Beyonce IS #Flawless

Incase you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, or are just unfamiliar with pop culture, Beyonce pulled an insanely awesome move last month and dropped an entire album (complete with oh ya know 17 music videos!) on iTunes.  The catch- no one knew about it until the day it was released.

(Photo grabbed from Beyonce’s Insta)

Amazing move.

Her music, her business savvy-ness, her incredibly handsome and talented husband who adores her, her beautiful daughter, her class, her style- are all reason enough to admire Beyonce Knowles-Carter.  But what I love most about her? Her fight for TRUE gender equality for women.

Gender equality for women, especially in business, is something I’ve been hearing a lot about recently. From some pretty awesome women I might add.

Arianna Huffington’s speech at Inbound 2013 was the first eye-opener that got me thinking about gender equality in the workplace.

Then, a few months later, I heard Cheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, speak at Dreamforce.  (More to come on this later.)

Now, I’m seeing more and more celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, speak up about the issues with gender in our society.

Just yesterday I stumbled across this quote from Beyonce in the Shiver Report:

“We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.” 

READ MORE

On that same web page comes another statistic I’d like to quote: “IF WOMEN RECEIVED PAY EQUAL TO THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS, THE U.S. ECONOMY WOULD PRODUCE $447.6 BILLION IN ADDITIONAL INCOME.”

I also believe that in order to achieve gender equality we women need to have more confidence. To truly believe that we are just as deserving to the pay and the positions that men hold in business.

New motto for 2014, ladies?

“I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell ’em”

#flawless

A Tribute to J.F.K.

President Kennedy will forever remain a timeless American icon. He and his wife were an inspiration to my grandmother and remain an inspiration to her granddaughter in many ways.

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.” – John F. Kennedy

In loving memory on Veteran’s Day.

This photo is a shot of my grandmother, just casually rocking a fur jacket- no big deal, and her brother, Tommy, before he left for the Navy in World War II.  (Unfortunately it’s a photo of a photo so the quality isn’t so great.)

I love this photo. It’s a portrait of an era, of class, of America and of love.

My grandmother and my great uncle were very close.  After a long hard war in which Tommy saw first hand some of the atrocities we have become more privy to but will never fully comprehend, he came home alive but with what I guess you would call a sever case of PTSD. From what I’ve been told there was a period of time after the war where Tommy didn’t speak.  My grandmother remained close to him during those years after the war while she waited for Tommy to get better. I remember my grandmother speaking of him fondly.  She loved him very much.

Everything about this story, about this photo speaks to some of the things I love most about America and about my family.  Loyalty and love. To a country and to each other.  I think that we lose sight of that all too often these days.

So today, we remember. We take pause to honor those who have fought, past and present, to enable the freedom of the pursuit of happiness to every American citizen.  Today, and all days, we are thankful and ever-so grateful for all of our US Veterans.

Flashback Friday- 70s style!

I got a copy of this vintage photo from my Ma a few days ago. (She’s the girl in the yellow all the way to the right in the middle row!) The picture used to be in one of my grandmother’s photo albums.  I remember my grandma telling me stories about every one of my Mum’s cousins photographed here, though I don’t recall most of them.

That being said, the photo still makes me smile thinking about sitting with my grandma and hearing her tales of days past. Furthermore, I absolutely LOVE the outfits and hair-dos! 🙂

Great Gatsby Covers

With the upcoming premier of the highly anticipated Great Gatsby remake (staring the one and only Leo, yeah, I’m a 90s kid who’s had a crush on the actor since his Titanic days) there has been a lot of talk about the famous book.

The Great Gatsby is one of my all time favorites and will remain to be for years to come, I imagine.  I’m due for another read soon.

Anyway, as a vintage lover, naturally I adored this post in the New York Times Magazine displaying old covers of the book.

Which copy did YOU read?

Rolling Stone’s ‘Mad Men’ Cheat Sheet

If you’ve been following my blog over the months, you know that I’m a huge fan of  AMC’s ‘Mad Men.’  I have been ever since season 2 was unfolding. While the wait for this season has been, AGAIN, excruciatingly long, I’m ecstatic for Season 6 to begin this Sunday.

