In honour of persistent, unapologetic women everywhere

There are so many wonderful and awe-inspiring stories to share on March 8th, thank god, and so many platforms that does that so much better than this one. But I have long wanted to post these absolutely stunning, powerful and remarkable portraits of Tina Turner, and she will be my inspirational, aspirational sisterhood poster woman today. 

Anna Mae Bullock aka Tina Turner: always an idol of mine, definitely a nasty woman, a fighter and such a real human. These photos are from 1969, and are by Jack Robinson (read more after the pictures). 

Jack Robinson, the photographer who shot this series in New York in 1969, had a really interesting story, it turns out. I Googled him, because I wanted to credit these images correctly, and came across  his unusual life story. 

In the 1960s, he was a superstar fashion, celebrity and journalistic photographer in his native New Orleans and in New York, but in the mid 1970s, his career started to decline for a number of reasons, addiction being one of them.

He left New York to care for his elderly parents in the South, gave up photography for good, became sober - and started out on a second career, one in which he seems to have excelled almost as much as in the first: he started working in a company that made stained glass windows, and became amazingly good at that!

He lived in Memphis, Tennessee and made stained glass windows (winning awards and all kinds of praise for that as well) the last two decades of his life, and when he died in 1997, only few people knew about his early career as a photographer. But boxes and boxes of neatly preserved and catalogued negatives and contact sheets were found in his flat, and he was discovered all over, resulting in book publications, exhibitions and so on.

Here is a bio, and here is an article about the re-discovery of his work, after his death.

Fingers crossed

Update, later on Tuesday: This is very disturbing.

Now, I will put my whole trust in the common sense and optimism that made so many people work so hard for the better option. May they - no, we - have the guts to keep on going.

February 13th is Purple Hijab Day

Purple Hijab Day is an international day of raising awareness against domestic violence. It is founded in the Muslim community, in memory of Aasiya Zubair, who was murdered by her husband. You show your support for the cause by wearing a purple hijab, scarf, tie, hat - or whatever is at hand!

While it is by no means meant to be only a Muslim event, a very important focus of Purple Hijab, is to go against the prevailing stereotypical idea, that the Koran somehow allows violence against women, and that all Muslim men are misogynists or anti-feminist. In Denmark where I live, the demonisation of Muslims gets worse by the day in our media, and I find that extremely worrying. This is why I love it when things like this, helps us a few steps back on the right track. Or at least a better track.

I hope that lots of people will put on something purple today as a gesture towards more understanding between our different faiths, much more respect between the sexes - and in hoping that the generations to come won't have to celebrate it at all - or perhaps will do so, only to remember Aasiya's story and because it looks great. As in the image above, where a woman in Ethiopia have not only donned her purple hijab, but also painted her doorway purple. The image (the photographer is not credited, too bad - it's a fantastic picture) is from this article.

There are also countless pages about Purple Hijab on Facebook, go check it out if you are curious about local events or activities. 

Happy Christmas from John & Yoko

This has not been an altogether great year for the family of man. Christmas Day always makes me reflective, and today I end up having only this to say: We must be able to do better.
But there is hope, also. There is always hope.

This song has been playing on the radio for the last six weeks, some of you have heard it daily, along with Wham, Nat King Cole, Mariah Carey and all the other beloved Christmas pop classics.

But here is the video. The video is not warm, cosy and nice, it makes me cry - and it will make you cry. But for all the right reasons. Merry Christmas - and may peace, decency and democracy stand a chance. 

Give a little, get a little

It's rough times out there these days, and for a awful lot of people. Including many children. It breaks your heart. Donating whatever you can, be it time, money or something you can do without, is important, and possible for most of us.

It may not be much we can do, but I insist on believing that even a bit here and there can make a difference. In Denmark there are lots of ways you can donate and support, and no, I really don't think it's a fruitless, little effort in what seems to be a hopeless situation. You often wish you could do more than just donate, but money is never nothing. Just imagine what might happen if we all skipped in, all of us. I rarely write about specific political topics on this blog, but here I must mention, that the Danish government is about to downsize our financial aid to countries and peoples in dire need, by a staggering 2.5 billions. So apparently, they fail to see the urgency.

Today I stumbled upon one of these countless small initiatives and decided to support it: Every Child. They collect funds by selling children's t-shirts designed by Henrik Vibskov, and HuskMitNavn (I also wrote about him here - I am a huge fan!).

