LANVIN

I've been meaning to post this for ages. I think this video is awesome, the collection gorgeous and I simply adore Alber Elbaz, who appears at the end.  

There are no words for this...

More Oz love - The Angels

The Wikipedia entry for this song - "Starting when The Angels were a pub band their song "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" has received an iconic response from audiences. Whenever Doc Neeson sang the words of the Angels' classic love song 'Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again?' back came the ingenious response: 'No way, get fucked, fuck off'. Whilst outside Australia this may have been seen as a negative response, from an Australian audience and in the context of the Australian sense of humour this was recognised as high praise." 

New York Fashion Week

Last night I interviewed the lovely Marisa Berenson who, at 64, is still ravishingly beautiful. Berenson was a hugely successful model in the 1960s and 70s (no less than Yves Saint Laurent himself dubbed her "the girl of the seventies") and has starred in films such as Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice and more recently in the sumptuous I Am Love. I met Berenson at the launch of her new book, ‘Marisa Berenson: A Life in Pictures’ at Donna Karan’s Madison Avenue boutique in Manhattan. She was unfailingly polite, and gave me a hug and a kiss afterwards despite the fact I had asked her to discuss a very painful topic, the loss of her sister who died as a passenger on one of the planes which plunged into the World Trade Center on 9/11.“It’s always hard to remember that, with all of the images and the talk of it,” Berenson said of the approaching tenth anniversary of the attacks. “I celebrate my sister every day and she’s in my heart. I want to be very private and very personal about it.” Berenson herself was on a plane headed to New York when the attacks occurred, and told me she finds solace in her faith, being a "deeply spiritual person."  

Beagles are the best

This is Lexi. She lives in Walnut Creek, California.

Llorando/Crying

This is one of my favourite songs, sung in Spanish, in one of my favourite films. This whole scene is just so damn perfect, it makes me wanna cry.

Naff

I've been asked about my use of the word "naff" several times lately because it's not a word Americans seem to know. I guess it is chiefly a British slang term. I love the word, and think of it as the perfect shorthand for lame, uncool, tacky, unfashionable and passe. A bit like people who use "winning" as a twitter hash tag, or say "wowzers." Or passive aggression. Or people who secretly read other people's blogs without owning up to it. Or actually having a blog.

I always get the best ones...

This was awesome, but nothing can beat this fortune (grammatical error included) which I received in New York in 2010 and I still carry around in my purse:

I'm in love with a girl named Daria

Does Daria Werbowy have the prettiest eyes in the whole wide world? 

I know it's controversial...

... but I'm calling it now: Brad Pitt's glory days are over. He's lost it. Looks are gone.

Last weekend I stayed at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, California. I had an amazing time relaxing in the desert with some witty, vivacious and thoroughly entertaining friends. We laughed a lot, and talked incessantly. We also met a couple of people whose lives were vastly different to ours. I had a massage at the hotel's spa, where I met Alicia, a mother of three who moved to the U.S. after four balaclava-clad armed men stormed into her home in the Michoacan region of Mexico in the mid-90s and demanded she hand over her cash, the profits from her convenience store, and the keys to her car while her terrified children froze at the sight of the machine guns being pointed in their faces. Alicia said she couldn't trust the local police, who never bothered to follow-up her complaint about the armed bandits who invaded her home, so she abandoned her property, a successful business, and her culture and country in order to seek refuge in America for the sake of her children. Alicia told me she missed Mexico dearly, and was extremely proud of her heritage and her beautiful homeland, but the fear of her children being kidnapped, and of being raped like so many other women she knew, meant she could not live in peace. Later that afternoon, I met some Marines who had recently returned from deployment in Kandahar, Afghanistan. One of them had a badly scarred arm, the result of shrapnel wounds which he was now attempting to use to attract ladies with rather vulgar pleas to kiss it better. After unsuccessfully trying to chat me up with cheesy lines about my accent, the soldier who had approached me began revealing details of his duty after realizing my curiosity about the war in Afghanistan was genuine. Hailing from Georgia, this kid was only 21 (and horrified when I told him I was 28!) and had spent seven months in Kandahar before a suicide bomber exploded in front of him, leaving him partially deaf and afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder. After receiving therapy for a short period, he told me he was back at base in the Californian desert and was preparing to be re-deployed to a different province in Afghanistan, despite the fact he still awoke many nights drenched in cold sweat after experiencing nightmares. He also told me that his fiancée had broken off their engagement to take up with his best friend while he was in Afghanistan, and this had exacerbated his depression. Innocently, he said he had been surprised to learn that many of the women in Afghanistan are extremely beautiful and very kind to the Marines, and will bring them food and smile warmly while the American soldiers patrol their communities. I was pleased to see that this sweet young soldier appreciated the kindness of the Afghanis. I was also happy to see that he appreciated his President's efforts to bring these soldiers home. He told me he couldn't wait to get out of the military and study criminal justice, and thought that maybe, one day, he should become a lawyer. I told him it sounded like a pretty good plan.

