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womansharry · 4 years

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Fashion blogger and New York Socialite Juliet Oliver meets rockstar Harry Styles. And what follows is a story that no one could have predicted.

Chapter 1 - Gold Dust Woman

Juliet Oliver stepped out of the black SUV. A man in a black suit approached her.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Oliver. You'll walk the carpet in just a minute. Stay here. I'll send you as soon as I can." He turned to another man, and Juliet took a second to look down at her gown. She was wearing a purple Giambattista Valli gown. The floor-length dress was made entirely of tulle. It was growing heavier by the minute. She smiled despite the discomfort, relishing in the fact that she was about to walk the carpet at the Met Gala.

Juliet had grown up obsessing over fashion. She would stay up way past her bedtime and look at the pictures in her mother's copies of Vogue and Elle. She would often sneak into her mother's closet and try on her various dresses from DVF or Dior. When she was in high school, she developed a bad habit of leaving school early to go shopping at Bloomingdale's with her best friends.

Juliet had been born into a prominent Upper West Side family. Her father, Richard Oliver was a hedgefund lawyer. Her mother, Marie Lawrence-Oliver had been a model in the late 70s and early 80s before she met Juliet's father. By the late 80s, Marie had become a mother and decided that she would stay home with her children. First came Christopher. Chris had always been interested in movies. He had gone to NYU's film school for college and moved to LA right after. Next came Caroline. Caroline followed in her father's footsteps and went to law school. She attended Brown as a legacy student and had come back to NYC for a job in the financial district. Juliet was the youngest of the three and had attended college at Columbia.

Somehow over the past few years, she had amassed 1.2 million followers on Instagram. After graduating she decided to turn those followers into an audience and she launched a website. She had been writing full time for her blog for 3 and a half years. She had been featured in Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, and Vogue. The latter had led to a friendship with Anna Wintour. She had also traveled to Paris and London working with brands like Stella McCartney and Saint Laurent. Juliet could hardly believe that this was her life, working in fashion and writing about the things that she truly loved.

"Alright, Ms. Oliver are you ready?" She took a deep breath and smiled at the man. She started walking and was met with a large crowd of photographers and reporters.

There was a chorus of shouts, "This way!" "Juliet, over here!" "Look here," "Smile" as she made her way across the pink carpet. She began ascending the iconic Met steps. She stopped for a couple of interviews. As she was about to head inside she heard the shrieks of the teenage girls that were lined up along 5th Avenue. Years ago, that had been her. She looked over at the front entrance and noticed that Alessandro Michele, the creative director at Gucci, had arrived and with him was Harry Styles. Harry wore a sheer black top, black heeled boots, and a single earring. She admired his outfit from afar before turning her attention back to the front doors of the MET.

"Juliet!" She turned to see Lana Condor making her way up the steps. Juliet had met Lana and a few other ladies wearing Giambattista months ago during fittings.

"Lana, it's so good to see you. You look gorgeous!" Juliet pulled her in for a hug.

"Thanks, Juliet, so do you! They knew what they were doing when they put you in purple. It's your color!"

"You're the sweetest. Next time you're in New York we should get dinner." Juliet said and she moved up to the next step.

"Yes, for sure! I'll see you inside." Lana stepped towards one of the red carpet correspondents to give an interview.

Juliet headed towards the front door nearly running into Harry Styles as she did.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said quickly. He looked over at her with his emerald green eyes and dimpled smile.

"S'okay love. Y'look very nice, by the way." She felt warmth spread through her body and she smiled back at him.

"Thanks, so do you."

"'m Harry." He stuck his hand out towards her.

"It's nice to meet you, Harry. I'm Juliet." His large hand was softer than she had expected.

"Hmm, Juliet. Quite a romantic name." He chuckled.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Juliet, s'nice to meet ya. Maybe I'll see ya inside, yeah?" He moved closer to the door.

"Yeah." She smiled and followed after him and into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

___

Sometime later Juliet was running on champagne and adrenaline. Cher was performing a few of her greatest hits. The beginning chords of "If I Could Turn Back Time" sounded through the speakers and Juliet smiled. She was dancing around in her own little world with some of the people around her when she noticed that Harry was watching her from across the room with a smile on his face.

Once the song was over she noticed that Harry had moved. He came up beside her and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Ya coming to the after-party? Think ya should." She nodded.

"I'll be there."

"Save a dance for me, yeah?" She felt her face turn red.

"I can do that." He gave her a longing look and made his way back over to his friends.

___

Alessandro was hosting a Met Gala after-party at Hunter College. Juliet changed into a red pantsuit. The blazer was v-neck and she decided that she wouldn't wear anything underneath. It gave her an edgier look. Once she was inside the school gymnasium it didn't take long for her to find Harry. He had a champagne glass in one hand and was using the other as he carried on about something. The speakers were blaring a song that Juliet didn't know when someone grabbed her arm.

"I didn't know that you'd be here." Juliet turned to see Mary Kate Olsen.

"Oh my god! It's so good to see you." Mary Kate smiled.

"Let's get a drink." the two girls set off in search of the bar. "Are you still writing?"

"Yeah, it's going really well. I'm meeting with a few people next week about starting my own fashion line. I know it's a lot of work, but it's something I've wanted to do forever." Juliet said as they approached the bar.

"I think that's a great idea. It might seem like it's an oversaturated market, but if you bring something to the table that's new and unique you'll do great." The girls both got Vodka Tonics and went back to an open couch.

"I'm really excited to start the process. I've got a long way to go." Juliet said sipping on her drink.

"Well, if you need help or just someone to talk to, please call me." Mary Kate gave her a smile. Despite being so private, Mary Kate Olsen had always gone out of her way to be kind to Juliet. They had met a few years ago at London Fashion Week.

"How's Ashley?"

"She's good. I feel like we're constantly running 100 miles per hour with our brands. She was at the gala earlier but she was ready to go home. Why don't you come by later this week and see us? You could even throw out some of your ideas for your line. We'd be happy to give you our opinions." Mary Kate touched Juliet's arm.

"Yes. I'll text you tomorrow after I look at my calendar. You'd think I'd have it on my phone. I'm still old fashioned that way. I like writing things down in my planner."

"Yeah, I understand. Please do that! See you soon."

Juliet stood up as well and looked out at the dance floor, so many people were scattered around dancing and talking. She told Mary Kate goodbye and made her way to the edge of the dance floor. "Sucker" by the Jonas Brothers was playing. Juliet laughed as she saw Harry singing his heart out.

The song died out and a new one began playing. She knew what it was almost immediately. It was, "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin, or as many people knew it as the love theme from Top Gun. She downed the rest of her vodka tonic and sat the empty glass on the closet table to her. She took a deep breath and approached Harry.

"How about that dance?" He gave her a devilish grin and pulled her in his arms.

"How's ya night been, Juliet?" Harry asked as they swayed back and forth to the 80s pop ballad.

"It's been great. I don't want it to end..." she wished out loud. She admired the man holding her, his features soft in the dim light of the gymnasium.

"Think I'll ever see ya again? Quiet like looking at ya." He asked. Juliet felt her cheeks heat up.

"Maybe, if you're lucky," she said teasingly. If Harry wanted to see her again, of course, she would say yes.

"Can't believe we've never met before."

"I know. I'm glad you were a co-chair this year. I like your style a lot. You dress in a way that makes you feel good, no matter what anyone says about you. I like that about you." She said. His green eyes were sparkling.

"Thank you. 'm blushing, really." They laughed together as the song died down.

"It was so nice to meet you, Harry. I'll see you around." He hesitated, almost like he didn't know how to respond. Finally, the words came out.

"Yeah, you too Jules. See ya around." He held her hand a second longer before letting go and drifting off into the crowd of people.

Juliet found the exit and called Cal, her driver. He pulled up a moment later. She got into the SUV and Cal drove off in the direction of her apartment. The entire drive home she played Harry's words over and over again in her head. "Yeah, you too Jules. See ya around." Normally, she only let her family call her Jules. But, she liked the way it sounded when Harry said it. As Cal pulled up outside her apartment, she silently prayed that tonight wasn't the last time she would see Harry.

_____

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hlupdate · 5 years

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Harry Styles isn’t exactly dressed down for lunch. He’s got a white floppy hat that Diana Ross might have won from Elton in a poker game at Cher’s mansion circa 1974, plus Gucci shades, a cashmere sweater, and blue denim bell-bottoms. His nail polish is pink and mint green. He’s also carrying his purse — no other word for it — a yellow patent-canvas bag with the logo “Chateau Marmont.” The tough old ladies who work at this Beverly Hills deli know him well. Gloria and Raisa dote on him, calling him “my love” and bringing him his usual tuna salad and iced coffee. He turns heads, to put it mildly, but nobody comes near because the waitresses hover around the booth protectively.

He was just a small-town English lad of 16 when he became his generation’s pop idol with One Direction. When the group went on hiatus, he struck out on his own with his brash 2017 solo debut, whose lead single was the magnificently over-the-top six-minute piano ballad “Sign of the Times.” Even people who missed out on One Direction were shocked to learn the truth: This pinup boy was a rock star at heart.

A quick highlight reel of Harry’s 2019 so far: He hosted the Met Gala with Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Alessandro Michele, and Anna Wintour serving an eyebrow-raising black lace red-carpet look. He is the official face of a designer genderless fragrance, Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur. When James Corden had an all-star dodgeball match on The Late Late Show, Harry got spiked by a hard serve from Michelle Obama, making him perhaps the first Englishman ever hit in the nads on TV by a First Lady.

Closer to his heart, he brought down the house at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony with his tribute to his friend and idol Stevie Nicks. “She’s always there for you,” Harry said in his speech. “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” He added, “She’s responsible for more running mascara — including my own — than all the bad dates in history.” (Backstage, Nicks accidentally referred to Harry’s former band as “’NSync.” Hey, a goddess can get away with that sort of thing.)

Harry has been the world’s It boy for nearly a decade now. The weirdest thing about him? He loves being this guy. In a style of fast-lane celebrity that takes a ruthless toll on the artist’s personality, creativity, sanity, Harry is almost freakishly at ease. He has managed to grow up in public with all his boyish enthusiasm intact, not to mention his manners. He’s dated a string of high-profile women — but he never gets caught uttering any of their names in public, much less shading any of them. Instead of going the usual superstar-pop route — en vogue producers, celebrity duets, glitzy club beats — he’s gone his own way, and gotten more popular than ever. He’s putting the finishing touches on his new album, full of the toughest, most soulful songs he’s written yet. As he explains, “It’s all about having sex and feeling sad.”

The Harry Charm is a force of nature, and it can be almost frightening to witness in action. The most startling example might be a backstage photo from February taken with one of his heroes, Van Morrison. You have never seen a Van picture like this one. He’s been posing for photos for 50 years, and he’s been refusing to crack a smile in nearly all of them. Until he met Harry — for some reason, Van beams like a giddy schoolgirl. What did Harry do to him? “I was tickling him behind his back,” Harry confides. “Somebody sent me that photo — I think his tour manager took it. When I saw it, I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction opening the case with the gold light shining. I was like, ‘Fuck, maybe I shouldn’t show this to anyone.’”

In interviews, Harry has always tended to coast on that charm, simply because he can. In his teens, he was in public every minute and became adept at guarding every scrap of his privacy. But these days, he’s finding out he has things he wants to say. He’s more confident about thinking out loud and seeing what happens. “Looser” is how he puts it. “More open. I’m discovering how much better it makes me feel to be open with friends. Feeling that vulnerability, rather than holding everything in.”

Like a lot of people his age, he’s asking questions about culture, gender, identity, new ideas about masculinity and sexuality. “I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends who are guys who would talk about their emotions and be really open,” he says. “My friend’s dad said to me, ‘You guys are so much better at it than we are. I never had friends I could really talk to. It’s good that you guys have each other because you talk about real shit. We just didn’t.’”

It’s changed how he approaches his songs. “For me, it doesn’t mean I’ll sit down and be like, ‘This is what I have for dinner, and this is where I eat every day, and this is what I do before I go to bed,’” he says. “But I will tell you that I can be really pathetic when I’m jealous. Feeling happier than I’ve ever been, sadder than I’ve ever been, feeling sorry for myself, being mad at myself, being petty and pitiful — it feels really different to share that.”

At times, Harry sounds like an ordinary 25-year-old figuring his shit out, which, of course, he is. (Harry and I got to know each other last year, when he got in touch after reading one of my books, though I’d already been writing about his music for years.) It’s strange to hear him talk about shedding his anxieties and doubts, since he’s always come across as one of the planet’s most confident people. “While I was in the band,” he says, “I was constantly scared I might sing a wrong note. I felt so much weight in terms of not getting things wrong. I remember when I signed my record deal and I asked my manager, ‘What happens if I get arrested? Does it mean the contract is null and void?’ Now, I feel like the fans have given me an environment to be myself and grow up and create this safe space to learn and make mistakes.”

We slip out the back and spend a Saturday afternoon cruising L.A. in his 1972 silver Jaguar E-type. The radio doesn’t work, so we just sing “Old Town Road.” He marvels, “‘Bull riding and boobies’ — that is potentially the greatest lyric in any song ever.” Harry used to be pop’s mystery boy, so diplomatic and tight-lipped. But as he opens up over time, telling his story, he reaches the point where he’s pitching possible headlines for this profile. His best: “Soup, Sex, and Sun Salutations.”

How did he get to this new place? As it turns out, the journey involves some heartbreak. Some guidance from David Bowie. Some Transcendental Meditation. And more than a handful of magic mushrooms. But mostly, it comes down to a curious kid who can’t decide whether to be the world’s most ardently adored pop star, or a freaky artiste. So he decides to be both.

Two things about English rock stars never change: They love Southern California, and they love cars. A few days after Harry proclaimed the genius of “Old Town Road,” we’re in a different ride — a Tesla — cruising the Pacific Coast Highway while Harry sings along to the radio. “Californiaaaaaa!” he yells from behind the wheel as we whip past Zuma Beach. “It sucks!” There’s a surprising number of couples along the beach who seem to be arguing. We speculate on which ones are breaking up and which are merely having the talk. “Ah, yes, the talk,” Harry says dreamily. “Ye olde chat.”

Harry is feeling the smooth Seventies yacht-rock grooves today, blasting Gerry Rafferty, Pablo Cruise, Hall and Oates. When I mention that Nina Simone once did a version of “Rich Girl,” he needs to hear it right away. He counters by blowing my mind with Donny Hathaway’s version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”

Harry raves about a quintessential SoCal trip he just tried: a “cold sauna,” a process that involves getting locked in an ice chamber. His eyelashes froze. We stop for a smoothie (“It’s basically ice cream”) and his favorite pepper-intensive wheatgrass shot. It goes down like a dose of battery acid. “That’ll add years to your life,” he assures me.

We’re on our way to Shangri-La studios in Malibu, founded by the Band back in the 1970s, now owned by Rick Rubin. It’s where Harry made some of the upcoming album, and as we walk in, he grins at the memory. “Ah, yes,” he says. “Did a lot of mushrooms in here.”

