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Stop me if you've heard this one before: I haven't slept in days.
Jasper is six months old. He doesn't so much sleep at night as he does snooze and hang out between bouts of crying for mommy. He invariably ends up in bed with me, which is in some ways great, because he is as soft and snuggly as a cashmere pillow stuffed with kittens and dusted with baby powder and fairy farts, but also, in some very important ways, not great, because he inevitably kicks me in the boobs a few dozen times. I don't sleep when he's tucked up against me. I haven't slept in days. Weeks even. I've lost track.
I have the dim sense that this is not quite right, that this is sub-optimal, that things really shouldn't be this way. Emilia slept in her crib, swaddle-free, through the night, from about five months of age (of course, she didn't sleep a wink during the day, but at least our nights were restful.) For the life of me, I have not been able to recall how or why she did this. I don't remember doing anything special. Except for, you know, a little bit of crying it out now and again.
It finally sunk in last night - late, late last night - that we had been willing to let Emilia cry, a bit, at bedtime or during night wakings. Not very much, and not for very long - you could hardly call it Ferberizing; more like Ferber lite - but on those occasions when it seemed that she needed to fuss herself down and when it was clear that her cries were fussy tired cries and not desperate needy cries, we'd let her cry it out for a minutes on her own. And it worked, and she was fine, and we all slept, and it was good.
But I can't bring myself to do it this time around, and I'm not even sure why. All of Jasper's cries sound desperate to me; every whimper out of his throat yanks at my heart and rakes across my nerves. His sobs and shouts and grumbles ring in my ears - he needs me! My baby NEEDS me! - and every moment of tears passes like an eternity. My heart lodges itself in my throat and my blood thrums in my ears and my whole body tenses. I cannot let him cry.
And sure enough, when I hold him, he stops, and herein lays the problem, I think: he does need me. He needs me in a way that my spirited, independent baby girl never did. She never cried to be held or to be snuggled: she cried (as she still does) to be free, to stand alone, to have her way. She cried in resistance to shutting her eyes against the fascinations of the day; she cried from the exhaustion of having rolled/crawled/climbed/raced her way through every moment of her wee existence. She cried and raged against boredom, against constraint; she cried with the fury and spirit of a tiny Beat poet, shouting her rhythms into the shadows and demanding that world give way to her presence. Jasper, on the other hand, only cries for boobies and hugs and - in the event of an epic shit - a clean diaper. Those, I can provide. And so I do.
So it is that I cannot let him cry. I cannot let him cry because I know that it is within my power to soothe his cries. I cannot let him cry because he cries for me. Such is the vanity of motherhood, that I am weakened by his need for me, that I am weakened by any such need, that the needing - the feeling that I am necessary, that I am fundamentally necessary, in any given moment, that I am the only being in this world that can provide the desired comfort - becomes the focal point of all my motivation: gratify his need (indeed, their need, for my daughter knows well that she can have me wrapped around her finger only by uttering the words I need you, Mommy.) So it is that his need, my need, our need for sleep become secondary to the need that is articulated - that he articulates - most forcefully: the immediate need for comfort, the need to be held, the need for a hush to be wrapped in love.
But love cannot sustain the sleep-deprived mother, and the sleep-deprived mother is an impaired mother and all the hugs in the world aren't going to help anyone if I'm passed out on the floor and the children have to crawl over my body and forage for sustenance.
So do I do this? Do I let him cry and hope that sleep comes and that my heart doesn't explode? Or do I forge ahead on the fuel of love and hugs?
Toronto-area peeps - if you're interested in joining me at a breastfeeding demonstration (to save breastfeeding clinics in Ontario) on Wednesday, let me know. Details are at this post; leave a comment or e-mail me if you wanna go. UPDATE: Mister Jasper is a very sick little baby, and I simply can't go to this. E-mail me if you want details, to attend yourself. (And? Anyone local who wants to go and do a brief story on it for BlogHers Act Canada? I would LOVE you. E-mail me.)
Labels: bad mother, siblings, sleep


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Sacha Baron Cohen: The Fresh Air Interview
Actor and writer Sacha Baron Cohen is famous for taking his characters — Ali G., Borat, Bruno — into the real world, interacting with people who have no idea that they're dealing with a fictional character. But his new movie, The Dictator, is a scripted comedy about a tyrant on the loose in New York.
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Other segments from the episode on May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012
Guest: Sacha Baron Cohen
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, actor and writer Sacha Baron Cohen, is famous for taking his characters into the real world, and interacting with people who have no idea that they're dealing with a fictitious character.
He's done it with his characters Ali G, a hip-hop wannabe and clueless TV interviewer; Borat, a misogynistic, anti-Semitic and all-around clueless man from Kazakhstan; and Bruno, an Austrian, gay fashion reporter who comes to America and is, of course, clueless and incredibly inappropriate.
But Baron Cohen's new movie, "The Dictator," is scripted. He plays General Aladeen, the tyrannical ruler of the fictitious North African country Wadiya, who is trying to build a nuclear weapon. NATO has threatened his country with air strikes against the nuclear program unless he addresses the U.N. in person, which is what brings Aladeen to the U.S.
For reasons I won't give away, one of his body doubles is being passed off as General Aladeen, leaving the dictator on his own and, of course, clueless in Manhattan. So he takes a job at a health food store, run by an environmentally dedicated young feminist played by Anna Faris. Here they are right after she's hired him.
ANNA FARIS: (As Zoey) Anyway, let me give you the grand tour. Up on the roof we've got this amazing organic garden, and...
SACHA BARON COHEN: (As Aladeen) Boring. Do you sell any assault rifles?
FARIS: (As Zoey) Oh wait, I got it. Humor, right? I took a feminist clown workshop once. Help, help, I'm trapped under a glass ceiling. I wasn't the best student, but...
BARON COHEN: (As Aladeen) You seem educated.
FARIS: (As Zoey) Yes, I went to Amherst.
BARON COHEN: (As Aladeen) I love it when women go to school. It's like seeing a monkey on roller skates. It means nothing to them, but it's so adorable for us.
GROSS: Sacha Baron Cohen, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Thank you so much for coming back to the show.
BARON COHEN: Thank you for having me back, Terry.
GROSS: So why did you want your next character to be a Middle Eastern dictator?
