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interview-quotes · 4 years ago

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principate - equestrians - di consentes

principate: 27 BC to 284 AD

Tiberius, who amassed a huge surplus for the city of Rome, was criticized as a miser, but Caligula was criticized for his lavish spending on games and spectacles.

With the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in AD 68, the principate became more formalised under the Emperor Vespasian from AD 69 onwards.

Under the Antonine dynasty, it was the norm for the Emperor to appoint a successful and politically promising individual as his successor. In modern historical analysis, this is treated by many authors as an "ideal" situation: the individual who was most capable was promoted to the position of princeps.

tiberius - vipsania agrippina - who loved - 14 to 37 AD

vespasian / domitian - domitia longina - who lived - 81 to 96 AD

marcus aurelius / lucius verus - lucilla - who strived - 161 to 169 AD

aurelian - ulpia severina - who ruled - 270 to 275 AD

pausanias - hadrian, antoninus pius, marcus aurelius - 110 to 180 AD

equestrians - cavalry, businessmen, upper middle

Ranking immediately below senators, equestrians became an important human resource, whose work underpinned the smooth running of the Roman Empire.

As its name suggests, the equestrian class was originally composed of the Roman cavalry. In 218 BC, equestrians took on more commercial roles when Lex Claudia prevented Senators from becoming involved in trade or business.

As a result, many in the equestrian class became wealthy businessmen. Many were tax collectors, bankers, miners and exporters, while others governed lucrative public contracts, such as those awarded to build roads or aqueducts.

The Emperor Augustus recognized the importance of the equestrians, reorganized them into a military class and encouraged others to join. Now Roman citizens of any social level could become equestrians, as long as they were of good reputation, in good health and owned at least 400,000 sesterces (Roman coins).

By using equestrians in responsible positions in government, Augustus founded the imperial civil service, which equestrians would later head. Their business background made them particularly suited for positions in the financial administration of the provinces. Over the following decades, the number of equestrians increased dramatically, until there were thousands throughout the empire.

By the time of Claudius, equestrians could reasonably expect a good career. After serving in the army as an officer, a potential equestrian might become a procurator – an agent of the emperor. He could then become a prefect, or government administrator, at home or abroad. Prefects had responsibilities as varied as the fire brigade, grain supply, and foreign provinces, such as Egypt.

Equestrians could rise to the rank of senator. The senatorial class found it difficult to supply enough men of its own, so they recruited from the equestrian class. Also, sons of senators were automatically classified as equestrians until they had gained the necessary age, experience and office.

Because equestrians did not have to be Roman or Italian by birth, this opened up the ranks of senators to non-Italians. When Vespasian increased the number of senators, the popularity of the equestrian class meant that the Senate now included citizens born in provinces such as Gaul and Spain. It was a sign that talented men from all over the empire could hold important office. Before long, the Emperor Trajan would be in power and, for the first time, Rome would be ruled by a man born abroad.

It was suggested by ancient writers, and accepted by many modern historians, that Roman emperors trusted equestrians more than men of senatorial rank, and used the former as a political counterweight to the senators. According to this view, senators were often regarded as potentially less loyal and honest by the emperor, as they could become powerful enough, through the command of provincial legions, to launch coups.

They also had greater opportunities for peculation as provincial governors. Hence the appointment of equestrians to the most sensitive military commands. In Egypt, which supplied much of Italy's grain needs, the governor and the commanders of both provincial legions were drawn from the equestrian order, since placing a senator in a position to starve Italy was considered too risky.

The commanders of the Praetorian Guard, the principal military force close to the emperor at Rome, were also usually drawn from the equestrian order.[44] Also cited in support of this view is the appointment of equestrian fiscal procuratores, reporting direct to the emperor, alongside senatorial provincial governors. These would supervise the collection of taxes and act as watchdogs to limit opportunities for corruption by the governors (as well as managing the imperial estates in the province).

There is evidence that emperors were as wary of powerful equites as they were of senators. Augustus enforced a tacit rule that senators and prominent equestrians must obtain his express permission to enter the province of Egypt, a policy that was continued by his successors.[60][64] Also, the command of the Praetorian Guard was normally split between two equites, to reduce the potential for a successful coup d'état. At the same time, command of the second military force in Rome, the cohortes urbanae, was entrusted to a senator.

In particular, the twelve greatest gods and goddesses in the Roman state religion – called the di consentes – paralleled the gods of Greek mythology. Although they kept Latin names and images, the links between Roman and Greek gods gradually came together to form one divine family that ruled over other gods, as well as mortals.

The three most important gods were Jupiter (protector of the state), Juno (protector of women) and Minerva (goddess of craft and wisdom). Other major gods included Mars (god of war), Mercury (god of trade and messenger of the gods) and Bacchus (god of grapes and wine production).

