from Dresden to Leningrad in 1990, just as the USSR was on the verge of collapse.

During his time in the KGB, Putin worked as a case officer and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1990–91, he moved into the intelligence service’s “active reserve” and returned to Leningrad University as a deputy to the vice rector. He became an adviser to one of his former law professors, Anatoly

Sobchak, who left the university to become chairman of Leningrad’s city soviet, or council.

Putin worked with Sobchak during Sobchak’s successful electoral campaign to become the first democratically elected mayor of what was now St. Petersburg. In June 1991, Putin became a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and was put in charge of the city’s Committee for External Relations. He officially resigned from the KGB in August 1991.

In 1996, after Mayor Sobchak lost his bid for reelection, Vladimir Putin moved to Moscow to work in the Kremlin, in the department that managed presidential property. In March 1997, Putin was elevated to deputy chief of the presidential staff. He assumed a number of other responsibilities within the Kremlin before being appointed head of the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, the successor to the KGB) in July 1998. A year later, in August 1999, Vladimir Putin was named, in rapid succession, one of Russia’s first deputy prime ministers and then acting prime minister by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who also indicated that Putin was his preferred successor as president. Finally, on December 31, 1999, Putin became acting president of Russia after Yeltsin resigned. He was officially elected to the position of president in March 2000. Putin served two terms as Russia’s president from 2000 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2008, before stepping aside—in line with Russia’s constitutional pro-

hibition against three consecutive presidential terms—to assume the position of prime minister. In March 2012, Putin was reelected as Russian president until 2018, thanks to a law pushed through by then President Dmitry Medvedev in December 2008 extending the presidential term from four to six years.

These basic facts have been covered in books and newspaper articles. There is some uncertainty in the sources about specific dates and the sequencing of Vladimir Putin’s professional trajectory. This is especially the case for his KGB service, but also for some of the period he was in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office, including how long he was technically part of the KGB’s “active reserve.” Personal information, including on key childhood events, his 1983 marriage to his wife Lyudmila, the birth of two daughters in 1985 and 1986 (Maria and Yekaterina), and his friendships with politicians and businessmen from Leningrad/St. Petersburg, is remarkably scant for such a prominent public figure. His wife, daughters, and other family members, for example, are conspicuously absent from the public domain. Information about him that was available at the beginning of his presidency has also been suppressed, distorted, or lost in a morass of competing and often contradictory versions swirling with rumor and innuendo.

Some materials, related to a notorious 1990s food scandal in St. Petersburg, which almost upended Putin’s early political career, have been

Vladimir Putin and his Russian Federation have lost the aura of sinister invincibility they cultivated following the disastrous, ill-timed invasion of Ukraine. Not only has the might of the Russian military been exposed as a myth but the idea of a seemingly unfathomable chess-master intellect has also gone, exposed by the total misreading and miscalculation of the Western World’s cohesive reaction to this aggression. We re-print this earlier assesment of the Russian president by two acclaimed experts on the subject that show not everybody was taken in by Putin’s apparent glasnost.

expunged, along with those with access to them.

When it comes to Mr. Putin, very little information is definitive, confirmable, or reliable.

As a result, some observers say that Vladimir Putin has no face, no substance, no soul. He is a “man from nowhere,” who can appear to be anybody to anyone. Indeed, as president and prime minister, Mr. Putin has turned himself into the ultimate political performance artist.

Over the last several years, his public relations team has pushed his image in multiple directions, pitching him as everything from big game hunter and conservationist to scuba diver to biker—even nightclub crooner. Leaders of other countries have gained notoriety for their flamboyant or patriotic style of dressing to appeal to and rally the masses—like Fidel Castro’s and Hugo Chavez’s military fatigues, Yasser Arafat’s ubiquitous keffiyeh scarf, Muammar Qaddafi’s robes (and tent), Hamid Karzai’s carefully calculated blend of traditional Afghan tribal dress, and Yulia Tymoshenko’s ultrachic Ukrainian-peasant blonde braids—but Vladimir Putin has outdressed them all. He has appeared in an endless number of guises for encounters with the press or Russian special interest groups, or at times of crisis, as during raging peat bog fires around Moscow in 2010, when he was transformed into a fire-fighting airplane pilot.

All this with the assistance, it would seem, of the Kremlin’s inexhaustible wardrobe and special props department.

THE KREMLIN SPECIAL PROPS DEPARTMENT Mr. Putin’s antics are reminiscent of a muchbeloved children’s book and animated cartoon series in the United Kingdom, Mr. Benn. Each morning, Mr. Benn, a non-descript British man in a standard issue bowler hat and business suit, strolls down his street and is beckoned into a mysterious costume shop by a mustachioed, fez-wearing shopkeeper. The shopkeeper whisks Mr. Benn into a changing room.

Mr. Benn puts on a costume that has already been laid out by the shopkeeper, walks out a secret door, and assumes a new costumeappropriate identity, as if by magic. In every episode, Mr. Benn solves a problem for the people he encounters during his adventure, until summoned back to reality by the shopkeeper. At the start of every episode a spinning Reprinted from Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin

wheel stops at the costume and adventure of the day.1 The Mr. Putin(s) pinwheel we use for the book cover is a tribute to the opening sequence of Mr. Benn.

Like his cartoon analogue, Mr. Putin, with the assistance of his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov (mustachioed but without the fez), and a coterie of press people, as if by magic embarks on a series of adventures (some of which oddly enough overlap with Mr. Benn’s). In the course of his adventures, Mr. Putin pulls off every costume and performance with aplomb, a straight face, and a demonstration of skill.

Vladimir Putin and his PR team—which closely monitor the public reactions to the Mr. Putin episodes—are aware that these performances lack universal appeal and have sparked amusement at home and abroad at their elaborate and very obvious staging. But Russian intellectual elites, the Russian political opposition to Mr. Putin, and overseas commentators are not the target audience. Each episode of Mr. Putin has a specific purpose. They are all based on feedback from opinion polls suggesting the Kremlin needs to reach out and create a direct connection to a particular group among the Russian population. Press Secretary Peskov admitted this in a meeting with the press in August 2011 after Mr. Putin dove to the bottom of the Black Sea to retrieve some suspiciously immaculate amphorae.3 Putin himself has asserted in biographical interviews that one of his main skills is to get people—in this case the Russian people, his audience(s)—to see him as what they want him to be, not what he really is. These performances portray Putin as the ultimate Russian action man, capable of dealing with every eventuality.

Collectively, they have been one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin has consistently polled as Russia’s most popular politician for the best part of a decade.

circle of about half a dozen individuals, all with close ties to Putin, who have worked together for twenty years, beginning in St. Petersburg and continuing in Moscow. Real decisionmaking power resides inside the inner circle, while Russia’s formal political institutions have to varying degrees been emasculated.

Within the system, Mr. Putin has developed his own idealized view of himself as CEO of “Russia, Inc.” In reality, his leadership style is more like that of a mafia family Don. Everyone is interdependent, as well as dependent on the informal system, which provides access to prestigious positions and a whole array of perks and privileges, including the possibility of self-enrichment. The enforcement of rules and norms is based on powerful reciprocal ties and threats, not on positive incentives. Core individuals collect and amass detailed compromising material (kompromat in Russian) that can be used as leverage on every key figure inside and outside government. Mr. Putin the CEO has not been the executive of a transparent public corporation. He has operated in the closed boardroom of a privately held corporation, with no genuine accountability to anyone outside the inner circle. The corporation’s operating style is now in question, however. Since the Russian parliamentary (Duma) elections in December 2011, members of the public have taken to the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities to assert their rights as stakeholders and demand that Putin the CEO be held accountable for the failings of Russia, Inc.

As the PR performances underscore, the political system Putin has built around himself as Russian president and prime minister is highly personalized. Its legitimacy and stability are heavily dependent on Putin’s personal popularity. The Russian economic and political systems are private and informal. A small number of trusted figures around Mr. Putin, perhaps twenty to thirty people, make the key decisions. At the very top is an even tighter inner

After Putin first became president in 2000, the tight inner circle around him created an array of mechanisms—like Putin’s PR stunts— to construct a feedback loop with Russia’s diverse societal and political constituencies and keep a close eye on public opinion. Putin and his political system derived legitimacy from periodic parliamentary and presidential elections, but otherwise the Kremlin closed off political competition. The Kremlin did this by aggressively championing a dominant political party, Yedinaya Rossiya, or United Russia, by controlling opposition parties and by marginalizing especially charismatic independent politicians or other public figures.

Mr. Putin also deliberately usurped the agendas of nationalist and religiously motivated political groups that could provide alternative means for public mobilization.

by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy,

Brookings Institution Press.

PERSONALIZED POLITICS

“... I’m happy to get the comment and the random flame emoji

bitch

under my photo. Anything for a confidence boost! But please don’t try to convince me that you’re offering me an actual opportunity. We both know the drill....”

Enough is enough already

To the accounts that comment on every one of my posts, “Collab?

DM us heart eyes emoji”, please stop. Are you a part of a pyramid scheme? Are you a robot? Is there a genuine human behind that username? I’m not sure and you give no clue as to which it is. Look, I’m happy to get the comment and the random flame emoji under my photo. Anything for a confidence boost! But please don’t try to convince me that you’re offering me an actual opportunity. We both know the drill. You’ll ask me to be a brand ambassador, and will compliment my personal style. You say that if I become a brand ambassador I’ll get free clothing. I say yes.

You explain that by free clothing, you mean a discount code. I look at your site, it’s more expensive versions of clothes from Shein. I apply the discount code and it’s still twice the price of the Romwe version. I slowly ghost you and you continue to ask me to recruit other girls. I’m very thankful for the compliments but I’m not looking to be a #girlbos

maggie, marketing, Brooklyn

T h ey f * * * yo u u p yo u r mom & dad Since when did young children and teenagers in this country become so disrespectful and downright rude. Hearing the way kids these days talk back to their parents with absolutely no regard is simply appalling. Furthermore, the way young people interact with adults today in general is fundamentally wrong. Adults should not be yelled and or cursed at by teenagers or young children, ever, no matter what the circumstances. Now, I was spanked and occasionally slapped by my parents when I was younger for various offenses, most involving talking back to my mother and fighting with my little brother. I gradually becam e a respectful, courteous, fully functioning adult. Don’t get the wrong idea, I do condone situational corporal punishment, such as mild spanking, when verbal scoldings just aren’t working. I don’t think abuse is ever appropriate in any facets of society, especially in terms of child rearing. But come on New York parents, take back control of your kids and their mouths, and don’t be afraid to put your hands into it if it comes to that. They’ll grow up into much better adults if you lay down the law early, if it causes the shedding of some tears.

Molly, retail, Brighton Beach

2022 Mad Men

I just put my French friends on their plane home after their very first visit to the US and one observation they made (out of literally dozens ) about life here is why we have so many mainstream broadcast TV channels devoted to adverts. It seemed to them that the programs were about the ads and any fillers inbetween the ads were just that.. fillers.

From first thing on the morning shows to late night chat shows it is one long stream of selling selling selling. They didn’t understand that capitalism is the be all and end all of life in the US and everything has to bend the knee to the almighty dollar.

Or more accurately making money. Everything has to make a the biggest profit possible or is deemed a failure.They seemed to think that life is to be enjoyed, lived in the moment under the most advantagious conditions.

That all living things have a place on earth and should be allowed to share it equitably. Poor misguided fools. Where’s the big house and new car in that? They also made the point about actors playing out real situations to prove the efficacy of the products being pushed. mmmm.

Martine, clinician, Tribeca50

“... I have this reoccurring dream from which I wake up, screaming, in a cold sweat until I realize that it was only an illusion, and no, I actually am not on line at the post office.... “

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover It’s so weird interacting with lovers of loving past. I always find myself on this weird fence of am I going to be a dick to them because they really hurt my feelings and should give them a taste of their own medicine… or am I going to be nice to just be nice? Because once it’s usually done, I’m not one to really revisit, so am I boring and nice so that we can be cordial face-to-face?

