Connect with us

Lifestyle

First Lady Fashion at Inaugurations, in Photos

Published

on

First Lady Fashion at Inaugurations, in Photos

For the most part, presidential inaugurations are moments of communal pageantry. There is music and poetry. There are oaths to recite and vows to make. Everyone smiles for the cameras, and everyone dresses up — for the inauguration on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and later for a series of balls that have come to symbolize the great promise of a new administration.

Where does the first lady fit into all of this? She has never said much amid the ceremony and ritual. But in ideal circumstances, she helps humanize the president while adopting a persona as American royalty. She is, for better or worse, the hostess of what is often presented as a modern fairy tale.

Perhaps that was why so many people had a visceral reaction when Rosalynn Carter recycled a dress she already worn when her husband, Jimmy Carter, was inaugurated as president in 1977. The Carters had been hoping to channel the idea that they felt the economic pain of regular people, an old pledge from the campaign trail. But nobody wanted them to be regular people, not during the inauguration and not when they were dancing at their galas.

Tastes, of course, have evolved. (Hello, sequins. Goodbye, fur.) And first ladies make personal choices. But in the end, it is largely about a carefully constructed image and conveying messages about priorities — something that has often been done through fashion.

Advertisement
Credit…Associated Press

Pat Nixon, in pink, and Betty Ford, in blue, wore pastels on Aug. 9, 1974, which was a miserable day for President Richard Nixon. After Mr. Nixon resigned amid scandal, his vice president, Gerald Ford, was sworn in to replace him.

Credit…Associated Press

When President Harry Truman, far right, took the oath of office for a second term in 1949, he made a speech that The New York Times described as “profoundly solemn.” Family members, including his wife, Bess, far left, dressed the part in muted tones and dark coats. Vice President Alben Barkley is next to Mr. Truman.

Vanessa Friedman contributed reporting.

Produced by Christy Harmon

Advertisement

Lifestyle

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Orville Peck

Published

on

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Orville Peck

For Orville Peck, the best Sundays are basically all the same. And they are pretty similar to every other day of the week too. The masked country singer (and now actor) got sober three years ago and has figured out a routine that helps him stay clear-minded and present with the people in his life whom he cares about.

Sunday Funday infobox logo with colorful spot illustrations

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Advertisement

“If I don’t keep up that routine, especially on a day like a Sunday, it quickly falls into no day feeling fun,” he says. “[The routine], which to some people is like, ‘Oh God, that looks like hell,’ is fun for me because it is fun for me to show up for myself.”

Peck’s latest album, “Mule,” which details his sobriety journey, is out Friday. That same day, he’s headlining the Hollywood Bowl, one of his favorite venues in the city.

Peck currently lives in the Hollywood Hills and has been in Los Angeles, on and off, for 18 years. “It’s definitely home to me,” he says. “I met my partner there. I’ve had some of the most important moments of my life in Los Angeles. I will always love this city.”

It’s also particularly conducive to his new lifestyle. “There’s a ton of other crazy people going to the gym and swimming and going to [12-step] meetings every single day,” Peck says. “So I’m in appropriately obsessive company for sure.”

Advertisement

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

5 a.m.: Early to rise

I wake up painfully early. I’ve been doing that since I was a toddler. I used to hold my mother’s eyelids open in the morning to get her to wake up.

When I wake up, the first thing I will do is meditation. I do transcendental meditation. I find every other form of meditation impossible. I’ll do TM for 20 minutes. My partner started doing it and I saw how much he was benefiting from it, so I decided to go and take the course and just loved it.

And then I’m an avid journaler, so I usually journal for probably about half an hour in the morning.

Advertisement

7 a.m.: Caffeination and hydration

I will make a very large iced coffee. I’m not snobbish about coffee, I’ll drink whatever.

I also fill up a massively obnoxious water bottle that has times on it that I carry everywhere. It looks like performative hydration, but it’s literally because if I don’t challenge myself to drink water, I just won’t drink water at all. It’s basically to shame myself into drinking water.

8 a.m.: Pool time, Part 1

I get to a public pool and I do laps. I grew up in South Africa and you’re forced to play every sport known to mankind. I always excelled at swimming, so it’s the one thing I still love to do. I just started up [again] within the last year.

Advertisement

I work out a lot, but when I’m at the gym, I don’t do any cardio. I’m never going to be on a treadmill or anything like that. Swimming feels like a fun way to keep me engaged.

10 a.m.: Meal prep

Then I go meet back up at home with my partner. We’ll go take our dog for a walk or we’ll go to a farmers market to get some produce for the week.