Little Red Riding Hood

I had a tomato red coat as a child, which I loved dearly. I think I thought I was Little Red Riding Hood! It's very cold in Melbourne during winter, so my coat was practical as well as stylish. This gorgeous YSL trench coat from their latest resort collection is in a similar hue.

Everything has changed....

One of my favourite New Yorker cartoons this year.

What Would Hillary Have Done?

"We forget, sometimes, that our government was designed to limit the powers of the president. Barack Obama walked into the White House in January 2009 with his own set of structural and strategic challenges: an economy in free fall; a 24-hour cable-news and talk-radio-fed culture eager to blare “crisis!” headlines every 12 minutes, making long-view evaluations of a presidency impossible; and most important, an obstinate Congress. On every major vote, from the stimulus to uncompromised health care reform, Obama needed 60 (not the historically customary 50) to get anything moving, a practical impossibility, thanks both to Republicans, whose stated goal was not to fix things but to keep the president from fixing anything, and to conservative Democrats, who made the party’s majority a false promise to begin with.There simply was never going to be a liberal messiah whose powers could transcend the limits set by a democracy this packed with regressive obstructionists. That doesn’t mean we can’t hope for, seek and demand better from politicians and presidents. But we can’t spend our time focused on alternate realities in which our country, its systems and its climate are not what they are. "  
What Would Hillary Have Done

Where Did You Sleep Last Night

I'm playing the Nirvana MTV album a lot lately, especially this song. I'd forgotten how incredible the entire album is, and how astonishingly talented Kurt was. He had such an insanely fucked up childhood, and I think you can hear the catharsis in his voice when he howls 'my girl.' It's like a primal scream. Music is totally therapeutic; I think singing is perhaps the most powerful way to express emotions, particularly love and rage, even more so than writing because of its immediacy. Lord knows I love warbling aloud in my apartment.

Can the Missoni family please adopt me?

One of my favourite brands has designed a range specifically for Target. See it here.

NYC

I studied Walt Whitman's poetry at university, but having never seen New York at the time, I didn't feel an immediate connection with his words, and they certainly didn't echo through my mind at times they way they do now. My elderly grandmother only ever took one overseas holiday in her life, a round-the-world trip back to Italy and through Europe, the UK and the US. She came to New York in the early 70s, only briefly, but has never forgotten those days here, although she forgets much else, including - sometimes - the fact that I now live here. Now I understand why she often talks about that one holiday of forty years ago.

"How green was my Valley that day, too, green and bright in the sun."

How lovely are these acid green dresses from Mulberry's fall/winter 20011/12 ad campaign? So chic! I adore a vintage looking frock. I also really like Mulberry's whole campaign this season, with its quirky "keep-calm-and-carry-on-despite-the-wild-animals-invading-the-English-country-manor" theme.

Not me...

"Some of us have real work hours and can't keep self-indulgent cute animal-centric blogs."

Love these lyrics

All the towers of ivory are crumbling / And the sparrows have sharpened their beaks / This is the time of our great undoing / This is the time that I'll come running / Straight to you / For I am captured / Straight to you / For I am captured / One more time

Australia: ban live export!

"You cannot oppose animal cruelty and support live export. Transporting animals thousands of kilometres by sea only to be slaughtered is cruel and unnecessary. Sending them to countries where laws do not protect them from cruelty will never be ethically acceptable," said Lyn White, cruelty investigator at Animals Australia. Thousands of Sydneysiders protested live export this weekend. Read about it here.

Purrr, Chanel-clad cat-woman!