Seems like the right choice, but that’s so boring and meek. I like the spicy idea that they are unsure if I’m okay with them or not. I like being ambiguously sassy. But then I feel petty and childish sometimes. It’s just so weird! I don’t know what to do. It’d really just be better if they didn’t contact you months later.

That would be the polite thing to do.

Because, really, what are they trying to get out of being nice to you/ hitting you up again?

Cerese, fashion, Sunset Park Little Things Please Little Minds I try to be a good, tolerant New Yorker. I don’t get too annoyed on the train when people bump into me, fall asleep on me, cough on me... it just comes with the territory. But there is one thing I’ve noticed more of that I think needs to stop. Over the last few months, at least twice a week some lovely person has been testing out, at full volume, every single ringtone in their cell phones.

Now, if it’s a little kid doing it, I understand. Parents have to use any means necessary to keep children occupied, and sometimes letting them play with the phone is the easiest option. But adults? On a train full of sleepy commuters?

Toby, photog, SI Postman Pat Is there a certain place that you always have to go to that makes your blood boil just thinking about? Well for me, that place is the post office.

In my opinion, going to the post office can be compared to selling your soul to the devil. I have this reoccurring dream from which I wake up, screaming, in a cold sweat until I realize that it was only an illusion, and no, I actually am not on line at the post office. It’s not that the service is bad, I love my postal carrier and the people who work at the windows are perfectly friendly and charming. But the process of waiting on the neverended line, the sheer aggravation that is so slow and draining needs to be improved. The trip to the post office should not be like weekly jury duty.

“Still Getting The Vapors Dear ?”

Summer’s Eve and men used to share the same mentality: “Hail to the V.” When did they abandon us?

When did women suddenly become Internationally known as Public Enemy Number One? Did you know that sexual assaults have their own set of statistical analysts? That’s what we’ve been reduced to, statistcs. A collective mass of numbers on a screen instead of real people. But men love their numbers. It makes them feel logical.

And women, we love our words. That makes us emotional right? “Unfit” to make rational decisions. Before legitimate medicine was invented and the ethical conduct of doctors was enforced, the quacks used to diagnose our unexplainable behavior as hysteria.

Modern day men are still attempting to tackle its most deadly symptoms.

Women considered to be suffering from hysteria exhibited a wide array of symptoms including sexual desire, fluid retention, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and my personal favorite “a tendency to cause trouble.” In extreme cases the woman would be forced into the asylum and under go surgical hysterectomy. Basically, the only options for women suffering from acute PMS were invasive and involuntary surgery or to be sent away until the crazy went away. Funny how history repeats itself. Because the way I see it, not much has changed.

Hortense, dancer, East Village Got a letter for us? Send it to bitch@newyorkmoves.com OR snail mail to: Moves PO BOX 4097 Lexington Ave New York, NY 10163

rant

New Year New York New You !

By Hallie Smith We moved to New York for all sorts of reasons. But if we have one thing in common, it’s a desire to reinvent our lives. And ultimately, reinvention is not about becoming someone else: it’s about becoming one’s self-- expressing desires and dreams in new ways that for one reason or another we could not, or did not, do before. That takes guts, strength and most of all independence.

They say if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. But that infamous “it” is a pretty big thing; its not just money, or career or image. That “it” is an entirely new life. It’s more than material, it’s a new you, which happens to be the real you. There’s a great line in a Jeanette Winterson novel: “What you risk reveals what you value.” Well, you value independence and you’ve risked the comforts of the past in order to achieve it. Knowing you can do this is its own reward and you are all the stronger for it. You’ve learned the risk of being alone is less than being with the wrong person, and you realize being single at 30, while old friends are married and raising families, has its rewards.

Reinvention, after all, is rooted in intuition, trusting your own voice (which at times might be all you have to rely on) and following it. Reinvention also means breaking with convention. You’ve decided to follow your own path and there’s no turning back now. Soon you realize you are changing and old insecurities and habits begin to fade. You are becoming a new person, more confident, and your independent life reflects that.

So it’s all going well until the holidays arrive and suddenly you realize your reinvented self has no plans.

Even the strongest of us can begin to compare our newly emerging independent lives against the Hallmark card notion that being alone in December is a sign of an incomplete life. By spending the holidays alone, you are somehow missing out on middle-America’s dream of security and convention—the very state of mind you thought you’d left behind in order to pursue your own kind of life. There can even be a strange desire for hauling a Christmas tree into a Manhattan apartment that was never designed for such a thing.

There is also the state of self pity: pacing around a cramped and conspicuously tree-less apartment instead of walking the snowy sidewalks of a city you love or

New York is the kitchen and you are the recipe. And you can add any- and as many - ingredients to your personal dish as you like! And only you know the extra spices you add and what’s great is, nobody else cares. This is NEW YORK CITY! spending a day at a museum. Instead of appreciating the progress you’ve made over the past year, you berate yourself, feeling like Bridget Jones, a woman you never would’ve likened yourself to before you entered this state. Perspective askew, you no longer feel like the new you. Where is she? A sense of inadequacy takes over and you start thinking about how things have not turned out the way you planned and maybe the whole quest for independence wasn’t such a good idea. But wait a minute, this mindset is just that—and it is putting the reinvented you, who’s learned to take pleasure in her new life, the one who is making it in New York, a city full of open and creative individuals, with chance meetings possible at any given moment.

Besides, reinvention will never work when trying to fit a mold that doesn’t really suit you. Reinvention is about improvement, but it’s also about self acceptance. Maybe you are where you want to be in your life, maybe not, but reinvention is a project that’s never finished. The point is that you’re following the path that you have chosen. That’s what a friend of mine calls a luxury problem. It’s not a matter of food or shelter; it’s a matter of what to do and how to spend your time--decisions a lot of people never have the opportunity, or responsibility, to make. Reinvention, you find, requires perspective and instead of feeling lonely you are excited. You lighten up a little. Solitude can be a great teacher and you find it doesn’t have to be so solemn.

So Christmas passes and along comes New Year’s Eve and again you revert. The thought: “but everyone else has a date!” repeats itself one too many times. But what about an alternative to desperately seeing a kiss; what about thinking about what we’re really seeking? What really excites us? The point of reinvention is to lead a more satisfying life. And creating that life doesn’t depend on the social calendar. It depends on visualization, not the “what if I only had?” mentality. The trick of it is better than Prozac: act as if you already have what you want, that you are the person you want to be. This might be the secret

of those who are happy and those who are not, and perspective does alter reality.

That might sound abstract, but physics has found that the way we look at an object actually changes its essence. So, if we look at our life, ourselves, even our time alone differently, these things will be affected accordingly. Who would’ve thought Einstein would be easier than pop-psych?

So, the holidays came and loneliness rang the doorbell and remembering your overaccommodating manners of days gone by, you not only answered, but let it in. But was the visit really that interesting? Is that the kind of company you want to hang around for days on end? Was there anything new to talk about or was it the same, tired out conversation: reruns of dissatisfaction?

Reinvention is about the new. It is malleable and adapts to challenge. Loneliness is ultimately an obsession with what we lack and a way for us to hold ourselves back. It’s seductive, the great distracter inside us, keeping us from seeing what’s out there-- pulling our attention and energy away from the world we are creating, from what we have accomplished, or what we will. It’s like the old friend who doesn’t want us to change. Misery loves company, but we’d decided to dump it and move on. Isn’t that why we decided to reinvent in the first place? Isn’t that why we came from wherever we were to New York, to move our paths forward—to get what we deserve?

And if we’re going to obsess, we might as well obsess over what we want, who we want to become.

At the heart of reinvention is a desire to change, and loneliness is fear in disguise.

The first wants to create and the latter wants to block that creativity. Reinvention is about seeking the open road—or sidewalk—and trusting it will get you where you want to be.

In her essay titled Imagination and Reality, Jeanette Winterson’s words apply again: “There is no limit to new territory. The gate is open. Whether or not we go through is up to us, but to stand mockingly on the threshold, claiming that nothing lies

beyond, is something of a flat earth theory.”

And she’s not talking only about the physical path. The new territory originates from within and imagination is the starting point.

Over the past several years there’s been talk of a new class of people: the creative class.

It’s not limited to writers or artists; it’s comprised of all types who are unified in their pursuit of lifestyles that better suit them.

They’ve followed their own visions and succeeded. Their qualities: guts, strength and most of all independence. Sound familiar?

Those who reinvent themselves also reinvent society. They not only create better lives for themselves; they create culture.

They create diversity. They raise questions about how we should live and find there is never one answer. They induce change.

Imagine what would happen if they were afraid to stand on their own, if they were distracted by what they felt they didn’t have, if they jumped into the sack with loneliness.

And then there’s the tried and true reality check: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Reinvention is ultimately a collective thing.

Individual change is essential for personal fulfillment, but it also works on a larger scale. When people become who they really are, they not only evolve personally; they create great communities. And this island is documented proof of that. People don’t only “make it” in New York, they also make New York what it is.

Despite the pressures of tradition, and its tendency to make us shift into reverse gear, we are moving forward, each of us doing our part.

There’s nothing wrong with Christmas trees and New Year kisses-- but there’s nothing wrong with lighting a candle just for yourself or planting something new under a grow light in your windowsill either. Personally, I go to The Strand on Broadway and look for new literature.

50 United Nations Plaza

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D

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A grand entry foyer and expansive 75-foot living, dining and entertaining area greet you upon arrival to this incomparable trophy home. Deep bay windows of floor-to-ceiling glass and soaring thirteen-foot ceilings provide panoramic views of the East River and Manhattan skyline, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, the United Nations and beyond. A two-story glass wall provides a cinematic backdrop of the Manhattan skyline for the stainless steel floating staircase joining the 42nd and 43rd floors. This duplex home includes a private interior elevator to navigate from one floor to the next with ease.

In addition to the main primary bedroom suite, which occupies half of the 43rd floor, there

are three oversized bedroom suites, two staff rooms and seven and a half baths. The large, windowed kitchen is appointed with Miele and Sub-zero appliances and custom Poliform lacquer cabinetry, making this home ideal for large scale entertaining.

UNPARALLELED OPPORTUNITY FOR A MANSION IN THE SKY There is a rarely available opportunity to combine the 16-room Duplex Penthouse with the nearly 6,000 square-foot full-floor Penthouse 41 directly beneath it, creating a nearly 16,000 square-foot triplex “Mansion in the Sky.” PH42 is asking $39,950,000, and PH41 is asking $18,650,000.

In addition to this offering, there are also a few remaining high floor “Three Bedroom Tower Collection Residences” starting from $5 million.

These half-floor homes are also grand in scale and provide wide-open skyline and river views.

50 United Nations Plaza is accessible via gated entry which opens onto a sweeping private motor court landscaped by M. Paul Friedberg and Partners, and provides an extraordinary level of privacy, security, and beauty. The full-time staff of door attendants, concierges and a Resident

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Foster + Partners is one of the most innovative and highly regarded architecture and design practices in the world, behind such internationally recognizable buildings as the Hearst Tower in New York and 30 St Mary Axe in London. 50 United Nations Plaza has the unique claim of being Foster + Partners’ first residential building in the U.S. Sponsor: (a) reserves the right to make changes in accordance with the terms of the Offering Plan, as amended (“Plan”), and (b) makes no representations or warranties, except as may be set forth in the Plan. The Plan shall govern and control in the event of any inconsistency with the information provided herein. THE COMPLETE OFFERING TERMS ARE IN AN OFFERING PLAN AVAILABLE FROM SPONSOR. FILE NO. CD080279. SPONSOR: G-Z/10 UNP REALTY, LLC, 445 PARK AVENUE, 19TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10022. EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY.

