#leah cohen

[thislovintime]

Peter Tork and June Millington (one of the founders of the rock group Fanny), 2012.

Janis Ian and June Millington on Peter...

“In mourning for Peter Tork, one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, who was so gracious and so good to me when I was starting out. It’s testimony to the man that his family asks donations to be made to Institute for the Musical Arts, founded by June Millington and Ann Hackler to support women and girls in music. Lovely man, and a sad day to know he’s gone.” - Janis Ian, Facebook, February 22, 2019

“Thank you Peter Tork and family for your incredibly powerful gesture in suggesting that people make a donation to IMA’s ��In the Names of Our Mothers’ fund, in support women and girls in music. Especially in these times, so meaningful ~ you will be remembered here for generations! Thing is, you’ve been such a good friend to me (us) over the years, and continue to give. That is a true testament to your soul, and your spirit. Love you always, xx June” - June Millington, Facebook, February 23, 2019

“I met him [Peter] here in Massachusetts through our really great friend Leah Kunkel. […] And they were really good friends since Peter and John Sebastian and Leah, Mama Cass… were in the Village […] And Peter did a benefit for us once […], for IMA. […] And he did record here as well. […] Peter was here a few months before he died, he came to actually record that last song that he put out with The Monkees [‘Angels We Have Heard On High,’ from Christmas Party; the instrumental track, featuring Peter on banjo, was originally from A Beachwood Christmas, 2003]. […] I wish I could have recorded him for my podcast because he told me a few stories which I love so much. [...] He played a great piano, which I didn’t know until the last time he was here. He swung by the piano and he — even though he was sick and he didn’t have much energy — he sat down and he played some brilliant classical piece. I’m like, ‘Peter, I didn’t know you played the piano!’ And he said, ‘Oh. Yeah.’ And I said, ‘How did that come about?’ He said, ‘Oh, I took lessons.’ So his parents definitely wanted him to be, shall we say, cultured, and have… you know, to play piano, the have a college degree and all of that. […] He was such a smart guy, he was so funny, he was so funny, he would be quipping all the time, you know. And it was, the last couple of years were a little bit of a slog for him because the cancer was coming back and it was really trying to get him. But he — he kept his humor intact the whole time. He was really a very generous, and he was a super-funny guy. That’s my biggest impression of him, is how giving he was. And he wanted to support IMA, the Institute for the Musical Arts, which is a nonprofit that supports women and girls in music by passing on what we know. So we do rock ‘n’ roll girls camp […], lessons — everything is being passed on to future generations. So it’s the only organization of its kind in the world where we are really hands on passing it on. And he just loved that. Like, he sent his daughter here — his wife had, you know, had a daughter, so they sent her here to one of our rock ‘n’ roll girl camps. So he put his money and his time where his mouth was, you know. […] So he was always trying to think of ways that he could help. He recorded here. You know, as I said, he was super-generous. He had a heart of gold, I gotta say. Super heart of gold. And he and Leah remained really good friends, really good friends until, you know, the last days. […] He was so smart. He was on top of current affairs, you know; he had so many jokes at the top of his fingers. […] He was a super-talented guy. […] Go to IMA dot org to take a look at this place. Peter realized the value. He loved passing it on. And he loved being around women and working with women, there’s no, you know (laughs), there’s no other way I could say it: he loved women. And he wanted to help, you know. And he let us know that, boy, he wanted to help and he did help.” - Plastic EP, 2021

[idasessions]

Leah Kunkel singing backup vocals during a Graham Nash concert at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta, GA in 1980. Photo via Wiki user ‘acroterion.’ 

[whileiamdying]

Cass Elliot’s Death Spawned a Horrible Myth. She Deserves Better

The Mamas & the Papas singer was known for her wit, her voice and her skill as a connector. For 50 years, a rumor has overshadowed her legacy.

Michael Putland/Getty Images

By Lindsay Zoladz Published May 9, 2024 Updated May 18, 2024

Onstage with her group the Mamas & the Papas at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, Cass Elliot, the grand doyenne of the Laurel Canyon scene, bantered with the timing of a vaudeville comedian. “Somebody asked me today when I was going to have the baby, that’s funny,” she said, rolling her eyes. The unspoken punchline — if you could call it that — was that she had already given birth to a daughter six weeks earlier.

“One of the things that appeals to so many people about my mom is that there’s a certain level of triumph over adversity,” that daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell, said over lunch at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles on a recent afternoon. “She had to prove herself over and over again.”

Elliot was a charismatic performer who exuded infectious joy and a magnificent vocalist with acting chops she did not live to fully explore. July 29 is the 50th anniversary of her untimely death at 32, a tragedy that still spurs unanswerable questions. Might Elliot, who was one of Johnny Carson’s most beloved substitutes, have become the first female late-night talk show host? Would she have achieved EGOT status?

Half a century after her death, her underdog appeal continues to inspire. Last year, “Make Your Own Kind of Music” — a relatively minor 1969 solo hit that has nonetheless had cultural staying power — became such a sensation on TikTok that “Saturday Night Live” spoofed it, in a hilariously over-the-top sketch in which the host Emma Stone plays a strangely clairvoyant record producer. “This song is gonna be everywhere, Mama,” she tells Elliot, played by Chloe Troast. “Then everybody’s gonna forget about it for a long, long time, but in about 40, 50 years, I think it’s gonna start showing up in a bunch of movies, because it’s a perfect song to go under a slow-mo montage where the main character snaps and goes on a rampage.”

