


One of my idols of style, beauty, side-eyeing, and classic Hollywood: Sophia Loren, who turns 88 today. I hope to age a tenth good as she has. A living legend in the truest sense!



One of my idols of style, beauty, side-eyeing, and classic Hollywood: Sophia Loren, who turns 88 today. I hope to age a tenth good as she has. A living legend in the truest sense!
“You know, I didn’t have a thing with butterflies when I was a kid,” she says during a phone interview. “I wasn’t one of those little girls who had a fascination with butterflies, even though I knew children who did. It is just something that happened. When I made that album, I was leaving a point in my life that was extremely stifling and I had to go through an actual metamorphosis to become a grown woman who was strong enough to get out of that situation. It was me breaking through, to become free enough to fly…”–legendary singer Mariah Carey, on the making of her Butterfly album (MSN.com via Variety)
And happy 25th anniversary to this forever amazing album today! It was on heavy rotation in my CD walkman back then, and teen me also wanted to have my hair colored that exact light golden brunette shade she was sporting during that era. A music and hair icon! I will always ❤ me some Mimi!

Because it’s National Read A Book Day today! Currently reading (or should I say re-reading) Murder from the L.A. Connections miniseries (which I also own, as you can see) by the legendary Jackie Collins (RIP), one of my all-time favorite authors! LOVE her books.
Still relevant to this day:

From author Ray Bradbury, born on this day in 1920. If you haven’t read Fahrenheit 451, get to it now!
With the way things are in society at the moment, this poem is so needed.Â
“You Foolish Men” by Sor Juana InĂ©s de la Cruz
You foolish men who lay
the guilt on women,
not seeing you’re the cause
of the very thing you blame;
if you invite their disdain
with measureless desire
why wish they well behave
if you incite to ill.
You fight their stubbornness,
then, weightily,
you say it was their lightness
when it was your guile.
In all your crazy shows
you act just like a child
who plays the bogeyman
of which he’s then afraid.
With foolish arrogance
you hope to find a Thais
in her you court, but a Lucretia
when you’ve possessed her.
What kind of mind is odder
than his who mists
a mirror and then complains
that it’s not clear.
Their favour and disdain
you hold in equal state,
if they mistreat, you complain,
you mock if they treat you well.
No woman wins esteem of you:
the most modest is ungrateful
if she refuses to admit you;
yet if she does, she’s loose.
You always are so foolish
your censure is unfair;
one you blame for cruelty
the other for being easy.
What must be her temper
who offends when she’s
ungrateful and wearies
when compliant?
But with the anger and the grief
that your pleasure tells
good luck to her who doesn’t love you
and you go on and complain.
Your lover’s moans give wings
to women’s liberty:
and having made them bad,
you want to find them good.
Who has embraced
the greater blame in passion?
She who, solicited, falls,
or he who, fallen, pleads?
Who is more to blame,
though either should do wrong?
She who sins for pay
or he who pays to sin?
Why be outraged at the guilt
that is of your own doing?
Have them as you make them
or make them what you will.
Leave off your wooing
and then, with greater cause,
you can blame the passion
of her who comes to court?
Patent is your arrogance
that fights with many weapons
since in promise and insistence
you join world, flesh and devil.
The work of the late legendary photographer Herb Ritts (pictured above with model Alek Wek) has always been delectable and refreshing eye balm for me. Also, why don’t fashion photographers shoot like him these days?
Some of my favorite captures of his, after the cut. (some pics NSFW)
As in Debbie Harry and Missy Elliott, two of my favorite women in music who also happen to share a birthday today!
And from here on out until a woman’s right to an abortion is legally recognized again in the US without question.

Here’s a good link to those who need assistance.
How ’bout some Miles Davis in honor of the summer solstice, shall we? His trumpet here just sends me.