You come from dust and to dust you will return. That’s why you shouldn’t dust. It could be someone you know.

 

When one door closes and another door opens, you’re probably in prison.

 

If you answer your phone  with “Hello. You’re on the air”, most telemarketers will quickly hang up.

 

Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere. It makes your heart race and changes you forever. We call these people cops.

 

Being popular on Facebook is like sitting at the cool table in the cafeteria of a Mental Hospital .

 

For Sale. Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small stain.

 

It’s not the ups and downs that make life difficult; it’s the jerks.(Charlie Chaplin)

 

They say marriages are made in Heaven. Then again, so is lightning and thunder.

 

Maybe the worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of Charades.

 

If you wanna know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave most of it to.

 

Always go to other peoples funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours. (Yogi Berra)

 

This “killing them with kindness” is taking way longer than I expected.

 

I started out with nothing. I still have most of it.

 

There’s nothing scarier than that split second when you lose your balance in the shower and think “Oh crap. They’re gonna find me naked.   ”

 

One minute you’re young and having fun. And the next you’re turning down the stereo in your car so you can see better.

 

One day you’ll be able to tell your grandkids that you survived the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.

 

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket. (Calvin Coolidge)

 

Never miss a good chance to shut up. (Will Rogers)

 

And finally –   Can we all agree that in 2015 not a single person got the answer correct to the question “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now”. 

1.  Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a  cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5.  Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and  place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemicals will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your taps, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but it won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

John Grisham Is Still Battling His Southern Demons

By David Marchese photograph by Mamadi Doumbouya

There are very few constants in life — and it sure feels as if the number is shrinking — but one thing readers of popular fiction can count on is that every year will bring a new John Grisham book, or two. With his latest, “Sparring Partners,” the prolific and megaselling novelist is offering his humble version of a changeup. The book, his 47th, is the 67-year-old’s first collection of novellas. It includes three separate stories, one of which features his old standby Southern-lawyer character Jake Brigance. But while his professional life has been marked by a certain steadfastness, his personal and political evolution wasn’t quite so smooth. “I’ve come a long way,” says Grisham, who was a lawyer and a politician before turning to writing. “Once I became a lawyer, most of my clients were poor people, working people, minority people who had no money. We were on one side of the street. On the other side of the street were the people with money. Real quick I realized where I stood in life and where I was going to be in life.”

With the exception of “Strawberry Moon,” the material in the new book feels to me like the kind of plots and subject matter that you normally render at full length. And, to be crass, I’ve also heard that novellas don’t sell as well as novels. So why opt for the form? Over the years, these stories keep lying around, and I realized that the birthdays are piling up and the stories are not being written. So, I said, OK, I’m going to pick out my three favorites and finish them. I’m tired of thinking about them. I emailed Stephen King and said, “You’ve done several collections of novellas; how did it work?” He said he also had a lot of stories, you’re not going to be able to write them all as novels, some don’t work as short stories, so you do something in the middle. That’s how it all came to pass. I can play around with a baseball book or a football book or short stories or a kids’ book in my spare time, but I know my readers want the legal thriller every fall.

When you know you’ve got to deliver a big new legal thriller every fall — and in between you’re often writing those other books — are you ever able to abandon an idea that isn’t working? Or do you just have to find a way to make it work?

I’ve never had the situation where I wrote myself into a corner I couldn’t get out of. At the same time, with every book I reach a point late in the game where I have doubts about the story and get nervous, even frightened, about Who’s going to believe this stuff? I’m going through it right now with “The Boys From Biloxi.” My goal each year with each legal thriller is to write about 100,000 words. That’s going to produce a novel, when published, that’s about 350 pages. To me, that’s ideal. You don’t need a big thick book for a thriller.

“The Boys From Biloxi” — I’m at 120,000 right now and sweating, because I have a lot left to cover to get to the end. So, yeah, those are issues that come up. But I cannot squeeze a novel out of every idea. A perfect example is the opioid crisis. It’s right down my alley because it’s tons of litigation, corporate bad behavior, all kinds of bad guys. I’ve been itching to write that book, but I haven’t been able to get my head around a story that I could do in 100,000 words. It’s just so big. Guantánamo’s another one. I’ve been collecting research for 20 years. We’ve kept prisoners down there for 15 years without charging them with any crime. There’s a lot of lawyers who spend time down there trying to correct a terrible situation. It’s also right down my alley because it’s the legal system, but again, I can’t get my head around that story.

This is a little left-field, but I was fascinated by the fact that as a young man, you held office in the Mississippi Legislature.⁴ Could the 28-year-old version of you be elected in Mississippi today? At that time I was — I’m not going to say conservative. I was a moderate Democrat. Today that person doesn’t exist in the South. If I ran today, I would hope that I would run as a progressive Democrat — and I would not be elected. I have friends who hold public office in Mississippi who had to switch from Democrat to Republican to keep their jobs. If you have the D by your name, you’re not going to be elected. It has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Also, it ought to be against the law in any state for a 28-year-old to be elected to the state legislature. I see these guys — the guy from North Carolina?