Livy[4] arranges them in six male-female pairs: Jupiter-Juno, Neptune-Minerva, Mars-Venus, Apollo-Diana, Vulcan-Vesta and Mercury-Ceres. Three of the Dii Consentes formed the Capitoline Triad: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.

Each god needed an image – usually a statue or relief in stone or bronze – and an altar or temple at which to offer prayers and sacrifices.

Requests and prayers were presented to gods as a trade: if the god did what was requested (the nuncupatio), then the worshipper promised to do a particular thing in return (the solutio). This trade was binding. To persuade the gods to favor the requests, a worshipper might make offerings of food or wine, or would carry out a ritual sacrifice of an animal before eating it.

The Romans believed that their gods or spirits were actively involved in their daily lives. As a result, sacred meals were held in their name during certain religious festivals. It was believed that the god actually took part in the meal: a place was set for him at the table, invitations were issued in his name, and a portion of the food served was set aside for him to enjoy.

The collegium pontificum had four branches. The pontifices were by far the most important priests and controlled state religion. During the time of Julius Caesar, there were 16 of these priests, half of which were patrician, with the other half plebeian.

The pontifices determined festival dates, assisted the emperor in his religious duties, and determined which days were legal for conducting business. They were headed by the pontifex maximus (chief priest) who, from Augustus onwards, was always the emperor.

The rex sacrorum, meaning “king of sacred things” was a patrician appointed for life and was barred from holding any other public office. Along with his wife, the regina sacrorum, he performed sacrifices on behalf of the state.

The flamines were minor priests and had responsibility to a particular god. Although there were originally just 15 flamines, over time more were added to serve emperors who had been deified.

Finally, the vestal virgins lived at the Temple of Vesta in Rome. Vesta was the native Roman goddess of the fireplace and the six virgins tended the sacred fire, baked sacred salt cakes (mola salsa) and oversaw the care of sacred objects in the temple.

Young girls from some of Rome’s best families were chosen to be virgins by the pontifex maximus. Starting between the ages of six and ten, they had to serve for 30 years, but most continued to help out even after they had left. They were also expected to remain virgins and faced a severe penalty if it was discovered they had had sex – they were buried alive.

The College of Pontiffs (Latin: Collegium Pontificum; see collegium) was a body of the ancient Roman state whose members were the highest-ranking priests of the state religion. The college consisted of the Pontifex Maximus and the other pontifices, the Rex Sacrorum, the fifteen flamens, and the Vestals.[1] The College of Pontiffs was one of the four major priestly colleges; originally their responsibility was limited to supervising both public and private sacrifices, but as time passed their responsibilities increased.[2] The other colleges were the augurs (who read omens), the quindecimviri sacris faciundis ("fifteen men who carry out the rites"), and the Epulones (who set up feasts at festivals).

The title pontifex comes from the Latin for "bridge builder", a possible allusion to a very early role in placating the gods and spirits associated with the Tiber River, for instance.[3] Also, Varro cites this position as meaning "able to do".[4]

The flamens were priests in charge of fifteen official cults of Roman religion, each assigned to a particular god. The three major flamens (flamines maiores) were the Flamen Dialis, the high priest of Jupiter; the Flamen Martialis, who cultivated Mars; and the Flamen Quirinalis, devoted to Quirinus. The deities cultivated by the twelve flamines minores were Carmenta, Ceres, Falacer, Flora, Furrina, Palatua, Pomona, Portunus, Volcanus (Vulcan), Volturnus, and two whose names are lost.

The Vestal Virgins were the only female members of the college. They were in charge of guarding Rome's sacred hearth, keeping the flame burning inside the Temple of Vesta. Around age 6 to 10, girls were chosen for this position and were required to perform the rites and obligations for 30 years, including remaining chaste.

#maybe vespasian is the roman verrazzano ?

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interview-quotes · 4 years ago

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Over the past 40 years, the prospect of achieving or maintaining a foothold in the middle class has faded for millions of Americans. Blame stagnant wages, the ever-increasing cost of living, massive student debt, and the narrowing of once all-but-guaranteed routes — like, say, a good union job — to economic stability. Millennials, as a whole, are the first generation predicted to be worse off than their parents. A 2017 study found that a staggering 90 percent of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents did at age 30; for children born in 1984, that percentage has declined to just 50 percent.

But there’s a complicated, competing reality at work for recent immigrants to the United States and their children, the majority of whom are currently living some version of the American dream. Or, more precisely, the upward mobility component of that dream: the idea that hard work will lead to increased stability and class position for the next generation.

A massive study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, published in 2019, examined millions of father-son pairs of immigrants over the last century. The authors found that children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than the children of those born in the US. More significantly, they found that shifts in immigration policy and country of origin have not altered the pattern — and that it holds true whether the first generation was poor (in the bottom 25th percentile of income distribution) or relatively well-off (in the top 25th percentile).

