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It’s lovely to read stories published in international papers that reflect us as an interesting, funny and demanding nation. When you read these stories we sound like an eccentric bunch of warm-hearted people who want to have lots of fun next month. That’s between reading the lines about chaos, politics and crime.
Firstly there’s Rian Malan’s piece which was published in the Observer on the 16th May. I only got to read it this week. And then there’s Celia Dugger’s piece in the New York Times earlier this week.
Malan says towards the end of his article that:
“South Africa is amazing! At any given moment, all possible futures seem entirely plausible. We are winning, we are losing. We are progressing even as we hurtle backwards. Every day brings momentous exhilarations and dumbfounding setbacks, and the sun shines brightly even in winter. Throw in the heady proximity of Mandela and Beckham, and you’re almost guaranteed a splendid time.”
And Dugger writes how South Africans have fought for easier access to tickets, to see their musicians at the world cup concert and “to ensure that more World Cup souvenirs were made in South Africa.”
She recognises the South African spirit. She says this country “ended a vicious system of racial segregation 16 years ago to create a noisy, fractious, vibrant democracy. Poking a finger in the eye of authority is part of the national DNA.” Don’t you love that!
Next month’s edition of Harper’s Bazaar has Bristol Palin looking very glamorous pouring tea for her baby son. It’s kind of weird. So is the feature. In it she admits that she was well informed about sex but seemed clueless at the same time:
At the time Bristol discovered she was pregnant, she had been dating Johnston since she was a freshman. Prompted by an aching back and a missed period, she took a pregnancy test. It came out positive. “I was like, What am I going to do?” she says quietly. They decided to tell her parents when she was six weeks along.
“I remember sitting on the couch with one of my best friends and Levi, and I just couldn’t spit it out. I was like, ‘Mom, Mom.’ I was bawling my eyes out. She was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I was like, ‘I’m pregnant.’ And she was like” — Bristol stops and mimics a gasp — “Oh my God. Holy crap. But once that part was over with and Tripp was here, it was just like, this baby is a blessing.”
Though Bristol was well-informed about sex education, “it’s not like we sat down and were like, ‘All right, here’s the birds and the bees.’ Truly, my parents just assumed that I wasn’t doing anything. And it was a shock for us all.”
We know the original globe chair. Lots of our childhood memories include a snapshot of this somewhere. As students and first-time salary earners many of my friends bought one, two or a few. Now, there is a new version of this chair. Haldane Martin has reinvented the classic design. It will be on show at Rooms on View which opens in Johannesburg on Thursday. Here is Haldane’s statement:
“The Globe Chair was originally designed and patented in 1921, and made in Durban until the early 1940’s.
Everyone that sees the chair has a fond memory of a favourite grandmother using them in her kitchen. It’s plain simplicity belies its real ingenuity, the unique bolt together assembly system. This incredibly strong assembly system and the durable solid bent wood frame is the reason that you still find these highly sought after chairs in use today. I felt the chair deserved a second chance, and so I am
putting it back into production, having made one small improvement – hiding the assembly bolts without compromising on the strength and offering it in a variety of contemporary finishes, from raw beech to brightly coloured spray finishes.”
Rima Fakih has attracted much attention since she won the Miss USA competition. Firstly conservative bloggers are having a field day because she is the first-ever Muslim to win the beauty pageant, and secondly photographic evidence has emerged that in 2007 she won a pole-dancing competition. See the TMZ website.
According to the Salon website “Arab-Americans rejoiced Monday over the crowning of raven-haired beauty Rima Fakih, a 24-year-old Lebanese immigrant from Michigan, calling it a victory for diversity in the United States, especially at a time when Arabs suffer from negative stereotypes in this country — and anti-immigrant sentiment is in the news.”
But conservative commentators are saying that it was a political correct move. And, some like blogger, Debbie Schlussel who called her “Miss Hezbollah” are stereotyping dangerously.
A spokeswoman for the Miss USA competition, Lark-Marie Anton, told The Daily Beast that Fakih’s critics were way off base and the contest was conducted fairly.
“I don’t believe this has anything to do with affirmative action and I am saddened by the ignorance surrounding her multicultural heritage.”
