I've been doing more pilates lately. It seems to do all good things. I'm standing up straighter. My muscles are longer. And I'm working on getting my alignment realigned. It's certainly a curious practice, and I can't say I understand how it works, but you might want to try it if you haven't. You can start by going to a mat pilates class. It will tone up your core in no time flat. Promise.
4 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "all your friends short af 😂👑💅🏻 #tallgirlproblems #tallgirls #tallbarbie #tall #sixone..."
Check out my Instagram for the latest installment of my #tallgirlproblems series.
Keeping up with me on my Forbes blog? I've posted a few things there lately that are worth a look.
I'm super excited for the premiere of HBO's porn drama "The Deuce" this fall.
This guy likes to smear food on his face and take pictures.
Say hell yes to ladies-only "Wonder Women" screenings!
Dubai's Robocop scares me.
And don't miss my think-piece on mugshots and why love them. (Hint: It's not them, it's you.)
"Inspected at this range, the supermodel is revealed to have a slight mustache. The famous actress has an angry pimple. The male superstar has something awful stuck between his teeth. Stars, we think, feeling pleased, they're just like us."
48 Likes, 2 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "👀 SINCERE #corvair"
58 Likes, 10 Comments - Christyna Mills (@christynamills) on Instagram: "There's a first time for everything 💁 The scorpion/cocoon is mine! 🦂💪So much pain...😂 * * * Thank..."
It used to be that the internet was a great place for voyeurism. You could peer into people's private lives (blogs), you could find things nobody else had ever seen (rule 34), you could be transported somewhere else through something that felt new and fresh (see: whatever turned you on in the beginning). Now it's harder to do that. Lifestyles are curated brands. Blogs have been eaten by corporations. People have turned into performances. It's filtered, it's curated, it's packaging. For some reason, I feel like I see more intimacy on Instagram now. It's where I find myself wandering when I want to find what I haven't seen already (and, let's face it, for me, that's pretty much everything). Anyway, I came across this video of a woman on a pole today. It's just a flash of her life, her exploring what she can do, and, of course, above all else, it's fascinating because it's beautiful to witness that.
I can't figure out if it's possible to embed an Instagram video on Squarespace. Watch the video here.
8 Likes, 2 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "tfw it takes you an hour to shave your legs 🤡👑💅🏻🛀🏻🦄 #tallgirlproblems #tallgirls #tallgirl..."
This is the latest installment from my Instagram art series featuring Tally the "Tall"-sized Barbie. (Really. That's how she is billed on the packaging.) Here, she is lamenting how long it takes to shave her long legs. Truth! I should've taken off her clothes and put her in the tub. Next time, I'll do better.
If you haven't already, check out some of my recent posts over on my Forbes blog.
I wrote about a subscription box service for ... strippers. I interviewed a woman who got cancer -- and then got an obscene grill. And I shared my thoughts on Netflix's "I Love Dick."
Related to that last, I enjoyed Alexandra Schwartz's more negative and cleverly cutting evisceration of "I Love Dick" in the New Yorker.
She writes:
"That manifesto-like tone is typical of the show. In moments like this, it lands with cocky charm. Mostly, though, it seems as if Soloway and the women of her writer’s room (to her credit, she insisted on an all-female script team) sat around spit-balling sound bites to print on T-shirts or Women’s March posters."
Ouch.
3 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "tfw you try on a full length gown 😭😡🤢👑🔥☄️💥🥃💣💊🕳 #tallgirls #tallbarbie #tallgirlproblems #sixone..."
On my Instagram feed, I'm exploring #tallgirlproblems with my #tallbarbie from Mattel's Barbie Fashionistas line. In this installment, Tally demonstrates what it's like when you try on a full-length gown and it doesn't even reach your knees. How will she get through prom? And who the fuck is tall enough to be her date?
1 Likes, 2 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "tfw you order shoes online 😡👠⁉️💥😪 #tallgirls #tallbarbie #tallgirlproblems #barbie..."
I recently bought one of Mattel's Barbie Fashionistas. They come in petite, curvy, and tall. (Oh, and original-sized.) I bought tall, because I'm six-one. I thought I might experiment with exploring some #tallgirlproblems through the adventures of my #tallbarbie on Instagram. You can follow my exploits -- or should I say Tally's exploits, for that's her name, on my Instagram feed. Future installments could include having to get short people stuff from high shelves, dating when you're the height of a giraffe, and never being able to find pants that are long enough to cover your ankles. When you've got #tallgirlproblems, everything's a stretch.
