lifestyle for city women summer 2022 The Bright Side All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge... Now You See Me How we only see what we want to see Delta GoodremThe Sensation...From Oz The LanceWire'sReddick SMART THINKING NOT WHAT BUT HOW Debra Messing ... No Introduction Needed mean girls... in NYC
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room, and people across the world tuned in to listen to her play music. Raw and personal. It was a side of her that fans had never seen before... and she admits it wasn’t perfect at the start.
Goodrem
“I love being present with people…I’m not that person that’s just on their phone, I want to look people in the eye and actually talk to them,” she said. “So, I had to learn, life really forced me, and it forced everybody in the world to find new ways to connect to people around the world, through our phones.”
Delta Goodrem is talented. Undeniably talented. Enviably so. With a career that started at 15-years-old and her debut album still one of the highest-selling Australian albums of all time, that is obvious. But ‘talent without energy makes for paupers’ so what is it that drives her? Twenty years later, in this ever-chang ing industry, what is her secret? It’s her passion for life! She has dipped her toes in many different fields, including acting, advertising, art, writing music for other incredible artists and even judging on Australia’s The Voice, and it’s this enthusiasm that makes Delta such a success; a light in people’s lives; and an absolute treasure to her friends.
After two years of isolation, getting to play live music again was a reviving experience for Delta. Reflecting on her tour so far with the Backstreet Boys, she says, “Finally we had this beautiful moment
“...
Everybody that’s with me are wonderful believers of the music... and what we want to share with people over here [The United States] through hope and love and light through the songs... "
The idea she had to maintain that connection? “Bunkerdown” ses sions. Every Thursday night she would live stream from her living
“...the first week was inaudible, you could not understand what I was singing,” she recalled with a laugh. “I thought I had done a great job of putting it all together and people were like ‘the WiFi is cutting out’...so I learned all these new skills of being able, just being able to do everything at home. But my personal evolu tion with this new era of connecting through our phones was through going live once a week, every single week from my liv ing room. And we dedicated it to the doctors and the nurses, and everybody tuned in and it was a phenomenal connection.”
Bunkerdown became such a hit with her supporters that on her next tour she recreated her living room on stage. It was some thing different, but change is something that growing up in the music industry had prepared her for. “What I’ve always known in my entire career is ‘things will change’,” she said. “So everytime I go through something new I just go ‘I have to adapt quickly, I can’t just stay in what was yesterday’”.
Starting her career so young, she is no stranger to change in the industry. But when the pandemic hit, she was faced with a prob lem: How does she keep the personal, almost tactile connection with her supporters alive; how to still reach her fans?
and dearest to her heart, who she describes as “my mentor, my idol”, was Olivia Newton John. (Interview took place before Ms Newton John passed.)
Though she is the one on stage, she admits she could not do what she does without her crew, who she describes as her “touring fam ily”, and is very grateful for the hard work and dedication they put into making the show flawless. “Everybody that’s with me is wonder ful believers of the music and the message of the music and what we want to share with people over here [The United States] through hope and love and light through the songs,” she said. “You know I’m very very lucky that in this moment in my career I have people around me that are just absolutely on board, we are all on the train together. It’s beautiful.”
Delta has been inspired by many different artists from many genres across her career, from Celine Dion to Michael Bolton to An drea Bocelli– but the person who is nearest
“My passion as a cancer survivor , gives me something I can be a voice for, and it can be a voice for good,” she said. “That’s why it’s important I think for any artist to
As a woman with a platform, Delta has dedicated a lot of time, energy, and resources into the Delta Goodrem Foundation. The Foundation works to raise money for doctors and hospitals to support them in their cancer research and cellular therapy. It supports a Fellowship program that is dedicated to research to finding a cure for blood cancers, like Hodgkin’s Lym phoma. As a survivor of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma herself, this is a cause that is very personal to Delta.
“... That’s why it’s important I think for any artist to really speak from their heart for what they want to be a voice for...”
By Sydney Champagne
of ten to twenty thousand people in a room singing my songs. Then I come over here and get to have a new challenge. New discovery for some people, and others that have had my music for ten, fifteen years that are com ing to the shows and going ‘I never thought you would come to America and sing these songs’. They’re the ones that made the effort to come and say hi. So it’s very very beautiful and I feel very very grateful and I couldn’t be happier for performing for people.”
a musician. “I always say that dreams don’t have an ex piration date,” she says. “So I think it’s really important to me that I feel equally as inspired when the little ones come on and they’re filled with dreams as when all the different age groups perform, whether they’re 67, 70, 100 I don’t mind. To me, it’s about the experience and kind of finding what it is in their heart they want to have in that show, in that moment. And I remind everyone this is a moment and music is all about moments so you have to create your next moment.”
Though inspiration in the outside world abounds, Delta finds much of her inspiration for her music in the normalities of her everyday life, or just at her piano. “Of course, you know, I think there is always inspiration around us,” she said. “And I think that I do genuinely sort of look for it in everyday life. Every day something happens or you’re moving through it and even just, you know, processing every single mo ment. Also the music does guide so I do tend to just play my instrument. I’m a piano player so I just sit and dance on the piano, and you know sometimes in that moment as long as you’re having, feeling, a bit of free dom and being able to express yourself through sound as well as words, the sound can guide.”
Being a judge on Australia’s The Voice for nine years, Delta got to meet and work with many talented in dividuals who looked up to her, and some of whom inspired her in turn. She recalls working with an older man who was finally getting to live his dream of being
really speak from their heart and I think there are so many voices right now (and mine) for when it comes to the health landscape, the doctors, the nurses, is something that I would talk for days with you about.”
Towards the end of our conversation, Delta quoted the 2007 film August Rush, saying “The music is all around us”. Music is certainly all around her, and she continues to find ways to spread that joy.
Whether it be through live shows or discuss ing cancer research or Bunkerdown sessions, Delta will find a way to connect with you– and you will be a better person for knowing
“I like to be a safe place, my music in general, my performances, I’m a safe place for all to come to and to enjoy and be a part of music, I genuinely am - artists are…human beings, they have all of the feelings, the emotions, the empathy. That’s why they do music be cause they feel so much. And that’s where I like to put all my energy into the songs; that’s always been kinda my way about, this way of creating through songs.”
Delta’s passion– for music, for her supporters, for her Foundation, for her team and friends— is something that is noticeable as soon as she begins to speak. She is so animated about the things she is working on, and the people that helped her get here, that you can’t help be swept up by her when she talks to you; you can feel her love and excitement.
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Scotch, a man’s drink? Not anymore.
Now for the technical stuff: Scotch is a type of whisky, which is made from fermented grain mash. Scotch is much more specific and rule-bound: it must be made in Scotland, from water and malted barley; fermented only with yeast; and must be matured in oak casks for no less than three years—among other rules. There’s single malt Scotch (made only from barley), and blended Scotch, which can include up to 40 or 50 different malt and grain whiskies, each chosen to provide a certain character or flavor to the blend. For example, sweet and floral malts might be blended with malts that are earthy and mildly smoky. A good Scotch should be balanced and smooth, despite the high alcohol content.
Scotch is a man’s drink, or so they say—“they” being, trustaromasdetectingthussensewomenchoice.whymanyimpress,IfknowsaroundmessageandandasScotchispointintotheed,notvegetalown,“amore“man’sincorrectlyWhilecatedthislearnagaintidesway,Itonlygettoadvertisersthelowdrinksawfulwhoeverundoubtedly,isshillingthoseskinny-brandedtowomenwithself-esteem,orMadMen-esquewhowantedconvincementhey’dlaidandgetrichiftheydrankScotch.wasn’talwaysthisthough,andtheareturningonceforwomentoaboutandenjoycomplex,sophistispirit.Scotchmaybelabeledadrink,”itmaybeaccuratelylabeleddrinker’sdrink.”Onitsthisoftenmalty,tastingspiritisforthefaint-heartandcertainlynotfortypewhoprefersdrowntheiralcoholsweetmixestothewherethealcoholnolongerdetectable.isadrinkwithmuchsubtlenuanceversatilityaswine,onethatconveysatothepeopleyou:thischickwhatshe’sdoing.youdon’tdrinktothereareotherreasonsScotchisagreatFirstofall,haveabetterofsmell,andarebettersuitedtothesubtleofaScotch—me,tryingtode
And, you don’t have to stick to Scotlandbased product, either. Irish whiskey (note the different spelling) is made with unmalted barley and has a lighter, smoother flavor than most Modernherbsmixandone’saroundindrink”asRustyandtan;Scotch-basedRoboutScotchcanbeingtooown.timeintensewateryourdosMostHudsonandCorsair’shaveatlikeitselfhasTasmania,closebeenThe JapaneseScotches.havemakingmalts forto100years;surprisingly,madeanameforwithitsScotch-whiskies,andevenhomeintheU.S.wegreatbrandslikeTripleSmokeTuthilltownSpirits’SingleMalt.ScotchaficionarecommendtryingScotchwithsometostart;it’santastethattakestomanageonitsAndifyou’renotconcernedwithapurist,youmakeyourowncocktails.TryclassicsliketheRoy,essentiallyaManhatit’seasytomakeeasytodrink.TheNail,onceseenan“oldperson’sispoppingupsexywateringholesthecity—thisamixofScotchDrambuie,itselfaofwhisky,honey,andspice.TheNumber2is
You can be a Scotch snob all you want—by all means, go ahead and drink only the finest single malts, the Macallans and the Glenfiddichs. But some of the blends out there, Johnnie Walker and
Buchanan’s, are deli cious and interesting in their own right (you could do a lot worse than a Johnnie Walker on the rocks).
Scotch, it’s a man’s world...
By Ashleigh VanHouten
PDT, although a bit trendier than you’d like, makes amazing cocktails that never let you down. Death & Company, The Rum House, and Dutch Kills in Long Island City are all amazing ways to appreciate Scotch in New York.
040
If you’d rather go out to drink, you can find many places to wet your whistle in New York: the Highlands, Rye House, and 1534 are all good options.
cheers
tect those subtle notes of citrus, flowers, and even burnt rubber may seem crazy at first, but practice makes perfect! And hey, if you want to get all stereotypical about it, Scotch has no added sugar (low calorie drinking!) and pairs really well with dark chocolate.
Try it and see if it doesn’t become your drink of choice.
for the more adventur ous: it calls for Scotch, sloe gin, and a dash of absinthe along with some orange bitters and pomegranate grenadine. Trust me, what sounds like a nightmare tastes like a dream—at least in this case.
But my personal fa vorite: a cocktail called The Wildest Redhead, a 70’s-era concoction reimaged by a real-life redheaded bartender at Raines Lawroom. This one is comprised of allspice dram, a blended Scotch, and a splash of dark cherry liqueur, the allspice giving undercurrents of honey, cinnamon and clove. It’s sexy, sophisticated, and very drinkable—just like Scotch itself.
... Yeah Right!
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“...The Principle of Optimism: All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge...”
by Prof. David Deutsch
There can be no such thing as a disease for which it is impos sible to discover a cure, other than certain types of brain damage – those that have dissipated the knowledge that constitutes the patient’s personality. For a sick person is a physical object, and the task of transforming this object into the same person in good health is one that no law of physics rules out. Hence there is a way of achieving such a transformation – that is to say, a cure. It is only a matter of knowing how. If we do not, for the moment, know how to eliminate a particular evil, or we know in theory but do not yet have enough time or resources (i.e. wealth), then, even so, it is universally true that either the laws of physics forbid eliminating it in a given time with the available resources or there is a way of eliminating it in the time and with those resources.
