Kittens (never has that sobriquet been more apropos, if we can get a little high-falutin’ with our word-making for a second), let’s take a short break from all the Asian Excellence on display at the Crazy Rich Asians premiere to gaze fondly at a pretty man posing with cats. Why?
Because we’re lazy, we’re on vacation, and this is the easiest kind of post to slap together and get a reaction from you folks. Transparency in blogging, darlings.
Also because that giant super-chill ginger tabby reminds us of our boy Tab Hunter and we miss him right now.
click through for MANY JOYFUL HATS to inspire your summer lewks
The Royal Ascot is an annual five-day horse-race meeting held on a course outside of London, England, with racehorses competing for nearly $18 million in prizes. It is a major event for both racing and fashion fans, and is regularly attended by Queen Elizabeth II and other royalty. Parts of the racecourse maintain a “top hats and tails” rule for men, while many women dress in eye-catching outfits, often topped by hats that can be described as architectural, whimsical, grandiose, sculptural, or just over-the-top. Today, a collection of photos of some of these millinery miracles, worn by Royal Ascot racegoers over the past few years.
“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” star Jeff Goldblum covers the July 2018 issue of British GQ photographed by Doug Inglish and styled by Andrew T. Vottero.
On the current Hollywood climate: “With the climate as it is, and with the page turned as it should be in Hollywood now, one has to be vigilant. Never would I want to do anything that is disrespectful or diminishing and I am more aware of that now than ever. I hope I have always amplified people’s enjoyment rather than abuse it. It was never creepy and I hope my ways have been gracious and full of good will. And so far, it still feels like I can be me.”
On his zest for life: “I have a zest for life. I think I learnt inquisitiveness from my drama teacher when I moved to New York City in ’74: ‘You’re only interesting to the extent you are interested.’I have always been in touch with my curiosity and my enchantment with other people.”
Style Credits: Newsstand Cover: Louis Vuitton Printed Shirt from the Spring 2018 Collection Subscribers’ Cover:Blazer, Shirt, Tie and Trousers by Tom Ford from the Spring 2018 Collection | Sunglasses by Saint Laurent | Shoes by Christian Louboutin Image:Jacket by Coach 1941 from the Spring 2018 Collection | Shirt by Bottega Veneta from the Spring 2018 Collection | Trousers by Valentino | Glasses by Jacques Marie Mage
Grooming: David Cox
[Photo Credit: Doug Inglish/GQ UK Magazine, vogue.com]
Some good news! Did anyone else's city-ist site come back?
It's been a minute (221 days to be exact, but who's counting?) since the site went dark, and we are overjoyed to be back to filling these pages with much-needed coverage of the District. [ more › ]
So this question is … more just truly bizarre than anything. But recently, a coworker of mine has decided she is now British and has been regularly slipping into a thick British accent — very Madonna-esque.
On one hand, I guess live your life. On the other hand, OH MY GOD, WHAT? It’s truly impossible not to notice and has been gradually noticed by hordes of people within the office at this point, yet nobody really knows how to even begin processing this new information. Do we just carry on as normal? Is this what life is now? I suppose it really isn’t harming anyone — but wow is it something.
To expand on this, though we can’t fully unpack what the reasoning behind all of this is — it feels a bit like a personal branding play. Thanks for indulging!
Sit back and enjoy, because this kind of thing is what life is all about. Humans are weird! So weird, in so many different ways. Often that weirdness is hidden and comes out in ways that shock and disappoint you, after the person lulled you into thinking you knew what to expect from them. So it’s lovely when someone wears their weirdness like a peacock’s plumes, right there for all to see from the get-go.
And this is the sort of amazing and wonderful thing that makes work more interesting. You don’t need to worry about determining exactly where it’s coming from or why, although you should also feel free to indulge yourself in private speculation (emphasis on private; do not mock her with others). Does she believe she now sounds more sophisticated? (That was the Madonna theory, right?) Has she been binge watching British TV and picked it up without realizing it? Is she in disguise or possibly on the lam? Was she actually British this whole time and it was the American accent that was the fake? There are so many possibilities, and each one is fascinating.
So my advice to you: ENJOY THIS SPECTACLE. Another one so intriguing may not pass your way again for a while.
Late Monday night, this tweet was posted by a 20-year-old Instagram “influencer” named Cloe Feldman. It appears to be a screengrab of a poll that also appears on Feldman’s Instagram account (although the Instagram version was posted after the Twitter one, but the poll design is clearly Instagram-original, don’t ask me). On Feldman’s Instagram, yanny was in the lead as of press time with 51 percent of the vote. (If you can’t hear it, it sounds like yeah knee.) Another Instagram account, @KFCRadio, also added the poll to their Instagram story. As of press time, laurel was winning that one with 53 percent.
Having read this far, you may be outraged, and/or concerned about hearing loss. Because neither @CloeCouture nor @KFCRadio has responded to my request for comment yet (and neither has @Yanni), I can’t say anything about how or why the clip was made. But I do have a degree in linguistics, so I can hazard a guess about why this two-syllable recording is driving everyone bonkers.
When you speak, you’re producing sound waves that are shaped by the length and shape of your vocal tract, which includes your larynx, throat, vocal folds (vocal cords is a misnomer), mouth, and nose. Linguists can study these sound waves and separate them out into their component frequencies, and display them in something called a spectrogram. Here’s the spectrogram for the yanny/laurel recording:
Higher frequencies (up to 5,000 hertz, or waves per second) appear toward the top, and lower ones (down to zero) toward the bottom. The dark bands are called formants; they’re the resonant frequencies of the vocal tract, and they depend on the length and shape of your vocal tract—i.e., all the space between your vocal folds, where the sound waves begin, and your mouth and nose, where they’re released.
The length of your vocal tract depends mostly on physiology: Women’s vocal folds tend to be higher up, so their tracts are shorter. The shape is largely based on where you put your tongue, like when you place the tip of your tongue between your teeth to make a th sound. By moving your tongue around in your mouth and opening and closing your lips, you change the sounds you’re making, and the formants you see in the spectrogram.
Chelsea Sanker, a phonetician at Brown University, looked at the spectrogram above to help me figure out what was going on. (For the record, when Sanker listened to the recording, she “[could] not hear it as having ls at all.” Point to yanny.)
