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pow er ISSU E
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21ST CENTURY WOMEN
Moves
‘21st Century Women’... in progress ... an insight into twenty years of the Moves Power Women Awards and the women who made it possible...
POWER WOMEN 2003-2023
From the pages of Moves Magazine
... coming soon to a bookstore near you!
feature
SUNNY BRAIN
RAINY BRAIN by Professor Elaine Fox
There now seems to be scientific evidence that, like Monty Python's (Life Of) Brian, it really does pay to "Always look on the Bright Side Of Life." Some people appear to be incurable optimists. Upbeat and positive, seemingly able to cope with whatever life throws at them. Others are born pessimists, drawn towards the negative in everything. When faced with a choice they will inevitably choose caution, expecting the worst rather than the best. At the extremes, these two different ways of seeing the world can tip people towards flourishing and well-being on the one hand or anxiety and depression on the other. Such divergent outlooks on life seem to be fairly hard-wired. But is this true? Is our outlook on life really set in stone? Remarkable new evidence tells us that our outlooks on life and the brain states that underpin them are actually highly malleable, and while not easy, it is possible to change. From the moment we are born and as we develop through childhood our personalities become more embedded, more a part of what we are. The distinctive ways in which we react to great news or to bad news, for instance, makes us us. Imagine if we all reacted in the same way to every event. It would be a boring and robotic world. Perhaps then we should not try to change how we are. Perhaps we run the risk of ironing out the interesting differences that make the world a richer place. This is particularly true since many of us — especially in the western world — have a tendency to cast optimism in an overly rosy light. We urge others to “look on the bright side”, we gravitate towards optimists and a vanguard of ‘positive thinking’ gurus even encourages us to see our darkest moments in positive terms. Got cancer? It will help you grow as a person we are told. In contrast, pessimists are often shunned in our society, told to “cheer up” and encouraged to move out of the ‘”dark side of the street." There are some good reasons for this focus on positivity. Optimism is an essential part of our
make up, without it we would find it difficult to get up in the morning. Many psychologists even assume that our ancient ancestors would not have walked out of Africa had we not had the inbuilt curiosity and enthusiasm that goes with an optimistic take on life. Good scientific evidence supports this view — optimism has been linked with better health, success in business, a larger and more supportive network of friends, and even an increased lifespan. Optimism then is an important, indeed essential, mindset that has benefits for many aspects of our lives. With this focus on optimism, however, it’s easy to forget where pessimism comes from and what it is for. As a cognitive psychologist, my assumption is that each and every emotion has evolved for a specific purpose. Take fear, for instance, which is the most studied emotion in neuroscience and psychology. If we think about it, the number one priority in life is to stay alive. Therefore, detecting danger and threat is fundamental. It’s no surprise, then, that our brain has an inbuilt and powerful fear system that can stop all other brain processes in their tracks when a threat is detected. When we study people who have damaged this fear system in the brain — because of a stroke, for instance — we can see that they struggle with everyday life, constantly having accidents and having difficulty in judging whether people are being honest or not. Fear gives us a basic shrewdness. In my new book called Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: How to Retrain Your Brain to Overcome Pessimism and Achieve a More Positive Outlook, I argue that this ancient fear system also has a down side that lies right at the root of pessimism. The basic idea is that our fear brain is essential, but when it becomes hyper-vigilant we begin to notice danger everywhere and
begin to always assume that the worst will happen. Hence, over time the roots of a pessimistic framework begin to grow. If left unchecked this style of analyzing the world around us can escalate, in some people at least, into anxiety disorders and depression. Pessimism is not all bad, however; it’s getting the right balance between optimism and pessimism that’s crucial. A pessimistic way of thinking has many benefits, forcing us to consider what might go wrong — and what we can do about it — as well as what may go right. Think of a mother watching her toddler stumbling towards a busy road — would an optimistic mindset be of value here? Obviously not, the more pessimistic take – she might be hit by a car — is clearly the better solution in this situation. In the course of my own research, I have become more and more aware of how important both ways of thinking are to our survival and to our well-being. I have found that the deep roots of both ways of thinking are embedded in ancient brain systems that determine how we respond to fear on the one hand and pleasure on the other. These are the two great biological motivators that draw us towards the things that are good for us — food, warmth, the company of others, and pull us away from the things that endanger us. Both are essential and we now know that these ancient brain systems link up with much more recent (in evolutionary terms) brain systems to form circuits that underpin optimism — what I call the “sunny” brain – and pessimism — what I call the “rainy” brain. Many scientific studies tell us that people vary along a spectrum of optimism as well along a spectrum of pessimism. The key to a successful life, I would argue, is to keep these two systems in balance. Elaine Fox, Dept of Experimental Pyschology, Oxford University, is the author of Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: How to Retain Your Brain to Overcome Pessimism and Achieve a More Positive Outlook (Basic Books, 2012)
contents
010 feature sunny brain 016 cheers schnapps 022 dish sweaty joe 026 bitch shout it out 028 profile wyatt oleff 034 rant christmas guilt 038 cover huma abedin 048 profile nate burleson 055 power women 2023
018 cheers white lightenin’ 022 feature bitch 026 dish backsliding 030 feature nyc reinvention 034 profile jalyn hall 038 feature we can do it! 040 cover story ali wentworth 048 feature education 052 power women 2022 096 dermot mulroney 104 moves climate forum 110 feature divorce
mamoonah ellison PUBLISHER
richard ellison
EDITOR IN CHIEF
nicky black
ART DIRECTOR
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New York Moves Magazine p.o. box 4097 lexington ave., new york, ny, 10163 ph: 212.396.2394 fax: 212.202.7615 all contents © 2012 New York Moves Magazine reproduction without permission is prohibited. ISSN 1553-8710
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cheers
Schnapps Apart from the usual jostling for the acknowledgement of where it was first distilled – the French have the very similar eau de vie – schnapps, as it is known here, is a simple distillation of any variety of fruit and has as many flavor combinations as our native soda... but with one helluva kick.
by Joseph Erdos Schnapps – now there’s a drink that can warm you up from head to toe on a cool fall day. It’s a drink that combines the essence of an entire fruit orchard and packs it into one powerful shot. Mainly German and Austrian in origin, schnapps is the beverage of choice for almost any celebration. I should know because in my family no event could take place without pálinka, the Hungarian equivalent of schnapps. For curious kids, my father would allow a pinky-dipped taste of his plum pálinka, or what I like to call, jet fuel. I never really took to the stuff – it’s just too powerful for me, but if I had to name one thing I like about it, it would be the aroma. What ties together many renowned European alcohols is that they are all distilled from fruit, which gives these spirits a deliciously concentrated aroma. As you drink it, you feel the burn, but the aftertaste is bursting with fruit flavors. WATER OF LIFE Schnapps is at the center of many tables in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Throughout Europe, similar drinks are distilled from fruit such as eaude-vie (France), pálinka (Hungary), and slivovitz (Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Balkans). The most common fruits used are apples, pears, plums, and cherries. Historically, the distillation of fruit came about as a frugal way to use all the remaining fruit from a bounteous harvest. Many people even today make alcohol at home from the fruit on their property (though it’s not always legal to do so). As early as the 1100’s, monks and apothecaries were experimenting with distillation, hoping to find cures for common ailments of the time. They called their products aqua vitae, the Latin phrase meaning
“water of life.” Eau-de-vie and the Scandinavian akvavit also translate to water of life. Only in the fifteenth century did these medicinal drinks come to be enjoyed recreationally. DISTILLATION The quality of fruit is the highest concern in the production of schnapps. The essence, meaning the concentrated aroma, is a determining factor in what differentiates an excellent schnapps from a mediocre one. It can take anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds of fruit to make one bottle of alcohol. The fruit is crushed, combined with yeast, and allowed to ferment for some weeks before it is distilled. The alcohol is captured from the vapors that arise from the boiling of the fruit mash. The vapors then condense back into a liquid. It can take about eight hours of continuous distillation to turn fruit into alcohol. The resulting spirit is held in a steel vat for a few months to rest, resulting in an alcohol that is smoother and rounder with a complex character. It’s then blended with water to achieve the desired alcohol percentage, usually around 40%. Finally it is bottled for consumption. HOW TO DRINK SCHNAPPS Leo Schneemann, beverage director, recommends schnapps be served at room temperature to better sample the flavor. The best glass for serving schnapps may either be tulip stemware or a brandy snifter; the shape
of both helps to take in aroma. For firsttimers, Schneemann recommends apricot schnapps as it has the most commanding flavor. For the veteran or adventurous drinker he recommends the rowanberry schnapps, made from the slightly bitter fruit of the mountain ash tree in northern Europe. SCHNAPPS In the United States, schnapps are really just flavored liqueurs. Neutral grain alcohol is flavored, colored, and sweetened. Glycerin is usually added to thicken the liquid to a syrupy consistency. In bars and liquor stores across the country you will find peach, apple, banana, cinnamon, and even peppermint liqueurs sold as schnapps. Few people drink them on their own; they’re really meant for mixing into cocktails. No self-respecting European would ever be caught drinking these, however, there is a market in this country – and probably always will be – for fuzzy navels and fluorescent green appletinis. SNAPS In Sweden and Denmark, “snaps” connotes the custom of drinking shots, before, during, and after a meal. Their drink of choice is akvavit, which can also be called snaps (the Scandinavian spelling of schnapps). If you’ve ever heard the proclamation “skål” then you might be familiar
with this custom: The host will pick up a glass of snaps and call for a toast, then everyone will pick up their glass, look into one another’s eyes for good luck, and drink. Aquavit, the Swedish restaurant in Midtown, offers their own infused akvavits alongside popular brands from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Their house-made white cranberry, which the restaurant also produces in Sweden and sells to the public, is very aromatic and powerful. For a more traditional choice, try an akvavit flavored with caraway seed and pair it with a dish of herring – you will automatically be transported to Sweden. The restaurant’s sweet akvavits, such as elderberry and lingonberry, are great for after-dinner sipping with or without dessert. Enjoy schnapps either cold or at room temperature; either as an aperitif or digestif – it’s really up to you. Whether shared in a casual get-together, or slowly sipped in an elegant restaurant setting, schnapps is a special part of life for many Europeans. Skip the bar and the cocktails. Take time to enjoy true Austrian apricot schnapps after a dinner at Wallsé. Throw a party at home and toast your friends with akvavit in the typical Viking manner. In the end it matters less what goes into making the drink than simply enjoying the company of family and friends. It’s worth trying something unique – even if at first it does go down like jet fuel.
O
contributors
t r i b tO rs
CANNON grew up in New York City and was influenced at an early age by rock and fashion. He is an award winning celebrity stylist, fashion editor and creative director who has styled such celebrities as Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmy Page, Liza Minnelli, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, Glenn Close Diane Kruger, Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, and many more. RANDALL SLAVIN was working a dead end job in a local gas station when he wandered into a local photography studio and struck up a friendship with the owner. He took the young Mr. Slavin under his wing and taught him some photography basics and then promptly fired him a few months later. Faced with nowhere else to turn he put one foot in front of the other and kept going. He has never looked back. His work has appeared in GQ, Esquire, Rolling Stone and many others.
CHESLEY TURNER has been a treasured New York Moves Magazine writer and editor since 2009, crafting feature interviews and trying to get a perspective on things that matter — things that most celebrities don’t get asked. Chesley works in academia and lives in Philadelphia.
SEAN GLEASON was born in Washington DC, grew up in London. He studied photography at the renowned Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and went on to shoot for many of the worlds top publication including Elle, Interview, Vogue, Tatler, GQ, Esquire and Instyle, working with both models, celebrities and sportsmen.
SPENCER HEYFRON was born and raised in England, relocated to New York City to pursue a career in photography fifteen years ago while producing portraits — his portrait of Will Arnett winning him a place in American Photography 27. Warm praise from celebrity subjects have included “Who’s the F**king Lumberjack” from Rahm Emmanuel; “That’s some f**king beard” from Broadway legend Patti Lupone; and “F**k man, you’re quick” from Samuel L. Jackson. Something in Spencer’s persona relaxes people! Must be the beard.
JAMES WEBER has lived and worked in New York for 19 years now, shooting beauty and fashion while mixing his art with his photography work. His studio is located in Hudson Yards, situated in a building built in 1910 that was originally a carriage house for horses. He has filled it with select pieces of midcentury modern furniture and equipped it with the latest digital capture equipment and lighting systems.
Confused. That is how I feel when I look upon some of the dish men my friends date. Obviously, sometimes guys who seem like schmucks on the surface turn out to be diamonds in the rough. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. On multiple occasions I have noticed that female friends date guys with one or more characteristics that indicate they are in possession of significantly less social capital than the ladies themselves. We are all familiar with this phenomenon as concerns men, but I feel that it is very different in their case. Older men who reach a certain income bracket sometimes end up with girls half their age and several shades of fake tan darker than the average woman. This is an instance of when women become status symbols. While the argument could be made that their nubile presence is a guard against male insecurity, it is more about projecting an image of power: “look how hot the chick I can get is.” They date hot girls who might not be aspiring world leaders, but, in terms of attractiveness, are way out of their league. There is no need to iterate the myriad insecurities the average woman combats in today’s world. Women handle insecurities differently than men, and I feel they are generally more destructive, making women’s loads a bit more difficult and masochistic to carry. Despite our advances, we still live in a patriarchy. So often I hear friends lamenting about the guy so-and-so is dating, who is dumber than she is. He is shorter, he is poorer and takes her money, he is a waste of her talents and beauty. We are friends, by and large, with our equals, right? Why are the rules so different for romantic relationships? How do these guys who do not have their shit together get beautiful, talented, financially stable women? How do such women manage to get into relationships with them? I’m sure the problem is rarely rooted in genuine cluelessness. She probably knows the whole time that she could find someone whose conversation has her firing on all cylinders, but if this guy is already present, what is the point of going elsewhere and giving up a sure thing? Why challenge yourself and face your fears of being alone when you can settle? It’s so much faster. The answer is simple: it provides her with a false sense of security. Security, because she is choosing to spend her time with a man who perhaps could not do better. She has given him a great catch; in his life there is no competition, and that
much, at least, he knows. The security of being in a relationship makes insecure people feel better. In relationships built on mutual respect and attraction, where you might fall in love and put yourself at significant emotional risk by gambling your happiness on another’s will, you have to examine your strengths and weaknesses because that’s what the other person will be doing. A dear friend of mine is the sole female at a big engineering firm in a big city. She is one of the most logical people I have ever known; if she feels you are being less than perfectly logical and reasonable, she will not hesitate to let you know in rather harsh terms. She has a lovely apartment, her own car, health insurance for herself and her cat, regular vacations, and a great complexion. Her boyfriend said he was just going to stay with her for a few weeks until he found his own apartment. About 4 months later, as his stuff piled up, she finally demanded that he pay rent and utilities. This guy is skeptical about evolution; he refuses to believe that he ‘came from a monkey.’ He subscribes to raft theory (which crazies use to explain the presence of similar fossils in Africa and South America while refuting Pangaea). What the hell? I can no longer ascribe their relationship to boredom on her part! If they broke up, she would have no friends. Except for work, she would have no social reason to leave her lovely apartment. As long as he is there, she does not have to be alone. She does not have to deal with worries about being unremarkable or unattractive or unmarketable. She doesn’t have to worry about her social insecurities and anxieties. She does not have to suffer from the worry that as a female engineer she will be seen as masculine. There is a clear series of insecurities within her that she can rest upon his scrawny, pasty shoulders. We all think of the perpetually single, suspicious of men, lonely, mean woman as the dreaded ‘Old Maid.’ Just today I saw one on the subway and suffered a brief moment of panic that I could end up like her. On some level, we are all scared of that. However, I think women need to stop allowing singleness to magnify everything negative that they think about themselves. It is almost as if in not having her life crowded by another, the un-distilled self-examination will suf-
focate her. But becoming mired in another person is merely a mechanism to say the inevitable. As long as she knows that she is better than her relationship and she doesn’t take it seriously, she can’t be hurt when it ends. But we have to work for the things in life that are really worth it, right? And security and self-esteem are definitely worth it. In my honest opinion, stability alone is not a good enough reason for a relationship to continue. Yes he’s there, but what would she learn about herself if he weren’t? The security that he brings is a mere placeholder for self-worth and self-esteem that is lacking. This security is false because it is born of insecurity. Without the feeling of never being good enough to deserve her paycheck, her good sense of style, her apartment, she would be guilty of woman’s greatest sin: pride. This relationship makes our friend feel safe and in control of h e r life and that of another. (Unfor tu nately, we may never quite rid o ur-
SWEATY JOE
from some of the fear and pain of dating and rejection. Even if this guy leaves her, she will be able to talk herself out of caring or being hurt because she never really wanted him in the first place. If she dates someone she respects, likes, and wants to impress, and he burns her, it could be really hard to take. Making herself vulnerable to rejection by someone she wants to be accepted and desired by is very
...disorganized, directionless, dishevelled, ... DEPENDENT! desultory, devious, dumb...
scary, so she fervently avoids it. But allowing herself to exist in this space of reluctance and comfort masquerading as happiness, she is o n l y closing herself off to t h e
...Disappeared (Err... Delighted).
by Lisa Guis
possibility of kindling a real relationship with a person she considers her equal. In order to find someone who loves her and wants to be with her for the sheer happiness that they can bring to one another based in respect and appreciation, a woman must let go of the fear that anchors her to what is in the end an unhealthy relationship, and decide to embark on a venture with higher risk but higher potential return. She must know herself in order to let another know her. Pride is not a sin; it is what allows us to decide what is good and right for us in our lives, and weak bonds built on unstable foundations can only crumble.