Optimism is, in the first instance, a way of explaining failure, not prophesying success. It says that there is no fundamental barrier, no law of nature or supernatural decree, preventing progress. Whenever we try to improve things and fail, it is not because the spiteful (or unfathomably benevolent) gods are thwarting us or punishing us for trying, or because we have reached a limit on the capacity of reason to make improvements, or because it is best that we fail, but always because we did not know enough, in time
But optimism is also a stance towards the future, because nearly all failures, and nearly all successes, are yet to come. Optimism follows from the explicability of the physical world. If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how. Optimism also assumes that none of the prohibitions imposed by the laws of physics are necessarily evils. So, for instance, the lack of the impossible knowledge of prophecy is not an insuperable obstacle to progress. Not are insoluble mathematical problems, That means that in the long run t here are no insuperable evils, and in the short run the only insuperable evils are parochial ones.
Sometimes ‘immortality’ (in this sense) is even regarded as unde sirable. For instance, there are arguments from overpopulation; but those are examples of the Malthusian prophetic fallacy: what each additional surviving person would need to survive at presentday standards of living is easily calculated; what knowledge of the person would contribute to the solution of the resulting problems is unknowable. There are also arguments about the stultification
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BrightTheSide
The same must hold, equally trivially, for the evil of death – that is to say, the deaths of human beings from disease or old age. This problem has a tremendous resonance in every culture – in its liter ature, its values, its objectives great and small. It also has an almost unmatched reputation for insolubility (except among believers in the supernatural): it is taken to be the epitome of an insuperable obstacle. But there is no rational basis for that reputation. It is ab surdly parochial to read some deep significance into this particular failure, among so many, of the biosphere to support human life – or of medical science throughout the ages to cure ageing. The problem of ageing is one of the same general type as that of dis ease. Although it is a complex problem by present day standards, the complexity is finite and confined to a relatively narrow arena whose basic principles are already fairly well understood. Mean while, knowledge in the relevant fields is increasing exponentially.
by G
Pessimism has been endemic in almost every society throughout history. It has taken the form of t he precau tionary principle, and of ‘who should rule?’ political phi losophies and all sorts of other demands for prophecy, and of despair in the power of creativity, and of the mis interpretation of problems as insuperable barriers. Yet there have always been a few individuals who see ob stacles as problems, and see problems as soluble. And so, very occasionally, there have been places and mo ments when there was, briefly, an end to pessimism. As far as I know, no historian has investigated the history of optimism, but my guess is that whenever it has emerged in a civilization there has been a mini-enlightenment: a tradition of criticism resulting in an efflorescence of many of the patterns of human progress with which we are familiar, such as art, literature, philosophy, science, technology and the institutions of an open society. The end of pessimism is potentially as beginning of infinity. Yet I also guess that in every case – with the single, tre mendous exception (so far) of our own enlightenment – this process was soon brought to an end and the reign of pessimism was restored.
Whenever we try to improve things and fail, it is not because the spiteful (or unfathomably benevolent) gods are thwarting us or punishing us for trying... but always because we did not know enough, in time.
Usually the hardness of a problem is one of the very fac tors that cause it to be solved. Thus President John F. Kennedy said in 1962, in a celebrated example of an op timistic approach to the unknown, ‘We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because but because they are hard.’ Kennedy did not mean that the moon project, being hard, was unlikely to succeed. On the contrary, he believed that it would. What he meant by a hard task was one that depends
on facing the unknown. And the intuitive fact to which he was appealing was that although such hardness is always negative factor when choosing among means to pursue an objective, when choosing the objective itself it can be a positive one, because we want to engage with projects that will involve creating new knowledge. And an optimist expects the creation of knowledge to constitute progress – including its unforeseeable con
of society caused by the entrenchment of old people in positions of power; but the traditions of criticism in our society are already well adapted to solving that sort of problem. Even today, it is common in Western countries for powerful politicians or business executives to be re moved from the office while still in good health
Thussequences.Kennedy
Progress cannot take place at all unless someone is open to, and prepares for, those inconceivable possibilities. The prisoner may or may not discover a way of teaching the horse to talk. But he may discover something else. He may persuade the king to repeal the law that he had bro ken; he may learn a convincing conjuring tick in which the horse would seem to talk; he may escape; he may think of an achievable task that would please the king even more than making the horse talk. The list is infi nite. Even if every such possibility is unlikely, it takes only one of them to be realized for the whole problem to be solved. But if our prisoner is going to escape by creating a new idea, he cannot possibly know that idea today, and therefore he cannot let the assumption that it will never exist condition his planning.
There is a traditional optimistic story that runs as follows. Our hero is a prisoner who has been sentenced to death by a tyrannical king, but gains a reprieve by promising to teach the king’s favorite horse to talk within a year. That night, a fellow prisoner asks what possessed him to make such a bargain. He replies, ‘A lot can happen in a year. The king might die. I might die. Or the horse might talk!’ the prisoner understands that, while his immediate problems have to do with prison bars and the king and his horse, ultimately the evil he faces is caused by insufficient knowledge. That makes him an optimist. He knows that, if progress is to be made, some of the opportunities and some of the discoveries will be inconceivable in advance.
Optimism implies all the other necessary conditions for knowledge to grow, and for knowledge-creating civili zations to last, and hence for the beginning of infinity. We have, as Popper put it, a duty to be optimistic – in general, and about civilization in particular. One can argue that saving civilization will be difficult. That does not mean that there is a low probability of solving the associated problems. When we say that a mathematical problem is hard to solve, we do not mean that it is un likely to be solved. All sorts of factors determine whether mathematicians even address a problem, and with what effort. If an easy problem is not deemed to be interesting or useful, they might leave it unsolved indefinitely, while hard problems are solved all the time.
remarked that the moon project would require a vehicle ‘made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision bet ter than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communica tions, food and survival’. Those were the known prob lems, which would require as-yet-unknown knowledge. That this was ‘on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body’ referred to the unknown problems that made the probabilities, and the outcomes, profoundly unknowable. Yet none of that prevented rational people from forming the expectation that the mission could succeed. This expectation was not a judgment of prob ability: until far into the project, no one could predict that, because it depended on solutions not yet discov ered to problems not yet known. When people were being persuaded to work on the project – and to vote for it, and so on – they were being persuaded that our being confined to one planet was an evil, that explor ing the universe was good, that the Earth’s gravitational field was not a barrier but merely a problem, and that overcoming it and all the other problems involved in the project was only a matter of knowing how, and the nature of the problems made that moment the right one to try to solve them. Probabilities and prophecies were not needed in that argument.
?eMtan’ikooLuoY
In 1998 I was named Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. In that position, I had the privilege to help create transformative, cutting-edge programs across all of the university, from the arts to zoology, from the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum to the medical and law school. The uses of new forms of digital technology for learning and research was my particular focus, and I soon learned there was literally no subject – from ancient Greek to biochemistry – that has not been transformed by computational technologies. It was all in credibly exciting, but nothing was more deeply moving or more personal to me than helping in creation of our Center for Cog nitive Neuroscience. I wanted to learn more about the brain in order to help with several online, connected learning initia tives my office was pursuing. I also was hoping that, by reading extensively in this new field of brain science, I might help my brother.
Ken’s condition is called “encephalopathy,” a diffuse brain disease that alters brain function. It is a condition that sometimes results from what, in Ken’s medical reports, is referred to as “over-zealous use of radiation.” Despite encephalopathy, my brother managed to hold down a full-time job for many years. With the help of his re markable wife Mary Lou, he raised a son, has a beautiful home and, now that he is on disability, has enough savings to manage better than most of us could. It is a remarkable feat of family love and sup port and individual courage.
My brother Ken is three years younger than me. He was a brilliant child with an exuberant, outsized personality. He also complained of headaches most of his life. One day, soon after he turned thirty, he had a blinding headache that just wouldn’t stop. His wife Mary Lou took him to the emergency room at a hospital near their home in Denver, Colorado. Using the relatively new technology of the CScan, doctors diagnosed a large and growing benign tumor, prob ably congenital but now dangerous. They removed it and surgically destroyed what could not be removed with radiation treatments. The headaches went away but my brother lost some of his hearing and some cognitive faculties. Over the next two decades, he also suffered a series of small strokes that progressively diminished his cognitive capacities.
That brings me to a sobering truth: Understanding a problem does not solve it; diagnosing an illness does not cure it.
And nothing I learned from cognitive neuroscience could help my brother very much. I was able to help with physician referrals in his area, thanks to advice offered by my colleagues in brain science. And, from my reading, I was help to explain to my parents, who also live in Denver, some of the unpredictable, confusing, and everchanging patterns and personality changes that come with strokes and brain damage. One day my brother is able to carry on a lu cid conversation, while on another he can barely understand the simplest communication. On some days, that condition varies from hour to hour. No one knows why.
by Cathy N. Davidson feature
So well illustrated by the famous youtube video of psychologist Daniel Simons’ experiment where a gorilla wanders un-noticed on court during a basket ball practice, our propensity to see only that which we are trained or told or otherwise expect to see – ‘attention blindness’ – robs us of a much broader, often richer view of our lives. Quite apart from not ever seeing the other person’s point of view!
This interactive, connected world is different than what came be fore. For the first time in history, if I have a thought, I can write it or film it and post it to the Web and anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection can have instant access to it. No edi tor filters what I say. You and I can communicate directly. That’s incredible power, an astonishing tool for sharing knowledge and ideas. And that means we can also easily misuse and abuse this new instant ability. But it does not damage our brain.
And that’s the sobering point I take to heart. For all that we know about the brain, there is infinitely more we neither know nor can control. Being modest about what things “cause” neural changes is essential. For all the changes in the brain that some pundits want to ascribe to technology, it is crucial to remember that, in fact, most of what we do as humans is a combination of biology on the one hand and culture on the other. We learn from those around us from the day we are born, and that begins a process of constant unlearning and relearning. We can accelerate that process in all kinds of ways – some good, some not.
But actual, physiological damage is something else. It comes from intrusions into the physical matter of the brain, and the actual destruc tion, or at least the degeneration, of brain cells. That kind of damage is caused by congenital conditions (such as my brother’s original brain tumor), illness, injury, substance abuse, or “iatrogenesis,” side effects from medical treatments such as radiation or chemotherapy).
FACT #3: Multitasking isn’t simply about technology. Of course it is stupid for your teenager to text while driving, but if you really want to protect your child, remove the other seats in the car. Accidents go up exponentially for every other peer in a car with a teen. Why? Because talking, joking, and laughing with your friends is qualify as more “multitasking” even than texting. Heartburn and heartache (the body’s pains or the soul’s troubles) are far more likely to distract you than technology.
FACT #1: The Internet does not make your children dumber or less capable of reading long books. In the summer of 2011, Scholastic Magazine released a survey, using the exact methods they’ve been using for generations, which showed that 15-year-olds today read more books outside of school than their parents read in a given year and, in fact, read more books than their parents did when their parents were 15. Walk into just about any bookstore and you will see a lot of prime real estate dedicated to “Young Adult (YA) Lit erature,” a category that wasn’t even invented before the Internet.
I flew to Denver to see my brother, who had been hospitalized for al most two months, and who seemed many times at death’s door. On March 14th, the day before my visit, Ken’s blood pressure dropped so low that his caregiver and physical therapist were not able to rouse him. I was sure he wouldn’t be able to go to the Denver Museum of Art, as he had requested, as we had planned. But when I called his house, Mary Lou assured me that he was dressed, ready, and eagerly awaiting the day. He, my dad, and I spent three hours together at the museum. Ken would pause before a work of art he admired, take it in, read the caption, and then move on. His joy was palpable.
Now, it is quite possible that your 15-year-old is bored reading the same books you read as a child. It is quite possible that they also like graphic novels, animation, 3-D, youtube videos, online multi player games, social networking, and other digital forms not avail able when you were 15. But, then again, your mother also shook her head and wondered at some of what you liked at that age. That head-shaking, generation to generation, has been going at least since Socrates, and no doubt longer, before 400 BCE, too.
