Hyper-realistic flowers

It's hard to believe these flowers aren't paintings, but actual photographs. The works are photographer Kenji Toma's hyper-realistic tribute to the genre inspired by traditional Japanese painting style.    

Breathtakingly gorgeous and wonderfully deceptive to the naked eye.

How he does that. (Kottke)

Happy Merry Everything

From my family to yours - wishing you peace, joy, love and a most Merry Christmas.


The most 2017 photos of 2017. (Kottke)

Um, yes please (Ocean's 8 trailer)

Cannot wait to see the latest installment of the Ocean's franchise. And at last, in all its women-centric splendor.




Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett are unstoppable.

An adorable bomb

Losing net neutrality sucks and the GOP is still hunting for ways to pass this awful tax plan and the list of alleged predators only grows. But let me interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this sunbeam of adorableness. 


What kind of parent are you?

Fashion prodigy: the maxi gown

There are three things Izzy would put at the top of her "favorites" list: fashion, unicorns & Katy Perry. 

So I decided to surprise her with an early Christmas present: tickets to see Katy Perry in concert. Her response? "O M f*cking G! You're the best mom, EVER!" My response: An equal measure of shock and awe. 

Of course, the occasion is a glorious fashion opportunity - particularly since it's her very first concert experience. And what better reason to raid Mommy's closet? This is what she came up with for tonight's event: my floral Anthropologie maxi dress transformed into an off-the-shoulder gown. Accessorized with chunky jewelry. 

This unicorn blazes her own trail.


School spirit.

Four fun things

Winter is officially around the corner and before the snow starts falling (for those of us living in colder climates) consider these fun links as you prepare to hunker down.

10 Best Podcasts of 2017 (Vulture)

Cozy sweaters. (Elle)

What you need to know about hygge. (Country Living)

Top films this year. (Kottke)


Illustration by Gemma Correll.

Skin game changer

I have been using this product for 27 days now and it has CHANGED. MY. LIFE.

My complexion is smoother, my pores feels smaller, and the best part is no more breakouts (Hallelujah!!). This would definitely be on my must-have-on-a-deserted-island list. 

Pro: Super easy to use. Smells nice. Feels cool and tingly on the skin.  

Con: At $88 per pack (includes 30 2-step towelettes) it's not cheap. But I cut them in half to get double the mileage. Plus, it's less expensive than getting once-a-month facials.

Verdict: Skin game changer.


Seeing my body with fresh eyes. (Cup of Jo)

Since time immemorial (re: sexual harassment)

My heart has been heavy. I just can't get the stories out of my mind. I put myself in her shoes. I imagine the terror and powerlessness. And I'm disgusted, appalled but sadly not surprised.  

"He summoned her up to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for a work meeting that began uneventfully. It ended with Mr. Weinstein placing his hands on her and suggesting they head to the bedroom for massages."

"When she arrived, he was nude in the bathtub. He told her that she would give a much better audition if she were comfortable 'getting naked in front of him,' too, because the character she might play would have a topless scene."

"He boasted about the famous actresses he had supposedly slept with - a common element of his come-on, according to several other women who had encounters with Mr. Weinstein."

"'He forced me to perform oral sex on him.' As she objected, Weinstein took his penis out of his pants and pulled her head down onto it. 'I said, over and over, 'I don't want to do this, stop, don't,' she recalled. 'I tried to get away, but maybe I did't try hard enough... In the end, she said, 'he's a big guy. He overpowered me.'"

"She reluctantly agreed to give Weinstein a massage, he pulled her skirt up, forced her legs apart, and performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop. Weinstein 'terrified me, and he was so big,' she said... 'I said, 'No, no, no.' It's twisted. A big fat man wanting to eat you. It's a scary fairy tale.'"

It IS like a scary, twisted fairy tale. And in this nightmare Weinstein is the Big Bad Wolf. 

After reading these horrifying allegations, my immediate thought was, "Thank God these things didn't happen to me." But as the stories sank in this week, I kept going back to my own experiences. Back to those times I felt threatened or uncomfortable by a man.