First of all, the clip is, according to Sanker “not prototypical” of either laurel or yanny. It’s somewhere in the middle. Sanker said the l/y discrepancy might come from the fact that the sound there isn’t velarized—the speaker’s tongue isn’t touching the back of their soft palate (the velum), as many American English speakers do when they say an l. The middle consonant is definitely not an n, Sanker said, but you might hear one because the vowel in front of it sounds particularly nasal. People who hear laurel are hearing a syllabic l in the second syllable, which has some similarities to the vowel sound at the end of yanny. Both are sonorants—you could go on singing them until you run out of air, as opposed to an obstruent like p or t.
One of the more interesting things to come out of the yanny/laurel debate was the discovery that, by changing the pitch of the recording, you could adjust what you heard. In general, people heard yanny more consistently when the pitch was lower and laurel when the pitch was higher.
Ok, so if you pitch-shift it you can hear different things:
This makes perfect sense. When it’s not being shifted around via computer program, the pitch of your voice depends on how thick and how tense your vocal folds are. It’s entirely independent of the formants, which are based on how long your vocal tract is and where you’re constricting it. So that means that when the pitch of the recording is shifted, the formants remain unaffected.
When the speaker’s voice is artificially lowered, the formants sound as if they’ve been raised; if the speaker’s voice is raised, the formants sound lower. The sounds in yanny generally have higher formants and fewer dips than the sounds in laurel—to see for yourself, here are spectrograms of my colleague Robinson Meyer saying each word:
YannyLaurel
Plenty of things could be influencing your interpretation of yanny/laurel, including your dialect and whether you listened to the recording over a speaker or headphones. People have a tendency to try to match the sounds they hear onto real words that they’ve heard before, like laurel. But reading yanny first, since it appears on the left side of the poll, could have primed listeners to hear it over laurel.
A common misperception of linguistics is that it’s prescriptive, telling people how to speak and write. But the linguistic perspective on this whole debacle is that everyone is right. (If, like me, you’ve now listened dozens of times, you’ll know that both sides have a very good point.) We’re all just trying to classify the sound waves we’re hearing into categories we’re familiar with—no differently than we do in everyday speech.
"Getting the folks at Vivienne Westwood to photograph your collection of black Star Wars figurines and make you a dress out of the pictures" >>> OFFICIALLY OBSESSED WITH HER
These pictures just make us want to shout out “MISS TANDIE!!!!!” with glee. We’ve always loved her style, but we’re finding it practically a necessity of the Solo poledance, which has remained startlingly low-key up until now.
But Miss Lady doesn’t do low-key, you see.
If you’re too dazzled by the shape and the print to notice that this is a top and pants, we don’t blame you. These sorts of faux gowns are getting more and more popular on the red carpet, but we’d wager about half of them wind up looking a little goofy. Not this one. The print is a stunner and looks amazing on her, of course. But it’s the shapes here that really make this, from the perfect cut of the pants to the sweep and drape of the top, which is the part that really sells that gown effect. We’re a little surprised the jewelry is so low-key, but we suppose she didn’t want anything fighting with the ensemble, which definitely deserves the spotlight. Just a great look, top to bottom.
But this next one put us over the top:
Getting the folks at Vivienne Westwood to photograph your collection of black Star Wars figurines and make you a dress out of the pictures is just about the most badass nerd move of all time. And the fact that she came out looking chic and high-fashion on top of everything else is the cherry on top of this fabulous sundae. We are bowing down, miss.
Style Credits: First Look: Valentino Printed Ensemble from the Fall 2018 Collection Second Look: Custom Vivienne Westwood Gown | Chopard Jewelry | Charlotte Olympia Sandals
Styled by Erin Walsh | Hair by Sheridan Ward | Makeup by Kay Montano
sounds cool but also we are never getting this final book are we
SyFy has released a teaser trailer for George RR Martin's Nightflyers.Martin, who is best known for writing the A Song of Ice and Fire novels on which HBO's Game of Thrones is based, described Nightflyers as "A haunted house story on a starship" in a first look video released in March."It's Psycho in space," he ...
Not to diminish the man’s achievements and life, but if you’re doing a Freddie Mercury biopic and you’re releasing the film’s first teaser, you have exactly two points to sell to the audience: that you got the sound right and that you got the look right.
Well, damn. Looks like they nailed it on both fronts:
Pretty sure most of the “sound” here consists of recordings of Mercury and Queen combined with some sound-alike work, but it surely would have been a bit much to expect an actor to mimic his range and power, which were fairly singular. So they got the sound right by mostly just relying on the originals, it would seem.
As for the look, which you KNOW is where we’re all scrutiny-eyes…
WOW. Did they EVER nail it. Rami isn’t a pure match physically and we’re going to have to hear more of his accent to decide whether we buy it, but in terms of costume design and performance style, this is all eerily on point.
[Stills: 20th Century Fox via Tom and Lorenzo – Video Credit: 20th Century Fox via YouTube.com]
this very much reminds me of an expedition at the end of senior year to the KFC/taco bell in everett to try the infamous double down "sandwich". it tasted like REGRET.
Casual dining chains are responding to shifts in consumer behavior in uneven ways.
The lobster and waffle special from Red Lobster, artfully arranged.CreditAndrew Scrivani for The New York Times
My interest was piqued by a promoted tweet and fueled by dietary nihilism.
Red Lobster had announced a lobster-and-waffles special for most of April, and I couldn’t get the image of the crispy, buttermilk-battered split Maine lobster tail atop a “signature Cheddar Bay waffle” drizzled with maple syrup out of my head. My wife and I decided to try it; it was a meal we were prepared to remember, if not enjoy.
On a lazy, almost-warm Sunday last month, we drove to the Red Lobster in Woodbridge, N.J., where we were met with a 20-minute wait in a vestibule strewn with spider webs. The two of us took seats between a senior couple dressed to impress for Sunday fellowship and a young couple who smelled like a college dorm on April 20 — visions of #goals past and future.
Red Lobster’s take on chicken and waffles may not seem like a big deal, or even worthy of our patience. But, to me, it represented something of a moment.
In general, casual dining chains like Red Lobster are in trouble. Major franchises like T.G.I. Fridays and Applebee’s have stumbled through a decade of losses, and many chains, including Friendly’s and Bennigan’s, have filed for bankruptcy. Americans have changed their dining habits: The country’s upper class has soured on paying $15 to $20 per meal for bland bar fare, and the chain sustaining middle class can no longer afford it.