Psychedelics have started to play a key role in his creative process. “We’d do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney’s Ram in the sunshine,” he says. “We’d just turn the speakers into the yard.” The chocolate edibles were kept in the studio fridge, right next to the blender. “You’d hear the blender going, and think, ‘So we’re all having frozen margaritas at 10 a.m. this morning.’” He points to a corner: “This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place.”

It’s not mere rock-star debauchery — it’s emblematic of his new state of mind. You get the feeling this is why he enjoys studios so much. After so many years making One Direction albums while touring, always on the run, he finally gets to take his time and embrace the insanity of it all. “We were here for six weeks in Malibu, without going into the city,” he says. “People would bring their dogs and kids. We’d take a break to play cornhole tournaments. Family values!” But it’s also the place where he has proudly bled for his art. “Mushrooms and Blood. Now there’s an album title.”

Some of the engineers come over to catch up on gossip. Harry gestures out the window to the Pacific waves, where the occasional nude revelry might have happened, and where the occasional pair of pants got lost. “There was one night where we’d been partying a bit and ended up going down to the beach and I lost all my stuff, basically,” he says. “I lost all my clothes. I lost my wallet. Maybe a month later, somebody found my wallet and mailed it back, anonymously. I guess it just popped out of the sand. But what’s sad is, I lost my favorite mustard corduroy flares.” A moment of silence is held for the corduroy flares.

Recording in the studio today is Brockhampton, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest boy band.” Harry says hi to all the Brockhampton guys, which takes a while since there seem to be a few dozen of them. “We’re together all the time,” one tells Harry out in the yard. “We see each other all day, every day.” He pauses. “You know how it is.”

Harry breaks into a dry grin. “Yes, I know how it is.”

One Direction made three of this century’s biggest and best pop albums in a rush — Midnight Memories, Four and Made in the A.M. Yet they cut those records on tour, ducking into the nearest studio when they had a day off. 1D were a unique mix of five different musical personalities: Harry, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, and Liam Payne. But the pace took its toll. Malik quit in the middle of a tour, immediately after a show in Hong Kong. The band announced its hiatus in August 2015.

It’s traditional for boy-band singers, as they go solo and grow up, to renounce their pop past. Everybody remembers George Michael setting his leather jacket on fire, or Sting quitting the Police to make jazz records. This isn’t really Harry Styles’ mentality. “I know it’s the thing that always happens. When somebody gets out of a band, they go, ‘That wasn’t me. I was held back.’ But it was me. And I don’t feel like I was held back at all. It was so much fun. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s not like I was tied to a radiator.”

Whenever Harry mentions One Direction — never by name, always “the band” or “the band I was in” — he uses the past tense. It is my unpleasant duty to ask: Does he see 1D as over? “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I’d ever say I’d never do it again, because I don’t feel that way. If there’s a time when we all really want to do it, that’s the only time for us to do it, because I don’t think it should be about anything else other than the fact that we’re all like, ‘Hey, this was really fun. We should do this again.’ But until that time, I feel like I’m really enjoying making music and experimenting. I enjoy making music this way too much to see myself doing a full switch, to go back and do that again. Because I also think if we went back to doing things the same way, it wouldn’t be the same, anyway.”

When the band stopped, did he take those friendships with him? “Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Definitely. Because above all else, we’re the people who went through that. We’re always going to have that, even if we’re not the closest. And the fact is, just because you’re in a band with someone doesn’t mean you have to be best friends. That’s not always how it works. Just because Fleetwood Mac fight, that doesn’t mean they’re not amazing. I think even in the disagreements, there’s always a mutual respect for each other — we did this really cool thing together, and we’ll always have that. It’s too important to me to ever be like, ‘Oh, that’s done.’ But if it happens, it will happen for the right reasons.”

If the intensity of the Harry fandom ever seems mysterious to you, there’s a live clip you might want to investigate, from the summer of 2018. Just search the phrase “Tina, she’s gay.” In San Jose, on one of the final nights of his tour, Harry spots a fan with a homemade sign: “I’m Gonna Come Out to My Parents Because of You!” He asks the fan her name (she says it’s Grace) and her mother’s name (Tina). He asks the audience for silence because he has an important announcement to make: “Tina! She’s gaaaaay!” Then he has the entire crowd say it together. Thousands of strangers start yelling “Tina, she’s gay,” and every one of them clearly means it — it’s a heavy moment, definitely not a sound you forget after you hear it. Then Harry sings “What Makes You Beautiful.” (Of course, the way things work now, the clip went viral within minutes. So did Grace’s photo of Tina giving a loving thumbs-up to her now-out teenage daughter. Grace and Tina attended Harry’s next show together.)

Harry likes to cultivate an aura of sexual ambiguity, as overt as the pink polish on his nails. He’s dated women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality. On his first solo tour, he frequently waved the pride, bi, and trans flags, along with the Black Lives Matter flag. In Philly, he waved a rainbow flag he borrowed from a fan up front: “Make America Gay Again.” One of the live fan favorites: “Medicine,” a guitar jam that sounds a bit like the Grateful Dead circa Europe ’72, but with a flamboyantly pansexual hook: “The boys and girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it.”

He’s always had a flair for flourishes like this, since the 1D days. An iconic clip from November 2014: Harry and Liam are on a U.K. chat show. The host asks the oldest boy-band fan-bait question in the book: What do they look for in a date? “Female,” Liam quips. “That’s a good trait.” Harry shrugs. “Not that important.” Liam is taken aback. The host is in shock. On tour in the U.S. that year, he wore a Michael Sam football jersey, in support of the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team. He’s blown up previously unknown queer artists like King Princess and Muna.

What do those flags onstage mean to him? “I want to make people feel comfortable being whatever they want to be,” he says. “Maybe at a show you can have a moment of knowing that you’re not alone. I’m aware that as a white male, I don’t go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can’t claim that I know what it’s like, because I don’t. So I’m not trying to say, ‘I understand what it’s like.’ I’m just trying to make people feel included and seen.”

On tour, he had an End Gun Violence sticker on his guitar; he added a Black Lives Matter sticker, as well as the flag. “It’s not about me trying to champion the cause, because I’m not the person to do that,” he says. “It’s just about not ignoring it, I guess. I was a little nervous to do that because the last thing I wanted was for it to feel like I was saying, ‘Look at me! I’m the good guy!’ I didn’t want anyone who was really involved in the movement to think, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ But then when I did it, I realized people got it. Everyone in that room is on the same page and everyone knows what I stand for. I’m not saying I understand how it feels. I’m just trying to say, ‘I see you.’”

At one of his earliest solo shows, in Stockholm, he announced, “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender — whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you. I love every single one of you.” “It’s a room full of accepting people.… If you’re someone who feels like an outsider, you’re not always in a big crowd like that,” he says. “It’s not about, ‘Oh, I get what it’s like,’ because I don’t. For example, I go walking at night before bed most of the time. I was talking about that with a female friend and she said, ‘Do you feel safe doing that?’ And I do. But when I walk, I’m more aware that I feel OK to walk at night, and some of my friends wouldn’t. I’m not saying I know what it feels like to go through that. It’s just being aware.”

‘Man cannot live by coffee alone,” Harry says. “But he will give it a damn good try.” He sips his iced Americano — not his first today, or his last. He’s back behind the wheel, on a mission to yet another studio — but this time for actual work. Today it’s string overdubs. Harry is dressed in Gucci from head to toe, except for one item of clothing: a ratty Seventies rock T-shirt he proudly scavenged from a vintage shop. It says “Commander Quaalude.”

On the drive over, he puts on the jazz pianist Bill Evans — “Peace Piece,” from 1959, which is the wake-up tone on his phone. He just got into jazz during a long sojourn in Japan. He likes to find places to hide out and be anonymous: For his first album, he decamped to Jamaica. Over the past year, he spent months roaming Japan.

In February, he spent his 25th birthday sitting by himself in a Tokyo cafe, reading Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. “I love Murakami,” he says. “He’s one of my favorites. Reading didn’t really used to be my thing. I had such a short attention span. But I was dating someone who gave me some books; I felt like I had to read them because she’d think I was a dummy if I didn’t read them.”

A friend gave him Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. “It was the first book, maybe ever, where all I wanted to do all day was read this,” he says. “I had a very Murakami birthday because I ended up staying in Tokyo on my own. I had grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast, then I went to this cafe. I sat and drank tea and read for five hours.”

In the studio, he’s overseeing the string quartet. He has the engineers play T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” for them, to illustrate the vibe he’s going for. You can see he enjoys being on this side of the glass, sitting at the Neve board, giving his instructions to the musicians. After a few run-throughs, he presses the intercom button to say, “Yeah, it’s pretty T. Rex. Best damn strings I ever heard.” He buzzes again to add, “And you’re all wonderful people.”

He’s curated his own weird enclave of kindred spirits to collaborate with, like producers Jeff Bhasker and Tyler Johnson. His guitarist Mitch Rowland was working at an L.A. pizza shop when Harry met him. They started writing songs for the debut; Rowland didn’t quit his job until two weeks into the sessions. One of his closest collaborators is also one of his best friends: Tom Hull, a.k.a. Kid Harpoon, a longtime cohort of Florence and the Machine. Hull is an effusive Brit with a heart-on-sleeve personality. Harry calls him “my emotional rock.” Hull calls him “Gary.”

Hull was the one who talked him into taking a course on Transcendental Meditation at David Lynch’s institute — beginning each day with 20 minutes of silence, which doesn’t always come naturally to either of them. “He’s got this wise-beyond-his-years timelessness about him,” Hull says. “That’s why he went on a whole emotional exploration with these songs.” He’s 12 years older, with a wife and kids in Scotland, and talks about Harry like an irreverent but doting big brother.

Last year, Harry was in the gossip columns dating the French model Camille Rowe; they split up last summer after a year together. “He went through this breakup that had a big impact on him,” Hull says. “I turned up on Day One in the studio, and I had these really nice slippers on. His ex-girlfriend that he was really cut up about, she gave them to me as a present — she bought slippers for my whole family. We’re still close friends with her. I thought, ‘I like these slippers. Can I wear them — is that weird?’

“So I turn up at Shangri-La the first day and literally within the first half-hour, he looks at me and says, ‘Where’d you get those slippers? They’re nice.’ I had to say, ‘Oh, um, your ex-girlfriend got them for me.’ He said, ‘Whaaaat? How could you wear those?’ He had a whole emotional journey about her, this whole relationship. But I kept saying, ‘The best way of dealing with it is to put it in these songs you’re writing.’”

True to his code of gallant discretion, Harry doesn’t say her name at any point. But he admits the songs are coming from personal heartbreak. “It’s not like I’ve ever sat and done an interview and said, ‘So I was in a relationship, and this is what happened,’” he says. “Because, for me, music is where I let that cross over. It’s the only place, strangely, where it feels right to let that cross over.”

The new songs are certainly charged with pain. “The stars didn’t align for them to be a forever thing,” Hull says. “But I told him that famous Iggy Pop quote where he says, ‘I only ever date women who are going to fuck me up, because that’s where the songs are.’ I said, ‘You’re 24, 25 years old, you’re in the eligible-bachelor category. Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up, and explore and have an adventure and let it affect you and write songs about it.’”

His band is full of indie rockers who’ve gotten swept up in Hurricane Harry. Before becoming his iconic drum goddess, Sarah Jones played in New Young Pony Club, a London band fondly remembered by a few dozen of us. Rowland and Jones barely knew anything about One Direction before they met Harry — the first time they heard “Story of My Life” was when he asked them to play it. Their conversation is full of references to Big Star or Guided by Voices or the Nils Lofgren guitar solo in Neil Young’s “Speakin’ Out.” This is a band full of shameless rock geeks, untainted by industry professionalism.

In the studio, while making the album, Harry kept watching a vintage Bowie clip on his phone — a late-Nineties TV interview I’d never seen. As he plays it for me, he recites along — he’s got the rap memorized. “Never play to the gallery,” Bowie advises. “Never work for other people in what you do.” For Harry, this was an inspiring pep talk — a reminder not to play it safe. As Bowie says, “If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

He got so obsessive about Joni Mitchell and her 1971 classic Blue, he went on a quest. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties.” He found her living in Culver City. “She said, ‘Come and see me,’” Hull says. “We turn up at her house and he said, ‘How do you even play a dulcimer?’ She gave us a lesson. Then she got a bongo and we were all jamming with these big Cheshire Cat grins.” She built the dulcimer Harry plays on the new album. “Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, those are my two favorites,” he says. “Blue and Astral Weeks are just the ultimate in terms of songwriting. Melody-wise, they’re in their own lane.”

He’s always been the type to go overboard with his fanboy enthusiasms, ever since he was a kid and got his mind blown by Pulp Fiction. “I watched it when I was probably too young,” he admits. “But when I was 13, I saved up money from my paper route to buy a ‘Bad Motherfucker’ wallet. Just a stupid white kid in the English countryside with that wallet.” While in Japan, he got obsessively into Paul McCartney and Wings, especially London Town and Back to the Egg. “In Tokyo I used to go to a vinyl bar, but the bartender didn’t have Wings records. So I brought him Back to the Egg. ‘Arrow Through Me,’ that was the song I had to hear every day when I was in Japan.”

He credits meditation for helping to loosen him up. “I was such a skeptic going in,” he says. “But I think meditation has helped with worrying about the future less, and the past less. I feel like I take a lot more in—things that used to pass by me because I was always rushing around. It’s part of being more open and talking with friends. It’s not always the easiest to go in a room and say, ‘I made a mistake and it made me feel like this, and then I cried a bunch.’ But that moment where you really let yourself be in that zone of being vulnerable, you reach this feeling of openness. That’s when you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking living, man.’”

After quite a few hours of recording the string quartet, a bottle of Casamigos tequila is opened. Commander Quaalude pours the drinks, then decides what the song needs now is a gaggle of nonsingers bellowing the chorus. “Muppet vocals” is how he describes it. He drags everyone in sight to crowd around the mics. Between takes, he wanders over to the piano to play Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up.” One of the choir members, creative director Molly Hawkins, is the friend who gave him the Murakami novel. “I think every man should read Norwegian Wood,” she says. “Harry’s the only man I’ve given it to who actually read it.”

It’s been a hard day’s night in the studio, but after hours, everyone heads to a dive bar on the other side of town to see Rowland play a gig. He’s sitting in with a local bar band, playing bass. Harry drives around looking for the place, taking in the sights of downtown L.A. (“Only a city as narcissistic as L.A. would have a street called Los Angeles Street,” he says.) He strolls in and leans against the bar in the back of the room. It’s an older crowd, and nobody here has any clue who he is. He’s entirely comfortable lurking incognito in a dim gin joint. After the gig, as the band toasts with PBRs, an old guy in a ball cap strolls over and gives Rowland a proud bear hug. It’s his boss from the pizza shop.

In the wee hours, Harry drives down a deserted Sunset Boulevard, his favorite time of night to explore the city streets, arguing over which is the best Steely Dan album. He insists that Can’t Buy a Thrill is better than Countdown to Ecstasy (wrongly), and seals his case by turning it up and belting “Midnight Cruiser” with truly appalling gusto. Tonight Hollywood is full of bright lights, glitzy clubs, red carpets, but the prettiest pop star in town is behind the wheel, singing along with every note of the sax solo from “Dirty Work.”