If you are one of the few that haven’t caught ‘Mad Men’ fever or the wait has just left blanks in your memory as to what happened last season, Rolling Stone’s character cheat sheet will bring you up to speed in no time!  Enjoy Sunday’s two hour premier!!!

By Sarene Leeds

April 3, 2013 12:00 PM ET

One of the many reasons Mad Men has kept us hooked for five-plus seasons is its ability to cram (approximately) an entire year’s worth of action into 13 episodes, and yet the last moments of every season finale make it seem as if the drama is just beginning. In Season Three, we ended on the first day of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s existence. Season Four it wasDon and Megan‘s surprise engagement. But it was the bleak Season Five (one episode was called “Dark Shadows,” for heaven’s sake!) that gave us Mad Men’s most cliffhanger-esque finale to date: For a good nine months, we’ve been dying to know what Don’s answer to that mysterious blonde in the bar was – or what year the show will even be in when it returns this Sunday. So as we wait with bated breath for what the sixth season premiere will yield, here’s a cheat sheet of the SCDP crew’s most pernicious antics from May 1966 to spring 1967.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FROM SEASON FIVE AHEAD

Don Draper
Throughout Season Five, many viewers had one repeated question for Jon Hamm’s alter ego: “Who are you and what have you done with Don Draper?” Aside from a spooky fever dream in which he slept with and killed a former conquest, Don, for the first time in Mad Men’s history, maintained a sole sexual partner for a whole season – his sultry new wife, Megan. But any fair-weather viewer could see how much of a struggle fidelity was for Don, no matter how many times Megan flashed her boobs in the office or serenaded him with “Zou Bisou Bisou.” By the season’s end, Don, racked with guilt over Lane Pryce‘s suicide (which manifests in visions of his also-dead-by-a-self-inflicted-hanging half-brother, Adam Whitman), found himself potentially exiting his marriage stage left – illustrated in the now-iconic shot of the camera pulling away from Megan about to shoot her first commercial as Don walks off the set – and toward a crossroads. Our final view of Don is of him contemplating the loaded question posed by a female stranger in a bar: “Are you alone?”

Cover Story Excerpt: On the Set of ‘Mad Men’ With Jon Hamm

Peggy Olson
She broke through the countless glass ceilings at both Sterling Cooper and SCDP, but Peggy’s lack of a penis continued to thwart her climb up the corporate ladder. Between her protégé, the outspoken, loud-jacketed Michael Ginsberg, usurping her success and Don disrespecting her opinions by tossing a wad of cash in her face, Peggy decided she’d had enough and got herself a shiny new copy chief position at rival firm Cutler, Gleason and Chaough. When we last see her, she is luxuriating in her Richmond, Virginia, hotel room, having experienced her first-ever plane ride and business trip, ostensibly for the account that would become Virginia Slims cigarettes. Peggy’s relationship with brash journalist Abe Drexler reached a new level in the fifth season as well. During a romantic dinner at Minetta Tavern, he proposed – that they move in together. Although traditional-minded Peggy was disappointed that there was no ring in the offing, she accepted, causing a rift between her and her staunchly Catholic mother in the process.

Pete Campbell
While the word “faithful” could never be used to describe the SCDP junior partner’s attitude toward his marriage, Season Five saw Pete pick up the tortured-womanizer torch Don left behind once he tied the knot with Megan. Pete brought in more business than ever before, but he paid the price with his personal life. Bored with Trudy, her revolving wardrobe of frumpy housecoats and their quiet life in suburban Cos Cob, Connecticut, city boy Pete struck up a flirtation with a high school coed, sought the company of hookers and eventually entered into an affair with his commuting buddy’s wife, Beth Dawes. But no amount of surreptitious hearts drawn in a foggy car window could save this ill-fated romance: When Beth voluntarily underwent electro-shock therapy, her entire memory of Pete was erased. A despondent Pete subsequently got into a fistfight with Howard Dawes on the train, prompting Trudy, who thinks Pete’s bruised face is the result of yet another car accident due to fatigue, to suggest her husband take a pied à terre in Manhattan. What Trudy doesn’t realize is she’s just delivered Pete straight into the arms of more adultery.