How do you go from being nearly comatose one day to walking around an art museum with your sister and father the next? No doctor has been able to explain that. None of my reading in neu roscience sheds light on it either. All I can say is I am inspired by my brother’s valor.
FACT #4: Millennials are no wiser in the use of technol ogy than their parents. Young people who grow up with tech nology can become more proficient in its use simply because, as with everything, it is easier to learn something new than to have to break an entrenched, different habit that may be block ing you from mastering the skill. Kids learn interfaces, the pat terns become habitual, and they can build on those. But that doesn’t make them wiser about issues such as privacy, security, intellectual property violations, online bullying, or dozens of other social, emotional, and intellectual opportunities, challenges, and perils. They need parents who are informed and teachers who are skilled to help them make the best decisions about their life— online as well as off.
Here are some basic, useful facts about the brain science of at tention that are helpful in understanding the dramatic changes in the ways we live, work, and learn that began roughly in April of 1993. That’s when the Mosaic 1.0 browser was made commer cially available. Suddenly, the Internet and the Web could come into our homes and was no longer relegated to the science lab, the university, the military, and the government.
Too much use of the Internet does not hurt your brain, but under standing some of how the brain works does let us use the Internet wisely – and that turns out to be very helpful to many people.
FACT #2: Monotasking is a myth on a neurological level. The brain human brain is thought to have over a hundred billion neurons and they are firing all the time. Brilliant neurophysiologists at Cam bridge and at Washington University show that over 80% of the brain’s neural activity is spent in “brain chatter”—neurons interact ing, the brain, in a sense, talking to itself. External distraction is ac tually relatively easy to manage compared to the constant stream of ideas the brain manufactures, most of which we don’t even pay attention to until a threshold is reached and suddenly we are all too aware that we’re distracted. Insomnia is a case in point. With no external distractions, the mind can suddenly be maddeningly busy and alert. In the Eastern world, there’s a 2000-year-old philosophi cal tradition based on the idea of mindfulness and the difficulty of emptying the mind of trivial, everyday thought. Even in the most serene meditative space, mindfulness is difficult to achieve. There would be a lot more Buddhas if single-mindedness, or mental monotasking, were easily attained.
rant
By Sophia Fox-Sowell
Chocolate isn’t the only thing deliciously sweet in the Alps.I grow tired. You bore me. Here’s a quarter, monkey, perform for me. Sing. No, my ears are bleeding.Tap. Stop, I can’t follow the clumsiness of your feet. What are you good for? Simply a wallflower to be hung and ignored?
Frivolous with my arrows, I pierce the nearest target. You there, with the striped pants and the flattened hair. You must have rolled out of the wrong bed this morning, Somewhere the fences are metal, and the corner store is bulletproof. Am I mistaken, where’s your stoop? Your mirror must be broken, Because I’m quite sure if was made of glass you’d see that your ass doesn’t belong here.It’s too fat for those breeches, and too dark for my liking.See it clashes with the white wallpaper, and all the card stock we’re stocking.I’m a size 2, the stores I shop in don’t carry your size or cater to poor.How did I know? Dearest, it’s written all over your face, imprinted in your embrace. The weak and pathetic do not shake hands with the strong and prophetic. Your hands are rough; they must toil with the stress and labors of the day to day. My hands are dirty but my bank account is clean.
Don’t loiter. Don’t linger. Don’t greet. Just be Ginger. Let me give you the low down on how things are run in this town. Frank is harsh, Harry is balding, and Sapphire is anything but stunning. The bold may be beautiful, but money talks and the words are steep.What the hell, I’ll throw you a bone! Be a good girl, and chew on it a while.In the meantime, I’ll let loose my lips and sink your ships with my jawbreaker style.Yes jawbreaker, not jaw dropper—now close your mouth, because you’re drooling and theseshoes are Versace.
Dance, monkey, dance. This is your last chance. So get into the game or out of my way. Are you a weed or a rose? Choose carefully from those. A weed is wild, untamed. A rose is an assassin up in flames. The petals are peculiar, its scent is familiar, yet the thorns are what you remember each time you tempt to pluck it from its litter.
Thrust it in a bouquet, and be a maestro, make it play. Then watch it wilt and wither, and fade away.
I eat pussy first thing in the morning and wash down coffee with cocaine. My three addictions make for a perfectly balanced breakfast for the corrupt and insane.In that order, of course, but darling, don’t be coarse. Soft and smooth are the only adjectives that suit you.You adore my suit? No? Then forget it we’re through. Who needs you!
I certainly don’t. I’m fabulous and fierce.
Oliv e
So what can we do to protect ourselves and spend our money wisely on quality, healthy products? First, we should understand the difference between extra virgin olive oil, virgin olive oil, (pure) olive oil and pomace oil. In
Often people don’t realize how many factors affect the quality of olive oil. Just like wine, it starts in the field. Weather, land and mother nature play a key
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But it’s not that easy. In fact, sometimes I look in the mirror and think, what am I doing? How can I preach finishing dishes off with the perfect single-varietal, limited production, regional extra virgin olive oils to everyday people, when the majority of our fine din ing restaurant idols are putting rancid, chlorophyllfilled imitation stuff on their tables for us to hungrily dunk bread into? They might call it olive oil, but they unashamedly mask its taste with smashed gar lic, grated cheese, balsamic vinegar and rosemary, thinking we will never know the difference. How can I talk about flavors and aromas in extra virgin olive oils when people are afraid to put it to their lips after being disenchanted by the stale, musty flavors that dominate our supermarket shelves? So many times I have heard people say that they were convinced not to like the taste of olives because of the bad flavors they’ve experienced in olive oils. It’s a sad reality, but I believe we can make a huge difference with just some education and exposure to good products. In the face of my uneasy job, what keeps me going is seeing that astounded ear-to-ear smile, hearing that flabbergasted “wow,” and knowing I’ve altered some one’s taste buds forever. Once people are exposed to the real deal, there is no going back! These are the personal little satisfactions of my workday!
Oil
by Kim Sayid
My friends tell me that I have the best job ever - they’d do anything for my position… I travel all over Italy to discover hidden gems of places and foods, then come back to the U.S. and pro mote these luxurious “tasty itin eraries” around the country.
role, as well as how the trees are nurtured and pruned, timing and method of the harvest, speed to pressing, storage, blending, bottling and age. The scary thing is that most of the leading oil brands on the market today don’t own a single tree or crush a single olive. They are merely bottlers. They buy mass quantities of oil on the open market, with no knowledge of its origin or quality, and blend it to a certain price (not taste) profile they think we Americans will appreciate. Many of the products are poorly processed, full of defects and potentially even carcinogenic. But don’t be insulted – it’s pretty much the same story on Italian supermarket shelves as well! It’s un fortunate, but these large players are globally dominant and their negative effects often overshadow the delicious healthy benefits of good quality extra virgin olive oils.
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its simplest explanation, extra virgin olive oil is, by law, the first oil extracted from crushed, macerated, fresh olives. It has no laboratory defects and meets cer tain legal parameters, including an acidity level equal to or below 0.8%. It does not have the addition of chemicals or any chemical processing. Since noth ing is added or altered, this makes the end result heavily dependent on the quality of the olives used. The brilliant marketing terms “cold pressed” and “first pressed” are pretty irrelevant since today almost all extra virgin olive oils are extracted using appropriate air-tight machinery, which operates at room temperature. Virgin olive oil, which is less commonly found, is slightly less expensive because the quality parameters are slightly lower. The prod uct is allowed to have a few defects and a slightly higher acidity level in laboratory testing. However, like extra virgin olive oil, it is still not allowed to be chemically treated or altered. Next we have olive oil, misleadingly also known as Pure Olive Oil. This is very poor quality oil with no healthy or appeal ing qualities. In addition, it is treated to strip away any color or flavor it might have only to have those elements artificially added back in, making this the most “impure” of them all! Saving the worst for last, we have pomace oil. This is the absolute last press ing of the fruit, when the final remnants of liquid are squeezed out of the pit and any other remaining muck. It is completely void of flavor, color, aroma or health benefit, and is chemically enhanced to be come plausible for cooking. Oddly enough, pomace oil used to be illegal for human consumption in Italy, as it was considered only for lamp fuel. Today this is the “golden green liquid” poured in front of us on most of our restaurant tables!
When trying to select the right oil for you, standing in front of those overwhelming supermarket shelves can be daunting. Now that you’re past the first step of understanding the differences between the products, you can look for a few other key indicators of quality. First, start with the bottle. Oil is damaged by light and heat and should therefore be sold and stored in dark bottles at cool or room temperatures only. Any prod ucts packed in clear bottles are an immediate no-no. Unlike wine, olive oil does NOT get better with age. You want to purchase the youngest, freshest product possible, so be sure your extra virgin olive oil has a harvest year and/or expiration date on it. The product should be used within 18 months of packing. Once the bottle is opened however, you should consume the oil within 30 days to fully enjoy its maximum po tential and flavors. Next, check where the oil comes from. If you are looking for an Italian extra virgin olive oil for example, be sure that the olives are Italian. You don’t want to pay for something you are not getting. Actually, many of the biggest “Italian” brands in stores are not Italian at all! They may have Italian sounding names with images of gondolas or the Tuscan coun tryside on the label, but they are anything but Italian.
When you feel confident in selecting a good base oil for cooking and dressings, you may be ready to progress to finding the perfect pairings for your fa vorite dishes. For example, you may want to consider a DOP (Protected Denomination of Origin) extra vir gin olive oil. Marked with a seal from the European Union, this is the highest level of guaranteed origin for an extra virgin olive oil. It guarantees that the ol ives in the bottle were cultivated, picked, pressed and bottled in a particular area – and we all know how important terrain is to food products! Varietal oils have more individual character and expression, often boasting aromas and flavors of pine nuts, almonds, tomatoes, arugula, artichokes, pepper, white flowers and green leaves, to name a few. A bitter, Tuscan ex tra virgin olive oil can be the most important element on a simple dish of beans or arugula salad. A flavorful, Sicilian extra virgin olive oil can transform vegetables, swordfish or tuna dishes to another level! A drizzle of a delicate extra virgin olive oil from the Ligurian coast can bring those ethereal flavors of the Cinque Terre right to your table!
The familiar concept of what grows together goes together comes into play here, but I’m certainly not suggesting we have to eat Italian food every day. The more important message is to marry your fla vors properly. Just as most people probably would not pair a large oaky cabernet sauvignon with a light white fish, or a young pinot grigio with a grilled por terhouse, your goal is to properly match the inten sity of the extra virgin olive oil with the dish. Delicate, medium and strong intensities of bitterness are what we are measuring. The delicately bitter oils go with delicate foods like fish, seafood, pesto, soft cheeses, etc. The medium intensities pair well with a variety of dishes like pasta, rice, poultry, vegetables and salads. The strong intensities marry best with heartier fare like red meat, game, bitter greens, bruschetta, soups and beans. Extra virgin olive oils are even appropri ate for desserts and cocktails. Have you ever tried olive oil cake or donuts with a delicate oil tasting of pine nuts and sweet almonds? How about vanilla ice cream with a sprinkle of coarse sea salt and a driz zle of strong herbaceous extra virgin olive oil? And why not consider a bloody mary of perfectly ripened sweet cherry tomatoes with freshly ground green peppercorns and a drizzle of aged balsamic and to mato scented extra virgin olive oil?
The majority are low-quality blends from high pro duction countries like Spain, Turkey, Greece and Mo rocco. Don’t be afraid to experiment and, most im portantly, don’t be afraid to spend. A 17-ounce good quality bottle of extra virgin olive oil can range from $15-$30 in the store. Considering it will last you up to a month, that’s less than a dollar a day to dramati cally enhance your meals and give you wonderful fla vor and health benefits in every bite. I’d say those are pennies well spent!
My hope is that this article has been successful in giv ing you some guidance and outlining a few rules for your future extra virgin olive oil purchases. If you have an ear-to-ear smile, scream “wow,” and feel like your taste buds have been altered forever when you buy your next bottle of extra virgin olive oil, then yes, I’ll admit, I do have the best job ever!