That, coupled with a widening breadth of delivery options through third-party services like Seamless and UberEats, makes the future of casual dining chains unclear.
Restaurants have responded to this shift in consumer behavior in uneven, often stomach churning ways. For a while, Applebee’s made “a clear pendulum swing toward millennials.” The franchise updated its décor and put youthful sounding items, like a “turkey sandwich with sriracha chile lime sauce,” on its menu. But in 2017, Applebee’s president John Cywinski reversed course. Amid a 21 percent decline in profit and the closure of as many as 135 restaurants, he signaled a return to the restaurant’s Middle American roots.
Red Lobster hasn’t seen the same dramatic plunge in business, but it hasn’t grown much either (aside from a Beyoncé-inspired uptick in sales in 2016). In 2014, five years after a chainwide remodel and an ill-conceived pairing with Olive Garden, Red Lobster was sold by Darden Restaurants to Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 billion.
Its menu has changed considerably since then. Last December, Red Lobster added snack-size tasting plates, retooled its regionally inspired dishes and announced the return of its endless shrimp promotion. Recent menu items have included a lobster truffle mac and cheese and whipped sweet potatoes with honey-roasted pecans.
But the crispy lobster and waffles — which Danielle Connor, the senior vice president of menu strategy and development, said was meant to show Red Lobster’s “culinary expertise and menu innovation” — is a dish with more than millennial-focused overtones.
For starters, it was inspired by chicken and waffles, an entree that is part of the trend of soul food items rising from post-reconstruction fare for southern black citizens to post-gentrification fare offered at slick eateries in post-black neighborhoods. And the Cheddar Bay waffle element to the dish was inspired by Red Lobster’s famous Cheddar Bay biscuits. In my home state of Massachusetts, where nationwide seafood chains are hard to come by, those biscuits were the stuff of legends.
My first taste of a Cheddar Bay biscuit took place in August of 2010, after a five-hour drive from Boston to Rutgers University, where I was going to college. After an hour of unpacking, my family was ready for lunch. I suggested we go to the nearby Red Lobster.
The meal was a mixed bag: The biscuits were every bit as amazing as advertised, but my shrimp fettuccine Alfredo made up with hazard what it lacked in taste. I spent the night counting the tiles in my new college bathroom, much to the chagrin of my then-girlfriend, with whom I had made plans. When the Red Lobster defense failed to hold water, she dropped me like a limited-time entree.
My first impression of Red Lobster as a killer of relationships and usurper of gastrointestinal equilibrium didn’t stop me from frequenting the place during my years at Rutgers. I ordered the same four things: margaritas, lagers, artichoke dip and indefensible amounts of Cheddar Bay bread.
One night, I came across a Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuit kit at the grocery store. Those first dozen biscuits elevated a college evening of glassy-eyed giggling into what felt like a red carpet affair. The next day, I purchased three more boxes of the biscuit mix. After perfecting the recipe, I made them for a crush.
Four years later, that same crush, now my wife, was looking at me, across the table, with a leery expression on her face.
“My stomach might not be ready,” she pleaded as we sat down to order. “We don’t have to do this. We can still go to Popeye’s.”
But by then Sam, an 18-year-old college freshman, was at our table, greeting us with a nervous smile and a few jokes. He was halfway through his first day as a waiter. We asked about the lobster and waffle special (which, I should mention, was $24.99).
“It’s our most popular item,” Sam said. “I haven’t tried it yet, but my boss says it’s fire.”
After two baskets of biscuits, Sam cleared our table and served the main course: An amber, slightly burned waffle, glistening atop a thin layer of oil, rested beneath two piping hot, golden brown strips of fried more-shell-than-lobster tail.
Separately, the lobster tasted much like coconut shrimp; the Cheddar Bay waffle could have been mistaken for a Costco Asiago bagel. In combination, the elements of the meal were a little more unusual. The smoky, oversweet syrup coupled with salty, tough lobster tasted like maple bacon kettle chips, with an aftertaste reminiscent of warm Guinness.
“It’s like a burned Cheez-It with syrup,” my wife remarked after her first forkful. “But I don’t hate it like I thought I would.”
confirmation that emilia's gone blonde for the moment (plus, hot people in 70s-inspired looks)
Actors Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover, Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Joonas Suotamo and Paul Bettany participate in a press conference in Los Angeles for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
They all look like they’re hanging out in someone’s basement, spinning vinyl and getting high. And while the setup wasn’t a great one for modeling clothes or even posing for pictures, that laid back vibe strikes us as just about the perfect way to showcase this cast for this film.
Is it us or do they all seem remarkable well-coordinated? Autumnal colors and vaguely seventies-esque styles, which also tend to sell this particularly film very well. Never doubt the execution of a Disney poledance. They rarely fail to get these things just right. Loving Donald’s striped pants, but the shoes and the tucked-in velour shirt are seriously questionable. Also loving Paul’s white jeans/yellow shirt combo. Not entirely sure about Emilia’s leather-and-lace look, but Miss Thandie is practically a ray of sunshine. Alden is pretty much completely overshadowed by his castmates here. He needs to step it up. And finally, it takes some getting used to that Chewbacca is now a cute Finnish twink-giant.
Are you looking for a new home? Maybe not. Maybe you aren’t even thinking about moving to Highland Park, Michigan. But if that’s the case then you’re a fool because we just found you the perfect house.
We welcome you to 450 W Grixdale, your new $550,000 home that needs exactly $0 of updates because it is delightful and insane and we will shame the person who changes anything about it.
“Unique barely begins to describe this one of a kind Grixdale Farms estate,” is the promising start of the property’s ad on Estately.com. The home, which is referred to as “Lion Gate Estate,” despite the fact that while we do see a gate we only see three lions, “has been articulated with painstaking attention to detail and mind-blowing decorative flair.”
“Mind-blowing decorative flair?” Sounds like someone’s “eccentric” Aunt has become a house. Do go on.
As you can see, this 3 bedroom, 2.25 bath home packs a lot into its 1,886 square feet.
The living room, for example, is perfect for those of you who like to come home, take off your shoes, and touch nothing. “But wait,” you say, “it won’t be that bad once I put my own stamp on it.” Slow down, Bob Villa. Because this home is being sold with all of it’s contents. All of them.
So let’s see what else you’ll be getting.
How about this formal dining room, complete with these two fellas (the one on the left is named “Eh” and the one on the right is “WhaddyaGonnaDo”) and some three-dimensional fighting cherubs.
