This single family suburban home in Springfield, New Jersey was built in 1963 and from the looks of it redecorated in the late 60s with some early 70s flourishes. It’s 2,284 square feet, 3 bedrooms, two baths on just a third of an acre, but it oozes so much perfectly preserved vintage style you’d be tempted to not change a thing. You might need to rent it out to Hollywood, as it’s $500,000. Married To the Mob II?
18 OBVIOUS SIGNS WE ARE GETTING DUMBER
You may have seen that Trump, while on his Middle East trip, told Israelis that he
“just got back from the Middle East.”
This is the President of the United States. So, it’s no wonder that it seems, if you look around there are signs that we ARE getting dumber. Note these pics, as well as the fact that we elected Trump POTUS. #Sad
(via Sad and Useless)
THIS GUY CAN'T STOP INSERTING HIMSELF INTO KENDALL JENNER'S INSTAGRAM PICS
@KirbyJenner is a self-described
“amateur model / lover of all things / fraternal twin of Kendall Jenner”.
He’s also an expert at Photoshop from the looks of his Instagram feed. (Check out how he integrates the lighting and shadows.) He’s used that skill to insert himself into tons of Kendall Jenner’s pics and it’s amassed him nearly 650,000 followers in the process.
Is Kylie jealous? (Or is she secretly funding the project?) Take a look. You can follow him for more here.
(via Twisted Sifter)
WHO'S CREATING THESE MASSIVE FLOWER ARRANGEMENTS POPPING UP ALL OVER NYC...?
These mysterious flower arrangements have been popping up all over NYC during the last few months. On sidewalks, in trash cans, on statues… it’s all the work of floral designer Lewis Miller who wrote on his website,
“Gifting flowers to New Yorkers is a simple idea that I have been thinking about for years. I hoped for smiles, the ones that happen when you witness a random act of kindness. That was my goal, my vision. Create an emotional response through flowers.”
His series is called Flower Flashes and each installation has a different feeling. Miller told NBC New York,
“Our Alice in Wonderland installation was romantic, feminine and whimsical.. our trash can flashes are edgier and ephemeral.”
Some are massive and the largest ones are composed of thousands of roses, dahlias, and orchids. If produced for a client they could cost upwards of $10,000…
Here in a blog post, Miller tells how he was inspired last fall to create flowers for John Lennon‘s memorial in Central Park,
“My desire yesterday was to recreate just a sliver of that sentiment and offer it up to the city dwellers and tourists of this great city. So at 5:45 AM, my team and I filled the LMD van with 2,000 flowers and descended on the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, a circular mosaic resembling a mandala with one word in the center:
IMAGINE
Quickly working in the dark, my team and I created a psychedelic halo of day-glo yellow, pink, purple and orange dahlias and carnations. So bright and joyful, John and Yoko and every Seventies loving hippie would have approved. By the time the flower installation was complete, dawn had begun to take shape and the curious Parks & Services crew appeared. We all held our breath and wondered if our ‘Flowers for the People’ project was about to live and die in under an hour and the only audience that would have seen it was a squirrel and two early morning joggers. But that was not the case. Outfitted with leaf blowers and a broom, they began to gingerly sweep away the falling leaves around our flowers and gave us their approval and blessing with a quick thumbs up.”
Recycling at it’s most creative, inspiring and beautiful. You can check out more on Lewis Miller’s Instagram here.
(via Bored Panda)
ANGELINA JOLIE JUST BOUGHT THE CECIL B. DEMILLE ESTATE (FOR $25 MILLION)
Angelina Jolie has got a lot of money and more than a few kids (I lost count) and it seems after the split from Brad Pitt, she might be setting down roots in Los Angeles.
2000 De Mille Drive is the address of historic Cecil B. DeMille Estate. If you don’t know, DeMille was the famed Hollywood mogul whose name was uttered by Gloria Swanson at the end of Sunset Boulevard…
“I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.“
DeMille bought the property for $27, 893 in 1916 and lived here until his death in 1959.