Freja Erichson, adorable in the latest Chanel campaign! I want that camellia-clad balaclava for winter.



"conventional beauty is insignificant in the reckoning of a life"

I loved this opinion piece by the wonderful Adele Horin. "With its crevices, marks and splotches, amplified over three columns in The Sydney Morning Herald front-page obituary this week, the late artist's face was a frank statement of a life fully lived. No evidence there of efforts to soften the ravages of time with anti-ageing ''product'' and ''procedures''. What a face. What a lesson it holds for we women who obsess about crows' feet and liver spots and wrinkled brows; who hate the tiny lines sprouting like fine hairs above our lips, who hate our necks, and the bags under our eyes and much else that signals we are no longer young. What does this face tell us? It tells us that conventional beauty is insignificant in the reckoning of a life." Margaret Olley was a wonderful woman in the true spirit of great Australian women; she was talented, generous, an enthralling storyteller with a wicked sense of humour, and a strong-willed, free-spirited woman. As Horin said, "Margaret Olley's amazing life and amazing face are a testament to true beauty."

Crushing

I do love this song, but generally speaking, I'm not obsessed with James Blake's particular blend of haunting, electronic post-dubstep, though I do appreciate his talent. I think I like the man more than his music, at this stage, because he is obviously an insanely attractive young Brit, and who doesn't adore those?! He's also wise for his 22 years, telling The Scotsman in February, "Who isn't an outsider? It's presumptuous to think you're different from other kids, that no-one else has any cares or everyone else know exactly what they're going to do with their lives".

The girl's got taste.

Some friends were married in Sydney this weekend, and I was terribly homesick to be so far away from them all and miss out on the revelry. Wah! If only New York were as close to Sydney as New Zealand! The bride wore the most beautiful lace and ivory silk wedding dress. I'm not sure who designed this yet but I love it; she has impeccable taste! It's so elegant and comely! You see a lot of cleavage-spilling brides these days, which look dreadful, so it's refreshing to see a graceful young dame in a classy frock with a bouquet of white lilies.

Chuck Bass is a dreamboat

Dream Boy

Wears Acne at Spring 2012 Paris Fashion Week. Sigh.

A refugee's story

As South Sudan became a nation this weekend, I stumbled upon this article in an Australian fashion magazine about a remarkable young Sudanese woman who was a refugee before moving to Melbourne and becoming a model and a high school graduate who wants to study law, while raising her younger siblings (both of their parents have since left Australia and returned to Sudan. Here is a link to the Yen article - Refugee Camp to Catwalk

Panda dogs!

Apparently people in China are dying their dog's fur to look like pandas. Adorable! C'mon Upper East Side laydeez, stop putting your dogs in crystal collars or LV totes and  just start dressing them like pandas!   

Pulp - This Is Hardcore

Another Pulp favourite, because I'm having a Brit moment.

I'm not really into weddings...

 

...but I LOVED Kate Moss' wedding dress. She looked like Fairy Queen Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Pity it was the confection of anti-Semite John Galliano...

Jackie, 1962

I love this shot of Jackie Kennedy on her so-called "goodwill tour" of India and Pakistan in 1962. In an era where attention focused solely on what Jackie wore, the First Lady's decision to take this trip was read as a shrewd move on her behalf to symbolically strengthen diplomatic ties between the East and the West. Jackie was a wise woman. And, of course, she also looked fabulous.

Pulp - Lipgloss

Just because I'm in New York when I'd rather be at Glastonbury doesn't mean I can't have an English moment right here and now. Oh, Jarvis - are you the perfect combination of clever and funny and sexy and cool? Why, indeed you are. This is one of my favourites.

Hello, summer!

I love this Derek Lam dress from his Resort 2012 collection. It should be on sale by December - who wants to buy it for me as a birthday present?!

"We couldn't think of anything to get you so we brought the sunshine."

Jarvis Cocker on stage at Glastonbury 2011. I saw Jarvis on Bondi Beach early last year. After drying off in front of the North Bondi shower block, he donned a long-sleeved shirt, tight corduroy trousers, and a tweed blazer before carrying away his swimmers and towel in a Longchamp Le Pilage bag. It was about 38 degrees Celsius that day, and I felt feverish all week after such a sighting. I saw him perform the next night, and he was staggeringly energetic.