Need to use the restroom? How about this floral retreat! Simply remove the glass dragonfly from the toilet lid and put it on the…well, maybe there’s room on the…you know what, just hold it under your arm. And, of course, we ask that you contain your business to the carpet tarp.
Do your eyes deceive you, or is there carpeting on that ceiling? Heck yeah, there is. Up is down and black is white here in the Upside Down. Enjoy vacuuming, buddy.
Ah, now we come to the master bedroom. You’ll relax and rejuvenate on your velvet-covered refrigerator box while the thoughtfully arranged armless bust watches you sleep and the statues at the bottom of the bed protect you from those who wish you harm. Like that bear. Or that weird chicken.
If you looked at this picture, assumed at first that there was a chair hanging from the wall, and felt only mild surprise, then you’re starting to get the gist of this house. We’re not sure why you need this much mirror in such a small space, but if you’re someone who doesn’t trust yourself and needs yourself to always keep an eye on yourself, then this is the perfect house for you.
Everyone loves an inviting entryway that provides you with front, back, and aerial views of yourself (you’re not getting away with a goddamn thing, Self.) Our eyes are also drawn to the open door that appears to be paneled with some kind of dark fabric which is totally not creepy and needs to be investigated immediately.
Hey, anybody else watch The Sinner on AMC starring Jessica Biel where she keeps having flashbacks to these basement stairs that led to a weird sibling sex and drug orgy that ended up with a cracked sternum and a buried body?
Well, at least this staircase comes with ways to defend yourself. For example, you can poke out an eye with a blue crane. Or break a bunch of glass and pull a Die Hard. Or snatch some art off the wall and bash it over someone’s head. We’re just saying that there should be some kind of plan in place before you go down these stairs.
But wait, what’s this?! You go downstairs and what you find is an Elvis cafe? Excuse me, your Elvis cafe. Why an Elvis cafe? Because really, at this point, why the hell not. Grab a table, pour yourself a beer, and look at the cardboard man for a spell. Enjoy yourself. There are no mirrors, here.
Now we’ll exit the main house and check out the trash veranda. It’s perfect for sitting on a loveseat and staring at a sun-drenched brick wall. It’s also useful for herding and vaccinating cattle.
You will also immediately find yourself neck-deep into a new hobby. If you don’t already love making small wooden cars, you’re going to learn to in a jiffy.
We wouldn’t change a thing about this statue-filled shrine to Elvis and small wooden cars, and that’s a good thing because the ad makes clear that “[the] property sold AS IS, BATVAI.” BATVAI, by the way, means “buyer’s agent to verify all information.” So basically “AS IS, BATVAI” means “F*** IT AND F*** YOU, I’M OUT” in real estate lingo.
The ad for this prime piece of real estate ends with one final, mysterious caveat: “Only shown on sunny days.” Why? Because that’s when the vampires sleep? Because that’s when you can best appreciate all the mirrors? Because no one gets out when they visit in the dark? We don’t know, but we love it all.
Marvel Studios is proud to present … THE UNITED NATIONS OF FABULOUSLY CHIC LADY SUPERHEROES:
Darlings, that is a LOT to take in. Take a moment for yourselves.
Also, to be accurate, they’re not lady superheroes, they’re all co-starring in a spy thriller together which is SO MUCH BETTER WE CAN’T STAND IT.
It better not be some dreary take on the genre. We like our spies fashionable as fuck, thank you very much. And on that note…
In the matter of style, we’d say this lot is fairly well coordinated. Each is distinct to herself and none of them are overpowering the others. And they’re all more or less playing to expectations.
You expect to see Fan Bingbing in something light and princessy. You expect to see Marion Cotillard in something sleek and kickass. You expect to see Jessica Chastain in something stylish and photogenic.
You expect to see Penelope Cruz in something romantic and lightly sexy. And you expect to see Lupita Nyong’o take something classic and make it seem fresh and hardcore chic.
If we have any criticism, it would be that some of them are dressed for night while others are dressed (more appropriately, we might add) for day, making it seem like they all just ran into each other going in different directions. Even so, they look so spectacular together. Just imagine the red carpet promo tour for this one. It’s going to make Ocean’s 8 seem like a warmup act.
This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. (This one is truly no work and no school.)
Book recommendation of the week: Hey Ladies! by Michelle Markowitz and Caroline Moss. The hilarious Hey Ladies column from The Toast is now a book! One of the ladies is getting married, and there are many, many emails to be sent and plans to be made. It’s so, so funny, and you will cringe with recognition. (And here’s a great piece about it from The Cut.)
If you’re a fan of Dolly Parton or Philip Glass — or if you’re just interested in a discussion of our changing economy — you’re going to want to read these two articles.
At The Atlantic, Lolade Fadulu interviews Philip Glass about how he built his career and why other musicians can’t follow in his footsteps:
In those days you could work three days a week, maybe four sometimes, and you could live on that. It was the quickest and easiest way to make an honest living. I thought it was a pretty good deal. I didn’t have to teach any classes anywhere. I just drove the [taxi] and I got paid. I liked that. I had my independence, which was very important to me. But also, it didn’t take much time.
But, look, the thing to remember is that life was financially much easier. Actually, for the young people trying to make a living today, part-time, it’s almost impossible.
People work six days a week. No one can work three days a week. It’s just gotten to be more expensive, the rents are higher, there are more people around trying to do exactly what you’re trying to do. When people ask me how I did it, I say to the young people, “Look, I have to tell you. It was much easier when I did it.”
I believe you, Philip Glass.
Meanwhile, at In The Mesh, Daniela Perdomo writes about how Dolly Parton is using her wealth to provide a version of Universal Basic Income:
By Nov. 30, she publicly pledged $1,000 a month for six months to every single Gatlinburg household who could prove their primary residence had been destroyed by the fire.
[…]
Critically, My People Fund checks would be given with absolutely no directives regarding how to spend the cash. And every household deemed eligible would receive the exact same amount: $6,000.
When asked to comment for this article, Parton sent the following by email: “We launched My People Fund to quickly provide cash to the families who lost their homes. I believe everyone must walk their own road to recovery.”
While giving $6,000 to a small percentage of the U.S. population is not the same thing as providing UBI to everyone over a long period of time, Perdomo reports that the results match previous UBI studies: when people get a steady influx of cash, they use it to increase the long-term stability of their household. (Compare this to the recent Indicator podcast illustrating that when people get a single, isolated influx of cash via tax refund, they spend it on healthcare appointments they’ve been putting off.)