What happens after that second generation is more complicated, but that initial immigrant upward mobility, when gains are acutely felt? It’s still there, even as the once-consistent class mobility of Americans three, four, five, or six generations removed from their ancestors’ original migration has stalled.

For those who’ve personally watched upward mobility work within their families, the promises of the American dream often feel like promises kept. Hard work and education led to significantly better outcomes for their children, with more stability for the entire family. There’s a lot more to these stories, however, particularly to the way second-generation immigrants conceive of their place on the class ladder.

...

As a second-generation immigrant named Elle told me, immigrants are just enough removed from the American status quo that leads people to believe they have a right to a place in the middle class. They can, in her words, “see the entire landscape of potential outcomes, upturns, and downturns.” There’s invaluable perspective there. Below, Elle and six other first- and second-generation immigrants share what they’ve come to understand about the middle-class American dream.

Dharushana Muthulingam, age 38

Family moved from Sri Lanka to Los Angeles via the UK in the 1980s

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It’s important for people to know that Asian immigrants are very heterogeneous. Many of the people who got here in the ’70s and ’80s for the first nonwhite expansion of immigration to the US since the Chinese Exclusion Act were professionals: doctors, engineers, grad students. But the majority of Asian immigrants are not necessarily professionals or highly educated.

I am deep in a midlife crisis reevaluating everything I thought about my goals to get in the middle class. But you know, sometimes I am fucking proud. In the remote LA suburb where I grew up, we would get doughnuts. My dad would chitchat with the owner, who was a Laotian refugee. They would each brag about their kids. The doughnut store guy’s kid was at Yale Law or something. and this was supposed to be it. The American dream. Two guys who fled war — and my dad, who grew up as a subsistence farmer in a thatched-roof hut, whose mother could not read — these guys sent their kids to the most powerful institutions in the most powerful country. You still sometimes want nothing more than to make your parents happy, because you know on a very deep level how much they have struggled. You want to bring them all the riches and prizes of the world.

Ana Maria, age 45

Parents arrived in Los Angeles from Mexico in the early 1960s

We didn’t talk about our class position. Growing up, when my brother or I asked for toys, restaurant visits, candy, we got used to hearing “no hay dinero” — there’s no money for that.

Our parents didn’t talk to us about aspirational goals; work is just what you did to keep yourself alive. My mother’s nickname for me as a young girl was “mi trabajadora,” essentially “my hard little worker.” In my family, making it meant working in an office. When my mother described her goals for me, they amounted to going to college and getting a job in an office. To this day, though I lead product, design, and engineering teams to build software and websites used by millions around the world, I describe my job as “in an office, with computers.”

I see myself constantly fighting a battle between Enough and More.

On the side of Enough: the realization that my annual contribution to retirement accounts is seven times my family’s annual income. Haven’t I made it? And then there’s the Enough prescribed by bloggers and influencers who want us to set aside the rat race and the comparison game, accompanied by the creeping feeling that I embody too many “other” categories in the world of tech bros — too female, too brown, too Mexican, too old, too nontechnical, “too nice” — to keep advancing.

On the side of More: the driving need to use my gifts and brain and skills. The desire to be the role model I never had — the Latina in tech, in a large leadership role — to inspire the younger Ana Marias out there. The drumbeat in my head after years of coaching, therapy, accountability partners, and an encouraging husband is: Why not me?

And in the messy middle between Enough and More: an inkling that I might check the right boxes with all my “otherness” and that may open a door, but do I want to go through that door? The recognition that I can dream of wanting more only when I frame it as focused on other people — retirement with my husband, support for my mother, giving to causes, being in a position to lift up other Latinas — which makes me look at myself with a raised eyebrow and a “seriously?!”

Melody, age 25

Parents arrived in Columbus, Ohio, from Ghana in the 1990s

My parents were recipients of President Clinton’s visa lottery. My dad came to the United States first, at the beginning of 1997, and me and my mom arrived in May of that same year. They chose Ohio because they had a lot of friends who had also emigrated from Ghana who lived there.

Both of my parents had to start over when they came to the United States. My mom went to nursing school and became an RN. My dad worked as a forklift operator at the Limited for 10 years, and then he went back to school and got his nursing degree. Me, my brother, and my parents lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Columbus, Ohio. When I was in third grade, my parents bought a $300,000 house in a suburb with a great public school system. A lot of their friends who immigrated also ended up buying homes and moving to well-off suburbs.

I feel like my parents bought into the idea of the American dream, and perhaps still do a little bit. They were able to achieve that dream: Buy a home in a nice suburb with a good school system for their three kids, send us to college, and give us a good life.