BARON COHEN: Well, I'll qualify that firstly and say he's a North African dictator. Because they are - dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world. And just looking around, you know, over the last 10 years in particular, I kind of became obsessed Colonel Gadhafi, amongst others, but Gadhafi in particular because he was so over the top.
You know, his dress style was so flamboyant, so ridiculous. In fact it was only - it could only really get to be - get to that level of absurdity by the fact that he was somebody who was unquestioned. You know, it's a bit like when you walk around Los Angeles, and you see some of these stars dressed in a peculiar way, the reason they're dressed like that is that no one actually questions them.
You know, they get to a status where, you know, they are unquestionable. And obviously these dictators become unquestionable and therefore ridiculous, and they become more and more extreme. So Gadhafi with his virgin guards, you know, apparently he had 30 virgin guards who went with him everywhere.
He organized these orgies with Berlusconi. He, you know, is notorious for breaking wind furiously during various...
GROSS: Oh, I didn't know that. Really?
BARON COHEN: Various BBC interviews, yeah.
GROSS: Do they edit that out, or do they leave that in?
BARON COHEN: They actually, they did a little piece on it because after he did the interview, they noticed that he was breaking wind, not only breaking wind but sort of raising himself up before breaking wind in a kind of proud moment of defiance of Western journalistic standards.
So yeah, he was a kind of ludicrous character. I thought wow, he's a good inspiration. And then I sort of mixed that in with a kind of older character I had and took bits and bobs from sort of other dictators.
GROSS: I think there's a little Saddam Hussein in there.
BARON COHEN: A tiny bit, a tiny bit. I mean, Saddam Hussein I never found that ludicrous. You know, he was kind of pure scary to me, and maybe that was just my age when I was kind of watching him on television. But he didn't - he wasn't as laughable as Gadhafi.
Now Gadhafi, I would say when we started writing this film, it was with a few guys from - who write "Curb Your Enthusiasm." And Gadhafi was still alive, the Arab spring hadn't happened at all. And we started writing this idea of what would happen if the worst thing possible happened to this dictator, in other words what's the worst thing that could happen, it would be democracy coming to his country, you know, freedoms coming to his country.
And we were worried because Gadhafi was alive and kicking. So I went and met up with somebody who was quite up in an Arab government. I went on a little tour around some Arab countries. And I just wanted to find out whether there was any problem with us doing a movie loosely based on Gadhafi. And I said to this acquaintance, you know, is Gadhafi still dangerous, and the man answered yes, he tried to kill my father.
And then I said, well, is he still killing people, and he was saying yes. And I said, well, all right, you know, what happens if there's a problem, and he tries to somehow jeopardize the making of the film because we thought, you know, we didn't know how far his reach extended. Obviously, you know, Lockerby was a few years beforehand, but you never really want to risk an international terrorist incident while you're actually filming.
And he said, you know, this guy said if there was a problem that he'd try and sort it out. But then obviously events changed. So as a result of that, we released this statement saying that it was based on a book by Saddam Hussein in order to kind of slightly mislead the public and allow us to shoot the film.
GROSS: Saddam was - Saddam Hussein was gone already. But I think you did kind of capture some of Saddam Hussein's verbal grandiosity.
BARON COHEN: Yes, well, there was one other part, which is Saddam Hussein was a fan and kept this sort of plethora of bizarre art, often sort of slightly erotic, sort of fantasy art. And so we used some of that kind of imagery. We had a brilliant production designer in this called Victor Kimpster(ph), who did sort of "Born on the Fourth of July" and a lot of those Oliver Stone movies and done - had some great credits.
And, you know, I said him: Listen, we want to create this new country that is not quite in the Middle East, it's not quite in Africa, but, you know, it has elements of Gadhafi, it has elements of the United Arab Emirates, it has elements of Turkmenistan. We don't want it to be specific, but we want it to feel real.
So, you know, from Saddam Hussein we certainly got some of that visual style.
GROSS: One of the things you stay away from in "The Dictator" is religion. We don't know if this dictator is Muslim. There's no mention of Islam, there's no mention of the prophet Muhammad, and that's a good thing, I think, because I don't think it's - I mean, Muslims are very offended by anything that parodies the religion but also especially it's considered sacrilege to, you know, parody in any way the prophet. Did you intentionally try to avoid that so as not to be misunderstood, so as not to insult people who you had no interest in insulting?
BARON COHEN: Exactly. I mean, firstly again, he's not an Arab dictator, and he actually says that he isn't in the movie. And so we wanted to really ensure that he was not Arabic in any way. So we created a new language - well, I say that, but he actually speaks at times in Hebrew, which would be strange for...
GROSS: Like Borat.
BARON COHEN: Exactly, which would be strange for an Arabic dictator. And we created a new alphabet, which was actually a form of Manchu, which is a dialect, Chinese dialect. And we wanted to make sure the architecture was, you know, not exactly Arabic, as well. So we wanted it to be Arabesque but have influences of Africa and other dictatorships, as well.
And in terms of the religion, you know, he's not a Muslim. His religion is himself. You know, he's turned himself into a demigod. You know, and also we wanted to really make it clear particularly after the Arab spring that this was in no way a parody of Arabs. This was a parody of people who oppress Arabs and people who oppress other people around the world.
So that was kind of really crucial, you know, for me to, you know, put out there to show that, you know, that we do support, you know, the rights of people to be free, whatever their religion.
GROSS: So you mentioned that the language that you're speaking, and some of this is actually Hebrew, you come up with a word, and I don't know if this is a Hebrew word or a made-up word for the female genitals, which is something like Melawach
BARON COHEN: Melawach?
GROSS: Yeah.
BARON COHEN: Melawach is actually - I think it's a fried bread, which you can order in any Yemenite restaurant.
GROSS: OK, and you chose that because?
BARON COHEN: Well, it was just easy to remember because I actually enjoy eating Melawach.
BARON COHEN: And I mean the - I'm sorry, I mean the Yemenite bread. I feel I've somehow dug a hole.
BARON COHEN: Anyway, you know what I mean. But I do enjoy Yemenite cuisine, and that's not a euphemism.
GROSS: Do you get any criticisms from Hebrew-speaking people for using Hebrew in your movies and passing it off as the language of the oppressor or the language of - yeah?