UBI seems to work, if we could just figure out how to make it work for everyone — and if everyone had basic income, more people could follow Philip Glass’s career path of working a few days a week and spending the rest of their time on their music.
Darlings, the stars of Isle of Dogs cuddled with puppies at the Paw Prints and Best Friends Animal Society post-screening party — and we have never regretted not being invited to a celebrity event more. Could there possibly be a better red carpet accessory than a cute puppy? The answer is no.
Jeff Goldblum
Did the (almost) always-stylish Jeff Goldblum need the help of an adorable canine to make his ensemble look better? No, probably not – BUT IT DID ANYWAY. Because dogs LOVE US.
Wook at dose widdle paw pads.
Tilda Swinton
Does Pope Tilda need a ridiculously cute flop-eared friend in order to make her outfit appear more chic? No, probably not, but she’s no fool. She knows a pair of soulful eyes and a hint of tongue could only be to her benefit in this case. It would help if she didn’t hold it like a specimen, however.
Liev Schreiber
Did Liev Schrieber need this squee-worthy little ragamuffin to make him look more hot? Definitely not, but at least it distracts from that terrible hat he’s wearing.
We think we have definitely proven our case with scientific facts that puppies make everything better. Are you not better now than a minute ago? We rest our case. It is a case full of puppies.
Emma Thompson on location in New York, shooting “Late Night,” in which she plays a late-night talk show host at risk of losing her show until a new writer (Mindy Kaling) comes along.
Emma and Mindy in a movie together? YES, PLEASE. Late-night talk show host doesn’t sound like the first sort of role that comes to mind when thinking of Emma, but we have no doubt she’ll nail whatever it is the script asks of her.
More importantly, she looks kind of sharply fabulous in costume:
We suspect the sneakers are hers and not part of the costume, just because they would probably put her in a more photogenic pair if they wanted to make the point that she eschews heels. But the coat is pretty great and we’re surprised by how well she rocks the platinum blonde Annie Lennox look.
Miss Busy, we salute you. If a gal’s gonna take an endorsement deal, then this is the way to do it:
That is a shot that says loud and clear: “Can you bitches believe I’m getting PAID for this?”
Grab your dollars, girl.
The suit is ABSOLUTELY too much on its own merits. It’s bright pink textured velvet, after all; which is asking way too much of us. But for hawking vodka on a pink velvet couch at ten in the morning? Girlfriend is getting the job done and doing it RIGHT.
Let Busy be your guide today. When things get scary, hectic, dull or stupid, close your eyes, put on your ugly pink suit, and join Busy on the couch for a cocktail.
Style Credits: Jennifer Fisher Gold Baby Samira Hoops
Styled by Karla Welch | Makeup by Kindra Mann | Hair by Bobby Eliot
In 2015 Keele University historian Paul Booth found evidence of a man named “Roger Fuckbythenavele” in the Chester county court plea rolls of 1310:
County Court of Chester, held on Tuesday after the feast of St Nicholas, 4 Edw. II, before Payn Tibotot, justiciar of Chester (8th December 1310)
A man called ‘Roger Fuckbythenavele’ was exacted for the first time [the process preliminary to outlawry].
TNA CHES 29/23 m 10d
Booth believes that’s the earliest known reference to fuck as a swear word. “This surname is presumably a nickname. I suggest it could either mean an actual attempt at copulation by an inexperienced youth, later reported by a rejected girlfriend, or an equivalent of the word ‘dimwit’ i.e. a man who might think that that was the correct way to go about it.”
Humiliatingly, Roger is mentioned seven times by that name in the rolls in 1310 and 1311. The “serjeants of the peace” had been ordered to bring him before the court, but they’d failed to find him, and consequently he was outlawed. Apparently a court clerk gave him the nickname.
Early in his dancing career, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson performed on a custom double staircase that added drama to his act, increasing his visibility to the audience while amplifying his steps. In What the Eye Hears, Brian Seibert writes, “What the stairs did for Robinson was reveal how he played with the structure of the music through how he played with the structure of the staircase.”
Robinson went through 20 to 30 pairs of clogs a year with footwork so impeccable that a listener under the stage couldn’t distinguish his right foot from his left. A less efficient dancer might have found the narrow steps daunting, but Robinson danced effortlessly “up on the toes,” keeping his feet neatly underneath him while displaying dazzling control and timing.
“As generations of imitators would learn to their grief, the properties of the staircase that magnified Robinson’s mastery equally magnify the slightest imperfection,” Seibert writes. “Dancers tell a story in which he had his musicians cut out for three and a half minutes while he continued dancing. After the allotted time, the musicians came back in, cued by a metronome that Robinson couldn’t hear. He was exactly on beat.”
While Netflix's adaptation of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina won't be coming out anytime soon, it's safe to say that the unofficial first look is hitting the mark.Riverdale and Sabrina showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa recently shared a paparazzi photo from the show's set, which shows stars Kiernan Shipka (Sabrina Spellman) and Ross Lynch (Harvey Kinkle) walking down ...
tiny ron weasley in his tiny wheelchair has stolen my heart
Now that I've shown you around the expos and merchandise, let's focus on the most magical part of HP Celebration: THE COSTUMES.
Guests come from all over the country to dress up and hang out with fellow fans, and every year the crowds get bigger and more intense. Of course most folks in Universal are NOT dressed up - the percentage is actually quite tiny compared to your average convention - but what these cosplayers lack in numbers they more than make up for with sheer ERMERGERSH factor:
I love that fans are really putting their own spin on things, too; there were lots of fashion-bounds of non-human characters, like this Fawkes and Hedwig in the middle:
And here comes their son Ron (aka little Noah), who's not only conquered his biggest fear, but is casually eating chips while riding around on it:
Aragog! THIS IS AMAZING.
(This is the second wheelchair build for Noah; he had his own Hogwarts Express in my last post.)
On Saturday the Syfy Network was hanging around Diagon Alley filming cosplayers, so the corner near Wheasley's Wizard Wheezes was the place to be for great photos:
"People used to say to me, “You just want to be invited to the table.” And I’m like, “F**k the table—I can buy my own table.” "
Also....62. HOW.