The driving lesson
I had just turned 15 1/2 and was so excited to finally get my learner's permit. I practiced driving in my parents' Volvo every chance I got. One afternoon, the neighbor across the street, John (he liked to be called by his nickname, "Hutch"), offered to teach me how to drive stick shift. I remember sitting in the driver's seat of his VW Beetle and he pointed to the stick and said, "Handle it like you would a man - real gentle." He grinned as he caressed the stick. It was creepy as hell. I was only 15 but I knew what he was getting at. I acted like I didn't get his "joke" but was frightened and wanted to get out of that car as soon as humanly possible. 

The wet dream
It was the summer of 1996. I was an intern at Walt Disney Feature Animation. I was 21 and living in LA for the first time. I made many friends that summer including a Disney employee named Gabe. He was warm and had a great sense of humor. A very charismatic fellow in his late 20s. He would host "Five O'Clock Funnies" in his office and we would talk and laugh about the stupidest stuff. I never felt anything sexual between us. It was purely platonic. I was very comfortable around him until the last week of my internship, when he told me that I had appeared in his dream, dancing on his lap. He started mimicking the so-called dance, sitting in his seat and gyrating his hips suggestively. Ugh. That ruined our friendship real fast. I was like, "Really? Can't you keep those f*cking thoughts to yourself?"

The dick pic
At my first job out of college, also at Walt Disney Feature Animation, one of my co-workers, Jason, pulled up on his computer screen a photo of a parrot perched on an erect penis. I walked by his cubicle and he said to me, "I bet you've never even seen one of these before!" Looking back I would have said something like, "Yeah, I've never seen that species of bird," but I was too mortified to think of a clever comeback. It was the first time a guy showed me a dick pic and this was before that was even a thing.

Gross, right?

And this kind of disgusting behavior happens in a woman's world ALL THE TIME. Which is why people, men in particular, shouldn't be so shocked by reports like this. What happened between the brave women who have come forward about their interactions with Harvey Weinstein has been going on, as Emma Thompson says, "since time immemorial."



Thompson addresses what she calls a "crisis of masculinity" and how society normalizes this kind of predatory behavior, particularly now, as it's represented by the most powerful man in the world. 

So how do we course correct? How, as a society, as humankind, do we address and prevent these kinds of horrific experiences? Good and decent people know that women are much more than their bodies. We are not objects. We are not playthings. We are not a hole where you can stick your unfulfilled sexual desires.

I'm on board with Thompson's idea: the more women who can get to the top, to achieve positions of power and influence, the better we can "balance things out." In Hollywood, in the White House, on Wall Street, everywhere. 
   

That time Joan was powerless. (Mad Men)
"The first time I was sexually harassed was in a pizza place." (Cup of Jo)

Adirondacks

I want to go to there. 

#adirondacks #hiking #GoOutside #LizLemonQuotes


Photo @ursamajorvt

See beneath, beautiful

Art + Tech converge in the professional and personal work of Blake Brasher, abstract painter and robotics engineer at Boston Dynamics. Blake discuss emerging trends in artificial intelligence and automation as well as the principles to design, automate and transform the human experience in this environment. 

Listen to Episode 7 of Open Swim, from the team at shark&minnow.

"See Beneath, Beautiful" by Blake Brasher, c. 2015.

Paperback Paradise

If you loved reading Sweet Valley Twins, Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys growing up, then Paperback Paradise is your new favorite Twitter account.


Mad genius. (Uproxx)

Most wanted, least needed

These adorable SJP Collection Mary Janes are like tuxedos for your feet!


Sneakers? Or super chic flats? (Elle)

Reach for the stars

NASA's announced its most diverse class of astronauts ever. This is AWESOME. Diversity makes us better. 💯


Diversity also makes us smarter. (Scientific American)

Fashion prodigy: leggings, repurposed

She's at it again!

As of late, Fashion Prodigy is enjoying the art of repurposing. The most recent example is a pair of black leggings with zipper details which she cut up and turned into footless socks, boy shorts and elbow "pads."

Notice the gloves, too. She repurposed an old pair of toddler-sized socks by cutting slits and transforming them into fingerless gloves. The resulting look has got this fierce, 80s power aerobics vibe (plus the upcycling is great for the environment).

#MyHero.
  

She has mastered the pose.