Madison Cawthorn. Yeah. Just got beat. It shows you what happens when a 26-year-old who’s off leash gets elected. He needed to be called home. You’ve got to be at least 30 years old and have some maturity before you get that job. I didn’t do any damage in my eight years, but there’s not much of a record to brag about. I didn’t do a lot of good.

What was the most morally difficult decision you had to make as a politician or a practicing lawyer?⁵ I’ll tell you a story. A 15-year-old girl in my church got pregnant. Her parents were devastated. Strict Southern Baptist. Small town. They were terrified people were going to find out. They came to me before they went to the minister because they were talking about adoption, the laws. Abortion terrified them. The father was 15 years old, too, so getting married was out of the question. I remember thinking, These people are leaning on me way too much. I was a 27-year-old kid, one year out of law school. They think I’m wise. I’m not ready for this. The parents weren’t a whole lot older than I was — in their early 40s, I guess. They reached a point where they trusted me, and I’m thinking, I don’t want to be in this room. I finally said: “Let’s get the minister involved. You people need help big time, and I’m not giving it to you.” My point is, I realized that on the abortion issue, that was a decision to be made by that family — that girl and the parents and nobody else. Nobody else should be in the room.

Including the government? No government, no lawmaker, no judge. That’s when I began to realize what’s at stake with abortion. I’m opposed to abortion. I didn’t want her to get an abortion, because the baby was going to be healthy — and the baby did make a great gift for someone else. She was able to leave and go live with an aunt in another town, have the baby well cared for, adopt it out. She came back, the family rallied, the church rallied. Made the best of a bad situation, and somebody got a beautiful baby. But there were times when I was thinking the quickest solution would be an abortion. I didn’t say that, but it was a quandary I was in because I was getting way too much input. That had a big impact on me as a lawyer, because you realize the influence you have. The law degree is a powerful tool. You can do a lot of good things. That’s the fun part of being a lawyer, when you help people. I was not a very good lawyer.

Why not? You’ve got to be kind of tough on the business end, and I could never say no to people who were in trouble, especially people I knew in the community. When you take everything that walks in the door, you’re going to go broke. That was my downfall. At the same time, I had strong ambitions about being a skilled courtroom lawyer. That was my goal, inspired by some great old-fashioned country trial lawyers in Mississippi I knew. I was never afraid of going to court. Most lawyers are. A lot of them are afraid to try a case in front of a jury, but I thrived on that. I dreamed of being so good that people with really good cases — injury cases or wrongful-death cases or medical-malpractice cases — would come to me and I would have the chance to make some money, which I never did.

You said that you’re opposed to abortion. For religious reasons? I’ve just never been able to stomach the idea of abortion on demand or women having multiple abortions just because they get pregnant. And I’ve always thought that late-term abortion, partial-birth abortions were something that we should not tolerate because the fetus is viable. I’ve always been turned off by that notion of abortion. I guess it’s probably religious grounds. But at the same time you don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re in that situation. That’s when it becomes a matter of choice.

What political positions did you hold when you were 28 that you don’t hold now? Death penalty, for sure.

You used to believe in it? Big time. I’m in favor of tougher gun control. I am much more suspicious of the police and prosecutors because I’ve seen so many wrongful convictions. Also, race relations: I grew up in the Jim Crow South. A very segregated, racist society was almost in my DNA. It’s a long struggle to overcome that and to look back at the way I was raised and not be resentful toward my parents and other people who helped raise me for their extreme racism. It was such a hard right-wing, racist society that I grew up in. The Baptist Church was that way too back then. I’ve come a long way. I have a lot of friends and even kinfolk who never tried to move beyond the racism. But I try every day. It’s been an ongoing, gradual transformation. My wife was another factor, because she grew up in North Carolina, and it was not as hard-core racist as Mississippi. She and her parents were much more tolerant. So she had a big influence on me. You know, we’re all tribalists. We all want to be around our people or believe in our people, and it’s often too hard to get beyond that. It’s still a struggle for me.

Has your sense of the South as a literary setting changed? To my mind, the open resurgence of racist violence makes a book like “A Time to Kill” read even more disturbingly today than it did when I first read it in the mid-90s. It’s changed in many ways. That story is based on an actual assault that happened in the 1970s in a small town not too far from where I lived and went to law school. When I wrote that story, I was 30 years old and had never written before. I can’t tell you there was a lot of careful forethought with “A Time to Kill.” I didn’t think about the portrayal of Southern Blacks and Southern whites in a small town. That was just my world. At the same period of time, in 1988, I was back from my second term at the Legislature. We had a progressive young governor, a progressive young House speaker. We thought finally Mississippi could change things. We were on the cusp of this progressive revolution. We believed it. Thirty-four years later, it’s astonishing how far backward the state has gone. The politics there are very displeasing to me.