All proceeds go directly to Save the Children's efforts to help refugee children on the run. 

So buy your kid a nice t-shirt and do a little bit of good.
Or make a donation to Save the Children; go to the USA site - and here is a link to the Danish site.

A rare selfie of this blogger

Yup, this is me - wrinkles and bad dye job and all. The thing is, that my son woke me up with a hair brush this morning, and insisted - as he sometimes does - on fixing my hair. I have frizzy, flimsy, typical Scandinavian hair in a nondescript beige-blond color, now with grey speckles here and there. So I jazz it up with a bit of chestnut red from the drugstore, which makes it even more frizzy. But my son is fascinated with the long tresses, only hanging loose in the morning (otherwise I always keep it in a bun or a ponytail), and loves to comb it. And now, he is learning to braid it, and gave me this makeover today.

The reason for this particular asymmetrical do, is that he has done me up me in the hairstyle of his heroine Elsa, from his favorite movie, Frozen. First he brushed and brushed (and I pretended it didn't hurt one bit), and then there was a lot of fiddling with rubber bands. I had to help him a bit with the actual braid, and then I was turned around, for him to check the result.

His eyes twinkled with admiration, and he gushed: "Oh, Mum, you look soooo beautiful! You look exactly like Elsa!!" 

(I guess I was hoping to look just a little bit more like this seriously cool young Danish lady)

And here is what Elsa looks like, in case you don't know:

Such moments of parenthood. They are cherished and put away a little box of treasures in the heart. And I have watched Frozen with him several times, and I am a little bit flattered, I must say. A bit of a (cold) hottie, that Elsa.

Frozen is the first major Disney movie my son (aged 5½) has fallen totally in love with. We flew from Copenhagen to Miami last spring, and he watched it almost three times in a stretch on the plane, although I do believe he napped through most of the third run. But he had lost his heart to Elsa, Anna, Sven (a reindeer) and the adorable snowman, Olaf.

We got the DVD and after a while I put all my politically correct reservations aside, and I really love it. The opening sequence with all the men carving ice blocks gets me every time, it is so beautiful. And the story is action packed, full of funny details and has a great B-cast, if you can say that - and old feminist me, love that the two female leads totally dominate the movie, that they are strong, determined and kick some serious animated butt, both of them. The story has a lot to do with love as a healing, magical, all-conquering force (that we all possess), but man-woman romance is not the peak of the story, even though it plays a part. The poor Elsa's evil spell is broken through pure sisterly love and courage, and the men sort of take second place in the story, where the love thing is concerned.

The visual style of the heroines is also much more manga, than big-boobs-and-pout-Barbie, and they are not offensively girly, in any way.

But even in my very PC world, it is still a mild case of puzzlement to some, that this can be the favorite movie of a very regular little boy with muddy boots and a great fondness for tree climbing and for wearing a Batman cape. Most people expect boys of his age to love movies where the heroes are made of space metal and mostly look like this:

But Elsa and Olaf and the rest are totally okay with me, and even though we parents do nudge our kids much more that we will admit to, I will try not to nudge my kid away from loving feisty princesses with purple eye shadow and talking snowmen. 

And he can fix my hair whenever he wants to.

The sky must be grey over Paris today

I run this blog where I write about small matters of everyday aesthetics and share my mundane thoughts on these. I almost never write about political or personal subjects, because I have decided long ago, that this is not the space for those.

But today I need to say, that the fact that I can choose to blog, write what I damn well please, and be free to do so - is almost the only thing really worth fighting for. And I say this as a sworn pacifist and a non-religious person.

If I could grant my son and his generation one single thing in their futures, it would be this freedom.
It encompasses everything I find important, including the right to express your religious beliefs in respect and with understanding for those otherwise inclined. It is the core, the very essence, of democracy.

My heart goes out to everyone touched by the attacks in Paris yesterday - and that, essentially, means every one of us.

Paris is one of my favorite cities in Europe, and one I have visited many times. And I really like the French. You only have to step into any tabac to feel how they appreciate debate and passionate discussion and how they actually value their writers, philosophers and politicians. I find that so deeply inspiring and wonderful.

We are all Charlie.

(photo is from fineartamerica.com)