023
bitch
“... and maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better, happier place if young women would get their noses out of “Brides” magazine and consume their thoughts with more fulfilling ideas than the type of dress their bridesmaids will wear...”
To Everything, there is a season...
When I graduated high school, there’s a reason I left town and was happy to wave a placid goodbye to my dear graduating class, save a few close friends. Most people stuck around the state, so I imagine the others who bounced also felt trapped to a degree. Believe or not, some of us ended up in New York City. Imagine that. The chance is phenomenally…predictable. We all found out who was here through the usual little bird perched on the jackhammer outside our windows and I happy to hear about another compadre from the past, but it would have be nice to leave it at that. Apparently, they’ve been watching too much Sex and the City and had other ideas in mind. Now, I am fully supportive of unions, unity, the UN, but a reunion? Listen girls, just because we’re all in the city it doesn’t mean we have to pretend and be friends. I’m all for cordiality and would even be mildly excited to run into you on the street, but we weren’t friends then and there’s no need we need to force it now. I wish you the best of luck, but my buck stops there.
Adrianna, publisher, midtown Wedding Bell Blues
Before I begin, let me set this straight: I am a relatively normal, well educated, well brought up (or at least this is what I like to think) female in my early twenties. And yet, as I partake in the ever so common “girl talk” amongst my friends about relationships, men, dating marriage and beyond, I am labeled either as heartless (my friends and family have aptly nicknamed me ‘Ice Queen’) or “a dude,” at least in my ways of approaching these subjects. Time after time, I lis-
ten to stories from young girls expressing their desires to get married, have children, and “settle down” so to speak and time after time I can’t shake the idea that all of these things sound terrible to me, at least for the time being. End to my freedom and youth, added responsibility, the feeling of being “tied down”? No thanks. But because I feel this way, I’m considered weird, emotionless, and altogether anti-female. Why are my opinions so wrong? Why is it expected that every young American woman love the idea of marriage and babies and growing old with one person? Maybe it’s just me, but I thought we had moved past the idea of women’s roles as wives and homemakers in the 1960s, and yet young women these days are still expected to love the idea of looking at bridal magazines and wedding ring catalogs. The more and more I talk with my friends in their early twenties, the more and more I feel like an outsider for not having my wedding colors picked out already or a cut of diamond in mind for my engagement ring. I’m 21 years old for christ’s sake! I hate to say it, but maybe this is why there are so many miserable, dependent women in the world these days. And maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better, happier place if young women would get their noses out of “Brides” magazine and consume their thoughts with more fulfilling ideas and thoughts than the type of dress their bridesmaids will wear. I’m sorry, but dreaming about bigger and better things than a big, fancy $200,000 wedding and a honeymoon doesn’t make me a guy or mean that I don’t have feelings… we’re living in 21st century America here, get with the picture.
Penny, lecturer, Union Square Profligate Human Beings
Instead it sits in the fridge, our teeny fridge, unopened, taking up space, rotting, going to waste. Turkey, carrots, massive cantaloupes, milk from last month – you name it, it’s there or has made an appearance in the past. Though I’m sick of waiting around for the food to turn to mush and throwing it out myself (or mooching when appropriate and necessary), I’m most mystified when she orders take-in for that night, then leaves it on the table for two days…unopened! Perfectly good sushi, burgers, pasta, wraps, and everything under the sun have experienced a long-term relationship with our kitchen table when they should have been gobbled down immediately. I guess I’m just jealous because I wish I could afford to order take-out as often as she does, But seriously, order your take-out and eat it too! And your FreshDirect. I’m sick of watching food go to waste while people literally beg for a dollar outside our doorstep.
Julie, optician, upstate Does ANYONE really NEED a car in the city??
The parking situation in New York has gotten out of control. No one on my block works… they all have rent controlled apartments and too much time on their hands. Basically, they sit in their cars the entire hour and a half that the street is supposedly being cleaned. For those of us with better things to do, that leaves a slim to none chance of finding a space. (And forget your dream of nabbing that prime spot just outside the door.) Get out and take a walk, people. Let’s fight it out like we used to. Allison, 33, lawyer, Manhattan
Good Lookin’ Nowt !! It bothers me when people order or make food and only consume a portion of it, chucking the rest, but I can deal with that. My roommate’s eating/ordering/wasting habits, however, are something else. She’s slightly lazy and even more spoiled, ordering take-out often and only buying groceries from FreshDirect. This would be fine if she actually ate the food she bought.
Saturday night I come work and my roommate jumps on me and begs me to come out with her. This guy, E, she met last summer in Spain, who coincidentally happens to live in the adjoining borough, has been incessantly calling her for weeks looking to get back together (they never dated, mind you). The only way to get rid of him, she claimed, would be to meet him and end it once and for all; he’s a hater, she told me. A big,
“... So listen up, guys: most “adorably helpless” girls are faking it. And girls, if you can do it yourself, stop being c***s, stop pretending, and show off your smarts... ”
fat racist. Of course, she needed a wingman, and I’m not one to turn away a friend in need. Even though the situation sounded thoroughly awkward, I put on my dancing shoes and off we went.
When I saw him, I realized why she secretly wanted to see him again: Imagine your friendly neighborhood 6’3’’, wide-shouldered beach-blond lifeguard standing there with the widest grin, very happy to see you. She caved in immediately, and I had to spend the rest of the night with his dimwitted hulk of a sidekick, P. In about seven seconds of conversation, I found out P has never been to the Greenwich Village, despite living in Brooklyn his whole life, and that he has a red sports car. He wants to be a stockbroker, and ‘get real rich, real fast.’ Then comes the punch line; a metrosexuallooking dude walks into the bar. P freaks out: He points, and over the music he whisper-screams into my ear, ‘have you seen the fag at the bar? What’s up with this place!’ I stare wide at P and politely ask what’s wrong with him. He goes on to tell me that if he had a gay son, he would pull his shirt over his kid’s head and -- get this -- shoot him. WHAT? As the night proceeds, I watch my roommate willingly getting her knee molested, and hear both E and P pass criticism on pretty much every minority group out there complete with the most colorful variety of expressions (I dryly suggested they should write the bigot’s dictionary, and they responded enthusiastically). On the car ride home (I would have gladly taken the train, but my roommate insisted they should drive us) the conversation somehow slid into politics, and E told us how the foreigner exchange students in his Ivy-league university always try to convince him to vote Democrat ‘All these foreign n*****s, they’re not an active part of society, what right they have to an opinion? And who invited them any way?’ That’s when he told this hilarity ‘Knock, knock. Who’s there? Ice. Ice who? I’s your next president.’ He then decided to ask me who
I’m voting for, and I pointed out that I am a foreigner myself, not a citizen. He took a moment to think about it and said, ‘That’s ok. You were born in the Ukraine, right? Anyone from the former Soviet Union is fine by me. And you seem like a nice girl. My dad moved here from Spain. So you’re ok.’ I thanked him profusely for including me in the 5-people group he brands as ‘ok,’ but reminded him that I also grew up in Israel. It just went over his head, and instead of responding he chose to tell a story about a real racist – one who hates everyone. ‘He hates Russians!’ he exclaimed. Though I have visited (and even lived for short periods of time) in the less liberal parts of the U.S., I have never encountered such blatant racism. What more, I have never expected to encounter it in New York, the most diverse of cities, in two guys born and bred in Brooklyn. I felt like I was part of some social experiment! Upon parting I thanked them for a most educational of nights, and when my environmentalist liberal roommate promised to see E again, I asked her how could she seriously associate herself with this hypocrite. ‘With that face,” she exclaimed, ‘he can get away with anything!’.
Joy, writer, Brooklyn Dumb F***s, Literally
Temporomandibular Joint Disorder ?
I’m sitting on my morning one-train, waiting for it to depart (I live way way up in the Bronx.) It’s pretty early in the morning so there are only a few of us in the car. Engine’s off. It’s dead silent. Since unprovoked human interaction has, quite frankly, died, it’s pin drop quiet. Seriously; all I hear is ragged breath and the wind howling outside. All of a suddenthe silence shatters in the most gut wrenching, stomach turning way possible. There’s the faintest suck-ling, squishing noise. The woman in the next seat is chewing gum. Chewing gum with your mouth open is not only rude, it’s positively revolting. Chewing gum so loudly that everyone within the general vicinity can hear it pop, smoosh, and then reform inside your probably cesspool infected mouth? That is the most passive aggressive form of obnoxiousness that I can imagine. It’s borderline hillbilly behavior. Close your mouth, chew in silence. Show some respect.
Letitia, lawyer, Bronx Love’s Labour’s Lost Do you know that type of girl that is smart, capable, and talented, but acts completely helpless whenever she’s around a man? Maybe she’ll pretend she can’t carry her suitcase, when she really could manage it herself. Or she’ll mispronounce words on purpose, and pretend she doesn’t know how to pump gas. Let’s face it. We all know one of them. Maybe we’re even friends with her. But that makes it no less frustrating. I honestly thought the Jessica Simpson trend was done with, but I still see these girls dumbing themselves down, in order to appear “cute” to men. So listen up, guys: Most “adorably helpless” girls are faking it. And girls, if you can do it yourself, stop being c***s, stop pretending, and show off your smarts. Taylor, singer, UWS
It’s so weird interacting with lovers of loves long past. I always find myself on this weird fence of am I going to be a dick to them because they really hurt my feelings and should give them a taste of their own medicine... or am I going to be nice so I don’t seem like a total bitch?
Annaleise, receptionist, Soutwick
email: bitch@newyorkmoves.com snailmail: Moves: PO BOX 4097 Lex. Ave New York, NY 10163
Wy O
profile
"... I'm
really very grateful for every project I’ve done, every project I haven't done. Everything has led me to this moment to being who I am right now... ”
Interview: Cannon Story: Hannah Morelli Images: James Weber
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Wyatt Oleff describes his style in two words: eclectic cowboy. You may know the 20 year old actor from his role in the It, but on this 2017 feature film, New York City rooftop photoshoot, he is a cowboy. He brought his own boots and ponch he acquired on a “very coming-ofage movie" style cross country road trip with his friends, saying he wanted to create a “Midnight Cowboy" vibe. "These particular boots I found in New Mexico and they've been with me ever since,” he said, (before mentioning the holes in the soles that he’s been meaning to get fixed.) Oleff’s acting career started when he was seven years old. It was what he wanted to do, and taking the opportunity to actually pursue it was a “crucial decision that really defined me. I'm really grateful for every project I’ve done, every project I haven't done. Everything has led me to this moment to being who I am right now.”
With so much experience so young, he can easily pass down some advice to emerging actors. "You need to be able to accept rejection... be like 'okay, got it' and move on. It’s easy to get attached to individual scripts and characters, but the most important part is to be kind to yourself. It’s most likely not a lack of skill or talent (the rejection).” he explains. “They have a certain look in mind and you can’t change that... the right part will come along for you.” His early start was only possible with parental support, and Oleff continuously shares photography James Weber styling Cannon, Wyatt grooming Yoli-Ann Cotray
the appreciation for and inspiration from his mother, who he is sure to shout out in the interview as being his “day one.” He pauses after, rethinking the technicalities. “Or day negative 90—nope” he pauses again, shaking his head. “Negative... nine months!”
He gives the credit to his mom for encouraging him to express himself the way he wanted to. He’s sure to tell us about his fashion choices as a kid. “I wore all white to school and slicked my hair back because that’s what I wanted to do.” And his mom always let him express himself the way he wanted. As Oleff’s fashion sense has evolved, he’s discovered a new passion within it: mixing high end pieces with vintage clothes. “I think a lot of people put too much on just doing vintage or just doing high end,” he explains before gesturing down to his current outfit. “I don’t really know what brands I’m wearing right now. That’s how much I care about, oh “what brand is this.” I just like things that are cool and work together.” It makes no difference to him if a piece is high end, from the thrift shop racks, or found on the side of the street. If it works, it works. And wearing a variety of thrifted clothes also supports Oleff’s beliefs in sustainable fashion. He also tries to mix and match whatever is his closet to create new looks without buying more. A lot has shifted in Oleff’s fashion experience since moving to New York City. There are two great things about the city that makes it the perfect place to experiment: everyone else is experimenting and at the same time no one cares what you’re wearing. “I think that’s really integral for me the past two years living here,” he said. He
needs that medium to express himself, and here “[I am] able to show how I feel and who I am through my clothes.” Making the move wasn’t the easiest transition, though. Coming from LA, where the winter barely exists, to living in a ground floor apartment in New York wasn’t easy. “I was having a really tough time and the one thing I didn’t do was talk to other people,” he revealed. “I think that we should be more open to that.” Acting and fashion go hand in hand, given that a key aspect of any character is their wardrobe. Working with costumers has been a highlight of Oleff’s acting experiences, as he enjoys the back and forth of figuring out the costume design. “They’ll have ideas for the characters and sometimes they’ll be like ‘What do you think this character would wear?’” He said, explaining the process he enjoys so much. “Being able to decide that together is such a fun experience and a very underrated aspect of pre production.” Oleff told us about an experience he had for a show he did last year. This character’s costume changed throughout the show, shifting to mirror the styles of other characters, and maybe even sharing clothes. While it may not have been obvious to the audience, it was important to him and the character’s arc. “It’s those subtle things that really make a project special for me.” When it comes to the present, Oleff takes the time to unwind by doing what he loves; going to jazz clubs and simply listening to people play. For the past, and his favorite era of fashion, he quipped “ Of course I'd love to go back and dress like a cowboy.” As to the future? Oleff’s main plans are “taking it day by day as Billy Joel said.”