A few days later, on the other side of the world: Harry’s pad in London is lavish, yet very much a young single dude’s lair. Over here: a wall-size framed Sex Pistols album cover. Over there: a vinyl copy of Stevie Nicks’ The Other Side of the Mirror, casually resting on the floor. He’s having a cup of tea with his mum, Anne, the spitting image of her son, all grace and poise. “We’re off to the pub,” he tells her. “We’re going to talk some shop.” She smiles sweetly. “Talk some shit, probably,” says Anne.

We head off to his local, sloshing through the rain. He’s wearing a Spice World hoodie and savoring the soggy London-osity of the day. “Ah, Londres!” he says grandly. “I missed this place.” He wants to sit at a table outside, even though it’s pouring, and we chat away the afternoon over a pot of mint tea and a massive plate of fish and chips. When I ask for toast, the waitress brings out a loaf of bread roughly the size of a wheelbarrow. “Welcome to England,” Harry says.

He’s always had a fervent female fandom, and, admirably, he’s never felt a need to pretend he doesn’t love it that way. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he says. “They have that bullshit detector. You want honest people as your audience. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They fucking own this shit. They’re running it.”

He doesn’t have the uptightness some people have about sexual politics, or about identifying as a feminist. “I think ultimately feminism is thinking that men and women should be equal, right? People think that if you say ‘I’m a feminist,’ it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal. That doesn’t feel like a crazy thing to me. I grew up with my mum and my sister — when you grow up around women, your female influence is just bigger. Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want a lot of credit for being a feminist. It’s pretty simple. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward.”

His audience has a reputation for ferocity, and the reputation is totally justified. At last summer’s show at Madison Square Garden, the floor was wobbling during “Kiwi” — I’ve been seeing shows there since the 1980s, but I’d never seen that happen before. (The only other time? His second night.) His bandmates admit they feared for their lives, but Harry relished it. “To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.” He sips his tea. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a room, asking them to bear with him.”

That evening, Fleetwood Mac take the stage in London — a sold-out homecoming gig at Wembley Stadium, the last U.K. show of their tour. Needless to say, their most devoted fan is in the house. Harry has brought a date: his mother, her first Fleetwood Mac show. He’s also with his big sister Gemma, bandmates Rowland and Jones, a couple of friends.

He’s in hyperactive-host mode, buzzing around his cozy VIP box, making sure everyone’s champagne glass is topped off at all times. As soon as the show begins, Harry’s up on his feet, singing along (“Tell me, tell me liiiiies!”) and cracking jokes. You can tell he feels free — as if his radar is telling him there aren’t snoopers or paparazzi watching. (He’s correct. This is a rare public appearance where nobody spots him and no photos leak online.) It’s family night. His friend Mick Fleetwood wilds out on the drum solo. “Imagine being that cool,” Gemma says.

Midway through the show, Harry’s demeanor suddenly changes. He gets uncharacteristically solemn and quiet, sitting down by himself and focusing intently on the stage. It’s the first time all night he’s taken a seat. He’s in a different zone than he was in a few minutes ago. But he’s seen many Fleetwood Mac shows, and he knows where they are in the set. It’s time for “Landslide.” He sits with his chin in hand, his eyes zeroing in on Stevie Nicks. As usual, she introduces her most famous song with the story of how she wrote it when she was just a lass of 27.

But Stevie has something else she wants to share. She tells the stadium crowd, “I’d like to dedicate this to my little muse, Harry Styles, who brought his mother tonight. Her name is Anne. And I think you did a really good job raising Harry, Anne. Because he’s really a gentleman, sweet and talented, and, boy, that appeals to me. So all of you, this is for you.”

As Stevie starts to sing “Landslide” — “I’ve been afraid of changing, because I built my life around youuuu” — Anne walks over to where Harry sits. She crouches down behind him, reaches her arms around him tightly. Neither of them says a word. They listen together and hold each other close to the very end of the song. Everybody in Wembley is singing along with Stevie, but these two are in a world of their own.

#harry styles #rs #260819 #drug mention

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maylovexhs · 5 years

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everytime - Sign of the Times(chp. 1)

Author’s Note: Ughh! It’s the first chapter! I waited till Spring Break to post it! Please spam me with messages if you like it. I’m actually so excited to write this one compared to my other fics. Anyways, love M.

Masterlist

everytime masterlist (https://maylovexhs.tumblr.com/post/184349485299/everytime-masterlist-a-story-in-which)

June 22, 2018. NYC.

Just stop your crying.

It’s a sign of the times

Welcome to the final show

Hope you’re wearing your best clothes

I looked down, watching him sing into the microphone. I watched as everyone slowly waved their phones along to the song, with their flashlights shining in the dark of the arena. The lights looked liked stars in the night sky. It wasn’t the night sky. If it was, there wouldn’t be thousands of stars sparkling so close to each other.

You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky

You look pretty good down here

But you ain't really good

“You sure you don’t want to try to go see him backstage?” Ali asked me. “You’re probably on the guest list anyways”

I turned to her. The flashlight on her phone was on.

“You think he wants to see me?” I asked her. “After me shutting him out without any warning?”

“Of course. I’m sure he would understand” Ali said. “It’s not like it’s the first time you did it to him”

I looked back down to Harry as he began to sing the chorus.

Just stop your crying

It's a sign of the times

We gotta get away from here

I smiled to myself, remembering the first time I heard him play the song. The Greek Theater in the fall. I remember his blue suit with little gold prints on it and my bleached blonde hair. Now, he was in a blue suit with pink details embroidered on his hand sleeves. As for my hair, it was back to brunette.

I looked to Ali again. She was slowly waving her phone. I doubted anyone saw her phone’s flashlight. We were in the highest section. I purposely chose it to stray from unwanted attention.

“Let’s go” I told Ali. “I want to beat the traffic”

She raised her eyebrows at me, surprised.

“Really?” She asked me. “This could be the last time you see him in a while”

I looked down to Harry once more.

Remember everything will be alright

We can meet again somewhere

Somewhere far away from here

This might be the last time I saw him but I knew that I was bound to cross paths with him again. I always had. The first time I ever met him was right here in this arena seven years ago. I continued to cross paths with him ever since then. I had a feeling I was going to again. Just not tonight.

“Come on” I said to Ali. “Let’s go”

“I’ll come out when the song ends” Ali said.

I turned around and walked through the exit. I entered the hallway, noticing it was completely empty. No one was at the merch or food stands. I stood against the wall and took out my phone. I pressed on the home button with several of notifications appearing on my lockscreen.

Adrain:

Pick up your damn phone. It’s important.

Adrain:

2 missed calls.

Lisa:

Call Adrain! We have big news

Let’s move to Fort Lauderdale:

4 new attachments.

I stopped scrolling through the messages. I swiped right on Adrain’s text.

“What?” I replied to him.

I stared at my phone expecting Adrain to text back. Instead, he called. I answered him.

“Yes?” I spoke into my phone.

“Finally you pick up!” Adrain shouted at me. “Anna Wintour emailed us”

“Anna Wintour?” I asked him, being confused as to why he is telling me this. “Is this about doing a Vogue cover because we only do that for album promos”

“No idiot,” Adrain insulted me. “It’s about the Met Gala. She wants you to co-host”

I opened my mouth to say something but I was stunned. I was speechless.

“M-me?” I asked. “She wants me?”

“I couldn’t believe it too” Adrain said. “But do you want to? She wants an answer in a week and I don’t want her to change her mind last-“

“Yes” I said, cutting him off. “Tell her I say yes”

“You’re sure?” Adrain asked me. “Like 100% sure cause I’m not telling her that you are going to back out if you do”

“Adrain, I’m more than fucking sure” I told him. “Tell her”

I hung up the phone on him the exact moment Ali walked out.

“Who was that?” Ali asked me.

“Adrain” I answered, smiling at her. “He has some designs for me” I lied.

“Okay?” Ali said. “Should we go?”

“Yeah” I said.

I walked in front of her, smirking as I tried to contain my excitement. I had a feeling things were starting to get better.

#harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #hs imagine #hs imagines #hs au #harry styles fic #hs fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #hs one shot #harry styles one shot

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thisiskatsblog · 5 years

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Soup, Sex and Sun Salutations

Fixed it!

[Note: all it took was some copypasting - just the italics are mine]

“We had the chance to sit down over some miso soup with Harry Styles. We didn’t talk about his new album at all but were charmed by the way he challenges gender norms and by what he had to say about sexuality, his female fans, feminism, while male privilege, toxic masculinity, his publicity relationship stunts, and how meditation and yoga have helped him deal with it all. ”

Challenging gender norms

He’s got a white floppy hat that Diana Ross might have won from Elton in a poker game at Cher’s mansion circa 1974.

His nail polish is pink and mint green.

He’s also carrying his purse — no other word for it.

He hosted the Met Gala with Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Alessandro Michele, and Anna Wintour serving an eyebrow-raising black lace red-carpet look.

He is the official face of a designer genderless fragrance, Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur.

Harry said in his speech (note: for Stevie Nicks). “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” He added, “She’s responsible for more running mascara — including my own — than all the bad dates in history.”

Refusing to put a label on his sexuality

Harry likes to cultivate an aura of sexual ambiguity, as overt as the pink polish on his nails.

He’s asking questions about culture, gender, identity, new ideas about masculinity and sexuality.

He’s dated women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality

On his first solo tour, he frequently waved the pride, bi, and trans flags, along with the Black Lives Matter flag. In Philly, he waved a rainbow flag he borrowed from a fan up front: “Make America Gay Again.” One of the live fan favorites: “Medicine,” a guitar jam that sounds a bit like the Grateful Dead circa Europe ’72, but with a flamboyantly pansexual hook: “The boys and girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it.

His worst fears

“While I was in the band,” he says, I felt so much weight in terms of not getting things wrong. I remember when I signed my record deal and I asked my manager, ‘What happens if I get arrested? Does it mean the contract is null and void?’ ”

About Rainbow Direction

“Now, I feel like the fans have given me an environment to be myself and grow up and create this safe space to learn and make mistakes”

“It’s a room full of accepting people.… If you’re someone who feels like an outsider, you’re not always in a big crowd like that,” he says.

“To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.”

About vulnerability, toxic masculinity, and meditation

“I’m discovering how much better it makes me feel to be open with friends. Feeling that vulnerability, rather than holding everything in”

“I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends who are guys who would talk about their emotions and be really open,” he says. “My friend’s dad said to me, ‘You guys are so much better at it than we are. I never had friends I could really talk to. It’s good that you guys have each other because you talk about real shit. We just didn’t.’”

“I was such a skeptic going in,” he says. “But I think meditation has helped with worrying about the future less, and the past less. I feel like I take a lot more in—things that used to pass by me because I was always rushing around. It’s part of being more open and talking with friends. It’s not always the easiest to go in a room and say, ‘I made a mistake and it made me feel like this, and then I cried a bunch.’ But that moment where you really let yourself be in that zone of being vulnerable, you reach this feeling of openness. That’s when you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking living, man.’”

Doesn’t this ambiguous sexuality clash with his public image?

He’s dated [a string of high-profile] women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality - [and] he never gets caught uttering any of their names in public.

We’re off to the pub,” he tells his mom. “We’re going to talk some shop.” She smiles sweetly. “Talk some shit, probably,” says Anne.

“It’s not like I’ve ever sat and done an interview and said, ‘So I was in a relationship, and this is what happened,’” he says. “Because, for me, music is where I let that cross over. It’s the only place, strangely, where it feels right to let that cross over.”

So how does he feel about the industry?

“Only a city as narcissistic as L.A. would have a street called Los Angeles Street,” he says.

About his female fans, and about feminism

“To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.” He sips his tea. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a room, asking them to bear with him.”

About white male privilege

“It’s not about, ‘Oh, I get what it’s like,’ because I don’t. For example, I go walking at night before bed most of the time. I was talking about that with a female friend and she said, ‘Do you feel safe doing that?’ And I do. But when I walk, I’m more aware that I feel OK to walk at night, and some of my friends wouldn’t. I’m not saying I know what it feels like to go through that. It’s just being aware.”

I’m aware that as a white male, I don’t go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can’t claim that I know what it’s like, because I don’t. So I’m not trying to say, ‘I understand what it’s like.’ I’m just trying to make people feel included and seen.”

Heartbreak and loss

[Note: I doubted a bit whether to include that last part, but then I did, because this HS2 is apparently an album about sadness, and the description of that moment reminded me painfully of the real heartbreak and sadness Harry and Anne have had to deal with in recent years. So here’s a little shoutout to Anne who lost Robin, so recently still. Wishing her all the courage to continue building her life without him at the center of it. We love you.]

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sciencespies · 5 years

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Here’s What NPG Gala Honorees Have to Say About Their Portraits

https://sciencespies.com/history/heres-what-npg-gala-honorees-have-to-say-about-their-portraits/

Here’s What NPG Gala Honorees Have to Say About Their Portraits

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery rolled out the red carpet for its star-studded guest list of more than 700 people for the 2019 American Portrait Gala this past week. The museum courtyard filled with heads of state, TV personalities, artists and scientists to celebrate the recipients of the “Portrait of a Nation” prize.

Honorees included scientist and Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Jeff Bezos, the music group Earth, Wind & Fire, composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, business executive Indra Nooyi, and fashion journalism visionary Anna Wintour. Journalist Gayle King led the ceremony, which included speeches by Michelle Obama and late-night host James Corden.

Honorees included engineer and Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold; tech entrepreneur Jeff Bezos; the band Earth, Wind & Fire, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and business executive Indra Nooyi

(Ryan Kobane/BFA for National Portrait Gallery)

When Museum Director Kim Sajet began the gala in 2015, she emphasized the need to honor a diverse array of contemporary sitters and artists. “We ask, ‘Who has made a national impact?’” Sajet says. “We have those people who have really moved the needle in some, often multiple, ways.” The gallery has continued to host the gala biannually as a way to commemorate American icons while raising funds and putting the museum on the map. This year, the event raised more than $2 million to support an endowment for future exhibitions.

Long after the celebrities and socialites went home, six new portraits remained to commemorate the gala’s guests of honor. They are currently on display on the first floor of the gallery, and they will be added to the museum’s permanent collection.

Frances Arnold

With windswept hair and a crisp white blouse, Frances Arnold exudes regal poise. But the Nobel Laureate says it was “nerve-racking” to be photographed by Katy Grannan, an artist who captures her subjects with a degree of realism that is not always attractive. Grannan photographed Arnold at Caltech, where the chemical engineer is pioneering the use of directed evolution to make enzymes. In her words, her research seeks to “rewrite the code of life to take renewable resources and convert them into the products we need in our daily lives.” Arnold sees science as a way to do something good for the planet. “I care about this beautiful planet that we all share. This is a home that we have to leave in good shape for the next generations,” she says. Arnold was presented by France Córdova, astrophysicist and director of the National Science Foundation.

