T LOunge for May 12th, 2023

Cliffside Dinner Restaurant and Sea View Lounge Bar – Santorini, Greece

There it is, darlings. There’s your FRIDAY all sorted out.

Michael J. Fox Looks Back on Hollywood Triumphs, Setbacks and Why ‘Parkinson’s Is the Gift That Keeps on Taking’
Through it all, Fox has been guided by an indomitable confidence — an optimism, not that any problem can be easily overcome, but that there are reasons to be grateful for what life with all its chaotic convulsions has to offer.
“I’m still happy to join the day and be a part of things,” he says. “I just enjoy the little math problems of existence. I love waking up and figuring that stuff out and at the same time being with my family. My problem is I fall down. I trip over things and fall down and break things. And that’s part of having this. But I hope that, and I feel that, I won’t break as many bones tomorrow. So that’s being optimistic.”

Simone Biles wore four Galia Lahav wedding gowns
The American gymnast married Jonathan Owens in Cabo over the weekend
A celebrity wedding always calls for a glamorous wedding gown or, in Simone Biles’ case, four glamorous wedding gowns. When the American gymnast married her longtime love Jonathan Owens in Cabo over the weekend, she wore not one, but four custom looks by Galia Lahav.
The wedding weekend began with a celebration on the eve of the big day, and Biles chose a white, strappy mini dress covered in sparkly embellishments and classic court shoes for the occasion.
When it came to walking down the aisle, Biles opted for a classic ballgown silhouette in the form of the brand’s Gimaya dress, which had been custom-made for her. It featured a classic corset with a flowing box-pleated skirt, 3D floral lace detail and a slit up the leg.

Read Amal Clooney’s powerful speech for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards: ‘justice must be waged’
This week, at the 16th awards ceremony for the Cartier Women’s Initiative, a global entrepreneurship program that aims to drive change by encouraging women who leverage their businesses as a force for good, hosted by writer, comedian, and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris, Amal gave an inspiring speech of her own, celebrating a plethora of career achievements and those of the French luxury house’s 32 fellows, and sharing some empowering words.

Lizzy Caplan on Fatal Attraction, strong female roles and the 20th anniversary of Mean Girls
The actress sits down with Harper’s Bazaar to discuss reprising Glenn Close’s iconic character
Lizzy Caplan can’t quite remember when she first saw 1987‘s Fatal Attraction, but she does recall that she wasn’t old enough to be watching it. “I definitely did not understand some of the more nuanced parts of it,” she recalls with a laugh, pouring herself a cup of Earl Grey. “It was at a sleepover, it was on someone’s dad’s VHS and I remember it being very scary.”
“At first, I thought, ‘hold on, why are we remaking such a wonderful movie?’” Caplan says. “The more I thought about it, and I read the first script, I realised that Fatal Attraction is actually a great story to revisit. Glenn Close herself has said that she feels like Alex Forrest was given short shrift.”

How to Build an Art Town
Dallas’s art scene is booming—so much so that it’s being described as the next Miami. But when a city gets deemed a creative capital, who ultimately benefits?
Dallas is the fastest-growing metro area in the country, with a strong collector base. It’s unquestionably an art town on the rise—the next Miami, even? Each time I mentioned this to locals, I was met with an explosion of laughter and the overwhelming consensus that no, Dallas will never stop being Dallas. But I’m not so sure. The fair is beloved for its quintessential Dallas-ness: warmth, Southern hospitality, and openness. But as the city and the fair both increase in size, we have to ask: Openness for whom?

Photographer Richard Avedon’s 1957 Meditations on Ageless Beauty
In this showcase from the Town & Country archives, the legendary photographer contemplates what makes a woman beautiful.
“Aborn beauty.””Those words, always meant as a compliment, have never seemed to be one to me. As a photographer, I have looked at all sorts of women, in all moods, and I must admit that the “born beauty” has always interested me least of all. She lacks the most important ingredient in beauty—a quality you see in every woman on these pages—the element of surprise, and a certain mystery. That is why I think the true beauty is made, not born. Beauty is perhaps always a kind of becoming, a perpetual testing of self which shows in the changing image of a face. The really beautiful woman suggests something we had not imagined before—in a glance or the turn of her head. She is able to introduce us to unfamiliar effects, by making us want to know her inner life. She may possess the art of suggesting more than is there, but she must suggest. A woman is beautiful who makes us ask, “What is she thinking?” And because she is the result of a process which takes endless time, she is also ageless.

