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Tag Archives: Jon Snow

Weekend Reading: Feel Good Stories and More

17 June 201616 August 2023

How is everyone’s summer so far?  We’ve been graced with this absolutely perfect 70+ degrees weather in NYC.  With Father’s Day this weekend, I’m sure there will be a lot of feasting, barbecuing and I Love You’s all across America.

Here is my weekly wrap up of some of my favorite things that caught my eye this week.  Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there.  Kids, make sure to spoil your daddy!

Feel Good Stories to Read This Weekend

I always love reading the good stories out there.  It really makes our hearts smile.

    1. Boy With Brain Tumor Gets His Very Own Dragon.  I am so jealous of Brody.
    2. NFL Player Adopts a Pitbull.  You have to see the look on the dog’s face on his way home from the shelter.  It is priceless.
    3. What happened when an Orthodox Jewish Congregation went to a gay bar to mourn Orlando.  This was an amazing read.  This story needs to be shared a gazillion times.




Stories Worth Sharing this Weekend

1. Some Amusing Little Things in the US  You have to read this just for the laughs.  It’s funny to read stories of newcomers to the US and how things are so different here for them.  I always find it funny discovering differences when I travel to new countries.  I remember learning “Take Away” meant “To Go” in Ireland and London.  I remember standing there going, “HUH?” when she asked me about take away.  Then I saw there was a sign up that displayed two different prices for dining in and taking away.  Then it made sense.  Take away meant TO GO!

When you ask for hot sauce in some countries, they give you some weird version of sweet salsa (it’s disgusting) [Prague, Czech Republic].  When you’re in Africa, wee-fee means wifi.  In Ireland, there are XXXX number of ways to use one curse word.  Believe me when I say within the first 5 minutes of arriving in Dublin, I learned about 20 different ways to use one curse word.  I’m sure the woman had more meanings to it, too.  I was just like…welcome to Ireland.

2.  Bucky Fucking Dent.  Need something for your book loving Dad this Father’s Day?  Does he like baseball?  This book came on my radar this week when I attended an event with the author, David Duchovny (you know, Agent Fox Mulder and Hank Moody).  Who knew that this actor has a serious background in literature?  That’s what he went to Princeton and Yale for.

Here’s the Amazon synopsis:

Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery-operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American Novel, and spends the waning days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent.

When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of Ted’s youth tries to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from Mariana―the Nuyorican grief counselor with whom Ted promptly falls in love―and a crew of neighborhood old-timers, Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Boston winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of.

David Duchovny’s richly drawn Bucky F*cking Dent explores the bonds between fathers and sons and the age-old rivalry between Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with our urgent need to persevere―and risk everything―in the name of love. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of ’78 when the mighty Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tender, insightful, and hilarious novel demonstrates how life truly belongs to the losers, and that the long shots are the ones worth betting on.

Bucky F*cking Dent is a singular tale that brims with the mirth, poignancy, and profound solitude of modern life.

I purchased a copy of the book after hearing Duchovny talk about writing.  Not acting, just writing. I’ll have more on that talk this weekend.

3. About the Night.  I’ve been reading this book for the past couple of weeks.  It’s the current selection for next month’s PW Book Club.  I had downloaded the Kindle version, but then ordered the book when it was released to the public on 6/1.  This was one of those books that had so many deep, heartfelt words that I had to buy one for my personal library.  I wanted to be able to highlight all of the beautiful words that touched my soul.  This is a story about an Arab man falling in love with a Jewish woman and then a wall divided them in Jerusalem.  It’s such an incredible story.  I’m only 2/3 of the way through it.

If you’ve ever loved someone greatly and then they were ripped away from you…you will understand this suffering.


ENTERTAINMENT

  1.  Mads Mikkelsen Wants Hannibal Back.  I love this man.  He loves Hannibal just as much as any Fannibal.
  2.  Battle of the Bastards.  If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you know the battle between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton is coming.
  3. Orange is the New Black Has Dropped.  Well, apparently all your plans this weekend have been cancelled for Netflix.  OITB was dropped today.  Let the binge-watching commence!

Food To Try This Weekend

  1. Pho, ramen and more slurp-worthy slow cooker Asian noodle soups.  OMG.  Definitely doing this over the summer now that I’ve switched to crockpot mode.
  2. Simple Trick that Makes Cupcakes Look Fancy.  It’s the little things that bring so much joy.
  3. 9 Best Bacon Breakfasts for Father’s Day.  Did someone say bacon?




Fashion Buys for the Weekend

1. Green Ombre Dress from Banana Republic.   I am in love with this dress.

br1
Banana Republic Ombre Dress

2.  Neiman Marcus Sale on Sale.  Neiman Marcus is having a sale on their sale.  Summer whites are on my radar.  Here are a few of my favorites.

nm1
For the Weekend Summer Wedding

Sachin & Babi dress.

nm2
To Beat the Heat During the Weekend

French Connection top.

nm3
For the Weekend Evening Out

Jill Jill Stuart Jumpsuit.