A megastar on the verge (Madonna in '83)

"In June 1983, Madonna was an ambitious 24-year-old getting some heat on the club charts," writes Rory Satran for i-D. "When photographer Richard Corman met the young singer, she served him bubblegum and espresso on a silver try at her beyond-bohemian walkup on East Fourth Street between A and B. It was, as he puts it, 'literally right before she stepped out and ran into the stratosphere.'"

After three decades, almost forgotten forever in a warehouse, the casual Polaroids of Madonna-on-the-verge are documented in Corman's limited-edition book, Madonna 66.

I love the raw intimacy captured in these photos. They are images of Madonna we so rarely get to see today: innocent, unmanufactured, unguarded. Over the span of her 30-year career, our eyes have been trained to see a Madonna meticulously cultivated and commercialized. 

In these photos you can feel her fire and young ambition. "I felt like a warrior plunging my way through the crowds to survive," she has said about those early days in New York.

I remember, as a young girl growing up in the 80s, how much I looked up to her. I related to that "I wanna conquer the world" attitude. As a grown up, I still do.


Madonna's not too happy about a planned biopic of her life. (NYT) 

Life accordian to Trump

I couldn't help myself. 


Life accordian to Trump, the original.

Radio silence (forgive me, Dear Reader)

Oh my, Dear Reader!

How did two months just whiz by without my notice? Well, I suppose this happens when you jump start your career and re-enter the work force full time.

Forgive me for the lack of fun and interesting stories. Sometimes life pulls you in another direction for a season. But know that I miss you and I will make an effort to post a good yarn every now and then, because I want to keep in touch.

love, -j. 

Women's March (the kit)

Tonight, I'm getting on a midnight bus headed to Washington, DC.

After being completely devastated after the election -- after weeping and fretting and succumbing to anger -- I climbed out of the abyss and looked for a way to transform my grief into positive action.

The Women's March on Washington is the beginning of that journey. 

I have found my strength again and I look forward to marching with my fellow sisters (all 200,000 of them!). In addition to the main event at the nation's capital, there will be some 673 sister marches across the US totaling 2.2 MILLION people!!

Tomorrow we march for women's rights, human rights, the environment, immigrants, Muslims, LGBT, people with disabilities, for global civil rights... for FREEDOM.

Tomorrow we begin the good fight.


Planes packed with women head to DC. (The Week)

Women's March (signs of protest)

Spent the evening at Zygote Press with over a hundred other Cleveland-area sisters-in-arms making screen and letterpress posters for the upcoming Women's March on Washington.

The electricity and excitement is brewing. The march is just eight days away. You can feel something is going to shift. Something wonderful and powerful and moving is going to change the course of history. Maybe I'm reaching. Maybe I'm just hoping for something, anything to ease my fears. 

Last night's event was such a meaningful and collective experience -- standing shoulder to shoulder with all these beautiful souls. All of us preparing for the fight -- our peaceful protest against a pitiful wanna-be dictator and his authoritarian regime.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a love affair with words. I also appreciate their power. Which is why making these posters meant so much to me. 

Here are a few snapshots from last night:

In eight days, the good fight begins.


Shepard Fairey's protest art.

Retrolicious (Golden Globes 2017)

My favorite look from last night's Golden Globes: Natalie Portman in Prada with Tiffany jewelry. I love the 60s throwback and the lovely homage to Jackie Kennedy, whom Portman played with stunning gravitas in Jackie.

Radiant.


Click here to see full Globes fashion. (New York Times)

Word of the day

Pretty much every day, starting January 20, for the next four years. 

Don't agonize, organize!

Hooray for cellulite

Can cellulite sell magazines? 

It's what taste makers and influencers are wondering about Glamour magazine's January cover -- featuring Girls creator Lena Dunham, baring her wonderfully fleshy legs, "cottage cheese" and all.

In signature Dunham style, Lena courageously and proudly waves her middle finger to our skinny-obsessed, fat-shaming culture. She disowns Photoshop ("Done with allowing images that retouch and reconfigure my face and body to be released into the world," she wrote in Lenny Letter last year) and is known to post shameless half-naked bathroom selfies on Instagram.

Good for her.

And bravo to Glamour for representing and empowering the 90 percent of us who have cellulite. It's another step forward in normalizing real women and real women's bodies in the media. 


Read the full Glamour interview here.