Cass Elliot performing on her television special “Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore” in September 1973. After she went solo, she found it hard to shake her nickname.Credit...CBS Photo Archive, via Getty Images

“S.N.L.” didn’t make a single joke about Elliot’s weight — something that was unthinkable half a century ago. During the height of her fame, Elliot seemed to co-sign some of the jabs at her expense with a shrugging grin.

“No one’s getting fat except Mama Cass,” the Mamas & the Papas sang in tight harmony on the self-mythologizing 1967 hit “Creeque Alley.” After the infamously tumultuous group broke up a year later, Elliot was a frequent guest on “The Carol Burnett Show,” where she occasionally went for the cheap laugh. In an otherwise uproarious sketch about two prudish women browsing a store’s “dirty books” section, Elliot holds up a book titled “Eat and Lose Weight” and says, “I got as far as ‘Eat’ and then I didn’t understand the rest.”

“As she had learned early on, the best way to deal with an uncomfortable situation is with humor,” Elliot-Kugell, who has her mother’s cascading hair and dry wit, writes in her new memoir, “My Mama, Cass.” But, as she said over lunch, that doesn’t mean her mother was always laughing on the inside. “That pain had to go somewhere,” Elliot-Kugell told me. “When I think about some of the things that had allegedly been said to her during her lifetime, you can’t hear that over and over and not let it hurt.”

But of course, the most enduring joke at her expense was the one she didn’t live to tell, or to rebut. Have you heard the one about the ham sandwich?

For years, the origin of the story that Elliot died from choking on a ham sandwich — one of the cruelest and most persistent myths in rock ’n’ roll history — was largely unknown. Then in 2020, Elliot’s friend Sue Cameron, an entertainment journalist, admitted to publicizing it in her Hollywood Reporter obituary at the behest of Elliot’s manager Allan Carr, who did not want his client associated with drug use. (Elliot died of a heart attack, likely brought on by years of substance abuse and crash dieting.) But that cartoonish rumor — propagated in endless pop culture references, from “Austin Powers” to “Lost” — cast a tawdry light over Elliot’s legacy and still threatens to overshadow her mighty, underappreciated talent.

The Mamas & the Papas: Denny Doherty, Michelle Phillips, Elliot, Scott McKenzie (who joined a later version of the group) and John Phillips.Credit...Bentley Archive/Popperfoto, via Getty Images

ELLIOT’S SISTER, LEAH, coined a phrase for the strong, brassy way everyone in their family sang: “the Cohen Honk.”

Cass was born Ellen Naomi Cohen into a music-loving household in suburban Baltimore. Her stage name partly came from her father’s penchant for calling his spirited daughter “the mad Cassandra.” She was a precocious, uncommonly bright child who, in the years after World War II, liked to ask dinner guests what they thought about the “world situation.” In high school she was known for her bold, slightly unkempt personal style that flew in the face of 1950s decorum. According to her biographer Eddi Fiegel, Elliot sometimes wore “wild combinations of Bermuda shorts and high heels, with white gloves to cover her bitten-down nails.”

Many people in Elliot’s life trace her struggles with her weight to when she was 6 and went to stay with her grandparents while recovering from ringworm. They fed her well, as grandparents sometimes do, and she quickly became self-conscious about her size. By high school, she had been prescribed Dexedrine, an amphetamine then used as an appetite suppressant. “The thought that something is wrong with you is bad enough,” Elliot-Kugell writes, “but the idea that a pill or a drug might fix you can be even more dangerous.”

Still, Elliot showed remarkable self-belief. The book recounts her telling anyone who would listen “that one day she was going to become the most famous fat girl that ever lived.”

She struck a deal with her parents: If she moved to New York and didn’t find musical success in five years, she would come home and study a more respectable field, like medicine. She left home in late 1960; “California Dreamin’” was released in December 1965. She later told an interviewer: “I really just made it under the wire!”

Broadway was Elliot’s first love, but folk music was the style of the day. She brought her own distinctive flair to it in her early groups, the Big 3 and then the Mugwumps, which featured a Canadian tenor named Denny Doherty. After the Mugwumps’ split, Doherty fled to the Virgin Islands with his new friends John and Michelle Phillips to work on material for a yet-unnamed group. Elliot had sung with them casually while they were all hanging out — at least once when they were all on LSD — and she knew her voice was the missing piece in their sound.

But John, the bandleader, was brutishly reluctant. According to Scott G. Shea, a biographer of the Mamas & the Papas, Phillips “had a vision in his head” of “a group that not only sounded like an electrified Peter, Paul and Mary, but also looked like them.” Shea puts it bluntly: “Michelle was to be the centerpiece, and, in his mind, Cass was too fat to even be considered.”