Let me shift gears: This could be apocryphal, but I heard that you and Michael Crichton used to have some one-upmanship over money. Each of you wanted to be paid a dollar more than the other guy. Is that true? In the 1990s, for about five years in a row, my agent would take my latest manuscript — “Pelican Brief,” “The Client,” “The Chamber,” “The Rainmaker” — to Hollywood, get the studios in a room and have an auction. And when they paid, they paid millions. I don’t know what was actually said because I wasn’t there, but it was like, “Crichton got this amount; we want more.” It was back and forth. We were gaming the system big time. It was working beautifully — until it stopped. I sold the film rights to “The Runaway Jury” in 1996 to New Regency for a record amount. I can’t get a fraction of that today. You can say, Well, we choked the golden goose, but all those films made money. Then Hollywood changed. I don’t understand that world. Nobody understands that world. There’s no rules. We learned years ago, do not believe a word until they start filming. “Runaway Jury” was actually the last big contract I got. I helped write the script, which was a huge mistake. Joel Schumacher was the director. We had Sean Connery, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton ready to start filming. It was a done deal, and Joel Schumacher jumped off the bus. The whole cast walked away. It took years to make that movie.

Why was it a mistake to work on the script? I’m not a screenwriter. It’s not something I enjoy doing. One of the most frustrating parts is the teamwork. You get notes from people who don’t have a clue, who do not understand the basics of storytelling. You wonder if they even make movies. The worst note I got — it’s a great story. In 1993, ’94, somewhere in there, “The Firm,” “The Pelican Brief” and “The Client” came out in the span of about 12 months. All three books were at the top of the list, along with “A Time to Kill,” which had been rediscovered. Things were hopping. I was finishing “The Chamber,”¹⁰ and this was a stupid thing we did: A big-time Hollywood guy said, “OK, we want to buy your next book right now sight unseen.” I sent the manuscript, what I had, and this studio honcho read the first draft of an incomplete manuscript and wasn’t too crazy about it. Which really pissed me off. Suddenly this guy’s a literary critic? He sent a faxed note, I believe, to my agent at the time and said, “We can’t buy this book for a movie unless Grisham will promise three love scenes and a happy ending.” [Laughs.] If I ever write a Hollywood tell-all, that’s the title of my book: “Three Love Scenes and a Happy Ending.”

Do you think about your critical legacy as a writer? When you get started in the business and you have some success, like I did with “The Firm,” you want to be taken seriously as a writer, but you have to be honest with yourself. You can’t sell books and be loved by critics. It’s not going to happen. There are very few literary authors who sell a lot of books. The best seller for a literary novel is 25,000 copies. Fifty max. If you do sell a lot of books, you’re dismissed by critics. So I decided a long time ago, I’ll take the money and run. You talk about legacy? I don’t care. I’m going to be dead and gone.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the Talk columnist.

John Grisham: A Prolific Literary Force

Since releasing his first hit novel, “The Firm,” in 1991, the writer hasn’t gone a year without publishing a book.

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• On Judges: A former criminal defense and personal injury lawyer, Grisham is a student of the shortcomings of the American justice system.
• The Pandemic: The writer spent 30 years churning out legal thrillers, but Covid’s impact on college sports prompted him to shift his focus to basketball.
• Movies: In 1993, Bill Clinton was president, the New South was ascendant and the film versions of Grisham’s stories were topping the box office.
• Writing Tips: The best-selling author shares his list of do’s and don’ts for budding fiction writers.

John Grisham’s Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Popular Fiction

By John Grisham

Since advice is usually ignored and rules are routinely broken, I refer to these little pearls as merely “suggestions.”

There is nothing original about this list. It has all been said before by writers much smarter than me. I’ve just arranged things differently, and I keep changing them as the years go by. There’s nothing binding here. All suggestions can be ignored when necessary. I do it all the time. However, I write each day with these habits ingrained. — J.G.

1. DO — WRITE A PAGE EVERY DAY

That’s about 200 words, or 1,000 words a week. Do that for two years and you’ll have a novel that’s long enough.

Nothing will happen until you are producing at least one page per day.

2. DON’T — WRITE THE FIRST SCENE UNTIL YOU KNOW THE LAST

This necessitates the use of a dreaded device commonly called an outline. Virtually all writers hate that word. I have yet to meet one 
who admits to using an outline.

Plotting takes careful planning. Writers waste years pursuing stories that eventually don’t work.

3. DO — WRITE YOUR ONE PAGE EACH DAY AT THE SAME PLACE AND TIME

Early morning, lunch break, on the train, late at night — it doesn’t matter. Find the extra hour, go to the same place, shut the door.

No exceptions, no excuses.