[top] Courtesy of MOM black flower pants Hanes shirt Celine white boots [right] Steven Alan pants sweater, vintage
"...I just like things that are cool and work... together...
".
FROM EPIC VIEWS TO G NO ONE DOES FUN LIKE
GREAT MEMORIES, E CARNIVAL
rant
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By E Scrooge
The Holiday Conscience happens every year. Come December, the annual yuletide spirit rears its ugly, condescending head and shakes a virtuous finger. Don’t you feel guilty about the prick you’ve become, it asks? It’s true; the past eleven months have not seen you at your best. You haven’t given up any subway seats to old ladies, you continue to pretend the hobo on the corner is invisible, and while walking out of Saks with an armful of bags, insist to the charities that you’re dead broke. And let’s face it, you kind of are – that shit cost a fortune.
Forget the faceless masses, in terms of family relations you’re not much better off, either. Grandma called five times this week to invite you over for coffee but the answering machine does such a good job of listening to her, you’re able to find out what happened at her book club meeting without actually having a conversation. Now that it’s the holidays, you must redeem yourself with some epic, newsworthy deed of righteousness, change your ways, correct? Wrong. Tell St. Nick to stuff it; this is simply how you operate. Guilty minds at holiday time mean one thing – gift inflation. You haven’t seen your mother in ages or babysat your sister’s kids in well over a year. (But come on, the little monsters are literally uncontrollable - when she puts them through reform school, you’ll think about it.) So, in order to make up for your convenient absence, you spend big bucks on extravagant gifts. No one can complain about how you didn’t call them back when a cashmere sweater is in their lap. Essentially, we are paying to maintain our relationships. And what’s wrong with that? If that’s all it takes to make them happy then that’s fine by me – here’s another perfume set. If you didn’t want to see them during the year, chances are they probably didn’t want to see you either. We all sleep a little better come the night before (insert your holiday here) knowing that underneath that half-assed wrapping job is the pricey back massager from Brookstone that
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dad’s been ranting about, or more accurately, what you think he might like from what you hear on your voicemail. He mentioned something about the chiropractor recently, that’s got to be a hint – the greedy bastard. Let’s say you’re strapped for cash this year. These December penances are beginning to take a toll on your finances. Instead of buying nice gifts for everybody, you reward your family by letting them see you absolutely obliterated. For most of America, family gatherings mean one thing – getting shit-housed to pass the time. How many times can one really listen their uncle tell, without fail, the same jokes every single year. So instead, you throw back enough mind numbingly strong eggnogs (that you politely offered to make) that you’ve completely lost your ability to hear – problem solved. What? I can’t hear you; my glass is empty.
Forcing some form of goodness out of ourselves every year in order to maintain a semblance of karma is ultimately useless; I realize this. But why change now? It in itself has become our holiday ritual, a tradition of sorts. Running out last minute to buy some ridiculous gift becomes a kind of comfort to us of the morally bereft community. Being somewhat human after all, we are creatures of habit. Screening phone calls is like a holiday
(Y e
!) t h g i ah R
countdown. If our routine just happens to be ignoring our family members 364 days out of the year and then systematically buying their forgiveness, so be it – to each their own, I say. In regards to public displays of intoxication, you’re once again just keeping the legacy alive. Your family has come to expect your stupor and you certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint. There are only a few more years until the little ones catch on that you’re the alcoholic aunt and not the fun, if not slightly eccentric aunt, so might as well go out with a bang. And if you’re lucky, you’ll leave such a lasting impression that they’ll stop asking you to baby-sit. The festive bow atop the handle of vodka you’ve bought for yourself is your holiday spirit, you exclaim while wondering if wine as a chaser is over-doing it.
Here’s to the movement that we scrap all the ridiculous pretenses of heartwarming traditions, mistletoe bullcrap and pomp. If that were the case, maybe the materialistic and alcoholic nature of the holidays would be a notion of the past. If the holidays were really about what we claim them to be, we wouldn’t have to go into bankruptcy or liver failure. But until then, it looks like we just have to create our own goddamn holiday traditions, one bankbusting gift and empty glass at a time.
cover story
HUMA ABEDIN
Très élégant, super sophis tiqué, charmante, et tellement g entil. Can we also mention she is the smartest person in the room. Errr. . Any Room ! !
Interview: Moonah Ellison Story:: Chesley Turner Photography:: Dennys iLic
Huma Abedin is a woman who handles pressure while maintaining grace and staying grounded. For her, perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s all about roots. “My dad would say, you know, a person is like a plant; and a plant is only as good as its roots.” For Huma, those roots were formed not by any single town or place, or even moment, but rather by parents who had a sense of self and ancestry. They also had a global curiosity and confidence. It was all inherited by their daughter. “My parents immigrated to America. They were Fulbright Scholars. But when I was two, my dad was essentially diagnosed with a terminal illness. He was told he had five to ten years.” Facing a choice, he could either get his affairs in order and settle in for the long decline or, “go out and live the most extraordinary life he could live while he had time on this earth.” Sayed Zainul Abedin chose the latter. Two months later, the Abedin family moved from Kalamazoo, MI to Saudi Arabia. “We were raised with this real sense of knowing where we came from, understanding who we were.” That self-identity was complex. Huma’s parents had immigrated to America — her father from India and her mother from Pakistan, two countries at war — and had established a very Midwestern life. Now, the family settled into life in Jeddah, a city on the western edge of the country, on the coast of the Red Sea, finding a new way of life. But before you can be found, you must first experience being lost. One of Huma’s earliest such memories is seared into her memory. She tells the story viscerally:“We went to the souk to shop. This was before the days of cellphones, and many people didn’t speak English. My parents didn’t speak Arabic yet. Here I am, this little American child overwhelmed by all the senses and smells of the shawarma, you know, the incense, and seeing all the dates. And all the women had to be covered back then; all the women were dressed in these black abayas. I grabbed onto somebody else’s abaya thinking it was my mom and walked along with her. It was only when I looked up, I realized it wasn’t my mother.” Years later, Huma’s mother, Saleha, has said this was one of the worst experiences of her life. Huma doesn’t focus on her own fear in that moment, but she does remember her mother’s. “It was the first time I had ever seen my mother cry.” Despite growing up in Saudi Arabia with an Indian father and Pakistani mother, the family identified as American. “My parents had lived the American Dream. It was this notion of choice and freedom, and self-determination, and core to what it is to be an American living in a democracy. So, we were raised as Americans and as Muslims.” Still, Huma says, “I was curious about other people and other cultures.” Both Sayed and Saleha worked in academia, so the family had time to travel the world during the summers. At seventeen, Huma moved back to the United States to attend George Washington University.
Her father, anticipating the impending drastic change in her environment, sent her forth with words of wisdom. “He said, ‘You will have total freedom. You can make whatever choice that you want, but I just want to remind you of one thing: that no freedom in this world is absolute. Every choice you make in your life is going to have consequences.’” Those words, Huma says, are what grounded her, rooted her, and gave her the confidence to venture into the world’s challenges. “This deep faith and love, like — yes — love of my faith. Knowing where I came from and who I was and being able to walk into the White House at age twenty-one, kind of excited about how different I was and proud of what I knew that was different from a lot of the people around me; curious about the world.” Huma is adamant that representation matters. It is imperative for young girls and women to see themselves in the world before they themselves seek to make a place in it, to know it is possible to attain roles of significance and leadership and impact. In her own life, the visible role model was Christiane Amanpour on CNN International during the Persian Gulf War. “Seeing this woman appear on my screen, she looked like she came from my part of the world. If she was blonde, blue-eyed, named Mary Smith, I’m not sure I would have had the same reaction. But to me, she seemed like this extraordinary truthteller, and just so brave, and strong, and smart. So, I went to university to become Christiane Amanpour.” While at GW, she first studied journalism and then focused on politics and international relations. A friend told her, “If you want to be Christiane Amanpour, go intern for Mike McCurry,” the White House Press Secretary for Bill Clinton. But after being accepted into the White House internship program, she wasn’t put anywhere in the press office. She was sent to First Lady Hillary Clinton. “They picked me. I was put in the First Lady’s office given my background, and my mother was a big activist and advocate for women and given Hillary’s experience in Beijing.... They saw something, and they picked me.” However, despite this vote of confidence, Huma was still recovering from the very real impact of losing her father. He had passed away right before she had left home for university. “I was so in shock. We children didn’t know how ill he was, and to me he was a superhero even though he weighed ninety pounds in the months before he passed away. And I wasn’t able, for years, to tell anybody that he was gone, that it was difficult for me to lose him.”
That trauma of loss made Huma close herself off, and often seek to be behind the scenes rather than in the spotlight. “I was always prepared to work hard and do the best I could at my job, [but] I never wanted to be the center of attention. That is a direct result of having lost my dad.” Many people know the deep and enduring relationship — a mentorship and a friendship — that grew between Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton. Huma was at Hillary’s side as they weathered all sorts of triumphs, empowered moments, but also defeats. Remembering the preamble to the 2016 campaign, Huma says, “She served four years, successfully, as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, and, you know, it’s history now, but back then it really felt as though [running for President] was the necessary thing to do. She was the most qualified candidate.” Despite the eminent qualifications, and despite all they had learned from the defeat to President Obama in 2008, the field was not welcoming. “The journey of a woman politician campaigning, and all the misogyny and sexism, the doublestandards... that had reached sort of an epic level. Still, Hillary wanted to do it the old-fashioned way.” During her run for Senate from New York in 1999, Clinton had embarked on a listening tour, meeting people in their homes and at diners, asking what they were thinking, what they were worried about, so that she could be an effective legislator and policy maker. She had the same strategy in mind for the 2016 presidential campaign. But American presidential races are their own kind of crazy. “See, the way our elections are run are very different from other parts of the world, you know, in UK or New Zealand, where you’re essentially voting for a party. Here, you really are voting for the personality. You have to compete for that space.” And people in this country, the research shows, don’t tend to think women belong in executive leadership positions. It’s one of the reasons representation is so important. We don’t see women in these roles. “It’s much easier for a woman to run for Congress or run for Senate, because to be in a body of collaborative work, that you can see. But to be Commander in Chief? A leader? An executive? A CEO? We just couldn’t do that.” After Clinton’s 2016 loss, several female candidates ran in 2020, but the preconceived assumptions of the Presidential race are to change. Huma keeps this front-of-mind in her work and advocacy. “I spend a lot of my public life calling that out, because that’s the only way we’ll find real solutions. In many ways, we’re actually
(Huma’s mothe understand th are ent
er) “... It is just as important for my son to he rights and opportunities that women titled to as it is for my daughters..."
going backward. The UN Secretary General put out a report saying it’s going to take 300 years for there to be gender equity.” Women in power, women in visible leadership, and women making decisions for themselves is imperative to create and maintain change. These are all things she saw modeled in Clinton’s office as First Lady. “Hillary did not tolerate women not supporting other women. It was a very collaborative office. There was always room at the table for a young voice or someone less experienced. And, you know, she was always a collector of ideas from a range of people: older people, her peers, young people. I think that she just felt like you make better, more informed decisions when you have more ideas and perspectives at the table. That’s how I was raised, professionally.” Inclusion, representation, validation, and voice were important parts of Huma’s experience. As one of only two Muslims that she knew of in the White House at the time, and as a woman of color working with mostly Caucasian colleagues, she recalls feeling lucky that her differences were embraced. “Frankly, even amongst us women of color, I remember a time where it was like, ‘Well, there’s not enough space for each of us to have leadership.’ And I think what you learn as you get older is that there’s plenty of space.” There is plenty of space for more than the token representation and hearing from multiple, diverse voices matters. Experience and advocacy extend beyond precise sociological categories. “Psychologically and culturally, we just need to change the system. And it’s not just women who need to change. The whole dynamics of how our society was once structured has changed.” And this is difficult. That fact seems to endure. It’s hard to have a job and maintain a household. The concept and aspiration for women to “have it all,” may be possible because of the work of Gloria Steinem and our mothers’ generation, but it’s a struggle every day to balance everything and to overcome the cultural stasis that seems so engrained. Huma reiterates that women need to change, but so do men. For her, personally and practically, that means starting with how she raises her own son. “My intention is to raise him not just to respect women, but also not to fear their power.” Once again recalling the example of her mother, Huma relates the family story when Saleha took her older brother to a women’s conference. At one point, a woman pointed angrily at
him and said, “What are you doing here? This conference is for us.” Huma’s mother stepped between them and said, “It is just as important for my son to understand the rights and opportunities that women are entitled to as it is for my daughters.” Of her mother, Huma says, “I think she’s the one who really instilled in me this notion that we aren’t going to make progress without men at the table.” And sharing this journey — of power, of vulnerability, of trust, of change — with men can be very difficult. “Throughout my life, I’ve often been criticized publicly and privately for accepting what is perceived as bad male behavior. My approach is such that I want to try and understand; so that I can move on with my life, but also appreciate and understand the motivations.” While the knee-jerk reaction may be to excise the difficulty, to cut a person or an experience out of your life like a cancer, it’s not always possible. “It’s hard to do that when you share a child with somebody. This is all a very long way of saying that it’s important for both genders, all genders, to be at the table and to figure out how to create a better society.”
“... I think she’s the really instilled in me notion that we are to make progress w men at the table...
So many of the stories that shaped her are recorded in her new book, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, but not as a think-piece or a manifesto. It is a book to show, rather than just tell. “The book really was written in part as a love letter to my dad, and to honor my mom and all she’s done to give me this extraordinary life.” Nearing the end of her national book tour, Huma is now a contributor on MSNBC, enjoying the opportunity to be in conversation and community with other women. “I love the opportunity to communicate. After this extraordinarily insane journey that I’ve been on, the highs and the lows, this is a gift from God. There’s no better way to describe it.” At the end of the book, in fact, Huma shares a story that relates her core prayer, a supplication in Islam. “For me, it isn’t, ‘Where can I travel, who can I meet, what can I do?’ It’s: ‘God, grant me in this life that which is good.’ He has done that, and I’m all the more lucky for it.” In that gratitude, she continues to pave the way for other women who are ready to participate in and change the world, to herald their successes and uplift them in their journey. “I say to young women all the time: You have more power than you even know. Use it. Be intentional about using it. And consider doing the thing that scares you the most, because you might be really good at it. I did.... Trust me.”
photography Dennys iLic stylist Cannon fashion assistants Winnie Noan, Skylar Hill, Abbie Calaforra, Jillian Jacobsen, Alaye Alleyne grooming Mary Wiles & Antonio Velotta location Loft 3 Studio 447 West 36th St. NYC
[top middle and previous pages] Tube Gallery at Flying Solo [this page] Bibhu Mohapatra gown Effy jewelry [far right] Liina Stein at Flying Solo dress
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profile
By
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El li
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Nate Burleson xp ec tt he un ex pe cte d)
Whenever I watch CBS Mornings, the first thing I notice is co-host Nate Burleson’s style: crisp, effortless, a little flair to add some sexiness to the morning. Hence to say, I watch the show every day. Since 2021, former National Football League wide receiver Nate Burleson has been co-hosting CBS Mornings with Gayle King and Tony Dokoupil, winning a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Live News Special after their first season together. From catching footballs to catching interviews, the Canadian-born Burleson has made quite a nice transition from the playing field to the television screen, making it look as easy as a 10-yard curl.