The iconic 62-year-old super model and beauty mogul talks with Empire’s badass anti-heroine Taraji P. Henson about aging gracefully, standing up for diversity in fashion, and more, in Harper’s BAZAAR’s April issue photographed by Dennis Leupold.
On making an effort to ensure diversity on today’s runways: “There were more black models working back when I started than there have been recently. So Bethann Hardison, Naomi Campbell, and I got together a couple of years ago to raise awareness about the need for diversity in fashion. We talked about it in the press and to the CFDA, and I think we’re seeing the change on the runways and in campaigns…People used to say to me, “You just want to be invited to the table.” And I’m like, “F**k the table—I can buy my own table.” But the young girls who are coming up? They need to see themselves portrayed.”
On how to help promote diversity in the industry: “If a designer boycotts me, I should boycott him. I’m not going to buy a bag from someone who doesn’t use black models. We should celebrate and highlight the people who actually step it up.”
On how her style has changed over time: “I’ve always lived by the philosophy that in a world full of trends, I want to remain a classic. True style is like a great black-and-white picture: It never looks dated.”
On which trends should return—and which should not: “Anything from the 1980s shouldn’t return. If you’re 20 years old, [shoulder pads will] look great on you. But they don’t travel well.”
Style Credits: Image 1 and 2: Tom Ford Gown | Bulgari Ring Image 3:Giambattista Valli Gown | Roberto Coin Earrings Image 3:Valentino Jumpsuit | Van Cleef & Arpels Earrings and Ring
[Photo Credit: Dennis Leupold/Harper’s Bazaar Magazine]
Emma Stone, Sally Field, Julia Garner, and Jonah Hill star in this remake of a Norwegian dark-comedy series directed by Cary Fukunaga about an institutionalized man who lives a fantasy life in his dreams.
Okay, so when we feature pics of Miss Emma on set and looking like shit, we were mildly intrigued. Now?
Now, we NEED this, this … whatever this is in our lives RIGHT NOW. Sally Field as some sort of fantasy witch queen? Emma Stone as an elf? And they’re all in a pickup? Just what the hell is this thing?
[Photo Credit: Philip Vaughan/ACE Pictures/INSTARimages.com]
It started as a loose collection of sky watchers, who braved the cold on countless nights to catch the shimmering colors of the aurora borealis dancing above them.
It developed into a friendly argument between amateurs and experts, which erupted over beers one evening at a pub in Calgary, Canada.
And it ended this week, with a peer-reviewed paper in a well-known scientific journal.
Researchers have discovered a new type of the aurora, also known in Europe and North America as the Northern Lights. The newly described phenomenon appears as a narrow, glowing ribbon of lavender and emerald, emblazoned in the sky from east to west.
This new feature differs from the long-studied “classical” aurora in several ways. It can be seen from much closer to the equator than its more famous twin, and it emanates from a spot twice as high in the sky. It was also first described and studied not by cultivated researchers—like those who coined the moniker aurora borealis—but by devoted amateurs. They were among the first to photograph the ethereal streak of purple light, and they were the first to give it a name.
That name is Steve. The discovery of Steve is described in a paper published Wednesday in Science Advances.
It’s a scientific accomplishment that would make headlines even if amateurs had not taken part—or if it had received a less remarkable name. Scientists have not discovered a new aurora-related phenomenon since the early 1990s, said Lawrence Lyons, a professor of physics at UCLA who was not connected with the paper.
“I’ve never seen something this new discovered by citizen scientists in the aurora before,” he told me. “Finding something you can identify as a new structure in the aurora is relatively unusual. The last major thing was poleward boundary intensification, and you can find that name used back over 20 years ago.”
The discovery is all the more remarkable because Steve’s pioneers did not intend to find a new phenomenon: They just wanted to admire nature. Take Chris Ratzlaff, for instance. Four years ago, he went out one night to watch and photograph the aurora near his home in Calgary, Alberta.
By itself, this was nothing unusual. Though Ratzlaff is a software developer by day, he helps run a Facebook group for aurora watchers in his province, and he has traveled around the country to see the lights. “I don’t make any income from it, but it’s certainly more than a hobby,” he told me, of his aurora watching. “So it’s more accurate to call it an obsession than a profession.”
Nor did that particular night seem unusual at first. Ratzlaff was entranced by a brilliant display of dancing green ovals far to the north. When the lights lulled, he looked around to admire the stars for a moment.
“And there was this streak against the sky,” he told me. “It was pretty dim, it wasn’t very bright, but it was noticeable.” At first, he thought the streak was an airplane contrail: Calgary sits under several passenger-jet routes. But when he pointed his camera at it and took a long-exposure photo, the streak seemed to glow in the image. “It was clear the thing was emanating light, which contrails obviously don’t do,” he said.
The next day, back at home, he shared the image with a few other aurora-watching Facebook groups around Canada. Other people had seen the purple streak too, some as early as 2010. (Later, researchers would find descriptions and images of the streak from much earlier, though these had gone unnoticed by the scientific community.) One seasoned sky watcher told Ratzlaff that the streak was called a “proton arc.” Ratzlaff brought this name back to his local Facebook group, and soon photographers around Alberta were capturing images of the “proton arc” of their own.
It was not, in fact, a “proton arc”—but Ratzlaff would not learn this for another two years.
The Milky Way (at right) and Steve (at left) overlap over Childs Lake, in Manitoba, Canada. (Krista Trinder)
In the fall of 2014, Elizabeth MacDonald, a physicist at NASA, launched a new online project called “Aurorasaurus.” She and her colleagues aimed to capture social-media descriptions of the aurora, including geo-tagged photos or videos, in order to help researchers better understand the aurora. The idea came to her when she first searched Twitter during a major aurora storm in 2011.
“I saw all these people tweeting about it, and I thought, we have to get these on a map,” she told me. But the project doesn’t just look cool. “All of these citizen-science reports, in aggregate, can be compared to our models of aurora and ground-truth them, to give us a sense of how far south the aurora is extending,” she said.
One of the first groups she recruited for the effort was the Alberta Aurora Chasers. Over time, she became a regular in the forum, piping in whenever someone asked a scientific question. (“People love it when someone from NASA comes on,” said Ratzlaff.) Finally, in early 2016, MacDonald traveled to the University of Calgary to deliver an academic symposium. Her dozens of local aurora-watching fans more or less crashed her high-level talk.