Heather Armstrong Told the Truth About Motherhood, and We Owe Her So Much For It
Armstrong was far from perfect, but she never, ever declared herself to be. It’s been disappointing to see some obituaries focus on her flaws and foibles instead of noting the outsized effect she had on blogging as an art form, and the permission she gave to a generation of women—mothers, yes, but also weird tweens reading her website at night when their own moms thought they were asleep—to tell the truth about their lives, even when it wasn’t sexy or sweet or placating to the reader.

Just Because the Menu Is Meant To Be Shared, Doesn’t Mean You Have To
You know it’s coming when the server says, “Have you dined with us before?”
“Let me tell you a little bit about how we do things here,” the server intones. I hold my breath, waiting for them to recite a mantra that I can barely remember not hearing at the beginning of a meal in New York City, Los Angeles, or Boston. “Everything here is meant to be shared. For a group of four, we’d recommend ordering between 8 and 12 dishes.” […]
But after the third night in a row eating half of a morsel of fried mackerel, a quarter of that meatball, and a polite, but ultimately unsatisfying spoonful of gnocchi, I can’t help but – albeit with some shame and embarrassment — find myself lusting after the experience of a composed entrée, sides and all, for me and me alone. Call it suburban Cheesecake Factory envy, if you will, or a bout of selfishness.

There’s No Need to Panic-Buy Chartreuse
The monks who make the French liqueur announced they won’t be ramping up production to meet demand.
For as long as cocktail bars have been slinging drinks, Chartreuse has graced menus and back bars. The liqueur — coming in both yellow and green hues — is based on a secret recipe which, since 1605, has been entrusted to the Carthusian Order, a group of Catholic monks based in the Chartreuse Mountains of southeast France who have produced the herbal elixir for centuries to fund their monasteries.
The rise of cocktail culture has inspired a recent revival of Chartreuse’s popularity among both bartenders and everyday consumers — as demonstrated in March at a record-breaking Chartreuse auction in Geneva, during which all 648 lots on offer were sold. So when folks realized they could no longer locate bottles at their local liquor stores and bars, murmurs of a Chartreuse shortage began to spread across the Internet.

Starbucks Is Charging Customers More for ‘No Water’ Refreshers
If you want more Refresher in your Refresher, it’ll cost you.
If your go-to Starbucks order is one of their fruit-and-juice Refreshers, you may be paying a little extra, starting this week. The Seattle-based coffee chain is now charging one dollar extra for any Refresher drink that’s ordered with “no water” — and the price change is proving to be complicated for both customers and baristas.
The company says that it decided to make that price change because the Refreshers are more expensive to make when they’re made without water.

Adele James Talks Netflix’s Controversial ‘Queen Cleopatra’ Series: “Blackwashing Isn’t a Thing”
On a podcast, the British actress addressed the criticism from the Egyptian government for the casting of an actress of mixed heritage to play the late pharaoh in the docuseries from Jada Pinkett Smith.
Adele James, who plays the titular role in Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra docuseries, has addressed the controversy around the project after the Egyptian government criticized the portrayal of the country’s famous ruler as dark-skinned.
“Blackwashing isn’t a thing, is it?” the British actress told The Wayne Ayers Podcast on Wednesday about the controversy over Cleopatra’s race and heritage, which remains a hotly debated subject among historians. “I find it sad that people are either so self-loathing or so threatened by Blackness that they feel the need to do that, to separate Egypt from the rest of the continent,” the Casualty star added.

How to handle grief on Mother’s Day
Grief — for a parent, a child, or fertility issues — can be especially heightened during family holidays. These tips could help.
I didn’t realize that a commercial for flower bouquets could feel like an emotional assault until Mother’s Day 2019. My mother died on November 25, 2018, the day before my birthday; I remember thinking that I would never be able to celebrate with joy again. Then that first Mother’s Day came around, and every time I saw or heard anything about buying cards or gifts to honor the woman who raised me, I wanted to punch someone or crawl under the covers and cry. Or both.

Sold for a Song, a Church’s Windows Turned Out to Be Tiffany
Two fixtures, which were covered in grime, were sold along with other artifacts by a Philadelphia church’s new owner for $6,000. An auction house estimates they could bring up to $250,000 — each.
Paul Brown, an antiques collector from Lancaster, Pa., said that he typically collects 19th-century grocery store products, old gas station signs and advertising — pieces of Americana that he can haul away in the back of his Chevy pickup truck.
But last fall, he decided to buy two large round windows that were covered in grime and encased high in the stone walls of a dilapidated Gothic Revival church in West Philadelphia, which was built in 1901 and had originally been named St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church.

