“Finding unexpected beauty in the hands of shoe shiners”
This hand: German Orellana, 55, Ecuador.
Photographs by Christopher Griffith.
Don’t miss photos of 15 other NYC shoe shiners in The New York Times Magazine: Shoe Shine Slideshow
Tag: New York Times
SMWI*: Endured Humiliation. But Never Gave Up.
- William Howard Taft, (1857-1930) was the 27th President of the United States.
- The only massively obese man ever to be the president of the United States
- He struggled mightily to control his weight
- Endured humiliation from cartoonists who delighted in his corpulent figure
- His weight-loss program was startlingly contemporary
- His difficulties keeping the pounds off would be familiar to many Americans today
- On advice of his doctor, he went on a low-fat, low-calorie diet. He avoided snacks.
- Meals were to be eaten at certain times and meats were to be weighed. Taft was to eat a small portion of lean meat or fish at every meal, cooked vegetables at lunch and dinner (no butter), a plain salad, and stewed or baked fruit (unsweetened). He got a single glass of “unsweetened” wine at lunch.
- He kept a careful diary of what he ate and weight himself daily.
- The tale is strikingly modern…The self-monitoring — weighing himself daily, keeping a food diary — are “the fundamental tenets of changing behavior,” said Dr. Kimberly Gudzune, an obesity researcher at Johns Hopkins. “Keep yourself accountable.”
- He hired a personal trainer and rode a horse to exercise
- Like many dieters today, Taft lost weight and regained it, fluctuating from more than 350 to 255 lbs.
- After he had lost 60 pounds…people told him he looked good, yet he was “continuously hungry.”
- Researchers were struck by Taft’s persistent hunger pangs. Losing a substantial amount of weight and keeping it off amounts to telling the body it is starving…“One of the most important drives we have is to prevent starvation,” Dr. Hirsch said.
- By the time Taft was inaugurated as president in 1909, he had regained all he had lost, and more, weighing 354 pounds. He became the butt of jokes, with many relishing a story that he had gotten stuck in a White House bathtub.
- But Taft never gave up. When he died in 1930, he weighed 280 pounds.
Read full article in the New York Times: In a Struggle With Weight, Taft Used a Modern Diet
- SMWI* = Saturday Morning Workout Inspiration
- Image Source: Natemaas
- Thank you Susan
The Diving Board
Elton John, 66, is releasing “The Diving Board“, his 31th studio album on Tuesday. Tim Barber is the photographer who took the shot used for the album cover. Barber grew up in Amherst Massachusetts, lived for a few years in the mountains of Northern Vermont, studied photography in Vancouver B.C. and now lives in New York City. Barber’s photos have been used by Vogue, Nike and Levi’s. Barber shares the story of this photograph in the New York Times article titled: How Elton John Chose My Photo For His Album.
“I took this photo about 10 years ago somewhere between Vancouver and Squamish, on the coast of British Columbia. I don’t actually know exactly where. It’s a kind of legendary secret swimming spot where some kids had installed a diving board on the side of a cliff. You had to park really far away and walk through the woods to get there. I was with some friends from Vancouver who knew about it. I think it was October. When I took the picture — literally, while I was pushing the button — I was thinking, “This looks amazing.” It was just a special moment and the light was crazy that day. The air was super clear. Something I strive for in my photos is to imply a greater narrative, to make the viewer wonder what happened before and what happened after. I think this picture is a good example of that. It’s also the photo of mine that people always think is fake — like that it’s been Photoshopped, or shot on a green screen. I like that. Something that was so simple and real ended up so surreal and hard to believe…”
Read more about how Elton John selected Barber’s image at this link.
References:
- New York Times Photo Essay: How Elton John Chose My Photo For His Album
- Elton John’s new Album on iTunes: The Diving Board
- Check out Tim Barber’s web site for other great photos: TimBarber.com
Criteria for Husband: Must Love Dogs
“I never would have thought it necessary to establish criteria for boyfriends or husbands, especially one as seemingly unimportant as: Must love dogs. As in:
- You must be able to share your waking hours and living space and a good amount of your disposable income on a four-footed companion that is basically a child in fur for 12 to 15 years.
- You must plan every vacation around its needs.
- You will trip over toys and pigs’ ears and chew hooves splayed across your best Persian carpet.
- You will be forced to walk it every day, rain or shine, or risk having your favorite shoes sacrificed to the god of canine frustration.
- If everything goes well and it lives to a ripe old age, you may have to decide to end its suffering, and you will have to be strong enough to stay with it those last moments, stroking its silky ears.
In my life, dogs have always been a part of that equation, a way to find the small, grounding moments in life — the grass, sunlight and sweet bite of plums — that we commonly call happiness. After 20 years of marriage, on our fourth dog, my husband and I are best friends, which must be at least as rare as soul mates.”
Read the rest of this article by Tatjana Soli @ Picking Up The Scent On The Road to Bliss
Related Post: Guess who graduated? With a fancy badge and diploma too…
Credits:
- Photograph: Pink Blue & You – the winner of the Cute Close-ups Competition was Gemma Buttery’s dog Neo
- Thank you Susan for sharing the article.
Swimming in so much hate
In a softer voice, she said her initial reaction to reading it had been “Really?” and then, she said, “Why would someone O.K. that?” Without mentioning the name of its author, Ms. McCarthy said: “I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that’s someone who’s in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.” Had this occurred when she was 20, Ms. McCarthy said, “it may have crushed me.” But now, as a mother raising two young daughters in “a strange epidemic of body image and body dysmorphia,” she said articles like that “just add to all those younger girls, that are not in a place in their life where they can say, ‘That doesn’t reflect on me.’”
~ Melissa McCarthy responding to a reporter about Rex Reed’s review of her performance in “Identity Thief.” He described Ms. McCarthy as “tractor-sized” and called her “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.” (Read more…)
Melissa Ann McCarthy, 42, is an American film and television actress, comedian, writer and producer. She was born in Plainfield, Illinois and currently lives in Los Angeles. McCarthy first gained recognition for her role as Sookie St. James on the television series Gilmore Girls, where she starred from 2000 to 2007. From 2007 to 2009, she portrayed Dena on the ABC sitcom Samantha Who? McCarthy was then cast as Molly Flynn-Biggs on the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly, a role that earned her an Emmy Award win. McCarthy was also nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her work as host on Saturday Night Live. McCarthy achieved major success and fame for her breakthrough role in the 2011 comedy hit Bridesmaids, which garnered her numerous award nominations including an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the films The Nines, The Back-up Plan, and Life as We Know It, and her 2013 roles include Identity Thief, The Heat, and The Hangover Part III. (Source: Wiki)
Source: New York Times – Melissa McCarthy Goes Over The Top. Photo: fansshare.com