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“I ran into him as we were going down the stairs,” recalled Reddick. “And I said to him, I don’t know if you remember, but about eight years ago, you know, you saw me on the street and you said how much you enjoyed my work. And I just want you to know what that – how much that meant.” Hoffman regarded the actor kindly but quickly, overwhelmed, he squeezed his way out of the venue. A few short months later, Hoffman passed away.
REDDICKLANCEByEdenMor
“He asked me about training. And I said, ‘well, you don’t need training as an actor, you learn as you go,’ which I knew was kind of crap,” Reddick said. Without a good director and a good script, Reddick came to realize his performances were inconsistent, explaining that he simply “didn’t have any technique.”
By some odd coincidence, the last people heading out the doors of the 2014 Sundance film festival were Lance Reddick, and the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It was January, in the icy town of Park City Utah, where the world-famous festival is held annually. Hoffman was in attendance promoting his new film God’s Pocket, John Slattery’s directorial debut.
“... You have to be willing to learn, which means you have to be willing to not be good at something for a while... that’s what it feels like a lot when I’m beginning the process of working on a new project... ”
Reddick did not know Hoffman personally. They were the same age though, and in some sense peers. But the interaction stuck with him, because above all else, Hoffman was a shining exemplar for the type of actor Reddick had always wanted to become. “A classic actor,” Reddick said.
simply because they are famous. Or because they know somebody in the industry. No, for Reddick, acting is a craft, an art form one must learn. And he built much of his craft from the foundations of one of his favorite actors, Hoffman.
The Maryland-born actor originally pursued music at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, but eventually found his way to the Yale School of Drama. The idea to head to prestigious acting school was in no way planned, but rather born of a conversation Reddick had with a painter he was modeling for early in his career.
But as fate would have it, Reddick ended up at Yale, having received ample financial aid to attend a four year university course as a husband and father entering his 30s. At Yale, Reddick was thrust into the intense world of performance acting, much of which included Shakespeare, and even that didn’t phase him. “I had an affinity for Shakespeare ever
Lance Reddick, best known for his roles in HBO’s The Wire, Amazon’s Bosch, and the movie franchise John Wick, isn’t one of those actors that books roles
“It’s tricky, you know, and my son is really good at this. You have to be willing to learn, which means you have to be willing to not be good at something for a while. Keep at it, and to keep that. That’s what it feels like a lot when I’m beginning the process of working on something,”
But from our conversation it was obvious that one project stood out to him above the others. That film is Shirley. It’s a biopic expected to release sometime this year, following Shirely Chisholm, America’s first black congresswoman, and her historic run for office in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Deadline writes that the film will focus on “the
Reddick learned. And studied. And performed. He gave it everything he had, all while entering his 30s, with a wife and child to think of. But it’s clear that Reddick still values the learning process, unlike so many actors. And he definitely doesn’t take it for granted in light of his mainstream Hollywood success.
Interestingly enough, Lance wasn’t the only future star to grace the halls of Yale (besides Meryl Streep, of course). Paul Giamatti, known for his roles in 12 Years a Slave, Sideways and Billionaire, happened to be in Reddick’s class. Though the two have been friends ever since, Giamatti’s natural talent helped Reddick come to an important realization as a student. “So Paul was literally a star the first day of class... it was like he was just practicing being a star for two years. I realized that as talented as I may or may not be, I knew that talent wasn’t enough,” Reddick said.
since I was a kid only because I was a fan of Star Trek,” Reddick told us. “And I loved Captain Kirk and I found out that he was a Shakespearean actor….and so I knew that I wanted to learn to do Shakespeare well.”
And so Reddick set himself a goal – one that he doesn’t like to say out loud too much, but stands by to this day. “I want to be the best actor in the world,” he said, adding that every serious actor in some way, shape, or form entertains this goal. But what sets Reddick apart from others is the way he approached this aspiration. “It’s easy to say that, but you can’t accomplish something unless you can find some way to quantify it. Right? So I tried to break it down,” he explained.
Andphysically.so,Lance
Fast forward to present day. Reddick now has two kids, and his career is on the up. This year, he starred as a voice actor in the Netflix animated series Farzar, as well as the much anticipated Netflix series Resident Evil, inspired by the horror franchise of the same name. He reprised his role of Charon in the John Wick franchise, with the fourth installment expected to release sometime next year. Not to mention you can spot him in the new 20th Century Studios reboot of the 1992 classic, White Men Can’t Jump.
The methodical actor he is, Reddick drew from his favorite performers, pinpointing the aspect of their craft in which they excelled. Marlon Brando, he explained, has a visceral, nearly animalistic approach to acting. Meryl Streep on the other hand, acts in an almost hyperreal way, having mastered the art of accents. Reddick also praised Daniel Day Lewis as one of his favorites, citing the actor’s ability to transform
As socially aware and progressive as Hollywood has seemingly become, it’s still an industry steeped in racism. Reddick doesn’t shy away from this truth. “I still struggle with [racism]. Right? I mean, it’s still, it’s still an issue in my career, even now that my career is going pretty great,” the actor said.
In our interview, Reddick passionately walked us through Shirley Chisholm’s story. Throughout the process of making the movie, he made it a point to do his research and listen to Chisholm’s speeches. “It was so surreal, because I felt like listening to her speak, it could have been AOC or Bernie Sanders. It was wild. And also going back and watching interviews of her …I didn’t realize how incredibly charming and authentic she was,” Reddick said.
“You always tend to look at things through the lens that you have. So I tend to look at sexism through the lens of being a black man,” Reddick admitted. “And so I tend to look at feminism through the lens of white feminism. So, when somebody asked [Shirley] in this interview…’What was your greatest obstacle?’ She said, ‘men,’” insinuating that black politics was just as much of a boy’s club as white politics, explained Reddick. “I get chills just thinking about it.”
With some pretty significant box-office roles under his belt, it’s clear as day that Reddick has only just begun his journey as an actor. Brimming with none other than passion, he explained he’s had a big project in the works for nearly two and a half years, but at this point, it’s still pretty hush-hush. “I don’t want to say much more than that,” he said, to our disppointment. So for fans of the actor, and for all of those beyond eager to see change in the industry, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Lance Reddick has in store. And from where we’re sitting, it’s looking pretty damn good.
It feels necessary, almost fateful, for a film like Shirley to be released amidst the current political climate of the U.S., and the weight of that isn’t lost on Reddick. He was able to not only give to the film as an actor, but take ample insight away from it.
From our limited time speaking to Reddick, we can tell he isn’t the type of actor to simply accept these harsh realities. He’d rather do something about it. And so as we wrapped up our interview, he gave us a sneak peak at the new direction his career was headed in: “Youproduction.knowit’s,it’s
interesting because right now I just want to do the kinds of stories that I want to see,” said Reddick. “And a lot of those stories are about people of color, particularly people of color and women, particularly historical.”
Photographer is Kelly Balch, grooming by Blondie. All shirts are John Varvatos
cost of accomplishment for Shirley,” and will draw on “exclusive and extensive conversations with Chisholm’s family and friends.” The project, which has landed in the hands of Netflix, is under the direction of Oscar-winner John Ridley, and is set to star an impressive cast alongside Reddick, including Regina King in the title role as well as Lucas Hedges, Terrence Howard, and W. Earl Brown.
By Aaron James
by Jamie Cuccinelli photography by BVC Productions
Distinct Southern charm.
A**HOLES
Too loud a cell phone voice; two seats on the subway; line jumpers; name droppers; self important shits. Sound familiar in NYC? Well we do seem to have more than our fair share of A**HOLES.
rant
Why is that? Because the very idea of an ass hole, according to my definition, implies that someone is wrong about what he is entitled to. The asshole is just the guy who takes special ad vantages from cooperative life when they aren’t his to have. He vigorously defends that position from a mistaken sense of entitlement.
whether he really does sincerely believe he is an asshole, at least if my definition is correct.
Maybe, but here are three ways to explain what is going on. (I like the third.)
Still more realistically, the asshole’s beliefs could stand in an unresolved tension. Maybe he be lieves “I’m entitled to X” and “I’m entitled to Y”, etc., while he also believes “A lot of my beliefs about my entitlements are mistaken.” That isn’t a logical contraction. In fact, we can all consis tently hold that we are probably wrong about something or other but then defend any par ticular belief when we consider the matter on its merits. (Philosophers call this the “paradox of the preface.”) Indeed, to different degrees, we are all more or less in this situation about our own beliefs: we think we must be wrong some where, but don’t know where.
In my book, Assholes:ATheory, I define the term “asshole” in hopes of helping us clearly identify a bothersome type of moral per sonality. On my analysis, the term “asshole” isn’t simply a term of abuse—however abu sively we use it in traffic. Properly used, it is the perfectly good name of a moral vice, like cowardice or slothfulness or callousness. Yet the vice is distinctive. It is perhaps not necessarily as bad as being a treacherous bastard, but usually worse than being a mere jerk, schmuck, or douchebag.
A natural question to ask is then who, in particular, qualifies as an asshole. But before we rush to judg ment about Donald Trump, it is best to ask about our selves: Am I an asshole? While it can be difficult to tell whether someone else is an asshole, in the case of ourselves we have a handy self-test: Consider the possibility that you are, really and truly, an asshole. If you feel ashamed of yourself in the thought of being an asshole, then you probably aren’t one (even if you pull an asshole move from time to time, as most of us do). If you don’t feel ashamed of yourself, and especially if you have a sense of pride, then odds are good that you are, in fact, an asshole.
Even this isn’t entirely straightforward from a phil osophical perspective. Many assholes do seem to proudly own the name. “Yes, I’m an asshole, and proud of it,” the asshole might say while he is taunting those he mistreats. But here we might be skeptical about whether the asshole really means it,
If we like, we can add that the asshole who calls himself an asshole (and really believes it) doesn’t take the fact that his entitlement beliefs are mis taken as a weighty reason to do anything about those beliefs. He’s wrong again on that score, since he really should think harder and better about what others can reasonably expect of him in specific situations. But this is of course just an other instance of his general failure to see others as equals, another way he is “immunized” (as I put it) against the complaints of other people.
Now, this is no problem at all when we say of someone else that he’s an asshole; we are then simply saying that he is wrong. But saying this of ourselves is puzzling. To regard yourself an ass hole, as assholes do, is then in effect to say that you are both right and wrong, that you don’t have the entitlements that you yourself, being an asshole, think you have. But isn’t that some kind of contradiction? Is it even a coherent per spective? If an asshole could take that view of himself, is he not in some deep way inconsis tent, in some deep way confused?
(1) True assholes don’t really fess up. They truly believe they have certain entitlements, and so they won’t, if they are consistent, also admit to a self-description that is tan tamount to admitting that those entitlement beliefs are wrong. So when an asshole says, “Yes, I’m an asshole; deal with it!”, he’s mere ly saying this for show. He’s saying, “Yes, I am what you all would call an ‘asshole.’” But he’s merely mentioning rather than us ing the moral term (he’s speaking “disquota tionally” or in the “inverted commas sense,” as philosophers put it). The same would go for a psychopath who lacks moral concepts and yet says, “Yes, what I do is ‘wrong.’” He doesn’t really believe his actions to be wrong; he merely understands how others would describe what he does and mimics that description, perhaps out of curiosity, or for purposes of better manipulating people, by being able to predict what *they* will call “wrong.” Likewise, we might say, for Milton’s Satan when he says “evil be thou my good.” What he really means is: “evil”—or what peo ple regard as “evil”—be thou my good.
