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Beyoncé Is Wearing A Bodice In An Authentic Renaissance Style Made By A Brisbane Designer

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Beyoncé Is Wearing A Bodice In An Authentic Renaissance Style Made By A Brisbane Designer

Followers have been anticipating a Beyonce album for six years, and it lastly debuted final week. The singer’s intentions have been derailed by a scandal: the attackers leaked the file on-line a day earlier than it was scheduled for launch.

Beyoncé launched a controversial picture shoot that her crew collaborated on with stylist Marni Senofonte, photographers Carlin Jacobs and Mason Poole, and praised the followers who patiently awaited the album on official streaming providers.

The performer is proven in one of many frames posing whereas carrying a bodysuit that’s within the vogue of the Nineteen Sixties, a pair of lengthy, black and white gloves, and large, spherical glasses.

The “prickly” bodysuit, the primary part of the ensemble, was created by little-known Australian designer Bethany Cordwell, who has a little bit greater than 2,000 followers on social media.

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The woman’s employment as a dressing up designer for the Queensland Ballet, in addition to the supplies she used each startling. The plastic file folders that the designer bought from an workplace provide retailer have been used to make Beyoncé’s black and white bodysuit.

Cordwell meticulously sewed 12,000 separate items of plastic onto a specifically designed bodysuit over the course of a month.

“I discover this tough to imagine. I nonetheless do not imagine it to be actual. In response to Bethany, “Beyoncé appears to be like wonderful with my bodysuit and earrings,” she advised reporters.

After discovering the Australian designer’s distinctive bodysuit on social media, Beyoncé’s crew approached her earlier this yr.

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I used to be utterly shocked. We began speaking about extra work particulars straight away once I promptly replied to the message, she acknowledged.

Due to Beyoncé’s appreciation for Cordwell’s expertise, the bodysuit was bought. NME gave Beyonce’s seventh studio album “Renaissance” a four-star score, calling it a “great file” that “continues main the cost to convey Black tradition again to the forefront of home and dance scenes.

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Mauro Morandi, Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, Dies at 85

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Mauro Morandi, Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, Dies at 85

Mauro Morandi, whose 32-year sojourn on an uninhabited Mediterranean island led to his being known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, died on Jan. 3 in Modena, Italy. He was 85.

The cause was a brain hemorrhage, said Antonio Rinaldis, who wrote a 2023 book with Mr. Morandi about his life on the island.

Unlike Daniel Defoe’s hero, who was shipwrecked and fervently hoped to be rescued, Mr. Morandi chose his life of solitude.

He said he had fallen in love at first sight with Budelli, a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia. He arrived in 1989, somewhat by chance, he said in interviews. He left — against his will — in 2021, writing on social media that he was tired of “fighting against those who want to send me away.”

Mr. Morandi’s singular choice to live in solitude spawned at least two books, at least one song, short documentaries and countless interviews. As the world turned inward during the coronavirus pandemic, reporters sought Mr. Morandi’s insights on isolation.

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“I read a lot, and think,” he told CNN in 2020. “I think many people are scared of reading because if they do, they’ll start meditating and thinking about stuff, and that can be dangerous. If you start seeing things under a different light and be critical, you could end up seeing what a miserable life you lead.”

Budelli, one of the main islands that make up the Maddalena Archipelago, is a dab of paradise occupying less than two-thirds of a square mile. It is known for its pink sand beach surrounded by turquoise water. The island has no running water, is not connected to an electrical grid and is accessible only by boat.

Mr. Morandi lived in an abandoned World War II hut, tacking up canvas tarps in an open area in front. He created sculptures from branches, cooked on a propane stove and read voraciously, buying books and supplies on trips to La Maddalena, the largest town on the archipelago. Visitors also brought him food and water. He used car batteries and solar power to charge his cellphone and his tablet.

It was, he said, “a simple life made up of big and small pleasures.”

“The most important thing,” he added, “is that I have a serene relationship with time.”

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For years he was the island’s designated guardian, hired by the Swiss-Italian real estate company that owned it.

His main task was to protect the island’s habitat from unruly tourists, who are allowed only on certain paths, part of an effort by Italy’s environment ministry to protect the rare pink sand. He told people about the marvels of the island, and how fragments of coral and shells had turned the sand pink. He picked up trash from the beach, cleared the island’s paths and carried out light maintenance.

Mr. Morandi initially chose to live as a hermit, he said in an interview at Genoa’s maritime museum, but he ultimately welcomed select people as part of his mission to make them “understand why we need to love nature.”

He said he did not miss human contact. “He didn’t like what humanity had become in the 21st century — consumeristic and individualistic — especially with regard to nature,” Mr. Rinaldis said. That was why Mr. Morandi cared about protecting Budelli.

When he finally got an internet connection, he used social media to showcase the island’s untamed beauty.

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In 2016, after a protracted legal battle over the island’s ownership, it was turned over to the state and became part of Maddalena Archipelago National Park. Mr. Morandi was asked to leave.

The park’s president, Giuseppe Bonanno, acknowledged Mr. Morandi’s unique position. “Morandi symbolizes a man, enchanted by the elements, who decides to devote his life to contemplation and custody,” he told reporters. But there were other issues, including whether Mr. Morandi would be able to survive a medical emergency alone, not to mention his shack’s failure to meet code.

He fought back. He campaigned against his eviction on social media. He gave interviews to the news media. An online petition drew nearly 75,000 signatures.

“We do not want Mauro to leave the island because we think first of all that if Budelli has remained a wonder of nature it is also thanks to him,” the petition said. “And second, because we are convinced that the park has everything to gain from his presence: Mauro has lived on Budelli for a quarter of a century, he knows every plant and every rock, every tree and every animal species, he recognizes the colors and scents with the changing of the wind and the seasons.”

But after battling the authorities for five years, Mr. Morandi relented. He was 82 and no longer in good health. “Part of his resignation was tied to his fragility,” Mr. Rinaldis said, “but he was also disappointed because he had been forced to leave by the authorities.”

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Mr. Morandi left the island for good in March 2021 and moved to a small apartment in La Maddalena. “I’ll leave hoping that in the future, Budelli will be safeguarded, like I’ve been doing it for 32 years,” he said.

Mauro Morandi was born on Feb. 12, 1939, in Modena. His father, Mario Morandi, was a gymnast who won the national championship for artistic gymnastics in 1936 and was later the caretaker of a school. Mauro’s mother, Enia Camellini, worked for a tobacco company.

Mr. Morandi studied to become a physical education teacher and taught at a middle school in Modena through the 1970s, when he was able to retire early. He had three daughters during a marriage that ended in divorce.

They survive him, as do a brother, Renzo, and six grandchildren.

In a 2016 interview with the Turin daily La Stampa, Mr. Morandi said that after reading Richard Bach’s 1970 best seller, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” he “took flight,” discovering the sea. In 1989, he said, he decided that he was “tired of society and seeking a different life.” He bought a catamaran with some friends, with the idea of sailing to Polynesia.

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To raise money, they scouted locations for charter cruises and came across Budelli. There they met Budelli’s caretaker, who had recently decided to leave. He offered them his job, and Mr. Morandi took it. He was paid at first, but he stayed on even after he was no longer receiving a salary; he then lived off his teacher’s pension. On rare occasions he returned to Modena for short holidays to visit his family.

At one point he read a study by the University of Sassari showing that Budelli’s flora and fauna were similar to those of the Polynesian islands he had once hoped to reach. “It was almost as though Budelli wanted me, made sure I got here, to the only beach in the whole Mediterranean Sea, which is almost similar in composition to the islands where I wanted to go,” he said in a 2016 interview with the photographer Claudio Muzzetto.

After Mr. Morandi’s death, Margherita Guerra, one of his many thousands of followers on social media, wrote: “Safe travels. Finally no one will ever be able to send you away from your beloved island.”

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Jeff Corwin Calls Wildfires 'Catastrophe' for Mountain Lions, Condors, Bears

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Jeff Corwin Calls Wildfires 'Catastrophe' for Mountain Lions, Condors, Bears

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At the End of a Road Trip, a Romantic Detour

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At the End of a Road Trip, a Romantic Detour

In January 2021, Elizabeth Ives Solomon rolled into Naples, Fla., in a converted Toyota Sienna camper van. A thirst for adventure, along with international travel restrictions wrought by Covid-19, had inspired a monthslong road trip to explore the American West, and then, the shores of Florida.

Upon her arrival, Ms. Solomon, a writer and former radio journalist who lived in Washington D.C., decided to stay in Naples for a bit.

One of her first stops was to the Arthur L. Allen Tennis Center, putting advice from her mother into practice. “She always used to tell me it’s important to have a good tennis game because it’s a great way to meet people,” Ms. Solomon, 58, said.

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

She quickly befriended a septuagenarian Austrian woman who agreed to be her playing partner. During their first game, Ms. Solomon became distracted.

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“I noticed a really handsome guy walk onto the next court,” Ms. Solomon said, recalling the first time she set eyes on Gero Klaus Geilenbruegge. She overheard Mr. Geilenbruegge speaking in German to his tennis partner and asked her friend, who also spoke German, to make an introduction.

The foursome struck up a conversation (in English) and set a date the following week to all play tennis together. A rainstorm canceled those plans. But Ms. Solomon and Mr. Geilenbruegge met up anyway for a misty walk on a public beach. Under a shroud of gray clouds, they discovered they were both free spirits who a shared passion for travel and new experiences.

“We walked for two hours,” Mr. Geilenbruegge, 56, recalled. “It was so nice. And she liked very much that I was so open.”

He informed Ms. Solomon that he had a teenage son from a previous relationship and told her about the choice he made to move to the United States from Berlin in 2000, trading a hectic career as a tax lawyer for a slower-paced life. He currently works as a real estate broker for the Waterfront Realty Group in Naples. He received a law degree from Trier University in Germany.

Ms. Solomon, who has a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale, shared details about her life, but chose not to disclose that she was living out of a van, sleeping in parking lots and bathing at public showers on the beach. Her “cover story,” she said, was that she was crashing at a cousin’s condo 20 minutes north of Naples.

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The pair began spending more time together, enjoying dinners at Mr. Geilenbruegge’s cottage in Naples or battling on the tennis court where they met, something Ms. Solomon knows her late mother would relish.

“I knew she was sitting up on a cloud, clapping about it, saying, ‘See, I told you Beth,’” Ms. Solomon said.

After a few weeks, she sheepishly came clean to Mr. Geilenbruegge about her living situation. “He just looked at me and said, ‘That’s so cool,’” Ms. Solomon recalled. “I thought, ‘Wow. This is the only man in Naples who would think this way.’”

Ms. Solomon slowly began moving her things into Mr. Geilenbruegge’s home. “We never felt annoyed by each other and that’s a huge thing especially when you meet in the later part of life,” Mr. Geilenbruegge said.

The two took a number of trips together, including a spontaneous vacation to Helsinki, Finland, and another to Germany, where Mr. Geilenbruegge introduced Ms. Solomon to his large family in Düsseldorf. They also bought a sailboat together.

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[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

In October 2023, the couple went on a humanitarian trip to Malawi with CARE, a nonprofit organization that fights world hunger; Ms. Solomon worked as a fundraiser for the organization. Both were struck by the indomitable spirits of many of the people they met. At the end of one particular day, Ms. Solomon felt especially reflective.

“We were on this bus, bouncing out of this village,” she recalled. “I just said, ‘Honey, I think we should get engaged.’”

Mr. Geilenbruegge unhesitatingly agreed. “I’m easygoing but I have very high expectations,” he said. “And I would say she is absolutely flawless. She’s the kindest person, most generous person.”

They celebrated their decision that night on Lake Malawi, drinking cocktails and watching the sunset.

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The couple wed Dec. 26 on the Naples beach where they had their first date. Several onlookers nearby clapped after they were pronounced married.

“It was a very small, private ceremony, but we weren’t separated from the people around us,” Ms. Solomon said. “It was open to whoever wanted to experience the joy that we feel about each other.”

The city’s mayor, Teresa Heitmann, a friend of the couple who was ordained by the Universal Life Church for the event, officiated. Also in attendance were Mr. Geilenbruegge’s son, Noah Rose, who served as the best man, and Ms. Solomon’s niece, Jessica Solomon, who was the maid of honor.

“I was happy,” Ms. Solomon said of her life before moving to Florida. “But I didn’t realize how full and rich life can be until I met Gero.”

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