BARON COHEN: Well, when - during the premiere of "Borat" in Israel, they had a screening, and about two-thirds of the way through, somebody shouted in the back row, you know, (unintelligible), which means he's speaking Hebrew. And at that point, the whole audience erupted in applause. You know, I think they loved it, you know, the irony.
I do like the irony of Borat, a deeply anti-Semitic character, speaking Hebrew, and this guy, who is the - you know, wants to annihilate Israel, is also speaking Hebrew.
GROSS: My guest is Sacha Baron Cohen. He co-wrote and stars in the new movie "The Dictator." More after a break; this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: So if you're just joining us, my guest is Sacha Baron Cohen, and his new movie is "The Dictator," and he plays a North African dictator in this one. So this is the first time that you have a character who comes to America, and it's scripted. You know, Bruno's come to America, Ali G's come to America, Borat's come to America, but that has been your character coming and actually talking to real people who didn't know who the characters were and didn't know that they were, you know, made-up characters.
So what are some of the differences for you - first of all, why did you do this as a scripted film? My assumption would be because it was unsafe to do it any other way at this point, between how famous you are now, more people are in on the joke, lawsuits, you've risked your life in other films for the joke. So I assume that's among the reasons why this one's scripted.
BARON COHEN: That's it, and the biggest one was a creative one. We actually just thought we could make a better movie if it had a script and, you know, didn't involve real people. I think pulling off, pulling off a kind of fake documentary of me being a, you know, actual dictator would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible because, you know, we got away with it on "Borat" because Kazakhstan was a real country. So you could say I'm from Kazakhstan National Television, and people would look up Kazakhstan, and it existed.
But if I came this time and said I'm from Wadiya, they'd, you know, look it up and realize it didn't exist, and if I said listen, I'm the dictator of Turkmenistan or, you know, or Libya, they could look it up on Wikipedia and realize that I'm not. So it would have been impossible to, you know, have this real story.
And also we wanted to have a love story in it because, you know, it's really the transformation of, you know, this dictator becomes humanized. You know, he's inhuman, he's amoral at the beginning, and he does change a little bit over time. So we knew we needed a woman to do that. In Bruno's case, it was a man, but in this case we knew that we needed somebody to transform him a little bit, and that would have been impossible in a non-scripted film.
Plus it had got extremely dangerous. On "Bruno," I remember towards the end, you know, we loved the experience. But I did say to the team, you know, at some point we've got to stop because you can only be so lucky, and we'd been incredibly lucky by - you know, no one had been seriously injured.
You know, I broke my foot, but that was about it. I broke my foot and my thumb, and that was about it. But we were very close a lot of times to, you know, sustaining real injuries and not just me, the crew as well. You know, there was a lot of kind of very violent situations, and we were antagonizing a lot of people who were armed, which we hadn't really dealt with in "Borat."
But with "Bruno," we felt that because he was sort of more of an unlikeable figure in a way that you would have to put him in slightly more dangerous situations and situations of homophobia. And, you know, in a lot of places where we were dealing with homophobes, a lot of those guys were armed. And so it became - you know, we were very lucky that there wasn't really a problem.
GROSS: I remember you talking about you breaking your thumb. What happened to your foot?
BARON COHEN: Well, OK, this is what happened to my foot. I was in Kansas. There's a scene in "Bruno" where I am wearing S&M gear, and I'm chained up to my boyfriend, and he has a toilet brush in his mouth that is kind of strapped there. And anyway, we're chained up together. We were shooting it in this hotel room, and we, like, called up room service.
And the guy comes in, room service, and the room is in a despicable state. There are animals in certain drawers, and it looks pretty disgusting, and me and my boyfriend are, you know, semi-naked in S&M gear tied up together. And, you know, I'm saying: Do you mind, you know, can you give us the room service? Do you mind unchaining us?
And basically the guy called the police, and we were in Kansas. We'd had some problems with the police beforehand, and the local police had decided that they wanted to arrest me. And they'd warned me beforehand if we did anything in Kansas, they'd arrest us because I'd just done this - just done this scene with a group called the rather unpleasant and offensive name of God Hates Fags, who are run by the Phelps family.
And they are the people who protest at the funerals of soldiers who have returned from Iraq. They're quite a despicable group. And so I had done some stuff to slightly antagonize them, and I shot a scene with them, and the police had kind of warned me that they'd come and arrest me.
So this guy, back to the hotel room, the room service guy brought up the manager, the manager called the police, and so we knew we had about five minutes to get out of the hotel before the police turned up, and then I'd be arrested.
So I was chained to my co-star, and we had an English bodyguard. This guy said: All right, let's go, come on, everybody out, everybody out. And me and my co-star start running down the corridor, and we went towards the elevator, and we've got - you know, we always have like an escape car waiting, you know, a getaway car. It's like any good heist.
And so the getaway car is waiting 14 stories down in the alleyway. And so we get to the elevator, and the elevator is closing, and then suddenly their - the hotel security stopped the elevator from closing. And so we have to run out of the elevator, and we start running down the stairs.
And basically the bodyguard gets - hears in his earpiece that the police are downstairs waiting for me. And so he says: All right, follow me, follow me. And we start running, you know, down this corridor, and you see, like, other hotel guests looking at us. And he's - I go: Where are we going? He goes: Just follow me, follow me.
And we get to the end of the corridor, to the window, and he lifts open the window. And I said: Why are you doing that? He says: Get out, get out the window. Jump out. So I look outside the window, and we're 14 stories up, and it's a building from I think 1910, and there's an old, rickety fire escape there. And so he said, come on, go, go, go, the police are going to get you. Come on.
So we start running down this rickety fire escape 14 stories up. We get down to the second floor, and as with a lot of these old fire escapes, they don't reach the floor. So we're two stories up, and the getaway car is - you know, I can see the getaway car. And I said: How do we get down? He goes: Jump, jump.
And so I jumped, wearing these high heels, while I was still attached to my friend, and broke my heel and then, you know, got in the car, and we kind of - we left the state because that was always the rule, which was, you know, those police, if you're ever - if there's ever a warrant for your arrest, they've only got jurisdiction in the state.
So - but when I got back to the hotel, I filmed another day, and then I realized there was something wrong with my foot, and it had been cracked, the heel had been cracked.