“For me, the great thing about working with Kelty Knight [Superfan creator] — and of course underneath this CBS umbrella — is that they give me the creative freedom to flex all of these different muscles. On a show like this there is no fake enthusiasm, you know, everything is authentic and I get to go off script and show my personality and also being a fan in real time. Example, the LL Cool J episode. It's very clear that I would have easily traded places with one of the contestants. Halfway through the show, I just stopped everybody and said, ‘wait, wait, wait, can, can I compete for all of this?’ [laughs] It's a fun show and it's my first real introduction to the game show
It’s been nine years since Nate Burleson ended his NFL career, 2014 to be exact. The 11-year veteran caught 457 balls and scored 39 touchdowns while amassing 5,630 receiving yards for three teams: Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, and Detroit Lions. Since then he has sat down and interviewed such star power, a heavy hitters list that includes Barack and Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, Senator Cory Booker, Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, Michael J. Fox, and Bill Russell. Burleson won consecutive Sports Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Sports Personality/Studio Analyst in 2022 and 2021, as well as the winner of the Outstanding Playoff Coverage Emmy Award for the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon in 2021.When ex-athletes become commentators or work in media, the overall consensus is that they’re pigeon-holed to the sport they played. But for Burleson, it was important for him to show that he was more than football. “For me, I wanted to not necessarily conquer each space I'm in, but be well received in that space and then earn respect.” Initially Burleson got into sports broadcasting right after his playing career ended. He was talking football and then was able to shift to entertainment, showing everybody that he was more well-rounded than they may think. “I owned a restaurant. I helped athletes invest money. I write poetry all the time. I write music, I started multiple clothing lines for guys. So all of these elements of who I am, people didn't really get to see because I was just talking about sports. Now I can talk politics, finances, sports, pop culture, movies, music.” Burleson’s plate is full, and it’s how he likes it. In addition to CBS Mornings, he is also a co-host of CBS Television Network’s NFL pregame show The NFL, NFL’s Slimetime for Nickelodeon and the new CBS primetime competition series Superfan, a show Burleson his “best job ever,” a show that gives fans the opportunity to create a bridge between the artist and their fan base and celebrate both. “We brought in mega stars [like] Gloria Estefan, LL Cool J, Shania Twain, Pitbull, to name a few. And we filled the audience up with super fans of these artists and five fans compete for a perfectly-curated package put together by the artists.” Memory games, name that tune, charades, and lip sync contests are just some of the ways the fans are tested. “I love music. I'm an 80s baby, grew up in the 90s. So everything from R&B, hip hop, to pop and country. I'm from Seattle too, we're a melting pot of culture and music. It's a beautiful show, and it's like one big party.
space which I've been patiently waiting to get into and waiting for the right opportunity.” With every media space, it’s important to tell the story, get the facts right, educate. Especially in this digital media age and having an awareness of what you’re putting out there and the impact it can have on the viewer. “When I was a child we’d rush home to sit in front of the TV and we watched the breaking news together when there was something going on in our country,” reflects Burleson. “I feel that we have this immense responsibility to be aware enough to know that people that decide to tune into us are looking for the truth. They are looking for an unbiased approach, but they're also looking for relatability. And in this day and age where it's not just linear TV, as we know, the traditional form of a TV sitting on a counter or hanging on a wall. Information is being consumed in a more intimate way, more intimate than it has been in years. In all reality, we have to embrace this way, because if a 15-year-old picks up his phone, and he is taking in this bite-sized information, this fast food content, him holding that phone in his hand can be the most impactful moment that will help shape minds. Gayle [King] says it a lot. We have a front row seat to history. And if you wake up with that mindset, you know you want to be on the right side of history.”
Burleson is a family man, having been married to his college sweetheart for the past 20 years. He has three children ages 19, 17, 13 and understands the burden families in this country have with student loans and the burden of paying top dollar to go to school and they are instead choosing other paths. “There have been members in my family, close friends, who have had that financial cloud hanging over their head their entire lives. It's unfortunate because we are living in a new day and age where more and more people are saying this traditional path to becoming an adult might not be the path I want. I might not want to take out student loans and go to college and get a degree… so whenever we cover these topics on the show we make sure we approach it the right way.” So what's next for Burleson? For one he wants to concentrate on his media company Watch Media, where they will produce. content, everything from scripted to unscripted, starting with a really cool sports documentary, really can't let the cat out of the bag, but it's going to be the first project underneath that umbrella. For now, Burleson will charm us on CBS and he is humble and passionate to be a full frontal face on TV sets for years to come. “People oftentimes say, ‘Well, Nate, you have this big smile on your face and you always seem like you're having fun.’ I am. I'm enjoying it. And I also know that the seat that I'm sitting in is prime real estate. There are people at this network that deserve the seat. There are people that have worked [here] their whole lives. They deserve this seat and initially when they see me, oh another football player, that's another token athlete, the token black guy, he's just there to add some seasoning to the meal. No, no, no, I’m much more than that. And my job was to show that every single day, and not only uphold the bar but raise it in areas I can.”
" ...I feel that we have this immense responsibility to be aware enough to know that people that decide to tune into us are looking for the truth... "
photography Ammar Photography [image on previous spread and this page]
Will you help us? unicefusa.org/wontstop
M OV E S P OW E R WO M E N 2023
A Moves Black Tie Essential Event Women's Rights, Social Fairness & Equal Opportunity
"... everybody's talkin' 'bout Mississippi goddam... " NINA SIMONE was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February
21st, 1933. After starting to play the piano at the age of three, she took classical music lessons and played in her mother’s church. She loved the classical piano composers: Bach, Chopin, Beethoven and Schubert. By the time she graduated as valedictorian of her high school class and started studying at the Juilliard School in New York City, her goal was to become the world’s first African American classical pianist. She was thwarted in this ambition, however, after being denied a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, another top music conservatory. In an interview from 1991: They didn’t give me the opportunity to start as a black classical pianist. I was refused a scholarship because I was black." Melancholy and mesmeric, she has a way of getting to us. Still. Because she was so much more than an amazing voice within an unmatched piano interpretation. She was a tour de force who brought the message of women's rights, social justice and equal opportunity to everyone who had the pleasure of hearing her songs. But it’s important we don’t pigeonhole her only as a civil rights activist with a great vocal range: she was in fact the consumate Power Woman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM&t=50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r57J0jPyZRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LymNICNvaH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jI9I03q8E
M OV E S P OW E R WO M E N 2023 COVER: HUMA ABEDIN JANEY WHITESIDE...Partner & CEO, Consello Growth & Business Development JANET FOUTTY...Former Chair & Consulting CEO Deloitte US JESSICA JACKSON...COO and Chief Advocacy Officer, The Reform Alliance LOLA C. WEST...Co-founder, Chairwoman, Chief Culture Officer, Westfuller JULIE BROWN...Chief Financial Officer, GSK ANNE DEL CASTILLO...Snr Policy Advisor, NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs JENNIFER GASSER...SVP, Partner Brands, World Travel Holdings AMY GILLILAND...President, General Dynamics Information Technology KAYE POPOFSKY KRAMER...Founder, Step Up Women’s Network CYNDI ZAGIEBOYLO...President & CEO, National MS Society MARTHA DELEHANTY...Chief People Officer, Commvault DR. JENNIFER ASHTON...Chief Medical Correspondent, ABC News ANA L. OLIVEIRA...President & CEO, The New York Women’s Foundation BLANDINE DE NAVACELLE...Head of Studio Lodha TIFFANEE WADE HENDERSON...G.C.. Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer & Litigation, Intl. Paper CLAUDIA ROMO EDELMAN...Founder, We Are All Human Foundation DR. ANA FERNANDEZ-SESMA...Chair of Microbiology, Icahn School, Mount Sinai KRISTIN MCHUGH...SVP Marketing & Creative, Verizon SARAH BISHOP...Vice President, Brand and Consumer Marketing, NFL HEATHER HARTNETT...General Partner & CEO, Human Ventures GEN. JACQUELINE VAN OVOST...Cmdr, U.S. Transportation Command, DOD CLAUDIA MAZO...SVP, Managing Director, International, Lands’ End LEXIE KOMISAR...Global Head, Partner Products & Growth, Meta AMY KRAMER...Senior Vice President, Ostroff Associates
“ ...a federal ban on the practice of asking for previous salary information... could certainly benefit women... not a panacea, but it’s a step in the right direction.“
JANEY WHITESIDE
Partner & CEO, Consello Growth & Business Development
JANET FOUTTY
Former Chair & Consulting CEO Deloitte US
" ...Our only job as leaders is to make those around us successful... "
JESSICA JACKSON COO and Chief Advocacy Officer, The Reform Alliance
" ...I think that change can begin with women. I think men can own that change and men can follow as they do in many areas of our lives..."
LOLA C.WEST Co-founder, Chairwoman, Chief Culture Officer, Westfuller
" ...Treat people as you want to be treated. I really honor that because love and kindness make the day. Why would I treat somebody differently than I would treat myself?... "
JULIE BROWN Chief Financial Officer, GSK
" ...Your belief in yourself will make the most difference to your journey from finding success to having real impact... "
ANNE DEL CASTILLO Snr Policy Advisor, NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs
" ...That we are still having these conversations 50 years after the Women’s Rights Movement began shows just how far we still have to go to achieving equality... "
JENNIFER GASSER SVP, Partner Brands, World Travel Holdings
" ...Success will follow if you are doing what you love and it plays to your strengths... "
AMY GILLILAND
President, General Dynamics Information Technology
" ...When people are seen and supported, when they are led with compassion and trust, they perform... "
KAYE POPOFSKY KRAMER Founder, Step Up Women’s Network
" ...There are no problems... only solutions... "
" ...remember that while you cannot change the past, you can always control the next action you take... "
CYNDI ZAGIEBOYLO President & CEO, National MS Society
MARTHA DELEHANTY Chief People Officer, Commvault
" ...Our truths don't hold us back; it's our lies... "
DR. JENNIFER ASHTON
Chief Medical Correspondent, ABC News
" ...women don't have to feel like they need to act like a man... they should be their true selves. Whatever that looks like and sounds like and talks like and walks like... "
ANA L. OLIVEIRA
President & CEO, The New York Women’s Foundation
" ... I would say that in the world there's a wave of conservatism going on... and all expressions of it are an attempt to keep women subordinate... "
BLANDINE DE NAVACELLE Head of Studio Lodha
" ... grass roots change is the most powerful action we can take to help empower women... it is vital to give women the support and education they need from the very start of their careers...
TIFFANEE WADE HENDERSON General Counsel, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer & Litigation, International Paper
" ...never sacrifice who you are to achieve goals set for you by others... "
CLAUDIA ROMO EDELMAN Founder, We Are All Human Foundation
" ...Everything is possible, but not at the same time. And careers are long, so plan properly your work-life balance... "
" ...Do work that is fulfilling to you. Do something that makes you happy, if not don’t do it... "
DR. ANA FERNANDEZ SESMA
Chair, Department of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai
KRISTIN MCHUGH SVP Marketing & Creative, Verizon
" ...Take risks. Show up for the opportunities, whether in your life or your career. The path emerges once you're clear on what you want... "
" ...we're still collectively facing hurdles large and small that seem to dovetail from the patriarchal structures that underpin our society... "
SARAH BISHOP
Vice President, Brand and Consumer Marketing, NFL
HEATHER HARTNETT General Partner & CEO, Human Ventures
"... Doubt the doubt! We often have imposter syndrome, but don’t doubt yourself... "
GENERAL JACQUELINE VAN OVOST Commander, U.S. Transportation Command, Dept of Defense
"... Start by believing in yourself. Throughout my career, I've faced numerous challenges and moments of doubt, but the one constant was my belief in my capabilities... "
"... An immediate step we can all take is to build up other women, to mentor and support one another, building a village of advocacy and encouragement... "
CLAUDIA MAZO SVP, Managing Director, International, Lands’ End
LEXIE KOMISAR
Global Head, Partner Products & Growth, Meta
"... Embrace a growth mindset: be open to new ideas, embrace change, and be willing to step outside of your comfort zone... "
AMY KRAMER Senior Vice President, Ostroff Associates
" ...Even when you don’t feel confident, project confidence. More often than not, you have the skills needed for the challenge at hand... "
People & Places 2023 Creative Direction
Publisher & Editor: Moonah Ellison Principal Photographer: Randall Slavin Fashion & Styling: Brendan Cannon Art Director: Spencer Heyfron Production Editor: William Smyth Designer: Camila Cardona
Photography:
Randall Slavin, Spencer Heyfron, Sean Gleason, William Ferchichi, Dennys iLic, James Weber, Francis Hills, Louis Tinsley, Alison Dyer.
Digital & Video:
Fabienne Riccoboni, Cristian Pena, Pablo Monsalve, Gustavo Ortiz, Tony Moore, Pietro Birindelli, Alvaro Nieto, William Casper.
Fashion Director:
Brendan Cannon: thecannonmediagroup.com
Styling:
Alicia Lawhon, Natalie Fajer, Maggie Walsh, David Goldberg, Winnie Noan.
Styling Assistants:
Ava Cella, Julia Cook, Sydney Lynch, Khaleah Phillips, Kelly Cody, Marielle Berrian, Lexi Rosenstein, Izzy Herbert.
Hair and Makeup:
Buffy Saint-Marie, Mariana Jimènez, Yoli-Ann Cotray, Anita Sweet, Patricia Hurtado, Mark Williamson, Amanda Robinson, Jennifer M Scarcella, Christine Tirado, Arend Jackson, Denis Boyd, Trevis Lester, Marco Santini, Aja Allen, Li Murillo, Silvana Avignoni, Camille Thompson, Franz Munoz, Rebecca Hampson, Sarah Whiteside, Rebecca Velez, Daisy Curbeon, Romano Lai, David De Leon, Diana Manzanares, Marco Santini, Mary Wiles, Antonio Velotta.
Locations:
Splashlight Studios, New York; 108 Leonard Street; 565 Broome Street, Penthouse; Loft 2 Studio; Solar Studios; Five Park Miami Beach; Electric Pony Studios; 1 Grosvenor Square, Hudson Yards Loft, Malibu Modern Studio.
Moves Production:
Cat Trzaskowski, Jess Herman, Travis Keyes, Toranj Kayvon, Duck Feeney. Hannah Morelli
Special Thanks:
Mike Bundlie, poetsroad.com All of the above mentioned.
Fashion:
Zara, Grace, Bibhu, Alexandre V a u t h i e r , M a n o l o Blahnik, Judith Leiber, Ann Taylor, Temple St. Clair, Alexander McQueen, Express, White House Black Market, Swarovski, IB Jewelry, Saint Croix, Franco Sarto, Cookie Shark, IRO Paris, Stuart Weitzman, Cabi, Dior, Sissy’s Log Cabin Memphis, Calvin Klein, Sam Edelman, Pritch, Keds, Kendall and Kylie, Donna Degnan, Quince, Dianne B, Tahari, Valentino, Chanel, Jonathon Simkhai, Louboutin, Cartier, Hermes, Michael Kors, Banana Republic, Gianvito Rossi, Marcellamoda, Miu Miu, INC, Prada, Bloomingdales, Virgin Mary, Gold Hawk, Veronica Beard, Black Noir, Ralph Lauren, Aperlai, Nili Lotan, Vince, Paula Mendoza, Eileen Fisher, Tory Burch, Scanlan Theodore, Derek Lam, Rani Arabella, Milly, Schott, Gucci, Kangol, David Yurman, B Michael, Alex and Ani, Antonio Melani, YSL, Rachel Zoe, Liz Claiborne, EvanPicone, Lauren by Ralph Lauren, Le Suit, St. Johns, Christian Louboutin, Tahari, Majestic Filatures, Wayf, Wilfred, Balmain, Phillip Lim, Armani, Cushnie et Ochs, Tibi, Grey Ven, A.L.C., Nike, Bebe, Lafayette 148, Alexis Bittar, Veronica Beard, Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Kasper, Theory, Marco Bicego, City Chic, J. Crew, Dolce & Gabbana, Vince Camuto, Wolford, Emporio Armani, Lululemon, Alo, Diane Von Furstenberg, Jimmy Choo, Maje, Criscione from Installation, Steve Madden, Shanghai Tang, Good American, Judith & Charles, Agnes B., Crosley, Sweet Romeo, XCIV, Jacobi, M. Rena, Sen, Vero Cuoio, Massimo Dutti, Buccellati
Congratulations Martha Way to lift others up as you climb! Sincerely, Your Commvault Family
Congratulations to all recognized Power Women. Driving performance through compassionate leadership.