The group projected a chumminess that was central to their appeal, but few people know how hard Elliot had to push to become part of the band. She showed up unannounced in the Virgin Islands hoping to ingratiate herself, but Phillips wouldn’t budge until an act of fate intervened. While walking down the St. Thomas alley that the Mamas & the Papas would later immortalize in song, debris from a construction site hit Elliot on the head and knocked her unconscious. John Phillips would later claim that Elliot’s concussion caused her vocal register to change, and it was another of those stories Elliot learned to repeat with a self-deprecating joke.

“The real story is that John didn’t like my mother’s look,” Elliot-Kugell writes. She believes “he made up the story about a fake increase in vocal range to justify his choice to finally add my mom to the band months later.”

Elliot went solo after the short-lived group’s demise, buoyed by the success of “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” a Mamas & the Papas single on which she sang lead. The final solo album she released, in 1973, had a pointed title: “Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore.” “The moniker of ‘Mama’ had always felt like a reference to her size — that is, ‘Big Mama’ — and she hated that,” Elliot-Kugell writes.

From left: Joni Mitchell, Elliot and Judy Collins at the Big Sur Folk Festival. Elliot became known as a connector in the Laurel Canyon scene.Credit...Sulfiati Magnuson, via Getty Images

Elliot remains an underrated heroine in the story of the Laurel Canyon scene, not only as a musician but also as an amiable hostess who knew how to link up like-minded people. Doherty liked to call her “the Puppeteer.”

In 1964, she introduced her friends John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky; they became the Lovin’ Spoonful. When she heard that David Crosby and Stephen Stills had begun making music together, she suggested they add a high voice to the mix, and brought them Graham Nash. “I will give you a hundred dollars,” David Crosby told Elliot’s biographer, “if you can find a single person who says they hated Cass.”

But there was also something bittersweet about Elliot’s kinship with all these men. “I think part of the reason they all adored her is they weren’t threatened by her,” Elliot-Kugell said. “She knew more about these guys and had a relationship on a deeper level than some of their own wives or girlfriends had.” She added with a wry chuckle, “Did that mean she didn’t want to jump into bed with half of them? She probably did!”

Elliot’s unrequited love for her bandmate Doherty was perhaps the hardest to bear, especially after he and Michelle Phillips had an affair that nearly broke up the band before their first album was even released. Elliot had been smitten since the night they met, at a Greenwich Village bar where they each threatened to drink the other under the table, and eventually decided to drink … under the table. As he put it in his one-man show about the group’s history, “I knew she loved me, and I loved her too, but not like she wanted me to. She did weigh 300 pounds, and I wasn’t man enough to deal with that.”

The most difficult passages of “My Mama, Cass” are those in which Elliot-Kugell reckons with her mother’s persistent loneliness. “After the shows, when they’re screaming her name onstage and she’s bowing, she was the only one going back to the hotel by herself,” she said. “Everybody else had someone, and she didn’t.”

Elliot’s need for love and companionship is what drove her to the decision — relatively radical for a famous woman in the late 1960s — to become a single mother. When she learned she was pregnant at the height of the group’s success, after a brief fling with its touring bassist, she was defiant in her decision to raise the child on her own. “As it turned out,” Elliot-Kugell writes, wrenchingly, “my mom’s desire to have someone in her life who wasn’t going to up and leave her was what led to her desire for a child. It’s how I came to be.”

The Mamas & the Papas onstage in 1966. The group split two years later.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

WHEN I FINALLY got Sue Cameron on the phone, she was calling from the Atlantic Ocean, “somewhere between Bermuda and Portugal.” A journalist for more than 50 years who has published a book titled “Hollywood Secrets and Scandals,” she sometimes gives lectures on cruise ships. She was happy to reminisce about her old pal. “She had a big smile and this wide open face, very happy to see people,” Cameron said. “You just would immediately love her and want her to be your best friend.”

Cameron met Elliot when she interviewed the Mamas & the Papas in 1966; they realized they were neighbors and quickly became “sit-by-each-other’s-pool kind of friends.” Cameron has stories, like the one about the night they ran into Ann-Margret and Elliot delivered the perfect one-liner about her massive engagement ring (“I could skate on that”); or all the times Elliot would walk around with a credit card in her shoe because she didn’t like to carry a purse.

Her most painful memory is her final dinner with Elliot at Mr. Chow in the summer of 1974, before Elliot left for London. She’d never seen her friend so happy. “It was just a magical moment,” Cameron recalled. “It was just, like, the crescendo of her being. She’d had some TV specials, she was now going to go do a big nightclub act. Everything was fabulous.”

After a two-day stint of partying in London, Elliot told her friend Joe Croyle — a dancer in her show who was crashing with her at Harry Nilsson’s pad — that she was going to take a bath and turn in early because she was exhausted. Croyle figured she would be hungry too, so he fixed her a sandwich with ham, the only thing he could find in the fridge, along with some Coca-Cola. The ham sandwich, the cruelly cartoonish symbol that would come to define Elliot, was actually a gesture of care: a friend making her a meal she never got to enjoy.

Cameron heard about Elliot’s death in the newsroom of The Hollywood Reporter, where she was working at the time: “I kicked into professional mode and said, no one else is going to write that obit. I’m going to do it.” She tracked down Carr by phone in Nilsson’s apartment. “He could barely speak,” Cameron recalled. She asked what happened, and he said he didn’t know. “‘Oh, wait,’” she recalled him saying. “‘I see a half-eaten ham sandwich on the night stand. That’s good. You tell everybody that she choked on a ham sandwich, do you understand me?’”