The estate is set on 2.1 elevated acres in gated Laughlin Park and includes a spectacular Beaux Arts Style mansion built in 1913 with six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, a beautiful pool house and a studio house with a separate entrance. A six-year renovation and restoration was sensitive to original details, but added some modern amenities. As would be necessary for security, it is gated and walled. It has beautiful gardens, paths and multiple sitting areas and a classic Hollywood-style pool with arched fountains are surrounded by rolling lawns, rose gardens and dramatic views of Griffith Observatory and out to the Pacific Ocean.
In other words, perfection.
SATURDAY WAS #NAKEDGARDENINGDAY. HOW DID YOU CELEBRATE? (THESE FOLKS DROPPED TROU)
Last Saturday was World Naked Gardening Day. Apparently, people all around the world stripped down and showed off their gardening skills. (Does your bush need trimming…?)
WNGD was established in 2005 to promote both gardening and body acceptance. If you missed out walking around with your ass exposed, make sure to pencil it in for next year on the first day of May.
(via Queerty)
@SHUTUPMIKE MIGHT BE THE FUNNIEST THING ON TWITTER...
If you are looking around for a Twitter account that’s pretty much guaranteed to make you snicker if not literally LOL. @ShutUpMike is the one you need to follow.
(via Sad and Useless)
I HAD A COLORING PARTY WITH TRANSGENDER INMATES & HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED...
This weekend I was in L.A. RuPaul’s DragCon to sign my book, cover the convention and parties and meet some fierce queens. But last Wednesday I met some pretty fierce trans inmates and had a little coloring party in jail…
Here’s how that happened and what went down.
The publisher of my book Transform Your Life with Color By Number, Judith Regan, donated several hundred copies of my book to Rikers Island recently and she put me in touch with Cecilia Flaherty, the Diversion Coordinator and Associate Director, to do a little art therapy with transgender inmates awaiting trial at the Manhattan Detention Complex. How often do you get such an interesting opportunity? I was game.
Just getting into the place is more of an ordeal, than actually being in there. (Well, that’s easy for me to say because I knew I’d be getting out in a few hours and the other folks inside were not so lucky.) Cecilia had another guest besides myself, Mariya (an intern) who was there really just to observe the process and meet some of the detainees.
After I put all my possessions in a locker, besides my watch, glasses, driver’s license and what I was wearing, we signed in, were given badges, ink stamped, put through metal detector, scanned and cleared through two areas took an elevator, walked over an enclosed suspended bridge, took another elevator, some stairs, and we finally landed in something you might recognize from Orange is the New Black. A cell block with a common area housing transgender women.
It was loud and SUPER rowdy at first and a correctional officer was trying to address some administrative tasks. There were two areas, one down some steps and another up with a table and plastic chairs surrounded by tiny cells. Cecilia said hi to all and introduced us and met 4 or 5 new detainees that she didn’t know. After a bit of wrangling, we gathered a group of about 8-10 in a circle around two tables.
We had two copies of my book and two brand new sets of 48 Prismacolor pencils along with the deer coloring sheet I made 60 copies for everyone who wanted to participate. And believe me, not everyone did at first. Cecilia introduced me and I spoke a bit about my book, my work the history paint by number, etc.
And then we just sat and colored for an hour or so and chatted. Cecilia had some follow-up info about their cases, Mariya spoke with some of them about various things, as did I. It was all pretty normal, except for every single thing.
I thought I might speak to them about how I used art to transform MY life and using the Law of Attraction to bring positive things in your life but I realized talking with them and sharing is really a trust issue. Who are these white people? What do they know about me? I DO get that. If I wanted to really talk the talk and walk the walk, I’d have to show up more regularly to gain some respect and trust. And without any expectations.
I got a lot out of it personally – different things that I expected.
The experience really confirmed for me how we are the product of many factors in life and some just have more to deal with than others. And at the same time I saw how the info is out there for ALL OF US to have the life we want, but just knowing something doesn’t make it take root. You need positive role models, some tenacity and a good mental attitude.
It made me grateful for my life and took me out of myself to see ANY complaint I might have about ANYTHING is pretty minor….
And that being incarcerated is a real culture, one that is created out of the situation and survival. It really affirmed for me that we can’t go back or jump ahead to the future.
