This Week
Sinead O'Connor says hello. (Image via RTE)
Sinéad O’Connor’s moving performance of Nothing Compares 2 U on the Late Late Show in Ireland is simply breathtaking. On the pleasures of starting every September as if it’s a new school year, even if that means you’re in 40th grade. Two time WNBA champion Lisa Leslie will be the first female athlete to have a statue outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles. We could spend all afternoon watching these ballet routines to Lizzo’s Truth Hurts. We didn’t think the “kneel” scene in Fleabag could get any sexier, and then this happened. The book that should be on your nightstand this week: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.
Next TueNight Live! #DayofAction
We've added a speaker! Nathalie Molina Niño, author of Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs joins our crew of storytellers for our #DayofAction on 9/17. We'll also have stories from Carla Zanoni and Benish Shah as well as wine, beer, snacks and a session of postcard writing to welcome new refugee families to the U.S. Tickets entirely go to Hello Neighbor, a Pittsburgh-based non-profit that helps recently resettled refugee families.
#DayofAction will be a nationwide event with events across the country. Join us on this important day, to hear inspiring stories, take action for refugees who need your help, and enjoy the usual TueNight vibe with likeminded women. Let's clink glasses and do some good!
GET TICKETS!
(this will sell out!)
TueNight 10: Sloane Davidson
Image courtesy of Sloane Davidson
Age: 39 (Almost in our demo!)
Quick Bio: Sloane is the Founder and CEO of Hello Neighbor, a nonprofit that supports refugees and immigrants through mentorship. Next Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 she is co-hosting a TueNight Live #DayofAction and will be curating our new issue next week, "Welcome."
Beyond the bio: "I'm less than a month away from 40. Where did this decade go? As I near my birthday I keep thinking about the road I took to get here. The people that influenced me. How content I am now and how I never ever thought I would get here. There is a stillness to me, mixed in with my drive, because I finally feel like I'm doing something I was meant to do and everything led up to this moment. It's dramatic but that's where I am and I'm trying to sit in it and appreciate that because it was hard AF to get here and I don't want to rush into looking ahead without appreciating the journey."
1. On the nightstand: Fight Like A Mother by Shannon Watts, Memoirs of a Born Free by Malaika Wa Azania, The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri and a handful of cookbooks. I love to check cookbooks out of the library, they have all the best hip new cookbooks and I read them like books at night. I read a lot of comedian memoirs too. And presidential biographies. In fact I read 52 books a year so it’s a constant rotation.
2. Can't stop/won't stop: Spending QT with my kids. They are so little and I know it flies by and we have these awesome adventures we take together on weekends and when we travel. And hearing them laugh, I just live for that. On the flip side, speaking up for refugees and immigrants. As my idol Madeleine Albright once said, “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.”
3. Jam of the minute: Lizzo. I know everyone has been saying that but she really is that amazing. And there is this instrumental indie playlist that I just love at work. I use music to focus at work but can’t deal with lyrics in my ear and anything instrumental is just really my jam of late. I also love to listen to the spotify playlist from music festivals. Because see next answer.
4. Thing I miss: Music festivals (I can still go if I wanted to, I know). Spontaneous one-way plane tickets. My Dad. Doing lots of nothing with my time and thinking nothing of it. I am in a super scheduled part of life with two small kids so I just miss the carefree sway of a weekend with no agenda and nowhere to be..
5. 80s crush: Madonna. The Virgin Tour was my first concert and I was way too young to go but my older sisters took me anyway and I’ve been hooked ever since.
6. Current crush: Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge. That show, the biting wit! I’m insanely sad that it’s over and wish I could go back to a time when I hadn’t seen Season 2. Idris Alba in anything. He’s starring in a horrible beer commercial right now and I could still watch it on repeat on YouTube. And shopping local. I’m crushing so hard on my city and the people who make it run and I want everyone to succeed and ugh I could go on and on.
7. Will whine about: The suburbs (I don’t know why — it’s irrational really, but I can get into this topic and the damage it’s caused), people who complain about bike lanes (seriously who are you?) and Blue Laws (I live in Pennsylvania, google it and then come back to me...madness).
8. Will wine about: Embracing and showing our collective anger and applying it to feminism today, including all gender identities and allies, to topple the patriarchy and reshape our democracy before it crumbles into a million pieces. Seriously, I am all in.
9. Best thing that happened recently: My two sons are 3 and 1. Watching them learn to play together and support one another is a magic beyond any words. And my work is a sea of being able to see the best in people. At least once a day I will hear something so pure and good that a Hello Neighbor match did together and I will close my eyes and shake my head and say to no one in particular, “there can be so much good in the world if you create a space for it to happen.”
10. Looking forward to: Turning 40 in less than a month! I’m ready for this next chapter, whatever it may hold. I’m also looking forward to leaning into who I am and practicing a lot of #selfcare. I ain’t got time for other peoples’ negativity. Life is too short.
FROM OUR FABULOUS #DAYOFACTION SPONSOR
Photo: Marcin Muchalski. Image courtesy Grey Horse Communications
Story: This Is What The American Dream Actually Looks like
By Nancy David Kho
My late father-in-law was an immigrant. He was also one of the most American guys I ever met — if you believe that what defines our national character is a willingness to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, a love of family and community, a thirst for knowledge and, of course, a really green lawn.
Boen Tong — known as “Tong” or “BT” to his wife and friends, “Dad” and “Grandpa” to his kids and grandkids and “Tom” to the slightly deaf old Jewish ladies with whom he played bridge in his later years — was born in Indonesia in 1919. He spent his childhood working in the family batik business, pedaling his bike through the Javanese jungle to pick up the beautifully dyed cloth for which Indonesia is known. He spoke Malay and Javanese, but when his parents sent him to study at Dutch schools, Dutch became the first of four foreign languages in which he would eventually become fluent.
Keep reading...
When Taco Tuesday is over, share us with a friend!