4. DON’T — WRITE A PROLOGUE

Prologues are usually gimmicks to hook the reader. Avoid them. Plan your story (see No. 2) and start with Chapter 1.

5. DO — USE QUOTATION MARKS WITH DIALOGUE

Please do this. It’s rather basic.

6. DON’T — KEEP A THESAURUS WITHIN REACHING DISTANCE

I know, I know, there’s one at your fingertips.

There are three types of words: (1) words we know; (2) words we should know; (3) words nobody knows. Forget those in the third category 
and use restraint with those in the second.

A common mistake by fledgling authors is using jaw-breaking vocabulary. It’s frustrating and phony.

7. DO — READ EACH SENTENCE AT LEAST THREE TIMES IN SEARCH OF WORDS TO CUT

Most writers use too many words, and why not? We have unlimited space and few constraints.

8. DON’T — INTRODUCE 20 CHARACTERS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER

Another rookie mistake. Your readers are eager to get started. Don’t bombard them with a barrage of names from four generations of the same family. Five names are enough to get started.

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How much water do you need?

“You’d think we’d have a one-­sentence answer,” says Colleen Muñoz, assistant professor of health sciences at the University of Hartford. “But it’s much more complicated.”

The usual advice to drink eight 8 oz. glasses of water a day—the 8-by-8 rule—seems daunting. But it was never about water alone.

Fluid recommendations for men and women

“The National Academy of Medicine now recommends about 9½ cups a day for women and about 12 cups a day for men,” notes Sam Cheuvront, a physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. “That includes all fluids: coffee, tea, juice, milk.” (It doesn’t include the two to three cups of liquid you’re likely to get from your food.)

In fact, that’s how much the average adult consumes (which influenced the Academy’s advice). Exception: people over 70 average only about 7 cups a day.

But the advice is just a rule of thumb. How much you need depends on how much you lose.

What may matter for your fluid needs

Heat or exercise. Heat or physical activity boosts your fluid needs. “It’s not just sweat,” says Cheuvront, who notes that his views are not official U.S. Army or Defense Department policy. “Heat or exercise also increases the water that’s lost through breathing and the water that evaporates from the skin.”

Diet. “If you eat a lot of salt or protein, your kidneys need more water to excrete the excess,” says Cheuvront. “So the more meat and high-sodium restaurant food and processed foods you eat, the more water you need.

Caffeine. “The general consensus is that moderate caffeine intake doesn’t dehydrate you,” says Muñoz.

In one study (funded by an industry-backed foundation), researchers randomly assigned 59 young men to get roughly 450, 225, or 0 milligrams of caffeine per day. (A Starbucks grande Pike Place Roast has around 300 mg.) After five days, “there was no difference in hydration markers measured over 24 hours,” says Muñoz.

Alcohol. “Alcohol turns down a hormone that tells the kidneys to retain fluid,” Muñoz explains, so it’s a diuretic. “If you drink alcohol, try to drink more water than you normally would,” she suggests.

Older age. “To say that we don’t have a good understanding of hydration needs in older people is an understatement,” says Muñoz.

Fluid needs in older adults

But some changes in older age are well documented, she notes. For example, “older people aren’t able to concentrate urine as well.” That means more trips to the bathroom.

What’s more, the sensation of thirst gets weaker in older people, so they don’t always realize when they need to drink fluids.

“And older adults are often taking a variety of medications that increase or decrease their fluid needs,” adds Muñoz.

How can you tell if you’re getting enough fluid?

Urine color isn’t a perfect measure of hydration, but it’s useful. The sweet spot, says Muñoz: “the color of lemonade.” (If your urine is colorless, you could be overhydrated.)

For a more systematic approach, you can check what Cheuvront calls the WUT criteria first thing in the morning:

• Weight: Down more than 1 percent from your average morning weight.
• Urine color: “Apple juice or darker.”
• Thirst: “Not just a dry mouth, but so dry that it’s hard to form saliva.”

“If two of these criteria are present, it’s likely that you’re not getting enough water,” says Cheuvront. “If all three are present, you’re almost definitely dehydrated.”

Rabbi Marc Philippe Comments On A South Florida Openly Gay Pastor Who Was Denied A Senior Position In Church

Here is the story if you want to read it first – https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/south-florida-openly-gay-pastor-denied-senior-position-in-church/2783666/

Rabbi Marc Philippe comments, “The world has made massive improvements in racial, sexual and religious tolerance. Reality, however, hits hard when a situation arises and makes you realize that simple improvements are definitely not enough. Bigotry is unfortunately still a reality, bringing suffering, degradation and shattered dreams.

“The case of a Pastor denied seniority because of his sexual orientation -in 2022- indicates clearly that our society is very much intolerant. It brings us back to the Middle Ages. There is still so much pain, tears, and suffering when someone considered being the “other” is denied simple rights. There is a name for that, it is called oppression.