At RuPaul‘s keynote address this weekend at DragCon, he addressed these very issues and how we have to reset our minds and try to find ways to remove our own blindspots so we can really see ourselves and how we sabotage ourselves. It was an inspiring talk and I thought of last Wednesday and these women and the challenges they face.
A new painting I have on the boards now is based on a vintage paint by number of a barn with a road going off into the distance. The text superimposed will read:
START WHERE YOU ARE
That’s all any of us can do –ever.
#RIP: FILMMAKER, JONATHAN DEMME
Filmmaker Jonathan Demme, whose Oscar-winning thriller The Silence of the Lambs terrified audiences and introduced one of the most indelible villains in movie history, died yesterday morning in New York of complications from esophageal cancer. His publicist said,
“Sadly, I can confirm that Jonathan passed away early this morning in his Manhattan apartment, surrounded by his wife, Joanne Howard, and three children. There will be a private family funeral.”
Demme was the director of such diverse films as the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, Philadelphia, and Beloved, based on Toni Morrison‘s bestseller about a 19th century slave haunted by the ghost of her daughter.
But he's best known for Silence of the Lambs, based on Thomas Harris‘ novel, whivh swept the Academy Awards the following year, winning Oscars for best picture and its two stars, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins and one for Demme as best director.
Demme’s big breakthrough was Melvin and Howard, a 1980 film about a much-disputed encounter between gas station owner Melvin Dummar and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.
Unlike many directors of his generation, Demme didn’t go to film school. He broke into the industry through a friendship with cult filmmaker Roger Corman, who hired him to write and direct low-budget genre movies like Caged Heat, about inmates in a women’s prison.
Over a career that spanned four decades Demme directed an eclectic mix of films, including the Michelle Pfeiffer comedy Married to the Mob, the Melanie Griffith –Jeff Daniels road-trip adventure Something Wild, and a remake of political thriller The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. His final film was 2015’s Ricki and the Flash starring Streep as an aging rocker.
Yesterday tributes pouring out of Hollywood. Jodie Foster said in a statement to Rolling Stone,
“I am heartbroken to lose a friend, a mentor, a guy so singular and dynamic you’d have to design a hurricane to contain him. Jonathan was as quirky as his comedies and as deep as his dramas. He was pure energy; the unstoppable cheerleader for anyone creative.”
Tom Hanks, who won an Oscar for Philadelphia, said in a statement to EW,
“Jonathan taught us how big a heart a person can have, and how it will guide how we live and what we do for a living. He was the grandest of men.”
The watershed movie for the gay community and AIDS, was Philadelphia, based in part on the life of the late illustrator Juan Botas who was a good friend of mine and who went to school with Demme’s wife, Joanne. Juan was spanish and his boyfriend, my pal Billy Cole was from Philly, so when the story was written the roles were reversed, with Antonio Bandares as Billy and Tom Hanks as Juan. The last shot in Philadelphia of Hank’s memorial are of Juan’s work and an altar with candles. After Juan’s death I made a memorial poster, like ones I did for Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and Jonathan used it as the last shot in his documentary about Juan’s life called, One Foot on a Banana Peel (the Other in the Grave).
Jonathan Demme was 73.
(via CNN)
OLIVER WASOW EXHIBITS HIS "ROGUES GALLERY" OF TRUMP'S CAST OF CREEPS
On Monday, May 1, artist Oliver Wasow opens a one week show of his "Rogues Gallery" of Trump and his motley crew at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects in New York City. He’s been sharing them one at a time on Facebook. I asked him what motivated him to create the work.
“This series was born out of an inability to find meaning in the studio in my other work. I felt kind of numb and lost after the election and there was a cathartic value to making this work. They were made for social media, meant to be sent out into the world as a way to seek confirmation that I wasn’t alone and that others saw these people through the same lens I did.
It was fun to paint with a broad brush and give myself over to overt caricature. And truth be told, not much tweaking is required to bring out the monster in these people, they are a brutish looking lot.“
I’d have to agree. Here’s YOUR chance to see them framed in a gallery setting and even take one home, if you could stand to have one on your wall. Sorry Oliver, they are awful to begin with, but you did your job TOO well.
All proceeds go to benefit the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. For more info go here.