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LISMORE ARCUS Artistry that breathes new life into an icon, the Lismore Arcus range showcases crystal-cut patterning that is inspired by unseen opulent interiors of Lismore Castle. Each fascinating piece embodies the vaulted ceiling architecture and century-old Gothic details. Luxury that is revered over and over, discover tradition with a twist of modernity.

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dish

HOMME

IMPROVEMENT Or how men basically still live in caves, albeit with mod cons

Dear Ashley,

I know I know how old fashioned (but so grown up)is writing an actual letter !! But i thought it would be fun and somehow more real.

New York City bachelor pads are just not what they used to be.

Just that idea- a New York City bachelor pad- sounds glamorous enough to have a rotating bed on a zebra carpet. Of course, I could be picturing Austin Powers, and I may possibly be in a bright red mini and platform shoes.

But anyway. You get my point.

The question is why was it that my main problem was how to get Joe to get rid of his futon? That’s right: futon. Even the name sounds stupid.

“Here look,” he says excitedly, “I got one of these. Now, I can go to sleep but I can also have company over and give them a place to sit.”

I wanted to smartly answer something about maybe a more practical day bed, or why not just get a hammock while you’re at it, but he seemed so earnest and excited I kept my thoughts to myself. I told him that it was a very thoughtful idea. Way to think ahead.

I fell- no, I was tossed- off that damn futon not once, not twice, but three times that night. It was hilarious the first time, but by morning I had already drawn the ultimatum. It was me or the futon. Apparently, it was a lot more difficult decision for him than I initially thought.

Bachelor pads have an ‘always will be free from a woman’s input’. In principle, it is a man’s place to do what he pleases. When he has an idea, especially one that actually attempts to anticipate future activity, it’s a good one and he has to stick by it.

So, the futon stayed. I went. That’s it, off my chest.

Best Wishes, Katy

profile xxx

L L

L

With an intensity and commitment that dominates the screen, this English player seems to achieve the ultimate; the compleat actor.

By Joan Rhodes Photography: Sean Gleason

“... It’s this quite enigmatic amorphous thing, that is constantly changing shape, and you know I have some say in that... ” Billy Howle is exhausted. He’s near London, living out of his bag, a stone’s throw from Islington in Tuffnell Park. Howle is trying to cram in some house hunting before he disappears to Australia to shoot his next film. So he’s resigned to just living with his suitcase for the time being.

Everything is kind of really taking off for Howle in so many ways. “It’s [my journey] this quite enigmatic amorphous thing, that is constantly changing shape, and you know I have some say in that,” insists the Stokeon-Trent, England-born Howle. “I’ve kind of learned to take things in stride and I don’t let things just happen. My ethos is everything is within your control, and that’s what I have to focus on. I’m still sort of excited that the work now is starting to feel a little more tailored to who I am and who I am as a performer.

“It’s all relative because I remember being really hungry, and I’m not saying I’m not hungry now, but, you know, younger actor and the world was my oyster, and everything was new and shiny and exciting. And I’m reluctant to say I’m at all bitter, or whatever. But I think there’s sort of a healthy cynicism that comes with the level of rejection and again touching on the suitcase thing, having to live out of a suitcase for extended periods of time, you become used to it and sort of resigned to it.

But I’m still excited.”

Photography Assistant: Jed Barnes Grooming: Nadia’s

For Howle, that excitement as a performer started in the theater. One of four sons from academic parents, Howle worked in community-based projects involving dance and acting at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England.

After a year at drama school, he enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating there in 2013.

Having appeared at Bristol in The Little Mermaid, his next stage appearance would take him to New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music opposite Lesley Manville in Richard Eyre’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. One year later, Howle would find himself in a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night alongside fellow Bristol alum Jeremy Irons.

On the screen, you’ve no doubt seen Howle before, most recently in the eight episode true crime drama mini-series The Serpent on BBC One, where Howle portrays Herman Knippenberg, the Dutch junior diplomat who played a role in building a case against French serial killer Charles Sobhraj. Howle also played Prince Edward of Wales opposite Chris Pine in 2018’s Outlaw King, Rey’s father in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), On Chesil Beach (2017) and Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull (2018) both opposite Saoirse Ronan, and as a petty officer in the war epic Dunkirk (2017). That tailoring is paying off for Howle, as he currently stars in Infinite Storm opposite Naomi Watts. The film follows an experienced mountain climber who reaches the summit of Mount Washington as a blizzard approaches. After encountering a stranded man, the duo race to get down the mountain before nightfall.

Howle said he was sent a script and it all happened so fast. He was flown to Slovenia. “We’re talking about mountains, a survival story, a rescue story.

And it’s an adventure.” Director Małgorzata Szumowska and Howle got on a zoom and she told him she wanted him in the film. The character he’d be playing is suffering a mental health crisis who is found by Watts. Depression, suicide. Topics Howle does not take lightly. “I think it’s a real thread [mental health] that’s common enough amongst human beings that it ought to be discussed openly and in as many ways as possible,” says Howle. He went through a physical transformation for the role, putting himself on a strict diet and lost quite a bit of weight (It’s interesting what that does to a person’s psyche.) After arriving in Slovenia ( which doubles for Washington State in the movie) the cast was introduced to the landscape and the vistas were so beautiful; the sheer expanse and vastness.

“...I’m less interested in the

sometimes vacuous nature of what we do. So I try to keep that at arm’s length or take it with a pinch of salt...”

This sheer unspoilt beauty of the mountainous terrain prompted the topic of climate change and how these mountain views may not be so accessible in 20-30 years time. It is something not lost

“You’ve touched on something I think about quite frequently, which is the fear of appearing stupid and I think one of the most intelligent responses you can have as a human being, and decidedly as

on Howle. “I was watching the news today and they were talking about how most of what’s happened with climate change is now considered irreversible damage. Something that scares me the most is the idea that you’ve gone to a ninth degree to the point of no return. To figure out probably what that absolute is. So when we’re presented with either in the immediate sense, a change in weather system, and we sort of on some innate level understand that may be the point that we may no longer go back. It’s no longer this sort of residual or underlying fear, it’s something that’s very present. I look around and I think how much energy am I actually using, why do I have this, why do I consume so much of this, do I really need all of that? What have we done, what have I done? It starts to become a real existential question in an immediate sense and in a sense in the wider world, sort of the people that I love. The people that I know live in parts of the world that would be much more severely affected and much more quickly.”

an artist, is to admit you don’t know the answer.

And so what you end up with is more questions.

I don’t make a distinction between the work itself and conversations such as the one we’re having now. I think the pursuit is the same for me. It has to involve the same level of honesty I have to bring to my work. Why would I change and suddenly present to you a matter of fact version of myself? I feel like I would be lying.”

Howle’s latest offering to hit the small screen ”Under The Banner Of Heaven”, Hulu, April 28th - is the serialization of Jon Krakauer’s best selling examination of the Church of The Latter Days Saints. He plays Allen Lafferty, whose wife and baby are victims of ritual murder perpetrated by two of his older brothers after receiving direct instructions from God. How do you prepare for a role so full of horror? “it is perhaps usual for a younger sibling to ‘look up to’, if not idolise an older brother. I like to think, a lot, then simmer, distract myself with other things, let it brew or stew, sometimes even ferment, then

Howle is in his thirties and his thinking on that has started to change in regards to future projects—he wants to feel comfortable albeit choosy when looking at his next roles and not get caught up in the Hollywood machine. He certainly does not come across a ‘just hit your marks & grab the money sort of guy.

read the script again. It’s something like being in the kitchen without a recipe book.... I keep coming back to the idea that behind the tragedy in Allen’s story, there is a deeper seated tragedy. The tragedy of the loss of a personal philosophy. The death of believing in something,” When I talk with Howle, there is an uncanny resemblance to Michael Shannon (who I have also interviewed) in their passion, commitment and their approach to the craft of acting, an understanding of the characters they portray— a lot of processing of the nuances of a particular role.

Howle, who is heading to Australia to film a boxing movie, insists that his approach has to be authentic.

“For me the key thing is really I want to collaborate with people who recognize and understand me for who I am as an artist and a person and that has to be reciprocal for me. I have to understand them too on a deep level. I’m less interested in the sometimes vacuous nature of what we do. So I try to keep that at arm’s length or take it with a pinch of salt. I’m not made for that. I want to tell really important stories, possibly even help write them or at least piece them together in a meaningful way. And I think that that really excites me. I also love the idea of being behind the camera capturing things. I love the this sort of interrelational thing ” Billy Howle has an honesty to be envied... and the courage not to be scared of it.

Watch this space!

rockstar

Frühstück... Desayuno... Colazione...

Kahvaltı... Café da manhã... Le petit-déjeuner Close your eyes and think of breakfast... What comes to mind ?

Wait, wait – don’t tell me.

You’re thinking of eggs and toast; pancakes or waffles; sausages or bacon; a bowl of cereal, or granola, or muesli, or oatmeal if you’re among the new age health nuts transplanted from California. (If you’re anything like I was back in forever, you may even scoff at the very idea of eating in the morning – because breakfast? Who needs it when you could be getting that last minute of sleep before being bodily thrown out of bed to go to school?)

You may be one of those people to whom breakfast involves a fast food drive-thru, but since I don’t count that as food, you don’t get representation. Sorry I’m not sorry.

It is very typical of most people in this getup-and-go-to-work world that breakfast is a rushed affair of something that can be eaten in one hand so the other is free for getting dressed. The foods mentioned above are typical of pretty much everywhere in America, but it matters much less where you are in the world than it used to – everybody seems to be eating the same thing. (Huzzah, globalization.) Naturally, most Americans will assume that these breakfast foods have been exported from America to the rest of the world like McDonald’s.

Naturally, most Americans will be wrong.

That pancake you’re eating in your Thai hotel that you’re telling yourself is America’s gift to the world? Yeah, that started out in Ancient Greece. There are records in poetry of the 5th century BC that talk of tagenites (from a Greek word meaning ‘frying pan’; the literal mother of pancakes.

A tagenite was even made from very familiar ingredients – wheat flour, milk (though the milk was curdled), olive oil and honey – and eaten for breakfast. They survive as the modern Greek tiganites,

which are similar crepes and most other European pancakes, but don’t think that punches any holes in the argument – our own word ‘pancake’ comes from Middle English, with the first use showing up in the 1400s, and Scottish pancakes, called ‘drop scones’ are basically the same as what we know today.

The waffle, you say, surely the Eggo is an American institution. Well, yeah, the Eggo is. But it comes from real waffles, and the word ‘waffle’ comes from the Dutch word ‘wafel’, which itself is a derivative of wafele – Middle Dutch from around the 1200s.

And the Middle Dutch is preceded by the French word ‘walfre’ from somewhere in the 1180s. Even then, it’s considered that the waffle actually comes from communion wafers, or similar products – around the 10th century; that’s certainly when we find the first wafer irons, featuring biblical scenes, which eventually morphed into the waffle irons we know today. (You think you like waffles? The French kind Francois I had waffle irons made out of pure silver, and his successor had to enact waffle legislation in 1560 to settle fights over them.)

As for eggs, they’ve been eaten since the beginning of human kind – probably quite literally. Consider that most birds lay them, and if a nest is left unprotected it’s easy enough to reach in and grab them. By 3200 BC fowl had been domesticated in India, and by 1400 BC there are records from China and Egypt depicting egglaying fowl in much the same situation as they’re in today; specifically laying eggs for human consumption. And those breakfast foods we make from eggs?

Well, ‘omelette’ came into use in the 16th century and is French; but the dish may have origins as far back as Ancient Persia.

There is certainly a 14th century dish out of Britain, called herbolace, which is as precursor of the omelette. The Romans

definitely scrambled their eggs, aside from other ways of eating them, like deviled eggs. And bacon & eggs? That’s got its roots in Britain.

There is one kind of egg that I will concede to being American: the egg Benedict. There are several stories told about the creation of Eggs Benedict, but we will probably never know the truth. All we know for sure is that it involved the 1890s, the Waldorf Astoria or Delmonico’s, and some wealthy people with the surname Benedict.