Here’s Claudia Schiffer doing a Demi Moore. Claudia appears naked and beautifully pregnant on the June issue of German Vogue which hits the news stands there tomorrow. She said of the picture, which was taken by Karl Lagerfield, that “It was important to show how beautiful womanhood is.”
The pose is very similar (identical pose) to the shot of Demi Moore, then seven months pregnant, who appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair cover in 1991.
I am loving all the beautiful pictures of soccer players that are surfacing everywhere. Both of old and young players. Here we have three legends playing soccer on a football table in Madrid. The picture of Brazil’s Pele, Argentine’s Diego Maradona and France’s Zinedine Zidane was taken by Annie Leibovitz for Louis Vuitton’s Core Values advertising campaign.
Here’s Louis Vuitton’s press release. Read More…
The pill yesterday, on Mother’s Day, turned 50. And since1960 it has been the most popular form of birth control, used by more than 100 million women around the world reports the The Times of London. It was “the idea of a conservative Catholic who hoped that it would strengthen marriage, combat poverty, generate happiness, eliminate unwanted pregnancy and even deliver world peace.” Whether it achieved any of this is open to debate. With new research suggesting that the pill is responsible for a low sex drive, it has possibly have been bad for many relationships and weakened rather than strengthened marriages.
It did however, change society, “giving women the opportunity for economic independence and opening up careers that their mothers could not have dreamt of.”
Time today published “Study: Low Sex Drive, Ladies? It Might Be Your Pill” online. It says that doctors have been maintaining that (the pill) may actually lower women’s libido, and sometimes lead to sexual dysfunction.
And now “a new study of female sexual function, published this week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, adds evidence to the argument. Using questionnaires to assess sexual function in more than 1,000 female medical students in Germany, researchers found that women who used a hormonal method of birth control — mostly oral contraceptives — had lower levels of sexual desire and arousal than women who used nonhormonal methods such as condoms, or no contraception at all.”
Not sure what you will be doing for Mother’s Day. I am not celebrating it in anyway, instead I am making lunch for my daughter and a few of her friends to celebrate her 7th birthday. Vanity Fair is marking the day though (I noticed while I was looking for the soccer pictures) and has made a beautiful slide show of celebrity mother’s and their children. I especially love this photograph of Audrey Hepburn pushing her son Luca in a pram. The photograph was taken by Henry Clarke for Vogue in 1971.
Annie Leibovitz took a series of photographs of soccer’s biggest stars for the June issue of Vanity Fair, including Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, Ghana’s Sulley Muntari, the U.S.A.’s Landon Donovan, Brazil’s Kaká and Pato, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, Serbia’s Dejan Stankovic, England’s Carlton Cole, and Germany’s Michael Ballack.
They (the pictures and the stars) are damn cool. I’d like to see similar pictures of our national team.
Louis Vuitton has been on my mind. A few weeks ago I got an invitation to interview the French marketing manager who would be visiting SA. No doubt to revitalise the brand here after a sluggish economic go-slow, and before the influx of the fashion-hungry WAGS, and other potential world cup shoppers. He never got here. The volcanic ash kept him in France. Then, a few days later, browsing about my favourite second-hand clothing store, Wizards Vintage, I spotted a pair of LV sunglasses. They were perfect for me. I tried them on, gazed at them, and then put them back on the shelf. I left them there, but felt all warm and fuzzy about the brand. Back in the office the office that day, I got a call from their local PR woman wanting to meet with me, have a coffee and chat about her brand. Still feeling all delighted that I looked so good in a pair of sunglasses which I didn’t buy I was amenable to the coffee invite. Said yes and this morning took the extra care to put on some make-up. My husband laughed at my reasons for the care. Then there I was waiting in the Park’s cafe to meet with Giselle Hon. She was 20 minutes late, I thought, and as I was about to head back to the office thinking that to some of us the brand will be forever elusive, I spotted her…. waiting for me… She told me that Louis Vuitton is making the World Cup Trophy bag which is exciting. The Guardian says that “The special case is being hand-made by one Louis Vuitton craftsman from its Asnières workshop near Paris, its price tag a closely guarded secret.”