Afterward, MacDonald and the aurora-watchers—and Eric Donovan, a surprised and suddenly very popular aurora researcher at the University of Calgary—went to a local pub to chat.
It was there that Donovan first saw the purple streak. What is that?, he asked, as a member of the Facebook group showed off their photo of a brilliant purple streak in the sky.
It was, the photographer replied, a “proton arc.”
Donovan corrected him: There was no way it could be a proton arc, as the proton aurora was both invisible and nothing like the image on the screen. The photographer replied that the lavender ribbon had to be a proton arc, because that’s what other people had said it was.
Ratzlaff soon got involved, and he confirmed that he, too, had seen the proton arc.
Well, whatever it was, Donovan replied, it wasn’t known to science. The physicists and the aurora-watching amateurs in attendance resolved to study it in depth. It would be a perfect project for “Aurorasaurus,” as well.
Except there was one problem: “You can’t call it a proton arc,” Ratzlaff remembers one of the physicists saying. “A proton arc is something else entirely. You need to give it a name that doesn’t imply you know what the physical properties are.”
Very well, said Ratzlaff. Let’s call it Steve.
The name was a sly reference to the 2006 children’s film Over the Hedge, in which a group of computer-animated woodland creatures resolves to call a massive new hedge “Steve” in order to surmount their fear of it. But the unusual name didn’t seem like a big deal to Ratzlaff. “I work in software development, so we use code names to describe what our projects are, before they have names, all the time,” he told me. “To me, this is perfectly natural. It’s a placeholder.”
The moniker was useful, too. “In our community, someone could say, ‘Hey, I saw Steve tonight,’ and everyone would know what they meant,” he said.
It eventually grew to be more than a placeholder. Last year, Donovan gave a presentation at the European Space Agency titled: “How I Met Steve.” The story went viral, and the name stuck. In the new paper, the phenomenon got its own backronym: the Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. But neither amateurs nor researchers use such a highfalutin title in their everyday speech. Just Steve is still fine.
The legion of amateurs would eventually prove essential to understanding Steve. In July 2016, social-media users across Alberta glimpsed Steve at the exact moment that a European scientific satellite, SWARM, passed overhead. SWARM studies the Earth’s magnetosphere, the same phenomenon that gives rise to the aurora. This confluence of observations finally let researchers peer into the mysterious heart of Steve.
Steve above Lake Minnewanka in Alberta (Paulo Fedozzi)
So: What is Steve? Scientists have long known that charged particles in the Earth’s upper atmosphere can form powerful currents, which move as hot, dense rivers through the thin air. From satellite studies, researchers have known that these currents, known as subauroral ion drift, tend to start flowing during major auroral activity. But they also believed the particle streams were invisible to the naked eye.
“What the satellite observations reveal is that this very narrow ribbon of light, that’s mostly purple, is associated with a strong flow of charged particles in the upper atmosphere,” said MacDonald, the NASA physicist and an author of the new paper.
Steve, in other words, is the visual artifact of these upper-atmosphere ion rivers. “There’s a lot of work showing how [those streams] were correlated to the aurora, but interestingly, when we looked at all that work, there wasn’t any prediction that you would get light from this process,” she said. “So that’s a new aspect that needs to be explained.”
It’s not the only aspect of Steve that still eludes physicists. Researchers don’t know why Steve sometimes spouts unstable green lights, perpendicular to the purple streak. They don’t even know why the main stream glows purple in the first place. MacDonald said purple is an unusual color for aurora, which usually emit green or pink light.
Lyons, the UCLA physicist who was not connected to the paper, said that scientists still can’t explain the origins of the field that generates Steve in the first place. “It opens up an important scientific question,” he told me. “Scientists must now try to figure out why this very strong electric field exists. We don’t have an answer for that, in a specific-enough way to be satisfying.”
If MacDonald and her colleagues’ ion drift theory holds up, Steve differs in several ways from the classical aurora. Steve’s purple light originates from a spot roughly 125 miles (or 200 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. That’s much higher than the shimmering green aurora, which emanates about 62 miles (or 100 kilometers) above the surface. (Though Steve’s mysterious green offshoots may also come from about 62 miles up, MacDonald added.)
Steve can also be seen from much lower latitudes. In North America, the classical green aurora glows directly above central Alaska or the Northwest Territories in Canada (though it appears so high in the sky that it can be seen from points much farther south). Steve, meanwhile, appears overhead in Calgary and other points in southern Canada.
Different physical mechanisms also underlie the classical aurora and Steve. The aurora is caused when charged particles from the sun agitate the powerful magnetic field around Earth. If that field becomes active enough, it can send particles of plasma reeling into the gases of the upper atmosphere, which in turn glow green or pink as they absorb energy. Steve, on the other hand, is caused by electrical charges that course through the upper atmosphere itself.
Though even that description may overstate their differences. Scientists know that the strong, upper-atmospheric ion streams are “mirrored” in the Earth’s magnetic field high above. They just don’t know how or why.
Because of those physical differences, some researchers say that Steve isn’t an aurora at all, but some new kind of optical phenomenon.
Lyons, the UCLA physicist, said Steve “appears not to formally be aurora.” It’s far closer, he said, to a phenomenon called airglow, in which the upper atmosphere releases a faint amount of light as it is heated by the sun and the planet’s surface. “You can see [airglow] all over, but it’s not something you can notice with your eye, and it’s not narrow,” like Steve, he said.
“It’s a new type of phenomenon that we haven’t talked about. Formally, it is airglow—but a brand new category of airglow,” he told me.
MacDonald sides with calling it an aurora. After all, Steve is a colorful shimmer of light in the sky, triggered by the dance of electromagnetism.
“Even if light is produced in a different way than aurora, it’s good to call this aurora, and get people excited about how they may be able to see this much farther south than where the aurora typically occurs,” she said. “People are so interested in the aurora, they’re interested in its beauty, and they want to see it.”
Aurorasaurus, meanwhile, has exceeded MacDonald’s wildest dreams. “We imagined learning more about the rare structures of aurora at mid-latitudes, but no, we never imagined finding something like Steve!” she told me in an email.
Though maybe there were hints, all along, that much remained to be learned from empowering amateurs to hunt the aurora. In 1958, the solar-terrestrial physicist Sydney Chapman proposed recruiting a worldwide network of amateur aurora watchers, stationed from the hot tropics to the high Arctic.