“When a so-called Spiritual, Religious Institution doesn’t embrace tolerance, love and inclusion it is doomed to fail.

“I wish Kipp Nelson strength. May this time of darkness be transformed into Light. I hope he will create a new space where love and understanding will be truly practiced. The entire world will benefit from that.”

Rabbi Marc Philippe
rabbimarc.org
kodeshhouse.org

Marc Philippe is the rabbi at Kodesh House, a grassroots Jewish organization for spirituality, healing, connection and inclusion.

He offers a new and progressive space for people to get in touch with their roots. It is a place to learn, play, grow, transform and experiment while discovering and exploring the wisdom and spirituality of Judaism.

Rabbi Marc Philippe, besides being vegetarian, is also a professional musician, hypnotist, Kabbalist and Yoga enthusiast.

Contact:
Lois Whitman-Hess
loisw@hwhpr.com
917 822 2591

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Bill Gates Says NFTs and Crypto Are ‘100%’ Based on Greater Fool Theory

The Microsoft co-founder joked that ‘expensive digital images of monkeys’ would improve the world

By Alyssa Lukpat

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates said he thinks cryptocurrencies and NFTs are “100%” based on the greater fool theory.

The 66-year-old billionaire was referring to the notion that overvalued assets will keep going up because there are enough people willing to pay high prices for them. He joked that “expensive digital images of monkeys” would “improve the world immensely.”

Mr. Gates, who for years has lampooned cryptocurrencies, said Tuesday at a TechCrunch event in Berkeley, Calif., that people bought cryptocurrencies and NFTs based on the idea that, no matter its price, it could be sold for higher because “somebody’s going to pay more for it than I do.”

He said that he wasn’t involved in “any of those things” either long or short. Other wealthy investors and executives, including Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon, have also expressed skepticism about cryptocurrencies. Mr. Buffett once called bitcoin “rat poison squared.”

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are digital proofs of a purchase for goods like art, digital music and sneakers. After surging in popularity, their demand appears to be flatlining recently. Rising interest rates have crushed risky bets across the financial markets—and NFTs are among the most speculative. 

In referencing NFTs, Mr. Gates appeared to be commenting on a monkey from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection.  

He said he preferred asset classes “like a farm where they have the output or a company where they make products.”

His comments come as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have slid sharply in recent days amid a broad global market rout, undoing much of the gains at the beginning of the pandemic when a wave of investors started betting on digital currencies.

The price of bitcoin recently traded just above $20,000 on Wednesday. It has lost more than two-thirds of its value since its record high in November, the fourth worst selloff in the cryptocurrency’s 13-year history.

Further waves of reckoning have swept through the cryptocurrency industry this week. Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc. said it would cut almost a fifth of its staff and crypto lender Celsius Network LLC, one of the largest crypto lenders, told users on Sunday night that it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts because of extreme market conditions. The company has hired a law firm to examine restructuring options.

Mr. Gates is the world’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of $113 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He wrote in a Q&A session on Reddit last month that he didn’t own any cryptocurrencies.

“I like investing in things that have valuable output,” he said.

“The value of crypto,” he added, “is just what some other person decides someone else will pay for it.”

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

It took me a long time to copy and paste this Vogue article into DigiDame. Why did I do it? I thought the following wedding and Vogue article were so over the top that I couldn’t keep it to myself. The groom is 61 and the bride is 33. The wedding cost millions. This is a true life Hollywood story.

The groom is Hollywood Agent Ari Emanuel. He is the guy who was portrayed as Ari Gold in the TV series “Entourage.” The show was based on Mark Wahlberg’s real-life experience when he, and his friends from Queens, NY, first got to Hollywood and had to deal with the super agent. The bride, Sarah Staudinger, is the founder of the fashion label Staud, alongside George Augusto.

Celebrity guests in attendance included Emily Ratajkowski, Elon Musk, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Mark Wahlberg, Larry David, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jennifer Garner, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Ari’s brother, the former mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, was also present.

The weekend nuptials mark the second wedding for Ari. He and his first wife, Sarah Addington, were previously married for over two decades before they filed for divorce in 2018. They have three sons.

BY ALEXANDRA MACON

June 16, 2022

On the heels of the Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood power agent Ari Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, married designer Sarah “Staud” Staudinger at a three-day wedding that took the Cote d’Azur by storm. Comedian Larry David officiated the ceremony that started at sunset in St. Tropez, a place that’s always held a special place in the bride’s heart—and just happens to be where the couple had their first date.

Staud and Ari met in 2018 through a business associate who set them up. “Originally, it was a ‘this is never going to happen’ situation,” jokes Staud, the woman behind the eponymous L.A.-based brand. “Ari was saying that he couldn’t see me for months and that he was going to be out of town because I was being elusive,” she remembers. “He was like ‘I’m going to take you to dinner in Europe,’ and I was like ‘No.’ And then he showed up”—in St. Tropez, where Staud was visiting her dad.

