T LOunge for August 30th, 2023

PinKanusan Bar and Restaurant at Finolhu Baa Atoll Maldives – Finolhu, Maldives

Why limit the beach view to Fridays, darlings? It’s WEDNESDAY and we want to hear some waves crashing. We’re off to make our offerings to the content goddesses, who are capricious and stingy, but don’t tell them we said so. Grab a seat and get to gabbing while you wait for the cocktails and nibblies to arrive.

Sarah Jessica Parker ADOPTS kitten Carrie rescued in And Just Like That… and reveals adorable pet’s new name (and it’s NOT Shoe!)
Sarah Jessica Parker has revealed she adopted the adorable kitten her character Carrie Bradshaw rescued in And Just Like That… season two.
The actress, 58, whose SATC co-star Kim Cattrall recently returned for the reboot’s finale, shared some adorable snaps with the feline, who Carrie christened Shoe in the show.
In the series, Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) adopted Shoe after working at a veterinary surgery – with a shocked Carrie later taking the kitten into her apartment, and later new townhouse.

Florence Pugh Is The British Icon
She is one of her generation’s most critically acclaimed, and outspoken, actors. She catches up with Jodie Turner-Smith to talk about friendship and the power in standing up for herself.
Florence Pugh is quite possibly the most formidable acting talent of her generation. The 27-year-old Tiffany ambassador is a true presence both on the red carpet and on screen, where she fearlessly brings her intelligence and insight to every role. She embodies every character she plays with depth and humanity, resulting in Oscar and Bafta nominations. But, once the cameras stop rolling, Pugh is equally passionate and outspoken in her own life, often calling out online bullying and body shaming on social media. But she has a playful side, too.
Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla film is debuting at Venice Film Festival next week. Here’s why you’ll want to see it
Based on Priscilla’s memoir, it’s the real deal – an iconic woman’s story being told by women.
The real story goes something like this: In the late 1950s, an extremely famous Elvis Presley was drafted into the US Army and served as a soldier, stationed in West Germany. The star had already released three top-selling albums and made four films by 1958; including Jailhouse Rock. In 1959, Priscilla’s family were living in West Germany, where her stepfather was also stationed. It was at a party in September of that year that 14-year-old Priscilla met the 24-year-old singer.

How Anna May Wong Became the First Chinese American Movie Star
A new biography revisits the pathbreaking Golden Age Hollywood actress’s life and legacy.
In 1922, she landed her first lead role, in “The Toll of the Sea.” She played a Hong Kong girl who falls in love with a white man who impregnates and abandons her; the film ends with her suicide. The character was the spiritual descendant of Madame Butterfly, a stereotypically submissive Asian woman who is tragically deserted by a domineering white man. The role demanded that Wong cry constantly. “Somebody throw Anna May Wong a raft,” a crew member yelled. Her performance received glowing reviews, but she struggled to find leading roles—at least in America. In a stroke of luck, she was offered a five-film contract in 1927 by the German director Richard Eichberg, who admired her work. Despite not knowing a lick of German and never having crossed the Atlantic, Wong said yes.

Charlize Theron Is Still Recovering From Overplucking Her Eyebrows in the ’90s
For Theron, scent will always be a gateway to returning to meaningful nostalgic moments. She often searches for scents that remind her of her childhood growing up on the outskirts of Johannesburg in South Africa. “There was always something about rain hitting dust — it creates this smell that’s just so unique. I get very excited when I see rain because then I look for some dust, some dirt, and I try to recreate it. I’ve never been able to. But that is a very nostalgic smell for me,” she says. “When I go back and we have our rains in South Africa, it’s everywhere. You can smell it everywhere. Man, it just fills my soul. I’m like, ‘This is home.'”

The Most Dramatic Venice Film Festivals In Recent Memory, Ranked
Whatever happens, this year’s Venice Film Festival will be one to remember. After the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes put its future in doubt and caused its previously announced opening film, Luca Guadagnino’s Zendaya-led Challengers, to pull out, it somehow managed to assemble a startlingly impressive line-up, though uncertainty remains over which stars will make the water taxi ride to the Lido (with their newly acquired waivers in tow), and how they’ll approach red carpets and interviews at a time when so many of their colleagues are on picket lines. Still, it’s hardly the first time the showcase has generated headlines or courted controversy – in fact, it’s almost as if something’s been in the water over the past decade, making the festival a magnet for industry drama. Ahead of its 80th edition, we look back at the most talked-about Venice Film Festivals in recent memory.

Can Lab-Grown Diamonds Really Go Mainstream?
Lab-grown diamonds are a divisive subject in the jewellery world, with the synthetic gemstones often branded “fake” or lesser-than by those in favour of conventional mined diamonds. But in reality, man-made diamonds are identical to natural diamonds – so much so that a diamond expert wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two on examination.
Given that a lab-grown diamond can have a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to a mined diamond, in many ways it’s a no-brainer to choose the man-made option.

The 20 Best Hair Tools for Every Styling Need
The top irons, brushes, and more
Everyone needs a lineup of great hair tools, regardless of hair type, texture, length, or color. The universe of hair tools has expanded in the last several years beyond the usual suspects like the hairbrush, blow dryer, curling iron, and straightener, and some of these new additions are game changers for your hair routine. Whatever you’re looking to add to your hair tool kit, we’ve rounded up the best of the best, from hot tools to brushes to heatless curl kits, so you’ll have everything you need for the perfect styling job at your fingertips. Plus, we consulted with celebrity hairstylist Joseph Maine and Nelson Solivan, stylist at Maxine Salon in Chicago, to share their expert picks as well.