Frances Arnold by Katy Grannan, 2018

(©Katy Grannon)

Jeff Bezos

Viewers of Robert McCurdy’s larger than life rendering of Jeff Bezos may feel like they’re actually standing at the foot of the richest man alive. When asked about his impact on American culture and history, Bezos laughed and said he’d leave that question for others to answer. As the founder and CEO of Amazon, owner of the Washington Post, and head of aerospace company Blue Origin, Bezos’s influence cannot be overstated. Still, the tech mogul chose his son, Preston, to present him with his Portrait of a Nation Prize. The 19-year-old didn’t hesitate to accept the opportunity to support his father, saying he is “so proud of everything he’s done.” Many of the achievements his father is being honored for have been in the works for a lifetime. Referring to Blue Origin’s research on space exploration, the senior Bezos says, “There are things in my heart that I’ve been working on, in some sense, since I was a little kid, because I’ve been thinking about them since I was five years old.”

Untitled, Jeffrey P. Bezos by Robert McCurdy, 2019

(NPG)

Earth, Wind & Fire (and Clive Davis)

Bruce Talamon’s 1978 image of Earth, White & Fire enshrines the spunk, glitz and power of the iconic band. Philip Bailey, Verdine White and Ralph Johnson accepted the award, which also honored Maurice White posthumously. “Our contribution to American culture by way of our music will live on forever in this great legacy of portraits that you see here in the gallery,” says Philip Bailey. The trio continues to perform around the world, keeping alive the legacy of hit classics like “September” and “Shining Star.” Clive Davis, who launched the band to stardom when he signed them to Columbia Records in 1972, presented the award. The trio wrapped up the awards ceremony with a performance of a few of their hits. “To see them today in person, they’re as electrifying as they were when they first began,” Davis says.

Earth, Wind & Fire by Bruce W. Talamon, 1978

Lin-Manuel Miranda

While posing for photographer Mark Seliger’s at the edge of roof four-stories high, Lin-Manuel Miranda was thinking about how Seliger’s image of him may hang among the American greats for years. He did everything in his power to look less frightened than he felt. The composer, lyricist and actor of musical sensation Hamilton, draws on one of the play’s central themes when reflecting on his portrait. “You don’t get to choose how history remembers you—it’s decided by those who survive you,” he says. His portrait provides a mere snapshot of his life and accomplishments, reminding him of how much remains to be popularly known of figures like Alexander Hamilton. And by diversifying the portraits inducted into the Gallery, this record of American history becomes more nuanced. “In the past few years, we’ve seen a more diverse crop of inductees, and I think that brings more excitement to the National Portrait Gallery,” Miranda says. “When we tell different types of stories, a fuller version of America gets reflected back.” Miranda was presented by former First Lady Michelle Obama, who was an early supporter of Hamilton and Miranda’s “dream presenter.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda by Mark Seliger, 2016

Indra Nooyi

When Indra Nooyi got a call from the Portrait Gallery, she thought it might be a joke. The former CEO of Pepsi-Co has certainly made waves in the business world, but she never expected to see herself memorialized in a national museum. “To be an immigrant, a South Asian immigrant, an immigrant of color, a woman, and to be included in the Portrait Gallery really says that we are in a country where people look for people who make a positive impact and celebrate them.” Nooyi chose artist Jon R. Friedman to paint her portrait, and she says, “He brought me to life in incredible ways.” Her heritage and life’s work are represented by family photos, a PepsiCo business report and a Yale School of Management hat in the background. Nooyi was presented by Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Indra Nooyi by Jon R. Friedman, 2019

(NPG)

Anna Wintour’s portrait is not available for publication. The longstanding editor-in-chief of Vogue was photographed in her home by Annie Leibovitz. Wintour was presented by James Corden, actor, comedian and host of The Late Late Show.

The portraits are on view in the exhibition “Recent Acquisitions” through August 30, 2020 at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

#History

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lodelss · 3 years

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Irina Dumitrescu | Longreads | August 2020 | 5,406 words (21 minutes)

When I was a teenager I read James Thurber’s Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I fell in love with this story of a meek, middle-aged Connecticut man whose daydreams afford him temporary escape from a dreary shopping trip with his overbearing wife. Maybe it was because I was an incorrigible daydreamer too. Or maybe I read in his fantasies of being a fearless Navy commander, a world-famous surgeon, or a brandy-swilling bomber pilot a sense of my own opportunities in life, at that point still wide open if you left my gender out of it. Unlike Walter Mitty, I could still learn anything, be anyone.

With time I found a calling, studied for a doctorate in medieval literature, published a book only a handful of people would read, and gained a longed-for professorship. But new desires arose. I discovered I want to write books for more than five readers, and that doing so is remarkably hard. I started to feel afraid of being trapped in one role for the rest of my life. That sense of endless possibility I once had was slipping away.

One day, when MasterClass sends its millionth paid ad into my Facebook feed, I decide this is the answer to the Walter Mitty lurking inside me. MasterClass seems to offer everything: from writing seminars with over a dozen famous authors to celebrity-driven inspiration to take my hobbies further. Clearly, all I was missing were the right teachers, filmed professionally and beamed into my living room. I may not become a surgeon or a pilot, but what if the renaissance woman I’d hoped to be is just a $200 subscription away?

* * *

It’s October 2019, and I begin with Malcolm Gladwell. The funny thing about these courses is that you have a relationship with the teachers already — or at least with their reputation. Gladwell has a host of detractors. He’s been reproached for oversimplification and vast generalization, for illogical arguments and a lack of critical thinking. A book reviewer once wondered why Gladwell didn’t “hold a tenured professorship at the University of the Bleedin’ Obvious.” But nobody questions Gladwell’s ability to write. He is the small-town Canadian boy who made it to the New Yorker on the strength of catchy ideas, brilliantly told. I have been reading his books, sometimes despite myself, for years.

Gladwell teaches his class in a cozy space that looks like a cross between a bar and an apartment. A chess set on a low table behind him suggests something intellectually challenging could happen, but no worries, strong drinks will be served. Ever the model pupil, I open a fresh notebook and write down every other sentence Malcolm says, intent on letting no insight or bon mot slip my attention. I spend so much of my life teaching that it feels like a treat to be a student again, waiting to be filled up with wisdom. It helps that Gladwell is wry and quietly charming, his self-effacing good humor belying a deep seriousness about the calling of writing. More importantly for me, he offers a lot of practical advice — nitty-gritty tips for conducting interviews, structuring articles, and building characters.

I may not become a surgeon or a pilot, but what if the renaissance woman I’d hoped to be is just a $200 subscription away?

Having so much concrete information about how he goes about his work makes me feel confident that I could do it too. Suddenly, this all seems possible. I will become a fantastic writer! I will publish features in the New Yorker and give entertaining talks to sold-out auditoriums! David Remnick will invite me to dinner and I’ll have everyone in stitches with my anecdotes! Pass the butter!

Most exhilarating for me is Gladwell’s approach to imperfection. “What you find interesting is not perfection,” he explains. An imperfect moment in an essay irritates readers just a little, like “red pepper,” but keeps them thinking and talking about it. Gladwell appears generous, providing his audience with surprises and space to draw their own connections. But he’s also happy to make promises he won’t keep, or to force an unwieldy argument together with writing. His way of working is wildly unlike my good-girl academic mindset, but it seems suited to getting things done. “The task of a successful writer,” he says while arguing for bad first drafts, “is to lower the bar.”

Of course, it is one thing for your writing buddy to tell you to embrace your imperfections and slam out a crappy draft, and another for Malcolm Gladwell to do it. Success creates its own truth. This is the MasterClass formula: once a person is famous enough they acquire a charismatic glow. Their counsel is prudent, their past decisions are justified, and their jokes are funnier, too.

* * *

Gladwell’s MasterClass leaves me energized. Writing seems more manageable now, simply a matter of the right tools and attitude. I decide to work on one of my weak areas. Due to a series of curious life choices, I trained to become a scholar and teacher but wound up spending much of my workday carrying out managerial tasks. MasterClass is ready to help me, however, with a course by Anna Wintour on “Creativity and Leadership.” There is a cheekiness to offering advice on how to deal with employees when a hit movie has been made about your notoriously demanding — if not outright callous — management style. Then again, maybe I could use a bit of that Wintour ruthlessness, or what might be called “decisiveness” if she were a man.

The course introduction confirms my suspicion that its appeal is as much about offering a glimpse of the woman behind the mysterious sunglasses as it is about learning how to deliver negative feedback. Sitting in a discreetly lavish apartment, and wearing a stunning green dress with bulky statement jewelry, Wintour describes her vertiginous rise to the top — from somewhere remarkably close to the top. She learned the ropes from her father, Charles Wintour, editor of the Evening Standard in London at the time. (She leaves out the part where he arranged her first job at Biba, a trendy fashion store.) Much of the course revolves around Wintour’s comfort with risky decisions, even if they are wrong. She deals with her mistakes by owning, acknowledging, then moving briskly past them. It sounds like excellent advice for people cushioned by money and an astounding network of connections. By the time Wintour says, “act like no one’s telling you ‘no,’” I want to ask her if anyone ever did.

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The most depressing thing about Wintour’s advice is that it is not wrong. “Own your decisions,” she says, “and own who you are, without apologizing.” It’s just that most people do have to apologize at some point in their lives. (If they are Canadian, like me, they will apologize to complete strangers simply for disturbing the air in their general vicinity.) I want to see a visionary describe how they wrestled with mistakes that had real consequences. Wintour’s suggestion to give direct feedback does give me the courage to have a frank conversation with an employee, and we are both better off for it. But I wonder how her life lessons could possibly translate to someone else’s reality.

The name MasterClass also increasingly bothers me. I remember when I first saw the term (as the two-word “master class”) on a poster in graduate school. A musician friend explained that a visiting eminence would work with one of the students on stage, correcting and training them right in front of an audience. It sounded horrifying, but my friend said it was an honor to be chosen for this kind of specialized attention.

Was there a more sinister urge that made “master class” such good branding for a course? I suspect that the name appeals to people because it promises not just expertise, but power.

Over the years, I began to see all kinds of things called master classes, not just intensive live workshops for people who already had a thorough grounding in their field but online introductions to topics like social media marketing and meditation. Why couldn’t people just take classes, I wondered, especially when they knew nothing about the topic? Were they worried about feeling like a child again, afraid of admitting their own ignorance? Was there a more sinister urge that made “master class” such good branding for a course? I suspect that the name appeals to people because it promises not just expertise, but power.

* * *

It seems easy to turn into a success story when you start out young and privileged. I want to watch a self-starter, someone who had to figure out how to practice their craft on their own. Enter Werner Herzog, who materializes on a dark, empty film set, wearing a green Bavarian-style jacket with elbow patches. Herzog begins with his childhood: the bombing of Munich, his escape with his mother to the mountains, living with no running water and only occasional electricity. “I did not see films until I was eleven,” he says, “in fact, I was not even aware that cinema even existed until I was eleven.” I know there is some legend-polishing here, especially when he mentions the bombing again in the second video, but it’s a more appealing myth than the well-connected London girl who becomes editor of Vogue in her thirties.

Herzog has the air of a professor who has cultivated his eccentric persona for so long that he can now let it do most of the work. His voice alone, at once hypnotic and foreboding, brings me back to evenings in grad school when my German boyfriend did his best to introduce me to the highlights of the Herzog film corpus. Lessons of Darkness, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man — we watched these masterpieces on his laptop in bed. I usually fell asleep after about 20 minutes, occasionally waking up just enough to be confused by a burning oil field or a screaming Klaus Kinski. Still, that boyfriend became my husband, so I have a soft spot for old Werner. I don’t need him to make sense or teach me anything practical. I’m not going to make a movie. I’m just hoping to absorb some of the unflinching resolve of a man who once ate his own shoe after losing a bet.

Although the course is aimed at budding filmmakers, much of Herzog’s advice applies to making art in general. It helps that he speaks in enigmatic aphorisms: “you have to know, you have to know, that you are the one who can move a ship over a mountain.” It also helps that he cares very little about the standard ways of doing things or about the rules of a particular medium. Herzog’s advice is to search for inspiration in a wide range of music and books, to gather nuggets that can be reshaped into a snippet of dialogue or an unusual camera angle. I love this, probably because it confirms so many of my own beliefs. “Read, read, read, read, read, read, read!” he intones, and laments all the prestigious film-school students he meets who do not read and are doomed, as he puts it, to be “mediocre at very best.” Could I make my own students watch this? Could I show them Herzog reading the opening of the Poetic Edda out loud, explaining how its laconic description of the creation of the world and the birth of the gods helps him edit his scenes?

There is a gossipy appeal to watching famous people play an avuncular version of themselves, but I’m not sure what I can really learn from them.

My semester is shifting from intense to overwhelming, so I watch much of the course while folding laundry or cutting vegetables for dinner, chuckling at reliably absurd Herzogisms. My notebook and pen are always close by, but my notes wind up as cryptic as his movies. What is the iguana? The Swiss chocolate? Why have I written down “20 milking cows”? Something penetrates my distraction, though: the intensity of Herzog’s belief in his own films, and by extension, in the power of great art. Although I teach literature for a living, I rarely hear my fellow scholars talk about why creative work matters. And seldom does anyone venture a judgement about the quality of a book or a poem. It seems like it would be overstepping our boundaries to call something “excellent,” or “middling,” or even “bad.” We are deft at dissecting novels and plays, pinning down their references and ideologies and unresolvable tensions, but not particularly good at putting things together. I realize at this point how ill-suited years in the academy have made me for making art.

My husband walks into the room at one point and watches a few minutes with me. “With Herzog you get the feeling that he absolutely does not censor himself,” he says quietly, “No self-doubt. He totally trusts his own judgement.” Mired as I am in endless discussions with my inner critic, I find something beautiful about Herzog’s assurance in the brilliance of his own work — even when it is, let’s be honest, kind of awful. A deep belief in my writing would give me the freedom both to make a mess on the page and to edit it ruthlessly. Herzog seems to be speaking directly to me when he says that “there’s something much bigger than your own quest for perfection: your own quest for inner truth.”

* * *

Three months in, the MasterClasses are beginning to frustrate me. There is a gossipy appeal to watching famous people play an avuncular version of themselves, but I’m not sure what I can really learn from them. Am I ever going to be the editor of a fashion magazine? No. Am I ever going to direct a movie in Antarctica? Actually, come to think of it, even that’s more likely than the fashion magazine. I want something within reach, I want a celebrity to teach me something I can actually try to do. I have spent untold hours watching Gordon Ramsay tell people what they’re doing wrong in the kitchen — now it’s time for him to show me how to do it right.

In order to do Gordon’s cooking class full justice, I prepare a full dinner spread and bring it to the couch on a tray. I have baked frozen miniature spring rolls and jalapeno poppers in my oven, which at this point has had a broken thermometer for about four months. For a touch of class and nutrition, I also have fresh radishes. And a cold beer. It is some sight.

The class is set in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen, which is spacious, sunlit, all marble and polished steel, and filled with jars of fresh herbs. Through the window we catch a glimpse of a manicured lawn, a backyard pool, and behind it a gently rolling Cornish hill. This kitchen is possibly the most pornographic thing I have ever seen. I try not to think about my own kitchen, which my husband and I outfitted in a hurry when we moved into our bare apartment, as you have to in Germany. The cabinets were the cheapest available from Ikea, and we bought them second hand. We got our fridge from someone who had used it to store raw meat for his dog. All of it began falling apart immediately.