Joan Harris
SCDP’s director of agency operations embodied feminist empowerment at the start of this season – and then became the subject of endless debate as she traded on her sex appeal for money, power and security. We all applauded new mother Joan for kicking her hotheaded bully of a husband, Greg, to the curb in the fourth episode – even though I still feel that by not mentioning that baby Kevin was, in fact, Roger‘s son was a missed opportunity in Greg’s deserved emasculation. But reality for Joan quickly set in, as she realized she is now a single mother who needs to provide for her child. Enter Pete with the answer to her prayers, disguised as an indecent proposal: Spend one night in heaven with a Jaguar exec, and the account will be SCDP’s. After a drunken heart-to-heart with Don (who cautioned her against whoring herself out for the sake of the company) and an honest financial discussion with Lane, Joan named her price – a partnership – and ultimately did the deed. In the season finale, as Joan shows her fellow partners around SCDP’s potential new second floor, she marks her territory as an executive with a can of red spray paint and by wearing a bright crimson dress.

Betty Francis
Betty’s petty jealousies got progressively worse during season five, in spite of the character’s limited appearances due to January Jones’ real-life pregnancy. The character scored a brief moment of audience sympathy when she had a cancer scare in an early episode, but she quickly reverted back to her selfish behavior once she got the all-clear. Now battling significant weight gain, Betty redirected her wrath toward Don’s “child bride,” Megan, mainly because the new Mrs. Draper is younger, sexier and Sally‘s preferred female companion of late. In an attempt to drive a wedge between Don, Megan and Sally, Betty goes all middle school mean girl by casually mentioning to Sally that her dad had a “first wife” named Anna. But Betty learns she doesn’t need to resort to childish games when it comes to her daughter’s love. When Sally panics after getting her first period while away from home, she rushes back to Rye to seek comfort in her mother’s embrace.

Roger Sterling
Ever since Roger lost the Lucky Strike account in Season Four, he has continued to wander around his professional and personal life in an aimless search for youth and relevance. The fifth season saw him with an empty appointment book, spurring him to pathetically horn in on Pete’s business deals. His second marriage wasn’t faring any better, as an eye-opening LSD trip – taken with his wife, Jane – only made the two realize how unhappy they were (their penchant for matching hot-pink towel turbans notwithstanding), and they separated soon afterward. After his brief detour into the valley of the twentysomethings, Roger turned his attention back onto someone more age-appropriate, Megan’s mother, Marie Calvet. But even Marie wasn’t interested in babying the infantile adman, declining his invitation to take LSD together. So Roger, having found yet another escape route from this thing we call life, closed out the season by dropping acid in a hotel room. Naked and alone.

Megan Draper
To the casual observer, especially a female one in 1966, Megan Calvet Draper had hit the jackpot. In the span of one year, she went from SCDP receptionist to partner’s wife – receiving a considerable promotion to junior copywriter in the process. Her marriage to Don also garnered her a fabulous Park Avenue pad, a closetful of designer minidresses and an intimacy not previously awarded Betty: Don brought Megan up to speed on that whole Dick Whitman identity thing sometime between the engagement and their walk down the aisle. But wealth and nepotism still don’t buy happiness. Midway through the season, Megan, despite an innate knack for the advertising game, decided to resume her previously nonexistent acting career. After a few months of failed auditions and a rejected screen test, Megan asked Don for a leg up, which she got in the form of a starring role in a Butler Shoes (a SCDP client) “Beauty and the Beast” commercial. As Don walked off the set and away from his dirndl-clad wife, his detachment suggested Megan’s independence and success could lead to the downfall of their marriage.

Sally Draper
Oh, Sally. This poor kid can’t find a comfort zone no matter where she goes. If she stays in Rye, she gets to be verbally abused by Betty and drugged with Seconal by her demented step-grandma Pauline Francis. If she goes to New York, sure, her new BFF Megan will outfit her in the latest adolescent mod wear, but there’s also the chance of Sally witnessing her other step-grandma, Marie, give Roger a blow job at an advertising gala. The budding teenager is still carrying on her illicit relationship with her kinda-sorta-but-not-really boyfriend, Glen Bishop, now a prep-school student at Hotchkiss, but it wasn’t until the penultimate episode that they moved beyond late-night telephone calls. On the most unromantic date ever at the Museum of Natural History, puberty struck in the bathroom, and a go-go-booted Sally ditched Glen for a hot water bottle and some mother-daughter bonding with Betty.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/mad-men-cheat-sheet-what-you-need-to-know-for-season-six-20130403#ixzz2PY1In1hk

Vintage Ads

I’m somewhat of a vintage junkie. I adore all things vintage and antique.  It’s not just the style and the look, it’s the history behind it. To me things that are vintage have a story to tell and that makes them that much more appealing.  As a writer, naturally I love stories.