Then we’ll go grocery shopping because I love to cook. I will go to whatever is easiest. I’ll frequent a Gelson’s or a Ralphs or a Whole Foods. If I’m going to Whole Foods, I’m not doing regular grocery shopping. I want brands. I like a Coca-Cola.

I’d say I’m cooking usually about five or six nights a week. I’m very organized — I’m a Capricorn, if you can’t tell. I usually have a whole menu of what I’m going to do for the week, so I’ll get everything I need for that.

Advertisement

I will read a recipe or see a recipe I like, and then I will just freestyle it. I used to work in restaurants, so I feel pretty confident about it. But in terms of the style [of cooking], I’m best at recipes that take a long time, so anything that requires lengthy flavor building, like stews or curries.

Noon: Pool time, Part 2

Back at the house, we’ll have some lunch, something easy by the pool. So more swimming.

2 p.m.: Gym time

I’ll work out either at the house or go out to the gym. I’ve been sticking with a weight training routine for a couple of years now, but I try to evolve the exercises all the time because I get bored really easily.

Advertisement

Sometimes I work with a trainer. I filmed “Street Fighter” last year in Australia, so I did a ton of different training and martial arts training for months. It opened up my horizons to a lot of different forms of working out that I just didn’t know before. I’ve got a pretty big encyclopedia to pull from at this point.

4 p.m.: Recovery

I’ll usually head to a 12-step meeting, I’ll either catch one online or try to find one in person because there’s a lot around L.A.

6 p.m.: Not cooking tonight

On the weekend is where we will typically order in or eat out, maybe with some friends. Some places I love to order in from are the Sisters Cafe, which is Vietnamese, and Jon and Vinny’s.

Advertisement

9 p.m.: Early to bed

Both my partner and I are 80 years old at heart. We always have grand plans about watching a movie or whatever, and then we’re both inevitably snoring by 10 p.m. at the latest.

I used to live my life like a psycho maniac doing everything unhealthy. It definitely didn’t involve going to 12-step meetings and swimming laps at seven in the morning. It was whatever the opposite of that is.

When I went through the first two years of my sobriety, I went through a lot of trial and error in terms of overdoing it with things like therapy and mindfulness, and then also underdoing it as well. It took me a couple of years to really find what are the things that make me feel good about myself, make me feel grounded, make me feel accountable, and still feel like I’m living a happy life and not just white-knuckling 12 hours of, essentially, therapy every day. So I’ve found the things that really work for me.

There’s days where I will totally not do every one of those things. There’s days where I’m too lazy to go swimming and there are days where I’m like, “I don’t want to go to the gym.” I’m not militant about it. The other thing I’ve learned is to be easy with myself.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

The rising power of American Muslims : It’s Been a Minute

Published

on

The rising power of American Muslims : It’s Been a Minute

What’s changed for American Muslims – and what’s stayed the same?

Getty Images/Mary Long/Photo Illustration by NPR


hide caption

Advertisement



toggle caption

Getty Images/Mary Long/Photo Illustration by NPR

Is this a new era for American Muslims?

American Muslims are building their own cultural institutions – New York Magazine and The Guardian have reported on flourishing ecosystems of cafes, magazines, dance nights, meetups and readings for Muslims and/or people with heritage from the SWANA region. And on a political level, Muslims like Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani have become prominent faces of the left. On the one hand, this swell of Muslims coming up in politics and building cultural institutions is not surprising – there are over 4 million Muslims in America. On the other hand, this shift is pretty significant given how deeply Islamophobia and racism are rooted in our culture. So what’s changed for American Muslims in recent years, and what’s stayed the same? What does it mean that Muslims are accruing a little more political and cultural capital now, and that non-Muslims are noticing?

Advertisement

To get deeper into it, Brittany is joined by Dr. Donna Auston, cultural anthropologist, and Dr. Tazeen Ali, scholar of Islam in America and associate professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

This episode was produced by Liam McBain. It was edited by Neena Pathak. We had engineering support from Ted Mebane. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Jimmy Smits

Published

on

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Jimmy Smits

Throughout his 40 years in Los Angeles, one piece of advice on where to live still rings true for Jimmy Smits, known for starring in “L.A. Law,” “NYPD Blue” and “Sons of Anarchy.” Long ago, producer Steven Bochco, who helped launch Smits’ TV career, encouraged the native New Yorker to stick around.