Gay rights are human rights

On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the first ever UN resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The resolution was passed by a 23-19 vote with three abstentions (Nigeria, Zambia and Burkina Faso), and was led by South Africa with support from the US. The resolution calls for the UN to initiate its first ever worldwide study examining "discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence," and will hopefully further an international discussion about how to promote and protect these rights. I recently read an article in an LGBT magazine about Hillary Clinton's work within the State Department to prioritize raising international awareness of LGBT issues. Hills was the first First Lady to march in a pride parade, and she also successfully lobbied Obama to sign an executive order affording equal benefits to same-sex partners of State Department employees. Last year, she declared, "Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights." I think the support Hills has given to gay rights has played a significant role in catalyzing this resolution being enacted, and her stand that human rights are universal, and sexual preference and gender identification should not preclude anyone from being afforded these rights, is certainly a step forward. Now let's hope it's not too much longer before she openly declares her (long suspected) support for gay marriage. 

Things I miss about Australia...

 

Watching the ridiculously attractive and very talented Don Hany play a Muslim detective in cop drama East West 101. 

Funniest quote this week

"I’m an alpha female, so I can’t have a troll for a boyfriend."  
That gem comes from Courtney Love in a rather candid interview with The Fix. Damn straight you can't have a troll for a boyfriend when you're Queen of the alpha ladies!  Courtney Comes Clean | The Fix

I'm going to watch HOWL asap...

...and you all know just why.

NYC tabloids: as subtle and demure as New Yorkers themselves.

Franco graduates from NYU film school

Bird On A Wire

Smiley faces make me mad

I hate smiley faces so passionately that no cluster of characters could create a face worthy of conveying my displeasure when I see those ridiculous little semicolon/bracket couplings. I also detest the use of a lower case 'i' when 'I' is appropriate, and people who don't capitalize names. I do, however, love using an interrobang, which is the delightful combination of a question mark and an exclamation mark (?!).

I want yellow jeans

ksubi kolors from ksubi on Vimeo.

God bless Andre Leon Talley!

"Sugar, I'm the editor-at-large of US Vogue, and I will wear a giant purple tent to the MET ball if I want to!"

Diana Ross & Julio Iglesias

I love Julio. The man is a dreamboat! My mother is a huge fan, and I grew up listening to her sing along as she played his LPs at home. I also adore Diana Ross - that voice, those eyes, that hair! This clip is hilarious. I am totally dancing like this all summer long.

Lion's paws, anyone?

They're completey ridiculous, and ludicrously expensive, but I think these Christian Louboutin lion's paw stilettos are hilarious. They're the 'Alex' shoe from the Fall 2011 collection, for those with a penchant for frivolous, French designer footwear you probably can't actually walk in.

I want to go to Mount Rainier

Look at those glorious wildflowers! Those majestic mountains! The lush pines! I saw this photo of Mount Rainier in Washington on the blog National Geographic Daily and I'm adding it to my top five places I want to visit in America list, which includes Oregon, California, Texas and New Orleans. I'm also keen to visit Amish country in Pennsylvania. I'm fascinated by the Amish.

Vale Red Riders

Red Riders have announced they are calling it quits, which I think is a real shame. I listened to their 2009 album 'Drown In Colour' a hell of a lot, and I always enjoyed their performances. This isn't my favorite song off that album, but I think this low-budget clip is quite cute, plus it was shot around the corner from my old neighborhood in Sydney. Who hasn't wanted to climb a grand ol' Moreton Bay fig tree at some point in time?!

The Beagle King

Yesterday afternoon I was walking through the West Village when I spotted the most adorable Beagle puppy. I adore Beagles, but this puppy was the most perfect Beagle specimen of all time. I asked the owner if I could pat the dog, and he obliged. I should have taken a photo, but I was too busy playing with him to whip out my camera. This dog, courtesy of google images, looks similar. I am definitely owning a Beagle as soon as I have a yard.

I want to be the girl with the most cake

Apparently Courtney Love is planning to be the executive producer on a film about her life with Kurt Cobain, and she hopes that James McAvoy and Scarlett Johansson will play the leads. Let’s hope Courtney finds the right director and makes a real go of this. I don’t care what anyone says about her, I will always love Courtney, and remember every single line to all of ‘Live Through This.’ 