But sausages! Bacon! Meat at breakfast – surely that’s American-born? After all we eat more meat a day, on average, than any other country does. And yet, meat at breakfast is not at all unusual. Consider the ‘English breakfast’, the ‘Irish breakfast’ and the ‘Scottish breakfast’, all of which have sausages in some form. Let’s not forget that as a country, Germany boasts over 1200 types of sausage. The word itself comes from the Old French ‘saussiche’, which itself comes from the Latin ‘salsus’. Sausages can be found in Homer’s own epic Odyessy, Aristophanes wrote a play wherein a sausage-vendor is elected leader, and a Byzantine emperor in the 10th century had to outlaw blood sausages after a rash of food poisonings.

But even before Homer and Aristophanes, early man was making sausage by stuffing roasted intestines into animal stomachs.

Not even bacon can be counted as truly American – pigs aren’t native to America and weren’t introduced to it until, probably, Columbus showed up with 8 of them in 1492. The Middle English ‘bacoun’ referred to all pork in general, and the Romans ate a kind of bacon that they called petaso.

Grains for breakfast are certainly not American, either. It’s unlikely the Egyptians ate oatmeal in the way we do, but oats have been found in tombs dating back

to the 2000s BC. They were likely mixed with other grains for consumption, as oats weren’t domesticated for almost another thousand years. It’s not until the beginning of AD that we see oats being grown as a purposeful crop; they are popular among Germanic tribes in particular – the Greeks and Romans thought them only fit for animals – and the warriors who toppled the Roman empire were known to have eaten oat-cakes after the day’s fighting. The term oatmeal comes into use around 1400, meaning oat-flour, and though oats come to America in the 1600s, they come in the hands of Scottish immigrants, who had been making oatmeal for decades at that point.

with meats, noodles, vegetables - plain or pickled, salted duck eggs, bamboo, century eggs, onions, and cabbage. In addition to congee, North Indians may reach for paratha (an unleavened, fried bread), which has many variations of stuffing (potato and cheese to name but two) and is served with vegetable curry, curd, and pickles. South Indians have their own special breakfast cakes that are made by steaming a batter of fermented black lentils and rice and eaten with chutney or sambar.

poppy seed bagel), and soups. Cheeses, breads, jams, cold cuts, sausages, and cereals are popular for breakfast in Germanic countries, and Polish breakfasts often consist of kielbasa, tomatoes, cold cuts, meat spreads, sliced pickles, eggs, and cheese. In Russia they have their own kind of pancake called oladi (or oladushki), and a kind of crepe called blini.

These can be eaten with jams, butter, and honey, but they can also be (and are) eaten with sour cream and fish roe.

In Egypt the most popular breakfast is fuul pureed chickpeas and onions - which is usually eaten on a flat bread of their own making.

And there you have it. The next time you’re in a hotel restaurant by the fjords of Norway, eating that waffle or those scrambled eggs and thinking ‘God bless America’, just remember that China, Egypt, Greece and Rome all got there first.

Moving around the rest of Africa you may find fried cakes made of ground beans, or wheat flour which has been soaked for a day before being fried, as in Nigeria.

The cakes are served with porridge and sugar. In the south of Nigeria a corn porridge served with evaporated milk is the more popular traditional breakfast choice.

(Naturally, due to the great western influence on Africa, you can also be boring go in for tea/coffee and pastries, which have gained great popularity over the years.)

And then England. And Ireland. And Scotland. Apparently between them they’ve decided that all people are equipped with stomachs of two-tonne capacity. You’ve probably heard of the English Breakfast, or the Irish version called the Ulster Fry, but you may not know what it is. The English Breakfast is: Eggs, sausages, toast, beans, cheese, bacon, potatoes, and fried tomatoes. The Ulster Fry is all that but with the addition of black pudding (a sausage made from meats and by cooking blood with filler until it congeals when cooled. You’re welcome) or white pudding (like black pudding, but without the blood) or both. In Scotland you’ll get your English breakfast but with a helping of haggis! (For the uninitiated, that’s a pudding of sheep’s heart, liver, lungs and stomach. You’re welcome.)

In most Asian countries breakfast is a family affair. It may be an array of small dishes laid out for all to pick at buffet-style, or individually presented on a tray, but it composes a meal meant to be eaten together. In Korea this may include grilled short ribs, spicy seafood salad, kelp, soup, bean sprout rice, radish strip kimchi, and some kind of stewed fish. In Japan it’s typically miso soup, rice, seaweed, broiled fish (a whole, small fish), raddish salad, and small plates of pickled vegetables and hijiki. Occasionally you may be offered a raw egg to mix into your rice with some soy sauce (this option varies by person but is quite safe to choose - the food standards are incredibly strict).

From China to most Southeast Asian countries, congee (a type of rice pudding) is the stuff of choice. (Also considered comfort food or food for the sick, it’s a very typical breakfast.) Congee varies by region as much as by country, and may be enhanced

Even among European countries you can find some offerings that may not be quite what you expect breakfast to be. In some cases it’s simultaneously familiar and ‘why would you do that?’

Many European countries consider breakfast to be an open sandwich (such as in Latvia and Hungary) which may be topped with fish, cheeses, eggs, or various spreads. A Turkish breakfast is made up of bread, cheese, butter, olives, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey, and kaymak (a kind of cream). There may also be sucuk (spicy sausage), pastirma (airdried, cured beef), börek (pastries in the same family as baklava), simit (similar to a

You may wonder what these exotic foods that sound more like lunches have to do with a New York magazine. Well, just that: We’re a New York magazine.

Why would you go traveling to far off lands for breakfast when you can just find them throughout the city? So the next time you’re out for breakfast and you’re tired of your eggs and coffee, why not go out for some broiled fish and seaweed or a plate of spicy sausages? You’ll find all of these and more if you look around long enough.

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Comedian Extraordinaire

KENDRA CUNNINGHAM Everyone agreed that one of the highlights of the 2021 Gala was the performance by this multi- talented, multilayered lady who was so well placed amongst our other Power Women

Such a busy lady that this Q&A was all we could squeeze into her tight schedule. That's our (and your) loss!!

What inspired your first clothing line?

"I have always been a vintage clothes collector. During the pandemic I made a t shirt with my grandmother's photo on it and every time I work it people asked me where I got it so I contacted my friend Stacy Igel who owns Boy Meets Girl and asked for some advice. We ended up collaborating."

You say your comedic goal is to get paid to write from your bed where you eat, sleep, and occasionally entertain. Have you reached this point yet?

"I guess I should have been more specific in how much want to get paid.

Do I get paid to write from the comfort of my $3000 bed? Sometimes.

But I want to make 6 figures from my written talent. I'm not there yet."

What impact did Last Comic Standing have on your career?

It open my eyes to the business side of the craft.

What was the emotional experience writing "This Could Be You" given that the inspiration came from personal events?

This Could Be You gave me some closure. I had not talked to my father in many years when he passed away and i think I still had an open wound about it. Doing the solo show helped me to be more accepting of the facts of my life.

What is your dream venue to perform in?

I like theaters that have a history to them like the Orpheum in Boston or Kings in Brooklyn. I would also love to perform in a theater in Croatia or Mexico.

You've performed on Jimmy Fallon, The Tyra Banks Show and more, what has been your favorite performance to date?

One of my favorite comedy experiences was the Glasgow comedy festival in Scotland. a small eclectic group of comics in a fabulous city in a festival ran by great people! Jimmy Fallon was the first episode to air - I was in the blonde moms from Connecticut sketch. So fun!

Who is a comedian that you would like to work with in the future?

Wanda Sykes or Kathleen Madigan What does it mean to you to be a woman in comedy?

Too much to write here :) What is something you would like to write another web-series on?

A self help life coaching group that gets competitive What's next in your journey?

Write a memoir with writing prompts and affirmations

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Leslie Bibb

With grace enough for Monaco Leslie shows her class... & street cred

By Moonah Ellison Photography: Spencer Heyfron Everything is moving so quickly for Leslie Bibb now as we slowly crawl out of the pandemic. The years 2020 and 2021 are long gone–remnants and ghosts remain– now 2022. Bibb remembers it being 2021 and the world shot back like a boomerang, a slingshot into a sort of “We’re back, we’re doing work, we’re doing other stuff!” She remembers 2021 being apart from Sam [the actor Sam Rockwell, her boyfriend of over a decade] and their work taking them all over.

“I remember thinking, ‘I long for 2020.’ Sam and I have this thing we call a three-week rule where we’re not apart for more than three weeks.” But then it was 2020. “It felt very apocalyptic sometimes. There were some beautiful times out of it so it’s very strange. I think it’s gonna take me a long time to sort of unpack all the lessons of the last few years.”

Lessons that have garnered Bibb, 47, a packed schedule and healthy project list.

She first burst into our lives starring in the WB show Popular (1999-2001) then The Skulls with Joshua Jackson and the late Paul Walker. Bibb also appeared in the indie-darling Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) which was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize, two Independent Spirit Awards and the Humanitas Prize. Bibb followed that up Reilly in the comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Sprinkle in her roles as a reporter in Iron Man (2008) and its Iron Man 2 sequel (2010), the Clive Barkerinspired horror film The Midnight Meat Train (2008), the comedy Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), the thriller film Law Abiding Citizen (2009) opposite Gerard Butler, and Bibb has made a career of memorable performances in a wide range of films: indies, comedies, blockbuster Hollywood money-makers. Meaning, her versatility knows no bounds.

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playing opposite Will Ferrell and John C.

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Fast forward to 2022. Bibb is set to star as Satan in God’s Favorite

“I think I have to have a hook into a character so if I have a very

Idiot, a Netflix comedy series starring Melissa McCarthy and

strong idea and I have I’m like a I’m like a thoroughbred. I’m like

created by (and starring) McCarthy’s husband, actor Ben Falcone.

‘Let’s go, let’s ride,’ don’t hold me. I’m not a wing-it sort of person.

The series is scheduled to premiere on June 15. In the beginning

I do a lot of prep and there’s a lot of research and work done, but

of 2021, Bibb got cast in the series and it was her first big role

if I’m prepared I have my toolbox filled with all kinds of ideas and

during the pandemic. “We had sort of been shut down and I

tools to whip out at any moment.”

remember thinking, ‘Do I remember how to act? What is that?’

Getting to go to Australia [to shoot] and getting to work with Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone. I said to Melissa, ‘My hands

Bibb, a Virginia native who studied acting in New York, will also

were shaking on my first day shooting with you.’ I remember

star this summer in Lionsgate’s About My Father, a screenplay

feeling grateful and lucky and we were in Australia, just sort of

written and starring comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and loosely

pinching myself thinking wow my life has led to this moment.

based on his relationship with his real-life dad. Robert De Niro and

Sometimes it’s a shitty moment, sometimes it’s a great moment,

Kim Cattrall also star. She got her first true experience of being

sometimes it’s a weird moment. My life got lucky enough that

Hollywood starstruck on the Talladega Nights set. “I remember

it all met at this point and it was really cool. And then [during a

feeling very safe and yet I was very scared there,” insists Bibb. “It

scene] I threw hot dogs at Melissa McCarthy.

was Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and Adam McKay

was directing and Sacha Baron Cohen and I thought, ‘I’m in deeper than I should be. Do I know how to swim?’ I remember McKay said, ‘Never sit on an idea, just try it. Because even if it’s the wrong idea it may lead to something else.’ It just stuck with me so much because I think we edit ourselves. I mean it’s so ironic that we have phones, there’s filters on this stuff–I didn’t even know there’s this thing called Facetune. You can facetune yourself where you can literally change your face.”

