bunz

Recently a few friends and I have been going to Bunz, the weekly dance class at TAPAC where we get sweaty while dancing to Beyonce, Nicki, Taylor Swift et al., all in the name of exercise. Lead by a professional dancer, it's fairly informal and she makes the moves up as we go along. There is a lot of hip shaking, grapevines and swinging power arms. It is SUPER fun, even if I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am not co-ordinated enough to do the arm movements with the feet/leg moves. One of my faves has been learning some moves at the barre to Beyonce's Naughty Girl.

Bunz has been excellent for giving an extra boost to the start of the working week.

Bunz
Every Monday at 7pm at TAPAC
$10 cash at the door.

link-up #5

Bianca Jagger at Studio 54 in 1977. Photograph by Robin Platzer.

- Bianca Jagger has set the record straight on the myth that she once arrived at Studio 54 on a white horse. She wrote to the Financial Times, saying, “It was a beautiful white horse that reminded me of mine and I made the foolish decision to get on it for a few minutes … No doubt you will agree with me that it is one thing to, on the spur of the moment, to get on a horse in a nightclub, but it is quite another to ride in on one. As an environmentalist and an animal rights defender I find the insinuation that I would ride a horse into a nightclub offensive … I hope that you can understand the difference between ‘coming in’ on a horse and getting on one.” 

- At the moment, the most empowering thing in my life is my friendships with women. We often meet up for brunch, or go to gigs and theatre together, because they're sources of inspiration for us, providing further motivation for our own career goals. After-midnight dance parties are another important element of our friendship. Stevie of the Discotheque Confusion blog has written about the importance of female friendships in her life in a post called The Women Are Emailing, and I just had to share this one with my own super rad babe friends (and now you!).

- A couple of weeks ago, popstar (and my queen) Robyn hosted a technology conference for girls. Pitchfork reporter Laura Snapes went along.

- Binge Reading Disorder. The last paragraph on this story about online reading habits just kills it - and I won't spoil it by posting it here.

- The ever-brilliant Karley Sciortino asks Should You Be Friends With Your Ex? An article that couldn't be any more pertinent for me when I discovered this week that no, I can't be friends with my ex, even two years later.

- Hayden Donnell writes about the madness and huge expense that went into the creation Kim Dotcom's Good Times album for The Pantograph Punch.

- It's Nice That has a look at the finalists for Best Magazine Cover.

- When Divas Talk Back: Pitchfork has put together a fantastic playlist that explores "songs where divas address their divahood or being a queer icon writ large. Together, these selections represent a cursory archive of self-asserting divadom, divas who talk back to the culture that created them."

the gentlewoman

Penny Martin speaks to Lou Stoppard of SHOWstudio.

The sister publication of the equally brilliant Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman has defined itself as an intelligent magazine that celebrates women, speaking to its audience as a reader, rather than a consumer. Aiming to be inspirational rather than aspirational, the magazine gives space to everyone from fashion designers to astronauts, journalists to artists. "Modern women of style and purpose", as it says on the website.

The Gentlewoman is a feminist publication without needing to state the obvious. It just inherently is. Its editor and founder Penny Martin says, "It's not a magazine about feminism. We just assume that the people we work with would respect equality, in terms of ethnicity, economically... it just seems like common sense to me."

Alongside lengthy profiles of clever women, the bi-annual magazine features modern details, where they take a closer look at everyday objects, even giving a two-page spread to a loaf of bread. With strong design and writing, every element is carefully considered, right down to the clothing credits of each fashion story.

To me, The Gentlewoman is perfection in a magazine.

link-up #4

@therealdebbieallendanceacademy

 - "Curating a perfected self might win followers or Facebook friends, but it will not necessarily cure loneliness, since the cure for loneliness is not being looked at, but being seen and accepted as a whole person – ugly, unhappy and awkward, as well as radiant and selfie-ready." Excellent write-up by The Guardian's Olivia Laing on The Future of Loneliness.

 - How Journalist Ann Friedman Built a Newsletter Empire.

 - Cookie Lyon and Peggie Olson are two of my favourite badass career women on television. The Financial Diet explores how TV (and these two characters in particular) has made it okay to be a career woman.

 - Nick Shelton was only 25 when he started Broadsheet, and he's building an empire. Listen to an interview with him on ABC about how he got started.

 - Grantland's Dave Schilling takes a look at The Comedic Circle of Life: Trevor Noah, Justin Bieber’s Roast, and the State of Insult Comedy.

 - "A good theatre review (let alone criticism) is a rare treat. Reading the rest evokes the same pain as making small talk with someone you used to love: everything that once shifted your centre of gravity is still there, but it’s been paved over by polite and descriptive banalities." The Critic in New Zealand by Rosabel Tan.

- "Jamie xx is the kind of producer whose sound evokes both past and future London dance music and ‘Loud Places’, the glorious new single from his forthcoming debut solo album In Colour, holds and releases at all the right points.

Featuring the vocals of childhood friend and xx bandmate Romy Madley Croft, the power of the song comes as much from her almost whispered verses as it does from the stirring chorus: “I have never reached such heights, I feel music in your heights”.

 The sample is lifted from an Idris Muhammad disco track from the ‘70s and the accompanying video for ‘Loud Places’ features Romy and Jamie skateboarding through tungsten-lit London streets. I can’t imagine a better place to listen to the song." I wrote about Jamie xx's new song, 'Loud Places' (which I LOVE) and Rihanna's 'Bitch Better Have My Money' for The Wireless.

feminist reading club: mansplaining

Yesterday my friend Kat and I hosted our first ever Feminist Reading Club. We started the group because we spend 90% of our time together discussing feminism and we knew a lot of our friends were doing the same, so we thought we'd bring everyone together to a safe, accepting space where we can all share our ideas and be challenged.

This month's theme was 'mansplaining', specifically as explored in Rebecca Solnit's essay 'Men Explain Things to Me'. Going into it I thought I was already quite familiar with the topic, but I got so much out of our discussion - everyone had brilliant points and the varying skill sets and personal histories brought lots of great new ideas (new to me!) to the topic. My brain was buzzing!

We're keeping it small and women-only for now, because that feels most conducive to open, unfiltered discussion, but if you'd maybe like to join the next one (it's monthly), send me a message. We don't really know what we're doing, so we're just going with what feels right and figuring things out as we go along. 

link-up

Louis Vuitton's set for their Fall 2015 collection.

 - How to be a good mentee.

 - "All I know is that if I want to experience this show, I have to do these things I do. I never think it’s difficult—it’s just what I have to do." - On going to shows when you have a disability.

 - Rihanna is the first black person to front a Dior campaign. Here, Dazed Magazine explores what this means for the fashion industry.

 - While the X Factor thing was a complete eye-roll on so many levels, watching the public's reaction and the viral-ity of the story has been fascinating. What was it about this situation that caused such a huge witch-hunt when other situations with wider-reaching consequences haven't received the same attention? Two of the best articles I read about it came from Duncan Greive, and Duncan Greive's TV website, The Spinoff.

 - Drake and the problem with ageing rappers.

 - Charlie Porter, one of my favourite fashion writers, asks: Where are the discussions about gender in womenswear?

 - I was addicted to Neopets as a tween and it served as an introduction to HTML, so I am glad that 15 years later, they're committed to getting girls into coding.

 - Rookie magazine contributor Minna Gilligan on reconciling her fine art and commercial practices, and why people should just shut up about it and let her live.

 - Mark Broatch from the NZ Listener on book reviewing in NZ.

- Emoji praise hands for Monica Lewinski, who shares her experience of being publicly humiliated and why we need to put an end to cyberbullying: "You're looking at a woman who was publicly silent for a decade. Obviously, that's changed."

 - With a neck that cranes under the weight of her extraordinary brain, Notorious RBG shares what feminism means to her:

champagnepapi

Drake rehearsing at Roundhead Studios - Auckland, New Zealand 21/02/2015 instagram.com/champagnepapi

Tomorrow night I get to see one of my favs.