China's ghost cities

I just watched this great report from Dateline about China's empty cities: SBS Podcasts : Podcasts: Dateline

Best Coast + cats = even better

I love Best Coast

Awesome secret pictures of elephants

I've just discovered Smithsonian Wild, and it's awesome! http://siwild.si.edu/about.cfm

The Mafia goes yuppie

This story about a stabbing incident over the weekend in Brooklyn is rather fascinating from a news perspective, but what really piqued my interest is the idea of the mafia wanting to muscle in on hipster pizzerias in gentrified Brooklyn neighbourhoods.  The modern mafia: forget poker and prostitution, now trading in mustard-drizzled kale salads, deep-fried prosciutto balls and ludicrously overpriced bottles of Viognier.

            The New York Times - Mob link pursued

More Archibald works I wanna view...

Mother (a portrait of Cate) by Del Kathryn Barton

Waleed Aly by Abdul Abdullah

John Coetzee by Adam Chang




It's Monday again...

I love The Easybeats. And Fridays. And Australian music. And I especially love the cute boys with 60s hair in sharp suits & skinny trousers bopping along to this song!

Wish I could go see The Archibald

This is Ben Quilty's portrait of the artist Margaret Olley, which won this year's Archibald Prize, Australia's most prestigious portraiture competition. I think this is a wonderful rendering of Olley. This is what the Art Gallery of NSW website says about it:
When Ben Quilty first asked legendary painter Margaret Olley to sit for him she said no. ‘Her lack of ego is so appealing,’ says Quilty. ‘Margaret didn’t understand why anyone would want to see a portrait of her.’ Quilty met Olley when she was a guest judge for the 2002 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, which he won. ‘She’s been a friend and great supporter of my work ever since,’ he says. Born in Lismore in 1923, Olley was awarded the Order of Australia in 1991 for service as an artist and to the promotion of art. In 1996, she was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia. ‘She’s such an inspiration,’ says Quilty. ‘She was a feminist ahead of her time. She’s vigorously passionate about social and political issues, as well as art, and is enormously compassionate. Margaret has such an infectious attitude to both life and death. Recently, I was amazed at how many new works she had on the go. She said to me, “I’m like an old tree dying and setting forth flowers as fast as it can, while it still can.” I thought that was such a powerful metaphor.’

Go grrrrrls!

I just stumbled upon this article about an inspiring all-lady removals company in Melbourne specialising in moving women fleeing from domestic violence. A wonderful idea.

The Age - In the worst of times women do the heavy lifting

A Dramatic Reading of "My Father's Daughter" by Gwyneth Paltrow

A friend sent me this hilarious video mocking Gwyneth Paltrow's self-indulgent cook book. Paltrow perfectly encapsulates why I dislike women ranting and raving about their culinary prowess, essentially screaming, "Look at me and my cake! Look what a good woman I am! What a wonderful wife I make! What a loving and perfect mother! I AM SO DOMESTICATED AND I AM LOVING IT! Wow, it feels so good to be a PERFECT woman!" I enjoy cooking as much as the next person, but for god's sake, I am not defined by my ability to combine ingredients in a pleasant tasting manner, and I will not subscribe to old-fashioned stereotypes of what a good woman should be. Gwyneth Paltrow, please stop making us nauseous...

She & Him

I used to listen to a lot of M.Ward when I was at uni in Melbourne. He has a wonderful voice, and a pleasant, gentle singing style. I thought it was a brilliant idea when he teamed up with the delightful Zooey Deschanel for the She&Him albums, both of which were really quite cute.

Panda joy

Some days I think I should quit the news game and instead volunteer with a panda breeding program somewhere in the world. Pandas are endangered, and, as I learned at a zoo in the Sichuan privince in China, it's also hard for them to mate because the females are so feisty and it takes the smaller male pandas about five hours just to overpower them. Pandas really do make me very happy, and I think that if there were more pandas in the world, there might be more happiness, too. It's just a thought...

No more York Peppermint Patties?!

I was too busy eating cake for lunch with a dear friend at Cafe Sabarsky at the Neue Gallery over the weekend to have read this article, but I've just done so and now I feel sullen. I know sugar is evil, but I love chocolate more than any other food! More than wine! More than cheese! More than even a Baileys on ice!

