#02: Who Run the World

Shut the front door! Loved loved loved this profile of the exceptional Stacy London, legendary style guru from much-missed (by me) TLC makeover show, What Not to Wear. Wise words on aging, fashion, and not giving a fuck. Yasss queen!

"I feel like she was one of these people that had dreams [for her life]. But she had kids. And it made me think of all the women that I know who have kids, who when they talk about [anything negative about their lives as mothers], they always say, ‘But I love my kids, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.’ Like they feel guilty for even hinting that they’d want something outside of kids! It’s a weird thing.” - Winona Ryder in Heather Havrilesky's excellent profile for The Cut, on her character Joyce Byer in last year's Stranger Things.

If you do not adore the wonder that is Ina Garten, you are dead inside. This woman is a modern marvel. Why haven't you already read Sandra Allen's Buzzfeed profile? It's a revelation.

I dare you not to be moved to tears watching chef-poet Dominique Crenn's episode of Chef's Table on Netflix. Do your homework first with Julia Moskin's NYT profile, published, appropriately, on Valentine's Day, and then watch. Of her own heroes, Crenn says, “My biggest role models are not chefs,” she said, “but women like Coco Chanel, Simone de Beauvoir, Nina Simone.”

“It did seem to me, when I was a kid and also now that I’m a grown-up writer, that a lot of male writers have a certainty that I have never been able to have. I kept on thinking I would grow into it, but I’m never sure I’m doing the right thing.” - Zadie Smith in conversation with Jeffrey Eugenides, from the October 17, 2016 issue of T Magazine. (I've just finished her latest, Swing Time. Have you read it?)