A New Guard of Hotels in Madrid Celebrates the City’s Creative Resurgence
On any given evening in Madrid, as the sun sets over the spires and rooftops and begins to cast its long, pink tendrils down the many grand boulevards, there’s a sense that the city is finally, fully springing to life. Few capital cities in Europe have the same spirit of inclusivity and warmth (both literally and figuratively) as Madrid—for while it’s an international hub, sure, it’s also a place where you can slip into a poky taberna or tapas bar and immediately feel at one with the locals, or spend the best part of a day wandering through its neighborhoods without encountering a single other tourist, somehow.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Wrote Her First Children’s Book to Celebrate the ‘Ordinariness of Black Women’s Lives’
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has more or less conquered the adult literary world with her wide and varied body of work, which includes the novels Americanah, Purple Hibiscus, and Two Halves of a Yellow Sun; the widely circulated essay We Should All Be Feminists; and the short-story collection The Thing Around Your Neck. But these days, she’s facing two new frontiers: motherhood and children’s-book writing, both of which have come to occupy her attention in the years since her daughter was born.
Adichie’s latest project, the children’s book Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, which is illustrated by Joelle Avelino, is due out on September 5 from Penguin Random House

Why It’s Never Too Late to Learn a New Language
When I was 16 years old, I spent a semester on a student exchange in a tiny fairytale town in Southern France where I lived with a host family and their flat-faced cat, Utopia. Five months later, when I said À bientôt to my temporary life, I realized that I had barely improved in French at all. I’d mastered pronunciation and a few colloquial expressions, but I was very far from fluent. The thing is, when you speak English you’re bound to run into other English speakers. They’re everywhere, even in a tiny town in Europe, hours away from the main city.

25 Perfect TV Episodes From the Last 25 Years
The past quarter century’s best TV episodes, from Mad Men and The Sopranos to Succession and beyond.
Earlier this year, Vanity Fair compiled a list of eight perfect TV episodes from the 2022–2023 season. It’s a killer collection, spanning comedy, drama, and whatever category The Bear belongs to. But after it was done, we couldn’t stop thinking about more of TV’s best episodes—the stand-alone chapters that push an ongoing narrative to new heights, the self-contained but sweeping stories that best exemplify what makes television so special. So, which classics most deserve to be labeled perfect episodes?

The Spanish sexual misconduct scandal roiling soccer, explained
Spanish soccer president Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed a player after the World Cup. He’s refusing to resign
After the Spanish women’s team triumphed over England in the World Cup, their victory was marred by Royal Spanish Soccer Federation President Luis Rubiales, who kissed star player Jenni Hermoso on the mouth without her consent.
She’s called the kiss “an impulse-driven, sexist, out of place act without any consent on my part,” while he initially referred to it as a mistake and then claimed it was consensual.
Since then, calls have grown for Rubiales to be removed from his position, and FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, has temporarily suspended him for 90 days as it investigates. Rubiales, however, has refused to resign himself, prompting a protest from players as well as resignations from the coaching staff for the women’s team.

Do Cocktail Glasses Have a Gender? For Some Men, Clearly.
Stereotypes may be fading, but bartenders say many male customers are still uneasy with fancy glassware. And bars are trying to help.
While efforts to challenge the gender binary are evident in how we talk, dress for work and wear makeup, a visit to the cocktail bar might transport you back to the 1950s. Bartenders say that many men appear as committed as ever to drinking out of “manly” glasses and avoiding glassware they deem too feminine.
“It’s an industry joke that we tend to stereotype people based on their glassware preferences,” said Kaslyn Bos, 30, a bartender at Donna in the West Village.

The 50 Worst Decisions in TV History
Reality TV disasters, boneheaded cancelations, cable news calamities, and more
It wasn’t easy, but we combed through six decades and picked out the 50 worst decisions in the history of television. The goal wasn’t to center this on “Jumping the Shark” moments, which is why you won’t see entries about Felicity getting a haircut or Cousin Oliver moving in with the Brady Bunch. We instead focused on choices made at the network level by clueless suits. That said, a few dumb writing decisions — like the infamous Armin Tamzarian episode of The Simpsons — were hard to avoid.

Why Water Temperature Matters When Washing White and Colorful Laundry
Experts break down this fundamental laundry rule.
The rules of laundry care may seem overwhelming at first—all those symbols on the tag!—but it’s easy to remember the right temperature for washing different loads: whites on warm, colors on cold.
Keep your everyday clothes, linens, and delicates looking bright and new with advice from laundry experts about how—and why—setting your washer to the proper temperature can benefit your wardrobe in the long run.

The Basics of Home Canning and Preserving Fruits and Vegetables, According to an Expert
Get your beginner’s guide to preserving a harvest of fruits and vegetables.
Each summer, we seem to run into the same problem (if you can call it that)—an overabundance of seasonal produce. So many tempting fruits and vegetables are in season at this time of the year, and it can be hard to get through everything before it goes bad, especially if you have a vegetable garden or are tempted to over-purchase at the farmers’ market. Whether it’s a bounty of green beans, vine-ripened tomatoes, or sweet berries, canning and preserving food is the perfect way to lengthen the shelf life of peak-season produce. You only need a little time, a handful of tools, and a cool, dry place to store the canned goods.
Our simple guide will teach you how to properly can and preserve your favorite ingredients so that you can set yourself up for success and enjoy them all year long; not to mention you’ll be saving money and combatting food waste, one jar of home canned tomatoes at a time. Your future self will thank you.

[Photo Credit: finolhu.com]

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