Sunday Funday infobox logo with colorful spot illustrations

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Advertisement

“He said, ‘I think you’re going to be working at Fox or around here for a while,’” Smits recalls. “‘Don’t be a schmuck. Stay near, so you can get to work on time. Get the s— house in the best ZIP Code you can.’”

And so, from West Los Angeles to Santa Monica to Brentwood, Smits and his wife, actor Wanda De Jesus, have made the Westside their home base.

“Even when I lived in Brooklyn, we were near water,” Smits says. “It’s not Coney Island, but it’s the Santa Monica Pier. We have this New York-L.A. thing.”

When he’s not working, Smits prioritizes relaxation and his spiritual life. Most Saturday evenings, there’s a Mass to attend. All physical activities are done near water.

Beyond acting, the Emmy and Golden Globe winner is an advocate for education and the arts. This year is the 30th anniversary of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, which he co-founded to support emerging talent in the performing arts.

Advertisement

Here’s a look at his ideal Sunday, with a bit of a New York-L.A. state of mind.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

6:30 a.m.: First, the news

I still love reading the newspaper, tactile-wise. I keep the entertainment sections for weeks at a time for both the L.A. Times and New York Times. I recently had to go digital with the New York Times because my wife was like, “we can’t have all these newspapers around here!”

8 a.m.: People watching over breakfast

Advertisement

We’re not real foodies. Food is more like fuel for me. I love to experiment with different types of cuisines, but going to restaurants is more about the atmosphere. For breakfast, we’ll go to the Brentwood Farmers Market off San Vicente or the Coast Beach Café at Shutters on the Beach. You can people watch there. Or, they have an enclosure in the back that’s more chill. You can feel the ocean breeze on the water. If I’m really hungry, I’ll have the brioche French toast with some scrambled eggs and turkey bacon. But most of the time, it’s a pressed juice, English breakfast tea with warm milk and honey and a blueberry muffin.

9:30 a.m.: Beachside workouts

Part of the day will always have some kind of physical thing, and it’ll always relate to the water. Biking, brisk walking or wogging on the beach is ideal. If we’re biking, we’ll go up to where Will Rogers State Park is. It’s much quieter around there. We’ll start there and go towards the Santa Monica Pier and do laps back and forth. We’ll make stops along the way, at the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica or the bluffs at Palisades Park in Santa Monica, where they have a rose garden, [the California Incline roadway] and a lot of ways to get physical activity.

11:30 a.m.: What’s for lunch? Pasta

For lunch, it’s Divino, which is an Italian place in Brentwood. I’d order a light pasta and salad.

Advertisement

1 p.m.: Head to the playhouse for a matinee

My main go-to theaters are the Geffen Playhouse, which is close to us on the Westside; the Center Theatre Group, with the Ahmanson Theatre or the Mark Taper Forum, the Pasadena Playhouse or the Latino Theater Company Center at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, which specializes in Latino and multicultural productions. I get my New York theater fix by going to see plays at one of those places.

4 p.m.: Family time

At some point in the day, there would always be an East Coast call that winds up lasting way too long. With FaceTime, wherever we’re at, we can talk with the family, who are mostly in New York.

6 p.m.: Longtime faves for dinner

Advertisement

One of our favorite restaurants is Carlitos Gardel Argentine Steakhouse on Melrose Avenue, which has been around since the ‘90s. Italy plays big in Argentinian food, so you can get wonderful pastas there. I’ll usually have the entraña, which is a wood-grilled skirt steak, and the gnocchi is off the hook. The place reminds me of my college buddy-celebrity chef Michael Lomonaco, and his [former] restaurant Porter House in New York, where we’d go after the theater.

If not there, we’ll go to the restaurant we’ve been going to since I first got here. One of my first jobs was at then-MGM, which is now Sony, in Culver City. In ’86, I was working on “L.A. Law” and had a lunch break. I just wanted to walk around and found a Cuban restaurant called Versailles. I thought it was the closest I was going to get to the way Mom cooked. I developed a great relationship with the owners, the Garcia family. They have great Cuban food. I’ll have their arroz con pollo, which is chicken and rice.

8:30 p.m.: TV catch-up time

After dinner, we’d go home and get ready for the week. Depending on whether we go to a matinee or evening play, we would DVR stuff, like whatever sports that were on during the day that I missed. We’d definitely watch “60 Minutes,” “John Oliver” and pop in a movie or watch a stand-up comedy show. If we’re shooting something, I have to study for the next day. If not, we just relax, watch TV and go to bed between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Advertisement

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending