Lifestyle
5 Women at the Heart of the Jewelry World
“The world is so massive, but it surely will get smaller each day with all of the individuals I meet,” stated Ms. Gong, 27.
“In the end we’re individuals specialists, that’s how I wish to see it,” she stated. “We set up trusting relationships with our purchasers, and we find yourself being the contact level for all their wants, cross-category.” In her case, she works as a specialist in gems and as an appraiser, with Uniform Customary of Skilled Appraisal Observe credentials, and in addition handles non-public gross sales.
Ms. Gong was born in Seattle, moved along with her household to Beijing when she was 6, then returned to america for highschool. As a lady, she was drawn to the arms-and-armor assortment on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York Metropolis. “Even when it wasn’t thought of jewellery, my past love in steel crafts was a wearable piece of steel, tied to the perform of the physique,” she stated.
She graduated from Pratt Institute in New York Metropolis with a Bachelor of Nice Arts diploma and studied at Musashino College in Tokyo, the place she apprenticed with the Japanese silver grasp Hiroshi Suzuki. She additionally backpacked world wide, studying about gem mining in Myanmar, the emerald commerce in Colombia and gemstone-cutting in Thailand. “Even when I didn’t dedicate a long time to it,” she stated, the expertise gave her “a greater firsthand understanding of the method with a view to talk about it with extra authority to my purchasers.”
Earlier than beginning her job at Sotheby’s in early 2019, Ms. Gong labored as a personal jewellery guide and supplier, the place she grew to become acquainted with jewellery pricing and market motion, matters that she stated helped her now. “Primarily it’s a market geared in direction of a feminine shopper, but the individuals who management the opposite aspect of the trade are, within the majority, males,” she stated. “There’s a disconnect with these on high and the product offered to the patron, a scarcity of a dialogue. However hopefully sooner or later there will probably be extra feminine executives, sellers and designers.”
Lifestyle
How to conquer the new Las Vegas
Plan your ultimate trip to always-evolving Las Vegas. Try new immersive experiences and the best places to eat on and off the Strip — including desserts approved by Cake Boss Buddy Valastro. Check out the coolest indie shops and escape the neon lights with fun day trips. Bonus: For relaxing and recovering, find some of the best spas in the country. Here’s how to get the most out of your next Vegas adventure.
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Lifestyle
Summer box office woes: Hollywood’s optimistic, but movie seats are still empty
Hollywood’s having a rough year. After a slower-than-usual spring, the film industry kicked off its summer blockbuster season by posting the lowest box office numbers for a Memorial Day Weekend in more than two decades (excluding 2020, when many movie theaters were closed).
There are lots of excuses – delays from six months of writers’ and actors’ strikes, lackluster star-vehicles, superhero fatigue – but as folks in the business sometimes say, “if people really don’t want to come, nothing can stop them.”
People pretty clearly didn’t want to come to the Mad Max prequel Furiosa last weekend, which grossed a less-than-expected $32 million at the domestic box office. Nor to the family film IF the previous week. Audiences haven’t been flocking to much of anything since Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong back in March.
As Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra said on a call with investors this week, “People got out of the habit of going to the theaters.”
And once the habit is broken, every week that doesn’t have a smash hit, makes it a little harder to jump-start attendance again.
Because of the strikes last year, the first four months of 2024 were always expected to be slow — fewer films in the pipeline, producers waiting for kids to be out of school. Film industry projections were that by year’s end, ticket sales would be down by $1 billion from last year.
That sounded bad enough, but this year’s numbers are already down by $800 million compared to this date in 2023, and we haven’t even reached July, the month when last year’s ticket sales got supercharged by the two-film cultural phenomenon known as Barbenheimer.
Even without the supercharging from the hot-pink comedy Barbie, and the atom-bomb-creator biopic Oppenheimer, last summer would’ve been tough to keep pace with. It had new installments of Mission Impossible, Transformers, Spider-Verse, and Indiana Jones.
On Sony’s investor call this week, Vinciquerra was hopeful that this summer’s slate would bring audiences back, perhaps not quite to pre-pandemic levels, but substantially. So what’s in store? Well, Despicable Me movies regularly reach the $1 billion dollar mark worldwide, and there’s no reason to think this summer’s installment will be an exception.
Pixar has a decent track record when it brings back audience favorites, so Inside Out 2 should do well. And with not one, but two super-heroes, Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine should be fine despite an “R” rating that bars teens under 17 without a parent.
Deadpool & Wolverine | Official Teaser | In Theaters July 26
YouTube
There’s also a tornado-chasing Twisters, and a silence-challenged A Quiet Place: Day One.
But you’ll note that every one of those movies is a sequel — fan service, not something new or original that’s likely to re-ignite the habit of moviegoing. So what’s available this summer to light fresh box office fires?
Anyone want to bet on the motorcycle-gang drama Bikeriders? The Scarlett Johansson/Channing Tatum rom-com Fly Me to the Moon? How about the family film Harold and the Purple Crayon? No?
So summer’s likely to slide further behind. Possibly a lot further. Which is why some in the industry talk about extending the season a week past Labor Day, so they can include Tim Burton’s twice-titled sequel Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, which has a shot at a $100 million opening.
The extension won’t wash, of course. Summer in the record books will still officially end on Labor Day.
Meanwhile, the mantra that theater owners have been repeating when they get together in 2024?: “Survive to ‘25.”
Lifestyle
Whoopi Goldberg & Joy Behar Overjoyed by Trump Conviction on 'The View'
ABC
“The View” hosts couldn’t contain their excitement a day after Donald Trump was convicted — especially Whoopi Goldberg … who took her sweet time to rub it in on the air.
The actress-comedian — who apparently hasn’t used Trump’s name on the show in years — riled up the crowd at the end of the show … when she repeated “guilty” 34 times in reference to all of DJT’s convictions, for 34 seconds no less.
Fox News
5/30/24
Watch … WG promises fans a quick recap of the trial, before firing off the word “guilty” repeatedly. She’s even forced to yell over the crowd … ’cause they break out in applause.
ABC
Of course, WG’s not the only ‘View’ host who couldn’t hold back … quite literally, ’cause in Joy Behar‘s case, she says started “leaking” when she heard the news in Costco.
ABC
5/1/24
It’s not exactly shocking the ladies are so excited about the conviction … they’ve regularly shared their contempt for the Donald over the years — including last month, when Sunny Hostin blasted Trump for allegedly blasting farts in the courtroom.
As you know … the ex-Prez was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records Thursday after a contentious trial. He’s denied all wrongdoing repeatedly … claiming the justice system’s rigged against him. Trump’s also called out the judge and the prosecution for months leading up to the conviction — and yet, he’s now technically a convicted felon.
Fox News
Sounds like “The View” crew ain’t losing any sleep over it … if anything, they’re fully rejoicing.
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