3.  Oscar de la Renta.  If you saw my Instagram post of this beautiful necklace, you’re probably wondering why I’m wearing a necklace valued at $990 to the office.  And then there are some who say, “HOW?”  or “WHY would you pay that much for a necklace?”

odlr
Oscar De La Renta necklace.

One of my earlier posts [How to Rent Your Wardrobe] explains HOW.  This is just an example of the many items available under Rent the Runway Unlimited.  The dress in the photo is also from RTRU.

RTRU is a great way to add couture designers to your daily wardrobe without adding to your clutter.  For those who Kon Mari’d their wardrobe, you don’t really want to add any more items to your closet.  Renting is great for those who have minimized their closets, but still want something new to wear every now and again.  For $139/month, you can rent couture designer items (3 out at a time).

[If you click on the Rent The Runway Unlimited link in this post, you can take $30 off your first month.  You can cancel at any time.]




A Better You to Try Out This Weekend

    1. My Most Simple, Most Effective Productivity Technique.  For those who are looking for ways to focus and get things done, take a look at this article.  I’ve been practicing this technique.  It is a challenge, but it will help you to focus on the task at hand so you can get more things done.
    2. 4 Ways to Improve Your Memory.
    3. 12 Habits of Highly Productive People.




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Testament of Youth

4 June 201510 June 2015

testamentWhile I would normally do a general review of a film, “Testament of Youth” will be a little different because this film hit very close to home for me.

Synopsis – This film is based on the memoir written by Vera Brittain (played by Alicia Vikander from “A Royal Affair”).  This young woman’s sole desire was to go to Oxford, just like her brother.  Her father wanted her to remain home.  As a consolation, while they were out swimming with a friend, her father purchased a piano for her.  It was enough money to pay for one year at Oxford.

When she arrived home to discover this, she was angry.  As she’s telling her father that she will never marry, not ever in this lifetime, the man she would fall in love with walked into the house.  Roland Leighton (played by Kit Harington from “Game of Thrones”).

This was right before World War I began.

Her brother managed to talk their father into letting her take the entry exams at Oxford.  SPOILER ALERT: She got in.

As she prepared to go to Oxford with her brother, Roland and friends, the Great War began.  All of the boys decided to sign up.

During the summer before the war, Roland and Vera started to fall deeper and deeper in love with each other.  When Roland broke the news to her that he had enlisted, it was on the day they should have been heading to Oxford to begin school together.

As more time went on, she decided she had to do something, so she took leave from Oxford to work as a nurse.  She started in the hospitals in Britain before later heading to the front.

War changes people.  Roland was no exception.  He tried to put the walls between them, but she refused to allow him to do it.  That was when he proposed to her, promising to marry during his next leave.

SPOILER ALERT: He died.  On the day they were to wed, his mother called the hotel to inform her that he had died.

He wasn’t the only one that died in the war.  Her brother died, as well as their friend, Victor.  She lost all of the people she grew up with and loved to the Great War.

After the war had ended, she became one of the greatest female pacifists in history and a writer.

Close to Home

If I’m going to be honest, I almost got up and left several times.  It wasn’t because the film was bad.  Quite the contrary.  It just hit a little too close to home for me.

Before Roland died, I knew it was coming, because like Vera, those moments of reflection reminded me of having those moments.  You remember their skin jutting out from their shirt sleeves, the way their hair tossed in the wind, the way they looked at you, the way they smelled, or the way their heart beat against their chest.  You remember how it felt when they touched your skin.  You remember that pure, untainted love.

These are the memories that stay with you forever.  These are the memories you create with your soulmate.  Roland and Vera were soulmates.

There were so many elements to what happened in this story that was just like my life story: the need to know exactly what happened when he died, the writings he left for her, being separated due to choices, being taken away at such a young age.  All of these elements to Roland and Vera’s story gave me goosebumps.  It made me remember my own soulmate.  He killed himself just two weeks before my high school graduation.

You have to learn how to live after your soulmate dies.  There was a quote in the movie that stuck with me: “We are all surrounded by ghosts.  We just have to learn how to live with them.”

The director really communicated what that loss felt like.  There were even moments where Kit Harington (with his clean cut) reminded me of those memories I had made with my soulmate.

For those who have felt that great loss of losing your soulmate, you can begin to understand why she took the stand for humanity…to say no to war.  War was what took the people she loved deeply away from her.

