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.
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!).
- 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.
- 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 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.
- "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.
- "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”.