Anyway, in the hours I’ve spent perusing Pinterest, I’ve come across some awesome vintage ads and photo shoots that not only emphasize a style I dig, but also represent a time in history I enjoy.

(Photo from ModCloth pin board.)

Famous classic Vogue cover.

 

Julie Christie modelling for Vogue US, February 1966. (Photo courtesy of Steve Jones)

 

New Track: Haim

I was recently introduced to Haim, a group of sisters who formulated the band in LA, CA years ago but never became all that popular until their music exploded on the UK scene. Their music video for their latest track, “Falling,” already has over 739,000 views.

The few popular tracks they have recorded have exploded all over YouTube.  I’m telling you, these girls are in the process of taking over the indie music scene. I’ve been following them on Facebook and it seems that almost every day they have added more tour dates, including this year’s Bonaroo music festival.

The sisters, who look like they just walked out of an American Apparel store at all times, are extremely talented and have incredibly unique voices.

While seemingly just another indie girl band embodying all that is “hipster” these days (even their music video has what we might call an Instagram filter over it). They are incredibly talented and are so much more than a style.  I was absolutely convinced of this when listening to the acoustic version of their “Go Slow” track.

All of their songs have this 80’s feel to them that make it all too easy to dance to in your chair at work while your coworkers look at you like, “What the?! It’s 10 am on a Tuesday.”

Whatever, I totally dig their sound.  Furthermore, as a 20-something girl always trying to find meaning in life’s everyday adventures and constantly stumbling and learning from the falls, the lyrics are very relatable.

“Don’t stop, no, I’ll never give up
And I’ll never look back, just hold your head up
And if it gets rough, it’s time to get rough
They keep saying
Don’t stop, no one’s ever enough”

Is it April yet?

(photo compliments of Rolling Stone)

April 7th is the official premier date of one of my all time faves, “Mad Men.” I can hardly wait to see Don Draper back in action!

Rolling Stone scooped the “Mad Men” season 6 premiere announcement from the The New York Times yesterday:

“Mad Men will return to TV on April 7th with a two-hour season premiere, The New York Times reports. The 1960s period drama will travel through time, though series creator Matthew Weiner was dodgy about which specific year the new season will be set in.

“I can’t say how much or how little,” said Weiner. “We’re coming off a period in Don’s life where he’s trying to normalize, and trying to have this relationship – a real relationship with this woman that he fell in love with. She expressed her desires and that was a surprise for him. On this show, it’s a very rich, full orchestra, and we like to follow what is the next stage in these people’s lives.”

Weiner likened the extended season premiere to starting a story with a movie. “It has some cliffhanger elements to it, it does propel you into the rest of the season — it does foreshadow a lot what the season is about,” he said. “But I was like, I want to write a movie here, that we can create the atmosphere and vibe of the season.”

Season Six will be the penultimate season of Mad Men.”

Check out some more black and white shots in today’s Rolling Stone article.

 

Favorite Foto Friday

I took this photo back in June (I can tell because of the date on the paper.) It was a random early morning shot taken one day I was indulging and getting breakfast at Aurora.  I hardly thought anything of it at the time.

Now when I go through my photos from the year I find it to be one of my all time favorite photos.  It’s so simple yet so amazing.  The colors are perfect. The photo is the epitome of a good morning in my mind.  Simple, yet informative and delicious.

I don’t know what it is about this photo but it truly brings me peace to take it in.

I think a lot of it has to do with the paper itself.  To me, as a journalism major who once upon a time wanted to be Edward R. Murrow or Marguerite Higgins, The New York Times is part of an elite class of journalism.  Which is a very small group of people.  To this day, it brings me great pleasure to read.  The writing is almost always perfect, in my mind.

To do: Read the New York Times more.