The Beauty Of Cultural Appropriation

UPDATE:
Reading more about the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking case, one that I’ve been looking at since it came out several years ago, I spotted Naomi Campbell’s name among his associates.

I don’t like erasing the whole post, so I’ve just deleted that part. I’m afraid it doesn’t make the same sense any more. But I hate to endorse anyone whose name appears in Epstein’s black book.

DELETED

I tried the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” look for a very short period of my life – four months, to be precise.

Five-inch heels, a hat, and a classic black dress  I starved myself to get into.

Green cigarette-holder (senza cigarette).

I even got a wig. It was great while it lasted, but you needed a ballerina’s boy body  for it.

I hid my ink-stained wretchedness behind a fake Mme de Winter persona.

I now realize I probably had severe body image problems at the time.

Of course, it was all theater. Not an ounce of reality. Just play-acting.

But the little masquerade  worked.

I cheered up.

In a few months, I lost the size six dress and went back to my comfortable weight. Now, I tramp around in old jeans and over-sized t-shirts, my hands caked with dust and dirt most of the time.

I look at beautiful women as I look at beautiful birds or animals – as one more reason to love the God who made them.

And, after that, I don’t give them much thought.

 

Desi Divas: Anoushka Shankar & Norah Jones

Half-sisters and full celebrity musicians, Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones.

Anoushka , the daughter of classical sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, is  a renowned sitarist and composer herself. She’s also a columnist and actor. Her paternal half-sister, Norah Jones, is equally gifted and a familiar voice and face in American popular music. She is a country/blues singer, pianist, and composer.

Besides her widely praised solo work, Anoushka has collaborated with Joshua Bell, the classical violinist, Herbie Hancock, the jazz pianist, and legendary classical cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich.

Norah (born Geethali Norah Jones) sold over 26 million copies of her sensational debut album, “Come Away With Me,” which won 5 out of the 9 Grammy awards she’s won altogether. Billboard rates her the best-selling Jazz and popular singer of the last decade.

Desi Divas: Waheeda Rehman

Classic Bollywood film actress, Waheeda Rehman (1936-  ) was born into a conservative Muslim family in Chengelpattu, Tamil Nadu, in British India and was a talented classical dancer in her youth. She originally intended to become a doctor, but bad health got in the way, so she turned to acting. Starting with Tamil and Telugu films, she went on to star as the leading lady in scores of Hindi films in the 50’s to 70s, many of which ended up as classics.  After a long absence from the screen, she revived her career with character acting in the last decade.