Bibb was lucky to be brought up in an environment that taught her to speak her mind. Raised by her mother with three older sisters–Bibb’s father passed away when she was three–gave her a sense of womanhood and surrounded by so many women, everyone wanted their voice to be heard. “My mother just always taught me to speak if something didn’t feel safe, she was very matter of fact about everything and so luckily I had somebody who always was like, if it doesn’t feel good. I remember she said something like, ‘You’ve got really good instincts.

Always trust your instincts.’”

With Roe V. Wade making the news again for all the wrong reasons, Bibb feels like most women do: lay off my body. “I want to make the decisions about my body and I feel like every woman should have that opportunity. And I think you can be pro-choice and not have to be pro-

abortion. I think that it’s easy to sit there and be like, ‘Well this is what we should do and this is what we should do and this is what we should do’’ and everything is a singular experience and it’s not black or white, but there’s a lot of gray area. A lot of women paved the way for us and it feels unfair to reverse this right now.”

On the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Although it is inspiring to watch the Ukrainians defend themselves from an aggressive invader in Russia, Bibb is left speechless. “I can’t put it into words how I feel because I have so many feelings about it. It also feels insane, it feels like–to me it’s a lot, it’s upsetting. I remember watching when all of it [the invasion] first happened and it felt very 9/11 and I remember sitting in front of the television and I couldn’t watch it… it’s still taking place.

“I feel gobsmacked by it all. I don’t know if it’s anger, it’s just shock and sort of, it feels like a rug has been pulled out and I feel powerless. And I hate feeling powerless. What do you do? You vote. That’s the only thing to do, you vote.”

Bibb is not naive to seeing the great divide in this country and like many Americans, is in search of a solution to unite. “I think there’s always going to be somebody who feels differently than I feel and so what I try to do is instead of feeling like my way is the right way, what’s the bridge?

Because we’re just going to have this two-sided world and it makes me feel like I’m on an island.

It really makes me feel powerless and alone and that feels just depressing.

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“... low things down, take your time. Especially in New York City... It’s specific to New York City– There’s this magic to this city that doesn’t exist anywhere else...”

So how do I find my power, how do I find my fight? How do I create change, you know. How do I be fearless in a time that makes me very fearful? And so that’s the thing that I’m still trying to grapple with.”

From modeling to acting to producing, Bibb looks back at her life that brought her to New York.

I’m in awe of Bibb. In awe of her passion, really. She wears her heart on her sleeve. I enjoy watching her react because she reacts with such passion, reacts within the moment. It’s a rare trait. It’s so authentic, and it’s so real. She’s still pushing the rock up the hill and that’s okay. Bibb’s old-school, doesn’t want to miss out on life’s enjoyment because her head was stuck in a phone. Slow things down, take her time. Especially in New York City. “It’s specific to New York City–like the movie theater, the walking in the street, running into random friends. There’s this magic to this city that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

“I think just because you go fast, maybe you’ll get there faster, but you’ve missed the whole journey.”

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Talent: Leslie Bibb @mslesliebibb Photographer: Spencer Heyfron @spencerheyfron Stylist: Cannon @thecannonmediagroup at The Only Agency @theonly.agency Fashion Assistants: Winnie Noan @winnie_noan, Bridget McDonald @bridgetmcdd, Mackenzie Boudman @kenzieboudman, David Goldberg @indigoboydavid

That’s Beautiful

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Idiot Brain

The human brain. The most complex thing known to our civilization, the source of every great idea, inspiring artwork, breath-taking creation and world-changing discovery. True, it’s the source of all the mundane and downright bad and terrible things we’ve come up with too, but that just shows how diverse it really is. It gifts us our complex, rich perception of the world, the ability to predict, to anticipate, to empathise, to even think about times other than now, and individuals other than ourselves, something beyond most species we share our planet with.

Our brains being so powerful, so complex, so key to our very existence, it’s no wonder that they’ve gained a certain reverence, or ‘mystique’.

Discussions of them in the mainstream will often portray the human brain as some enigmatic, unknowable object that we are barely beginning to understand, but we do know how amazing and powerful it is. Indeed, read some articles and claims and the brain often sounds like some unfathomable box of low-key superpowers, accessible to only the most diligent, disciplined and pure of spirit.

The problem with this portrayal is, it’s wrong. Quite clearly. And in many ways.

For one, the idea that the human brain is just one big powerful blob of mystery nestled in our skulls does a great disservice to the many intrepid neuroscientists and other researchers who have been doing their best to study it for centuries, from 16th century doctors and surgeons doing their best to treat severe head injuries from the battlefield with their terrifyingly inadequate medical knowledge, 20th century scientists like Eric

Kandel, who discovered the functioning of the synapse (the ‘connection’ between neurons, nerve cells) in the 1970s. Due to the limited technology available at the time, Kandel and his colleagues were unable to insert the important electrodes into human or mammal neurons; they were just far too small to have any hope of this. They got around this by studying Aplysia, Aka the California sea slug, a metre-long aquatic gastropod with a pronounced gill and a rudimentary nervous system, but a nervous system that has some absolutely massive neurons, some of which are about a millimetre across. Doesn’t sound like much, but it I human neurons were the width of a drinking straw, aplysia would have neurons wider than a subway tunnel.

Kandel and his fellow researchers could use these to discover the function of the synapse, netting them a Nobel prize in 2000.

The point is, thanks to the combined efforts of countless researchers across the years, via techniques that go from prodding the skulls of those who’ve suffered major head trauma to the surreal marriage of hard physics, IT and biology that gives us MRI scanners, we do actually know a lot about the brain now. And what we do know shows that, far from being some ineffable ball of mysterious powers that should only talked about in hushed tones and with the appropriate reverence, the brain is, in fact, quite idiot in many ways. Obviously, it is still incredibly complex and powerful, but the idea that it’s perfect or unknowable really needs to be junked, because it’s far from that. It’s still, despite everything else, a biological organ, one that evolved with all the limitations and questionable properties of any other.

Here’s an example; we’ve all heard the claim that ‘we only use 10% of our brains’, but that’s nonsense. Among other things, because of all the complex and energetic processes it performs, the brain is undoubtedly the most demanding, ‘hungry’ organ, using up to a third of the energy stores available in the human body, just to stay alive. If we only used 10% of the brain, that would mean close to a third of our body’s energy stores are being used up for nothing. Whether you believe in evolution or intelligent design, this is a ridiculously inefficient set-up. Thankfully, it’s not the case. Every part of the brain is there for a reason, and has a role to play. We may not know what these roles are, and exactly how the various parts interact, but all of the brain is useful for something.

However, ‘using’ a particular part of the brain means increasing its activity beyond the baseline level, like pressing down on an idling car’s accelerator. This requires more energy, oxgen and metabolites, supplied

Contrary to popular mis-conception (and there’s the rub) our brain is not this other-world being living in our skulls, beyond our comprehension with its workings to be revered on a quasi religious basis. It’s a blood and tissue organ like all our others, working to the same physical stimuli and constraints by the blood. The thing is, because of the nature of the blood supply to the brain, we have a very limited ability to ‘activate’ certain parts of it. Some studies suggest that, because of the restrictions of the brain’s blood supply, we can only activate 3% of it at any one time, which may explain why we become so quickly confused and overwhelmed. It’s ironic that the 10% myth is both a ridiculous underestimate and a large overestimate of how active the brain is.

But, even if we could somehow get more blood to the brain and allow it to do more, this doesn’t mean it’ll automatically become more efficient and capable, because the way it does things is often limited, illogical, confusing, or just plain wrong. For instance, people think they know what ‘short term memory’ means. It’s memory for things that happened recently, like a half hour, or maybe a day, or a week ago. But it isn’t. Short-term memory lasts, at best, just over a minute. Anything you can remember from further back, that’s a long-term memory. It takes the brain about a minute to knit together the new synapses it uses to represent and store memories, until then they’re held in patterns of neuronal activity in the frontal lobe, which is the short-term memory.

But this isn’t a stable way of storing anything, it’s like writing a memo in the foam on your coffee, hence shortterm memory is so brief and limited, able to hold only four bits of information at once according to the most recent data. This is part of the reason why you can head to a different room and forget what it is you wanted once you get there; whatever it is, it’s fallen out of your short-term memory en-route.

The senses are another area where the brain is actually far less powerful than is usually assumed. We think we get this rich, diverse perception of the world around us, relayed via our sensory systems to our brains which just sits there and absorbs it, like a hard drive receiving a feed from a security camera. But that’s not how it works at all; our sensory apparatus essentially relays a constant series of neural impulses to the brain, which then has to do some serious polishing and processing to convert these into something useful. This involves a lot of guesswork and extrapolation though, hence our senses can be so easily confused, by illusions, hallucinations, distortions and so on.

Excerpted from: Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett

By Prof. Dean Burnett And that’s nothing compared to memory, which is nowhere near as fixed and rigid as you might think. Or hope. The simple act of retrieving a memory and retelling it to others risks altering it, subtly at first, but over time you could end up remembering with crystal clarity something that never happened like that at all, because you’ve tweaked and elaborated and exaggerated over the years, but the brain’s memory systems have saved all this too, ‘updating’ the original memory, almost always unnecessarily.

If we look at the role of consciousness and our ‘higher’ intellectual abilities, it gets even more ridiculous. Our conscious mind can trigger the threat detection systems of the brain, that initiate the stressful fight or flight response, even when it’s not at all necessary. A simple creature like a shrew or a sparrow need only feel stress when they see a predator, or go too long without food, but our brains mean we get stressed at things like the possibility of a poor economy meaning we might lose our jobs.

Something that hasn’t happened, that poses no physical danger to us, that may never happen, can make us stressed.

There’s so much more about the brain that defies logic.

That’s why I wrote my book, ‘Idiot Brain: what your head is really up to’, to highlight all these flaws and irregularities and issues and concerns we have about the brain, because we know enough to say for certain that it isn’t perfect and awesome at all times, despite what others may suggest.

This is a good thing though. The idea that our brains are perfect and all-powerful means that when things go awry, as they often do given how messy the brain is, causing mental health issues and similar, it suggests something fundamentally wrong has occurred, and that we’re flawed in some way. That’s not true though; our brains can and do go wrong all the time, and being aware of that can be a big help in dealing with it when it does.

It may seem dispiriting or unhelpful, to find out that our brains are in fact imperfect and not all-powerful as many would claim, but I disagree. It’s far less cheering to think of us failing to live up to our potential than it is to see ourselves as overcoming our limitations. And that’s what humans do, all the time. That’s one of the best things about the human brain; it has all these flaws, but it carries on regardless.

Published 2017 by W. W. Norton Company

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He has that personna that makes you want to take it seriously, to be better at what you do. He deserves carefully chosen, meaningful questions because you know you’re going to get thoughtful and valuable replies.

I think it’s called respect.

By Yvette Chen Photography: Skylar Reeves

“... I mean the truth is that the process kind of begins and ends with the script. I firmly believe that that is the blueprint of the house. That is the architecture, that is the plan, if that is excellent then we have a chance to make something excellent...”

Tom Pelphrey was not just good in Ozark. He was mesmeric. Stealing scene after scene as Laura Linney’s troubled brother Ben on season three of the the hit Netflix series starring Linney and Jason Bateman as money launderers.. You just couldn’t get enough of Pelphrey on the screen, he took the air out of the room every time he entered and carried you through the story knowing it would end badly. Let’s just say he’s brilliant.

Pelphrey is East Coast, New York but born and raised in New Jersey.

He always wanted to play football when he was young and his mom wouldn’t let him until he got to high school where he promptly got injured... playing football. “I was a terrible athlete anyways so it all worked out in the end. I was on crutches and I couldn’t play anything anymore so a friend of mine told me to try out for the school play, or musical, it was Pirates of Penzance. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, you

know but I tried out anyway and I couldn’t sing the numbers or dance the routines but I guess they just needed bodies so I got a little chorus part. My drama teacher however, he just changed my life. I went into rehearsal and he was truly scarier than the football coaches, you know. There was a lot of discipline and he took it very seriously and I think your first experience with something is pretty important because it sort of immediately framed the whole thing to me in a way that was serious and something you could pursue and is worth doing and is worth doing the right way.”