They dated for three years before getting engaged. “We were at home, and I was by the pool reading a book [when he proposed],” Staud remembers. “Ari and my cousin created the ring together. It’s my dream ring, and it’s so me.”

Every summer since they met, the couple make a point of revisiting St. Tropez, and they decided it would be the ideal wedding location. The goal was to do something that felt casual and honored St. Tropez “in the traditional sense versus what it’s come to be known as,” says Staud. “Going there as a child and visiting my dad, and my dad’s stories there, and all of that history and what I grew up with is what I love about it.”

The first night of the wedding was a recreation of the couple’s first date at Sénéquier. This served as the “Welcome to St. Tropez” event on the itinerary. “It couldn’t have been more iconic,” the bride says. When it came to her wardrobe for the dinner, Staud wanted something that skewed ’90s. She wore a custom column Staud dress and accessorized with Tiffany pieces from the Elsa Peretti collection.

On day two, guests descended upon St. Tropez’s iconic beachclub Gigi’s. “It was the perfect setting, so there wasn’t much to be done but add little touches like games,” Staud explains. “We had backgammon in the pool and traditional St. Tropezian touristy things like bracelets.” Daphne Lanternier, who works with Staud on her fashion shows, served as creative director and executed the designer’s vision throughout the weekend. “She’s super talented,” Staud says. “Her sister lives in St. Tropez, so she totally got it right off the bat.”

For this event, Staud looked to Alaïa to make a statement. She went to Paris to meet with the brand, where they brought out a roll of lace fabric in the perfect shade of ivory. They ultimately used it to make a two-piece ensemble. She had two fittings, and the second time the team happened to mention that they were preparing to launch swim as a new category. “They brought out all of these robes that Mr. Alaïa had created along with swim pieces, so I ended up wearing one for our beach day,” Staud says. “I think I might have forced them to launch their swim collection earlier than they wanted to!”

Later that day, Staud wanted to change into something a bit more retro, so the Staud team made a mollusk shell skirt and a tie top to round out the roster of looks.

On the morning of the wedding, the bride began the day in a Chanel tuxedo dress and shorts paired with Havianas, then changed into a cream La Perla slip and robe to get ready, before putting on her wedding dress. Renato Campora oversaw hair, while Romy Soleimani was on makeup. Her dress was, of course, a custom Staud creation. “I knew exactly what I wanted the lines of my wedding dress to be,” the bride says. “So we took masking tape and taped my body. It was really all about where it hit me, so we taped the bustline, we taped this drop waist which I really wanted. I wanted a dramatic dropped V waist, and I wanted a low-ish back, but I wanted it very fitted through the center and a minimal, simple neckline—feminine, nothing harsh, and I wanted the thinnest straps possible.”

Landing on the wedding venue was the biggest struggle for the bride. “We didn’t want to do it at a chateau,” she says. “We didn’t want to be so wedding-y.” They eventually found their location—a private residence at L’Estagnet—through people they knew on the ground. “It’s really just this little house on this big field,” Staud says. “My dad’s first house was on the exact same street and Brigitte Bardot’s house was across the street.”

When it was finally time to walk down the aisle, Staud was calm, cool, and collected. “I was surprised I wasn’t more nervous,” she says. “Right before, I went into the bathroom with my friends and read my vows, so I got a lot of tears out beforehand. They all started crying too. My makeup artist Romy wasn’t happy!”

Larry David served as the officiant, and of course roasted both the bride and the groom during his remarks. Then the couple shared vows they’d written themselves. And finally, the moment of truth: Larry asked if anyone knew of a reason why the couple shouldn’t be joined in marriage. “Does anyone here? Please object,” he begged. Tyler Perry stepped up to the plate and faked an objection to the laughter of the crowd. “It was really funny,” Staud says. “[Otherwise] we cried, of course. Ari gave me a stick of gum, which was an inside joke and emblematic of our relationship early on. We didn’t explain it, but I knew exactly what it was. It was just really funny and happy and joyous.” At the end, the newlyweds processed out together and then made their way to a gazebo where they greeted guests post-ceremony.

A total of five little gazebos were built, as well as a larger glass house where the dinner took place and an after-party space that was part of the existing structure of the villa on the property. “You have this house and then a huge lawn, and we had to kind of fill it up, and I wanted it to feel like it had been there forever,” Staud says. “It was all about creating those chill, classic beach elements and then the dinner tent, which kind of told this colorful pastel story, had this romantic vibe.”

Dinner was kept short with only a few speeches. “We wanted it to feel upbeat, and not long,” Staud says. “We wanted it to serve as this transitional moment into the party.” For the post-dinner celebration, the bride changed into a beaded dress that said “Staud Hearts Ari.” “It was a completely beaded mini dress with a matching bag,” she explains. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t necessarily kitschy, but had a nod to all of the graphics that had been used on the paper materials throughout the weekend, something personal that tied it all together.”