(3) Or, finally, we might say that the asshole is incoherent, in a certain way, or at least stuck in a deep internal conflict. In his normal mo ments of defensiveness, he vigorously defends his specific entitlements, and he believes he has them, even “deep down.” Yet in a moment of reflection, he can also correctly admit that he’s an asshole, and that he doesn’t have a lot of the entitlements he usually thinks he has. How is that possible? Well, it could just be a case of someone accepting a straight-up contradiction (the asshole believes “I’m entitled to X” while at the same time believing “I am not entitled to X”). This is irrational, but perfectly possible; people manage it all the time.
This self-test is not as straightforward as Descartes famous proof of his existence, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am.” It is not enough, according to the test, that you think you are an asshole. You could well be wrong about that, worriedly thinking you are an asshole when you really aren’t one. The test is a shame test: if you really are worried, from a sense of shame, you probably aren’t an asshole. But even if you don’t now consider yourself an asshole, if you feel a certain delight in the thought of being an asshole, and maybe a sense of pride, then you’re in asshole territory.
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What’s special about the asshole’s situation, then? Well, his predicament might work like this. He’ll admit that some of his entitlement beliefs are wrong, in a way that makes him an asshole from his own point of view. But he sees no reason to find out which particular entitlement belief is mistaken. He just carries on without sorting out which of his particular errors he is making, mainly by ignoring the is sue. Maybe he doesn’t care, or prefers the ben efits he gets from being an asshole over the benefits he’d get from having a well-integrated mind. He’d rather be rich than perfectly coher ent, for example. (And wouldn’t you, if you had the choice?)
So, for example, the asshole is the guy who swerves through three lanes of traffic, driving like he owns the road, cuts in line at the post office, and talks too loud on his cell phone in the café. When some one complains, he either walls them out or angrily objects that he is the one not getting the respect he deserves. He gets angry when people complain because, for one or another reason, he feels entitled to the special advantages he takes. He might cut the post office line, for instance, because he is rich, and because, in his view, his time is therefore more important that the people standing in wait.
All of which suggest that it isn’t especially pleas ant trying to get inside the mind of an asshole, even if some of us may well find ourselves al ready there.
(2) Or we could say that the asshole doesn’t really believe he is entitled to special advantages when he takes them. Maybe he takes them anyway, per haps knowing, deep down, that he’s wrongfully making an exception of himself. In that case, he’s more like the insensitive jerk or dolt who won’t fi nally go to bat for his misconduct, except that, be ing an asshole, he’ll keep up a show of defense for an inordinately long time. He vigorously defends what he, in his heart of hearts, knows isn’t true.
My definition is this: the “asshole” is the guy (yes, they are mainly, but not only, men) who systemati cally allows himself special advantages in social life out of an entrenched (but mistaken) sense of entitle ment that immunizes him against the complaints of other people.
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Thank Goodness we live in an age where we can express our individuality and sexuality through the panties we wear! All Fur Coat and No Knickers...“BySiennaSinclaire
“...
We can all give a big shout out to the French Can-Can dancers who, in the 1930’s did away with the long style of underwear all together. Those long pant legs just didn’t work with the sexy short dresses the dancers wore, not to
During the Victorian Era, sexuality, in particular women’s sexuality, was intentionally repressed and that is certainly evident in the uncomfortable, often hot underwear of the time. Not only were they uncomfortable but can you imagine how difficult it must have been to get undressed to have Luckilysex?for
exciting things happened with panties in the 20th century that started the roller coaster ride to the sexiness that they are today. Panties closed between the legs replacing the open panties of the 1800’s. Rayon was made to make panties for the first time in 1910. Shortly after that they were made from nylon.
However, truth be told, panties actually have a very interesting history.
If we skip forward to the early 1800’s women wore underwear called Pantaloons. These reached to the knee or to the ankle due to modesty standards of the day and were often neutral flesh colored. This period in history is
Most of us don’t give wearing panties a second thought. Unless we go commando, putting on a pair of panties is just part of our daily routine whether you are in Australia or Great Britain and calling them ‘knickers,’ or in France calling them ‘lingerie’- which means ‘made from linen,’ wearing panties seems to be universal. We don’t think about where they come from, how they evolved or how wearing them makes us feel.
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Then in 1955 film icon Marilyn Monroe revealed her panties in what is perhaps the most famous scene in a movie: the subway grate draft blowing up her skirt in ‘The Seven Year Itch.’
The wheel of time kept on turning and the 1960’s brought us hip-huggers and bikini panties just in time for the sexual revolution. This was followed by the G-string rising to popularity in the 1980’s and then the thong in the 1990’s. Today we have a plethora of panty styles: boy shorts, briefs, hipsters, classic, and tanga are just a few of the styles offered today.
called the Regency Period and even with the modest standards, Pantaloons were daring compared to what was coming.
Because panties came in direct contact with female genitalia there were considered the most risqué item of clothing. Interestingly it was considered more immodest to wear underwear because they not only concealed the vagina, it was felt they drew attention to it. One result of this is that during this time they were worn mostly by prostitutes.
If you are looking for the earliest known use of underwear that resembles modern panties you have to go back to 4,400 B.C. Statuettes from Badari tombs depict triangle shaped small cloths that covered the front but had very little cloth around the hips. Perhaps these were the Egyptian’s version of the thong?
Enter the Victorian Era where table legs had to be referred to as ‘limbs,’ so it was less sexually suggestive. The underwear women wore during this period were referred to as ‘drawers’ and the most popular form was the ‘Union Suit,’ which covered a woman from neck to ankle and to her wrist. Usually made from wool, women wore these ‘long johns’ long before they became popular with men on a cold winter day.
women, Elizabeth Smith Miller came along in the 1890’s and had the brilliant idea to invent bloomers. Bloomers were loose fitting undergarments and got their name because they were made popular by Amelia Bloomer. Women wanted less restrictive clothing and bloomers were loose fitting. These were usually made from cotton or linen.
The word ‘panties’ was first used in the early 19th century because the under garments women wore consisted of two separate legs joined at the waist and were open between the legs. For those women not adhering to the strict Victorian standards of the day, panties went from plain to fancy. Lace and colored material found their way to panty flair, which are really the first examples of what has led to the variety of panties we see Severaltoday.
By far one of the most important eras for panties were the Roaring Twenties. The 1920’s was a time of great change in the world. There was a great desire to become more modern and break with traditions. This carried over into fashion including panties. They were shorter, down to the mid-calf. Flappers needed panties loose at the legs. These were called ‘Step-Ins’ and were usually white. As skirts shortened so did undergarments.
If we go back to the beginning and look at the first people who walked upright we find both men and women wore some king of loincloth around their waists. So, what made them decide to only cover their genitals as opposed to the rest of their bodies? Is this the first example of guilt and shame about our bodies known to history?
Still outside the world of burlesque, women’s panties were something that were not supposed to be seen. Women were supposed to keep them
For some unknown reason women went without anything under their skirts or dresses for a few centuries. At least as far as we know.
Some interesting things happened along the way in the latter half of the 20th century. Society started to change their views on sex and the female body. As this changed, so did women’s underwear. Lingerie became its own fashion statement as seen in ‘Sex in the City’ where Carrie wears bras and panties dark in color through sheer light colored clothing.
Today, stores like Fredericks of Hollywood and Victoria’s Secret market underwear specifically for sex. Their products stress the beauty of the female body and encourage women to wear sexy lingerie for themselves and for their partners. Where once underwear was meant to be a hidden, never discussed secret, it is now shown outright as evidenced by the hip level pants with thongs sticking out in the back. Lingerie has helped women reclaim their sexuality. They are no longer forced to be restricted and instead can feel confident with their sexuality.
most controversial, yet important moments in moving panties forward, were at the 1949 Wimbledon Tennis Championships when tennis player Gertrude Moran wore a ruffled pair of lace trimmed knickers under a short tennis dress and caused quite a stir making headlines around the world.
Then in the 1400’s women started to wear leggings under their skirts, most likely for warmth. The leggings eventually morphed into loose fitting drawers or underpants called ‘unmentionables’ and had cords to tie them around the waist.
Panties had nothing to do with sex at this point in history. During the Renaissance Period, panties were invented to help keep outer clothing clean but also to be used as a chastity device. SaintLaurent stated, “Panties were described at the time helping women keep clean and protecting them from the cold, they prevent the thighs being seen if they fall off a horse. These drawers also protect them against adventurous young men, because if they slip their hands under their skirts they can’t touch their skin at all.”
mention the high kicks while holding their skirts up. However, they still wanted to protect their modesty so they simply cut off the long legs of underwear and came up with French Knickers. This caused quite an uproar as their thighs could be seen. They started quite a trend and soon French Knickers made of silk, popped up in stores. French Knickers were truly one of the first, sexiest pieces of lingerie to hit the plane and are still sexy today, just wearing them and feeling the silk against your skin makes a woman feel incredibly sensual.
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mongst selfies starring her signature thick-rimmed black glasses and wild auburn locks, Messing's instagram page is filled with unapologetic politics...
By Moonah Ellison & Eden Mor
Dress by Christian Siriano Bracelet by Alexis Bittar Margaret Colombian Emerald Palmette Earrings by FD Gallery
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When Debra Messing was first offered the role of Grace Adler, a role which would establish the trajectory of her career, she recalls one of the primary reasons she gave NBC the go-ahead, besides the script, was “the reassurance that all the characters who were gay would be treated with respect and dignity.” Messing made sure that the other title name in the show, Will, and the other LGBTQ+ characters, “wouldn’t be a caricature or the way that gay characters had been written historically in television.” Messing received seven Golden Globe nominations, and five emmy nominations, winning once, for her work on the groundbreaking sitcom.
Most know her from her breakout role of interior designer Grace Adler in the NBC sitcom, Will and Grace. Or maybe you saw her as a homicide detective in her starring role in Mysteries of Laura. Perhaps it was her brief stint on yet another NBC show, Smash, playing Julia Houston. For the Law and Order: SVU j unkies out there, remember that season 12 episode, Pursuit? Yeah, that was
Now, nearly 24 years after Will and Grace aired, Messing has more than just a toe in the pool of American politics and activism. Besides spreading awareness through Instagram and Twitter, she is joined by friend and founder of I Am a Voter, Mandana Dayani, in a podcast of their own creation, The Dissenters.
So in case that first part wasn’t clear… Debra Messing is a TV institution.
"..they make us feel better, they make us feel more hopeful, they bring some semblance of peace to our hearts after we're done talking to them... "
Debra Messing. A small number of you may even recognize her as Molly from The Starter Wife, a mini-series turned TV show. Oh and get this, she even played one of Jerry’s girlfriends in Seinfeld, back in the 90s.
In a space where one wrong word can snowball into an online catastrophe, Messing isn’t scared to speak her mind.
Debra Messing is a TV institution.
It’s easy to assume that to make it in such a cutthroat industry, you’ve got to color inside the lines. Not to say anything too harsh, or too controversial. But a quick visit to Messing’s Instagram page, which has racked up a whopping 1.4 million followers, tells quite a different story. Amongst selfies starring her signature thick-rimmed black glasses and wild auburn locks, Messing’s page is filled with unapologetic politics. Her bio includes a link to donate to democratic campaigns for state legislature seats. She’s got a highlight decked out with tweets and infographics labeled “ACTIVISM”. A couple of frames down from her most recent photo, Debra reposted a New York Times article on Kansas abortion
“We were sitting on her couch in California,” said Messing, “talking about how fulfilling it is to talk to people who are just choosing to do something about an injustice or an inequity or anything that they feel should be different in our society.” Messing and Dayani wanted to talk to ordinary people, but ones who took activism into their own hands. They cleverly named them, “accidental activists”. Messing went on to say that these people, “they make us feel better, they make us feel more hopeful, they you know bring some semblance of peace to our hearts after we’re done talking to them.” And so, the Covid-19 pandemic, though inconvenient in nearly every aspect, created the circumstances under which The Dissenters was born.
rights. Just below it, a bulleted list of Biden’s achievements throughout his presidency. And if the hateful remarks, nestled between comments from adoring fans get to her, it’s safe to say she doesn’t show it.