C O N S U LT I N G
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T E C H N O LO G Y
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MISSION SERVICES
REFORM Alliance proudly celebrates Jessica Jackson for her unwavering commitment to transforming the criminal justice system and making our communities safer. We applaud you and all of this year's Power Women Award honorees.
VISIT REFORMALLIANCE.COM
We proudly celebrate Ana Fernandez-Sesma, PhD Professor of Microbiology and Medicine and Chair of the Department of Microbiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and all of this year’s Moves Power Women.
We Help The Best In The World Be Even Better. We proudly celebrate Consello Partner and CEO of Consello Growth and Business Development
Janey Whiteside And all of the 2023 Moves Power Women
W W W . C O N S E L L O . C O M
O N WA R D AND U P WA R D
Tonight, Travelers celebrates all the Power Women being honored at Moves Magazine’s 20th Anniversary Gala. Over the years, this event has become known for celebrating women of strength, presence, humor and influence – including our own Lisa Caputo and Joan Woodward. Congratulations to all.
travelers.com © 2023 The Travelers Indemnity Company. All rights reserved. Travelers and the Travelers Umbrella logo are registered trademarks of The Travelers Indemnity Company in the U.S. and other countries. M-18668 New 10-23
CONGRATULATIONS We’re proud to support, and extend our heartfelt congratulations, to all Moves Power Women Alumnae… including Carnival’s own Christine Duffy.
2023 Moves Power Women Honoree
Ana Oliveira
President & CEO
The New York Women’s Foundation thanks Moves Power for this recognition of President and CEO Ana L. Oliveira. Ana’s commitment to improving the lives of those in greatest need has enabled the Foundation to increase grantmaking from $1.7M to $11M annually, positively impacting over 6 million women and girls in poverty across NYC. Ana has long been a thought leader on issues of social and economic inequity and criminal justice for women and families. She leads cross-sectoral partnerships to advance women’s issues as the co-chair of The New York City Council Speaker’s Young Women’s Initiative and member of the Independent Commission to Study Criminal Justice Reform in NYC. Learn more about Ana’s work and The New York Women’s Foundation at www.nywf.org.
Congratulations to Congratulations to Laura Heltebran Laura Heltebran and all of the 2023 and all of the 2023 Congratulations to Moves Power Women MovesHeltebran Power Women Laura and all of the 2023 Moves Power Women
Rise like a phoenix, blaze like a comet, and grace the heavens with your light, for you are a woman, a being of magic and wonder, destined to achieve greatness.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL HONOREES
The nation’s leading professional development organization for women business owners
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MOVES MAGAZINE ANNUAL WOMEN IN POWER GALA
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Breaking barriers for future generations :
When women defy the odds and claim their place as leaders, it’s an inspiration to everyone. We celebrate the strength, vision and dedication of 2023’s Moves Power Women honorees, and those of the past two decades. Mastercard is proud to support women who make a difference — and help others succeed as well.
Mastercard, Priceless, and the circles design are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated. © 2023 Mastercard.
feature
THE POWER OF
HABIT
A re-run of award winning NYT journalist CHARLES DUHIGG in a conversation with Moves about his bestseller The Power of Habit and the lessons to be learned for all.
Eight a.m.: your first cup of coffee. Three p.m.: your post-meeting cigarette. Dinner time and you uncork another bottle. Whoever came up with the old adage that free will dictates our lives should have published a corresponding instruction manual. The real truth is that human beings are creatures of habit: wake up, suit up, eat up, check out. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. With so much of the same day in and day out, it’s amazing that we manage to get anything done. Which is why New York Moves reached out to Charles Duhigg, author of the best-selling book The Power of Habit. Duhigg recently dedicated a decade of his life to studying the science of habits and habit formation, and agreed to sit down for a chat to discuss his work. Armed with a tape recorder and a shocking amount of compulsions, we probed Duhigg on his life, his book, and just why we can’t say no to that last piece of pie. ****** New York Moves: So we figured we’d start with the foundation of your book, which is this idea of the “habit loop.” Go ahead and explain how the habit loop works. Charles Duhigg: This is really what we’ve learned in the last decade because we’ve kind of been living through this age, the golden age, of understandings of neurology and habit formation. And due in a large part to experiments that have been done by neurologists what we now know is that every habit has three basic components - there’s a cue, which is like a trigger, an automatic behavior that starts; then a routine, which is the behavior itself; then finally a reward, and a reward is really how your brain, or the particular part of the brain known as the “basal ganglia” learns to remember that pattern for the future. And the reason why this is important is because, you know, everyone from Aristotle to
Oprah has talked about habits and up your mental activity to deal with changing habits and understanding other things. So rather than having to habits but for the most part, histhink every single day should I eat that torically, almost all of their focus has rock that’s on the ground or should I been on the behavior, on the routine, go eat that piece of fruit, you can just the middle of that loop. And charm. what we automatically start eating the fruit and Distinct Southern now know from these experiments is then use that now free mental capacity that it’s really the cue - the beginning to invent things like fire and spears and by theJamie rewardCuccinelli - the end - that shape or aircraft carriers or video games or howphotography the habit emerges. AndProductions more whatever it is. So it’s really important by BVC importantly how we can understand to have the capacity to develop habits and change those habits. because it frees up our brain to do other things. NYM: What are the most common obstacles people encounter when they try NYM: Do you think achievement is a to break a habit and start a new one? result of habit? Do you think achievement happens when someone dares to CD: The number one thing is not to break that cycle? think of it in terms of breaking a habit, right? What we know is that once a CD: Sure. I mean it’s a really good habit is established in your neurology question because it’s kind of at the it’s very very difficult to extinguish the core of a lot of studies that are lookneurological pathways associated with ing at how people achieve mastery. that behavior. Now people can do it, And I think what they find is that it’s you can muster your willpower and an interplay. Right? You have to be kind of force yourself to ignore an old able to habitualize certain activities, habit, but the problem is that willpower because otherwise you’re not going is a limited resource, it gets tired with to be able to sort of break through time. And so, you know, when things your threshold of achievement. But get hard and you’re kind of having a very often when people achieve it’s rough day that’s when that strength because they’ve habitualized somethat, that muscle, will most likely fail. So thing to the degree where they can the best way to think about it is rather be self critical enough to evaluate than thinking about breaking a habit is where they’re not being perfect and to change a habit. focus on changing the habit around that. You know, in the book we talk NYM: How essential is habit to human about the example of Michael Phelps. activity? Do you think that habits enAnother great example is actually Tiable us to live productively instead of ger Woods. So Tiger Woods became waking up every minute to decide on kind of a very successful golfer, he the same little things over and over won a couple Masters. I don’t know again. Do you think everything we do is a ton about golf so I’m sort of talking therefore habitual? very imprecisely now, but he won a number of Masters and a lot of CD: About 40 to 45% of the actions that was because he develwe make every day are habits. One of oped a very intuitive swing. the things that we know evolutionarily He knew what to conis that the only species that seem to centrate on on his have done well, and this is a gross swing, the other generalization, it’s not always true, but parts would in general, the only species that seem happen to have done well are species that have automatithe capacity to develop automatic habcally. its. Because what it does is just frees
Then, he decided to change his entire swing - in part because he was getting older, and so he needed to draw from new sources of strength for his long drives. So he consciously and deliberately changed a lot of his habits around how he swung the club. And I think that’s a good example because it sort of illustrates this interplay between habits as being something that consciously happen, and mastery where we choose which habits to focus on, change them, and choose where to concentrate and where to let the habit take over. NYM: A lot of habits - overeating or drinking or smoking - have physical effects - you physically get buzzy from smoking, you physically get drunk. What would you say to people who are looking to change a behavior that is so intrinsically physically linked? CD: You know, what’s interesting is that we think of those behaviors as being driven enormously by those physical and chemical changes in our body, but studies tend to show that they are more complicated than that. Smoking is a great example. We think of smoking as something that is inherently really addictive. And thats true. Nicotine though is not as physically addictive as we traditionally think of it as being. According to medical studies 100 hours after your last cigarette, once the nicotine is out of your blood system, you’re no longer, from a medical perspective, physically addicted to nicotine. Once it’s gone, there is no chemical craving. But we all know people who, two months or two years after giving up smoking, they still crave a cigarette in the morning with their coffee. If you crave a cigarette two years after you gave up smoking, that’s not because of a physical chemical craving, that’s because of a habit dysfunction, a habit craving. And someone who’s in the grip of a
bad habit - it feels just like an addiction. In fact, neurologically, it operates in very similar centers of the brain and so that’s why it’s hard to distinguish between an addiction and a habit because they feel so similar. The recipe is really very much the same: Figure out what reward something like cigarettes or alcohol is giving to you and then find an alternative routine that can deliver a similar reward. When they tell people to quit smoking, very often, if it’s availablenicorette or replacement therapy or oftentimes drinking a lot more coffee when you normally have a cigarette helps people stop smoking because caffeine provides a rush very similar to nicotine so you’re replacing one routine with another routine and getting a very similar reward. NYM: In your book you give so many examples of people and companies that are success stories, so for you, in your opinion, what do you think are the three biggest success stories, be it people or companies, that are a result of positive habits that have gone in the right direction? CD: There’s so many of them. In the book we talk about Alcoa [an Aluminum company] and Paul O’Neill at Alcoa and I think a lot of people have been inspired by that story because Paul O’Neill decided to focus on worker safety and in doing so he really helped revolutionize this company that is an aluminum company- it didn’t necessarily have to become a place where worker safety was a priority and Paul O’neill made it a priority and saved lives in doing so. Similarly, if you look at Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Bus boycott, that a lot of the prevailing theories about why Montgomery and why Rosa Parks sparked what became the modern Civil Rights Movement, that it has to do with community habits and that’s a great example of a leader taking advantage of communal habits and creating change. I get emails from people - this one woman emailed me and she said, you know, she had felt
like - she’d had a drinking problem for over a decade and some of the ideas in the book convinced her to go to AA. She’s been sober for 7 months - you know, that victory doesn’t mean much to anyone besides her and her family but we know how meaningful that must be for someone like her - to feel like you are out of control with something like drinking and feel like you’ve learned how to bring it more in control. I just think when people change their own habits then that those are the most inspiring stories because we know how powerless you can feel when you feel like you can’t control a habit.
NYM: How do our habits affect our happiness? Is there a correlation between the two? Is controlling habits the key to happiness? CD: A lot of people have written me and said that -and this is true for me too - that they have this one behavior that drove them crazy, and they felt like totally successful people - they were people who were able to get good jobs and be good parents and be successful in life but they couldn’t make themselves go exercise or eat more healthy or stop eating bad food. You know, these little things that you say “if I’m so smart then why can’t I get up and go running every day,” and what we know from happiness studies is that these small things - those things actually have a disproportionate impact on people’s happiness. You know, if someone feels like they don’t have control over something that happens daily it tends to make them much more unhappy than the control that they do have makes them happy. And so these little niggling things are really really impactful for our overall happiness. So understanding how to change those behaviors, understanding where to start by diagnosing the cues and rewards is enormously powerful because it gives you a disproportionate sense of accomplishment and mastery over your own life, and ultimately, that is a necessary ingredient for happiness.
023 033
The name you know and the name you trust
845-876-WOOD www.williamslumber.com
“On behalf of Williams Lumber and Home Centers, I am thrilled to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all the incredible Moves Power Women of 2023.” – Kim Williams SVP of Marketing & Retail Operations, Williams Lumber and Home Centers 2023 Awardee
Rhinebeck | Hudson | Hopewell Junction | Tannersville | Red Hook | Pleasant Valley | High Falls
Diversity Awards
2023
lifest y le for cit y wom en
S PR I NG ISSUE
MARCIA GAY HARDEN debating Chamber empty words
she don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie....c******
‘
vodka
winter boyfriend. . . spring cleaning why is forbidden fruit always the tastiest ?
For the past twenty years Moves Magazine has advocated for women’s rights, social fairness and equal opportunity to its readers. Our Moves Diversity Award is in recognition of, and to specifically highlight, the role individual women leaders play in shaping and forming the next generation; the energy, experience and expertise used in mentoring today’s millennials into tomorrow’s executives in a more diverse and inclusive environment.
credits: photographer: tony gale video: cris pena stylist: alison hernon hair and make up: buffy hernandez daisy curbeon, yoli cotray, anita sweet
“... mentorship is absolutely critical to my own professional and personal identities. it really does fill my cup... It rejuvenates me as an individual, a leader, a professional, a woman, and a mother... ”
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Valerie June
An extraordinary talent
What do you believe qualifies you as a “power woman?” Are there any women you look up to as an inspiration? A seed is one of the most powerful things on the planet. Most of the world's population is fed by tiny seeds. My superpowers as a woman can be found in the small ways I share tiny seeds of light and inspiration. How do you feel as though you empower women on a daily basis? The most significant way women can empower other women is through their actions. Speaking and telling people what to do is one thing, but I’ve always thought the best way to empower others is by being living examples. How do we embody things that enrich and strengthen our hearts? So, I try to be busy being the kind of woman I want to see in the world. What is your biggest motivating factor when it comes to gender equality and acceptance?
Vala pulocchil vis; essit dit, sentiam es? Ciissolin hos cone niqui perfer
that people should have equal pay for equal work look like? Women would be the hardest hit first, so how long could we hold out? What are we willing to sacrifice? With AI advances, will people of all genders ultimately find themselves in the place of being treated like women in the workforce are treated today? Will the playing field be leveled? Still, will we, the working class, find ourselves with less than the lowest paid? In 2023, a full-time job does not guarantee that we will make a living wage–especially for women of color. How will technical advances begin to bring us all collectively to an equally desperate level and deepen the divide between the working class and the wealthiest 1%? I believe in equal pay for equal work. There’s never been a more critical time to work collectively to bring equality. We are divided, with some men happy to go along, allowing women to be treated as second-class citizens while the system is being reshaped. Only collectively can we rewrite the algorithms and create a world where we are not all enslaved. I have no answers, only questions. What power and potential solutions can come from asking questions?
Not to be funny, but they say a woman’s work is never done. What would the world look like if women and their allies stopped working? Around the Women’s March, many of us globally took the day off to protest. During the pandemic, the entire world, besides essential workers, stopped working. It shifted the energy of the planet. What would a strike of all genders who genuinely believe
Nature is the biggest inspiration for me musically. I love listening to the wind. I love listening to birds. You’re often considered one of the most electric talents in music, while being compared to Bob Dylan. How would you define yourself and your entrance into the music field?
What do you feel separates your talents from those around you in the music world, specifically in terms of male to female competitors? Speaking of music in terms of competition strips it of the soul necessary to share authentic creations. Maybe that’s why sometimes it feels as if we are living in a time of musical mediocrity. With enough focus and the right team, anyone can do anything. The only thing a person will never be able to do is be YOU. Being yourself is the only thing that separates the talents of each artist.