The work ethic is what drew him to acting. The preparation, respecting everyone else’s work and the fact that you’re always a part of a team.

Pelphrey would then go to a performing arts school after auditioning and that same drama teacher also happened to be there and it was just one of those things even if you were the lead in the play, and you had a

day off you stayed after and helped build the set because you were all part of the team. “I loved it,” says Pelphrey. “It’s the first thing I could say I truly loved doing and I’m also so grateful that it was my first experience because a lot of those values that he instilled have served me well.”

Pelfrey’s current room is in Austin, Texas, where he’s working on a new HBO mini series called Love and Death in Silicon Prairie.

Real-life experiences are what paved the way for him. Today’s educational structure is far too complex. “The exponential growth of technology has far exceeded our ability to understand what it’s doing to us or our brains in any real way. And because it keeps growing that fast I don’t think we’ll ever be able to know in real time how that’s affecting us,” says Pelphrey. “Somebody was talking about children, I think it was a podcast I was listening to or perhaps it was a university professor, and they thought that maybe the best way to think about it is that you want to instill in children the sense of being very special and a sense of not being good enough. There’s inherently something that is special and perfect because of course there is, in every child, and that’s good and that’s necessary for confidence and for discovering yourself. And at the same time we could all be better. And I think if you could instill that, the sky’s the limit.”

Ozark was the last piece that I watched Pelphrey in (planning to binge on Outer Range, but that’s not to say he hasn’t had other key roles. One of his best for me being Banshee (2013-2016), the Cinemax series that featured gangsters, the Ukrainian mob and mistaken identity. Pelphrey played a former neo-Nazi working in the sheriffs department in Banshee, Pennsylvania and again, a he was the ultimate scene-stealer. When Ozark came along, the script and his character were a perfect match. “When I had conversations with Chris Mundy (Ozark writer and executive producer), he pulled me aside before we started filming anything and told me the arc of the season. He talked about the character choosing to eventually stop taking his medication and what that would sort of trigger. Then I went away and did a bunch of research and it was obvious there was going to be periods where I’m going to need to be at maximum energy, and sometimes they would be like 20 times in a row. I need ed to train my body to do bursts of energy so when we get to those scenes. For instance, there is the scene with Janet McTeer [cartel lawyer Helen Pierce] down by the water with her daughter. It was so hot and we had to do it so many times. And I was there and I never felt like I let anybody down. And as soon as we were done I could have fallen on my face. I was so tired. But it was there. The energy was there. And that feels good.”

Pelphrey currently stars in Outer Range on Amazon Prime (Brad Pitt is one of the executive producers), a story about a rancher played by Josh Brolin fighting for his land and family in Wyoming under very mysterious and spooky circumstances. The cast includes Pelphrey, Brolin, Lili Taylor and Imogen Poots and again he plays a very serious and intense character.

“Josh Brolin plays my dad, Lily Taylor plays my mom. It’s sort of set now, set today in one of these old school ranch families, and we’re in a bit of a thing, a bit of a tension with the neighbors, so I won’t go too much into it. And then something mysterious slash metaphysical enters the equation and seeing how that plays out and influences all of the characters. The writing is truly special, but also the cast was incredible.”

Filming was out in New Mexico, in a desert, which is a different energy. “It is a really different energy. And I never understood what people talked about when they talked about the desert until filming in New Mexico and it’s so beautiful and full of power and sort of scary and magical really. It was like the perfect place to be filming that story I felt.”

Years ago Pelphrey went to see a friend in a play in the East Village and was so blown away by the writing, the acting, everything, that he found out who the writer was with the help of his friend and just told him, “Well done.” Pelphrey was so impressed they started interacting and he [Brian Watkins] would write all these new plays and he would go workshop them with him—Labyrinth Theatre Company and New Dramatists—and just sit down with a writer and a table full of actors and just work.

Throughout his journey, Pelphrey has learned a lot and he’s blessed, humbled in fact, by the actors he’s worked with. Every single one leaves an indelible impression on him that makes him strive that much harder. “Each person kind of teaches me a different thing, and they have been incredible people and I’ve been doubly blessed because they’re all very talented actors and I can learn from that, and they’re all very good people,” says Pelphrey. “ A lot of them, we’ve become quite close. For instance with Laura Linney on Ozark she helped me, she shared with me a way of working with scripts that I found highly productive that I still use now. I definitely feel enriched by all of these guys.”

So what’s next for Tom Pelphrey. Outer Range, Love and Death on HBO. Not too shabby. But a side passion he’d like to explore is storytelling which has been a wonderful discovery. “I just love stories. I was talking to somebody about this the other day, similar to why do you want to be an actor? And was that the first love? And I used to think it was when I was younger. But I realized something many years ago. I like, way before I wanted to be an actor. I love stories. I was reading so many books when I was so young. I was always reading. If you understand how difficult it is to write something and you understand how much attention and time goes into crafting a story. Then from that point of view it sort of helps you understand that everyone there is coming to play a role in fulfilling the story. I just love that I get to do this for a living. I love that, you know, some aspect of storytelling is something I get to do a little bit each day, and I’m just grateful for that.”

MUA : B i lly M e rce r, H a i r: A n g e B e d d i n gto n , Clot h i n g: M ave n M a i nte n a nt , Lo c at i o n: Two W is h e s Ra n ch

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K A RE FUK U I

“... T’S NOT ONLY ABOUT REPRESENTATION,

BUT IT’S ABOUT THE NUANCE OF EVERYTHING: CREATING MULTIDIMENSIONAL CHARACTERS, NOT BEING MISREPRESENTED AND GLOSSED OVER FOR REPRESENTATION’S SAKE...”

N HARA

By Annabelle Jacoban

Photography: Alison Dyer Karen Fukuhara is Hollywood’s next big actress who is not afraid to dip her toes in a variety of industries, making her voice heard in a number of spheres.

Since starring as DC’s Katana in Suicide Squad, Fukuhara has played Kimiko Miyashiro in the Amazon Prime original series The Boys and is set to star in the summer 2022 film Bullet Train alongside Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and Logan Lerman to name a few!

Fukuhara is making waves in the film industry in a number of ways. While she is starring alongside some of Hollywood’s best actors, she is also using her voice as an Asian American woman to speak up about the significance of representation in the film industry. Just before sitting down to speak with us, the actress had spoken on a “panel full of Asian American creators and creatives within the [film] industry.”

Even though Fukuhara is currently a loud voice in the space of Asian American rights and representation, she did not begin her acting career simply because of her Japanese background: “it’s always an effect for me. When I signed on to do Suicide Squad, I was genuinely excited to be a part of a DC film.

As Katana, it was a really big opportunity for me–I mean who doesn’t want to play a badass woman character? Then I saw the effect of it and what the fans had to say about it. I got into the topic of representation for our community and all of that, but that was all a reaction to something that I had done without even being consciously aware of what was going to happen.” Fukuhara could not have predicted the reactions of DC fans to her portrayal of Katana, but perhaps this reaction was so unexpected and shocking because Asian representation was long overdue in a superhero film.

Fukuahara also speaks to the ways in which not only is it significant to have Asian representation, but

it is significant to have multidimensional Asian characters who are not defined by their backgrounds: “It’s not only about representation, but it’s about the nuance of everything: creating multidimensional characters, not being misrepresented and glossed over for representation’s sake. We don’t want to be filling a quota per se, but we want to be represented in the right way–in a specific way–because that’s what we relate to, that’s what the audience relates to.” This is perhaps the most profound insight offered in our conversation with Fukuhara, as she touches on the ways in which there needs to be a cultural appreciation rather than appropriation. Telling Asian

stories and uplifting Asian voices is significant, powerful, and needed in an industry that has suppressed them for so long.

However, this needs to be done in a way that is sincere and respectful rather than to fill a quota.

In order to better illustrate this point, the actress recounted a scene from season 2 of her show The Boys. Ashley, a character who works for Vaught Enterprises, approaches her team and proposes a new member to be added to their group, except she describes this new member as “differently abled” as well as someone who “clicks all the [racial] boxes.” Ashley

claims that because of this, “the viewers are going to love him.” Fukuhara notes, “I thought that was a hilarious scene that pokes fun at the marketability of diversity that’s going on right now and how inclusivity is very popular and of the times… Being diverse right now is marketable and I hope it’s not just a short term gain that they’re seeing…

As a creator–if you’re a writer, director, producer–it’s important to tell the authentic stories, not just for marketability sake.” It is clear that Fukuhara is a voice to be heard within this space, as she is able to make such profound points about the ways in which being diverse and inclusive is considered trendy and, therefore, will bring larger followings and profits. While representation is a positive change to the film industry, this very real concept of diversity being marketable only further objectifies and exoticizes nonwhite cultures. Fukuahra’s ability to highlight the ways in which people of color can sometimes be used as a means to gain more profits by filling quotas and using diversity for commercial gain only adds to her credibility as a powerful voice in this space.

Even though cultural representation can be exploited, it is immensely important especially for women older than the age that society deems marketable. Fukuhara claims, “I didn’t think that I’d be able to work as an actor past my 40s, and recently I have started to realize that maybe that door will be open when I get there. That’s all thanks to the Michelle Yeoh’s and the Sandra Oh’s.” Not only is Asian representation increasing, but there are representations of Asian women past the age of 40–indicating that a woman’s career does not have to end once they reach a certain age.

Oftentimes, women in the film industry are cast aside once they reach a certain age, largely because Hollywood sees young women as marketable. For older women of color, roles become even more unavailable because of the lack of poc voices uplifted in the film industry. However, actresses like Michelle Yeoh

“... It was a really big opportunity for me– who doesn’t want to play a badass woman character? ” and Sandra Oh, as well as their success in the industry, only proves that times are changing. Women of all cultures and all ages can have longstanding careers, allowing for a representation of intersectional voices, or voices that are able to speak to a number of audiences at once.

Fukuhara’s career has just begun, but she prioritizes uplifting Asian voices in any industry she encounters: “For example, I recently started using Asian hair and makeup artists and that was because they know your face the best, they know your hair texture the best–I’d like to think. There’s a lot of ease with the communication of what you want to achieve. I didn’t realize how much of a difference that would make in how I go into a job.” Even though she is not able to request asian artists for every press event, she claims, “I’d like to at least request it. Not only is it good for me, but I’d like to think that it lifts the hair and makeup artists as well.”

Fukuhara has dipped her toes in many industries: she majored in sociology in college and briefly moved to Japan to be a news broadcaster. No matter how many industries she touches, she claims to have one goal–both for her career and for her life: “My dream is to be a bridge between Japan and America, as grand and as big as that sounds. I don’t really care how that is done. It could be in the food industry, in whatever industry–because I love eating. I love two things: acting and eating, but I would love to just be the bridge because I think it’s still not as connected as it could be.” While this is her “life mission,” she also dreams of playing a character in a romantic comedy, claiming “I haven’t done that yet and I love watching them.”

Whether it is in the form of a romantic comedy, a restaurant, or any other space, Fukuhara is sure to make moves, standing tall and uplifting other voices along with her own as she tries to bring about positive change in the world.

xxx

“...Being diverse right now

is marketable ...I hope it’s not ju short term g´er, director, producer–it’s important to authentic stories...”

ust a , tell the

Photographer: Alison Dyer 213.3929032 @rabbitprooflocations Styling: Jordan Gross @jordanshilee Hair – Derek Yuen @derksyuen Make-up – Hinako @nhinako_makeup

Power Women 2021

The Gala moves power women

2021

It’s November, it’s NYC ... and it’s live again.

Moves Power Women Awards Gala enjoyed a welcome 2021 return to Manhattan celebrating incredible nominees in a entertainment extravaganza that seemed to last five minutes!