“And I did it,” she added, “because I wanted to protect Cass.”

What was she protecting her from? “I was not aware of a lot of drugs,” she said. “I just wasn’t one of those people. And I had some suspicion around the time that she was going to London that she was on some sort of pills, but I didn’t really know anything.” In a split second, Carr and Cameron decided there was less shame in a woman ridiculed for her weight choking to death than there was in her having a drug problem. “What a terrible thing,” Cameron said, “but I was in too much of a state of shock to clean it up.”

She, too, is confounded by the story’s persistence. “Of all of the things I’ve done,” she said, “this ham sandwich has followed me my entire life.”

That story had long haunted Elliot-Kugell, too, though she felt some closure after Cameron privately divulged its origins to her when they met for lunch in 2000. Elliot-Kugell is cleareyed about what probably caused her mother’s death: “I mean, look. She was up for 48 hours, and she was at a party. Do the math.” But she doesn’t want to dwell on that. “The thing that was really important for me was that I didn’t want to write a salacious book,” she said.

In some sense, any memoir by a child of the Mamas & the Papas exists in the shadow of Mackenzie Phillips’s 2009 bombshell, “High on Arrival,” in which she accused her father John Phillips of sexual assault. But Elliot-Kugell’s memoir belongs on a different shelf entirely. It is a humanizing portrait of a woman whose legacy has, for far too long, been reduced to an outdated urban legend.

And it is a tale of an imperfect mother and a grieving daughter, of loss and long delayed catharsis. A few weeks before we spoke, Elliot-Kugell went to visit her mother’s grave. “It’s always weird when I go there, because I never know what to say,” she said. “But that day felt a little different because when I went up to the grave, I just said, ‘Hi.’ Like the way I would greet one of my cousins, or somebody who I know really well who I haven’t seen in a while.”

“I thought to myself, ‘Why, why why does it feel like this?’” she said.” All at once it dawned on her: “After going through this experience, I feel closer to her.”

Read by Lindsay Zoladz

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.

[movie--posters]

[realhousewives-fan]

The Housewives Support Andy Cohen

2024 is turning out to be annus horribilis for Andy Cohen and Bravo.

Leah McSweeney’s shocking allegations against Andy has created a shit storm that he probably didn’t need during a time that’s turbulent to say the least.

Bravo is dealing with Caroline Manzo’s lawsuit, Bethenny Frankel’s Reality Reckoning, Brandi Glanville’s lawsuit threat, and now Leah’s drug allegations.

While the drug story wasn’t exactly news to me, her timing seems highly suspicious.

Kathy Griffin made the same accusation back in 2017, but was it a thing of the past or is Leah exploiting this 7-year-old accusation?

Leah appears to be bitter with how RHONY and RHUGT3 ended, and she’s seeking revenge. On RHUGT she made accusations none of the other women believed.

She’s one of the women in Bethenny’s revenge campaign against Bravo, and her involvement isn’t exactly surprising to me.

Since she has accused Andy of doing drugs with other housewives and giving his favorites special treatment, the housewives have responded to the accusations.

Luann de Lesseps, who was on the same show as Lean and has struggled with alcohol in the past, said that no one ever forced her to take up a glass.

Dorinda Medley clapped back at Leah’s accusation and said that “adults need to be held accountable for their own actions.” And that’s what Leah needs to do.

Dorinda also mentioned she’s had “nothing but good experiences with Andy and Bravo and she's gained so much by being on the show.”

Leah’s experience wasn’t as positive, so she’s resentful and after revenge for her own poor actions.

Kyle Richards is one Andy’s so-called favourites, and she told Page Six that she has never seen him do drugs, offered drugs or done anything inappropriate.

She also praised him for his professionalism by mentioning that he doesn’t follow the Bravolebrities on Instagram to keep a professional distance between them.

Heather Dubrow, who’s also an actress, praised his professionalism while Margaret Josephs claimed that Andy “has never offered any Housewife cocaine.”

It must at least be of some comfort that some of the housewives are showing their support.

[keycomicbooks]

Power Girl #6 (2023) Carla Cohen Foil Virgin Variant / Marguerite Sauvage Pencils / Leah Williams Story / GUEST-STARRING SUPERGIRL

#PowerGirl #6 (2023) #CarlaCohen Foil Virgin Variant / #MargueriteSauvage Pencils / #LeahWilliams Story / GUEST-STARRING #SUPERGIRL "Journey to Ferimbia" The citizens of Metropolis are missing! Looking for an escape, many have fallen victim to Avalon, a new street drug that transports you to a simpler era…the Medieval Times! SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/Power%20Girl%202023.html#6  #KeyComicBooks #DCComics #DCU #DCUniverse #KeyIssue #NerdyGifts

[prettyhennytea]

Andy Cohen: Unmasking the Other Side of the Bravo King

For years, Andy Cohen has reigned as the King of Bravo, charming viewers with his with and humor as the face of the network. From his connections with various series stars to his entertaining hosting gigs alongside Anderson Cooper, he appeared to be well-liked and respected. However, recent revelations have shed light on a different side of Andy, leaving us a bit concerned. 