How do you handle individuals in your life who contest your music and your message to women?
How do you propose a potential solution to the equal pay matter that continues to plague women?
What is your biggest inspiration when it comes to the creation of your music, and what are the motivating factors behind the lyrics?
I describe my music as emotional and raw. It’s not always meant to be pretty, but it is meant to make you feel something. My entrance into the music field is like a ballerina — stepping lightly and dancing freely.
My ultimate goal would be oneness and equality for all living beings. It is achievable. If we see others as mirrors of ourselves, we could see ourselves in their situations. How would you like to be treated if the tables were turned? There’s a poem in my book called Me as We. The message of the poem extends selfishness to every living being. Through seeing others as ourselves, would there be any change in how we relate and our choices?
Circles of protection and cloaks of invisibility can work wonders. May your messages be absorbed by those ready to receive them mindfully. Learn from those who disagree with your messages. Opposition is a great teacher that can either cause you to believe in your message more or embrace new opinions by being open to changing your outlook. Earth is a school, and we are here to grow. My music is only for some people. My message is for those who are open to receiving it or interested in opposing it with mindfulness and kindness in their hearts. We can live peacefully without all having to agree.
in the South. They showed us that those struggles could soften our perspectives and inspire us to dream. They could have decided to show us how their struggles could harden us, but that was not the world they wished for us to live in. For over 100 years, black people in America could choose a perspective. Many Zen masters worked the plantation fields. Those zen masters are my ancestors, and where they could have chosen hate and retaliation, they learned that no one should feel the pain they endured. They chose joy.
How has your childhood upbringing had an effect on your views toward diversity and inclusion as well as female authority in a male dominated world? Yes, it is a male-dominated world, but in America, women have considerable voting power. Who are we voting for? Are we voting? The most significant percentage of women who can vote are white. Black women, Latina women, and women of all races follow that. Voting was very important to my mother, aunts, and grandmother. How many of us feel our vote counts? Beyond voting, how responsible are we for creating a more equitable and just world? To be a parent is one of the most remarkable ways of teaching diversity and inclusion. It starts at the kitchen table. It begins at home. My parents spoke about their challenges as a young black couple struggling to raise five children
Your newest book Light Beams: A Workbook for Being Your Badass Self was recently released and it discusses how individuals can find joy and empowerment in their everyday life. How do you feel the book truly inspires people, specifically women, to live a fulfilled life through dominating every aspect of the work field? I am a world traveler and totally into the fru-fru yogi life, but I’m also a HUGE fan of seeing how our practices for wellness and well-being can be integrated into the way we treat each other and the planet. That gave me the idea for a workbook that takes some of the concepts we use for manifesting personal wealth and prosperity and uses them to generate richness for the heart and soul of each person. There’s nothing wrong with getting rich and being a successful individual, but how can that also be a means to uplifting all living beings? Is that much positivity even possible? If so, where does it start? To me, the only place to begin nurturing that type of beauty must come from the light beams we all have within.
How would you define a “badass” woman? A badass woman is one filled with self-love, but also extends that in her actions to all living beings. How can being a badass uplift others? How will it open hearts? I am a world traveler and totally into the frufru yogi life, but I’m also a HUGE fan of seeing how our practices for wellness and well-being can be integrated into the way we treat each other and the planet. That gave me the idea for a workbook that takes some of the concepts we use for manifesting personal wealth and prosperity and uses them to generate richness for the heart and soul of each person. There’s nothing wrong with getting rich and being a successful individual, but how can that also be a means to uplifting all living beings? Is that much positivity even possible? If so, where does it start? To me, the only place to begin nurturing that type of beauty must come from the light beams we all have within.
"... Speaking of music in terms of competition strips it of the soul necessary to share authentic creations... "
Why did you initially choose the genre of blues and decide to produce a mixture of different musical categories? I have never chosen a genre for my music. My music is genre-fluid. Thanks so much for noticing that I make music in a mixture of categories vs. describing it as one genre. The music industry is changing, but the fact that I create whatever genre that comes to me hasn’t made it easy to thrive within the guidelines that shape the industry. A healthier way for the industry would require a huge change. How do you feel as though you can truly create a platform in the music industry where women feel empowered to join, despite a lack of equality? We are going to have to keep showing up and showing out despite having a lack of equality. Which song would you classify as your most influential, and what was the motivation behind it? “Astral Plane” is a song about finding our inner light and deciding to share it fearlessly. It’s a song for encouraging and inspiring us to live up to our highest potential. Do you have any advice for women and young girls looking to enter the music field, or any career, where men are typically regarded higher? Whatever field you decide to enter, do it because you love it. Create personal goals and write a story of what personal success looks like. Write the story that stays with you even if you fail in the outer world's eyes. Because the external world has many societal structures that take a juggernaut to change, your story of success must be the framework for you to become an ancestor. How is your work allowing the dreams and wishes of those who come after you to soar? Sometimes, our sisters take from us and fail to lift us up. Someone can always imitate your words and actions. Regardless of gender, there will always be someone 'higher' or 'better' in the world's eyes. Why are you doing what you're doing? Why do you dream? Is there any power in a dream worked for but not fulfilled? If you can read these questions and still feel a calling to enter the music field, you know you're on the right path. We do it for the adventures when we decide to follow a creative calling. Oh, the places you'll go!
photography by Jeff Fasano, Renata Raksha
feature
Joint Venture By Martin A Lee
The rise in marijuana’s popularity among American youth since the late 1960s coincided with a surge in diagnosed cases of attention deficit disorder and its hyperactive variant, ADHD, a condition that Dr. Tom O’Connell likened to a “pediatric anxiety syndrome.” A retired thoracic surgeon and former captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, O’Connell had treated hundreds of wounded American soldiers during the Vietnam War. He came out of retirement in 2000 and began seeing medical-cannabis applicants in Oakland. Over the years he would compile a database and analyze usage patterns of six thousand patients. His findings would challenge both prohibitionists and drug-policy reformers who concurred that reefer ought to be a no-no for under-twenty-one-year-olds. “Each side in the modern pot debate is wedded to its own fairytale,” O’Connell blogged. He bemoaned that reform leaders “were nearly as clueless as the Feds—and equally susceptible to doctrinaire thinking when it comes to adolescent drug initiation and usage.” Why do some young people who experiment with cannabis become daily users? Are their claims of medical use credible? Dr. O’Connell found that the vast majority of medical-marijuana applicants were already chronic users before they walked through the door of the dispensary. (People who try marijuana and have an unpleasant experience generally don’t go to physicians for letters of recommendation.) The everyday smokers he interviewed usually had similar medical and social histories. O’Connell determined that the main reason young people smoke pot on a regular basis is because it is a safe and effective way to relieve anxiety and other mood disorders associated with insecurity and low self-esteem.Repetitive drug use usually entails a more serious purpose than mere recreation, according to O’Connell, who maintains that since the 1960s young Americans have embraced marijuana en masse to assuage the same emotional symptoms “that made anxiolytics, mood stabilizers and antidepressants Big Pharma’s most lucrative products.” “The need to self-medicate symptoms of adolescent angst is much more important than simple youthful hedonism,” O’Connell concluded. For America’s youth, cannabis was like catnip for a cat, a poorly understood but nonetheless
efficient herbal means of navigating the ambient anxiety and frenetic complexity of modern life. The emergence of marijuana as the anxiolytic drug of choice and its durable popularity among tense teens and anxious adults made sense in light of scientific research that has documented the stress-buffering function of the endocannabinoid system. Whereas activation of the body’s innate stress response (“fight or flight”) is essential for responding and adapting to acute survival threats, too much stress can damage an organism in the long run by depleting endocannabinoid tone. A compromised endocannabinoid system sets the stage for a myriad of disease symptoms and ups the risk of premature death. Chronically elevated stress levels boost anxiety and significantly hasten the progression of Alzheimer’s dementia. Emotional stress has been shown to accelerate the spread of cancer. Stress alters how we assimilate fats. On a cellular level, stress is the body’s response to any change that creates a physiological demand on it. When a person is stressed, the brain generates cortisol and other steroid hormones, which, in turn, trigger the release of naturally occurring marijuana-like compounds (anandamide and 2-AG) in the human brain and body. These endogenous cannabinoids bind to primordial cell receptors that restore homeostasis by down-regulating the production of stress hormones. Marijuana, an herbal adaptogen, essentially does the same thing. Twenty-first-century children are under assault from an unprecedented array of debilitating stressors, including junk food, electromagnetic radiation, information overload, and a noxious swill of eighty thousand unregulated synthetic chemicals, which wreak havoc on metabolism and brain development. The cumulative effect can be seen in skyrocketing rates of childhood obesity, ADHD, autism, hypertension, depression, and strokes among adolescents. For all the talk about protecting the children, kids haven’t been faring very well in America. Among twenty developed nations, the United States and Great Britain ranked as the two worst places to be a child, according to a 2007 UNICEF study that assessed six criteria: material well-being, health, education,
Poor old Robert Mitchum — Google him — must now be spinning in his grave as the long-running battle on the evils of marijuana seems to be coming to an end in what will be the latest victory for US common sense. Nice one Messrs Maher, McConaughey, Harrelson et al! relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people’s own sense of happiness. Economic inequality is socially divisive, emotionally stressful, and hugely damaging in terms of health outcomes, especially for the poor, who comprise 50 percent of the population in early twenty-first-century America. Massive inequalities disgrace and sicken the United States. Extensive research has shown that health and social problems by almost every measure—from mental and physical illness to violence and drug abuse—are more prevalent in countries with large income disparities.With millions of stressed-out teens smoking pot, some parents are apt to attribute their children’s problems to marijuana’s malevolent influence. The adult temptation to blame the weed is reinforced by public officials who continually inflate the dangers and deny the benefits of cannabis. But U.S. authorities have long since forfeited any claim to credibility with respect to marijuana. The facts, meanwhile, speak for themselves: Carcinogens in our food, water, and air are legal; cannabis is not.
Martin A. Lee is the author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical, Recreational and Scientific, winner of the American Botanical Council’s James A. Duke Award for Excellence in Botanical Literature.
Marijuana prohibition is symptomatic of a deep cultural pathology. Its persistence as government policy is indicative of a body politic with a failing immune system, a society unable to heal itself. There is no moral justification for a policy that criminalizes people for trying to relieve their suffering. Reefer madness has nothing to do with smoking marijuana—for therapy or fun or any other reason—and everything to do with how the U.S. government has stigmatized, prosecuted, and jailed users of this much maligned and much venerated plant. Although men and women in many cultures have used cannabis for thousands of years, U.S. legislators and their international counterparts did not impose a global prohibitionist regime until well into the twentieth century. The first antimarijuana laws in the United States were primarily a racist reaction against Mexican migrants. Two decades after the federal government banned marijuana, the Beat writers introduced the jazz cat’s herb to Middle America, where cannabis tinctures and rubbing ointments were once widely available for multiple clinical indications. Adopted as a safe, effective, and medically unsupervised anxiolytic by millions of Baby Boomers during the 1960s, marijuana became the central focus of a deceitful and disastrous war on drugs launched by a Machiavellian president. The drug war that Nixon set in motion would escalate and metastasize under Reagan and his Oval Office successors.
Marijuana legalization has long been a “big tent” issue that galvanized activist energy on the left and the right, from antiglobalization protestors to free- market capitalists. The social movement that coalesced around cannabis contained components with opposite characteristics. The turf was fertile for strange bedfellows—pro-pot liberals embracing states’ rights, conservative libertarians begging for government regulation, ganja growers consorting with ex-cops, all united by their opposition to the federal government’s hyperbolic crusade against marijuana, the cheap hippie high that spurred America’s leading growth industry. Recent demographic trends favor marijuana legalization. Nationwide polls consistently find that a huge majority of Americans think medical marijuana should be legal and that the war on drugs has been a failure. And more than half of adults surveyed support the legalization of marijuana for personal use. Younger voters were more in favor of ending pot prohibition than other age groups. The notion that weed should be regulated like wine is obvious to a growing number of folks who recognized that when it comes to marijuana the public has been bamboozled on a grand scale. They understand that it’s irrational and hypocritical for the federal government to subsidize alcohol, tobacco, and dangerous pharmaceuticals, while prohibiting cannabis, “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man,” in the memorable words of DEA administrative law judge Francis Young. How long could a society endure such a venal and dishonest policy? For more than thirty years, the federal government has been dispensing government-grown reefer to a handful of medical-necessity patients, while the DEA, FDA, and NIDA pretend that marijuana lacks therapeutic value. Riddled with contradictions, federal policy ranks Schedule I cannabis as more dangerous than Schedule II crack cocaine. It makes no sense. Why is it legal for a drug company to sell THC (marijuana’s psychoactive component), but it’s not legal to get the very same compound by growing a plant in your own garden? What’s up with that? To ponder the history of marijuana in America is to embark upon a political landscape so illogical as to be perverse, a world where facts and votes don’t count and common sense is ignored, a world so full of paradox and doublespeak that you might need to smoke some of the good stuff just to wrap your mind around it all.
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ar a L m Richardson
L a mar Richar dson is a To n y Aw a rd® -nominated p ro d u c e r and awar d-winning a c t o r w i t h over a decade of expe ri e n c e i n t he entertainment i n d u s t ry . He made his debut as a C o Producer of the Fall 2 0 2 2 revi val of Ar thur Mille r' s Dea t h of a Salesman w hi le hi s other Broadway pro d u c i n g cred its include New Yo rk , N ew York, Mer rily We Roll A lo n g , and T he Wiz. by Hannah Morelli
"... the exhaustion of waiting for the phone to ring . . . [and] for an audition to turn into a job finally pushed me to try something new... "
“I just think that the human nature to connect musically and sonically is so strong.”
Lamar Richardson is a great example, or perhaps even the full embodiment, of the American Dream. His parents immigrated to America from the Caribbean in the eighties, raising Richardson to become a first generation college student, (at Columbia, nonetheless.) He worked to achieve his dream of working in entertainment, and while it wasn’t linear, he made his Broadway debut just last year and has already received a Tony nomination. After working as a producer on Death of a Salesman, Richardson was given the opportunity to work on a project that felt too good to be true: New York, New York. “I said: Oh my God, this is literally my story.” But he’s sure to tell us that this isn’t just his story, but a collection of shared experiences from the “cultural melting pot” of New York City, which Richardson now gladly calls his home. Producing wasn’t always particularly the dream for Richardson, though. He spent a large amount of time auditioning to be an actor for the past decade in LA. It wasn’t until after the pandemic that Richardson made his return to New York — to be an actor and a producer. The exhaustion of “waiting for the phone to ring... [and] for an audition to turn into a job” had finally pushed him to try something new. “I knew I wasn't a writer, I knew I wasn't a director, so I knew that producing was the next best thing,” Richardson explained his thought process. “I wanted to be able to find a way to have more power in the industry.” Working on the production team for Death of a Salesman became a rewarding experience for Richardson. He was ecstatic to be working on such a classic returning to Broadway for the sixth time. The story is “quintessentially American” and includes a number of timeless themes that only create more layers and perspectives as it continues. “There were many people who said they've seen that play multiple times but they heard it for the first time when they saw this production,” Richardson said with a smile. “And for me as a producer, that will live on with me forever because I was a part of making that happen.” You would expect that after the energy Richardson put into producing New York, New York that he would have a flourishing musical background, but it turns out that it’s a bit limited. He took trumpet lessons, and his father tried to teach him the piano, but nothing stuck. He also never had a strong voice, so he never pursued musical theater as an actor. Despite that, Richardson believes that music can bring these works “to a completely new level.” It can also leave a more lasting impression on the audience. “These tunes go from that stage, to a soundtrack, to being the musical of someone's life. The music lives on with people, and that's what drew me into it.” And sometimes, music is what ends up bringing people back to such popular musicals like Wicked, Chicago, and Hamilton. “Memories are embedded in music,” he said. “I just think that the human nature to connect musically and sonically is so strong.”
