I love Felicity Jones. I just LOVE her, and I cannot waaait to see her kick ass in Rogue One. I’ve been a fan since she starred in the 2007 ITV production of Northanger Abbey with JJ Feild and Carey Mulligan (GOOD CAST), and feel the sort of loyalty and 100% unfounded pride you always feel when an actor you’ve followed for years moves from relative obscurity into the limelight — you know, as though you’re personally albeit only marginally responsible for a fraction of their success, just because you really liked them in That One Thing most people you know didn’t see. Anyway! I don’t know if anyone wants to shriek or speculate about Rogue One in the comments or if we’ve all gotten it out or systems by now since the trailer is a whopping two days old, but IF YOU DO I am here for it.
Things I Have Mistaken for a Feeling Over the Years:
- Having a lot of emails
- My room is messy
- Bra being on for too long
Li Sian Goh on commemorating Qing Ming, the Chinese tomb-sweeping festival, in Singapore:
However, we can’t talk about the retention – however uneasily adapted – of religious tradition without also talking about race. Whilst Chinese cultural practices are tolerated and even championed in ethnically Chinese-majority Singapore, other cultures’ practices are complained about, restricted, and even banned for the amount of public nuisance they supposedly cause without regard to the affective value they offer.
I can think of no more blatant a double standard than that enumerated by Qing Ming. There is a great deal of noise, heat, and air pollution involved in practices such as burning joss papers for the dead, which happens not just in temples but also in housing estates everywhere across the island. Yet this is not restricted and continues with unabated fervour on several occasions throughout the year besides Qing Ming — during the Hungry Ghost Festival, for example, or during Chinese wakes. While religious groups urge responsible burning, there are no actual restrictions.
Jaya is going to help you make more friends.
Kate Worteck outlines the problems with women’s outdoor gear (the color, the fit, lack of options, lack of pockets, so basically: everything. FIX THIS, outfitters!).
Laura Ortberg Turner wrote a wonderful essay for Elle about anxiety medication and pregnancy, and this week we republished it at The Toast:
As a religious person, I liked what the theologian Lewis Smedes says in his memoir about faith, My God and I: “God also comes to me each morning and offers me a 20 milligram capsule of Prozac. He clears the garbage that accumulates in the canals of my brain and gives me a chance to get a fresh morning start. I swallow every capsule with gratitude to God.” And I did that every morning, unhesitatingly, an afterthought between going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth, until I decided not to.
When my husband and I began to think about having a kid, I was faced with a choice: Stay on the drugs, possibly hurt the unborn baby, but remain relatively calm; or go off the drugs, reduce the risk to the baby, but potentially become a prisoner of my own anxiety.
I loved Soraya Chemaly’s tribute to her grandmother: “Her name was Julia. She was a very loud woman with a very loud voice.”
Karen Corday on the magic of the radio and taking what you get is a MUST READ.
Karl Marx, li’l sweetheart.
GUYS guys guys guys guys: Last week Kristi Yamaguchi’s Olympic costume designer read my essay, found my email address, and offered to send me some leftover fabric scraps from Kristi’s ’92 free skate costume (see here, if you are interested!). It is EVEN MORE FABULOUS close-up with all the gold sequins and embroidery. (Can I just say how much I appreciate the fact that her Olympic costume was literally trimmed in gold? THAT is how you set the TONE.)
Gazing at these wonderful vintage-inspired WPA posters of America’s National Parks seems like as good a way as any to ease into your weekend with some inspiration. (P.S. Does the Alexander Dux poster from the ’30s REMIND you of anything?)