It all started with Bethenny Frankel, who boldly called out her former boss, sharing her own negative experiences. But she's not the only one. Former housewives seem to be stepping forward with their own nightmare stories. Is Andy hiding away with a homemade burn book, or is he taking it all in stride while enjoying a shot ski in the clubhouse?

Leah McSweeney, a former Bravo personality, is the latest to join the chorus of lawsuits against Andy, Bravo Media, NBC Universal Media, Warner Bros. Discovery, production company Shed Media US, and individual producers. In her 109-page document filled in the Southern District of New York, Leah alleges a 'rotted' workplace culture and a failure to provide a safe environment for her disabilities, including alcohol use disorder and mental health disorders. The bombshell accusation that caught everyone's attention was the claim of drug use. Leah accuses Andy of engaging in cocaine use with Housewives and other Bravo celebrities, deliberately promoting a culture of drug and alcohol abuse within the workplace. 

This lawsuit instantly brought to mind a 2017 video where Kathy Griffin recounted her encounters with Andy. Kathy labeled him a 'miserable boss' who relished in "taking women down". She revealed that Andy had privately offered her cocaine before a performance of Watch What Happens Live. Although Kathy admits she initially thought he was joking, a similar offer was made during another appearance on the show. While Kathy's allegations lack concrete evidence, they strike a chord with many fans who can easily imagine them being true.

Even Brandi Glanville's lawyers have gotten involved, sending a letter to Warner Bros., NBC universal, and Shed Media. The letter alleges that Andy sent Brandi recorded messages expressing his desire to sleep with a particular Bravo star in 2022. According to the letter, Andy appeared intoxicated in the video, and they claim it was a form of sexual harassment. Andy has since issued an apology, stating that it was a joke. While Brandi appeared in on the joke, he acknowledges that it was inappropriate.As the curtain is pulled back on Andy Cohen's empire, we can't help but wonder what else lies beneath the surface. Will more former housewives step forward with their own tales? Only time will tell. For now, the Bravo King finds himself facing a new reality, one that challenges the beloved image he has carefully crafted over the years.

[there-are-always-flowers]

As a fan of Bravo...

A brief post about recent news of Andy Cohen being sued by Leah McSweeney with the understanding that I have a bias viewpoint as I am a fan of Bravo.....

Whether or not Andy Cohen does cocaine should have no part in this discussion. Drugs of any kind should not be weaponized against someone's character. Leah has chosen to disclose her struggles with alcoholism. She's also chosen sobriety. It is up to her as an adult women and an incredibly successful business person to set her own boundaries when it comes to that sobriety. If she feels an environment threatens that, she should speak up in that moment and/or extract herself from that situation. I'm not saying it's easy. Nothing about addiction is. But it is paramount to her recovery not blame others for "promoting" or "encouraging" an environment not conducive to her needs.

With that said, we can all benefit to understand that NBC, Bravo, and almost all big name production companies have one goal... to make money. Bravo doesn't care about their talent any more than any other company would care about their employees, which is to say they care very little. I'll spare my thoughts on late stage capitalism for another day, and say this: If Leah wants to stick it to the man I support he 100%. Get whatever settlement you can!

If she wants to drag a man's reputation in the progress, I'd think twice in how she goes about that. Remember Andy is a father and likely wants to shield his child from this as much as you want to shield your daughter from your past wrongdoings. (*I acknowledge that I do not know the entirety of what went on between Andy and Leah and we should inherently believe women and investigate if something happened.)

Whatever Leah chooses to do here, I support her. But know this, Leah: None of this is making you look good in the public eye.

Also why is Kathy Griffin getting involved at all?

[out-cut]

Five One Five’s Pups and Pops event

Read on

[justalittlesolarpunk]

I’ve teased it. You’ve waited. I’ve procrastinated. You’ve probably forgotten all about it.

But now, finally, I’m here with my solarpunk resources masterpost!

YouTube Channels:

Andrewism

The Solarpunk Scene

Solarpunk Life

Solarpunk Station

Our Changing Climate

Podcasts:

The Joy Report

How To Save A Planet

Demand Utopia

Solarpunk Presents

Outrage and Optimisim

From What If To What Next

Solarpunk Now

Idealistically

The Extinction Rebellion Podcast

The Landworkers' Radio

Wilder

What Could Possibly Go Right?