But I do think [that] as we all get older, we realize the other factors that played a role in this success. My parents didn’t have to pay for child care; there was another Ghanaian woman who lived in our apartment complex, and she would watch me and my brother when my parents weren’t home. They had a strong support system since many of their friends immigrated to Ohio from Ghana. My parents are really religious, so the church was also a site of refuge for them. Ohio has a fairly low cost of living compared to other parts of the country, and once my mom graduated from nursing school, she got a union job, which pays very well and has amazing benefits. My father’s job at the Limited also paid a decent wage and had good benefits, including free clothes gifted by the company.

I think the African immigrant experience as a whole isn’t discussed, and when it is, there’s not a ton of discussion about the systemic factors that contribute to the success of African immigrants and their children. We don’t have the generational trauma that Black Americans carry with them, which, in my opinion, makes a huge psychological difference.

Rajika Bhandari, age 50

Arrived in North Carolina from India for graduate school in the 1990s

When you’re an immigrant coming from another country where you may be middle class or upper-middle class and privileged in many ways, you lose that status when you move to the US. All of that social capital that you and your family may have accumulated over the years, and that opened doors for you in your home country, that was your safety net — that no longer exists. No one in your new country knows what your background is. The new culture doesn’t know what to make of you. Back in India, my family was by no means wealthy, but we had a high social status because of education, because my parents had been to some of India’s top schools and colleges. That carried with it a real weight but was not acknowledged or known in the US.

I’ve noticed this within my community, but I also think this is even more true for other immigrant groups: There’s a desire to align with the dominant group in the US, which is white Americans. For Indian Americans, this is very much about getting the right degrees, sending your kids to the right college, living in the right neighborhoods — this desire to align with a dominant group that represents that middle-class status that you’ve lost. During the Black Lives Matter protests last year was the first time I saw South Asians and Indian immigrants standing up along with their Black friends. For the first time, the blinders came off, and there was this realization that we might think that we’re upper-middle class, we’ve obtained the American dream, our kids go to Ivies, but in the eyes of the majority, we’re just another brown person.

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Ashley Valdez Jones, age 27

Mother became a naturalized American citizen in Nogales, Arizona, when she turned 18

My father was Leave It to Beaver white Irish Catholic. His side of the family has been in the country for generations. My mom grew up in Nogales, Arizona, a town that straddles the US-Mexico border. Her family had lived in the States for years, but my grandma had all 13 of her children across the line in Nogales, Sonora, because she didn’t trust American doctors. We joke that she reverse anchor-babied. My mom became a naturalized American citizen when she turned 18.

According to my dad, we were “comfortable.” He didn’t talk about class explicitly but focused on middle-class accomplishments: building a home, international family trips, a boat. My mom talked about class only to explain why her side of the family had less and why so many of my cousins wore my hand-me-downs. As a child, my understanding was that all Mexican people were poorer than all white people, because that’s how things shook out in my family.

The story I got was that my mom escaped poverty, and being Mexican, by marrying a white guy. We were never close to her side of the family, and as a child, I thought it was because we weren’t like them and implicitly above them in class. The message I internalized was that the only way to achieve the American dream was to become white.

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interview-quotes · 4 years ago

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10+ things I am proud of America

1 we have freedom of speech (and press, petition, assembly): you can speak out against the government and not be afraid of going to jail

2 we have freedom of religion: you can practice any religion or no religion and not be afraid of jail/exile/death/etc

3 women have great rights here

4 if you have money and education, you can build a great life here

5 the brightest people are attracted to here: our universities, our companies, our music/film industry

6 democracy: as a people we have the right to vote + own property. and every 18+ citizen has the right to vote and own property, regardless of race/sex/money/education/etc

7 diversity: we are a nation of immigrants and the first multicultural democracy experiment

8 we have a lot of land so you can go anywhere + live any kind of lifestyle – urban, suburban, rural; forest, mountain, beach, desert, etc; liberal, conservative

9 we have the best military in the world

10 same caveat as 4 but, we have very low crime + highly functioning government systems (water, electricity, ambulance, firefighting, public transit, schools, etc)

11 the legacy of george washington: to step back as president after 8 years max

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interview-quotes · 5 years ago

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When I was a kid, I actually thought fashion was the most financially egalitarian entertainment industry. You needed money to go see a movie, or visit a museum, or eat at a restaurant. But it cost nothing to look at runway photos online, or stand in the department store and admire the ads. Obviously it was all unattainable, but I thought it was equally unattainable to everyone. It never occurred to me that people were supposed to buy the stuff.

#i also thought zara was a fancy store

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interview-quotes · 6 years ago

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“You know,” my mom said, “one day you’ll be a parent, and you won’t feel so much like our daughter.”

“That’s right,” my father said. “Because you’ll also feel like a mother. And the feeling of being a mother can be so much more extraordinary than the feeling of being a daughter.”