GROSS: That sounds really horrible. And it reminds me of something that Jerry Seinfeld was quoted as saying in the New York Times, in an article about you.
BARON COHEN: Was he in S&M gear, as well?
GROSS: That's not what he was saying. What he was saying was he thinks that your comedy comes from a place of courage, and his comes from a place of fear. But you really have to be brave to do - and maybe crazy to take those kinds of chances.
BARON COHEN: I don't know if I'm brave. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm brave. I think I think in the moment. So when I'm in character, I'm in character, and I'm obviously thinking about what's going on around me, but it's easier to do stuff when you're in character.
GROSS: Sacha Baron Cohen will be back in the second half of the show. He co-wrote and stars in the new movie "The Dictator." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Sacha Baron Cohen. He co-wrote and stars in the new movie "The Dictator." He plays General Aladeen, the tyrannical ruler of the fictitious North African country, Wadiya. "The Dictator" is scripted but Baron Cohen's previous films, "Borat" and "Bruno," were not. He took those characters, as well as his TV character Ali G, into the real world, feeling his interactions with unsuspecting people.
When we left off, he was telling us about running from the police while in character as Bruno. It's just one of dozens of encounters Baron Cohen's had with police in the U.S.
Note to parents: Some of his comedy is very adult.
Are there states that you can no longer shoot a movie in because you're still wanted by the police there because of things that you did in previous films?
BARON COHEN: Yes. There are some towns in certain states. There was, funny enough, years ago, when I started doing "Da Ali G Show," we went to Sedona in Arizona and I was, you know, this was the first "Ali G Show," I'd never really been in America before - I'd been once before - and I was doing a guide to the New Age and I went to see this guy and he was going to try and heal me and each time he kept, he goes, you know, he goes you've got to relax, man, you've got to relax, and I was being incredibly tense. I go - I try to relax. I try. And he goes, no, no, no. He goes you've got to relax, man. You've got to relax. And then he goes, listen, I'm going to give you five minutes to be alone. I'm going to come back in the room. It was this kind of hippie healer. He goes, when I come back in the room I want you to be relaxed.
So he came back in the room after five minutes and I was simulating under the blanket and I go, I relax. I relax. And this hippie got incredibly angry. It turned out he was an ex-biker turned healer and he and his biker friends went crazy, they called the police, and so we made a run for it. We got to the next place and anyway, I'm in a van by myself. All the rest of the crew are down setting up the next, the next group of people that we were going to interview. I'm alone in the van. Suddenly three police cars turn up and they surround the van and they asked me to get out. So I get out of a van and one of the cops says, you know, tell me, sir, what were you doing? I go, it's not the problem. I was making simulations sexy time. They seized the tapes and they said all right, you know, stay here and we're going to come to your hotel in half an hour and then take you to the police station. And so I went back to the hotel, I gathered the crew, and I called up my lawyer and I said, what do I do? And he said get in the car and drive as fast as you can to the airport and get out of the state. Because he knew that we, you know, there was no way out; you know, they have the evidence and it would be, I was going to be in jail for a couple of years. So yeah, so yes, Sedona I have not returned to since.
GROSS: Well, I could definitely see why you're doing scripted movies now.
BARON COHEN: Yeah.
GROSS: In the don't push your luck category. Yeah.
BARON COHEN: I've got to say, I do miss some of the fun. I miss it a little bit.
GROSS: Well, it must be so weird not to have, I assume like you have permits to shoot on the street and you might have police protecting you as opposed to police trying to arrest you. That must be a new feeling for you.
BARON COHEN: Yes. I mean there was a time, you know, I got so used to the police turning up. You know, with "Borat" I think they came about 45 times. Sometimes it was the police, then the FBI were following us for a while. They thought that - they had so many complaints that there was a Middle Eastern man, and this was Borat, who is supposedly from Kazakhstan, a Middle Eastern man driving through America in an ice cream van, that the FBI assigned a team to us. And so we had the FBI and then we had the Secret Service. But there were so many of these instances, and with "Bruno" as well, that for a while it would take about six months afterwards for me not to totally freak out whenever I saw a policeman. And so it was totally bizarre shooting "The Dictator," to actually have cops protecting me. It was...
BARON COHEN: ...quite ironic. And you know...
GROSS: So were any of the police who were part of the let's arrest him chapter of your life the same people who are protecting you for "The Dictator"?
BARON COHEN: No. No.
BARON COHEN: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean a lot of the cops loved it, you know.
GROSS: Mm-hmm.
BARON COHEN: But, I mean there was one time during the filming of "The Dictator," there's one shot where we are just driving down the street and I suddenly saw a bunch of police around a hotel room; I said all right, wait a minute, stop the car, and it turned out that Ahmadinejad was staying at the hotel. And I said, all right, great. We've got to shoot something here. And so basically Ahmadinejad's convoy arrived and, you know, it's a bit of the movie where The Dictator is down and out in New York on the street and no one recognizes him because he's had his beard shaved off. And so I was there saying, you know, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's me. I've still got your tennis shorts. What are you doing? It's me. Ahmadine, where are you? You know, my friend, (unintelligible), you know, you are my doubles badminton partner, why you're not responding?
BARON COHEN: Anyway, the police were so scared. They all were fans and they were, you know, they were saying listen, please don't ruin this for us. We've got, you know, they've asked, you know, the Iran government have asked us to look after Ahmadinejad. Said, you know, if you cross the street we will have to arrest you. So there is a, there's a shot in the movie that is, that we use. You see me surrounded by five cops and those guys are real.
GROSS: And they...
GROSS: And they didn't arrest you.
BARON COHEN: No, they didn't arrest me but they made it clear if I was going to cross the road that they'd arrest me. So, and I've got this thing where I can't get arrested in America, otherwise my visa then becomes taken away from me.
GROSS: Wow.
BARON COHEN: Which, if you want to get rid of me, anyone, just arrest me and then I'm out of the country.
GROSS: Duly noted.
GROSS: So, if you're just joining us, my guest is Sacha Baron Cohen, and his new movie is called "The Dictator," and it's a very funny film in which he plays a North African dictator of a fictitious country. Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Sacha Baron Cohen, who did the movies "Bruno" and "Borat," "Da Ali G Show," and his new movie is "The Dictator." And it's a comedy about a dictator of a North African fictitious country.