Frontiers of Commoning

The War on Cars

The Rewild Podcast

Solacene

Imagining Tomorrow

Books (Fiction):

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness The Dispossessed The Word for World is Forest

Becky Chambers: A Psalm for the Wild-Built A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Phoebe Wagner: When We Hold Each Other Up

Phoebe Wagner, Bronte Christopher Wieland: Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation

Brenda J. Pierson: Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro: Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

Justine Norton-Kertson: Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology

Sim Kern: The Free People’s Village

Ruthanna Emrys: A Half-Built Garden

Sarina Ulibarri: Glass & Gardens

Books (Non-fiction):

Murray Bookchin: The Ecology of Freedom

George Monbiot: Feral

Miles Olson: Unlearn, Rewild

Mark Shepard: Restoration Agriculture

Kristin Ohlson: The Soil Will Save Us

Rowan Hooper: How To Spend A Trillion Dollars

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing: The Mushroom At The End of The World

Kimberly Nicholas: Under The Sky We Make

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass

David Miller: Solved

Ayana Johnson, Katharine Wilkinson: All We Can Save

Jonathan Safran Foer: We Are The Weather

Colin Tudge: Six Steps Back To The Land

Edward Wilson: Half-Earth

Natalie Fee: How To Save The World For Free

Kaden Hogan: Humans of Climate Change

Rebecca Huntley: How To Talk About Climate Change In A Way That Makes A Difference

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac: The Future We Choose

Jonathon Porritt: Hope In Hell

Paul Hawken: Regeneration

Mark Maslin: How To Save Our Planet

Katherine Hayhoe: Saving Us

Jimmy Dunson: Building Power While The Lights Are Out

Paul Raekstad, Sofa Saio Gradin: Prefigurative Politics

Andreas Malm: How To Blow Up A Pipeline

Phoebe Wagner, Bronte Christopher Wieland: Almanac For The Anthropocene

Chris Turner: How To Be A Climate Optimist

William MacAskill: What We Owe To The Future

Mikaela Loach: It's Not That Radical

Miles Richardson: Reconnection

David Harvey: Spaces of Hope Rebel Cities

Eric Holthaus: The Future Earth

Zahra Biabani: Climate Optimism

David Ehrenfeld: Becoming Good Ancestors

Stephen Gliessman: Agroecology

Chris Carlsson: Nowtopia

Jon Alexander: Citizens

Leah Thomas: The Intersectional Environmentalist

Greta Thunberg: The Climate Book

Jen Bendell, Rupert Read: Deep Adaptation

Seth Godin: The Carbon Almanac

Jane Goodall: The Book of Hope

Vandana Shiva: Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture

Amitav Ghosh: The Great Derangement

Minouche Shafik: What We Owe To Each Other

Dieter Helm: Net Zero

Chris Goodall: What We Need To Do Now

Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Stephanie Foote: The Cambridge Companion To The Environmental Humanities

Bella Lack: The Children of The Anthropocene

Hannah Ritchie: Not The End of The World

Chris Turner: How To Be A Climate Optimist

Kim Stanley Robinson: Ministry For The Future

Fiona Mathews, Tim Kendall: Black Ops & Beaver Bombing

Jeff Goodell: The Water Will Come

Lynne Jones: Sorry For The Inconvenience But This Is An Emergency

Helen Crist: Abundant Earth

Sam Bentley: Good News, Planet Earth!

Timothy Beal: When Time Is Short

Andrew Boyd: I Want A Better Catastrophe

Kristen R. Ghodsee: Everyday Utopia

Elizabeth Cripps: What Climate Justice Means & Why We Should Care

Kylie Flanagan: Climate Resilience

Chris Johnstone, Joanna Macy: Active Hope

Mark Engler: This is an Uprising

Anne Therese Gennari: The Climate Optimist Handbook

Magazines:

Solarpunk Magazine

Positive News

Resurgence & Ecologist

Ethical Consumer

Films (Fiction):

How To Blow Up A Pipeline

The End We Start From

Woman At War

Black Panther

Star Trek

Tomorrowland

Films (Documentary):

2040: How We Can Save The Planet

The People vs Big Oil

Wild Isles

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Generation Green New Deal

Planet Earth III

Video Games:

Terra Nil

Animal Crossing

Gilded Shadows

Anno 2070

Stardew Valley

RPGs:

Solarpunk Futures

Perfect Storm

Advocacy Groups:

A22 Network

Extinction Rebellion

Greenpeace

Friends of The Earth

Green New Deal Rising

Apps:

Ethy

Sojo

BackMarket

Depop

Vinted

Olio

Buy Nothing

Too Good To Go

Websites:

European Co-housing

UK Co-housing

US Co-housing

Brought By Bike (connects you with zero-carbon delivery goods)

ClimateBase (find a sustainable career)

Environmentjob (ditto)

Businesses (🤢):

Ethical Superstore

Hodmedods

Fairtransport/Sail Cargo Alliance

Let me know if you think there’s anything I’ve missed!

[cryptfile]

ᝰ FANDOMS I’M CURRENTLY WRITTING FOR:

those marked in colored letters are the ones i’m currently simping on. Feel free to send promps, requests of characters or anything honestly. Always nice to recieve a message! / This list will be updated regularly so you guys can know what i’m into, also, if I forgot someone.

THE BOYS

Billy Butcher, Soldier Boy, Victoria Neuman, Starlight/Annie January, The Deep, A-Train, Frenchie, Sister Sage, Queen Maeve, Firecracker, Homelander, Hughie Campbell, Kimiko.

GEN V

Cate Dunlap, Jordan Li, Sam and Luke Riordan, Marie Moreau, Emma Myers.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

Rhaenyra Targaryen, Daemon Targaryen, Alicent Hightower, Jacaerys Velaryon, Aemond Targaryen, Aegon Targaryen, Harwin Strong, Criston Cole.