“And your own daughter won’t ever look at you and think that you must also be a daughter, you know what we mean, sour candy?”

“I think so,” I said.

“That’s why I wish you could stay this age forever,” my mom said. “What if I could always be 32 and you could always be nine and your father could always be 35. What if, honeybee?”

“I’ll do that,” I said right away. “I’ll stay nine. I don’t want to be someone else’s mom.”

My mother pulled me close to both her and my dad. “You can’t give up the rest of your life to stay this way.”

“I want to. I like the idea of staying here.”

“Oh, honey.”

“I really do, Mom. This is what I want. To stay like this forever.”

“Let’s ask the gods for help,” my father suggested.

“OK,” my mother said, and we got out of bed and into a circle, the three of us, and we stomped our feet and shouted, “Let us stay, let us stay, let us stay, let us stay,” until our voices got hoarse, and the next day mine was squeaky and my mom’s was sultry and my dad liked the way she sounded and I saw them holding hands and my dad fixing my mom’s shirt collar in the morning and I felt like this was the reason why I would never want to get older, because why move forward when it was so brilliant to just remain as we were?

--Hold On, Sour Grape by Jenny Zhang

#she was talking about being poor and i related to nothing and then suddenly this

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interview-quotes · 6 years ago

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SHE (more rarely, he) is the most talented student in the local dance school. Her legs are long, her feet arched; her neck looks suitable for a potential swan. Her teacher encourages her parents to have her audition for the School of American Ballet, or the Royal Ballet School, or the Paris Opera Ballet School. There are hundreds of children at the audition, but she gets in.

She spends her youth and adolescence in front of unforgiving teachers and even more unforgiving mirrors. Famous ballerinas are her idols, and posters of them adorn her walls. At 15 or 16 she is one of a few who have survived and advanced to senior level. She is invited to join the company. Suddenly she is one of those glamorous creatures onstage: a swan, a peasant, a snowflake, an abstract moving body. She is ecstatic, her life’s dream realized.

Until it isn’t. For the few who survive the grueling competition, relentless discipline and mental pressure to make it into one of the world’s first-rank companies, this tale of recognized talent and continuing achievement frequently ends soon thereafter. The new company member is now just one of a hundred or so other brilliant talents. When the level is that high, the exceptional becomes ordinary, and the dancer discovers that perhaps she will not be on a poster on bedroom walls.

It’s a moment beautifully chronicled by Toni Bentley, at the time a member of the New York City Ballet, in her 1982 book, “Winter Season,” still required reading on the experience of being a professional ballet dancer. “I not only got in, I was chosen to learn things,” she wrote. “Big, grand ballerina things. Pink things. Then one day my ambition was put on a diet, just like the rest of me. My name was seen with others. It had been seen alone. So perhaps the road to Ballerina Land was not going to be as straight as I had planned.”

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“When you first get into the company, you don’t think you’re going to spend your life in the corps,” said Dena Abergel, who has danced with City Ballet for 17 years. “Your dream is to be the lead, and at one level that never goes away. But I really enjoy dancing in a group. In pieces like “Serenade” the corps is the ballet, and that’s an amazing feeling. Sometimes I look at the principals and think, ’It’s so hard to be out there alone.’”

Dancers like Ms. Abergel or Kyle Froman, who takes a behind-the-scenes look at the daily life of City Ballet dancers in his recent photography book, “In the Wings” (John Wiley & Sons), clearly derive enough satisfaction from their careers to continue. “Not many people get to do what they love for a living,” Mr. Froman said. “This was the only company I wanted to join, and my wish was granted.”

There are many such dancers — happy, or happy enough. But a certain poignancy must resonate for every corps member who has achieved so much to get so far, and then no further. It’s a poignancy that is given memorable life in a funny and moving dance piece, “Véronique Doisneau,” created by Jérôme Bel for the Paris Opera Ballet in 2004. In it Ms. Doisneau, then a 41-year-old sujet, talks about her two decades in the company. She dances a bit from “Giselle,” a ballet whose principal role she has always dreamed of performing. She dances an extract from Merce Cunningham’s “Points in Space.”

Toward the end of the piece, still alone on the stage, she takes up position as one of the corps of swans during the first great pas de deux from “Swan Lake.” As Tchaikovsky’s violin solo swells gloriously around her, Ms. Doisneau stands quite still, one foot pointed behind her, for several minutes. Later, as the music moves toward its final heightened declaration of love between the swan queen and her prince, Ms. Doisneau changes to a different stance and is still again.

