It looked like a pretty ordinary Instagram post: a smiling woman in a trendy periwinkle dress, posed against a background of roses. But Alex Fleksher, the woman in the picture, was on a mission. She wanted people to know that plenty of women “are leading happy, healthy, and fulfilled Orthodox lives,” she wrote. “I’m a…
As a teenager, I spent a lot of time arguing with my mother about what clothes qualified as “feminist.” To her, feminism was a knee-length dress and a blazer. To me, it was a miniskirt. She wanted to defy the sexist conventions that equate style with exposed limbs. I wanted to protest a high school…
My dating history has been chaotic; rarely have I dated someone who “made sense” for me. My partners have included a literal shepherd who never finished high school and barely spoke English (but played flute on the beach like an honest-to-god satyr) and a polyamorous medical student who still routinely invites me on international adventures…
What if you were dating a rather bulbous dolphin? It’s a question no one had ever asked themselves before the arrival of Netflix’s new dating show, “Sexy Beasts.” Contestants are swathed in an obscene amount of FX makeup and prosthetic fins and transformed into various creatures, both real and fantastical, to see if they can…
Growing up, I was a voracious reader. But, to my father’s chagrin (“Read some real books!”), it wasn’t Mark Twain or even Judy Blume I gobbled up — it was fantasy. I read Harry Potter, of course, but also obscure books featuring magical knights or shape-shifting girls. As an adult, I have also learned to…
We look to spiritual leaders to guide us through challenging moments and inspire us, but where do they turn to for their own source of inspiration? Streaming services. “This past year has been hard in new ways, and when you live at your job and your job is often to help other people make it…
Holed up at a dusty ranch in Victorville, California, with a full-leg cast, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz has been self-medicating as he works his way through a draft of “Citizen Kane.” When his secretary, Rita Alexander, learns he’s sneaked booze into the guest residence, she confronts his accomplice, a German nurse. “Frieda, you mustn’t let…
Last night the Schmooze went to Manderley again … and it was a huge bummer. Before it even debuted, the Netflix reboot of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” was slated to go wrong in a lot of ways. A 1938 Gothic thriller with strong “Jane Eyre” vibes, the novel follows a naive 20-something narrator who marries…
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