Ramsay is annoying at first. He repeats himself a lot. Everything is “unbelievable.” At one point he demonstrates how to choose good produce, picking up flawless baby vegetables from a tray in front of him and showing them to the camera. (“Unbelievable!”) I think about how I could not buy those vegetables even if I had the time to seek them out in my city. But as I let the videos roll on, I start to find him charming. I have watched Ramsay play a dour taskmaster in a series of television shows by now, but here he has the enthusiasm of a labrador retriever. He explains how to lovingly brush carrots with toothbrushes instead of peeling them (confession: I will never do this), and describes herbs as being like “a lady putting perfume on.” Then he demonstrates how to sharpen knives and I’m off to the races.

I have a decent set of knives — a remnant from my childless twenties, when I did footloose things like take the free knife-skills classes offered at Williams-Sonoma. The day after beginning Gordon’s course, I go on a hunt for my knife sharpener, which finally appears behind an entire regiment of mismatched tupperware. I spend a meditative afternoon sharpening my knives, testing each one by slicing it through a piece of paper I hold up in the air. At one point my son and husband walk into the kitchen, see me with all the knives, and quietly slink out again. I feel powerful. My knives are sharp. I can cut things again. I resolve to use my honing steel every time I cook, with the exact up-and-down movement Gordon taught me. It gives me the feeling of being a kitchen warrior.

I have come to suspect that MasterClass will put any celebrity in front of a camera for a few hours and call it a course.

Gordon’s is the one course I don’t watch in order. Instead, I pick the recipes I think I can manage given the state of my oven. I decide to attempt the poached eggs and mushrooms on brioche. To my surprise, my local discount supermarket carries brioche buns, most of which my delighted son eats before we make it to breakfast. I get up on Sunday morning, make myself a pot of coffee, review the recipe, and cook alone for an hour. The result is not perfect. I oversalt the mushroom-and-bacon mixture. My eggs come out a bit harder than I would’ve liked. It has been so long since I have poached an egg that I’ve forgotten how to do it.

But the time spent in the kitchen, learning some new techniques and remembering others, brings me back to the early days of my relationship to my husband. There was a time in our lives when we would spend an entire weekend day trying out a new recipe, or experimented with poaching eggs three different ways to see which method was best. Now we put eggs in water with a tiny mechanical device that plays “Killing Me Softly” to let us know they are soft-boiled. You could say our standards have fallen. But on this particular day, we eat so much brioche with protein on it that we are unable to move for hours. I’m not sure what makes me feel younger, trying out a new recipe or spending an entire day doing nothing afterwards.

Emboldened, I take on experiment number two: lobster ravioli. Fresh lobster would be impossible to get, but I look up a vegetarian filling with spinach, ricotta, and pine nuts. Nor can I find the correct Italian flour, so I settle for the most promising alternative. But life intervenes, and by the time I have a few hours to make fresh pasta, most of the eggs have disappeared from the fridge. I decide to make a smaller batch, with the wrong flour, just one egg, and a bit of oil and water — after all, I think, surely an Italian nonna could make do without the ideal number of eggs? The dough turns out tough, and my wrist hurts trying to soften it, which seems far from the sensuous experience Gordon is having as he expertly kneads his pasta dough in the video.

My son comes to the kitchen to see what I am doing, and I convince him to join me. He tries to knead the pasta with his little hands, helps me roll out the dough and run it through the pasta machine. Sometimes he loses interest in the work but likes staying close to me, and I find it comforting to feel this small, curious creature by my side. At one point he insists on making a dough of his own out of flour and water, which I am to fry for him. After three hours of labor, we manage to produce a grand total of ten ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta; in all the excitement I forgot to add the pine nuts. We supplement our small dinner with my son’s fry bread, cut in half and smeared with cream cheese. Making and shaping the dough has been so pleasurable that we don’t mind that we got almost every part of the recipe wrong and had very little to show for our efforts. In the weeks that come, my son and I make pasta again, screwing it up even more thoroughly, and having even more fun.

* * *

The idyll does not last long. My life is increasingly taken over by work. In January, I am part of a grant renewal application that involves a two-day inspection by a crew of visiting scholars, a process in which millions of Euros of funding are at stake. I remember that I am, in fact, expected to demonstrate mastery at my job. In my morning shower and before I fall asleep at night, I practice answers to potential questions, working out what impressive German abstract nouns I need to survive this experience. I try to cultivate an air of confidence, but worry it might be coming out more Herzog than Wintour. But the questions we get are not the ones I practiced, and by the end of the ordeal my project is booted out. I travel to my hometown to teach for a few months, and the hassle of settling in helps me put the failure out of mind. Then, a few weeks later, I learn that someone I trusted has spread a damaging lie about me. My stomach drops. I feel rage. Then I feel as though I have left my body altogether. A day later, my lower back spasms. I wind up immobile in bed.

I had planned to learn tennis with Serena Williams or do barre with Misty Copeland, but here I am in a rented house in a rented bed, moaning in pain if I turn as much as an inch. Propped up against pillows that do little more than fix my body in the least excruciating position, I have little patience for books or even television. Then MasterClass sends me one of its emails, and I can barely believe my eyes: it’s RuPaul.

I have come to suspect that MasterClass will put any celebrity in front of a camera for a few hours and call it a course. This particular class is only nominally about drag: it claims to be about “Self-Expression and Authenticity.” This is convenient, because covered with heating pads and smeared with a variety of pungent salves, I’m not in much of a position to try and look fabulous. Still, I would watch RuPaul explain the finer points of installing drywall, so I click the button to join.

By this point, I have realized that there are two kinds of teachers. Some focus on transmitting their skills. They seem to be saying to the student: “this is how to do what I do.” Others offer themselves as models to be imitated: “this is how I became who I am.” Many MasterClass instructors pretend they are selling the former while in fact delivering the latter. RuPaul doesn’t even pretend. Dressed in a carmine suit and seated against a black-and-neon set reminiscent of Studio 54, RuPaul talks about some of the most basic challenges of growing up in the world. He describes the course of his career, the role artistic inspirations played in his life, the challenges of addiction, criticism, and just plain being ignored. I take no notes — I physically can’t. But I am moved by RuPaul’s vulnerability, a refreshing change of pace after the unrelenting cockiness of the other teachers. Instead of presenting himself as magnificent from the get-go, brave and destined for greatness, he comes across as a human being who had been broken but helped along his way by kind mentors, friends, and a lot of therapy.

Here is something bracing to think about: it is hard to learn how to be yourself.

The other MasterClass teachers seemed impervious to criticism, able to brush it off with a knowing smile. But what do you do when you are not born that way, or if you have been brought up to value the opinions of others, sometimes to a fault? In one episode, RuPaul describes the unquenchable hunger of bullies to feed their fragile egos: “The only time they feel visible is when they create pain.” I reflect on how attached I still am to what people think of me, and how hard this makes it to distance myself from the hurt they cause even when I know they act out of their own self-loathing. RuPaul’s answer is to focus on finding what he calls “your natural frequency, your natural energy source.” Incapacitated, I can muster little of my usual cynicism about talk of “energies.” Besides, I like what he seems to be getting at. Maybe the secret to freedom is not to emulate the bravado of a few wildly successful people, but to tap into what feels true. According to RuPaul, doing so will draw other people with a similar energy to yours, but, “like a garden, it takes managing. You have to cultivate it.” Here is something bracing to think about: it is hard to learn how to be yourself.

I binge-watch RuPaul’s MasterClass late into the night. I am only half-focussing when a story breaks through my daze. RuPaul recalls his parents divorcing when he was seven. His father had custody on the weekends, and every weekend, little RuPaul would sit on the front porch waiting for his father to pick him up. His father never came. RuPaul looks straight into the camera and speaks softly now, to the child he somewhere still is: “Baby, that had nothing to do with you.” I think of my father, who left my life eight years ago, who is now just an hour’s drive away, and who I know I will not see. I think about the grandson he has never met. I am fuzzy on the details, but this may be when I begin weeping like a baby. Ru breaks down too as he describes his own journey to sobriety. And there we are, two people separated by a screen, crying together in the dark.

* * *

Half a year after starting my MasterClass adventure, I am a different person from the eager pupil who scribbled down every pearl of wisdom from Malcolm Gladwell’s lips. I am disappointed in other people and — in a distant way I cannot quite place — also in myself. I wish I were stronger, or easier to transform. My back still hurts. And if that were not enough, I have returned home to voluntary quarantine. Now, instead of a fun distraction from everyday life, the computer is my only point of contact with the rest of the world. I cannot bear to see more people talking on the screen, but there are not too many other places to go.

As the global pandemic unfolds, MasterClass shifts its offerings with uncanny acumen. Instead of promising me greatness, the ads in my inbox invite me to take what seem like a humbler course: gardening. The instructor, Ron Finley, is a fashion designer turned urban-gardening advocate. MasterClass pitches him as a “gangsta gardener,” and he offers fresh, zen koan-like takes along the lines of “Air is gangsta as fuck” and “When Bambi dies, or some shit… no one buries it.” At first, I ignore the ads. I have no green thumb. My rap sheet includes a long list of potted herbs, houseplants, and even cacti that I have, by some amazing level of neglect, managed to dry to death. In the past 20 years I have moved through a variety of dorm rooms, house-sits, and rental apartments in three countries. How could I grow something when I have barely put down roots myself?

The ads keep coming. One night, I have a dream about planting a garden. Then I get flashes of another version of myself: a teenager tending to the front and back yards of my family home. I had the boring chores of raking leaves and mowing the lawn, but I also grew flowers and pulled weeds and cared for a bed of strawberries. I remember now how I used to pore over seed and bulb catalogues, calculating the amount of sun each part of our yard received, imagining how I could replace our lawn with a glorious cacophony of color, if only my parents would fund the project. I never did manage to plant the garden I dreamt of. One bad spring my mother spread grass seeds all over my flower bed, and in my anger I gave up gardening altogether.

I start the course.

Finley is charismatic and funny and, wouldn’t you know it, down-to-earth. He’s not precious about gardening, a point he makes by showing how to turn a wooden dresser drawer into a makeshift planter. The course itself is not so much a master class as a basic introduction to keeping a plant alive. Finley stands behind his big wooden table and rubs different kinds of soil between his hands to show how to recognize the good, loamy kind that plants will flourish in. He gently eases seedlings out of their pots and pats them into the ground, pokes holes with his finger, and pops in sugar snap peas. Given that I haven’t touched a bag of soil in over two decades, this is what I need.

Between little jokes like “size does matter… in a garden,” Finley slips in an entire philosophy of being in the world. He describes building a relationship to plants as a way of connecting to one’s body, one’s environment, to life itself. Learning to care for plants, he says, is a way to learn to care for yourself. As he shows how to loosen the roots of a nursery plant or divide a sprouted sweet potato, Finley calls attention to the creative force deep inside all living things. “Plants want to grow, they wanna live, they wanna thrive,” he says, and I’m enchanted by the potential of survival he sees in a part of life I had wholly overlooked. I can’t remember looking at a plant and not seeing a future reproach.

In my happiest moments of creation, I have experienced this sensation of standing by as a mysterious energy unfolded itself according to a plan all its own.

Watching these videos makes me want to nurture something. I run to my kitchen and pick up a pot of fragile supermarket parsley. I pick off the dry leaves, then water it. A few days later, it has perked up. I gain courage. That weekend, I go with my family to a garden center, where we don our masks and look through fogged glasses at a bewildering variety of soils. We spend hours on our balcony, mixing soil with fertilizer, planting a cut-off wine barrel full of kitchen herbs. In other pots, we give a tiny strawberry seedling and a tomato plant a chance next to some sprouted onions from the pantry that I have learned how to divide on YouTube. In the days that follow, the three of us are stupidly happy. We go out on the balcony, stare at the plants the way parents watch sleeping newborns, call each other to witness how quickly they have grown. Then, what begins as an experiment turns into a minor obsession. Flowers and a miniature olive tree join the herbs. We plant peas and potatoes, and my son and I try germinating seeds for herbs we could not find in the store. There is no special talent here: it is an ordinary hobby, but that does not dull its wonder.

As I observe our seedlings take root and flourish, it dawns on me how little power I have over their growth. I can provide them with a fertile space to be. I nurture, prune, and guide them as necessary. I can destroy them through neglect or poor decisions. But I do not make them what they are. In my happiest moments of creation, I have experienced this sensation of standing by as a mysterious energy unfolded itself according to a plan all its own. It is what being pregnant felt like. It is also how some essays have come to me, in full bud and pressing to be written down.

More often than not, though, making things in the world feels like slamming dead clay on the ground, hoping that enough force might shape it into something beautiful. It occurs to me that what I have to learn in my little balcony garden has nothing to do with mastery. As I watch the cilantro and the basil and even the sad supermarket parsley take root, I feel that I am coming back to myself, to a part of me I had forgotten. Here it is at last: something new.

***

Irina Dumitrescu is an essayist and scholar of medieval literature.

Editor: Ben Huberman

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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Meet the woman who ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/meet-the-woman-who-ties-jeffrey-epstein-to-trump-and-the-clintons/

Meet the woman who ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons

Ghislaine Maxwell was crucial in ensuring Jeffery Epstein’s access to Trump’s world. | Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images

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Heiress Ghislaine Maxwell paved the way to presidents.

How did wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein come to be palling around with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump?

People who know those involved say Epstein’s connections to two U.S. presidents ran through one bubbly British heiress: Ghislaine Maxwell.

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Maxwell, who has denied accusations made in civil suits of aiding and participating in Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors, has been among the financier’s closest associates. Unlike Epstein, she comes from a rarefied background that gave her entrée to the rich and powerful.

For years, beginning in the early ’90s, she and Epstein cut glittering figures on the Manhattan and Palm Beach social circuits, with Maxwell taking the lead. While people who knew Epstein in Palm Beach described him as “very odd” and said “he didn’t go out much,” those who know Maxwell described her as “vivacious,” “warm” and “effusive.”

Her family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses.

Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse.

“Ghislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton,” said a person familiar with the relationship. “She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close.” (Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.)

Trump’s ties to Maxwell and her late father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, meanwhile, go back even further, to at least the late 1980s.

“He really likes her,” said Steven Hoffenberg, a former mentor to Epstein who pleaded guilty in 1995 to running a massive Ponzi scheme, of Trump and Maxwell. “He was friendly with her father.”

In the 1980s, Trump and Robert Maxwell, the Czech-born owner of London’s Daily Mirror tabloid, rubbed shoulders on the high-flying Manhattan party circuit.

An item from a May 1989 gossip column placed Trump and both Maxwells together at a party aboard the elder Maxwell’s yacht, named the Lady Ghislaine, that featured caviar flown in from Paris and former Republican senator John Tower of Texas. The item notes that Trump compared his own larger yacht with Maxwell’s.

As it happened, Trump’s yacht, the Trump Princess, had originally belonged to the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (uncle of the slain Washington Post contributor Jamal), and Maxwell’s yacht had originally belonged to one of Adnan’s brothers.

Two years later, Maxwell fell off his yacht in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and drowned, a sensational death that was ruled accidental.

“He was a character and a colorful guy, and I think we were lucky to have seen even a short time of him in New York,” Trump told Larry King during an appearance on CNN two weeks later. “He was my kind of a guy.”