“Those who have the good fortune to observe a tropical aurora may experience the thrill as of: ‘ ... some new watcher of the skies, / When a new planet swims into his ken,’” Chapman wrote that year in Nature, quoting the poet John Keats.
MacDonald was not aware of Chapman’s proposal when she created Aurorasaurus, though she cited his paper in Wednesday’s announcement. And no doubt his never-attempted network would have differed from her real one: “In the fifties, of course, we didn’t have smartphones,” she said.
In recognition of his contribution, Ratzlaff is included as one of many coauthors in the paper announcing Steve. So too is Notanee Bourassa, an amateur photographer who captured the time-lapse video on July 26, 2016, that let MacDonald and her colleagues track down Steve in the SWARM data.
“It’s the physicists’ show now. I’m just providing color, I think—literally and figuratively,” Ratzlaff told me. But he described his writing credit as “very awesome.”
“It’s so neat, as someone who has no serious scientific background on this—everything I know is self-taught,” he said. “I’d like to see it as a story of encouragement to other citizen scientists. The doors are opening up. The halls of science are not inaccessible. If you’re passionate and you reach out to members of these communities, they will respond. They’re everyday people who you can ask questions to—and if it leads down this path, to an investigation like this, you can become part of the study now, too.”
Lyons, the UCLA physicist, agreed. “It is truly exciting, to us as aurora scientists, that there is a group of amateurs out there who enjoy the aurora so much that they could put together something that is this new to us. That’s just unbelievably cool,” he said.
Steve has now achieved worldwide fame. While the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, may be the best-known version of the phenomenon, the aurora also appears in the southern hemisphere as the aurora australis. Steve has likewise popped up down south. He was recently spotted by sky watchers in New Zealand.
But Steve hasn’t left his old haunts. On Friday night, Ratzlaff stood huddled with his camera, at a popular spot for aurora-watching near Calgary called “Twisty Road Pond.” As the aurora lulled, he looked around—and there, faintly, at the top of his sky, was Steve.
Against ALL my better judgement (I had z e r o interest in the 1st one, this one seems problematic for all the reasons described in the post, and also YOU CAN'T APPARATE IN HOGWARTS) this trailer has me intrigued D-: Plus Zoe Kravitz looks divine AS ALWAYS.
We’d hardly call ourselves hardcore Potterverse fans, but it seems to us there’s more than a bit of fan unrest regarding this picture. From the apparent light de-gaying of the Dumbledore character to the rather poor attempts at explaining why the film cast Johnny Depp in the title role, it feels more and more like this one’s coming out of the gate with a strong headwind against it.
We can’t say we have strong feelings about it either way, since the first Fantastic Beasts film was little more than a charming bit of forgettable fantasy, from where we were sitting. But no matter how ambivalent we may have been about the sequel or how irritating we tend to find Eddie Redmayne or how questionable we find the appeal of Johnny Depp…
…it sure is pretty to look at.
What can we say? That lovely clash of early 20th Century clothing styles with fantasy design tropes is our costume design sweet spot. It gets us all a-tingle, darlings – but only when it’s done well. Fortunately, they handed the reins over to highly lauded and awarded costume designer Colleen Atwood, who knows a thing or two about how to spin a believable fantasy out of costume design.
Also, Jude Law is looking FOINE, which is a bit of a double-edged sword, because he’s basically Hot, But Sexless Dumbledore in this one, if the rumors are to be believed. Oh, well. We’ll just look at the clothes.
Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is the second of five all new adventures in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.
At the end of the first film, the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) was captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), with the help of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escaped custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings.
In an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.
The film features an ensemble cast led by Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, with Jude Law and Johnny Depp. The cast also includes, Zoë Kravitz, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, William Nadylam, Kevin Guthrie, Carmen Ejogo, and Poppy Corby-Tuech.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is directed by David Yates, from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling. The film is produced by David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram.
Slated for release on November 16, 2018, the film will be distributed worldwide in 2D and 3D in select theatres and IMAX by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment.
[Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros. – Video Credit: via YouTube.com]
We don’t have a Friday Chat scheduled for today — if you’d like to volunteer, email nicole@thebillfold.com — so instead I’m going to suggest you read Highline’s “Jerry and Marge Go Large.”
You know that old saying “the lottery is a tax on people who can’t do math?” Well, Jerry does the math on a particular type of lottery — the kind where, if nobody matches all the numbers and wins the big jackpot, the money gets distributed among the people who matched some of the numbers — and figures out how many tickets he’ll need to buy to get a guaranteed return on his investment. (Spoiler alert: he’s buying hundreds of thousands of tickets per lottery.)
Meanwhile, a few other people (including a group of MIT students) do the same math… and that’s when things get interesting.
um hi hello can i put in an application to join this brunch group
Miss Janelle partnered with Belvedere Vodka (mainstay of fine brunches everywhere) for a “Fem the Future” brunch, attended by all her most stylish and fabulous friends. We figure our invite got lost in the mail or something.
Ava DuVernay
She has such a unique style; this sort of Afro-Boho-Nerdy Chic thing. We would never applaud this as a conventional red carpet look, but it’s so right for her and just right for this event.
Danai Gurira in Thom Browne
Love the combination of buttoned-down professionalism with a touch of whimsy. That should be the official bag of Bitter Kittens everywhere. Or at least, for Bitter Kittens with lots of cash lying around gathering dust.
Dee Rees
Kinda living for Miss Dee’s Star Trek Leisure Suit realness here. It’s a bit goofy, but it’s an Oscars weekend brunch, dammit. Let the lady be goofy and shiny while she sips her mimosa.
Geena Davis
Love Miss Geena but this sweater dress is kind of drab for pictures. That sad sash doesn’t help.
LOVE. It’s bold and bright, chic and casual. Perfect for brunch and for pictures. We don’t expect vigorous agreement on this, but we love the white pumps. They make the look.
Rosario Dawson
Ms. Dawson has an art class to teach at the kids center later this afternoon. Ms. Dawson always seems to have an art class in her immediate future.
Tessa Thompson in Rodarte
Kickass, goofy and sort of fabulous. Only one of those words is used with any frequency when describing a Rodarte look. We’re sure you can guess which one. Love the coat. The t-shirt and leather pants are good-on-paper pieces that don’t quite live up to the coat.
It's been a minute (221 days to be exact, but who's counting?) since the site went dark, and we are overjoyed to be back to filling these pages with much-needed coverage of the District. [ 
.
