Burbank
12 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "Burbank ✨"
Burbank, California, from my Instagram feed.
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Call Me
Finally got around to seeing “Call Me By Your Name.” Don’t know why it took me so long, since “I Am Love” is one of my favorite movies. Having seen “A Bigger Splash,” I’ve now completed seeing Luca Guadagnino’s “Desire” trilogy. The movie is gorgeous and superbly acted. Timothee Chalamet is a wonder, and Armie Hammer, well, he just looks great. It’s a beautiful interrogation of desire, love, and heartbreak.
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Stars in LA
Celebrities I’ve seen since moving back to LA
Pete Townshend
Rachel Dratch
Tobey Maguire
Halsey
Riz Ahmed
Jodie Foster
Mick Fleetwood
John Cho
Stassi Schroeder
Michael Yo
Gerard Butler
Marilu Henner
Ken Todd
Stephanie Allynne
Domhnall Gleeson
Alexis Ren
Noah Centineo
Paula Newsome
Oliver Hudson
Celebrities I haven’t seen since moving back to LA
Brad Pitt
George Clooney
Idris Elba
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Out of Gas
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Shot on my iPhone 11 Pro Max.
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4return
Earlier today, I pulled over to the side of the road to take a photograph. A van drove up close behind me, then swerved around while the driver glared at me. The driver parked the van at the gas station next to where I’d parked. He got out of the car, holding a stack of what looked like newspapers. Then he walked toward me. Then he stopped. Then he opened what appeared to be the door of a newspaper vending machine and stuffed what looked like newspapers inside. I got out of my car and headed for the place that I wanted to photograph. Then I took a photograph. Then I circled back. The man had been holding a stack of adult newspapers, and he’d inserted them into an adult newspaper vending machine. I opened the door of the vending machine and took out one of the newspapers. (It was free.) Then I got back in my car and drove home. Then I sat down and read the adult newspaper. There was an ad in it titled “INTERCOURSE CALIFORNIA.” It was from someone in search of an investor to invest in a “Startup Porno Co.” They wanted “35K and up.” They said it would take “6 months to 1 year 4return.” I didn’t invest my money. I closed the adult newspaper.
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Mood
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Selfies
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And the Eye in the Sky Is Watching Us All
Image via NYT
If you haven’t yet read Kashmir Hill’s frightening peek into the monetization of facial recognition, do: “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.” What if there was nowhere in the world you could hide?
“‘It’s creepy what they’re doing, but there will be many more of these companies. There is no monopoly on math,’ said Al Gidari, a privacy professor at Stanford Law School. ‘Absent a very strong federal privacy law, we’re all screwed.’”
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Be Your Puppy
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Had a great time walking around West Hollywood today and visiting a very cool store that I’ll be writing about soon. This dog training hood retails for $425. Perfect for the canine-minded fetishist in your life.
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My Favorite Firearm
Image via Cabot Guns
The Trouble with the Tight End
The new Netflix documentary about Aaron Hernandez, “Killer Inside,” is 100% gripping and fascinating. I’m not really sure why this limited series is so compelling, since it’s not the most artful series ever created, but it doesn’t shy away from allowing the story to be complex, layered, and unspool over time. Watch it.
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Hustlers & The Oscars
Vanity Fair’s Mark Harris has a great take on why Jennifer Lopez got shut out of best supporting actress in the Academy Award nominations. According to him, Lopez did everything wrong.
“She dared to play a character who used her sexuality as a professional survival tool and didn’t regret it; she committed the unforgivable sin of being sympathetic and then not; she took her public image and spectacularly amplified and reworked it to suit a complicated character. That is not what Academy voters want from J. Lo. What they want is for her to scrub off her makeup and play a poor mother dying of something who tries to find someone to take care of her kids. They want a role that says, Look how serious I am. Look how willing I am to punish myself for you. That kind of self-abasement has always been something Academy voters love to see from actresses; even if we set aside the grim social implications of that kind of thinking, what remains is a disappointing limitation of vision. The Academy has never been good at looking at a performance like the one Lopez gives in Hustlers and understanding that it is as serious, committed, and carefully crafted as the kind of stuff it usually likes. Actors, of all people, should know better.”
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The Rider
6 Likes, 0 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "Post-horseback riding selfie 🐴"
A post-horseback riding selfie from my Instagram feed.
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To Reach Your Goals, Count Backwards
As pointed out by Scott Galloway, this list has some interesting, counter-intuitive strategies for reaching your goals. My favorite one is #11: Counting Backwards. Instead of propelling yourself forward through time, it asks you to set a future goal and strategize backwards. You may have done this before, but this method suggests you break things down by the numbers, including, at the end, what your goal is for this minute.
“11. Count Backward
You can use simple numbers to help you visualize your goals and make them into actions. Starting with five, come up with a goal you have for five years from now. Move down to four: What do you want to have accomplished four months from now? Three weeks? Two days? One day, one hour, this minute? How do these activities relate to each other? This number-goal-puzzle can give you clarity when everything else is unsteady.”
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Hollywoodland
Image via TIME
This is one of my favorite photos of Los Angeles. It’s Hollywood when it was Hollywoodland. It’s the Herculean effort it took to create what’s here now. It’s omnipresent and never the same. According to TIME:
“The 50-ft.-tall lettering, which was lit by thousands of flashing light bulbs, was erected as an advertisement not for the movie-making mecca, but for a housing development called Hollywoodland.”
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Letter From Dubai
Image via Lowe’s
Hi Susannah
At the onset thank you for writing the below blog.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2012/06/08/how-to-sell-yourself/#630bb2136843
Let me give you a quick background of why I am writing to you - I am good at sales, having demonstrated over achievements of targets YoY, however my growth within my company has been limited. And when talking to one of my friend yesterday he had an interesting remark to make - Those who are good at selling to others are usually bad at selling themselves, and they do not realize it.
That triggered my thinking, and I started reading, and first article I came across was your blog that left me stunned.
Your #Tip1 and #Tip2 both were eye openers for me.
I do not follow either as prescribed in your blog.
This blew me away, and I was compelled to reach to you.
Thank you again ! I am based in Dubai. If you ever plan to visit Dubai , do let me know.
It will be an honor to meet you and host you in Dubai.
Your fan !
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This Smells Like My Vagina
Image via Goop
Fascinating. How is this real? Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is selling a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina. It costs $75, and here’s the backstory:
“This candle started as a joke between perfumer Douglas Little and GP—the two were working on a fragrance, and she blurted out, ‘Uhhh..this smells like a vagina’—but evolved into a funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected scent. (That turned out to be perfect as a candle—we did a test run at an In goop Health, and it sold out within hours.) It’s a blend of geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed that puts us in mind of fantasy, seduction, and a sophisticated warmth.”
The Cut has some very funny reviews.
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Joker
Image via LA Times
Finally saw “Joker.” “The King of Comedy” meets “Taxi Driver” meets “Logan.” A triumphant performance wrapped inside a decent movie. A celebration of mayhem, murder, and insanity. Grimly nihilistic but sometimes gorgeous. The best parts are when Joaquin Phoenix dances. The third act stumbles, then resurrects itself. The point, if there is one: Sometimes it’s up to madmen to change the world.
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Pilates Is Great
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