Hosted by “Top Gun” star, Glen Powell and “tick tick Boom” lead Alexandra Shipp and emceed by CBS’s Laurie Segall, featuring amongst others electroviolinist, Eyeglasses, publisher Moonah Ellison had another success on her hands. Congrats to all.

CLIC PLAY

TO CHECK OUR 2021 PW GALA

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Fr a ncis

“... each step of the way I think it was a combination of luck, (because in this industry that is like winning the lottery), but I think that it was a combination of being very scrappy and very determined and continuing to hammer at every little crevice I could get into.”

...SERIOUSLY

By Molly Watson Photography: Nathan Johnson job for me and this was the right opportunity,” insists Francis. “Paired with the fact that I had been an admirer of Mindy Kaling and the empire she built for herself and the storytelling that she does. It felt right.”

I’m fascinated by the background during my Zoom interview with Midori Francis. Beautiful colors, stunning artwork that shows me I’m dealing with someone who has layers. A Picasso print, some paintings from Capetown from an installation. “Every artist got to have their own block and kind of do their own showcase. So I bought three of them.

Can we see all three of them?

“Sure you can. This was from a wall of, I don’t know the lighting is making it. Then there’s this woman who is either being eaten by the wolves or what, I think that’s up to interpretation. Then there’s this woman who I love up here. I don’t know if you can see her.”

I can see a little bit of it, the lighting was awkward, but that’s okay. I’m talking to a New Yorker now, someone with a very impressive resume. And here she is…

Midori Francis is a Drama Desk and Obie Award recipient for her work in the play The Wolves.

She received another Drama Desk nomination for her critically acclaimed performance in Usual Girls. After breaking out in the summer blockbuster Good Boys, she soared on the small screen as Lily in Netflix’s Dash and Lily garnering her an Emmy nomination. She currently stars in Netflix’s Afterlife of the Party and the Mindy Kaling HBO MAX series The Sex Lives of College Girls.

Francis is from the theater world, that much is true. For as long as Francis can remember, she’s been around theater. Living in London as a child she would go see shows in the West End and watch all those older actors who had careers there and it was so appealing to her. Francis made her way to the Mason Gross School for the arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

She obviously has a lot of friends in theater and theater people are, well, her type of people— go-getters, survivors. “These are people who are paying their bills from theater [work] which is almost an impossible thing to do. That to me is far superior to television and film actors,

that you’re able to just work that way. I have so much empathy and compassion for that experience. I think that anyone who’s been able to work in TV and film should count themselves as extremely lucky and appreciate that which I try to remind myself of—a lot of people haven’t been able to work.”

Coming from Dash & Lily, Francis was involved in every step of the [production] process. This was different for Francis because she hopped in on Episode 3 and everyone had already developed their own rhythm and she felt like it was a factory that she was just visiting. By episode 4, Francis was doing her own thing and felt right at home.

For Francis, breaking into the theater industry wasn’t a smash rather a tiny little hammer that broke apart little things all at once. “I was outside on the street, knocking on doors. So, for me it was starting, trying to get a job in regional theater and then from regional theater trying to get Off Off-Broadway and getting OffBroadway then TV and film. It was auditioning for a year and a half and not getting any jobs.

And then getting two lines and then getting five lines then having a supporting role and then having a lead role. Each step of the way I think it was a combination of I will always say luck, because in an industry that is like winning the lottery you can’t deny that, but I think that it was a combination of being very scrappy and very determined and continuing to hammer at every little crevice I could get into.”

The role of Alicia is extremely important to Francis, a story to tell around a gay character coming out. As a queer person herself, Francis can relate to the character’s struggles. “As an actor I always like to look at the story I’m in, not just about me, it’s about my role in the story that this writer has told,” says Francis. “So it was very apparent to me that my character is a device for Leighton [her love interest played by Reneé Rapp] to come out. But the how of how I choose to do that, that is up to me and the creator and that’s where the creativity comes in. And so I think for me I was like alright, my character is here to help Leighton come out of the closet but how. And who is this character and how can we make her interesting. I can’t just be there to help Leighton come out, I have to have a reason for being. So these are all the questions that I was asking myself.”

Her latest project is the Mindy Kaling HBO MAX series The Sex Lives of College Girls. Although she’s not on a first name basis with Ms. Kaling just yet, Francis ois on her show and that’s the only thing that counts. Last January Francis was up for a few projects at once. The showrunner for Sex Lives, Justin Noble, approached her via Zoom and pitched her the role. Noble mentioned that Alicia, the character she plays, was one of his favorite roles and that he really wanted to tell this sort of queer love story in a way that was authentic and not pushed to the side. “It was one of those cases where I believed him and his passion and I felt this was the right

Francis remembered when she was a sophomore in college and had her first experience in love over a six-month period, but it was fast for her. It was dramatic but to Francis it felt so real and it felt so long and so she remembered how that felt and then gave the character of Alicia and Leighton the same respect. For them, even though they’d been dating for three months within the scope of the show, for Francis that first heartbreak is so real and it feels like the whole world is falling down because you have nothing else to compare it to.

“So when it ends it’s crushing. I tried really hard to always give the characters the benefit of the doubt.

“I think that the amazing thing about Gen Z is they have their finger on the pulse of the current political climate, and I think have more knowledge of how to navigate gender identity and sexuality and have a discussion about race. In a way that is really cool and inspiring, but as Mindy proves it can also be hilarious, but also sometimes everyone is getting it wrong and it’s messy and I think seeing that in the context of college is all the more interesting.”

One of the most meaningful projects Francis ever worked on was her Drama Desk-nominated role in Usual Girls by the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. It was playwright Ming Peiffer putting this play out there that the city seemed to really respond to, the theater city, and Francis actually made that connection with Peiffer through Facebook. “She [Peiffer] found me on Facebook and was like, ‘hey I met you at this Asian theater event, do you want to be the lead of my play because I don’t know too many other half-Asian actresses.’ This tiny little thing turned into not only being an important career opportunity for me, but also something of meaning.”

On Netflix’s Dash & Lily, Francis feels the show — which aired for one season ending in october 2021 — was a prime example of writing that knew what genre it was in, and did it really really well. “The cinematography, the direction, you know it was in my opinion everybody that I worked with did the best version of the thing they were trying to do.

And so yeah, getting to step into that. As an actor there’s only so much you can do. So you really can’t be at the level you want to be unless you’re surrounded by other people who are at that level and when you are, you really want to bring your A game.”

Stylist: Sarah Slutsky Look 1: Mara Hoffman top Tory Burch Jeans Look 2: Adeam blouse and skirt Janessa Leone hat Look 3: Moncler jacket Dolls Kill tights Roger vivier

“...you really can’t be at the level you want to be unless you’re surrounded by other people who are at that level and when you are, you really want to bring your A game.”

Despicable Sub-Human Beings

by Rana Husseini*

THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY ON EARTH. OR 5782 IF YOU ARE AN OBSERVANT JEW. 1443 IN THE ISLAMIC CALENDAR. 5000+ FOR HINDUS. HOWEVER YOU COUNT THE YEARS THE POINT IS THE HUMAN RACE HAS BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO COME UP WITH DECENT VALUES FOR ITS MEMBERS. LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE RID OURSELVES OF THE MOST BEASTLY (LITERALLY) INSTINCTS OF OUR ANIMAL COUSINS. THIS STORY SETS US ALL BACK IN THE DARK AGES. EVERYONE OF US WHO TURNS AWAY OR RATIONALISES. WE IGNORE IT AT OUR PERIL. WE HAVE TO MAKE OURSELVES DESERVE BETTER.

'NZVX

Imagine your sister or daughter being killed for chewing gum, for laughing at a joke in the street, for wearing make-up or a short skirt, for choosing her own boyfriend/husband or becoming pregnant. This is what happens to thousands of women who are murdered each year in the name of honour; that’s hundreds of women every single day. It is very likely that this figure is a gross underestimate. Many cases are never reported and many more so-called honour killings are disguised as suicides and disappearances. This is something I know to be true in my home country of Jordan where, according to police and medical officials, there is an average of twenty-five so-called honour killings annually. A so-called honour killing occurs when a family feels that their female relative has tarnished their reputation by what they loosely term ‘immoral behaviour’. The person chosen by the family to carry out the murder (usually male: a brother, father, cousin, paternal uncle or husband) brutally ends their female relative’s life to cleanse the family of the ‘shame’ she brought upon them. The title ‘honour killing’ is ironic in the extreme because these murders, and the manner in which they are carried out, lack any honour whatsoever.

It was in my capacity as a journalist writing for The Jordan Times, Jordan’s only English-language daily newspaper, that I had an eye-opening encounter with one such murder that changed my life forever. Thankfully, despite strict state censorship of the media when I started reporting in the mid-1990s, my courageous editors agreed that the story should be published. The resulting article, published on 6 October 1994, appeared under the headline ‘Murder in the name of honour’.

I did not know it then, but I had begun a quest that has since become allconsuming and has taken me all over the world. Thanks to the continued support of my editors, I was able to investigate and report on honour killings in depth. As time went on, I gradually realized that while reporting these crimes was a step in the right direction, it was never going to be enough – I had to do something else to end these senseless murders. So I began a sensational campaign to change the law and attitudes in Jordan, a campaign that I, along with many others, have since taken across the orld.

This book tells my story so far, from my humble beginnings as a naïve but enthusiastic and stubborn journalist to the campaigns to change Jordanian law, as well as my experiences in other countries in the Middle East, and investigations into so-called honour killings across Europe (especially the UK) as well as the USA. This book is also an evaluation of the current situation around the world in terms of the numbers of honour killings and the laws available to murderers to escape justice. I am sure that many readers will be truly shocked to see just how widespread and out of control this phenomenon is across the world, from the Third World to the First.

Fighting so-called crimes of honour has proved to be a perilous and traumatic journey. My life has been regularly threatened and my reputation is under constant attack. I find myself frequently slandered and libelled.

Examples include accusations that I am a ‘radical feminist seeking fame’ or that I’m a ‘western-collaborator intent on tarnishing the delicate fabric of the pure [Jordanian] society’.

Unfortunately, some influential and powerful people, such as MPs, judges, lawyers and policemen, have opposed me and, as extraordinary as it seems, believe that those who claim to have killed in the name of honour deserve lenient punishments, because everyone has the right to protect their family’s honour. In my own country, Jordanian law states that those

who murder in a passionate frenzy (for example, men who have caught their wives in the embrace of another) deserve mercy. As we shall see, such laws and leniency are by no means unique to Jordan (for example, a similar law is still in place in the UK). Perpetrators are well aware of the sympathy shown by their country’s legal system, and abuse it to their advantage. Thus, in many cases, the crimes often have serious hidden intentions far removed from honour – such as the murder of female siblings in order to claim sole inheritance of the family estate.

Murders are often meticulously planned by several family members but are then claimed as ‘crimes of honour’, again far removed from the state of blind anger associated with this crime. Sometimes all that is needed to incite murder is a deliberate and malicious campaign of gossip. In fact, the majority of so-called honour killings I reported on were based on mere suspicion, something I have since seen repeated in countries across the world. The problem is not restricted to adultery. Generational conflict, teen culture, urbanization and adolescent rebellion are common trigger factors in immigrant communities in European countries as well as the USA. As I have already mentioned, honour killing is a global phenomenon and takes place in many more countries than most people realize. Besides Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Palestine, India, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey, Yemen and Uganda, honour killings occur throughout Europe and the USA. The number of honour killings has been rising in recent years among immigrant communities in Europe, particularly Germany, France, Scandinavia and the UK – and the authorities have been caught napping. For example, British police are currently reviewing more than one hundred murder cases in the belated realization that they may in fact have been so-called honour killings. Until recently, so-called honour killings have received little attention because they are all too often disguised as a traditional or cultural practice which has to be respected and accepted by everyone. Many people associate them exclusively with Islamic communities, but while some Muslims do murder in the name of honour – and sometimes claim justification through the teachings of Islam – Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and others also maintain traditions and religious justifications that attempt to legitimize honour killings. But crimes of honour are just that: crimes, pure and simple. For me, wherever their roots are supposed to lie, they are nothing to do with tradition, culture or religion. They are all about control – an effective method of regulating the freedom of movement, freedom of expression and sexuality of women. They violate rights to life, liberty and bodily integrity; they violate prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment; the prohibition on slavery; the right to freedom from gender-based discrimination and sexual abuse and exploitation; the right to privacy and to marry and start a family.