Either way, it’s easy to American Dream
Working on New York, New York was a special project for Richardson, but another level of challenges arose at the start of the writer’s and actor’s strike. As a member of SAG-AFTRA, Richardson believes there are a lot of changes that need to be made. A start is beginning to create protections in regards to AI technology, and to simply have fair wages. Obviously, that is up to a very specific group of people. There are ways to make your voice heard, whether it be out on the streets protesting or making financial contributions. But when it comes down to it, Richardson believes it’s the “one percenters and the A list talent in the industry” that it comes down to. “Those are the ones who have to be present and to be vocal in whatever capacity they can,” he told us. “I think that it's when the people in the highest position of power stand up and speak out in a collective force... that's when things will be done more expeditiously.” Richardson speaks of the topic with understanding and no hint of remorse for what it means for his work. At the time of the interview it had been four months since the writer’s strike began and two months since the actor’s strike. Richardson shed some light on the situation: “There’s a lot of new talent making their Broadway debut or someone who hasn’t been on stage in years that are coming back.” Being a producer spective on actors ardson. With his first time, he’s the going to for a variit be knowledge, he doesn’t have to are many people interact with as peers... it's just minor shift.” With Richardson has into auditioning completely new “Now I don’t take plained. “If I don’t devastated by it for this undera producer. “I see into the casting.” things that keep a role. You could or even “look like Richardson realization that around talent.
has created a new perand acting for Richcurrent work, for the person that people are ety of needs. Whether expertise, or money, wait anymore. “There who I could never an actor who are now fascinating to see that the privilege of stability, decided to get back as an actor — and it’s a experience for him. it as personal,” he exget the job, I’m not as anymore.” The reason standing? His work as just how much goes It can be the smallest someone from getting be “too short, too tall,” somebody’s cousin.” chuckled at this freeing it isn’t always based
What does the future hold for Lamar Richardson? That’s easy: Comedy. Well, there’s nothing set in stone yet, but it’s definitely something he wants to give a try one day. “I really want to take on the challenge of, you know, a romcom or a sitcom... just to see how it would be received,” Richardson said with a glint of childlike excitement in his eyes as he continued. “[Or] like a network multicam pilot or series on one of the big four networks... in front of a live audience with the laugh tracks and all that.” After the jump Richardson has made in the past couple years, who’s to say where the limits of his potential lie.
say that Lamar Richardson’s is only getting started.!
feature
Far from... There is no such thing as reproduction. When two people decide to have a baby, they engage in an act of production, and the widespread use of the word reproduction for this activity, with its implication that two people are but braiding themselves together, is at best a euphemism to comfort prospective parents before they get in over their heads. In the subconscious fantasies that make conception look so alluring, it is often ourselves that we would like to see live forever, not someone with a personality of his own. Having anticipated the onward march of our selfish genes, many of us are unprepared for children who present unfamiliar needs. Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children’s faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination. Yet blood, in modern as in ancient societies, is thicker than water. Little is more gratifying than successful and devoted children, and few situations are worse than filial failure or rejection. Our children are not us: they carry throwback genes and recessive traits and are subject right from the start to environmental stimuli beyond our control. And yet we are our children; the reality of being a parent never leaves those who have braved the metamorphosis. The psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott once said, “There is no such thing as a baby—meaning that if you set out to describe a baby, you will find you are describing a baby and someone. A baby cannot exist alone but is essentially part of a relationship.” Insofar as our children resemble us, they are our most precious admirers, and insofar as they differ, they can be our most vehement detractors. From the beginning, we tempt them into imitation of us and long for what may be life’s most profound compliment: their choosing to live according to our own system of
the Tree values. Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us. Because of the transmission of identity from one generation to the next, most children share at least some traits with their parents. These are vertical identities. Attributes and values are passed down from parent to child across the generations not only through strands of DNA, but also through shared cultural norms. Ethnicity, for example, is a vertical identity. Children of color are in general born to parents of color; the genetic fact of skin pigmentation is transmitted across generations along with a self-image as a person of color, even though that self-image may be subject to generational flux. Language is usually vertical, since most people who speak Greek raise their children to speak Greek, too, even if they inflect it differently or speak another language much of the time. Religion is moderately vertical: Catholic parents will tend to bring up Catholic children, though the children may turn irreligious or convert to another faith. Nationality is vertical, except for immigrants. Blondness and myopia are often transmitted from par-
All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are; to what extent they
should help them to be their best selves. And, crucially, what happens when the child bears little resemblance - physically, men-
tally, spiritually - to the parents, and even less to the world view and aspirations the parents have for their offspring.
ent to child, but in most cases do not form a significant basis for identity—blondness because it is fairly insignificant, and myopia because it is easily corrected.
language and discover themselves. Some hearing parents accept this powerful new development; others struggle against it.
make sure her daughter had dwarf role models; or whether she should investigate surgical limb-lengthening. As she narrated her bafflement, I saw a familiar pattern. I had been startled to note my common ground with the Deaf, and now I was identifying with a dwarf; I wondered who else was out there waiting to join our gladsome throng. I thought that if gayness, an identity, could grow out of homosexuality, an illness, and Deafness, an identity, could grow out of deafness, an illness, and if dwarfism as an identity could emerge from an apparent disability, then there must be many other categories in this awkward interstitial territory. It was a radicalizing insight. Having always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each of these experiences can isolate those who are affected, together they compose an aggregate of millions whose struggles connect them profoundly. The exceptional is ubiquitous; to be entirely typical is the rare and lonely state.
Often, however, someone has an inherent or acquired trait that is foreign to his or her parents and must therefore acquire identity from a peer group. This is a horizontal identity. Such horizontal identities may reflect recessive genes, random mutations, prenatal influences, or values and preferences that a child does not share with his progenitors. Being gay is a horizontal identity; most gay kids are born to straight parents, and while their sexuality is not determined by their peers, they learn gay identity by observing and participating in a subculture outside the family. Physical disability tends to be horizontal, as does genius. Psychopathy, too, is often horizontal; most criminals are not raised by mobsters and must invent their own treachery. So are conditions such as autism and intellectual disability. A child conceived in rape is born into emotional challenges that his own mother cannot know, even though they spring from her trauma. In 1993, I was assigned to investigate Deaf culture for the New York Times. My assumption about deafness was that it was a deficit and nothing more. Over the months that followed, I found myself drawn into the Deaf world. Most deaf children are born to hearing parents, and those parents frequently prioritize functioning in the hearing world, expending enormous energy on oral speech and lipreading. Doing so, they can neglect other areas of their children’s education. While some deaf people are good at lipreading and produce comprehensible speech, many do not have that skill, and years go by as they sit endlessly with audiologists and speech pathologists instead of learning history and mathematics and philosophy. Many stumble upon Deaf identity in adolescence, and it comes as a great liberation. They move into a world that validates Sign as a
The whole situation felt arrestingly familiar to me because I am gay. Gay people usually grow up under the purview of straight parents who feel that their children would be better off straight and sometimes torment them by pressing them to conform. Those gay people often discover gay identity in adolescence or afterward, finding great relief there. When I started writing about the deaf, the cochlear implant, which can provide some facsimile of hearing, was a recent innovation. It had been hailed by its progenitors as a miraculous cure for a terrible defect and was deplored by the Deaf community as a genocidal attack on a vibrant community. Both sides have since moderated their rhetoric, but the issue is complicated by the fact that cochlear implants are most effective when they are surgically implanted early—in infants, ideally—so the decision is often made by parents before the child can possibly have or express an informed opinion. Watching the debate, I knew that my own parents would gamely have consented to a parallel early procedure to ensure that I would be straight, had one existed. I do not doubt that the advent of such a thing even now could wipe out most of gay culture. I am saddened by the idea of such a threat, and yet as my understanding of Deaf culture deepened, I realized that the attitudes I had found benighted in my parents resembled my own likely response to producing a deaf child. My first impulse would have been to do whatever I could to fix the abnormality. Then a friend had a daughter who was a dwarf. She wondered whether she should bring up her daughter to consider herself just like everyone else, only shorter; whether she should
As my parents had misapprehended who I was, so other parents must be constantly misapprehending their own children. Many parents experience their child’s horizontal identity as an affront. A child’s marked difference from the rest of the family demands knowledge, competence, and actions that a typical mother and father are unqualified to supply, at least initially. The child is expressly different from most of his or her peers as well, and therefore broadly less understood or accepted. Abusive fathers visit less abuse on children who resemble them physically; if you are born to a bully, pray that you bear his features. Whereas families tend to reinforce vertical identities from earliest childhood, many will oppose horizontal ones. Vertical identities are usually respected as identities; horizontal ones are often treated as flaws.
Excerpted from FAR FROM THE TREE: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Solomon. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
profile
Stephanie Vies, a name familiar to many in the media world, has not only charted a remarkable course in journalism but also embarked on a fascinating personal journey. by Radhi Patel photography by Tony Gale
Stephanie Vies: A Journey Through the World of Media Stephanie Vies, a name familiar to many in the media world, has not only charted a remarkable course in journalism but also embarked on a fascinating personal journey. While her career in journalism has taken her through the ever-evolving landscapes of news reporting, it’s not the only remarkable journey she’s undertaken. In a candid interview, Stephanie provides insights into her diverse career path, life experiences, and the evolving media industry. And as the conversation meanders from her Italian wedding through picturesque landscapes to her insights on the media world, we discover a remarkable individual with a tale that goes far beyond the boundaries of a traditional newsroom. A Multifaceted Journey Her journey into journalism is far from conventional. She didn’t enter the field with a grand plan but rather allowed fate to guide her. “I was one of those high school kids that didn’t know what I wanted to be,” Stephanie explains. Her passion for international experiences led her on a winding path. She initially worked in tourism, seeking adventure and exploration. However, this was only the beginning of her diverse journey.
“I learned a lot, I explored, and then I came to the United States,” Stephanie continues. In the U.S., she pursued a degree in international relations and envisioned herself working as an international correspondent. It was only after experimenting with various fields, including tourism, production, writing, and assignment work, that she found her true calling in journalism.
in-depth news experience. Stephanie emphasizes the impact of social media platforms like Facebook and Citizens App, which allow journalists to access a wealth of user-generated content during breaking news events. This not only enhances the speed of news coverage but also provides a multifaceted perspective on unfolding events. Female Representation in the Media
Her journey was a testament to the importance of staying open-minded. Stephanie’s story reminds us that sometimes, our path in life isn’t a straight line. By embracing opportunities and being flexible, she discovered her passion and carved a successful career in journalism.
Stephanie also touches on the progress of female representation in the media. While there may still be disparities in pay and other aspects of the industry, the credibility and influence of women in media have significantly increased. Female journalists are no longer seen merely as decorative additions to male anchors. They hold powerful positions and are recognized for their contributions in various fields, including sports reporting.
A Career Full of Surprises Stephanie’s career has been anything but predictable. She has explored different facets of the media industry, from reporting on breaking news to hosting her own food-related segments. One of her most memorable experiences was covering the “plane landing on the Hudson.” This was an unexpected turn of events that required her to leap into action with little preparation. “It was a textbook breaking news day,” she recalls. This experience highlights the unpredictable nature of journalism, where you can go from a regular day at the office to a highintensity breaking news situation in a matter of moments.
Stephanie believes that gender diversity is essential for balanced and well-rounded conversations, and she highlights the growing number of women in leadership roles across different industries, including politics. Words of Wisdom
Her career is a testament to the diverse opportunities that journalism offers. Stephanie has worked in various fields within media, and she has found something to appreciate in each of them. Her versatility has allowed her to connect with different audiences and explore a wide range of topics, from weather reporting to food segments.
industry represents her evolving interests and a longing for a more serene and personal venture. She anticipates a shift from a bustling city life to a quieter, more fulfilling future.
Future Aspirations
Navigating the Digital Landscape
Her journey is far from over. While she is passionate about her career in journalism, she envisions a more personal project on the horizon. Her dream is to own a bed and breakfast in a peaceful setting, where she can host and interact with travelers. This desire to transition into the hospitality
In a world where information travels at the speed of light, Stephanie acknowledges the transformative power of social media. She discusses the evolution of journalism and its adaptation to the digital age. Social media platforms have not only changed the way news is shared but also expanded the role of journalists. They now have the opportunity to engage with their audience in real time, offering a more interactive and
All-embracing, Stephanie offers valuable advice to those aspiring to enter the media space. She emphasizes the importance of remaining open-minded, as one’s initial career expectations may evolve over time. She encourages aspiring journalists to embrace the tools provided by social media, allowing them to start building their skills and personal brand while still students. Stephanie underscores the benefits of making connections and networking within the industry, as these relationships can be invaluable in one’s professional journey. Stephanie Vies is an example of a journalist who has navigated the ever-changing landscape of media with adaptability and a forward-looking perspective. Her journey, marked by twists and turns, serves as an inspiration for aspiring journalists and demonstrates that the path to success is rarely a straight line. Stephanie’s career and aspirations reflect the limitless possibilities available in the world of journalism and media.
contents
the power of habit 098 moves diversity awards 101 profile valerie june 104 joint venture 110 power women alumnae 113 profile lamar richardson 130 far from the tree 134 profile stephanie vies 136 bitch shout it out 142 cover j harrison ghee 146
J Harrison Ghee NY By Spencer Heyfron
bitch Welcome to the builder’s bum... estimate! You gave me a quote and I agreed with the number listed under total - how the hell did you manage to find so many extra things to do that I’m suddenly four thousand dollars over it? I asked for a quote so I knew what to expect, jackass, not so you could play the lottery with my money. You have no problem demolishing; oh no, that takes five seconds. But to actually finish things? I’ve been waiting for 3 months! And now you want to get snippy with me when I don’t offer you the check BEFORE I get what I’m paying for? Maybe if you managed to get it right the first time - without trying to wring me for the last penny in my pocket I’d be more willing to part with it, but from where I’m standing, this job ain’t finished and you ain’t getting paid for something that’s not done.
Sarah, retail, Washington Heights. Tut tut, guys, United We Stand There is a woman at my job, let’s call her Fern. Fern is my superior, not necessarily my boss, but within the same rank. No matter what I am doing, she has the uncanny knack to put me down for something. At first I thought it was just me, but then I saw how she behaved toward my female co-workers as well and it confirmed my suspicions. She doesn’t like women. She’s subconsciously threatened by the presence of other vaginas in the room. It’s like she feels backed into a corner and therefore always needs to come out swinging, asserting her dominance in the room so no one can even come close. It’s beyond rude. It’s further than condescending, it’s borderline harassment and verbal abuse. If I wasn’t so broke, I’d quit my job. Then I’d kick her ass.
