Colleen Taylor

Last week Time Magazine had a great interview with Michelle Obama. It's fun to read because it seems like Time just published the transcription straight from the tape recorder (the "likes," "I means" and "you knows" are still included in the final copy) and Michelle comes across as sharp, honest and open-- not like she's been media-trained within an inch of her life.

My favorite part was her response to a question about the criticism of a dress* she wore to a congressional speech. Of all things, I know, deep thoughts on clothing! But her attitude can be applied beyond fashion-- and I think it's a very relevant message, particularly for women, who often go along with a flow set by someone else rather than proactively make their own choices:

"In life you've got to make choices that make sense for you, because there's always going to be somebody who'll think you should do something differently. So you might as well start with what you like and what you care about, what your passions are, what makes sense.

That's my message to women, if anything, over the course of this, is, find your space. Find your spot. Wear what you love. Choose the careers that may have meaning to you, because there's always somebody who will say, 'I wouldn't have worn that color, or why didn't you work at that job.' But if you're comfortable in the choice and it resonates with you, then all that other stuff, it's just conversation. People have the right to have conversations.

But I think that's one thing we as women sometimes do; we don't make choices that have meaning to us. And then when those things fall apart, you have to have yourself to fall back on. You have to own the choices that you make, and hopefully they're yours to begin with."



*the picture above is the dress in question. The speech was in February in D.C., so people said it was a bit inappropriate for the First Lady to be bearing her arms given the time, place, and weather. Or something.

Have you read Ariel Levy's stuff in the New Yorker lately?  I can't really offer a better critique of her work than Emily Gould's assessment earlier this year: "Ariel Levy is completely taking the New Yorker to school and using it to clean the blackboard and then writing some new stuff on the blackboard which is awesome." 

Levy's article this week is centered largely around her interview with Lamar Van Dyke, a truly free-living Vietnam War era radical feminist lesbian who is now a grandmother in her 60's (but still really bad ass.) Although you really should just pick up the March 2nd issue and read the article-- you can't find it online-- I thought the last couple of paragraphs were especially worth sharing.

Regardless of the different people of different genders she has chosen over the years as her comrades, Van Dyke's primary loyalty has always been to her own adventure.  A woman in her sixties who has been resolutely doing as she pleases for as long as she can remember is not easy to come by, in movies or in books, or in life.

"Your generation wants to fit in," she told me, for the second time.  "Gays in the military and gay marriage?  This is what you guys have come up with?" There was no contempt in her voice; it was something else-- an almost incredulous maternal disappointment. "We didn't sit around looking at our phone or looking at our computer or looking at the television-- we didn't sit around looking at screens," she said. "We didn't wait for a screen to give us a signal to do something. We were off doing whatever we wanted."

And, I know this is my second "Remind me why we are on the Internet, anyway?" post in as many days. I'm not sure what that says. 

I know the whole growing-up-as-Hollywood-royalty-by-being-the-daughter-of-Goldie-Hawn-and-Kurt-Russell thing might add to her apparently awesomely blissful personality, but the latest cover story in Elle Magazine kind of made me like Kate Hudson.  Which is saying a lot, because I've always just thought of her as that annoying "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" girl.

The article's tipping point for me:

"Let me give you an idea about Kate," [Kate Hudson's lifelong friend Jen] Meyer says. "You go spend a day with her, and you'll go into her house and she will be in a bikini, having just been lying out, walking around with the most perfect body you've ever seen in your life. She'll be saying to [her son] Ryder, 'Honey, we're going to go on a bike ride in just a few minutes; Mommy's just making you a banana souffle'-- no cookbooks out-- and, at the same time, go, 'Oh my God, Jen, you have to hear this,' and she'll go over to the piano and play a perfect song she just wrote like it's nothing.  You go, 'Okay, that was amazing,' and she runs right back to the kitchen, gets the banana souffle out-- it's the greatest banana souffle you've ever had-- and she throws on her helmet and gets on the bike with Ryder."

Um, Kate Hudson, can we seriously be friends?

I love Esquire Magazine's "What I've Learned" feature. 

Also, I was a total late bloomer in realizing how awesome Clint Eastwood is. I knew that he was a bit abnormally accomplished in the artistic sense as a jazz musician, actor, director, blah blah blah. But I learned in conversation only a couple of weeks ago that he has been super active in local politics for years (like, getting his hands dirty and going to meetings, not just wearing Vote or Die t-shirts) and was for a short time the mayor of Carmel, California. I mean, did you know that?

Seems to me that Clint Eastwood is just a man who has really taken life by the horns and has fully inhabited the space that he's in-- and from now on, anytime he's talking, I'm listening.  Some of my favorite bits from his "What I've Learned" appearance:

"Like Sir Edmund Hillary talking about why you do anything: Because it's there. That's why you climb Everest. It's like a little moment in time, and as fast as it comes into your brain, you just throw it out and discard it. Do it before you discard it, you know?"

"The Korean War was only a few years after World War II. We all went. But you couldn't help but think, Shit. What the hell?"

"That's why I [ran for mayor]. 'Cause I thought, I don't need this. The fact that I didn't need it made me think I could do more. It's the people who need it that I'm suspect of."