Robert Maxwell’s biographer later related an incident from around the same period when Ghislaine was working for one of her father’s business enterprises selling corporate gifts.

While planning a trip to New York, she asked her father to use his friendship with Trump to get her a meeting with the mogul.

“Have you got your bum in your head?” the elder Maxwell responded, according to an account by the late Nicholas Davies, a former Mirror editor who wrote Maxwell’s biography. “Why the f*** would Donald Trump want to waste his time seeing you with your crappy gifts when he has a multi-million-dollar business to run?”

It appears Robert Maxwell sold his daughter short. A 1997 New Yorker profile of Trump notes that the article’s author shared a ride to Palm Beach on Trump’s private jet with Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as a teenage Eric Trump and Matthew Calamari, a longtime member of Trump’s private security team.

It is not clear whether Maxwell first introduced Trump and Epstein, who socialized together at least as early as 1992, but Maxwell was crucial in ensuring Epstein’s access to Trump’s world. Archival video unearthed on Wednesday by NBC from that year shows Trump and Epstein surrounded by dancing women at Mar-a-Lago, with Maxwell smiling in the background.

“Ghislaine was his path to social acceptance,” said Thomas Volscho, a professor at the City University of New York who has been researching Epstein. “They don’t always accept you. Ghislaine was really a conduit for him to start to socialize with people who are way beyond his level.”

According to “Filthy Rich,” a 2016 book about Epstein by best-selling author and Mar-a-Lago member James Patterson, “Although Epstein had never properly joined the club, Trump’s friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell gave Epstein unlimited use of the facilities.”

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former changing room attendant at Mar-a-Lago who has accused Epstein of sexually abusing her as a minor, alleges in a lawsuit that she was first approached at the club in 1998 by Ghislaine Maxwell, who convinced her to meet Epstein and joined him in the abuse. Maxwell has denied wrongdoing.

It is not clear whether Maxwell ever officially joined the club. A directory of Mar-a-Lago members obtained by POLITICO in 2016 does not contain her name. Private clubs generally do not disclose information about members. In several calls to Mar-a-Lago’s main line, staffers said no one was on hand to field press inquiries and suggested calling back at other times. The White House did not respond to an email requesting comment.

But her visits to Mar-a-Lago spanned at least the better part of a decade.

Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell were all photographed together at the club in 2000. That year, Epstein and Maxwell were also spotted at the club with Prince Andrew, according to the Daily Mail. According to the Daily Telegraph, it was Maxwell who introduced Epstein to the British royal, whose association with the sex offender has been a long-running scandal in the United Kingdom. Epstein also attended a birthday party for Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in 2000. That same year, Maxwell and Prince Andrew attended what The Daily Mail described as a “hookers and pimps”-themed Halloween party hosted by Heidi Klum.

A month later, in early December 2000, Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell all attended a surprise 60th birthday for Barbara Amiel, a British socialite, that was also attended by the likes of Anna Wintour, Charlie Rose and William F. Buckley.

Tina Brown, the magazine editor, recalled that around this period Maxwell would reach out to her to socialize when Prince Andrew came to New York. “She was a bit mysterious,” Brown recalled.

One regular on the social scene in Palm Beach and other exclusive locales recalled attending an event at Ascot, the English horse racing course, around the late 1990s, where, upon entering the course’s “royal enclosure,” the person saw Epstein sitting with the royal family.

Much of Epstein’s access to Clinton’s world also flowed through Maxwell. “The Clintons were relatively intimate with her,” said a Maxwell friend.

In 2002 and 2003, flight logs reportedly show that Bill Clinton flew on 26 flight legs on Epstein’s private jet.

“President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” said a spokesman for Bill Clinton, Angel Urena, in a statement. Urena said the flight legs comprised four trips total in 2002 and 2003, and that staff and Secret Service were present on all flights. Urena said that Epstein visited Bill Clinton at his Harlem office once in 2002, and that he briefly visited Epstein’s apartment one time.

Maxwell’s ties to Clinton world, meanwhile, would last another decade.

One friend of Maxwell’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described their surprise upon showing up at a dinner party at her Upper East Side apartment around 2005 to find Doug Band, then a top advisor to Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, among the 8 to 10 guests. In 2006, a charity run by Epstein, C.O.U.Q. Foundation, gave $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the Daily Beast reported.

But allegations of misconduct by Epstein, and then Maxwell, began to pile up, making associations with them increasingly fraught. In 2006, it emerged that police in Palm Beach were investigating Epstein for allegedly soliciting underage girls for sex, and he would eventually plead guilty to sex offenses, serving jail time in Florida. For several years afterward, allegations about Maxwell’s involvement in Epstein’s misconduct escalated in severity.

In 2007, The Daily Mail reported allegations by a woman named Johanna Sjoberg that Maxwell recruited her to work for Epstein, who then induced her “to perform demeaning sexual services.” The paper reported, “There is no suggestion that Ghislaine was aware that some of the girls were underage, or aware of Jeffrey’s sexual requests.” In 2009, Giuffre filed a lawsuit in which she alleged she was recruited by Maxwell as a 15-year-old to work for Epstein, who proceeded to sexually abuse her. That year, the New York Post reported that Maxwell was served with a subpoena by a lawyer representing some of Epstein’s accusers as she left a Clinton Global Initiative conference.

In March 2011, Giuffre elaborated on her claims, telling the Daily Mail that Maxwell instructed her to take off her clothes as she was massaging Epstein, who proceeded to have sex with her. Maxwell issued a statement denying the claim. In 2015, Giuffre accused Maxwell in a court filing of engaging in sex with underage girls.

“It wasn’t until 2015 that Chelsea and Marc became aware of the horrific allegations against Ghislaine Maxwell and hope that all the victims find justice,” said Chelsea Clinton’s chief of staff, Bari Lurie. “Chelsea and Marc were friendly with her because of her relationship with a dear friend of theirs. When that relationship ended, Chelsea and Marc’s friendship with her ended as well.”

For several years, Maxwell was romantically linked with Ted Waitt, the billionaire founder of Gateway computers.

A person close to Chelsea Clinton described Waitt as a “very close family friend” of Chelsea and Mezvinsky, and said the couple met Maxwell through him in 2011. The person said Chelsea Clinton and her husband ended their friendship with Maxwell when she and Waitt broke up in early 2011, and disputed that Maxwell and Chelsea Clinton were ever “close.”

Two people familiar with the relationship between Maxwell and the Clintons said Maxwell, Chelsea Clinton and Mezvinsky flew together on a private plane to rendezvous with Waitt for a trip on Waitt’s yacht. One of those people said the trip took place in 2009.

Waitt, whose philanthropic endeavors focus on the world’s oceans, has given somewhere between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Waitt’s philanthropic foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

One person familiar with the Maxwell-Clinton relationship said that while Maxwell “was incredibly close” to Chelsea, “She had her own relationship with Bill Clinton and was very close to him.”

In 2010, Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, apparently as Waitt’s date. In 2012, Maxwell launched her own Ocean-focused charity, the TerraMar Project. A year later, the Clinton Global Initiative trumpeted a TerraMar initiative among the “commitments to action” announced at its annual meeting. No money changed hands.

The initiative was the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, which sought to ensure the United Nations included oceans in its Sustainable Development Goals.

A 2013 press release on the website for TerraMar —which announced it was shuttering in the days after Epstein’s arrest — describes the alliance as a four-way partnership between TerraMar; another nonprofit called the Global Partnerships Forum; the late Stuart Beck, who served as “ambassador on oceans and seas” from the Pacific island nation of Palau; and a Trump friend, Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-born businessman who has served in diplomatic posts for Caribbean nations.

Before his diplomatic career, Zampolli co-founded a model management company and served as the Trump Organization’s director of international development. He has long been credited with introducing Trump to his third wife, Melania, though the New York Times reported this month that Epstein has also claimed credit for the introduction.

Zampolli said he was unaware of Maxwell’s connection to the Sustainable Oceans Initiative but that he does recall that Beck — who served on TerraMarr’s board in 2013 — brought Maxwell to the United Nations twice to discuss her oceans advocacy.

TerraMar sought to build social networks around ocean protection, issuing free “Ocean Passports” to anyone who pledged to support its goals, making them an “ocean citizen.”

“This lady,” Zampolli recalled, “had some very interesting ideas.”

#Clintons #Foreign #Politics #Trump

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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When Ariana Grande tells you she’s going to be just fine, believe her.

The sentient cupcake with a four-octave range says as much in her bouncy new kiss-off song, “thank u, next” — a farewell letter to all the men she’s loved before. And the most recent addition to that list is her ex-fiancé, Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson.

The two were in love until they weren’t.

Grande and Davidson first announced their relationship in May, shocked everyone with an engagement announcement in June, and then, in the middle of October, called the whole thing off. That’s seemingly plenty of fodder for a break-up bop, but Davidson’s post-breakup behavior added some edge to the saga.

In a promotional clip for SNL’s November 3 show, Davidson used the breakup as a punchline, facetiously proposing to that week’s musical guest, Maggie Rogers:

[embedded content]

Grande didn’t see the humor in the situation, revealing as much in a series of subtweets. “For somebody who claims to hate relevancy u sure love clinging to it huh,” she wrote, without mentioning Davidson. She followed up with “thank u, next” and “k, that’s the last time we do that” before ultimately deleting them all.

The SNL promo and Grande’s tweets both made headlines, as many people wondered aloud whether Davidson would further address the breakup on the show. And then, ahead of the SNL episode, Grande tweeted hints about a new album and song that would reference Davidson and the breakup:

The displeasure in Grande’s deleted tweets, along with the tease of a new song and the potential for Davidson to make more awkward jokes, amped up anticipation for SNL.

Then, 30 minutes before the episode premiered, Grande released “thank u, next.”

[embedded content]

But the biggest surprise was the content of the song itself. Grande’s tweets might have set everyone up to expect a thrashing laced with pettiness, but “thank u, next” was actually a pump-fake. Far from the overt diss track many expected, the song was more about finding love with in herself:

I met someone else We havin’ better discussions I know they say I move on too fast But this one gon’ last ’Cause her name is Ari And I’m so good with that.

For his part, Davidson did comment on the breakup during SNL, gracefully acknowledging Grande during the show’s Weekend Update and saying, “She’s a wonderful, strong person, and I genuinely wish her all the happiness in the world.”

Though, after Grande’s power move, Davidson’s response was an afterthought (especially after he drew backlash for jokes on another topic entirely).

The 25-year-old Grande followed up the song release with a tweet on Sunday morning, echoing the idea that she is truly grateful:

thank u ♡ for hearing me and for making me feel so not alone i truly am grateful. no matter how painful! i’m thankful and i love u. breathin visual this week too! thank u, next pic.twitter.com/Qq62vjM0gI

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 5, 2018

Churning out hits is what we’ve come to expect from Grande, but what makes her a remarkable pop star isn’t just that “thank u, next” is a great song but also the latest example of Grande’s toughness and grace in the face of personal tragedy.

A year and a half ago, in May 2017, a suicide bomber attacked a concert that Grande was performing in Manchester. This September, just a few months into her now-ended engagement with Davidson, Grande’s ex-boyfriend Mac Miller died of a drug overdose — and a faction of his fans blamed her for his death.

Through all of this, Grande has handled herself with grace. After the Manchester attack, she hosted a benefit concert that raised $13 million for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. This summer, she released an album called Sweetener, which drew raves — some critics called it the pop album of the year. After Miller’s death, she paid tribute to him in a way that felt genuine and honest:

She also honors Miller in “thank u, next” — a key reason why the song, which is the sonic equivalent of strawberry champagne, heart emojis, and bubble bath, is so illustrative of her arc as a performer. Like Grande herself, beneath its sweetness is a story of empowerment, resilience, and maturity. That’s a rarity in this age of pop culture where taking the low, petty road has been praised. And it’s what makes Grande a breath of fresh air, and an unforgettable pop star.

“Petty” has become a default setting for pop culture.

It is now commonplace for many public figures to respond to any slight or a perceived wrong by shining a spotlight on it, forming a grudge, and then dragging whoever wronged them at the next appropriate opportunity. Bonus points are available to anyone who can pull this off exclusively through the use of oblique innuendo, without naming names.

Taylor Swift has spun pettiness into some pretty successful songs, and turned her 2017 album Reputation into a scavenger hunt for mentions of all her feuds. Drake has done the same, referencing beefs at his concerts and taking shots at his rivals in songs that are seemingly written and shipped overnight. Armie Hammer insulted a journalist who dared to write a negative thinkpiece about his acting career.

Usually, these moments of pettiness are escalated and egged on by thousands of fans, who delight in watching celebrities bicker with each other.

So after Grande had expressed her displeasure at Davidson’s jokes and then teased the release of “thank u, next,” there was an anticipation that the song would reveal some less-than-flattering things about Davidson. In the end, the true surprise was how sweet it was:

Thought I’d end up with Sean But he wasn’t a match Wrote some songs about Ricky Now I listen and laugh Even almost got married And for Pete I’m so thankful Wish I could say thank you to Malcolm Cause he was an angel

Grande’s lyrics refer to four of her ex-boyfriends: Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez, Davidson, and Mac Miller. She comments on each relationship, but without any insults or low blows. Sean, for example, simply “wasn’t a match.” And no matter how ill-advised her whirlwind love affair with Davidson might have seemed to many of her fans (not least because it involved moving into a Manhattan apartment but living without forks), Grande specifically says that she’s “thankful” for him.

But it’s what she says about Miller that helps drive home the spirit of “thank u, next.” The disarming way she refers to him as Malcolm, acknowledging his death and his soul, is arguably more scintillating, tender, and newsworthy than anything about Davidson in the song.

Grande also sings about what she’s learned from each of these past relationships, and how they’ve made her a better person:

One taught me love One taught me patience And one taught me pain Now, I’m so amazing.

She doesn’t credit the love, patience, or pain to any of her exes in particular. And by the end of the chorus, it’s clear she’s ready to move on. At its core, “thank u, next” isn’t about Grande dissing her ex-boyfriends, it’s about Grande embracing herself.

This theme continues through the bridge, where Grande sings sweetly about getting married someday — something she only wants to do once:

One day I’ll walk down the aisle Holding hands with my mama I’ll be thanking my dad ’Cause she grew from the drama Only wanna do it once, real bad Gon’ make that shit last God forbid something happens Least this song is a smash

The result is the “sweetest, the sanest, and also, gloriously, the most cutting diss track of an especially cutting year” according to the Ringer’s Rob Harvilla, who argues that Grande’s maturity and cogency are what gives the song power — that in “thank u, next,” she’s showing that she doesn’t need to trash Davidson to prove that she’s better off without him.

“It’s a generosity rarely spotted these days, when it is so much more tempting to clap back with vinegar instead of honey,” Quinn Moreland wrote at Pitchfork. “The high road might not be the easiest path, but Grande offers to lead us there by her own example.”

“While Grande could’ve released a scathing track, she dropped one that was, instead, respectful and mature,” Amanda Arnold explained at The Cut.

