The latest party circuit princess to wow the night clubs and
festivals of France with her DJ skills is a British granny who took a
shine to the decks after going to a birthday disco for her grandson.
Clad in her leopard-skin shrug and dark sunglasses,
69-year-old
Ruth Flowers has conquered French clubland from the Cannes Film
Festival to the top Paris nightspots with a mix of old-school hits,
electrobeat and bling-bling style.
"It started really when my
grandson had a birthday party ... they always have a little disco,
don't they, after the party," Flowers told Reuters, lounging on a white
sofa in a Paris hotel in a green satin bomber jacket and trademark
shades contrasting with her white hair.
"I went along quite late
and the gentlemen at the door said: 'I don't think you want to go in
there, Madame'. And I said: 'Well I rather think I do,' " she said.
"I went in and it was very noisy and the lights were flashing, but there was an awful lot of energy and joy."
While
Flowers, a trained singer, was more used to church songs, German lieder
and classic pop, she was so taken by the party that she decided there
and then to become a disc jockey.
"I had no idea at the time of electro music," she said.
However, as someone with interests ranging from history to theatre and fashion, she was willing to learn.
A
friend put her in touch with French producer Aurelien Simon who taught
her how to spin and helped her to develop a style, sprinkling her
techno sets with tunes from Abba, Queen and the Rolling Stones.
"In
the beginning it was just a little joke but it became serious," Simon
told Reuters by phone. "It took four years because she had to learn to
use the machines. I explained the basics of electro music, and then she
created her own style."
Eye-catching earrings and her sartorial
style make Flowers a standout when she works the turntables, nodding to
the beat and clapping her hands above her head.
Peace Creator Ann Njeri Builds Bridges Between Former Tribal Enemies In Kenya
Susan notes: my dear friend Ann Njeri is an inspiration to me and hundreds of others around the world. In these two short videos, she tells the story of how she opened her heart to former enemies and created bonds of love and friendship. I hope she will be an inspiration to you too.
Susan notes: I learn about love every time I speak with my friend Ann Njeri. In the skype conversation below she says: "After all the peace conferences that I’ve attended, after and all that self actualization that I’ve gone through, I found myself having so much bitterness, so much resentment..."
Women make up 80 percent of the fiction reading audience in this country. So why, guest fiction editor Claire Messud asks, are women authors so frequently left off the best-of lists, and left out of prestigious book prizes?
The great twentieth-century American poet Elizabeth Bishop refused to be included in anthologies of women’s poetry, insisting that she was a poet plain and simple, rather than a “woman poet.” She wrote that “art is art and to separate writings, paintings, musical compositions, etc. into two sexes is to emphasize values that are not art.”
As an American writer of the early twenty-first century, I agree with her wholeheartedly. An artist’s work is in no way limited or defined by her gender. To allot space, then—such as this fiction section of Guernica—to women writers specifically is, surely, to limit and define them—us!—by an irrelevant fact of birth. Why not, at that point, organize a fiction section comprised of blue-eyed Capricorns from Atlanta?
Tererai Trent Triumphs Against Seemingly Impossible Odds
When Tererai Trent graduated from Western Michigan University with a doctorate in late 2009, she fulfilled a dream that more than a decade ago was a jotting on a scrap of paper buried in a field where she herded cattle in Zimbabwe.
Trent’s mother had instructed her daughter to literally bury her life goals, not in an effort to forget them, but to make a “‘sacred agreement,’ a personal ritual for me to honor, which I should not take lightly,” said Trent.
Trent’s extraordinary life experience — having to teach herself to read as a child, being married off at about age 11 to a man who wound up beating her and achieving the seemingly impossible considering her circumstances — is described in the book, “Half the Sky,” written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It features the harrowing stories of several women in developing countries.
Trent’s story was brought to a national audience in an August New York Times Magazine essay written by Kristof and WuDunn in an adaptation of their book. She also appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in October 2009 (see the video here).
“Any time anyone tells you that a dream is impossible, any time you’re discouraged by impossible challenges, just mutter this mantra: Tererai Trent,” Kristof wrote in a Times opinion piece in November 2009.
Michaëlle Jean was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1957. She immigrated to
Canada with her family in 1968, fleeing the dictatorial regime of the
time.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Italian and Hispanic
languages and literature at the University of Montréal, she pursued her
master's studies in comparative literature and taught at the
university's Faculty of Italian Studies.
Three scholarships allowed her
to pursue her studies at the University of Perugia, the University of
Florence, and the Catholic University of Milan. She is fluent in five
languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish and Creole.
During her studies, Ms. Jean worked for eight years with Quebec
shelters for battered women, while actively contributing to the
establishment of a network of emergency shelters throughout Quebec and
elsewhere in Canada.
She later ventured into journalism and became a
highly regarded journalist, and anchor of information programs at
Radio-Canada and CBC Newsworld.
She became Governor General of Canada in September 2005.
Dr. Faiha Albdulhadi is a writer, poet, research consultant, feminist, community and human rights activist and lecturer.
She was born in Nablus in 1951, and was arrested in 1969 at the age of 15, together with her mother, Issam Abdul Hadi, who, at the time, was the President of the General Union of Palestinian Women. She was then deported from Palestine, and lived in exile for 27 years.
Dr. Abdulhadi earned a BA in Arabic Literature from Jordan University, Amman; a BA in Theater Criticism from the Institute of Advanced Theatrical Art, Cairo; and an MA and PhD in Arabic Literature, Cairo University.
She is a member of the Palestinian National Council and was the special coordinator in Palestine for the 1000 Women For Nobel Peace Prize 2005, a project that was part of an initiative to rewrite the history of nations from a woman's point of view.
Dr. Abdulhadi is the author of numerous books, articles and poems, and an active member of the GUPW.
Jacqui Frazier-Lyde is an American lawyer and mother of three.
But her claims to fame are: 1) her decision in the year 2000, at the age of 38, to become a professional boxer, and 2) her determination to then go on to become a champion.
Though astounding due to her age, these feats are perhaps not as surprising viewed in the context of her lineage and abilities.
One of former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier’s 11 children, Frazier-Lyde excelled academically and athletically from an early age. She was class president at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High in Philadelphia, where she competed in basketball, hockey, softball and lacrosse.
She won an athletic scholarship to American University, and began her studies as a chemistry major. She switched into law at Villanova University, from which she graduated in 1988. After working as a public defender and in property law, she went on to open her own criminal law practice.
The latest party circuit princess to wow the night clubs and
festivals of France with her DJ skills is a British granny who took a
shine to the decks after going to a birthday disco for her grandson.
When Tererai Trent graduated from Western Michigan University with a doctorate in late 2009, she fulfilled a dream that more than a decade ago was a jotting on a scrap of paper buried in a field where she herded cattle in Zimbabwe.
Michaëlle Jean was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1957. She immigrated to
Canada with her family in 1968, fleeing the dictatorial regime of the
time.
Dr. Faiha Albdulhadi is a writer, poet, research consultant, feminist, community and human rights activist and lecturer.
Jacqui Frazier-Lyde is an American lawyer and mother of three.
