Guys, Patti Smith...

Guys, Patti Smith has earned a Golden Globe nomination for her song––they are calling it a lullaby "Mercy Is," which she produced for Darren Aronofsky's "Noah."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/movies/awardsseason/subversive-and-smart-scores-raise-the-volume-in-oscar-talk.html

Think this can't be beat, oh, but it can. Patti covering Rihanna's Stay––one of my secret favorite songs (possibly of all time)––live at Webster Hall in December 2013. I hope she takes this one to the studio. And the real question becomes, where have I been?  Living under a rock? I have not listened to the song about thirty times on repeat. It is so beautiful.

Here you go my pretties:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stargazing_blog/2014/01/patti_smith_sings_rihanna_s__stay_.html

And I know it is superficial, but leave it to Patti to be just on-trend enough to get a god-damn lob and make it look utterly incredible. Can I be just one drop like her by the time I'm 68?  I am in love:

What I really love about Patti Smith is her quiet authenticity.

Lana Del Ray in concert

Am I too old and tired to drive to Montreal, QC to see Lana Del Ray in concert in July. Part of me says, "yes, absolutely." The other part says, "I don't want to grow up."

At any rate, she is playing half the shows with special guest, none other than, Courtney Love Cobain, in tow, but I definitely cannot go all the way to CA to see Del Ray and Love.

Here are the details:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lana-del-rey-courtney-love-plot-joint-2015-tour-20141201

In Performance/Courtney Love/NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/video/theater/100000003425633/in-performance-courtney-love.html?smid=nytimesarts

No the no-resolution, resolution.

This post is just a link to a Huffington Post article, but, man, I was so relieved when I found it this morning. I was thinking about resolutions, and how to explain that I don't normally do resolutions so much as set intentions for the year. Maybe the intentions are closer to goals, I am not sure. It is hard to describe how I interpret this ritual. What I do know is that after 36 years I have finally figured out this old, you already have everything you need mantra. You do. I do. And so I think that Pema is right: there is no need for "self-improvement." You look fine. Your house looks fine. Your fit enough. So maybe this year, the resolution might be to just keep doing what you are doing. Stay the course. Travel your path:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/pema-chodron-oprah_n_6391248.html

That doesn't mean you get a free-pass, however. It is more like you don't have to try to so hard, because the universe will serve up plenty of new opportunities for you (for us!) to deal with what we need to deal with. Pema says it as Pema says it: "Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to learn." And, I think, that when we see life as just one big learning project, one big day at school, maybe everything becomes less scary, and more evocative and exciting instead. I mean, what's so wrong with being schooled if you need to be schooled. (Plus: I was always so good at school!)

PEACE!

Stop saying sorry.

Women as one of my students this semester reminded me through her end-of-the-semester research project are always apologizing. Always. For. Everything. We need to stop. I need to stop. I am going to try to say, sorry, far less frequently this year. I am only going to use the word when I truly mean it, when I have a good reason to apologize and I am not going to use it every time someone steps in front of me, or every time I do something that I perceive as annoying to others. I am not, in other words, going to apologize for my very self, for existing. And you should not either.

http://time.com/2895799/im-sorry-pantene-shinestrong/

And, so, too, I am not going to negate my own power.

Let's change this old sticky to, I'm not sorry! 

What's your word-of-the-year for 2015?

What is your word-of-the-year for 2015? In response to a recent afternoon with a tarot card reader who used the Mother Peace deck––a copy of which I own, and which I found at a street-sale in San Francisco in the late 90s, and which was conceived of the year that I was born, 1978––my word is: ALLOW.

The "Magician" card came up in the reading, too, and well, in response, I am planning to wear a lot more leopard print this year. Have to get it out of my system, or have to get it in my system, I should say.

http://www.motherpeace.com

What is yours?