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"AND DOING THE PLAY WAS
CANNOTHINGABROUGHTDONE.THINGTHEIGLORIOUS...SOMEAN,ITWASHARDESTI’VEEVERBUTITMEJOYTHATELSEGIVEME..."
“I’ve been asked many, times to write a book. And you know, I don’t feel like I have enough to say to write a book yet. But I am developing TV shows and reading books and magazine articles as source material for developing movies or television shows – and not necessarily for myself. Just to be a part of, you know, creating content stories that are filling gaps in the landscape of storytelling,” she said.
“Istraight-forward.grewupinRhode
Island, next to a farm, you know, on four acres of land. And I was eight miles from the nearest gas station,” Messing told us. “The most exciting things that my family would do would drive to New York City to see a musical.” After one such viewing (of Annie), the future star was decided. She wanted to be an actress. Her mother, not surprised as she too had been a singer when she was young, accepted Messing’s goal. Though her father, more interested in her financial stability, steered her away from attending a conservatory after high school. Instead,
I had sort of lost the clarity of that. And doing the play was so glorious. I mean, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it brought me a joy that nothing else can give me and it’s
Orange and silver shirt with pants by Arianne Elmy
It almost feels full circle for Messing. Growing up poor, a ticket to a Broadway musical was a luxury for her. Now, there isn’t a kid in the world that has to fly all the way to New York City to see 13: The Musical. As long as you’ve got a phone, you can just watch along.
So what’s next for Messing? Her answer speaks for itself:
photography:Joseph Chen - Stylist: Alison Hernon - MU: Elaine Offers - H : Robert Vetica
she earned a BS at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, graduating as a scholar with a clear path to Harvard Law, or so her father had hoped. But this time Messing went with her gut, and applied to NYU’s graduate acting program, a prestigious one at that. And you know the rest.
However, Messing, now divorced and mother to one beautiful son, felt as though something was missing before she took on her most recent role in Netflixs movie adaption of the hit musical, 13. Working on the project, alongside an all-star child cast, helped Messing ”[get] in touch with [her] roots,” she said. “The thing that made me want to do it all from the
sort of sold me my purpose again,” she passionately divulged.
But despite how it may seem, Messing’s path to TV and Twitter fame (a highlight being a public tweet-battle with none other than Donald Trump), wasn’t that
“"... it's sort of sold me myagain...purpose"
Plenty of Fish... in The
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I recently read a bulleted article, which listed 50 things every woman should do in her twen ties. I always check out these lists because you never know if there’s something on them that might really resonate with you.
Well, one did.
Date two men at the same time, and see how long it takes for the situation to blow up in your Casualface.flings
to me are like snacks—foods that you buy and nibble just to pass the time. There’s nothing special about them, just that they are delectable, accessible, and easy to munch on. I’ve always been a bit of a maneater. They’re like goldfish or a bag of Milano cookies, you can’t have just one. So while my friends are trapped in a debilitating dilemma over why Johnny won’t call her back (It’s be cause he’s busy with Susie.), I don’t debate about which one of my snacks to eat that week, I simply don’t. I take them all, as many as I can eat without getting a stomachache— because in your twenties, you don’t settle for anything, you’re always on the lookout, always on your guard for what’s on the horizon: a bet ter job, better apartment, or a better man. And I have quite an insatiable appetite for snacks, especially the late night cravings.
When friends of mine, or my sister would tell me she was in love, I always asked, “How do you know?”
I’m in love with my European God. But I’m fall ing for my American prince.
I was wrong.
But, there are two meals I can’t seem to shake from my palette, nor do I want to. If I could only eat these two meals for the rest of my life, I’d be more than satisfied, I’d be happy.
But the other is a wonderfully cute, unbelievably funny man who makes me laugh in bed, over breakfast, and in the shower when I’m my most vulnerable. Everything about us screams chem istry. We just click. And I’m falling for him. Falling, not fell, it is a continuous an ongoing excretion of emotions that I can’t manage to stop.
By Sophie Fox-Sowell
And I would think, that’s a ridiculous explana tion. Do you just “know” that the sky is blue or do you need to investigate why it’ suddenly dawning on you? I used to think that if you can’t explain it, it must not be real.
The phrase, “I just know,” coupled with an in cessant smile that shines ear to ear, is all you can manage to describe the intense emotional ecstasy you feel when even a passing thought of them crosses your mind.
The Sea
And no matter who it was, the answer was al ways the same.
One is a beautiful, sexily sweet intoxicating man from across the pond. It only took one week for me to fall for the richness of his flavor. We became inseparable, attached at the hip, the lips, our hands intertwined, just looking at him was enough to satisfy my craving. A whirlwind love affair, a vacation romance that transcends continents and time zones. The effects of in fatuation are most peculiar.
However, within the past few months, that mentality has changed. I no longer gobble men up like gummy bears. Instead, I take my time to chew and savor them before moving on to my next big bite. Recently, I’ve even taken to eating whole dishes of just one man and it didn’t make me sick. It made be hungry for more.
“I just know.”
Because in truth, there are no words, only Sofeelings.long story short, let the countdown to volatile emotional eruption begin, because I’m screwed.
I’m in love with two very different men.
Despite having non-showbiz parents she is proud that they could not have been more supportive of her move to LA and career as an actor.
However, like many actors, Lowndes had to undergo her fair share of re jection once she began her career. She explains that her iconic character of Adrianna on 90210 was somewhat of “an afterthought,” as she was only “brought on as a guest star” for a mere 2 episodes. Fortunately for Lowndes and the 90210 team, Adrianna was a massive hit with audiences.
xxxprofile
By Annabelle Jacoban
Jessica Lowndes is a force to reckoned with. This is self-evident in her breakout role as Adrianna in the iconic 2000s 90210 alone, But Lowndes has contin ued to climb the Hollywood ladder in several genres, moving to singing and songwriting, screenwriting, producing and directing. In our conversation she filled us in on all things creative, discuss ing her new album and accompanying music video series as well as her new partnership with GAC Family, in which she will write, produce, and direct her own films. Lowndes is undoubtedly making moves in Hollywood, but re mains firmly in touch with her roots and family in hometown Vancouver, Canada.
“I was just so driven and determined, and knew this is what I wanted to do; that I wanted to move to LA. I had a whole ar gument prepared. But when I came home and just sort of mentioned it to my parents my mom was so cool. I didn’t have to get into the speech at all. My parents just al ways knew they would support me.”
“Everyone is able to relate to the experience of knowing that you’re Somewhere you know you subconsciously shouldn’t be…”
Years later, Lowndes still sees the lasting impact her dedica tions to the character had on the 90210 fans. For example, Lowndes tells us about an experience she had with a fan in the middle of a Sephora: “I had a girl come up to me last week… and she started crying and I started crying and I gave her a hug, and she opened up and shared with me that she had battled addiction. She turned to the show, and because my character got through [addiction], she knew that she could get through it. It was such an inspiration to her. You just never know who really needs it and how they’re going to interpret things, or how this is going to help them pull through… I have been so mindful of the impression I want to leave behind.”
“I don’t have [Adrianna’s] experiences, but I can feel what she would feel, and I think that’s why people identified with her, because I tried to make her real. She was going through stuff I couldn’t relate to but emotion and pain is something we all know. I think that’s what kept her from being a monster–that’s why people kept forgiving her.”
“I also took all these issues seriously… I felt this massive re sponsibility because I didn’t want to make a mockery [of ad diction], and I had never done drugs. So, I was like, ‘What do I do?’. I had my publicist at the time get me every episode of Dr. Drew celebrity rehab–that was just constantly playing in my trailer. Then I actually talked to real addicts.”
Lowndes explains that once the 90210 writers realized how committed she was, “they basically evolved my character and started writing me in a drug addiction on the spot.”
Lowndes was able to make the disaster-prone character relat able through her compassion for Adrianna, explaining how the young drug addict’s life “was definitely very different from my own. I poured a lot of myself into her, and I tried to wrap my head around all those scenarios and how they might hap pen. “
Currently, Lowndes is in the process of releasing her first studio album along with an accompanying music video series. “ The album “is my heart and soul. I worked with some incredible writers, producers, and collaborators…we created something beautiful that I’m really proud of and it’s called ‘Elemental.’”
Similarly to acting, songwriting is a means of showing com passion for the young actress: “I’m a very deep person, and I feel things very deeply. For me, music and writing has always been a form of therapy. It’s so cathartic. For me, it doesn’t matter what mood I’m in at the beginning of the day, if I turn it into art, and I write about it, it’s part of my healing and by the end I am high on life and so excited. It’s like I feel this release and it’s just so cool.”
Lowndes may not have been able to relate to Adrianna’s choices but through her compassion and dedication to the character she was able to leave a lasting effect on audiences.
“I don’t live in a world where have more rights than
Photographer: Amanda Mae
Hair and Makeup: Ian Maxion
Songwriting is not Lowndes’ only creative method of pouring her heart out. She turned to screenwriting during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic unaware that her new found hobby would open the doors to an entirely new career path and allowing her to make large steps up the Hollywood ladder.
She adds that when we’re removed from a situation, “we can go, ‘Oh that’s so sad.’ but we don’t even know what that’s like… We can have that compassion, but we don’t know. I don’t know what it’s going to take but it’s something that’s really on my heart. I feel fortunate to have my platform and to be able to help in any way that I can…I think it’s going to take a lot of people coming togeth er to see a change, but this has got to stop.”
”I’m getting ready to do a bunch more that I’ve written, then I’m directing a Christmas movie for [GAC] this year–from Elemental, I got a directing deal–so I’m going to be di recting my first feature which is going to be unbelievable… And I’m already working on my second album which is called 88…that’s going to come out next year because I just can’t stop creating!”
To “keep [herself] sane,” Lowndes “started screenwriting every night for an hour.” At first she had no plans of making a profit off her script, and explains that she thought, “I’m not going to sell this, it’s just to let my self know that I can do it and that I can type in the words ‘The End.’” She adds, “I fell in love with it, and I tricked my brain into think ing it was something I was getting paid to do…I made myself write every day from 9-5,
When asked what the inspiration is for song writing, whether it be relationships or some other event, Lowndes explains that an inspi ration for a song does not have to be a re lationship, an event, or a person but rather “a pattern.” She explains that regardless of someone’s personal experience on paper, one “can have [their] own experience with [the album]” For example, everyone is able to relate to the experience of knowing that you’re “somewhere you know you sub consciously shouldn’t be… If you have the strength to pull yourself out of that situation, and really reconnect with your inner child and who you are, you’re a hero and I think my number one thing was that I wanted to empower people because you can be your own hero. You don’t need someone to come save you.” Lowndes’ album takes us through all these emotions and internal conversations we have with ourselves, ultimately ending “on a celebratory note.”
However, perhaps we need to reverse that relationship, turning to individuals like Lowndes in order to see the change we demand; to adopt her compassion and dedication in order to see lasting change in our world.
With Harmony from the Heart people were kind of scared to make [the movie]. They were like, ‘I don’t know, it might be too sad.’ I promised them that it would help a lot of people and it would provide a lot of hope. Needless to say she successfully convinced her doubters as she is set to release a num ber of projects:
Lowndes also opened up to us about her feel ings on national and global politics–including the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the war in Ukraine: “I just don’t know how we have got ten so far off the rails; I don’t know how we live in a world where gun holders have more rights than women.”
Lowndes seems to be inspired by all that is around her to create art that then creates a ripple effect, inspiring and helping anyone and everyone around her.