Her fans responded immediately, replaying the song over and over. It shot up to the top of the Spotify US and Global Charts, tallying 8 million global daily plays and breaking the company’s single-day streaming record for a female artist. It made waves on Twitter, where, according to a company representative, the phrase “thank u, next” was tweeted over 1.5 million times in just a few days. Justin Bieber called it his favorite song. It even inspired a meme:

And now it’s in contention to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Pop stars and the industry that creates them are salespeople. And more and more, a huge part of the sale isn’t just how a pop star looks (with some glaring exceptions, it’s difficult to find an unattractive pop star) but rather the image he or she has crafted.

Beyoncé sells a power fantasy in untouchable excellence and relentless dedication. Taylor Swift sells an underdog story, having gone a Girl Next Door type to girl squad leader to revenge monger. Lady Gaga is a creature of transformation.

And the question underneath all this imagecraft is whether we’re ever seeing the “real” version of who pop stars are versus the narrative of they’re selling.

When Beyoncé sings about Jay Z’s alleged cheating, how much of that is a measured move by a singer notorious for controlling her image, her albums, and even Anna Wintour? When Taylor Swift sings about Kanye’s crooked stage, or about a paper airplane necklace in reference to Harry Styles, is she conveying genuine feelings of revenge or longing, or have her lyrics been carefully calculated to send a specific message and appease an audience?

We could ask the same kinds of questions about Grande and her whirlwind love affair with Davidson.

Grande’s relationship with Davidson began in May, and their engagement was confirmed on June 15. The relationship seemingly materialized in the short period of time between Grande releasing two new singles — “no tears left to cry” on April 20 and “the light is coming” on June 20. Pre-orders of Sweetener began the same week that the latter song came out, five days after the couple confirmed their engagement.

Grande and Davidson’s relationship (which has since been portmanteau’d by some into “Grandson”) and the abruptness of their engagement drove interest in the album, which also contains a song named after him. And even with the dissolution of the relationship, public interest in the couple’s breakup is helping Grande sell music.

Grandson could be either the most convenient and album-friendly relationship ever, or a savvy publicity stunt.

With so much intrigue swirling, there was a question of whether Sweetener would be all about the Grandson relationship, offering more details about the inner lives of Grande and Davidson. Perhaps Sweetener was going to be fairy tale love song performed by a princess who had finally found “the one.”

But just like “thank u” turned out to be a love song from Grande to herself, what Sweetener turned out to be was an album of resilience.

Sweetener was not about Davidson but rather a glimpse into Grande’s response, at times a joyous one, to the tragedy that changed her life.

On May 22, 2017, after Grande finished performing at Manchester Arena, a suicide bomber attacked the concert, killing 22 people and injuring 59 more — a tragedy that completely eclipses her relationship with Davidson.

“It’s the absolute worst of humanity,” Grande told Time one year later, in May 2018 in an interview about Sweetener. That’s why I did my best to react the way I did. The last thing I would ever want is for my fans to see something like that happen and think it won.”

The critically lauded album was a triumph, but it’s easy to imagine how difficult it was for Grande to make and sing songs about her life in the wake of the attack.

Perhaps that’s where the undeniable, winsome appeal of Grande lies: beyond her catchy songs and in how she has consistently proved that she’s a lilliputian pop princess with the toughness of a tank.

As with any pop star, you don’t have to agree with what Grande is singing about, whether it be sex or God being a woman or both. But you can admire the guts it takes to keep singing after the rough year that she’s been through. And in “thank u, next,” when she sings about picking herself up and believing in herself after a breakup, that’s something we all want to believe in.

Original Source -> Ariana Grande’s greatest asset isn’t her amazing voice. It’s her resilience.

via The Conservative Brief

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/melania-trump-ready-vogue-wile-george-clooney-proves-fertile/

Melania Trump ready to Vogue while George Clooney proves fertile

Despite her husband publically bashing the media (including fashion publication Vanity Fair) on countless occasions, First Lady Melania Trump will likely still get a chance to be a fashion magazine cover star. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour revealed that she is planning to shoot Melania during her reign as the nation’s First Lady. Anna told the Journal, “We have a tradition of always covering whoever is the first lady at Vogue, and I can’t imagine that this time would be any different.” Surprisingly, Donald’s wife has already been featured on Vogue, which is a highly sought after cover within the modeling world. Back in 2005, Melania graced the cover in an embroidered bridal gown. The accompanying article within the magazine introduced the Slovenia-native as “Donald Trump’s New Bride,” as 2005 was the year that the two tied the knot. In line with what Anna told The Wall Street Journal, Vogue has had numerous US First Ladies on their cover. In fact, Michelle Obama graced the cover of the high fashion magazine on 3 separate occasions. Based on all of the controversy surrounding both Melania and her husband Donald Trump, it will be interesting to see how consumers react to Melania’s [future] issue of Vogue. Unlike the public, who just found out earlier this week, George Clooney’s good friend Matt Damon has known about George and Amal’s pregnancy for several months now. Earlier this week, The Talk co-host Julie Chen broke the big news to the public, revealing that actor George Clooney and his accomplished journalist wife Amal are expecting twins. This inevitably came as a shock to most, as many assumed that George was not interested in having kids. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada, George’s pal Matt Damon revealed that he has been keeping the couple’s secret for the past while. Matt told the media outlet, “I was working with [George] last fall, and he pulled me aside on set and I mean, I almost started crying. I was so happy for him. And I was like, ‘How far along is she?’ and he goes, ‘Eight weeks.’ [And I said] ‘Are you out of your mind? Don’t tell anybody else! Don’t tell anybody else! Don’t you know the 12-week rule?’ Like, of course he doesn’t.” Matt went on to recount, “Then four weeks later, I’m like, ‘We’re good right?’” Fortunately, George assured Matt that Amal and him were still preparing for parenthood. When asked about George’s beau Amal Clooney, Matt gushed all about her to ET. Matt explained, “I’m thrilled for [George]. [Amal’s] amazing. He hit the jackpot. Just on every level. She is a remarkable woman. They’re gonna be great. They’re gonna be awesome parents. Those kids are lucky.” With George and Amal’s A-list network of friends, as well as the baby frenzy that is currently going on in Hollywood, the couple’s offspring will undoubtedly have a long list of famous friends. This year's Oscar telecast will have some big Grammy Award winners: Sting, Justin Timberlake, John Legend and Lin-Manuel Miranda are all slated to perform the tunes nominated for Best Original Song. Timberlake will perform "Can't Stop The Feeling" from the movie "Trolls" and Sting will perform "The Empty Chair" from "Jim: The James Foley Story," the Oscar-nominated song he co-wrote with three-time Oscar nominee J. Ralph. Legend will perform both "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" and "City of Stars" from "La La Land" and Miranda will team up with Auli'i Cravalho to perform the Oscar-nominated song "How Far I'll Go" from "Moana." The Oscars air Feb. 26 on ABC, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. In a bizarre series of events, Josh Elliott stepped down from CBS’s digital channel on Friday for a larger role at CBS News — shocking his own bosses. Elliott, who had served as CBSN’s lead daytime anchor for a year, bid an emotional farewell to viewers, saying that it was to be his “last day.” “It has been by any measure a great stay here at CBSN,” he added. It was surprising news — not least to CBS News execs, who had no idea he was announcing his plan to leave the online station. “This is a mess of epic proportions,” said a network source. “Nobody at the top at CBS News knew that Josh was going to do that.” It seems Elliott — who joined the network from NBC in 2016 — had recently met with Laurie Orlando, the network’s head of talent, who told him that she wanted him to take on a bigger role at CBS News. The plan is for him to file reports for “CBS Evening News” and “CBS This Morning,” and help fill in for Charlie Rose, who has just undergone heart surgery. We’re told the surgery was a success and Rose is expected back at work in three weeks. “Then Josh announced his departure without warning,” said the insider. “Executives at CBS were stunned.” Meanwhile, sources close to Elliott claim that his executive producer dropped the ball for not alerting higher-ups, including Orlando and CBS News president David Rhodes. “They totally bungled their own announcement,” said the source. “There was no communication.” There was a flurry of meetings Friday at CBS News to work out how to handle the debacle. Finally, they announced Elliott would be reporting on a national level for CBS News. Insiders say the move is part of a plan for Elliott to take on a bigger role down the line. There are rumors CBS could move Scott Pelley off “CBS Evening News,” which network chiefs have denied. On Friday, a CBS rep told us, “Josh is going to be taking field assignments and reporting long-form pieces as well. He will appear across CBS News programs, including CBSN.” Gigi Hadid couldn’t keep her cool on her first date with boyfriend Zayn Malik. “We actually met at a friends birthday party a few years ago,” the 21-year-old model told Ellen DeGeneres in an episode that aired on Friday, “Then he was in New York to go to the Victoria’s Secret show last year, I think, and ended up not coming. I was like ‘I’ll play it cool. I’ll go to the after-party.’ He wasn’t there and then later that week we ended up going on our first date.” She added, “We played it cool for like 10 minutes, and then I was like, ‘You’re really cute.'” The couple began dating in 2015. “We connected really quickly,” she said, “We had the same sense of humor.” In June 2016, there were rumors the couple had called it quits. According to E!, the couple have experienced several rough patches throughout their relationship, but it seems they’ve worked through those issues. “Black-ish” star Yara Shahidi called a federal appeals court ruling against President Donald Trump’s travel ban an “early birthday present.” That because the half African-American, half Iranian-American actress’ grandmother can now come to visit her, the actress explained to People. “I have family that’s already in the states, and I have family in Iran. That was my early birthday present,” she told the magazine. While none of the 16-year-old’s family was directly affected by the ban, it has placed any future travel plans in limbo. “Fortunately, none of my family was traveling. It did affect the fact that my joon joon [grandmother] was possibly coming,” she said. “That’s kind of been halted until we assess what’s happening.” The Minnesota native, whose first language was Farsi, said that despite the ruling, it’s still hard to get a handle on exactly what is happening. “It goes from, ‘it’s happening,’ to ‘no, it’s postponed,’ to, ‘oh, it’s temporarily postponed,’ to ‘how temporary is the postponement? When are we going to get rid of it?’ So I feel like it’s just hard to adjust and keep up,” she admitted. On Thursday, three federal appeals judges unanimously upheld a decision that halted the president’s refugee and immigration ban. The decision prompted a shrill rebuke from Trump on Twitter. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/829836231802515457 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/830389130311921667 “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” he wrote shortly after news of the decision broke. Clive Davis isn’t letting national politics affect his famed pre-Grammys party. The veteran music executive says his annual event will be at capacity again this year despite moves elsewhere in Hollywood to scale back awards season soirees. Celebrities have used acceptance speeches and red carpet appearances at recent awards shows to voice their concerns about President Donald Trump. The more serious mood prompted talent agency UTA this week to replace its big traditional pre-Oscars party with a political rally. But speaking Thursday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel alongside soul singer Maxwell, Davis said “there is no impact whatsoever” on Saturday’s gathering of business and tech leaders, actors, musicians and other celebrities. (Trump himself attended the event years ago when it was held in New York.) “There was a hunger for this night,” the 84-year-old music mogul said. “The audience is totally glittering and special. You can’t wait to see all of these cultural-influencing forces be in one room, one night.” Performers will include Chicago’s Chance the Rapper and Maxwell, who performed last month at the Women’s March on Washington at the invitation of Harry Belafonte, who was an honorary co-chair of the event. Davis said he expected a rising level of political engagement by fellow musicians, well past Grammy weekend. “It’s like the ’60s and the ’70s again, isn’t it. A great time for art. A great time to be able to say something that needs to be heard,” he said. “I just hope that in this time, people start using their voices.” Davis, meanwhile, says he used his voice to make sure there was a focus on music as producers crafted a documentary about his life, “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of our Lives.” The movie was selected to kick off the Tribeca Film Festival in April. “That’s more than cool. I’m from New York. I’m from Brooklyn,” he said, “and to open at Radio City Music Hall, which is the first theater I ever visited in Manhattan when I was 13 years old — that night of April 19 will be very special.” Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and professional ballerina Misty Copeland have joined basketball star Stephen Curry in criticizing the CEO of sports apparel company Under Armour for praising President Donald Trump. Kevin Plank, the CEO of Baltimore-based Under Armour, called Trump “an asset to the country” in an interview with CNBC this week. The company later issued a statement saying it engages in “policy, not politics.” “I appreciate and welcome the feedback from people who disagree (and agree) with Kevin Plank’s words on CNBC, but these are neither my words, nor my beliefs,” Johnson wrote as part of a lengthy Facebook post. “His words were divisive and lacking in perspective. Inadvertently creating a situation where the personal political opinions of Under Armour’s partners and its employees were overshadowed by the comments of its CEO.” Under Armour sponsors Johnson, Copeland and Curry, the two-time NBA MVP and star of the Warriors. Copeland wrote in an Instagram post she was so concerned about Plank’s comments that she spoke to him directly. Curry turned Plank’s use of “asset” around. “I agree with that description,” Curry told the Mercury News, “if you remove the ‘-et’ from asset.” None of the three has severed ties with the company. Actor Shia LaBeouf slammed the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens Friday for shuttering his controversial anti-President Trump webcam exhibit. “THE MUSEUM HAS ABANDONED US,” he wrote on Twitter. https://twitter.com/thecampaignbook/status/830078936533102592 LaBeouf’s criticism drew a swift response on his site — not all of it favorable. “Well you created a circus,” responded Quite Frankly Podcast. The Astoria-based museum said it shut down the 24/7 webcam project Friday morning because the installation had become a “flashpoint of violence.” The webcam exhibit mounted on a wall outside the museum— titled “HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US” — began filming on Inauguration Day, and was to be in place 24/7, for the duration of Trump’s presidency. NBC is in talks with FremantleMedia to resurrect “American Idol,” Variety has learned. According to sources with knowledge of the discussions, NBC has been pitched a revival of the long-running singing competition by producer Fremantle and is now mulling options for how to integrate the show into its programming slate. One possibility being considered: cutting NBC’s existing singing competition “The Voice” from two cycles a year to one. Fremantle has been shopping an “Idol” revival in recent weeks, with NBC emerging as the leading candidate to become the new home of the long-running singing competition series. Sources emphasize that talks are ongoing, and no deal is yet in place. Representatives for NBC and Fremantle declined to comment. “American Idol” ran on Fox for 15 seasons beginning in 2002. For eight consecutive seasons, beginning in 2003-04, it was the highest-rated show on television. At its peak in 2006, “American Idol” averaged a 12.4 rating among the 18-49 demographic and 36.4 million total viewers, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers. Ratings began to decline steeply in the show’s later years, to the point that Fox decided that it no longer represented a worthwhile financial or scheduling commitment. (The series aired two nights a week, typically beginning in midseason.) The final season in 2016 averaged a 2.2 and 9.1 million viewers. Those numbers were far diminished from what the show drew in its heyday, but they remain respectable by contemporary standards, with delayed viewing and increased competition applying downward pressure on live ratings across television. An “American Idol” revival has been a subject of speculation since before the final season aired on Fox last year. Speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in 2016, longtime host Ryan Seacrest discussed the show’s future even as he promoted what Fox had dubbed the “farewell season.” “When you’ve got a franchise that has this kind of heritage, and you’ve got a franchise that generates X amount of millions of people, if it sustains, does that mean it’s the end?” Seacrest said. “I’m not so sure.” “The Voice,” currently in its seventh year, has shown its own ratings fatigue — even as it remains NBC’s most-watched non-football offering besides freshman drama “This Is Us.” The 2016 fall cycle, which ended Dec. 12, averaged a 2.5 live-plus-same-day rating among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnight numbers — down 19 percent from the previous fall. From a scheduling standpoint, it could be difficult for NBC to find a place for “American Idol” without making changes to its existing unscripted slate. NBC’s schedule is already loaded with talent competitions year-round, with “The Voice” premiering new cycles in fall and mid-season, and “America’s Got Talent” — produced by original “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell — reigning as the network’s biggest draw in summer. In July, NBC gave a series order to “World of Dance,” a dance competition series from another former “American Idol” judge, Jennifer Lopez, which has not yet been scheduled. After saying she'd like to play President Donald Trump's controversial adviser Steve Bannon on "Saturday Night Live," comedienne Rosie O'Donnell has apparently changed her Twitter profile picture to make herself look like him. O'Donnell's offer to play the chief strategist came after actress Melissa McCarthy's caustic portrayal of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on "SNL" last weekend. O'Donnell's new Twitter picture appears to be a digitally altered picture of Bannon with her face replacing his. But the actress-comedian will not appear on the NBC show this weekend, her spokeswoman said Friday. O'Donnell and Trump have publicly feuded in the past, with Trump making derogatory comments about O'Donnell's looks and weight.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#Donald Trump #Dwayne Johnson #Featured #George Clooney #Gigi Hadid #Melania Trump #Zayn Malik

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maylovexhs · 5 years

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everytime - BELIEVE(Chp 5)

Author’s Note: I promised and I delivered. By the way, I’m in finals week so don’t expect anything from me at least a week. Anyways, I always enjoy your feedback and comments. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Yes, it takes place on Met Gala night! Love, M.

everytime masterlist(https://maylovexhs.tumblr.com/post/184349485299/everytime-masterlist-a-story-in-which)

Masterlist(https://maylovexhs.tumblr.com/post/164991761564/masterlist)

May 6th, 2019. NYC.