So the movie is scripted, but in promoting the movie you did things that were just in character, and this was really hysterical, when the Academy Awards people - I guess it's the National Academy of Arts and Sciences?
BARON COHEN: Yes.
GROSS: When you were told that he couldn't show up in character for the red carpet, you did a really hysterical video in character in your full dictator regalia with your virgin bodyguards protecting you. And I'm going to play the clip of - we'll just hear the audio of that video that you did.
BARON COHEN: (as General Aladeen) Good morning, great Satan of America. How are you? I am fine. Thank you. On behalf of the nation of Wadiya, I am outraged at being banned from the Oscars by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Zionists. While I applaud the Academy for taking the lead my right to free speech, I warn you that if you do not lift your sanctions and give me my tickets back by 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, you will face unimaginable consequences. Furthermore, it is an act of aggression that nobody in films have been recognized by the Academy. Where are the nominations for such classic films as "When Harry Kidnapped Sally," "You've Got Mail Bomb" or "Planet of the Rapes"? On top of all this, I paid Hilary Swank $2 million to be my date and she will not refund a penny. My Sunday calendar is now as empty as a North Korean grocery store. But whatever happens, I still plan to attend director Brett Ratner's after party, since it's impossible to catch herpes twice. Death to the West. Death to America. And good luck, Billy Crystals(ph) . You're fantastic. How was that? Did I sound crazy enough?
GROSS: that Sasha Baron Cohen in character as The Dictator after he was banned from the Oscars. Why were you banned in character?
BARON COHEN: I don't know. I mean I'll tell why I was invited. I was invited to the Oscars originally because I did this movie "Hugo" with Martin Scorsese and the movie got nominated for a few awards. And so I think he was quite an unprecedented thing that the Academy essentially banned me from coming with a beard on. And...
GROSS: And this was to the red carpet and to the Oscars?
BARON COHEN: Yes.
BARON COHEN: Yes. I was not allowed to come. So the head of the...
GROSS: Could you have come yourself or just not come in character?
BARON COHEN: They said I could come as myself. Yes. But The Dictator was not to be dictated to.
BARON COHEN: So, but the head of the Academy called my up agent and threatened him and it became kind of like a, you know, semi kind of mafia-like threat of, you know, if I turned up within half a mile of the Oscars, he said that I would be arrested by one of the 250 plainclothes FBI officers that were, you know, under his command, which kind of was ludicrous. And then, you know, everyone who knew me was being, you know, called up telling, you know, saying convince Sacha not to turn up. This is, you know, he's taking it too far now. This is the Academy Awards. It's one thing taking the mick out of terrorists but, you know, doing it out of the Academy Awards, that really is, he's gone too far now. So yeah, you know, they reached Martin Scorsese, they, you know, they tried to get everyone to prevent me, you know, to turn up. They called the studio. They said that there would be repercussions for my career in Hollywood, that I would, you know, there'd be repercussions for the film "Hugo." And so - so I issued that statement.
GROSS: Well, you used the opportunity to release like a really funny video which ended up promoting the film very effectively, but you defied the Academy. You actually showed up in character as The Dictator on the red carpet. How did you decide to defy them?
BARON COHEN: Well, they actually capitulated. I mean I put the video out saying that they had until 12:00 and it was obviously, it was a kind of jokey threat, but they actually gave in and they gave, handed me back my two tickets. So...
GROSS: OK. So what you did was, you were talking to Ryan Seacrest, who was doing, you know, the red carpet stuff and, you know, broadcasting from the red carpet, and he was interviewing you and you explained that you had Kim Jong Il's ashes in the urn and that like, oops, you accidentally spill them all over his beautiful tuxedo jacket. And I think you've explained that the, quote, "ashes" were actually flour and baking flour.
BARON COHEN: Yes. Yes. It was flour. And then I was showing him the irony that the urn was actually made in South Korea. And so I lifted it up and it spilled on him.
GROSS: So I kept trying to put myself in Ryan Seacrest's shoes because it was a very funny stunt. At the same time I'm thinking like, god, this is like his big night. It's almost like, you know, in the movie "Carrie" when she's like, she's finally like, she's prom queen, they like her after all and then she has the pig blood spilled on her. Did you worry like you were going to ruin his night and maybe the flour wasn't going to come out of the jacket and he'd have to be on like global television with a stained jacket for the rest of the evening?
BARON COHEN: Well, I think that's why it was flour rather than something that could stain, and that's why it was something that you could really brush off. And also, that's also the reason, you know, I was, you know, sitting with my co-writer and we were saying, you know, who do we - who do we spill it on, and we only came up with the idea the night before. And, you know, we thought, you know, do we do it on Clooney or Brad Pitt? And I thought no, we can't do it on them because that really is their big night, you know, that is, you know, Hollywood is celebrating them for the, you know, their, you know, achievement in movies.
You know, really the journalists on the red carpet are just there to, you know, talk about what suit you're wearing and what, you know, and promote various fashion labels. So to cover a suit that was given by a fashion label with a bit of flour that could be brushed off we thought wasn't really such a terrible thing. And also, after the actual event, I sent him a new jacket that was identical with a little label inside, which said made in the Republic of Widya by child slavery.
GROSS: Any regrets about anything you've done in character that looking back you think did cross the line and was maybe like hurtful in a way you didn't want to be or inappropriate in a way that you did expect it to be?
BARON COHEN: There's always a discussion before anything is done. It's, you know, me and my co-writer or, you know, this can be co-writers, and we sit around and discuss the morality of a particular act. You know, is the subject worthy of, you know, having an hour of their time wasted? Or - and if something worse is happening, you know, then, you know, for example, the hunters in Arkansas, when I'm Bruno and I'm coming onto them, you know, and being flirtatious with them, which really isn't such a terrible thing. If a woman was being flirtatious with a man, I don't think a man would get extremely upset; he might blush. But - so there was no real logical reason why a man being flirtatious with another man should get a man incredibly upset unless the subject exhibited some deep-rooted homophobia. So, you know, when it's something like that, we do always question the morality. And, for example, if a woman was pregnant or, you know, there was somebody who was poor or somebody who was undeserving, you know, I'm certainly much more reluctant to do anything, and those people would be ruled out.