We can only imagine the impact Elemental and the several other projects she has in the works will impact those around her.
one of those weird years where some of those projects would take 4 months of my life and then I’d run into people and they’re like ‘What are you up to? Are you still acting?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh if you only knew…’”
“Harmony from the Heart “was something that I wrote when I had a weird pilot season where I kept testing and not booking. It was
know how we where gun owners than WOMEN
Diversity awards 2022
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88 Madison Avenue New York NY 10016 TheSCARPETTAJamesHotel Nomad Red Carpet & Reception: 11:30am -12:00pm Lunch & Presentations: 12:00pm - 2:30pm diversityawards@newyorkmoves.com Host: LESLIE BIBB: (“Iron Man”) Emcee: Anne-Marie Green: Anchor CBS News MOVES DIVERSITY AWARDS & ANNUAL LUNCHEON Diversity Awardees Celeste Warren Wendy E John Tomya Wyatt Cecilia LisaMonikaNelson-HurtWilliamsShealeyMassaJohnitaPDueYauChengPerikaJSampsonNoopurDavisMichelleO’HaraMGTelitaCrosland
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She explains, “I spent the entirety of last summer…audi tioning and I ended up booking it two weeks before I was supposed to move in for my freshman year of college…I went to Rhode Island, I filmed for 5 months and then I went straight from a night shoot into my first day of classes.”
uckingham
Nineteen-year-old Lilia Buckingham steps into the acting scene with force as she takes on the role of Cassie Traske in Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2, (September 30th 2022) Lilia started dancing and acting from a young age but took a step back from showbiz when she entered her teen school years. She only tried to get back into it recently but after finding difficulty in booking roles after the long layoff. She says, “[I] didn’t really book anything, like any thing crazy, so I ended up applying to college…” However one of her last auditions in June of 2021 was for Hocus Pocus 2... and she landed the part! Now with seemingly the best of both worlds she has her acting career taking off and her academic future assured as she was accept ed at Boston University.
By: Jacqueline Shamie
”...
I’m very very inspired by the people around me. I write with the thought of my friends in the roles and I hear their voices and I will write a character that ’s kind of a blend from my three favorite people ... ”
Lilia’s journey to the big screen was not easy and she broke down how Hocus Pocus was a huge turning point in her career and her life: “It really feels like it opened this whole new possibility of life for me, be cause I was very sure of what I was going to be doing… there were other things I want to do in the industry: I want to produce, I want to write, and I was like, you know, maybe I should be focusing on that, and I kind of saw my life after school doing jobs that would come from getting a college degree. [Then], Hocus Pocus kind of changed everything, and made it so I [could] keep pursuing the thing that I love most in the world…”
...expecting us to be aware of everything that’s going on... and all of the issues...…we’re just kids...… we are young... we’re doing the best we can... ”
Writingthem.”
is just the tip of the iceberg for young Lilia. Lillia is still an avid reader and even started a small book club between her and her best friend. They are currently reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ( with Lilia taking thorough notes) saying that this is her latest favorite book “because it makes you feel like…you want to just dive into it, and become a part of this world.”
outfit:frederick anderson previous page:calvin luo
One may not think someone as young as Lilia has much life experience, but she tells us that her writing is often inspired by her own life, even describing how her life feels “cinematic” and too good to be true. But Lilia’s journey certainly comes through in her writing: “[Now] I’m…very very inspired by the people around me. I write with the thought of my friends in the roles and I hear their voices and… I will write a character that’s kind of a blend from my three favorite people. I take a lot of inspiration from the people that I love the most, or the people I spend the most time with–it’s a nice feeling, like you’re with your friends when you’re writing about
”
“That is what I hope to one day achieve with writing be cause there’s no better feeling than…falling into a book.”
Despite Lilia’s path to success in the acting realm, she hasn’t lost interest in her other passions, such as writ ing. She explains: “I grew up writing–I was a big reader as a kid, so, eventually, in middle school, I wanted to take a class where I could start writing my own stuff be cause I loved reading so much, so I like took a creative writing class and I ended up finishing a novel when I was fourteen. [Then], I was like alright for some reason; I have a knack for this and I love doing it. It doesn’t feel like I’m ever working when I’m writing and, you know, that’s why I’m going to school for it because it doesn’t feel like work…I just love doing it.” Lilia even went on to note that “[she] started writing when [she] was becom ing a real human…those teenage years,” which we all know are transformative years in everyone’s lives.
The arts are clearly a massive part of Lilia’s life and her identity, but social media also plays a significant role as she has accumulated 1.5 million Instagram followers.
Lilia went on to explain that it is important to her to not “succumb to the pressures of people [saying], ‘you should be talking about this,’ ‘‘you need to be talking about that,’ ‘you’re wrong about this,’ ‘you’re promoting the wrong thing,’ ‘you aren’t educated enough’” She dives deeper into this topic when she discussed the pressure she feels and the standard that people with big platforms are held to, “expecting us to be aware of everything that’s going on and all of these issues…we’re just kids…we are young, we’re doing the best we can.” She says sometimes it’s even necessary for her to “take a step back” and turn off her phone to remind herself that “it’s not all bad.” Ul timately, taking care of your mental health is a priority for the young actress, as it should be for all of us. Hocus Pocus 2 comes out in September, but that will not be the last you see of Lilia! She is currently work ing on writing a script that includes all of her friends in it, which has really become a passion project for the young actress. Although it is still early on in development, Lilia hopes to transfer her words onto the screen very soon. Lilia went on to mention that her overall goal is to own a production company that develops books into films. In this realm she draws a lot of her inspiration from fellow actress, Reese With erspoon. And, although Lilia does not study acting at Boston University, she is focusing on writing and producing, so we hope to one day see what she can do behind the camera as well as on-screen!
As a young teenager, Lilia came out as bisexual on social media and she said, “I really realized I can make a difference…I had a lot of people reaching out to me, being like, you know what, you really inspired me, and that was the first time I was like, ‘Okay, I can do something really positive with this.’ I can try my best to be authentic and real and promote the things I really care about and help educate people about important issues. I want to be able to use my platform for something that matters…I think we will always be learning and figuring out new ways to be better on social media, but I think…when you have this plat form, or at least for me, it feels like a waste to not doing something positive with it.”
Photography by Petros Koy Stylist - Mickey Freeman Hair & Makeup - Ammara Rana
sweater:aknvas, earrings:austin james smith
My interest in fashion began late in life, with an experience most New Yorkers have at some time or another. I was walking through Chinatown one brisk fall morning; it was already buzzing with people, savory smells, and street vendors hawking their wares along Canal Street. As I took in the scene, my gaze came to rest on a good-looking young couple slowly making their way through the chaos. A man approached them. “Handbags!” he called, tilting his head to indicate the direction of his small shop. At first they didn’t react. Then, after a moment, the woman asked, “You have Prada?” The man nodded, and I watched as she conferred with her partner. He smiled at her, and they followed the man to his stand.
Imagine for a moment being part of this experiment. In your case, the experi menter informs you that your glasses are counterfeit and instructs you to test them out to see what you think. You’re handed a legitimate-looking case (the logo is spot-on!), and you pull out the sunglasses, examine them, and slip them on. Do you compare the sunglasses to the pair in your car or the ones you broke the other day? Do you think, “Yeah, these are very convincing. No one would be able to tell they’re fake.” Maybe you think that the weight doesn’t feel right or that the plastic seems cheap.
Next we asked the women to walk around and test out the glasses—to see generally how they liked them, how they performed (inasmuch as sunglasses can do so), to judge their (in)authenticity for themselves. Once they’d had them on for a while, we asked them to solve a series of problems called ma trix tasks, in which participants choose which two numbers add up to 10 out of 12 numbers in a 3 x 4 matrix.
by Dan Ariely
the thin end...
Normally I wouldn’t have thought much of this, however, in this particular instance, I was fresh from a talk I’d been invited to give for which I’d been rewarded in part with a black Prada overnight bag. While I’m not usually one with much interest in labels, I still felt curiously aware of the bag. I wondered whether I should carry it with the logo showing or facing me. I wondered why I felt just a little more… sophisticated. After all, my outfit was otherwise unremarkable—jeans, jacket, red sneakers. Why would a bag I didn’t choose or buy—and never would—confer this heightened self-awareness and feeling of aesthetic enlightenment?
This question got me thinking about the relationship between what we wear and how we behave, and a concept that social scientists call self-signaling. The idea here is that despite the fact that we assume a fairly acute level of selfknowledge, we actually don’t have a very clear notion of who we are. We don’t know ourselves that well, and definitely not as well as we think we do. Instead, we observe ourselves more or less the same way we observe and judge the ac tions of other people— inferring who we are and what we like from our choices and actions. In this light, it seemed likely to me that the relationship I had with my authentic Prada bag differed quite a bit from the relationship the woman I saw on Canal street had with her knock off. So while I felt more cultivated and polished, do people who buy and wear fakes conversely feel inauthentic, like cheaters who can get away with pretending to be something they’re not. And if so, do they cheat more as a result?
Naturally, I had to experiment with this idea so I used connections to procure $7000 worth of Chloé sunglasses. Using this booty as bait, I enlisted many female MBA students for our experiment. (In previous experiments we saw no gender-related difference in dishonesty, the reason we carried out this experi ment with women was simply because the glasses were part of a women’s line.)
In the experiment itself, my colleagues and I assigned the women to one of three conditions: authentic, fake, or no information. In the authentic condition, we told participants that they would be donning real Chloé designer sunglasses. In the fake condition, we told them that they would be wearing counterfeit sunglasses that looked identical to those made by Chloé (in actuality all the products we used were samples we received from Chloé). Finally, in the noinformation condition, we didn’t say anything about the authenticity of the sun glasses, leaving the participants to conclude what they would, if they thought about authenticity at all.
As it turned out, our dots task showed the same general results as the matrix task, with lots of people cheating but just by a bit. However, we also saw that the amount of cheating was far greater for those wearing the fake Chloés. Counterfeit wearers cheated more across the board. They cheated more when it was hard to tell which side had more dots, and they cheated more even when the correct answer was obviously that more dots were on the left (the side with the lower financial reward).
To test this, we repeated the earlier experiment, except that instead of the ma trix task we had participants do something called the dots test, which is a very simple task in which you chose which side of a square contains more dots, and again, participants got paid according to how many they instances they were correct. Sometimes it was obvious which side was dottier, other times is was hard to tell. Participants viewed 100 such screens, making decisions for each. But here’s the twist: people got paid 10 times more when they chose the right half of the square. This created a clear conflict of interest—if the sides looked almost even, might not the right side somehow seem to contain more dots? And might not people decide that hey, they’ve already cheated on a few, why not just click the right-hand button for all of them and make a little more cash?
don't start 'cuz you'll never stop... lying.
Then, you’re given a sheet of problems and asked to solve them and to report how many you get right, for payment. What do you think you would do? Fudge your score a bit? If so, how much?
What we found was that, as usual in cheating experiments, lots of people cheated by a few questions. But while “only” 30% of the participants in the au thentic condition reported solving more matrices than they actually had, 74% of those in the fake condition claimed to solve more matrices than they had.
Dan Ariely is the author of The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves (Harper, 2012)
So it seems that the clothes do make the man (or woman) and that wearing knockoffs does have an effect on ethical decisions. For those who come down on the side of designers seeking to root out all fakes, this is welcome news for obvious reasons. For those who have little sympathy for designers who charge astronomical amounts for products bearing their signature patterns, well, that old “I wouldn’t buy them anyway so who do fakes really hurt” argument doesn’t go as far as it used to does it?
The finding that simply wearing fake designer items can make people more dis honest is certainly notable, and cause enough for discussion. But we didn’t stop here. We wondered whether fake goods could also induce the “What The Hell” effect. This is something we’ve all experienced in situations like holiday dinners. You’ve eaten twice as much food as you normally would, so when it’s time for pie—which you normally refuse—you think, what the hell, I’ve blown it for today, so I might as well have some! But this happens with more than just diet, it’s at work in any situation in which you might find yourself thinking “I suppose at this point, I might as well…” Lying beneath this sort of thinking is the reality that we tend to view ourselves in an all-or-nothing fashion—we’re on a diet or we’re not. We wondered whether this would hold true for cheating. Would people begin cheating, then, considering themselves cheaters at that point, go all out and cheat for maximum gain as long as they were at it?