“And I am done” Rosé said, finishing doing touches on my eyes.

She moved to the side, allowing me to see myself in the mirror. I walked closer to the mirror, examining my makeup. The purple eyeshadow and green eyeliner brought out my green eyes. I smiled, becoming excited. I turned around to Rosé.

“I feel like tearing up but I can’t because I don’t want to ruin it” I told her.

“Aww” Rosé said. “Here let me take a pic of you”

“No. Not yet” I said. “I want to wear the dress when you do. Let me go check on Ali”

I sprinted out of the room and went into the bathroom where Camilla was doing Ali’s hair.

“How do I look?” I asked them, pointing to my eyes.

“It looks cute” Ali said. “You look like a peacock though”

“That’s the point” I said.

“I think it looks nice” Camilla said.

“Thanks C” I said to her. “Is Ali almost done?”

“Just pinning her hair up and have to spray it” She said.

“Then we both get to put on our dresses!” I said, squealing a bit. “Ugh I’m nervous and excited”

“I’m more nervous” Ali said.

“Don’t be” I said. “You get to party. I have to deal with everything else”

“And everyone” Camilla added.

“That’s the worst part” I said to her. “I have to stand and greet everyone for two hours and then there is the actual dinner. Ugh, at least I have Gaga and Harry to lean on”

“Mhmm” Ali said, rolling her eyes at me.

She was still fed up over Harry and I. And I have become fed up with her attitude.

“You know, if you are going to have that attitude all night then you shouldn’t come” I said to Ali. “I can go alone or take Sophia instead”

Ali sat up in the chair. Camilla stopped pinning Ali’s hair, not being finished with it though.

“My attitude?” Ali asked me. “What attitude do I have?”

“You know what I’m talking about” I told her. “Everytime I bring up Harry, you roll your eyes or insult him” I said. “I get that you don’t like him, but he’s my friend. And he’s my co-host. So lose the attitude, at least for tonight”

I walked out of the bathroom. Ali followed me.

“Why do you think I don’t like him?” Ali asked me. “Because he’s the one who left you to be on that damn yacht with Kendall”

“I told you that was in the past” I said to her. “It’s been three years”

“Exactly!” Ali said. “Ever since then, it’s been three years they have been on and off. You heard the news of them. Harry goes to her parties. She goes to his concerts. They will always hook up whenever they get the chance to. You said so yourself, that you hate when Harry hangs out with her-“

“Him and I are friends!” I yelled at her. “We’re friends. Whoever Harry decides to spend his time, I accept because I’m his friend. I couldn’t give less than a fuck if Harry is dating her. I used to but not now. Not ever”

“You’re sure?” Ali asked me. “You’re sure that if you see them together tonight, you won’t cry or be hurt?”

“Yes. You want to know why? Because it’s not my business and it’s not your business either” I told her.

I let out a sigh. She crossed her arms at me.

“Finish your damn hair and get in your dress” I ordered her. “And lose the attitude before I leave you behind”

I turned around from her and walked to the living room where my dress was hanging on a clothing rack. I took the dress off the rack, holding it by it’s hanger. I examined it, letting out a heavy breath.

This was going to be a dramatic night.

“Y/N! TO YOUR LEFT! Y/N ARE YOU DATING ADAM?! Y/N SMILE HERE! Y/N WHO ARE YOU WEARING?! Y/N IS THERE AN ALBUM COMING SOON?!?”

I smiled to the cameras one last time before walking up the stairs. I entered the museum, skipping press questions. I smiled when I saw Anna and Gaga talking to each other in front of the wall of flowers. Gaga was in her black lingerie. I walked over to them. They turned towards me, noticing I came. Anna smiled at me. I took that as a sign that she liked my dress.

“Y/N you look absolutely fabulous” Anna complimented me.

“Oh my, thank you” I said to her.

“Ugh you look darling in it” Gaga said to me.

I blushed.

“Thanks! But you were amazing” I said to her. “I was screaming in line when I saw you getting undressed”

“It’s all about the performance” Gaga said.

We heard shouting from outside the museum.

“I guess that’s Harry” I said. “Was it that loud when I came?”

“It’s always loud” Anna said, sounding like she was lying.

I faked a laugh at her.

“Y/N, why don’t you take your pictures in front of the wall?” Anna asked me which sounded more of an order than a question. “Gaga and I are going to the stairs” Anna said. “We’ll wait for you”

Anna and Gaga turned around from me before I could give her an answer. I looked to the photographers, faking a smile as I tried to brush off the moment. I stood in front of the wall of roses. I smiled at the cameras as they took pictures. I couldn’t do any poses since my dress restricted me. I stood there smiling for a minute before I heard Harry’s voice. I looked to the entrance, seeing Harry and Alessandro Michele walk in. He was wearing lace and an earring. I expected him to dress in a Gucci suit.

I walked away from the photographers and walked to Harry and Alessandro. Harry looked at me, smirking.

“You look even better than in the FaceTime videos” Harry said.

“And you look absolutely gorgeous” I said to him.

Harry blushed a little.

“So,” I said. “How does it feel? Finally walking the carpet?”

“Nervous but exciting” Harry said. “Did you just come?”

“Oh, no” I said. “I came the same time as Gaga. I was about to head up the stairs. By the way, please don’t do the peace sign in front of the flowers”

Harry chuckled.

“I won’t” Harry said. “Are you going to the after party?”

“Maybe” I told him. “Depends how I feel. I’ll probably tell you before if I am coming”

“Alright” Harry said. “I’ll see you in a minute, I guess”

I smirked at him.

“I’ll see you at the top of the stairs” I told him.

I passed him, walking away.

He’s definitely going to steal the spotlight tonight.

“She completely ignored me” I complained to Adrain. “I stood right next to Harry and she didn’t even acknowledge me. That was rude”

“I wouldn’t say that out loud” Adrain said. “Don’t want Miss. Wintour to ban you from attending the gala”

“If anyone who she should ban, it’s Kendall” I said. “She’s the one who was rude to me”

“You know, you’re not sounding like a good co-chair” Adrain said.

I rolled my eyes at him.

“I’m going to find Harry” I told Adrain. “Need to tell him I’m going to the party”

“Didn’t you already did?” Adrain asked me.

“No” I said, shaking my head.

“Great” Adrain said in a sarcastic voice. “Now I have to wait twenty minutes for you to get back to me”

I smirked at him.

“I’ll be right back” I said to him. “Can you call Ali to meet us up?”

“The things I do as your stylist” Adrain commented.

“Thanks” I said to him.

I left him, walking away. Because I was a host, I had to greet everyone and let them all go inside the dinner before me. I knew Harry was somewhere close to me since he left a minute before I did. I had to pass through late guests as I walked. I bumped into Bella Hadid, one of those late guests.

“Hey Y/N!” Bella greeted me.

“Hey Bella!” I said to her. “Enjoying the party?”

“I’m loving it” She said. “You look fucking amazing girl”

I blushed.

“Aww, you too!” I told her. “You look like a goddess!”

“Thanks” She said. “You’re coming to the after party, right?”

“Yeah! Of course, I’m up for anything” I said to her. “I gotta go get ready for my speech. I’ll see you after”

“Alright” Bella said. “Good luck”

I smiled from Bella’s kind words. I walked in another direction from her. My smile disappeared instantly when I saw Harry . . . and her. I stopped walking, standing still when I saw Harry and Kendall hugging. I watched Harry pull away from her, focusing on how he had her hand on her waist. I looked at him as he smiled at her. He was blushing, in admiration of her. He looked at her in a different way than I saw him look at another person. He looked at her like he never looked at me before.

I turned around from the sight of them. I walked away, passing through guests. I felt rage grow in me. The same jealous rage I had on New Years when I found pictures of Harry and her on a yacht. I felt my eyes water up. I felt like I was about to cry. I couldn’t cry. Especially here. Not in front of everyone. Especially them two.

“Y/N” I heard someone call my name.

I turned to them. It was Sarah.

“Oh, hey Sarah” I said, forcing myself to smile at her.

“I didn’t see you in forever” Sarah said. “I was going to hug you but you’re a butterfly and-“

“I know, I know” I told her. “I was just-“

“You’re coming for another season right?” Sarah asked me, cutting me off. “Ryan said you might not be back”

“I will be back” I told her. “But as a guest star. I could only do a few episodes since of scheduling conflicts”

“Fuck, really?” Sarah asked me. “First it was Evan and now it’s-“

“I can’t talk right now Sarah” I said to her. “I need to use the bathroom and change out of my clothes. I’ll talk to you after my speech on stage”

I walked away from her, not caring about her answer. I walked back to Adrian.

“Back so quick?” Adrain asked me. “Did you talk to Harry?”

“Uh huh, I talked to him” I told him, sniffling as I tried to hold back my tears. “Let’s go. I really need to get out of this dress”

“Do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say. ‘I really don't think you're strong enough, no’”

I didn’t cry. Yes, I teared up a little from the sight of them but I didn’t cry. And I’m pretty sure no one noticed I teared up. I considered that some personal growth. Hell, I even talked to Harry after I changed outfits and didn’t feel anything. Turns out when you’re in your late twenties and already had experience with heartbreak, you can control how to react to it. Plus, I really couldn’t care about Harry and Kendall when there was Cher, Gaga and drag queens on stage in front of me.

“Do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say. ‘I really don't think you're strong enough, no’”

I turned to Ali who stood beside me. I leaned into her.

“You want to get a milkshake and fries after this?” I asked her.

She turned to me, looking surprised.

“You don’t want to go to the after-party?” Ali asked me.

“No” I said, smiling at her. “The only thing I want to do is go home and sing while I beat your ass at air hockey”

Ali smiled at me.

“This has nothing to do with Kendall, does it?” Ali asked me.

“What am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you - well, I can't do that and there's no turning back”

I looked to Harry who was dancing on a table at the other side of the room. I smiled at him. I looked back to Ali.

“I know Harry” I said to Ali. “He’s always going to have a thing for Kendall. I can’t sit around for him to stop having a thing for her. I can’t control it. I can control who I spend my time with. Tonight, it’s definitely not with him”

“I need time to move on. I need love to feel strong. 'Cause I've had time to think it through. And maybe I'm too good for you, oh”

“Are you sure?” Ali asked me. “I’ll go wherever you go but do you want to? It’s your night. Harry and Kendall shouldn’t ruin your night”

“They aren’t. I’m too good to let them ruin my night.” I said. “Besides, being a host fucking sucks. I’m exhausted by having to force myself to smile at everyone”

Ali laughed.

“Not exhausted enough to play air hockey with me, right?” Ali asked.

“Exactly” I said.

I took her hand in mine.

“Let’s go” I said.

I walked my way through the crowd of people to the exit, dragging Ali along. I bumped into Adam before reaching the exit.

“Y/N” Adam called me.

I let go of Ali’s hand and turned to him. He was wearing a suit. A suit that was on theme. His look was probably better than Harry’s.

“Adam” I said, looking at his suit. “You look . . . incredible”

Adam smiled.

“And you look more than incredible” Adam said. “Are you leaving?”

“Uh, Yeah” I answered him. “Why you ask?”

“I was hoping to get a drink with you” Adam said. “I hoped to bump into you at the after party”

I blushed. He wanted to see me.

“I’m not going to the after party. I’m heading home” I told him. “But I would love to have a drink with you one day”

“Really?” Adam asked me. “How about tomorrow?”

“I can’t tomorrow” I said, lying.

I knew either him or I were going to have a massive hangover tomorrow. I didn’t want our date to cancelled last second tomorrow because one of us feels sick.

“How about Wednesday?” I asked him.

“Wednesday” Adam said. “I can do that day”

“I’ll call you Wednesday morning then” I said to him. “Goodnight Adam”

“Goodnight Y/N” Adam said to me.

I smiled at him before leaving him. Ali followed behind me.

“Now he, I might like” Ali said.

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Come on”

Author’s Note: Hope y’all enjoyed the chapter! Btw, this is Y/N’s dress:

#everytime chapters #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #hs imagine #hs imagines #hs au #harry styles fic #hs fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #hs fanfic #harrystyles au #hs one shot

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lodelss · 4 years

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How to Learn Everything: The MasterClass Diaries

Irina Dumitrescu | Longreads | August 2020 | 5,406 words (21 minutes)

* * *

I may not become a surgeon or a pilot, but what if the renaissance woman I’d hoped to be is just a $200 subscription away?

* * *

Kickstart your weekend reading by getting the week’s best Longreads delivered to your inbox every Friday afternoon.

Was there a more sinister urge that made “master class” such good branding for a course? I suspect that the name appeals to people because it promises not just expertise, but power.

* * *

There is a gossipy appeal to watching famous people play an avuncular version of themselves, but I’m not sure what I can really learn from them.

* * *

I have come to suspect that MasterClass will put any celebrity in front of a camera for a few hours and call it a course.

* * *

Here is something bracing to think about: it is hard to learn how to be yourself.

* * *

I start the course.

In my happiest moments of creation, I have experienced this sensation of standing by as a mysterious energy unfolded itself according to a plan all its own.

***

Irina Dumitrescu is an essayist and scholar of medieval literature.

Editor: Ben Huberman

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#IFTTT #Blogger

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