Her stand against war was about those who have lost loved ones due to war.  It wasn’t about politics.  It was about humanity.  Each side is sending their fathers, brothers, fiancés and husbands to fight in a war.  Each side is losing those very people.  Each side feels that loss just as deeply as the other side.  Her pacifism was about protecting human lives, not about where those lives came from or whose side they were fighting on.

As each person approaches the end of their life, they’re not talking about killing the enemy.  They’re calling out to the people they loved.

I’ve been in Vera’s shoes.  I’ve been in them for 20 years now…the part where I’m learning how to live with those ghosts.  The end of this movie was very important.  It was about remembering and honoring those men she lost.  When you lose your soulmate and people you were very close to, you can sometimes be on the brink of insanity.  You try to forget them in order to survive another day.  There were times where Vera almost completely lost herself in her grief.

Vera’s choice in the end was not to forget them.  What she did was take that pain and suffering and turn it into something better.  The truth is, the reason why people try so hard to make others happy, or advocate for peace like Vera did, is so that others will not experience the same loss they have gone through.  They know what it feels like to be destroyed by that loss.  They don’t want other people to experience what they’ve experienced.  Even if they put a smile on their face to distract others from seeing their own unhappiness, it’s only in an effort to make sure others never go through what they went through.  Some pain and suffering need not be repeated.  People will do anything to protect others from experiencing that same suffering.  Vera spent her life trying to do just that as a pacifist.

Quotes from Kit Harington (Roland) and James Kent (Director)

Kit Harington speaks to the audience about his new film "Testament of Youth."
Kit Harington speaks to the audience about his new film “Testament of Youth.”

Tribeca – Kit Harington and James Kent stopped by after this special screening to talk about the film on Wednesday night.

Here are a couple of audio clips from the event:

Testament of Youth 1

Testament of Youth 2

Here are a few select quotes from the evening.

James Kent:

“She spoke for a generation, because they were the survivors and they needed that time to have the courage to go, ‘No, no more.’  Hitler was beginning to come to power at that time and there was a real fear that Europe could be sliding into something unsavory.  I think [Vera] does speak for the lost generation.”

The reason why Harington worked on “Testament of Youth” was because he had read about it in school and knew the story well.

Kit Harington:

“I knew this text quite well, actually…I studied it at school, both the history and for English literature, studying the war parts.  I knew the formidable person Vera Brittain was from her books, from her memoirs.  I think that sounds a little bit wishy washy and wanky… Sorry.  What I really learned was through Alicia [Vikander’s] depiction of her, I felt it was so accurate, so beautifully done by her that I thought I was talking to that person.  In the movie, I thought I was talking to that person, the Brittain I knew very well and loved.  That was kind of amazing to experience.”

James Kent:

“I would hope if [Vera Brittain] came back and saw this film, and watched this film in this day and age, in this audience, that she would see a huge difference in who she was.”

Kit Harington:

“One thing that really scares me about my generation is that we are not as active as [Vera] was.  Our discussion is a hard one.  In some ways, you can argue that we, with social media, have a greater voice.  In some ways, it’s completely dumb’ed down.  I think, to me, it’s a very important discussion that has to be had.  To my shame, I have never been in a political march in my life.  I should have done it.”

Kit Harington:

“When I first read [Testament of Youth] in school, it actually triggered a real interest in this period for me.  I had already been taken to the the Northern War graves, the French War graves, by my father, kind of a right of passage.  I think he thought it was important that me and my brother go and see the consequence of war.  There’s no better visual consequence than seeing those graves, those names on the wall.  I read it at school and it kicked off a far greater interest about that period, about the literature surrounding that period.  So when this came through the door, it was important to me that it was done well.  Juliette (Towhidi) actually wrote it.  I instantly knew when it was halfway through, it was doing it great justice.  She had imagined the scenes around the ones that were in the books.  They were written and respectfully done.”

On deciding on Kit to play the role of Roland, James Kent:

“What he has is the X-factor, the extra thing, which is a sort of soulful kind of intelligence, intellectual curiosity…a really soulful practical side.  It was so important to get Roland right.  If you got him wrong, it diminishes Vera as well.  That she chose him and fell in love.  She wore those dried flowers that you see that he sent her from the front, around her neck in a locket for the rest of her life.  She married and she still had these flowers around her neck.”

James Kent:

“It’s very important to me that at the end of the film, she goes out into that pool of water again, because she’s trying to regain the conversation that she had with Roland in the woods where she says she wants to be a writer.  He said that you need some experience first.  She goes back to that lake with all that experience and finally by going into the water, it’s a baptism.  It’s a renewal.  It’s a purging.  She can make that promise to the boys.  I now got what Roland advised me to get.  I can now enshrine your story for generations to come.  And that’s exactly what you’ve experienced [with this film].”

The film is due out in US theaters on Friday, June 5th.

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