And, you know, if you look at the Ali G show and you look at generally the people who I interview, they tend to be white, wealthy, powerful males, you know, in positions of extreme influence.
GROSS: My guest is Sacha Baron Cohen and his new movie is "The Dictator." So in addition to your movie late last year there was "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's movie which is based on a book about, you know, a children's or a young adolescent's novel about the rediscovery of the very early filmmaker, George Melies.
And I'm just thinking what it must've been like for you to not only be in character but to be in somebody else's character. It's not a character you created. It's not something you have a lot of control over, and also you probably have to do a lot of takes, as you would in any movie, not only to get it right but just to get, you know, get it from different angles which the film director will need, you know, coverage.
Do you have the patience for that? Since you're so into, for lack of a better word, you know, like, guerilla filmmaking.
BARON COHEN: Yes, I did. I mean, the great thing with that movie was that Scorsese allowed me to create the character - and that was part of the reason why he wanted me to do the movie. In the book and in the script the character didn't really exist much. It was quite a two-dimensional character, and he, you know, he said what can we do with this.
So I said, you know, let's give him a fake leg. Sorry, let's give him - originally I said let's give him a fake leg because it was a 3D movie and I thought it'd be quite nice to have in the first chase scene to have something knock my leg and my leg to fly off into the audience.
Then we realized that was impractical and, you know, we gave him a sort of gamey leg. And then, you know, I said, you know, what would be nice would be is it possible to have a love story? And so we kind of developed that and we kind of developed this back story together. I mean, he's an incredible - he's not only probably the greatest film director in the world, he is totally egoless and a total collaborator.
And part of the reason I agreed to do that movie, is I knew I was going to make "The Dictator." I knew it was a different genre and I knew I had to learn how to make a real movie. And so I said, you know, Marty, if I make this movie do you mind if I sit by your side and ask you a variety of inane and, you know, often idiotic questions about how to make a movie?
And he said fine. And I ended up sitting next to him by the monitor watching how he directed. And it was inspirational. So I just loved it. I actually, you know, loved every second on that set.
GROSS: What's a kind of question you asked him?
BARON COHEN: Well, I would ask basic stuff like - because there's so much improvisation on my movies, you know, because it's a scripted movie but, you know, we improvise a lot. So, you know, we do a couple of takes that are scripted and then half an hour of improvisation.
So I said how do we make it an interesting shot? And he said, well, you know, I said how do we get any movement to the camera while we're improvising? Because often, comedies can be very, very static. And he said, well, he goes, you know, there's a method that Kurosawa uses which is you put two cameras, you put them on sticks and then you put them on dollies and then you keep on moving them around.
And so, you know, he knows every movie that's been made since the beginning of cinema and actually in every continent, and he's memorized every single movie. So it was incredible. He was giving me incredibly obscure movies to look at, which inspired me for the character in "Hugo" and inspired me for "The Dictator."
And I kept on asking him about it, and also asking the other people on set how I would, you know - I basically abused everyone on set and abuse the fact that they were sitting ducks for six months.
GROSS: Well, Sacha Baron Cohen, it's been great to have you back. Thank you so much for coming back to our show.
BARON COHEN: Thank you having me back. Thank you for letting me speak for so long.
GROSS: Sacha Baron Cohen co-wrote and stars in the new movie "The Dictator." Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the first studio album by singer/songwriter John Fullbright. This is FRESH AIR.
TERRY GROSS, HOST: John Fullbright is an Oklahoma singer/songwriter in his early 20s who's just released his first studio album called "From the Ground Up." Raised in Woody Guthrie's hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma, Fullbright has been the opening act for performers as various as Jimmy Webb and Joe Ely, and our rock critic Ken Tucker says he's more than ready for headliner status.
JOHN FULLBRIGHT: (Singing) This is not reflection. Reflection is true. This is just me, me wanting you. Sweet silver memories...
KEN TUCKER: John Fullbright's voice rises up and around the guitar chords on that song, "Me Wanting You," his tone intended to haunt the person he's addressing. His desire, his me wanting you, is as direct as he can possibly make it. It's not a cry of despair or hope or lust, it's the sound of someone intent on making as strong a connection with the listener as he possibly can.
FULLBRIGHT: (Singing) Six long days, seven day he rested. Said there's one sure way humans can be bested. Give them wine and song, fire and lust. When it all goes wrong I'm the man to trust. And now you're all my own, all mine together. Well, you sing my praise, sing my name forever. I am gawd above, lord gawd almighty.
TUCKER: For a guy who's not yet 25 years old, Fullbright sounds as though he's lived through a lot, or at least thought it through. Speaking in the voice of God as he does on that song called "Gawd Above," Fullbright doesn't seem like a callow youth overreaching for profundity.
Here and on other songs on the appropriately titled "From the Ground Up," Fullbright is building the foundation for his method: acoustic guitar and piano, mostly, with vocals that are conversationally inflected whenever they don't build into a strangled yowl. And occasionally, he'll work an actual hook into a song if it doesn't strike him as unseemly.
FULLBRIGHT: (Singing) Old man broke down on the side of the road. Stop and see if maybe I can lighten his load. Well, he opened the door and he thanked me in kind. Told me the words that would open my mind. He said don't worry about gasoline because we're moving. Don't worry about the TV screen 'cause we're moving. Don't worry about the bombs that fall 'cause we're moving. Don't worry about nothing at all 'cause we're moving.
TUCKER: The limitation of sparsely arranged material like this is that it can rely too heavily on words, lyrics that don't hold up to close philosophical or metrical scrutiny. There's a bit of that here, most notably in Fullbright's game but thin variation on early-period Randy Newman, called "Fat Man."
And, speaking of Randy Newman, Fullbright could use more humor. But there's no doubt that he's an up-and-comer moving in the right direction; it's a good sign when you get 11 cuts into an album and the quality remains high, as it does with "Daydreamer."
FULLBRIGHT: (Singing) You men spend a lot of time looking down at the ground. Looking down when they pray. Looking down every day. Dreamers know that the finer things wait up in the air. But young men are proud; sometimes dreaming ain't allowed. Dreaming...
TUCKER: There's an unassuming sureness to John Fullbright's best songs. He's an Oklahoma kid who's not pushing his Okie authenticity down your ears. Instead, he already knows how to pull back, to establish a mood and then fill it in with details, both verbal and musical, that draw you into his world, and make you momentarily forget your own.
