Entries from August 2008 ↓

A lot o’ you brothers out there don’t know how to treat a beautiful lady. Your game is way off. Y’all need to learn from a professional.

See, when a woman invites me back to her place, and I wanna get hard Core77 on ‘er, I make sure I’m always ready for action.

I’m always bringin’ the Courvoisier.

I’m always correct wit’ the music.

Definitely bringin’ the prophylactation.

And, most of all, I’m bringin’ a Conmoto Travelmate Portable Fireplace, made of black powder-coated steel and glass with adjustable steel fuel-holder, burning bio-ethanol liquid fuel.

And a bearskin rug.

Sumthin’ he can feel: Recreation of Viking woman’s outfit

A recent archaeological find of colorful, even sexy, Viking era (750 – 1050 AD) women’s clothing have led to new ideas about how Norse women got down for theirs. Continue reading →

Look here, America: Bernie Mac in 2000 (Photo by Bob Fila)

Though death is never timely, the demise of comedian Bernie Mac, 50, early Saturday morning in his hometown of Chicago, was startling in its abruptness, even considering that the humorist had been ill in the hospital with pneumonia, from which he ultimately succumbed. (Earlier word held that he was “expected to make a full recovery” and would be out soon, adding to the cruelness of his sudden end.)

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A post-Soviet “survival” technique, according to the courts

As many know from the viral video of a Russian newspaper office worker gone bonkers and attacking co-workers and cubicles, doing the daily grind in one of that country’s corporations seems pretty doggone rough. But just how terrible it can be for women is something we’re only now finding out: According to the Huffington Post,

A woman seeking to become only the third woman ever to successfully bring a sexual harassment case in Russia was dealt a shocking rebuke when the judge threw out her case, ruling that sexual harassment is actually necessary for the survival of the human race:

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As the amazing Core77 well documents, French designer John Nouanesing not only comes up with weird, sexy ideas for tables, above, but maintains a web site full of exciting design concepts, revealing a mind bristling with freaky creativity.

Muslim Girl magazine, published bimonthly since January 2007, targets the 400,000 women, ages 18-24, in the U.S. and Canada, who practice Islam. It’s the only beauty and lifestyle publication that does.

“It’s a huge, niche population that’s very underrepresented,” says Ausma Khan, editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl, and part of the original planning group that created the periodical. “And yet Muslims are in the media all the time, overrepresented in very negative ways, where their stories are constantly being told about them from the outside, and their own voices are very rarely added to the mix.”

Ausma Khan is the guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, August 8, 2 pm ET.

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Cover detail from Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns (2001)
Illustration by Leo & Diane Dillon

Technically, I’m a patron of Leo & Diane Dillon’s, the famed and widely awarded husband & wife children’s book illustrators. (I purchased a very small painting by them, at an extremely generous price, a few years ago.) As well, I’ve hosted them as guests on NONFICTION, my Friday 2 pm WBAI-NY radio show, commemorating their 50th anniversary in March 2007. (Leo has even said he’s a regular listener.)

But that’s just full disclosure stuff, because, what’s true is that I love their work with the kind of passion that almost halts one’s breath.

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Ready to serve: Paris Hilton

That loud slap you heard was Paris Hilton’s sabre-sharp response to John McCain, for goofily Photoshopping her pic into a campaign ad. An echo that resounds was expected: This essay on six reasons why she’d make a better president than a man who graduated 894th in his class of 899 at Annapolis.

The first three arguments, below:

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On one hand, I’m thinking Cindy “Miss Buffalo Chip” McCain has had a rough enough week as is, taking the brunt of her metal husband’s ongoing, passive-aggressive abuse.

But then I took a serious look at this photo, above, and, egged on by Charlotte Hilton Andersen’s devastating “Dear Cindy McCain, Please Pull Up Your Shirt And Tie Back Your Hair: An Open Letter In Pictures,” I had to ask: Who in the world told the McCain campaign that the sight of this scaly middle-aged woman, sporting a tousled, freshly-…fondled, nicotine-throated “Mmmm…hurry back to bed, lover…” gaze, topped off with a dap of cleavage, would be what the American people want to see from a prospective First Lady? Blecch.

But, most of all, when I look at this picture, why does “Yakety Sax” (“The Benny Hill Theme”) run, unimpeded, through my brain?

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Float on: Swimmer Dara Torres (Photo for TIME by Justin Stephens)

Dara Torres’s record-breaking return to Olympic-level swimming at age 41 has not only stunned sports officials but unintentionally made the American a worldwide poster girl for middle-aged vitality and strength. The nine-time Olympic medalist and mother of a two-year-old daughter is the oldest woman to ever contend at this level in her sport. Her recent qualification to battle in Beijing means that this will be her fifth Olympics. No American swimmer has ever competed in so many.

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