-- “Often a Swan, Rarely a Queen” by Roslyn Sulcas (December 16, 2007)

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interview-quotes · 7 years ago

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To understand the Biebers’ relationship, it’s necessary to understand their belief in and attraction to each other’s fundamental differentness. He is the id to her superego, the wild thing she could never have permitted of herself. Hailey devoted twelve highly disciplined years to ballet. She was mostly homeschooled in suburban New York. She has never touched a drug, convinced of her genetic vulnerability to addiction... She is, by her own and others’ accounts, a careful and deliberate person, rational to a fault. Friends describe her with words like secure, steady, and strong.

Hailey views her own temperament as requiring the corrective of his. “He’ll say, ‘I feel,’ and I’ll say, ‘I think,’ ” she explains. “I have to really dive deep and struggle to be in touch with my emotions. He gets there immediately.”

“I’m the emotionally unstable one,” says Justin. “I struggle with finding peace. I just feel like I care so much and I want things to be so good and I want people to like me. Hailey’s very logical and structured, which I need."

-- Vogue profile of Justin and Hailey Bieber (February 7, 2019)

#this #how is it that i am both of these things

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interview-quotes · 7 years ago

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“It’s been so hard for me to trust people,” he explains. “I’ve struggled with the feeling that people are using me or aren’t really there for me, and that writers are looking to get something out of me and then use it against me. One of the big things for me is trusting myself. I’ve made some bad decisions personally, and in relationships. Those mistakes have affected my confidence in my judgment. It’s been difficult for me even to trust Hailey.” He turns to her. “We’ve been working through stuff. And it’s great, right?”

Last summer, after years as a nomad, Justin bought a house outside Toronto. The couple settled into it in September, and they agree that real cohabitation—the kind that doesn’t take place in hotel rooms, on vacations—has been a test. They are squabbling over decorating decisions. Healthy communication is a constant challenge, and in therapy they are working on developing an ebb and flow so that their personalities don’t lock horns. Sometimes they tiptoe around each other, and at others they practice arguing without being unkind. “Fighting is good,” Justin says. “Doesn’t the Bible talk about righteous anger? We don’t want to lose each other. We don’t want to say the wrong thing, and so we’ve been struggling with not expressing our emotions, which has been driving me absolutely crazy because I just need to express myself, and it’s been really difficult to get her to say what she feels.”

“You’ll get it out of me the next morning,” Hailey promises. She admits that the first weeks of marriage were deeply lonely for her. She felt homesick for her parents, even though she hadn’t lived with them in five years. Perhaps hardest of all was her sense that in marrying Justin she suddenly had a hundred million rivals. So many people on social media seemed to be rooting for them to fail. No one appreciated how seriously she had taken the decision to get married, how much she had prayed about it. “I prayed to feel peace about the decision, and that’s where I landed,” she explains. “I love him very much. I have loved him for a long time.”

One thing they have learned is that they are pretty happy homebodies. They like to lounge around the house, watch movies, listen to music and dance in their kitchen. Though there is work to do, Justin wishes that Hailey would take just a little pressure off herself. “She’s trying to be this grown-up,” he says. “I think we can be married and still have fun and enjoy our adolescence. That’s something we’re talking about.”

-- Vogue profile of Justin and Hailey Bieber (February 7, 2019)

#holy shit #they are being so real #these ones aren't necessarily things i relate to #but the realness of it made me catch my breath

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interview-quotes · 7 years ago

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"Unless you have a very, very specific set of beliefs and priorities, there will not be a presidential candidate with whom you agree on every point. It’s wildly unlikely.

The point of voting is not to elect the person who thinks the exact same way you do about everything so that you can go back to ignoring politics for the next four years.

The point of voting is to elect the person whom you can persuade to do what you want. Someone who mostly agrees with you will probably be easier to push to your position than someone who believes the exact opposite; I’m not saying you ignore candidates’ positions."

-- winebrightruby.tumblr.com

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interview-quotes · 7 years ago

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There's a little bit of bitterness for the princesses as they get older. I just got back from Florida actually, and seeing all the new girls, it sucks. People used to be that excited to see me, and cry to see me, and now it's these little girls who don't even have as much integrity as we used to have. We used to only speak words that princesses hundreds of years ago would speak. We wouldn't say, "Oh, those are cute shoes," or, "Oh my gosh." Princesses didn't say that. They would say, "Oh my goodness," or, "Oh, how wonderful."

“What It's Really Like to Be a Disney Princess” by Michelle Ruiz (September 9, 2014)

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interview-quotes · 7 years ago

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What It's Really Like to Be a Disney Princess

By Michelle Ruiz (September 9, 2014)

Growing up, I was always the smart girl. I was valedictorian of my high school class, but deep down I always wanted to be an actress. There were no opportunities in the small town where I'm from, until one day, when I was in college and a commercial came on the radio saying, "You could be a Disney princess!"