Mary, machinist, Bronx Ah! Those little bundles of... Joy? Parents of the World: Your iPhone is not a pacifier. Your iPad is not a blankie. If you can’t figure out that your little thing keeps talking because it is unhappy because it’s being made to sit through the loud movie you’ve been dying to see (and DISTURBING EVERYONE IN THE THEATER), you aren’t fit to be a parent. And if I see another portable DVD player while I’m eating at a nice restaurant, I’m going to up-end your table. I’m sorry you chose to burden yourselves with a small thing that cries, screams, and wiggles a lot, but that was your choice and now you have to make some sacrifices. And
sacrifices mean that if you can’t get a babysitter, you may not be able to go to that new Thai place that opened up last month. Bringing the ankle-biter and sticking a DVD in front of it doesn’t make your child any more pleasant to be around - and having to listen to the DVD play is NOT what I’m looking for while I’m trying to eat with my friend. If your kid is at that stage where they don’t enjoy eating out, guess what? Too. Damn. Bad.
Got a letter for
bitch@newyor
OR snail mail t
Maxine, server, LES Cab Drvers of the World, UNITE! What happened to the cab drivers who used to pick you up and drop you off at your destination without saying a word to you? I miss those brave men and women who I could blindly trust with my life to remain silent for the duration of the journey while I politely ignored them. We would travel together in this blissfully comfortable silence that just coincidentally had a transaction at the end of the ride. But now, they talk about the shitty weather or their shitty kids or whatever they used to do with their shitty lives in whatever shitty country they’re from, before they ended up in New York City as a cab driver. Well, buddy, here’s the honest truth. I really don’t care. I don’t care to discuss the current state of Mother Nature. I am completely apathetic towards the unlucky offspring you brought into this world. And I sure as shit don’t care about who were way back when because of who you are now. I’m a paying customer and you’re providing me a beneficial service, so would you kindly just shut the fuck up and drive.
Rudy, fishmonger, Queens Gobshites of the world UNITE ! Niceties have come to bother me lately. If you say something that offends someone else, don’t try and cover your ass so much. Be genuine. Explain yourself rather than try and cover yourself and in turn make yourself look like a bumbling idiot. You’re never going to please everyone, ever. So why pretend, or stress yourself out, trying to do so? On the other hand, if you make a sweeping generalization, and someone calls you out on it, take the blow of being wrong— there’s nothing wrong with that either. Don’t just ramble and try and make yourself right!
Rich, gobshite, Hendon Strangers in the Night It’s so awkward when you see someone you’ve met a long time ago and you act like you don’t know each other. I am so
Moves PO BOX 4097 New York, NY
guilty of this, mainly if I don’t remember their name or where I remember them from. But is it better to act like I don’t know you, or possibly offend you with not knowing where I know you from? In turn, how many times I’ve gotten around to finally talking to these people, and they remember exactly who I am and exactly where they know me from. Why wouldn’t you just say hey? Why act like I need to make the first move in reacquainting us? If I remembered, I’d definitely say something to you! But I can’t tell if I’m the bad person of the situation for having the terrible memory…
Frank, singer, Hoboken Hey, Hey Good Lookin’... Attractive people, men and women, tend to travel in packs. Attractive friends, often have attractive siblings. Every so often, those good looking genes skip a generation, but for the most part, mother nature is good and just. But what are the rules on dating or sleeping with a friend’s sibling or a sibling’s friend--are they off limits or are they fair game? Normally, it’s “Back the fuck up.” But now and then, there are these occasions that warrant revisiting the original friend clauses you signed when your friendship first began. Situations get so sticky (pun intended) that you have to mentally lawyer up in order to prevent physical repercussions, as in beatings from your friends.
Katherine, entrepreneur, Hong Kong
r us? Send it to
rkmoves.com
to:
Why? Because it that type of fear is completely justifiable based on the insurmountable evidence that besides breast cancer, men pose the greatest threat to women’s health, mentality, and physical well being. It I love my job, I love this city, I love the subway...just not at 1am when I have to be in constant fear for my life.
can seriously cramp your style. I am all for independence and I agree that the commute is always a little robotic but we all get to work like sardines so what can we do but stay in line and try not to throw the whole process out of balance. Don’t be a subway maverick. Come on now.
Bobbie, singer,Tribeca
Laurie, tv researcher, midtown How Much?????
Lexington Ave 10163
Things That Go BUMP In The Night So last Halloween got off work in the West Village at around 1:30am. Good fucking times. So not only is it late, it’s late on the sketchiest night of the year, in one of the most eccentric neighborhoods in NYC. Now I am one of those people that isn’t afraid of late night transit. Living in the city that never sleeps, you either make it part of your lifestyle, or you make a shit ton of money and take cabs all the time. Now, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m waiting for the subway. It arrives, on time, I love the 1 train (When in doubt, take the 1 train). I step into the subway car, and as I’m readjusting my bag on my lap, I take a gander at my surroundings, preparing to scope out the hot mess costumers either headed home or onto the next bar. Instead, I get a much more frightening picture. Not only is no one in costume, I realize that I am the only female on the subway car. I am surrounded by at least a dozen men. It is the most undesirable position to be in as a woman. My guard instantly went up. And unconsciously, all of the sexual assault headlines that I have ever read in my entire life start popping in my brain. “The woman in India who got gang raped on a bus.” “The woman who was raped and stabbed to death who ultimately brought awareness to the bystander effect.” It was worse than paranoia.
Two Timing Gal Have My Cake… And Eat It! This particular phrase is pertinent to dating, or rather promiscuous dating. Dating two guys at once can be perilous sure; but not if you know what you’re doing. I’m currently dating two men (about to tack on a third, but that’s beside the point). They live in different boroughs, which means they live in completely different worlds, if not opposing universes. I like both of these men, equally, but for quite contradictory reasons. They are total opposites, nothing alike. And what can I say? Dating is sort of like fashion; we women like to have options. So until it blows up in my face, don’t bother me, I’m eating cake.
Sue, pr, Clinton Subterranean Homesick Blues Its 8am or 9 for you luckier ones and you’re going into the subway. There’s about forty people stuffing themselves down the stairs of the station, all on the same side, because we are going the same way, at least for a little while. Familiar image for many I am sure. You are going along your not-so-merry way when there seems to be a sudden tidal wave in the herd, everyone is pushing to the side stepping on foreign heels and loafers and the flow is stopped as are you. Well it’s all for that one adventurous nonconformist who has decided not to go up the side of the stairs that is obviously meant for the few who make their way up and venture into the crowd to go against the grain. Yes, we will all surely survive this one but for those of us for whom a bagel and coffee isn’t enough to mitigate the early morning snappishness, it
I’m no Michael Moore so I will refrain from ranting on and on and on about the evil semantics of the American healthcare system but 2000 dollars a month? I couldn’t possibly need enough pap smears and teeth cleanings to justify that. Michelle, nurse, Flatiron
Friends that flake. You know, those people in your life who you genuinely enjoy spending time with--that is whenever you actually see them, of course. You always invite them to events, big or small, on the Hail Maryof a chance that they’ll show up. Which they almost never do. To quote Anchorman, “60% of the time, it works, every time.” Even when they initiate plans with you, they always bail. Whether it’s the day of or only an hour prior to go-time, you can basically predict the text that reads, “Hey, sorry, I totally forgot (insert bullshit excuse here). Can we raincheck?” And when they first flake, it’s no big deal, because hey, shit happens. But once they drop the plans you both have had on your calendar for weeks for what seems like the millionth time, it’s time to re-evaluate how much you value this person in your life. For those of you that are like me, the people that invite these oath-breakers out of sheer courtesy, start to ween them off your guest list. You’ve made it clear that you want to seem them. Let them prove how much they want to see you. They’ll either get the hint, or they’ll step into that black hole that contains everyone and everything you’ve forgotten since you were 5. You get your friend back, or you move on with your life. Win-win.
Nicky, healthcare, SI
J J cover story
Harrison Ghee stands out. On or off-stage. At first you may attribute this to their stature, or perhaps their fashion sense, or maybe even their posture of confident poise. But for the first non-binary actor to win a Tony for a leading role, the impetus of this striking presence comes from within: their intentionality.
Interview: Moonah Ellison Words: Chesley Turner Images: Spencer Heyfron "I live life with the intention and purpose, but most importantly, with love. So, this is a part of who God created me to be, to use these gifts I was given to be effective in the world." Catching up with the Tony Award winner, we discussed what lights them up as they meet the world, and the first thing we noticed was their remarkable sense of self. This is a being who knows where they come from (and who shaped them), where they are going (and what they hope to leave behind), but also what they must bring to the present moment, every day. From a very young age, J Harrison started watching those around them and learning how people perform in everyday situations of life. "Growing up in a church—my dad's a minister in North Carolina—I watched a lot of
people play roles all of my life. I'm always such a sponge, taking notes and watching humans be humans." That intel gathering was compounded by their active imagination. "My brother is seven years older than me, so I spent a lot of time by myself, entertaining myself and passing time, so my imagination runs wild." Together, these things catalyzed a quick study of creative expression. J Harrison's insatiable hunger for the arts was ever present and certainly didn't go unseen by their parents. "As a child, my father gave me a VHS of Porgy and Bess that Dorothy Dandridge and Sydney Poiter were in. Watching these beautiful black people tell the story and emote and sing and dance—I was enthralled. I watched it incessantly... Music has always moved me."
Beautifully, although their family may not have fully understood every step of their journey, they always showed up for J Harrison. "My mom really has been the biggest supporter, whether it's made sense to her or not. She's like, "You like it? I love it. Go have fun. I'd never wear it. But do it.' She had to find a different way to parent me because I was this rambunctious child, always questioning, like, 'Why do we have to do it like that?'" So perhaps it was inevitable that a creative, expressive human with a hunger to see more decided to set out for New York City. Even at eighteen, the decision was made with family, and with that, carefully nurtured intention. "I had a conference with my father. Multiple nights of sitting and talking with him to make him understand this choice of stepping into my purpose. I'm still a person of faith, and that has evolved for me, but to speak to his heart and to say to him: This is something I've prayed about, that I've dealt with in my spirit." As a man who boasted a PhD in Administration and Education, an MA in Philosophy, and 30 years of experience in advanced education, J. Harrison's father was perhaps hoping for a "safe" career of math or science. But his child was adamant. And in retrospect, the decision was a step into destiny. "You know, these days, he's like, "There's mud on my face...but it smells good!" In the years that have passed since that heart-toheart conference, J Harrison has encountered moments that helped them further stand by who they know themself to be. They tell the story of being invited to a multi-day reading. On the first day, they were wearing a little black romper and happy face crystal shoes. The director asked them if, for the sake of the reading, they could find some pants. "He said, you know, 'I love this outfit, it's adorable, but for the sake of the reading, I would like a clean slate so that the producers don't see the journey.' And I knew what he meant." But traffic was horrible, and J Harrison wasn't going to buy pants at TJ Maxx for this moment, so they made a decision. "I settled within my spirit and said: This is what I wore today. If these clothes get in the way of the producers and creative team seeing what they need to see, then this role isn't for me. And they kept me on, and I was able to inform the role, to be myself, to come from an authentic place." The pandemic, too, had an impact on how casts and teams interacted and grew together, broadening the appreciation of community and support in growth. "We all came back so tender, so precious, and so open to communicate." There was also a new focus or careful thoughtfulness about diversity, equity, and inclusion, motivated from a place of awareness. "I had this revelation for myself that we have to operate with conscious sensitivity. Everyone brings their own existence and their own experience to every moment. We have to operate in that way, in that awareness that, like, the world does not revolve around me. I am not the end-all, be-all for anything. I have to be available to collaborate, to communicate, and to keep that conscious awareness of humanity beyond myself."
"... we have to operate with conscious sensitivity. Everyone brings their own existence and their own experience to every moment... "
Being consciously aware of others is the equivalent flip side of the coin of intentional self-awareness, and J Harrison is adamant about accepting self. "We are conditioned to be the same, and to stay the same, so that others always know how to deal with us, as opposed to allowing ourselves and each other to change. We have to grow; we have to evolve." The fruits of this mental work are apparent in the poise and bright presence of a human being who accepts who they are and where they are on the journey, as a participant, a mentor, and a model, as well. "People say to me all the time, 'Oh, I could never wear that.' No. You haven't freed yourself to see yourself there. You haven't given yourself the permission and the grace and the space to even play in that part of the playground." But self-work and acceptance and freeing yourself isn't easy. Change is hard. J Harrison maintains that growth and change do not happen without pain, without being uncomfortable, and letting go of wanting control of what is outside yourself. One must accept that. "I am the only being I can control. So, all I can do in this world is exist in my truth and in my authenticity, and carry that into the world, and hope that makes a difference." It does make a difference. It makes an impact on the environment, it changes the scenery, the balance, the mood. It changes what is perceived as normal and acceptable. And that changes the world. "I take up space. Good space. And now I've taken the power of understanding that as a black, queer human being in this world, my existence is a political statement. I am making a political statement by leaving my home, so I might as well give you something to look at!" But the key to this expression is authenticity; it's not about entertainment through othering; it's entertainment through invitation to encounter true self. "I can't be attached to how you're going to respond to me. I just have to show up and be myself. It's wonderful to step into this place of freedom, to keep stripping the layers of society and religion and things that have been placed on me. I can be like, no, that was never me. That didn't serve me." One of J Harrison's trusted bellwethers is thinking about how their childhood self would respond. They call it "checking back in with Little J." They tell the story of leaving Mrs. Doubtfire one night, after playing the role of André Mayem, and keeping their makeup on for the trip home. On the way, they caught a glimpse of themself in the train doors. "I said, 'Wow. Little me would be so happy.'" Another tactic that they use to illuminate their own understanding and the self-awareness of others is a tactic they picked up during COVID. Rather than asking
people, how are you, they asked: what's bringing you joy these days? "Then you add more and more of that to your life. You say, okay, great, let me acknowledge the thing that is actually making me smile, that is actually elevating me in a way." This self-support is crucial, and it isn't second nature to most of us. "Continuing to seek outward approval and to get permission from everybody else is what drains you and sucks you dry.... Understanding that, like, this brings me joy...that will be the best investment one could make." It's not a snap change, they emphasize. It's an everyday journey and an everyday willingness to meet oneself. It requires time and commitment. "The first thing I do, every day, is—I have a little altar in my apartment—I go there, and I pray, and I meditate, and I meet myself in the day. It doesn't matter if I'm hungover, or how late I was in bed. That is the first place I go, to ground myself, to breathe, to check in and say: whatever the day brings to me, I met myself, I am grounded. I can take on the world." As their career continues to grow, and with the accolade of peers for their Tony Award-winning turn as Jerry/Daphne in Some Like It Hot, the world holds so much more. "The biggest thing I've learned is that I just have to show up and bring me to the table. If that's what you desire, great. If it's not quite right, we can collaborate and talk about the things, but you hired me for me." With this confidence and sense of openness, there is so much possibility. "I really just want to keep shifting things in the entertainment industry because we are curators of society and comment on the time." J Harrison mentions a particular interest in elevating and illuminating real stories of interesting people, to diversify and amplify the experience of others through acting. "If this human exists somewhere else in the world, let's tell these kinds of stories. All kinds of stories. I don't want to be limited in any way." Despite calling it perhaps cliché, they reference their own role model: Beyoncé, a woman who is creative, intentional, and shares with ease. That diversity of oeuvre, and breadth of creativity, and openness calls to them. "I want to direct, I want to design clothes, I want to be a model. I really want to do it all. I've been asked to direct a musical and I'm in the process of building a deck of music.... I'm excited to just keep doing things that keep people guessing. I don't want to be limited in any way. I see myself really doing it all."
"... I really just want to keep shifting things in the entertainment industry because we are curators of society and comment on the times... "
With all this on the docket, how will J Harrison measure success? "In twenty years, I hope to just be continuing to be effective in the world. However I can do that."
photography Spencer Heyfron styling Cannon videography Cristian Pena grooming Emmanuel Ramirez
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