GROSS: Ken Tucker is editor-at-large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed John Fullbright's new album "From the Ground Up." You can download podcasts of our show on our website freshair.npr.org.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

subset: commoncrawl


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Linotype UniversTM is a completely reworked version of the original Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. The systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings.
McDonald Observatory (West Texas)
3640 Dark Sky Drive
McDonald Observatory, TX 79734
For other inquiries:
call 432-426-3263
McDonald Observatory (Austin)
2515 Speedway, Stop C1402
Austin, TX 78712-1206


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Dumbbells exercise routines have been around since we first started lifting weights to change our physique. Having a good set of dumbbells in your gym can really open up your workouts to new exercises that simply cannot be performed without dumbbells. At Muscles and Curves we carry a broad selection of brand names and types of dumbbells from solid steel, rubber encased, pro style, hex dumbbells, urethane coated and chrome dumbbells. And the price you see is the price you pay because all items ship free!
When choosing a type and style of dumbbell or dumbbell set to buy, you mainly need to consider the environment in which your dumbbells will be used and stored. Higher end pro-style dumbbells tend to be more compact and space saving, while cheaper hex dumbbells are some of the larger and bulkier types. If space is a real issue then you can look at buying a pair of adjustable dumbbells as these can be extremely convenient for smaller home gyms and even travel.
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While American Airlines (AAMRQ) and US Airways (LCC) announced plans to merge Thursday, it will be several months if not years before passengers see any significant impact.
Passengers with existing tickets on American or US Airways and members of both frequent flier programs shouldn't fret. No changes will come anytime soon.
American's parent company, AMR Corp., is still under bankruptcy protection and will need the court to approve the deal. US Airways shareholders will also have to vote for a merger. Then the Department of Transportation and the Justice Department must sign off. Finally, once a deal closes, the new company could operate two separate airlines for a number of years.
When the airlines finally do merge, here's what passengers can expect:
In the past five years, the airline industry has seen the combinations of Delta with Northwest, United with Continental and Southwest Airlines Co. with AirTran. Further consolidation is likely to raise airfares. The price of a domestic round-trip flight has climbed more than 11 percent since 2009, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
The merger will give a combined American and US Airways Group Inc. the ability to increase fares. United, Delta and Southwest would be likely to follow. Although it could also pave the way for further expansion by discount airlines such as Spirit Airlines Inc. and Allegiant Travel Co.
Your miles will be safe. After the merge is approved, the two airlines will likely combine the miles into one program and elite status from one airline will likely be honored on the other. That puts the occasional traveler closer to rewards.
The merged carrier will continue American's participation in the OneWorld alliance, which was founded by American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas. Today, it has 12 airlines including Finnair, Royal Jordanian and Japan Airlines. US Airways will leave the Star Alliance, which includes rival United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada and 24 other airlines. Alliances allow passengers to earn and redeem miles on partner airlines.
A key reason for merging is to link both airlines' networks, creating a system on par with Delta Air Lines and United, part of United Continental Holdings Inc.
There is little overlap between the two airlines' existing routes. The combined carrier will offer more than 6,700 daily flights to 336 destinations in 56 countries, making it more attractive to companies seeking to fly employees around the globe with few connections.
US Airways passengers will gain access to American's international destinations, particularly London and Latin America. American's passengers will be able to better connect to smaller U.S. cities that US Airways serves.
The combined carrier will have considerable presence in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. It is unclear how many of those cities will keep their levels of service. In past mergers, airlines have promised not to close any hubs but have gone ahead and dramatically reduced service in once-key cities.
The merger of two airlines often means confusion and hassle for customers. Which terminal or ticket counter do they go to for check in? If there is a problem with a ticket, which company should they call? For a while, United and Continental were issuing two confirmation numbers for each ticket so either airline's staff could make changes. Problems with the integration of their frequent flier programs angered many loyal road warriors and computer glitches caused repeated flight delays. It could be months, if not years, until all American and US Airways planes get a uniform paint job.
"These things are never as seamless as they seem," said Thomas Lawton, a professor of business administration at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of business. "There will probably be some initial teething problems."
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
AP Airlines Writer


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Nothing says summer like the fair. Whether it is state or county, a two-week blowout or a weekend affair, millions across the country will be attending some celebration or another. Every fair is unique—some more so than others! Here are a few notable contests from around the country.
Iowa State Fair
The Iowa State Fair has many attractions, but one of the stranger ones is the beard-growing contest. Participants can win in such categories as Longest Beard, Most Unique Beard Design, and Most Historic Nature.
Colorado State Fair
Contests abound, but the Pet Rock Olympics is truly unique. Kids enter their prized pets in either the "Best Dressed Rock"or the "Farthest Distance Roller" competition. Bonus: no food or water required.
Georgia State Fair
Horses just too passé? Consider the Georgia State Fair. Pig races are held three times daily, and the fastest swine is awarded with the grand prize—an Oreo cookie. Whether your livestock is racing, or just competing for best in show, be sure that your prize animal is covered.
New Mexico State Fair
Every fair boasts a new, can't-miss-it food item every year, but the New Mexico State Fair takes it a step further by devoting an entire competition to unique foods that fairgoers dream up. Past winners have included a deep-fried green chili bacon cheeseburger and a donut burger. Perhaps washed down with a red chili-chocolate limeade?
North Dakota State Fair
The Redneck Relay Race is a favorite at the North Dakota State Fair. Teams tackle challenges that involve mud, mason jars, and watermelons greased with Crisco.
Kansas State Fair
Have a flair for design? Do you consider yourself an expert in the use of duct tape? Then you might want to consider the Kansas State Fair's Creating with Duct Tape competition. Competitors have made everything from clothes to sculptures which, according to the rules, must be constructed using (you guessed it) 90 percent duct tape.
Minnesota State Fair
Beauty may be an admirable quality, but a passion for dairy trumps all in contestants vying for the title of Princess Kay of the Milky Way at the Minnesota State Fair. Winners are chosen for their ability to be goodwill ambassadors for the dairy industry, making public appearances across their state and educating others about the benefits of dairy. As an additional honor, likenesses of the queen and her court will be carved out of butter, a fitting, if temporary, tribute.