Staud is lucky to call some of the best DJs in the world her close friends, so the dance floor stayed full until the morning. “Ross, who is one of my best friend [Harley Viera-Newton]’s husband started, and then Diplo, Sam French, Hank, and Trevor all followed. Diplo was leading, and everyone was taking a song and then another song [throughout the night].” Later in the evening Staud decided she wanted to throw her bouquet out on the dance floor, and DJ Hank Korsan’s girlfriend Sara Nataf caught it.

There was a birthday moment in the mix for a friend turning 40 as well as Ari’s son, who was celebrating his 20th. “We sang happy birthday and gave them cakes, which were definitely thrown in each other’s faces at some point,” she says.

Eventually, Staud changed into a 1967 Paco Rabanne dress that she bought from Lily et Cie in Beverly Hills. “It weighed about 30 pounds,” she notes. “It’s a true vintage Paco. I tried it on and was like ‘I must have this!’” Underneath, she was wearing a bodysuit that ultimately served as a swimsuit when she jumped in the pool—which had a giant disco ball suspended over it—at the end of the night. “Everyone was dancing and having the best time,” she says. “I literally wanted people to have happiness for the sake of happiness. This was about love for love’s sake and everyone having a blast. I think that final day you really felt it especially.”

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• St. Tropez is where we had our first date, and this balcony off of my dad’s apartment is where I grew up. We watched our friends arrive in the marina for our first dinner of the weekend. It brought back so many memories.
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• Iconic Senequier, where we had our first date. The first night was about reliving that moment with all of our friends and family.
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• The restaurant is in the marina, the oldest part of the city. The food and the scene is classic St. Tropez.
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• My dad Walter, who has lived in St. Tropez since the 1970s, and Ari.
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• Our hostesses passed treats from the patisserie at Senequier, wearing Staud Mini Iliana dresses.
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• I’ve never had more fun than this week. I’m wearing a custom Staud halter column dress I designed and styled with Tiffany & Co. Elsa Perretti jewelry.
• Arriving to Gigi’s in Ramatuelle, where we spent our second day of the weekend, by Mini Moke—our favorite way to travel in Saint-Tropez.

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• Ari and I greeting our friends at lunch nestled among the pine trees on the beach.
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• The pool scene. I’m wearing a custom Alaïa top and skirt which took an original design from Mr. Alaïa, and was recreated by Pieter Mulier. There was only enough original fabric yardage from the atelier to make this look—it’s a true one of a kind and it made me feel so special.
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• After visiting the Place de Lices market in St. Tropez, our Creative Director Daphnèe Lanternier and Ian Edwards had the brilliant idea to have name bracelets woven for all of our guests by a French artisan. Here I’m wearing gold cuffs I borrowed from my mom Joanna Staudinger and Alaïa sunglasses.
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• This gorgeous dress was made with archival lace that Mr. Alaïa had saved in his atelier..
• It was the best day to relax by the pool.
• Photo: Robert Fairer15/86The lunch scene at Gigi’s.
• A table setting by Daphnèe and our florist Thierry Boutemy.

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• The foccacia is a Gigi classic. I worked with their chefs to make it extra special with the floral decorations in tomato and olive.
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• Marlena de la Torre Suárez designed all of our wedding materials, she’s a true artist and friend.
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• This archival swimsuit and robe look from Alaïa was the perfect change for the pool.
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• The scene at Gigi’s pool.

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• The day was filled with lots of laughter, love, and good vibes.

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• Icons only.
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• Daftdd Jones, one of our photographers, nailed this moment. My three brothers at the pool.
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• Conversation and competition.
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• My mom and my boys, Marco Milani, Ryan Evan Hough, and Wyatt Hough.

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• Emily Ratajkowski in the moment.
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• It was perfect weather that day.
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• My final look for the day was a Valentino men’s button front shirt and a custom Staud shell skirt over an Eres bikini.
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• Wedding day glam begins.

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• Ari designed my ring with my cousin James de Givenchy of Taffin. Marco Milani my stylist worked with Raven Fine Jewelers on these custom diamond studs for the special day.
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• My glam team was truly the best. Romy Soleimani and Renato Campora are artists and so calming on what could have been a stressful day.
• The genius Thierry Boutemy made six different bouquets for me to choose from. We both agreed that without question, Lily of the Valley was the way to go.
• I wore custom Staud from head to toe. This is the Anise shoe and beaded Bean bag done specially in white.

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• All my best friends got ready with me.
• Marco Milani with Angelo and Didier getting me into my dress.
• She is ready! First look by the wonderful photographer Robert Fairer.
• Harley Viera Newton, Emily Ratajkowski, and Jim Koenig arriving to the ceremony.

