Hello and happy almost Halloween! I hope October has been good to you. As always, here are my favourite links of the month. Make yourself something delicious to drink, and get clicking!
7 beautiful, meaningful writing projects that you can finish in a single day. Because finishing is sexy.
Edwige Belmore was a punk rock queen and all-around badass.
Jen Dziura is brilliant x 1000. I Have An Awesome Life, And I Designed It That Way. It involves daycare, feminism, and (extreme) advance planning.
Stop Googling, let’s talk. Studies of conversation both in the laboratory and in natural settings show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on a table between them or in the periphery of their vision changes both what they talk about and the degree of connection they feel.
In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours. If we can’t gather ourselves, we can’t recognize other people for who they are. If we are not content to be alone, we turn others into the people we need them to be. If we don’t know how to be alone, we’ll only know how to be lonely.
It’s impossible to talk honestly about weight. I’m not sure that’s true, but there is plenty of fodder in this piece.
Smithers is going to come out to Mr Burns this season!
Your leggings can hug you now.
Show some respect for the brave.
Angel Haze on not coming out — “Who are all these people to say you shouldn’t be gay and you’ll burn in hell. Show me real-life HD footage of hell and then we can talk, otherwise shut the fuck up.” — and depression and mental illness.
It took me a long time to understand that life hurts enough, people hurt you enough, you don’t need to hurt yourself. You have to make the decision to take care of yourself.
If you liked the Future/Drake mixtape, someone made a game out of Jumpman. (Jumpman jumpman jumpman…)
Americans Pretty Much Only Stop Eating When They’re Sleeping. Wow. It’s disturbingly similar to the 2012 Onion headline “Report: Majority of Americans Now Eating One Continuous Meal a Day.”
These new space photos from NASA are astounding and beautiful.
Lana Del Rey is exhausted.
California is, of course, where a person goes to change. The state is a haven in which to unfurl whatever latent identity has been lurking in your bones.
Some fame, too much coolness, and the kindness that makes everything okay. I love this.
What Everyone Gets Wrong About ’70s New York.
Everyone chooses to remember what they want to remember. At this stage, however, attempts to crush New York in the 1970s into a few however-heroic art and politic tropes pretty much boils down to reductionist product-mongering. The picture is far bigger than that. The fact is what usually falls under the rubric of New York–in-the-1970s was really a multi-decade project that began in earnest during the 1964 Harlem riots, which put white flight into high gear.
Masterclass looks CRAZY. Dustin Hoffman teaching acting? Serena Williams teaching tennis? Christina Aguilera teaching singing? Holy shittttt.
Michelle Obama gave an awesome speech to 1000 girls.
Whooooah. So the Sex Pistols credit card is a real thing… Which prompts this: 50 Things That Are Definitely, 100 Percent Confirmed Punk. Aahhaaha.
The plot hole from Home Alone has finally been explained! THANK GOD!
My babe Jo Weldon of the New York School of Burlesque is awesome as hell, and has some smart things to say about feminism.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as conventional feminism, but I realize that if there is, being a stripper and dominatrix and heavy metal groupie probably isn’t it. And I always think of “empowering” as a complex term, even though I use it. I believe that whether or not something is empowering depends on the areas in which a given person needs to be empowered, and that – unfortunately – there is no one empowering feminism that can serve everyone. But I believe in listening to women’s truths and trying to figure out a way to be accountable to their needs.
You can now go on a juice crawl in NYC and it’s a sign of the apocalypse. Hahah.
I might have linked to this before, but it’s a great interview with Louis CK in Rolling Stone. It’s so quotable…
I don’t hold on to grudges. I don’t have a grudge in my life. I forgive people. I just don’t believe that you owe anybody in your life a relationship. It’s healthy and fair to opt in or out, and it’s actually more fair to do that than to hold people’s feet to the fire for everything they’ve ever done.
Yeah, “because I’m your father” is just a cheap cop-out, and it robs the kid of an opportunity to understand something. I engage them. A lot of parents don’t talk to their kids. I learned that from my mom. I provide for them but also let them experience their disappointments and their difficulties. You’re not going to keep your kids from harm, not in a million years. All their life is going to be is harm. It’s narcissistic to try to give your kids a utopian life – when they leave your house, they’re going to be in a world of shit. The only thing you can give your kids that’s going to be of any use is a mechanism for dealing with all the awful shit that’s coming. Then it won’t be that awful. As a matter of fact, it will be great.
I had an acting coach named Bob Krakower, and he said something to me that I always remember, which is if you perform something twice and you do it differently each time, that means you’re doing it well, because you’re focusing on the intention and not the mechanics.