My best friend had just passed away two weeks before. I was in a really bad place and wanted to drop out of school anyway. I went to the audition in my hometown in flip-flops and gauchos, and I was surrounded by musical theater girls stretching and practicing dance moves. I was completely out of my league. They taught us a cheesy dance — I remember a ballet move that was like holding a beach ball. I was pretty sure I was out because I'm a terrible dancer, but then they called my number. I was shocked.

They sent me to hair and makeup and put a Belle wig on me, then had me read the part from Beauty and the Beast when Belle is talking about her papa. I could imitate her high-pitched voice pretty easily. The casting lady was like, "OMG, that was fantastic!" She didn't even say that I was hired. She just went straight into, "So, typically we order contacts for our girls and make sure your roots are done." I later learned you can't work at Disney if your hair isn't "Disney standard" — part of that was no roots. They handed me a piece of paper and said, "In order to get the relocation package, you have to move to Orlando by the end of the month."

So I dropped out of college and went to Disney World. To start in any character role, you have to go through training for the "fur characters," like Goofy or Mickey. I did Chip and Dale for two weeks — and it was really exhausting. The costumes have no ventilation and you sweat out a ton of water in the Florida sun. There are certain heat indexes that allow for shorter "sets" out in the parks, but some people pass out because it's so hot inside the costumes.

I learned that the fur characters hated the face characters, the princesses and princes who show their real faces, because the face characters make more money. Back at home, I was working at 7-Eleven making $11.25 an hour. At Disney, when I started, it was $7.15 an hour with a face character premium of $2.50 an hour. So, $9.65 an hour — not great, but you go through a whole training where they show you all these mushy movies about Walt Disney and his life just to make you feel like, "OMG, I really love this company!" And the perks are pretty fantastic: 40 percent off at Disney stores, 50 percent off the cruises, 40 percent off food in all the parks and free passes for your friends and family. A lot of people stay for the perks.

I moved on to princess training, which was about a four-day process. I watched Beauty and the Beast with a trainer and spied on girls greeting guests as Belle in the France pavilion of Epcot. I did worksheets about Belle — "Who's her favorite person?" "Maurice!" Ironically, I didn't really like Beauty and the Beast that much as a kid; I thought it was really dark. But watching it a ton for the job, I connected to the song about how Belle wants to get out of her small town and thinks that there's got to be more to life — that's exactly the type of stuff I was writing in my journal. And she's the only princess that really shows that academics are a good thing and there's no reason to be a damsel in distress. I started to really love her.

I got a crash course in Belle makeup from the cosmetics or "cosmo" team, because the princesses have to learn to do their own makeup. They check your makeup and sign off on you before you go out "on set," which is what we called the different locations at the parks. All of the princesses sit in cosmo together getting ready. They ordered brown contacts to change my eyes and a brown wig. Some girls were jealous because I was allowed more freedom with my makeup because I already naturally looked so much like Belle. I realized why it didn't matter that I couldn't dance — everyone just kept saying, "Wow, you look just like the cartoon."

Most of the drama in cosmo happens when someone gets disapproved, or not allowed to go out on set. One girl got disapproved because her arms got too chubby. Another girl had a very bad acne breakout all over her face, and they disapproved her. Then everyone talks about whether she should or shouldn't have been disapproved — it's awkward. Some of the princesses did cleanses to stay fit; a lot the girls were naturally thin. We'd go to the gym after work or do workout videos together during our breaks. The fur characters are running around all day so they can eat crap like funnel cakes. The refrigerator in our break room was literally Lean Cuisines and those sugar-free Jell-Os with 10 calories.

I'd never been popular before; suddenly I was a literal princess. I was Belle for six, sometimes seven, days a week, all day, at Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Kids would line up to take pictures with me, or I'd be part of a parade in a huge, glittering ball gown. It was prestigious to be Belle — she and Cinderella are the two top princesses at Disney.A ton of girls are hired for their roles, and they're stationed at the most locations. Ariel's a good one too, but she isn't in as many locations and neither is Mulan. Pocahontas and Jasmine aren't out very much at all. One of my friends was white, but she's very, very tan, and she does Pocahontas.

It was a lot of fun, but emotionally, it was tolling. You have to smile for an hour straight; you can't drop your smile until you go on break and are behind closed doors because Disney doesn't want any pictures of us not smiling. The first few weeks, my face literally hurt. But I really love kids, and it was amazing to have kids that were really into Belle coming up to me, and I would just make up this elaborate story about waking up that morning and having oatmeal with the Beast.

We couldn't spend too much time playing with the kids though, because we had to greet 172 guests per hour. Disney decided that was the magic number. An attendant would have a clicker to count the number of people we met, and if we went under, we would get a reprimand. If you get four reprimands, you get fired. It sucked to have a really sweet kid that's waited in line for three hours come up all excited and have to say, "OK, let's hurry and take our photo" and shove them out the door. When they left the room where we greeted kids at Toontown, they went straight into a massive princess store. I think Disney felt like, "Well, we want them out of the room and into the princess store to buy some stuff."