I am not a legal, religious, cultural, historical, tribal, social or moral expert, but I am an Arab Muslim woman intent upon living in a sound society where all members benefit from justice, regardless of rank, religion, race or gender. I, like any other citizen of this world, seek to feel safe. I want to live as part of a system in which crimes are seen for what they are, freed of the double standards that mask their heinous nature, and punished with a severity that matches the crime.

* This is the introduction from ‘Murder in the Name of Honor’

by Rana Husseini

XWMYUI[ 041

moves mentors

Diversity Awards 2022

CELESTE WARREN Vice President Global Diversity & Inclusion Center of Excellence MERCK

“... I approach each relationship in a way that meets the individual where they are. I believe each relationship is different, based on the needs of the mentee/protégé. I want to help them with whatever they want to achieve out of the relationship. As I said earlier, it’s about them, not me or my method... “

WENDY E. JOHN Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion, Fidelity Investments

“... Moves Mentors use their political capital, networks, prior knowledge and experience to help others succeed.

They truly see individuals for their value and their worth. They are excellent listeners with a knack for hearing beyond what is being said and artfully probe to get at the sometimes more challenging unsaid items... “

TOMYA WATT Vice President Talent Acquisition & Mobility, Chief Diversity Officer Memorial Sloan Kettering CC

What makes a Moves Mentor? “... I think empathy, honesty, vulnerability and a clear memory of one’s own path to where we are in our own career so that we are able to bring an authentic voice to the conversation with anyone that we are helping guide their careers.

CECILIA NELSON-HURT Chief Diversity Officer Heidrick & Struggles

“... good mentors have an awareness of how a mentee’s skillset and competencies can and should evolve, both within a specific industry as well as across a broader corporate landscape.

So, while this may look different depending on the individual, mentors must also have to have the ability to have courageous conversations, giving actionable feedback so the mentee can flourish... “

MONIKA WILLIAMS SHEALEY Senior Vice President Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Rowan University

“... I think that’s important for the organization to say we value mentorship so much that we are going to ensure that every person in our organization has a mentor... I think that’s going to require some personal commitment and dedication...”

LISA MASSA Senior Vice President, Head of Human Resources, U.S. Bayer

“...I find that being a mentor is often as impactful as having a strong mentor.

Engaging with people I’ve mentored has benefitted me on so many levels.

Connecting with people who are often earlier in their career, from different backgrounds and underrepresented communities, has expanded my understanding and challenged me to look at things in new ways... “

JOHNITA P. DUE Senior Vice President Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, CNN Turner Sports

“... any successful mentoring program should include a reverse mentoring component whether it is a formal part of the program or not. I think we’ve all learned that often it is our junior or less experienced colleagues who can inspire us and teach us how to approach our jobs or lives differently...”

YAU CHENG Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion BNY Mellon

“...when we mentor with curiosity and intentionality to get to know, engage and develop individuals who are underrepresented or come from backgrounds different from ours, we expand our own growth mindset and contribute to a culture of equity and belonging...”

PERIKA J. SAMPSON Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity Gilead Sciences

“...Being a mentor fuels several areas for me. It allows me to be of service to others, it also allows me the pportunity to connect with early talent and emerging professionals. It is personally rewarding, possibly in the same way a coach feels when a walk-on with natural talent is willing to accept guidance...”

NOOPUR DAVIS Executive Vice President, Chief Information Security and Product Privacy Officer,

“...I think a mentorship should be formal in the sense that you define parameters. And by that I mean, you know it’s not just going out for a coffee. This is how both of us are going to follow through and each time we meet, these will be the next steps that I’ll follow up on...”

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MICHELLE O’HARA Executive Vice President Chief Human Resources Officer

“...I believe mentoring, whether formal or informal, should be viewed as table stakes to be a leader of any kind. A leader is someone who guides and inspires others, which is the very definition of mentoring.

Mentorship happens in all human interactions. A mentor can be a friend you seek advice from or a parent who helps guide their child...”

Maj.Gen.

TELITA CROSLAND Deputy Surgeon General, Medical Corps Chief U.S. Army

“...I think from the mentees perspective what makes a good mentor is somebody who is accessible and truly invested in you as a human being, in a holistic sense. In my mind there’s a very clear difference between a mentor and a sponsor. Mentors build a relationship and they understand who you are as a person...”

Congratulations MOVES Mentors

2022 CREDITS Photography: Tony Gale Hannah Lopez Styling: Joan Pedro Magali Zoanetti Maryna Lazakovich Li Murillo – Hair Yoli-Ann Cotray – Make-up Location: 50 UN Plaza

MOVE YOUR CAREER TOWARD EXCELLENCE.

HEALTH PROFESSIONS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM • 100% Tuition • $2,500+ Monthly stipend • Attend school of your choice • Enhanced residency options

MEDICAL/DENTAL SCHOOL STIPEND PROGRAM • $2,500+ Monthly stipend • Attend school of your choice •Serve with the Army Reserve upon graduation CONTACT YOUR LOCAL ARMY HEALTHCARE RECRUITER FOR DETAILS

ARMY1STMEDRECRUITINGBN @ARMY_1ST_MRBN

Congratulations Tomya Watt, Congratulations Tomya Watt, Chief Diversity Officer and Chief Diversity Officer and VP of Talent Acquisition VP of Talent Acquisition and Mobility. and Mobility.

We’re proud to support We’re proud to support all award recipients and all award recipients and everyone committed to everyone committed to making the workplace making the workplace more inclusive. more inclusive.

msk.org msk.org

Congratulations to Celeste Warren our Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for her 2022 Moves Mentor recognition.

By putting lives first, we’ve created a legacy that lasts.

For over 130 years, we have tackled some of the world’s biggest health challenges and provided hope in the disease.

At Merck, our mission to save and improve lives expands beyond inventing medicines and vaccines. We value diversity and inclusion in all its manifestations and strive to reduce disparities and advance racial, health, social and economic equity for our people, patients and communities.

Copyright © 2022 Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Proud to celebrate and support exceptional women reshaping our world today and making possible boundless opportunity tomorrow.

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The nation’s fourth fastest-growing public research institution and home of one of the nation’s first higher education divisions of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

rowan.edu

Be better together.

Be Bayer.

We are committed... to creating a sustainable inclusive culture that champions open dialogue, ensures equitable opportunities, and draws on diverse perspectives. With a strong focus on inclusion, diversity, equity and access, we are driving innovation, meeting the needs of our customers, patients and growers, and supporting our communities.

WE WANT YOU TO BE YOU. Mentoring is about recognizing potential, nurturing it, and setting the stage for intrinsic and ongoing growth.

Fidelity Investments congratulates Wendy John, Head of Global Diversity and Inclusion and 2022 Moves Mentor.

We have long believed in the power that diverse perspectives bring to our business. That’s why we are committed to nurturing a workplace where our associates feel a sense of belonging, so they can best serve our customers.

At Fidelity, you’ll find endless opportunities to build a meaningful career that positively impacts peoples’ lives, including yours.

We invite you to bring your unique viewpoints and experiences to a career at Fidelity.

Learn more and apply today at FindYourFidelity.com.

EOE

Applause is good.

Support is better.

At BNY Mellon, we celebrate those who create a better life for others. As a company committed to unlocking potential for all, we congratulate Yau Cheng for leading, inspiring and mentoring toward a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and promising future.

bnymellon.com ©2022 The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Moves Diversity Photoshoot Behind The Scenes

Diversity Awards 2022

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E y e g l a s s e s p h o t o g r a p h y: T o n y G a l e

Iain S. Forrest, better known as Eyeglasses, does it all. In addition to being a medical student this young star has been making himself known for his incredible skills on the cello. We sat down with him to talk more about his music and love of charity.

Q: When did you first pick up the cello and why?

A: Back in elementary school in the fourth grade and our music teacher came around with a whole cart of all these musical instruments and you’re a kid so you’re fascinated. You pick them all up, and I remember the first one I tried was a violin, and the first note I played it was just very shrill. I was terrible at it, obviously I was just picking it up. But it was shrill and high pitched. It was kind of small and I’m kind of a big guy.

I said this doesn’t feel right, then I see all alone in the bottom of this pile of instruments was the cello. And I’m like that looks more interesting, I pick it up and just hitting that first low resonant bass note..iit really struck a chord with me, no pun intended. I just fell in love with the kind of rich sound that a lot of the other instruments don’t have as much of. So since then it was love at first sight, or love at first sound.

“... the nerdy reason for Eyeglasses is Beethoven wrote a wonderful piece which was exceptionally difficult for any musicians to play so the joke was that musicians have to wear very strong eyeglasses in order to read all the notes on the music sheet..”

Q: How did this passion unfold itself with your family and did that journey maneuver with everybody or did you have the motivation to do this yourself?

A: I was fortunate that my school just had a really great arts and music program which a lot of schools nowadays don’t.

So I was thankful I had that component.

I also started taking private lessons with a phenomenal teacher by the name of Matthew Tipford. And he really help me I think further my crafts beyond just what I got in the schools and helped me really think almost like professionally what I could do with music, with the cello, and with the instrument. And you know besides the teachers are obviously my family, they were incredibly supportive.

My dad, my mom, they’re scientists so they have very little knowledge when it comes to music. But they just kind of saw how fascinated I was by it, how it really made me happy to do what I was doing. Dare I say they actually liked when I played music for them so they were very strongly encouraging of me to to continue pursuing that as my passion even with all the other things going on in childhood as one has.

Q: So tell us a little about what are you doing, with the studying and also the charity side aspect that’s become very important to you.

A: Naturally as a medical student I see people every single day who are suffering, people who are sick, still stuck in a hospital isolated and I was like there’s actually a world of good that can be done for these people with music. So that kind of idea just arose and I whipped out the cello and just went into some of these patient rooms inside the hospital Mount Sinai where I’m a medical student and started playing music for them.

It’s a very different feeling when you’re playing a 1 on1 private intimate concert for someone who’s been really you know isolated or depressed or sad inside the hospital and just really see their eyes and face light up. It’s a really magical experience that I’ve just continued doing since then so that’s kind of the more I guess charitable or service side of the music that I love to do so much.

Q: What are you specializing in regards to the field that you want to go into?

A: So when I was in college what I did a lot of was a lot of research working with physicians at the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, and with them I worked with physicians and scientists who took care of patients who had really debilitating rare eye diseases. And some of these patients were very young.

They were just pediatric patients, 8 or 9 years old so you know to be able to do anything for people at that young age,

being able to restore some of that vision to them so they can actually see the world and all the beauty that’s in it, it was really something that I fell in love with.

I told myself this is something I want to pursue in terms of medicine so that’s what I’m focusing on right now; one day being opthamologist who can help people see better.

Q: As a last question, what’s the story behind the name Eyeglasses?

A: I think just eyeglasses in general, it’s something that gives people clarity and helps people see clearly the beautiful vivid details of the world. I want my music to be able to accomplish such a task as to help people feel more enriched and really see all the vivid colors and sounds that are really in this world. So that’s kind of one of the overarching mantra that Eyeglasses music tries to do. And kind of the nerdy reason also for Eyeglasses is the famous composer Beethoven wrote a wonderful piece. Except this piece of music was exceptionally difficult for any musicians to play so the joke was that musicians have to wear very strong spectacles or glasses in order to read all the notes on the music sheet. I absolutely love that story and I took inspiration from that as well and carved it into my name.

Eyeglasses.