Inside the Quest for Totally Transparent Cocktail Ice
After 14 years of research, the writer Camper English is putting everything he’s learned into his new guide for at-home bartenders, “The Ice Book.”
Camper English’s obsession with ice began with its opposite: boiling water.
As a writer living in the craft-cocktail hotbed of San Francisco, he has spent many hours cradling drinks cooled by gorgeous crystalline ice. But such pure rocks were beyond the reach of the home bartender who lacked high-end commercial ice machines. To Mr. English, this was an unacceptable situation.
“I was trying to confirm or disprove theories on making clear ice that I had been hearing from bartenders,” he said.

When Did ‘Wholesome’ Become a Gen Z Compliment?
For a young generation, the word has come to embody everything pure and true.
And it’s not just wholesome content that Gen Z-ers prefer. Many of them prefer wholesome people, like Harry Styles; wholesome pastimes, like playing board games; and a wholesome lifestyle consisting of “healing eras” and “protecting your peace.” Wholesomeness is not just a compliment, then. It’s a generational value.
In a 2022 study, Ms. Lamont interviewed 80 college students and found that there was an overall sentiment among Gen Z of valuing optimism and contributing to social change.

Surprising Ways to Use Everyday Kitchen Items, From a Cast Iron Skillet to a Teaspoon
Bet you didn’t realize these cooking essentials had so many hidden talents.
In the age of culinary gadgets (think air fryers, Instant Pots, and high-speed blenders), it can be easy to take the most classic, reliable kitchen items for granted. But unlike specialty appliances with singular hi-tech functions, these timeless tools are incredibly versatile—and we bet you haven’t even yet scratched the multi-purpose surface. From box graters and cast iron skillets to rolling pins and teaspoons, these familiar items have several surprise uses in store.

How Long Paint Lasts—and How to Tell If a Can Has Expired
Be prepared for future projects by increasing the shelf life of your leftover paint.
If you’re a homeowner with a DIY streak, then you’re almost guaranteed to have a corner of your basement, garage, or shed stacked with partly-used paint cans: a little bit of the grassy green you used for the nursery, a half-full can of gray from your half-bath makeover, and a few inches of the terra-cotta accent shade in your living room.
Whether these paints last until your next project—or until you need to touch up the original one—depends on a variety of factors, including whether the paint is oil-based or latex, how you used it, and how and where you store it. To help you determine whether or not last year’s can is expired, we tapped Ed Edrosa, senior project manager at Behr, and Dennis Fiorilli, director of product excellence at Sherwin-Williams; here, they detail how long paint should last—and how to make sure yours stays fresh as long as possible.

Learn All About Morel Mushrooms, the Elusive Fungi That Will Elevate Your Cooking
Consider this your guide to morel mushrooms.
If it’s spring, it’s also morel season. The prized mushrooms with their distinctive, honey-combed caps are the fruiting bodies of the Morchella genus of fungi. They are one of the most sought-after and expensive foods in the world. You might be wondering why they have such a hefty price tag and what makes them so desirable. Find out why the mushrooms are so coveted, how to distinguish the fungi from lookalikes, and the best ways to prepare them.

The Biggest, Messiest Band Breakups in Music History
From the Beatles to N.W.A to Fifth Harmony
“BEING IN A band is tricky,” Bono said earlier this year. “The older you get, it gets even trickier, because when you grow up together, you’re used to taking bits out of each other. You’re as good as the arguments you get, but at a certain point, when people are doing well, the male loves to be the lord of his own domain. It’s rough. And you can just imagine why people say, ‘Ah, fuck this, I’m outta here.’”
U2 are one of the few bands in rock history where not a single member has said “fuck this, I’m outta here” at any point, even if drummer Larry Mullen Jr. is on break right now while he recovers from back surgery. Going back to the days of the Everly Brothers in the 1950s, bands have been melting down, often in spectacular fashion. The arguments are often about money or creative control, but everything from religious differences to disagreements over how often to tour can also rip a group apart.

15 Best Places to Visit in Georgia — From Charming Mountain Towns to Sandy Beaches
The best places to visit in Georgia range from bustling college towns to barrier islands with wild horses and unspoiled beaches.
While the state of Georgia may be synonymous with peaches and resounding chants of “Go Dawgs,” it’s also a region filled with history, charming small towns, bustling cities, and an incredible amount of biodiversity. There’s a high chance you’ve found yourself passing through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — it is the busiest airport in the world, after all — but you’ll need to make your way outside of the terminals in order to experience the quaint bookstores of Savannah and the adrenaline-pumping hikes in Tallulah Gorge. During the hot, muggy summer months, nothing beats a dip in Lake Oconee or an oceanfront breeze on Tybee Island.
With so many amazing places within Georgia’s nearly 60,000 square miles, it can be hard to narrow down your must-see list — so we did it for you. From the breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains to the picturesque beaches of the Golden Isles, here are the best places to visit in Georgia.

[Photo Credit: sanantonio-santorini.com]

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