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• Getting a pep talk from the one and only Alice Barlow who helped so much making this wedding happen.
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• Here we go!
• Marco Milani, my stylist and dear friend, getting me there.
• The ceremony scene overlooking the Bay.

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• Papa Staud giving me away.
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• Seeing everyone’s faces in this moment brought me pure joy.
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• A very very very funny officiant.
• He was pretty pretty good.

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• My prince.
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• So many of our friends made this day amazing.
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• The scene at cocktails after the ceremony.
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• My youngest brother Luca coming in to congratulate me.

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• Some of my favorite people in the no dress code dress code.
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• A moment with my new mother in law, Marsha.
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• Sean Kinney and Wes Pentz.
• Jim Koenig and Jonny Gordon, two of my best friends’ husbands.

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• The gorgeous setting by Daphnèe and Thierry highlighted our dinner by La Petite Maison.
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• A close up of Thierry’s artistry.
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• The scene at dinner during Ari’s brother Rahm’s speech.
• Sara Moonves and Jeff Henrikson, love was in the air.

• The olive trees in the greenhouse made it feel as though we were outside.
• As the night went on, so did the lighting, designed by Alexandre Lebrun and directed by Hans Cromheecke.
• This custom Staud beaded dress featured a drawing by Michael McGregor which I wore to cut the cake.
• A matching custom Staud Côte bag, of course.

• More of the dream scene.
• A toast during my best friend Al Wilmot’s speech.
• St. Tropézienne treats.
• Dinner was under a glass greenhouse.

• Wyatt and his husband Ryan stealing a moment with me. If it weren’t for them and their love I would not have made it through the weekend..
• We celebrated big birthdays that night too.

• Party time!
• I have a lot of close friends that also happen to be our favorite DJs. Ross One knows how to get the party started.
• We had a four-foot disco ball that hung over the pool. We didn’t know it would turn into a pool party, but we’re thankful it did.
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BY JAMIE DUCHARME 

How much protection do you currently have against COVID-19? The answer depends on so much: whether you’ve already had COVID-19 (and if so, how long ago); whether you’ve been vaccinated (and if so, how many times, and how recently); whether you have any medical conditions that could weaken your immune system; and so on. Even antibody testing only approximates immunity to COVID-19, so there’s no simple way to know.

But an international group of researchers recently developed a different tool to help assess COVID-19 immunity: a blood test that can measure T cells, white blood cells that work alongside virus-fighting antibodies to mount an immune response. Their work is described in a new study published in Nature Biotechnology.

T-cell testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus isn’t totally new—the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to another T-cell test, called T-Detect, last year—but it tends to be labor- and time-intensive, says study co-author Ernesto Guccione, a professor of oncological sciences at New York City’s Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai. His group, which includes other researchers from Mount Sinai and institutions including Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School, aimed to simplify it by using technology that is widely accessible and can turn around results in less than 24 hours.

Their process starts with mixing a person’s blood sample with material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If there are T cells specific to SARS-CoV-2 in the blood, they’ll react to the viral material and produce a substance that can be detected via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology, like that used to run COVID-19 diagnostic tests. Measured levels of that compound serve as a proxy for cellular immunity.

The test has been licensed to the U.K.-based biotechnology company Hyris and is already in use in Europe. The FDA is still reviewing the technology, so it’s not yet available in the U.S. (Hyris employees served as co-authors on the Nature Biotechnology paper, and its technology was used in the study; Guccione consults for therapeutic companies and receives compensation through a licensing agreement between Hyris and Mount Sinai.)

Why test for T cells when antibody tests are already widely available? There are a few reasons, Guccione says.

Testing for antibodies only tells part of the story, since T cells are also a critical piece of the body’s immune response. And while antibody levels drop off significantly within a few months of vaccination or infection, cellular immunity can last up to a year, Guccione says. “Monitoring both will give us a much clearer picture [of immunity] and will hopefully inform our re-vaccination strategies,” Guccione says. The wide use of this test could help define how long protection lasts and how often booster doses are needed.

Plus, some immunocompromised people do not produce antibodies—even after multiple vaccine doses—but they usually do have some T cell response. T-cell testing could help those individuals learn whether they have any defenses against COVID-19.

There are limits to what the test can reveal. Experts are still trying to find what are known as “correlates of protection” for COVID-19: measurable indicators that suggest an individual is protected enough that they are unlikely to get sick. For now, testing for antibodies or T cells can’t give you a yes-or-no answer about whether it’s safe to go to a concert or party without fear of catching the virus, for example. It just gives you one more data point to factor into your risk calculation.

Guccione says widespread T-cell testing could help define those elusive correlates of protection by making immunity easier to study. A scalable, affordable testing strategy could facilitate larger studies that bring much-needed answers.

“With large numbers comes clarity,” Guccione says. “That’s the hope: by using this test, we can finally get those numbers that were totally unavailable with the previous technology.