This is why we included the third condition, in which nothing was known about the glasses vis-à-vis their authenticity. How many of the people in this group cheated, you ask? The answer: 42%. So although this number is between the two, it’s much closer to the 30% rate of those in the authentic condition. This means that the inauthentic condition was the one that effected behavior more: wearing counterfeits made people behave much more dishonestly.
These findings, though impressive, begged an important question, namely whether the presumed fakeness of the product made participants cheat more than they would have, or whether instead, the genuine Chloé label made them behave more honestly. In other words, which was more powerful: the negative self-signaling in the fake condition or the positive self-signaling in the authentic condition?
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A nne-M arie
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Following that first show, she attends an editorial meeting to get prepped on the day’s interviewees and the direction of her next two shows, before jumping back on-screen at 7 a.m. for an hour-long news show she anchors alone that is streamed on CBS’s app and website. She does a third show from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and then her work day is over and she begins her day as a mom and wife. Commenting on the irregularity of her work life, Green says, “I don’t know many people who do it”. But is quick to add, “I could not do it without the amazing producers and writers that I work with”.
A day-in-the-life of Anne-Marie Green is one that not many would be able to handle, let alone flourish in... as Green does. A cor respondent for CBS News who heads three morning shows, a mother and wife, and a curiosity that allows her to tell the sto ries of real people in a beautiful way, she truly is every woman.
Green’s career began in Ontario, Canada and she reflects on how her first job there changed her perspective on storytelling. At that first job interview, she recalls how the news station felt that anyone could learn how to do TV, telling her “interesting people make interesting television.. so you should hire interesting people”. So she had arrived at the interview with what she described as a “straight-laced reporter package covering the news”, but they wanted to hear something more interesting that no one else was covering. Not discouraged, Green set off into the commu nity and found a soft news story about a city-wide garage sale. “I knew that everyone was going to be digging into their basements and bringing out their quirky little items that they reluctantly wanted to get rid of and realised all those items were gonna have stories of their own” she says. “How they had loved it once and why they’re leaving it now; hoping to pass it on someone else. And I thought, in the telling of this story, telling of this stuff, I’m going to also be telling the story of the people and there fore telling the story of the city. And it got me the job.”
Green
Her day begins at the broadcast center at 2 a.m., where she has two hours to get her hair and makeup done, while catching up on the news from the night before so she is adequately prepared for her first show at 4 a.m. “I’m here for the early risers or the people who never went to bed from yesterday,” she tells us with a smile.
Though there are many heart warming stories that are covered, life as a journalist is not an easy path, and it can be very difficult to remain emotionally detached in some of the breaking stories and the people in them. Green is very cognisant of this, and though she admits she has struggled from time to time reporting on various tragedies, especially ones that concern children, she is always determined not be a distrac tion from the story.
“... Sometimes in or der to grow, you have to make yourself really uncomfortable...”
Hair and Makeup: Ian Maxion “... I want to knoW, how far can the humango?...spirit ”
Photographer: Amanda Mae
choice in the beginning. “Sometimes in order to grow, you have to make yourself really uncomfortable.”
Green’s journalism roots are in Toronto, but she made the brave decision of uprooting her whole life and moving to Philadelphia to work at CBS.
“A primary reason why I got involved in journalism is, it’s [a] ground observation adventure into the human spirit,” she continues. “And part of it has to do with, if you can do something amazing, well maybe I can do something amazing”
In recent years journalism as an industry has been crit icized for its sometimes biased delivery of news, and ‘the meeja’ has become somewhat of a derogatory term. Why would one want to become a journalist in the first place? Green’s reason is one that stems from a great interest in people. She told us a story of her favorite interview she’s done commenting that people usually think she is going to name some celebrity on a red carpet. Her answer couldn’t be any more opposite.
This interview was with an older woman who had lost her husband, daughters, and niece in a drunk-driving accident and was now an executive for MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). The story Green was set to deliver was a standard one about drunk driving, but right at the end she was struck by the new life this widow had built for herself after all the loss she had endured. Years later, she had found love again and remarried, and she and her husband were fostering a set of siblings who they were in the process of adopting. In this moment, Green remarks that she was “blown away by the strength of the human spirit”.
“Part of my role is to deliver other people’s story with com passion, with empathy, and not be a distraction,” she says, “And if I start to fall apart then I am distracting from their story. And that’s, you know, the exact opposite of what I want to do.”
“I had a really good job in Toronto,” she says. “I was work ing at this cool station where all of the celebrities sort of came through and stuff like that. I also knew that I didn’t want to stay at the party too long. I knew that sometimes you just have to push yourself towards growth.” She continues, telling us that she was “miserable” about this
From reporting on garage sales to a pandemic to Black Lives Matter protests, Green truly has seen it all. She has a knack for human connection that draws you into the stories she is reporting on, and from our conversation it is clear that her passion for individuals’ stories is still very well alive. “I want to know, how far can the human spirit go?” she told us, and it is questions like that which keep the true purpose of journalism alive today.
By Moonah Ellison photography:Tony Gale
Remaining fair as a journalist is always challenging, espe cially with an emotional story but Green was one of the many journalists who found them selves having to do reporting in a time where it seemed the world was being flipped upside down. In 2020, the scope of her job changed drastically, working entirely from home and having to choose her words very care fully when reporting on delicate issues such as the murder of George Floyd. “The pandemic certainly put a real spotlight on a lot of the areas that were…where inequality was sort of just taken for granted. The health care sys tem is a perfect example of that,” she says. “It was a relief to hear people talk really openly about things that needed to be said. Sometimes in news, you choose your words delicately because you have to remain unbiased… so you can’t always say things the way you would like to in a professional capacity. And it was nice, for me, to hear people say things unedited.”
profile PayneDanBySydneychampagnephotography:davidtenniswood
“...So that was me completely on display and fully vulnerable and raw, but I didn’t let anyone know that because it was under the guise of the character. I could hide in plain sight... “
Dan Payne is a Canadian heartthrob. A real old fashioned leading man! A professional athlete turned actor, Payne knows what success feels like. But don’t judge a book by its cover now, because he is one of the most down to earth actors you could ever speak to. He has a calm demeanor that makes you feel welcome, and is engaging as he opens up about personal strug gles. During our interview, he used his voice to advocate for more avenues and communities to discuss mental health while using his own story as an example, rather than focusing on all the exciting roles he has coming up. Real life, not acting. That’s who Dan Payne is– he’s real, he’s authentic, and though he’s extremely talented he is totally grounded and focused on the most important thing in his life. His family.
Growing up as an athlete and later becoming a professional volleyball player after university, Dan Payne found himself in love with the intoxi cating highs and lows that both watching and playing sports made him feel. In short, he’s not one to shy away from a crowd. “I did fall in love with that demand of performance of being in front of a crowd, and I fell in love with that im mediate response factor,” he said. “I’m a hockey fan. So watching the Stanley Cup I’m sitting on my couch and my heart rate is up and, you know, my stomach is all twisted up. I love that feeling. And so I missed it when I retired [from volleyball]. I was like, ‘Oh, where do I get my fix? Where do I find that same level of passion and love for something?’”
Around the same time Payne retired from professional volley ball, his brother was starting up a photographic company in Australia and asked Payne to run it with him. The goal? To make movies together, as they had dreamed of doing together when they were kids.
“When I started doing the acting…I was pretty ignorant to the whole process, and very, very naive. But very passionate and willing to fall on my face, which I think are two great things for anything you want to achieve,” he said. “If you’re willing to fall on your face and learn and you’re passionate enough to keep getting back up, you’re gonna get somewhere.”
He continued, saying “I am coming to realize that the more I talk about it, the better I am, and the better off I am, and poten tially the better off somebody else might be for hearing it, and if it’s just that one person then I feel honor bound to at least give it a Oftentimes,shot.”Payne has these conversations with his wife, who has been a light in the darkness for him, providing unwavering sup port. “You don’t want somebody to ‘fix it’. And you don’t want someone to tell you like ‘Hey, just smile, you’ll be happier’” he said. “So when somebody says, ‘Hey, I’m here and whatever you
Payne made his start writing and performing comedy with his brother, and later on he got an agent and began auditioning for roles outside of his brother’s company. Since then, he has played a variety of roles, in a wide range of genres, from a blue alien to a kind father to a murderous vigilante– and he enjoyed them all. Despite his success, he does admit that he wasn’t flawless at the start.
Try, fail, learn, and repeat. It’s this attitude that has driven Payne and allowed him to keep bettering himself as an actor, and, in turn, has given him a different outlook on life; one that has helped him cope with depression. “If I’m being brutally honest, acting was a cathartic escape from the who I thought I was,” he said. “I struggled with depression, and I found such a relief and
Though Payne recognizes the sensitivity surrounding the sub ject of depression, he is an advocate for more conversations surrounding mental health, no matter the setting. “Even if you’re having that conversation because you feel obliged to, because that’s what the cool conversations are about…That’s really, honestly, in my mind, an opportunity, not a negative thing,” he said. “Because that alone, whether you’re authenti cally present in that feeling or not, you’re going to be discuss ing it, and the stigma will break down and the awareness and consciousness will come in.”
an escape to be authentic and truthful through those charac ters, but through the hidden sort of mask of that character. So that was me completely on display and fully vulnerable and raw, but I didn’t let anyone know that because it was under the guise of the character. I could hide in plain sight.”
Little did he know, his brother had the answer to this dilemma.
Paynecomedy.isavery
need, let me know... if it’s a shoulder to cry on...or if you want me to drag you to your therapy session, because whatever it is, I’m here’, that’s the greatest gift of all. And to have that from the one person who knows you better than anyone else. Well, what a foundation to grow and find your own strengths and maybe get to a better place.”
busy man, but he puts being a father at the fore front of his life. “My kids are at an age where I’m grateful for the position I’m in now because I can be a very present father,” he said. “And I disappear a little bit once in a while. But I’m on the whole, other than the little mini disappearances, I’m very fortu nate. I coach my kids baseball, I coached my kids hockey… I get to be around [to] help for the homework. I’m there when they get home from school, if I’m not working, like there’s so many beautiful elements to it.”
Not only is his family close, but they are also quite the humor ous bunch. “My family is very fortunate, we had a lot of laughs growing up... My sister’s quirky funny and my brother’s just like painful funny with tears and bellyaches...and my dad, anyway, lots of laughter,” he said with a smile. His family’s humor is what gave Payne’s brother the idea for them to begin writing their own
Dan Payne is a man with a lot of love in his heart; and the deep love and admiration he has for his wife is only the be ginning. He reflected on his childhood, telling us that his family moved around often while he was growing up, and that he was grateful for it because it allowed him to become best friends with his siblings.
Looking into the future, Payne is in the process of writing some movie scripts with one of his friends. He hopes to continue be ing in front of the camera, while continuing to write and hope fully produce the movies he acts in as well– all while also be ing a full-time father who coaches his children’s baseball and hockey teams. What can’t he do?
He also let us in on a little secret: he has accepted a role as a step-father in an upcoming movie. He wouldn’t tell us any more about the film, but is excited about the opportunity– and we’re dying to hear more!
Currently, you can find Payne on the brand new season of Virgin River, which released on July 20th and is available for streaming on Netflix. You can also watch him in the film Cor rective Measures where he plays the role of Payback alongside Bruce Willis and Michael Rooker.
He credits his wife for helping him understand that he is enough, which is something he has struggled with believing for a long time. So, he got the words “I am enough” tattooed on his foot; a constant reminder to himself that no mat ter what his brain is trying to tell him is wrong with him, he is enough already, and he doesn’t have to change anything about himself to be enough.