The one time that I got really, really angry at work was one of the only days that was actually really cold in Florida — so cold you could see your breath. I had to stand in a doorway welcoming guests into a restaurant at Epcot in a sleeveless formal dress that was supposed to have a coat that came with it. I was freezing and my eyes were watering, but the location managers wouldn't let me go get my coat. When I went on my break to go pull the coat from the costume department, it was gone. I guess they'd hidden it. I started bawling. I had to take pictures with kids in the freezing cold, crying. Later, I was talking to the photographers, and they told me that that restaurant sold the photos of Belle and the guests for, like, $35 — and when Belle was wearing the coat, they sell 30 percent less pictures.

Another tricky thing was the creepy dads who would whisper in my ear when their kids were taking pictures with me. They'd say, "When the Beast goes to bed, I'll be waiting for you in the library." All I could think was, God, I'd hate to be your wife. I couldn't break character, but I would always address it and say something like, "Um, I go to bed when the Beast goes to bed." One of my friends, an Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, her skirt was unzipped and one of the dads stuck his hand in the zipper. Luckily there are petticoats underneath, but he was totally feeling her butt outside of the petticoat.

But amazing stuff happens too. My absolute favorite thing was meeting the Make-A-Wish Foundation kids. Belle would be in her village dress and ride the carousel or have breakfast with kids in their last months of life. They were so excited and amazed, and behind them were parents just falling apart. Their child is dying, but their child that's dying is incredibly happy at that moment. It's a very strange feeling — complete joy mixed with complete heartbreak. Things like that made me happy to be Belle, especially after losing my friend and being so miserable at home.

I met really good friends being a princess. We came from all over the country and had no one, so we all bonded really quickly and really strongly. My best friends were an Aurora and a Cinderella. Underneath Magic Kingdom, there's a really smelly concrete tunnel system — we would walk through the tunnels joking that we were like the three Mean Girls, just Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora marching down the hall.

We weren't finding romance at work, because most of the guys were gay. I don't remember any specific gay romances, but I'm sure there were. Prince Charming might have been hooking up with Prince Eric. My roommates were gay and dancers at Animal Kingdom. We spent many nights hanging out in our apartment watching classic Disney movies like Dumbo together.

They call it the "Disney bubble" — you listen to the soundtracks on your way to work and watch the movies at home. Even when we weren't working, a lot of times we'd just go into the park and watch the fireworks or watch Tinkerbell come down from the castle. Sometimes we would go get drinks at Animal Kingdom. Looking back, I was there for three years and I went to the beach once. Disney just draws you in.

After three years as Belle, I started to feel like I was in limbo. I didn't finish college. I didn't know what I was going to do next in my life. I still wanted to be an actress, and there's no market in Florida. I took a trip to a bigger city for an acting intensive, and my teachers told me I could have a real shot if I moved and started auditioning. I decided to give Disney my three-week notice. I gave them notice but said I still wanted to do a few shifts every year — back then, all you had to do was work five shifts a year to keep the Disney perks.

When I came back to Florida not long after leaving to pick up a few shifts, the casting department called me and said, "We need to speak with you about your role." I went to meet with them and they asked me how things were going with my move and if I planned to stay away for a long time. I said it was going great, and I was excited to be pursuing acting. I didn't realize I was being baited. They had me dress up as Belle, and I came back in and they were like, "We've just been noticing that your mouth is very different than all the other girls." It was the most bizarre thing ever, and it very clearly had nothing to do with my mouth. If my mouth was that big of an issue, they wouldn't have paid for me to move to Florida and be Belle in the first place. It was merely about the fact that I wasn't going to be there working every week, and they didn't want to dole out perks to another person like that. I got canned — and it hurt.

The shelf life of a Disney princess really depends. A lot of girls take themselves out before casting has to. People go on to work in musical theater at local playhouses or be teachers or do princess parties. Some never want to leave; as soon as they get disapproved, they just want to become a princess trainer so they still get to be part of the magic.

Now that I live in a big city, it's a bit of culture shock. I still smile at everyone, even the guys who catcall me. I probably come across as such a naive idiot, but it's from being at Disney for three years, and being around people that all speak with such pep and optimism and watch Disney movies in their spare time. Smiling all day just makes you believe that everything's fine. It didn't occur to me that I would miss it as much as I do.

Nothing big has happened for me as an actress so far. I'm also working on getting my college degree. Despite some of my issues with Disney, I'm super glad I got to be a princess. I've gone to auditions where people have been like, "I think I have a picture with you as Belle!" It blows people's minds when I tell them. I don't want people to think I'm bragging. I say that I lived in Orlando and then they pry some more and I'm like, "I was Belle," and they're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And weird." When I tell guys, they think it's really cute.

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