The New York Times Magazine - Is Sugar Toxic?

Waaaaahhhhh..........

"I feel like a pig shat in my head!"

Doctor, Queen of the Upper East Side

I visited a doctor today. I am sick for the first time since moving to America. I was assigned the first available physician, and the one I received was a jolly man, short and ruddy-faced. I proceeded to tell him how I was feeling lethargic, with a sore throat and an upset stomach, before he interjected joyfully with, "Have you seen 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' the movie?" "Um, ah, yes, yes I have seen that film," I replied. "Well, I've just seen the Broadway musical, and your accent is just reminding me of it!" he exclaimed. Then he asked me where I was from, gave the mandatory declaration of every American talking to an Australian that he intends to visit Sydney, and inquired as to whether you correctly pronounce Melbourne as Mel-born, Mel-bin or Mel-bonne. He told me I had strep throat, and must eat only bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast. When I asked about yogurt, he responded, "Oh my, there it is again - your accent is just taking me right back there! Oh, I love it, I just love it!" His love of Australian camp was infectious (pun intended). I left his office thinking of my inflamed tonsils, and also of Hugo Weaving, whom I used to see strolling through Darlinghurst on a weekly basis. I wonder if he knows what joy he has brought to the world?!

Cut Copy - Autobahn Music Box

awww.....

Americans often talk to me about their love of koalas. Truth is, I've never cuddled one, and these little fellas can claw your face off if you get too close. Cute doesn't always equal friendly. Australia is kind of a harsh place!

A sweet musical interlude

Boy soldiers

I first saw this picture of the Libyan opposition on the front page of today's New York Times while I was waiting for a coffee this morning, and have looked at it again several times since then. This boy must surely only be a teenager? It is such a striking image.

Libya's rebels don't really add up to an army

Lover + The Australian Ballet

A Dance For One. from LOVER® on Vimeo.
'Black Swan' kinda confirmed my thought that if I ever raise a daughter, I will not encourage her to pursue ballet. Mind you, I must admit that as a child, I was quite envious of all those other little girls who did take ballet lessons. Such grace! What poise! Look at their posture! I do find it mesmerising to watch (even if I am secretly pondering whether the ballerinas are tired and hungry and tortured). I guess you could say I'm conflicted about ballet, really, but I do wish I had Amber Scott's posture.

Cate Blanchett + Romance Was Born

I have always admired Cate Blanchett; I think she is an incredibly talented actress, an articulate advocate for the arts, and a gracious and stylish ambassador for Australia in general. She's also impossibly beautiful, hails from Melbourne, and named her her third son Iggy, so really, I'd say you'd be hard pressed finding a reason not to like this woman. She's on the May cover of Australian Harper's Bazaar wearing Romance Was Born, whom she has long championed.  Most of their stuff is too kooky for wear, but I quite like this embroidered floral number.

knowledge versus ignorance

Professor Ross Garnaut, the Australian government's climate change advisor, said today that tackling climate change is a battle between knowledge and ignorance. "There's no doubt that there is a battle, an awful battle between ignorance and knowledge going on. It's a great contest between the academies of sciences of Australia ... the academies of science of all of the countries of scientific achievement on the one side, and the shock jocks of Australia on the other. We've had these battles before in the history of our civilisation. This battle will have quite a lot to do with the future prosperity of Australia, the future quality of our civilisation. Our democracy is up to it." Let's hope he's right. ABC News Australia

I cannot wait to see this...

Woody Allen's latest film debuts at Cannes in May. Love Owen Wilson!

All hail the Queen

It was Aretha Franklin's 69th birthday last weekend, and she celebrated with a big night on the town in New York. Franklin has been battling pancreatic cancer but is now on the mend, and is apparently releasing a new album soon. Love her, and Robert De Niro, who introduces her in this clip. All hail the Queen of Soul!

RIP lovely lady

Elizabeth Taylor was one classy lady. Let's just forget about Larry Fortensky's mullet for a little while (I know it's hard, but please, I'm trying to make a point here so just try...) and focus on the fact this beautiful woman raised more than $100 million for AIDS. As the Times pointed out today, "Indeed, Ms. Taylor also became a heroine for many gay people for criticizing a slow response to AIDS from politicians." Liz Taylor was a wonderful actress, and a wonderful human being.