When it’s time to write, I have one computer that has no ability to get on the Internet. Because the ability to just move your finger less than a millimeter and be looking straight into someone’s pussy or at the new Porsche, or a whole movie – To Kill a Mockingbird, let’s just sit here and watch the whole thing! – it’s too much. So if you put a couple of moves between you and that, you’ve got a fighting chance. When I hit a stopping moment in what I’m writing, a moment of agitation – that itch always leads to a brand-new thing, to inspiration. But if you bail out and buy a product online, you’re robbing yourself. It’s terrible, so I sit there: “Fuck, fuck.” The worst thing happening to this generation is that they’re taking discomfort away from themselves.
Cindy Crawford is a smart businesswoman.
I look at jobs, and you have two bank accounts. One bank account is credibility, and the other is money. Over the years, I realized everyone has their own agenda. And I realized I am the number-one expert on Cindy Crawford. It was not till I was in my thirties that I felt that confidence. In the end, you are your brand expert. …
Agents are great at making deals, but not building you. I wanted a business daddy. And I tried so many different business daddies on for size. In the end, I had to be my own business daddy.
Is there anything radical about going for a walk?
Don’t bring me down, aka be smart about who you spend time with, and guard your energy fiercely!
I’ve learned that negative people will only see the glass as half full – and that mindset is a powerful one. You can’t lift those boats, no matter how high you splash that tide. They will always sink everyone else down to the lowest common denominator. They seem to want that too.
Jessica Harrison finds ceramic statues and then paints tattoos on them, and the results are fantastic.
The director of Withnail & I has solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper. This is fascinating! Read it! (Jack the Ripper was my obsession when I was a kid… I even dressed as him for halloween. God, what a weirdo.)
Nicki Minaj told Taylor Swift to stop being a hypocrite.
“If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle, bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that.”
American Apparel just filed for bankruptcy and it’s stock is worth 1 cent. So here’s a a trip down memory lane — all the crazy outfits we wore. Oh, American Apparel.
Here are a few tales of legendary supercocks. Yep! Exactly!
How do I show him my dark side?
The truth will come out eventually, whether you’re anxious about it or not. You could spend a few more weeks worrying about it or try to hide your dark side for a solid two years, but no matter, the outcome has already been determined. He is a lover of complexity or he isn’t. He understands darkness or he doesn’t. He is thrilled to see that you have weaknesses and that you’ll admit to them, because he has weaknesses that he’d like to admit to, too. Or, he’s disgusted by vulnerability because he won’t admit to his own flaws and he never has.
Here are six quotes that prove Morticia Addams is a feminist queen who has it all.
Unofficial documentaries are totally weird and fascinating. This article cracked me up.
As the title implies, Pearl believes Michael Jackson faked his own death and is still moonwalking among us, her theories delivered through a slightly disturbing perma-grin. Obviously – obviously! – Pearl has oodles of evidence, most backed up by journalistic powerhouses such as The National Enquirer. Her own suspicions, we learn, are piqued by questions like why Michael’s brother Marlon wore an FBI cap the day after Michael died? Or why Janet wore white to the memorial service? There’s also a convoluted theory about the number seven that’s just too batshit to get into here. Keen to support the documentary with some extra video content Pearl also chats to a psychic, the conveniently named Psychic Jane, who claims to have never heard of Michael Jackson prior to his death but is now adamant he’s working undercover in children’s entertainment. Blimey.
This is the song from 1973 that Drake sampled the organ for Hotline Bling from. (Timmy Thomas – Why Can’t We Live Together?)
Rihanna on how victims of domestic abuse get punished over and over. This is a greeeeeeeat cover story. And she’s not as “wild” as the tabloids portray her. And if you’re interested in how they styled her for the shoot with Annie Leibovitz, here are the details.
“You want them to feel good being a man, but now men are afraid to be men. They think being a real man is actually being a pussy, that if you take a chair out for a lady, or you’re nice or even affectionate to your girl in front of your boys, you’re less of a man. It’s so sick. They won’t be a gentleman because that makes them appear soft. That’s what we’re dealing with now, a hundred percent, and girls are settling for that, but I won’t. I will wait forever if I have to … but that’s O.K. You have to be screwed over enough times to know, but now I’m hoping for more than these guys can actually give.” — Rihanna
“I was very protective of him. I felt that people didn’t understand him. Even after … But you know, you realize after a while that in that situation you’re the enemy. You want the best for them, but if you remind them of their failures, or if you remind them of bad moments in their life, or even if you say I’m willing to put up with something, they think less of you—because they know you don’t deserve what they’re going to give. And if you put up with it, maybe you are agreeing that you [deserve] this, and that’s when I finally had to say, ‘Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this.’ Sometimes you just have to walk away.” — Rihanna on Chris Brown
In the music business, Rihanna is a powerful woman; she recently made a deal to own all of her past and future master recordings, and from now on she’ll release her music through her company, Westbury Road. Says Jay Z, “What took me 15 or 20 years to get has taken her 10, and will take the next person 5 years. It’s great to be able to help fight that fight.”
In Praise Of Fake Women, on reinvention and artistry.
Heather did an outdoor boudoir shoot and it’s awesome, just like her.
How to grow your cock organically…
Um… Ace Of Base were Nazis?!
Anomalous Events That Can Shake One’s Skepticism to the Core. I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
And if we are to take seriously the scientific credo to keep an open mind and remain agnostic when the evidence is indecisive or the riddle unsolved, we should not shut the doors of perception when they may be opened to us to marvel in the mysterious.
Artist Removes Makeup from Glammed Up Dolls to Turn Them into Inspirational Real-Life Heroes. She did such a good job!
The Real Downtown LA Murder Hotel that Inspired Lady Gaga’s American Horror Story.
Chivalry isn’t dead, you just don’t know what the fuck it is.
What do fantasies really look like? Playboy’s decision to cease and desist printing nudes signals something bigger: The toppling of the white female naked body from its pedestal as the epitome of sexual object in mainstream American media. Go Dodai!!!
The Thin End of the Whip. An 83-year-old widow, she is France’s most famous dominatrix.
I knew that this lovely woman was a modern-day Marquise de Sade, and had, over the past four decades, pierced and cut some of her guests with hatpins—she has many varieties with beautiful ornaments that she keeps in a white lace pin cushion—locked others in small iron cages, crowned them with acacia thorns, handcuffed them to chains on walls, and basically beaten the shit out of a rather large number of people, male and female.
This is a wonderful interview with RuPaul from April of this year. It’s spiritual and smart and I just looooove it.
The UN is going to investigate the plight of Native Americans for the first time. Dude. How overdue is this?!
Hahah. I love this photo series of wet dogs.
It’s financial suicide to own a house. James brings it!
Property rights are not real. Loving who you are and where you are and what you are doing is the only thing that is real. Live in your heart and not your home and you will never feel lonely or the need to establish roots. Share that love with the people around you. And then, they also, will feel less need for roots. That is the best investment. That is the best return on investment. That is the best home to live in. The American Dream has us chained us to the land so they can feed us like pigs in a trough with debt, with factory/cubicle jobs that we can’t escape because it’s so hard to move (until they kick us out with 2 weeks severance), with forced friends in our neighbors, with supposed roots for our kids even though the statistics show those roots are a lie. Freedom is more important than a dream.
Here are the best Hotline Bling remixes ranked.
A really quick intro to James Turell, master of rainbow lights (and the inspiration for the Hotline Bling video).
There’s a professional cuddling community in NYC. Of course there is. Of COURSE there is.
Gwen Stefani’s new break-up anthem is pretty damn good.
Lena Dunham has a new podcast called Women Of The Hour. It starts soon and you should subscribe! (It’s free!)
Virgo dating efficiency. Hahahahaha.
Want to tap the depths of your creativity? Marry your soul.
Peak Drake. In a rare interview, Drake explains the uncanny gifts that have made him a cultural giant—and a target.
He pauses for a second, then continues, leaning into every word: “I mean, I’m really trying. It’s not like I’m just sitting here, just fuckin’ shooting with my eyes closed. Like, I’m trying. I’m really trying to make music for your life.”
I’ve been on a massive RuPaul kick lately. This interview with Marc Maron is truly truly excellent, and it’ll cost you $3.99 for monthly access with the coupon code WTF. (It’s worth it!)
If you enjoyed that one, here’s Louis CK also being interviewed by Marc.
Ronda Rousey wants to show you how to throw a punch.
Ghostbusters reimagined as an 80’s sitcom! Yessssssss.
Carrie Brownstein did a great interview with Vice for her new book. I never knew she was such a fangirl! It’s very cute.
I like Rihanna a lot. I really like how she’s like, “Nah, I don’t want to be in Taylor Swift’s spot. I don’t want to be a role model.” You know, good for you! You don’t have to be everything to people. Do whatever you want. There’s a lot of multitasking involved when you have to be a role modeI. For example, I saw Grace Jones last night do a reading. She signed up two hours late and just fucked around and signed books. It was a diva moment. But I was like, you know, wow, we really ask a lot of female pop stars. They’re supposed to be larger than life, also down to earth, sexy, but likable. I just like how Rihanna was like, “I don’t want to be likable. Don’t make me a role model. I’m just going to put out music.”
Here’s a profile on The Witches Of Bushwick.
Elisa Lam Drowned in a Water Tank Three Years Ago, but the Obsession with Her Death Lives On. This is about the inspiration for American Horror Story: Hotel.
How giving up refined sugar changed my brain. Yes, I definitely feel sharper after quitting sugar too!
Momentary Ink can help you decide whether you really want that tattoo or not… Such a cool idea!
Love always,