On my Forbes blog, I shared my thoughts about "I Love Dick." I didn't love every episode, but I'm obsessed with the fifth episode. Watch it! Watch the whole thing. And especially episode 5. It's a wonderful thing.
Love these images of octopi.
Jason Kottke has an interesting post here in which he compares blogging to vaudeville.
He writes:
Image via 3:AM Magazine
"Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this on here before, but I often think of blogging as vaudeville to social media’s moving pictures (aka 'movies')."
His post was inspired by another post by Tim Bray about blogging.
He writes:
"The great danger is that the Web’s future is mall-like: No space really public, no storefronts but national brands’, no visuals composed by amateurs, nothing that’s on offer just for its own sake, and for love."
I like both of these considerations a lot. Writing this post, a line from one of the world's greatest photojournalists, James Nachtwey, came to mind:
"I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony."
Here's what Merriam-Webster says about what it means to bear witness:
"to show that something exists or is true"
That's my experience of blogging. That it's the act of bearing witness to one's life, that writing it down in public is a way of showing that one exists and one's life is true, that to blog is to insist that one is real and that one's existence is deserving of being witnessed by the world.
Awhile back, my friend Tod Hunter, The Best Writer in Porn, posted this very funny image to the comments section of my Facebook page. That's Tod in the image, and the text reads: "The best writer in porn ... unless Susannah Breslin comes back."
I met Tod on the first porn movie set I ever visited. Tod is a journalist who covers the business and knows pretty much everything there is to know about the industry. He's always been unfailingly helpful to me in my ventures there. So this image greatly amused me.
Thanks, Tod!
The New York Times has an interesting profile of the CEO of HIV.
Read it:
"To his many critics in AIDS activism, Weinstein is the Koch brothers of public health: a mastermind driven by ideology, accountable to no one, with bottomless funds and an agenda marked by financial opportunism and puritanical extremes. It doesn’t help that A.H.F. has been the subject of near-constant litigation and complaints for questionable business practices, including union-busting, giving kickbacks to patients, overbilling government insurers and bullying funders into denying grants to institutional rivals. (A.H.F. has denied these accusations.)"
I really enjoyed this movie. (It's on Netflix.) The acting in it is sort of jarringly real, and every character in it is very carefully crafted. One could describe it as "Good Will Hunting" meets "Trouble with the Curve," but that would be annoying. It's about a kid with a case of the yips, and his father, who is a dick, and what it's like when everyone wants you to be something you're not sure you are and you don't even know who you are yet. This is a fine case of the director getting out of the way of the dialogue and the actors and just letting things flow. That means, as a member of the audience, you're not exactly entertained as much as you are engaged. You feel you are in the flow, too. Of course, this is the trick to unlocking the trouble with the kid. He has become fixated on success, when he should only be caring about fun. Although, it isn't really fun, is it? To be not only good at something but great at it. It's kind of a burden, or a cross you bear, and because you don't know why you're so good, sometimes all you can do is just sit there and stare.
29 Likes, 2 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: ""Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to..."
That's the title I wanted to use, but didn't, in a nod to this book, for my latest on my Forbes blog: "This Entrepreneur's Sex Toy Business Is All in the Family."
It's a really interesting story -- in part because it's about what happens when your father makes "pleasure products" for a living and you end up in the same line of work.
Another surprising piece of the story I uncovered is their best-selling product.
It surprised me, but does it surprise you?
Click here to find out what it is.
I think I read this when it was originally published in 2010, but I read it again. It is so awesome. And about an awesome movie. And everyone interviewed in it it awesome. Especially Marty.
Larry McConkey (Steadicam operator): The impression I had when Marty walked us through the Copacabana shot was that this is going to be the most boring, worst thing I've ever done. We're walking across the street, down the stairs, down a hallway, in the kitchen.... What is this shot about?
Yesterday, I wrote on my Forbes blog about a recent call to stop production in the adult movie industry due to a performer's possible positive HIV test. I'm also updating that post with new information and additional commentary from those in the industry as the story develops.
One quote that I didn't include came from performer Chanel Preston. During a phone interview, she talked about her work as chairperson of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee and spoke to some of the challenges that face performers when they enter porn.
She said:
"There isn't any training in the adult industry. There's a lot of training that would be great for people getting into the industry. How to establish your boundaries. Navigating personal and emotional feelings you might have. How to navigate the industry overall. As people have more knowledge, they make better business decisions for themselves."
[Forbes]