Missing NYC

I moved from New York City (really, I was living in Westchester) to upstate New York about a year ago. I love being upstate in the summers where the weather is generally cooler and the atmosphere appropriately laid back. But today, as I was walking around my small town, and finally recognizing the faces of other people who live here (more on this later), I suddenly got a WOOSH of nostalgia for New York City. Sometimes, I miss the crush of people, the sense of anonymity, and long walks. Today I wanted to walk the city streets for hours and just get lost in it all. Something about this cooler temperatures makes me miss New York, or at least the idea of New York.

But, then I look at images like this one and I think, "I'm done."

I wonder if I will ever live there again. And I wonder why New York always seduces me. I have lived there a few times, but I am getting to the age where I really want to settle down.

Digital dating

I am not going to lie: I am doing the online or digital dating thing. And it is not fun. This recent article from the New York Times nails one of the reasons why: too much choice, does not necessarily make for happy human beings:

"Here's the problem with bigger numbers and endless possibility: They don't go well with humands.  We don't have the processing power.  Dating is not simply about finding like-minded people, but about limiting your potential set of choices.  When we're making a selection from what sociologists call a bounded set of choices, we can 'satisfice' ––that is reach a kind of threshold of satisfaction.  Once we find something above that level great, let's try it.

When the number of options increases, we become maximizers––unsatisfied with those options, and wanting more.  On Tinder, we can judge, swipe and date as if there is an unlimited number of matches. Faced with boundless choices, can we ever choose?" (Reich).

I would be remiss to say that I have "boundless choices" on the dating front, but I do have a few and it can feel overwhelming.

Have you digital dated?
What has your experience been like?
Please share.

Read the New York Times piece here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/opinion/sunday/playing-the-numbers-in-digital-dating.html

Zosia Mamet on eating disorders

Zosia Mamet discusses her struggle with an eating disorder from a young age. She is right that they best way to deal with this issue is to talk more about it and spread awareness. I love her look and her work on Girls. Worth the read:

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2014/08/zosia-mamet-opens-up-about-her-eating-disorder

 (Also, on a less serious note, of course, this is how bobs are done. BLUNT.) 

The Snuggery

The Snuggery is a professional snuggling service. This company got some press a while back, but I wanted to say something about it here: it seems like such a great idea, I can't believe that there are not more of these services popping up. Should I start one, too?

Have a look at the website, if you please:

http://www.thesnuggery.org

More on why daydreaming matters––to your health!

These days, I feel that, as culture, we have all but forgotten about the necessity for downtime. If you are not busy, you are considered lazy, or even worse, uncool.

Forget it, people. Put down what you are doing and allow your mind to wander, your brain to recharge and, gasp, your creativity (what's that?) to flow:

Thank you, New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/hit-the-reset-button-in-your-brain.html?_r=0

A Hard Life

Thank you to Nicholas Kristof for writing, "Is a Hard Life Inherited?," published in The New York Times on Sunday August, 10th.  The answer, of course, is, yes. I am glad that Kristof wrote this piece and is bringing attention and awareness to this issue. What's more, is that we need to figure out how to even the playing field from the earliest stages of life.  This is a human rights issue. Period.

Please read this article and circulate it to your friends and colleagues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-is-a-hard-life-inherited.html

Where it all began

The title of this blog is inspired by Daphne Merkin's article, "The Unfairest of Them All" published on October 16th, 2005. In the article Merkin explains the meaning of the French phrase, jolie laide, or jolie-laide.  In stark translation, the word means "pretty ugly"; but, the French use it to describe unconventional forms of beauty––women, for example, who are not "conventionally" or "classically" beautiful, but who still possess something that makes them desirable, fascinating, and beautiful.  While it was published almost ten years ago, I am still thinking about how this term might be applied not only to physical beauty, but to life itself, or to a lifestyle.  How might we return to this notion of jolie laide, in a world that has created increasingly narrow ideas of what is not only beautiful, but acceptable?

Sophia Coppola

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/style/tmagazine/t_b_2122_talk_jolie_laide_.html?pagewanted=all