MARVEL

Loki Laufeyson, Sylvie Laufeydottir, Moonknight x3, Hawkeye/Comic!Clint Barton [recasted as Oliver Jackson-Cohen], Yelena Belova, Kate Bishop, Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Steve Rogers, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Deadpool, Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s in general, X-Men’s in general, Thor Odinson, Carol Danvers, Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, Bucky Barnes, Fantastic Four, Adam Warlock, Ant Man, Druig, Natasha Romanoff, and more since there are too many characters, feel free to ask!

HARRY POTTER

Remus Lupin [marauders era, post I war, nothing weird], Sirius and Regulus Black [marauders!era], James Potter [usually recasted as Dev Patel], Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott.

BRIDGERTON

Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton, Benedict Bridgerton, Colin Bridgerton, Francesca Bridgerton, Daphne Bridgerton, Simon Basset, King George.

THE BEAR

Carmy Berzatto, Sydney Adamu, Richie Jerimovich, Luca.

TWILIGHT

Carlisle Cullen, Charlie Swan, Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Alice Cullen, Rosalie Hale, Emmett Cullen, Jasper Hale, Leah Clearwater, Alec and Jane Vulturi, Benjamin.

YELLOWJACKETS

Natalie Scatorccio, Jackie Taylor, Shauna Sadecki, Van Palmer, Lottie Matthews, Taissa Turner, Misty Quigley.

GRISHAVERSE

Nikolai Lantsov, Kaz Brekker, Alina Starkov, Matthias Helvar, Aleksander Morozova / The Darkling, Nina Zenik, Inej Ghafa, Malyen Oretsev, Zoya Nazyalenski.

DAISY JONES AND THE SIX

Daisy Jones, Karen Sirko, Billy Dunne, Warren Rhodes, Eddie Roundtree.

THE HUNGER GAMES

Peeta Mellark, Finnick Odair, Young!Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen, Johanna Mason.

STAR WARS

Anakin Skywalker, Qimir / The Stranger, Kylo Ren [yes, I have a type], Shin Hati, Han Solo.

MISC

Rafe Cameron [OBX], James Beaufort [Maxton Hall], Drew Starkey, Dean and Sam Winchester [Supernatural], Aaron Taylor Johnson in most of his roles aka Kick-Ass or Bullet Train, Robin Buckley [Stranger Things], Steve Harrington [Stranger Things], Rick Flag [DC], Harley Queen [DC], Battinson [DC], Art Donaldson, Mike Faist, Nicholas Chavez.

[thislovintime]

In memoriam: Leah Cohen Kunkel. Sincere condolences to her family and friends. Photo 1 from KRLA Beat, photo 2 from Tiger Beat.

“[Leah] and I got together as a result of meeting up at Cass’ house, and Leah is still one of my very best friends and lives about 75 minutes away from here up in Massachusetts and married Russ Kunkel, the fabulous folk-rock drummer, and had a couple of kids, including Nathaniel Kunkel, one of the great engineers/producers in America today.” - Peter Tork, Rolling Stone, 2007, published February 2019

[bewitchingomen]

Leah passed away on November 26 2024 aged 76. The death was announced by  Owen-Elliot Kugell and Nathaniel Kunkel. My condolences to Leah's family and friends.

Leah Cohen—younger sister of Cass Elliot and former girlfriend of Peter Tork—entering the Monterey Pop Music Festival on June 16th, 1967. Photo by Henry Diltz

[thatchickwithtoomanyhobbies]

The Boys

***My weird head-canons about the boys. Don’t judge me, I know I’m weird. 🤪***

Aiello

-Most definitely a cat person.

-Played baseball since he was a kid and considered going pro but then decided against it.

-Wants to get married but the girls think he’s not husband material despite being pretty good looking.

-A great artist but thinks its not a masculine trait (whatever that means), so he doesn’t do it often or really tell anyone about it.

-A giant momma’s boy. He cried when saying goodbye to her the day he got shipped out and wrote her letters at least once a week. Probably cried at least once while he was gone because he missed her.

-Missed his mom’s cooking to the point that he’d dream about it then wake up starving.

-The youngest of four kids and the only boy. His sisters tortured him with dress up and dolls when he was a kid.

-Not sure if he wants kids of his own but is willing to be the cool uncle.

-Once caught the stove on fire by accident and pretended he found it like that. His parents still have no idea.

-Got hit in the back of the head with an aluminum baseball bat once, cracked his head open, and had to get stitches. His hair still doesn’t grow in that spot but he manages to cover it up.

Stiles

-Definitely somewhere on the autism spectrum. Special interests: philosophy, ancient Greece, Edgar Allen Poe, and of course photography.

-Mom was a single mom majority of his childhood so he is decidedly a momma’s boy. Also very much a feminist.

-He’s got a raging sweet tooth. If it has sugar, he most likely loves it. Especially if its cake.

-Doesn’t really drink because, “I like to be in charge of my mental faculties at all times.”

-So very, very awkward with girls. He tries talking to one, says something he doesn’t realize is creepy and/or weird and scares her off. He still hasn’t had a girlfriend at the age of 22.

-His little sister tries to help him but she thinks he’s a lost cause and is doomed to a life of singleness.

