Put Your Best Face Forward…What’s in Your Make-Up Bag for Fall? is the second article I published in Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s September 2023 issue. Maintaining a “Golden Glow,” choosing from a palette of “Latte Makeup,” and thinking pink with Barbiecore colors are three fall cosmetics trends.
Hon, want to know the line I like the best?
“One of the hottest words in make-up this fall is a drink.”
Beautiful Bridal Trends is the first of three articles I published in Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s September 2023 issue. When I started free-lance writing, I covered many bridal fashion shows in Manhattan. It was fun carrying a Press Pass, doing research by watching parades of new gowns, and interviewing designers. 2023 Bridal is all about Ball Gowns, Bows, and Blooms. Thanks for checking out this year’s bridal trends in my latest article.
I was looking for a new book and in the mood for European sensibility. You know how non-American made movies feel different? How they contain a different sense of humor? How they have global references? How they feel more tongue-in-cheek? Like that.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson definitely fit the bill but with a caveat–it reminded me of the iconic American movie starring Tom Hanks Forrest Gump. Like Gump, Allan Karlsson, the main character in The 100-Year-Old Man, not only finds himself in the company of presidents, premiers, dignitaries, criminals and an elephant, he influences history and experiences life with an eternally accepting and positive outlook on life. I found the story humorous, outlandish and interesting.
You know what I found out? Swedish TV, film and commercials director, writer, producer and actor Felix Herngren directedThe 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared, a 2013 movie based on the book.
Have you read the 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared? What did you think?
Desperate to avoid his 100th birthday party, Allan Karlsson climbs out the window of his room at the nursing home and heads to the nearest bus station, intending to travel as far as his pocket money will take him.
But a spur-of-the-moment decision to steal a suitcase from a fellow passenger sends Allan on a strange and unforeseen journey involving, among other things, some nasty criminals, a very large pile of cash, and an elephant named Sonya.
It’s just another chapter in a life full of adventures for Allan, who has become entangled in the major events of the twentieth century, including the Spanish Civil War and the Manhattan Project. As Allan’s colorful and complex history merges with his present-day escapades, readers will be treated to a new and charmingly funny version of world history and get to know a very youthful old man whose global influence knows no age limit. An international best-seller, this is an engaging tale of one man’s life lived to the fullest.
Amazon, Carol Gladstein
Quotes from The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared:
“People could behave how they liked, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.”
“Allan admitted that the difference between madness and genius was subtle, and that he couldn’t with certainty say which it was in this case, but that he had his suspicions.”
“Allan interrupted the two brothers by saying that he had been out and about in the world and if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: “You are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.” The solution, said Allan, was often to down a bottle of vodka together and then look ahead.”
Shout out to my friend Monisha who suggested reading Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I’d read Zevin’s Young Jane Young so knew I liked her writing but, whereas Young Jane Young made me laugh out loud, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow brought up a gamut of other emotions. Though I’m not a gamer and gaming is central to this story, the book is about love, friendship, childhood, growing up, imagination, grief, and getting to the other side of grief. This is another book that will sit with me awhile.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
William Shakespeare (from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Hon, have you read Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow? What did you think?
In this exhilarating novel, two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Goodreads
Quotes from Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on Goodreads:
“It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same things for the length of our lives.”
“If you’re always aiming for perfection, you won’t make anything at all.”
“The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world don’t you? I’m terrified of that world and I don’t want to live in a that world, and as a mixed race person, I literally don’t exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Korea Town Los Angeles and as any mixed race person will tell you– to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing.”
“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
Hello Beautiful, a novel by Ann Napolitano, was getting a lot of press as Oprah’s 100th book club pick and I was looking for a new book to read. “Oprah says of the novel, ‘once you start, you won’t want it to end… and be prepared for tears.'” The story unfolds year-by-year and the reader is invested in each character’s life.
As a writer who pays close attention to point-of-view, it’s always interesting to read the way in which authors toggle between characters. Napolitano lays bare the lives of four sisters along with the man who becomes part of their family, and she notes dates and years when switching voices. Decades pass using this transition device, and the characters motivations and priorities change as time goes on. It’s moving to follow the way in which the sisters lives are intertwined, what pulls them apart, and then what draws them back together.
Hon, have you read Hello Beautiful? What did you think?
An emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?
Vibrating with tenderness, Hello Beautiful is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.
Goodreads
Quotes from Hello Beautiful on Goodreads:
“He was her heart. He had changed all the molecules inside her. Sylvie had known love would come for her with the force of a tsunami. She’d dreamed of this”
“She wondered if dying was simply going to be an exercise in letting go of one thing after another.”
“When an old person dies,” Kent said, “even if that person is wonderful, he or she is still somewhat ready, and so are the people who loved them. They’re like old trees, whose roots have loosened in the ground. They fall gently. But when someone like your aunt Sylvie dies—before her time—her roots get pulled out and the ground is ripped up. Everyone nearby is in danger of being knocked over.”
The second article I wrote for Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s June 2023 issue, “Day Tripping, Summer Day Trips, Six Places That Will Make Your Day,” features places I’ve gone and places I’d like to go. I’ve hiked in Hacklebarney State Park, visited the Morris Museum and have been to Lake Hopatcong, but the other places are on now on my To-Go list! Hon, do you like the fun headers before each of the 6 summer day trips?
Right after I turned in my article “Fashion for Every Festivity, Dresses for Summer Events,” I saw the same types of dresses I’d written about everywhere I looked! Confirmation that the styles were on point–yay! I am a fan of easy, breezy, cool and comfy summer dresses so this was fun to write.
Thanks for checking out my latest addition to Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s June 2023 issue.
Happy summer, hon!
My second article published in the April-May issue of Elegant Lifestyles Magazine includes recipes and tips for batching cocktails. What are batched cocktails, you ask? Think pre-party preparation.
Interestingly, I learned that you can’t just multiply ingredients from a single-serve recipe because that doesn’t account for an ingredient that’s in most drinks–water! The water that results from melted ice needs to be accounted for, and the way to do that is to weigh a cocktail before and after dilution. Who knew?
Want to know more about batching cocktails in preparation for entertaining? Want to find out how to measure for the correct amount of water? Click Cocktails & Bars so that you can plan ahead in order to enjoy your guests in the moment!
Sources for the three batched cocktails featured in the magazine article:
Happy hosting, hon!
The 20th Mansion in May Designer Showhouse and Gardens is about to open and, lucky me, this week media is invited to the ribbon cutting ceremony and preview! In preparation for writing a feature article about this year’s MIM, the premier fundraiser of the Women’s Association for Morristown Medical Center I, along with two of New Jersey Hills Media sales reps, toured the “before” estate. Looking forward to seeing the “after” at the 9,000 square foot Three Fields where rooms and grounds will be filled with creativity, innovation, and design!
My family is a “tea” family. Our cabinets and drawers are filled with many varieties, and we drink tea to perk up, warm our insides, treat upset stomachs and colds, and to relax. My second article in the February issues of NJ Hills Media’s Elegant Lifestyles Magazine focuses on the health benefits of tea and, hon, I learned a lot! (I sense a Top Ten Interesting Tea Facts in the future.) Like the honey we add to our tea, this article was “sweet” to write.
Naomi M. Gruer 