-Once he realized he was most likely getting drafted into WW2 he started researching military tactics because “you can never be too prepared”

-Loved ‘The Hobbit’ as a kid. He’s owned several copies of it over the years because he reads it at least twice a month and they just keep falling apart.

-He was thrilled when Tolkien published ‘Lord of the Rings’ and read it in a weekend.

-Still has his childhood teddy bear and keeps it on his bookshelf. Sometimes he pulls it down to sit in the armchair with him while he reads.

Zussman

-He’d definitely live off of hotdogs and mac n cheese if you let him.

- He was an only child until he was 12 when his parents unexpectedly had his baby sister. He wasn’t excited at first but doted on her constantly once she was born.

-According to her, he’s her best friend. He’d never admit to it at the risk of being called a sissy, but he feels the same way.

-She bawled in his arms the day he left and said she wanted to go with him. He somehow held it together, but after he got on the train he started crying too.

-Whenever he wanted to give up and die while he was a POW he’d think of how she’d feel if he wasn’t there to braid her hair anymore or take her on their “Leah and Robbie dates” and that gave him the strength he needed to push on just one more day.

-Yes he learned how to braid her hair because she wanted him to do it one day and he was upset that he didn’t know how.

-Once he got home, his family refused to let him out of their sights.

-Plays pranks on his family. Sometimes Leah helps, but most of the time its just him booby trapping something and their parents setting them off.

- ‘Robert Cohen Zussman’ said in a very annoyed and somewhat angry tone is very often heard in that house. Along with “What on earth possessed you to do that?” and “What is wrong with you?”

-Although once they realize how close they were to losing him they don’t really mind it as much.

Daniels

-Loves barbecue.

-Enlisted to fight rather than get drafted because either way he was gonna have to go fight and it may as well be on his own terms.

-Is practically married to his grill in the summer. Hazel jokes that he loves it more than her and that he should leave her for it.

-Terrified of clowns. No idea why. They just freak him out.

-Was once dive-bombed and chased by an angry raccoon while Aiello, Stiles, and Zussman were visiting. Zuss had to shoo it away with the broom. After he finished laughing that is.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

From the DM:

"Meanwhile Meghan's show will also have some serious talent behind it. It will be directed by Michael Steed who worked on Anthony Bourdain's Emmy-winning Parts Unknown, and among the behind-the-camera staff is Leah Hariton, the showrunner for Selena Gomez's HBO cooking show, 'Selena + Chef.' The film permit obtained by DailyMail.com reveals that Alex Dandino, the production manager of that same show is also involved in Meghan's entry into the culinary world, raising the possibility that she too will be joined by professional chefs for a cook-a-long."

Bourdain's former crew member as director and Selena's current showrunner and PM? Meghan doesn't have a single original thought in that head of hers. Surrounding herself with the talented staff of other talented and charismatic people won't suddenly make her talented and charismatic, as well. Just ask Liz Garbus, Spotify's Bill Simmons ("f***ing grifters"), UTA's Jerry Zimmer (MM's "not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent at all"), or Samantha Cohen. Perhaps Corey will join her for a cook-along segment? He'll already be familiar with her recipes, since she "borrowed" them from him.

[realhousewives-fan]

Leah Has Joined the Lawsuit Bandwagon

Leah McSweeney has joined the bandwagon of suing Bravo, and she’s accusing Andy Cohen of pressuring the women to take cocaine with him.

Sha has filed a lawsuit against Andy and claimed that Bravo “preyed on her alcoholism.”

She accused Andy of “snorting cocaine with his favourite Housewives” and gives special professional favours to them.

Honestly, I wasn’t shocked by this even if Page Six called it a bombshell of a lawsuit.

Kathy Griffin accused Andy of snorting cocaine years ago, but it seems like people didn’t listen to her.

And favouritism is not a secret either. Vicki Gunvalson, Teresa Giudice, and Kyle Richards are some of his favourites.

But Andy is fighting back. He claims that Leah is trying to “force an unjustified settlement”.

Leah went on to claim that Bravo are “run by people who create a dangerous work environment, encourage substance abuse to artificially create drama and cynically prey on the vulnerabilities of their employees.”

Leah used the episode “Scary Island” as an example in her lawsuit and claimed that the producers wanted her as a “potential successor” to Kelly Bensimon.

Well, Kelly didn’t appreciate the comparison.

She thinks that Leah implies that she was “under the influence of drugs or going through a mental ill-health episode.”

That she and Leah were exploited by Bravo. But she doesn’t feel like that.

“I’m not a victim. I’m nobody’s victim.”

And honestly? I actually regret ever being a fan of Leah as a housewife.

She has caused nothing but trouble and negativity, and I’m tired of her complaints.

Is the younger generation of housewives joining the show to be celebrities? It doesn’t seem like they’re following the rules or playing the game right.

Monica Garcia said in a leaked audio that she wouldn’t reduce herself to Bravo, she wants to be the next Kim Kardashian.

Kenya Moore claimed that Bravo allows just about anybody to become a housewife now, it’s not an appreciated achievement anymore.

And all Leah has done since RHONY got cancelled is pointing fingers and blaming others for her own failures. I’m so done with her.