You never know what you might find. Whether your state fair is right in your back yard or a road trip away, be sure to get out and explore one of the great traditions of summer!


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During the Tea Party summer of 2009, when suburban revolutionaries with funny hats and nasty signs began screaming about Obamacare and tyranny, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel urged the President to settle for a less comprehensive health plan. But Obama said no, he felt lucky. At the end of the summer, after Obama's approval ratings had sagged and Obamacare's approval ratings had plunged, Emanuel asked during an Oval Office meeting whether he still felt lucky.
"My name is Barack Hussein Obama and I'm sitting here," said Obama, in an anecdote first reported by Jonathan Alter in his book The Promise. "So yeah, I'm feeling pretty lucky."
Today, Obama must be feeling even luckier. Obamacare has survived, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative George W. Bush appointee who surprised legal pundits by upholding the plan's insurance requirement as a tax, even though Obama always insisted it wasn't a tax. The other four conservative Justices wanted to strike down the entire law, but because one Republican in a robe defied expectations, Obama has secured an achievement that Democrats have dreamed of since FDR and Truman, extending health insurance to the uninsured, while laying the groundwork for systemic reforms. As Vice President Joe Biden said, it's a big you-know-what deal.
(MORE: The Supreme Court's Health Care Ruling: The Winners and Losers)
And as the Duke of Wellington once said, it was a near run thing.
It's worth recalling just how narrow a needle Obama had to thread to get his health plan to this point. During the 2008 campaign, Obama had criticized the individual mandate, arguing that the real problem with health care was that it was too expensive, and that the path to universal coverage was to make it cheaper. But when he decided to push for health reform in the spring of 2009, he discovered that Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, a centrist Democrat who took the lead on reform, thought a mandate was the only path to a filibuster-proof majority. So the White House let Baucus pursue a bipartisan solution.
Do you remember how the pressure mounted that spring and summer, as the Tea Party exploded, Republicans began attacking Obamacare as an assault on liberty, Sarah Palin began warning of "death panels," and even Baucus' close friend and primary negotiating partner, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, accused the President of trying to pull the plug on Grandma? Emanuel was screaming at Baucus to hurry up and deliver a bill, but Baucus felt like he needed to make every effort to reach out to Republicans — not just to try to pick off a few GOP votes but also to appease red-state Democrats who didn't want a partisan bill. So he slow-walked the bill, and the Fox News drumbeat kept getting louder, and the polls kept getting uglier.
(MORE: Supreme Court Hands Obama a Political Win)
Ultimately, it became clear that Republicans weren't going to play, which meant Obama and Baucus needed the votes of every one of the 58 Democrats and two independents in the Senate. If Democrat Al Franken of Minnesota hadn't been seated after winning a lengthy recount by a handful of votes, no Obamacare. If Arlen Specter hadn't switched to the Democratic Party after his vote for Obama's stimulus doomed his chances in a Tea Party-dominated GOP primary, no Obamacare. If Emanuel hadn't cut backroom deals for individual Senators — the "Cornhusker Kickback" for Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the "Louisiana Purchase" for Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — no Obamacare. If Obama had insisted on including the "public option" beloved by liberals but anathema to independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, no Obamacare. If centrists like Evan Bayh of Indiana or Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas had decided that the President and Baucus hadn't made enough of an effort to bring in Republicans, no Obamacare.
And then, after the House and Senate finally managed to pass comprehensive reforms before the Christmas holiday, but before the two bills could be reconciled into a final compromise legislation, an unknown Massachusetts Republican named Scott Brown won a stunning upset to claim the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, upending the filibuster-proof Democratic majority. It looked like Obamacare was dead after all. House and Senate Democrats were at one another's throats, drowning in recriminations. Again, Emanuel pushed Obama to cut a deal for a modest bill rather than destroy his presidency in an ignominious defeat. Again, Obama felt lucky.
(MORE: How the Supreme Court Rose Above Partisan Politics)
The President barely mentioned health care in his 2010 State of the Union address. But somehow, he got the bill across the finish line. There was yet another hiccup near the end over abortion, but the White House worked out a deal that kept pro-life House Democrats on board. And with some legislative legerdemain, the House passed the Senate bill, so Obama no longer needed 60 votes, and the Senate approved some tweaks that didn't require 60 votes, as well as a sweeping student-loan reform that had to be included for reasons I don't even remember right now.
Most legal scholars scoffed at the notion that the Supreme Court might find the law unconstitutional, but it turned out to be a very serious threat. Just the other day, an Obama campaign operative told me the White House seemed blithely confident that the court would uphold the bill, that Obama didn't seem to have a Plan B. "They seem to think it's going to be fine," he said in a tone of voice that didn't suggest he thought it was going to be fine.
It turned out that they were right. Without a single vote to spare in the court, the same margin it had in Congress, Obamacare survived. Barack Hussein Obama is a lucky guy. And today, 32 million uninsured Americans are sharing his good fortune.
SPECIAL: TIME's Complete Coverage of the Affordable Care Act


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WASHINGTON — For three decades, the U.S. middle class enjoyed a rare financial advantage over the wealthy: lower mortgage rates.
Now, even that perk is fading away.
Most ordinary homebuyers are paying the same or higher rates than the fortunate few who can afford much more.
Rates for a conventional 30-year fixed mortgage are averaging 4.48 percent, according to Bankrate. For "jumbo" mortgages — those above $417,000 in much of the country — the average is 4.47 percent.
This trend reflects the widening wealth gap between the richest Americans and everyone else. Bankers now view jumbo borrowers as safer and shrewder bets even though conventional borrowers put less capital at risk.
Even as the overall U.S. housing recovery has slowed, sales of homes above $1 million have surged in the past year. Price gains have been so great in some areas that middle-class buyers are straining to afford even modest homes. They're also facing tighter lending rules, larger down-payment requirements and a shortage of houses for sale.
Used to be, rates for conventional mortgages would be 0.2 to 0.3 of a point below rates on jumbo mortgages. A decade ago, a conventional rate averaged 5.68 percent, a jumbo 5.97 percent. The advantage for middle-class borrowers was possible in part because government-chartered firms guarantee that lenders will be paid on a conventional mortgage even if a borrower defaults. No such guarantee exists for jumbos.
Two factors have caused the spread between conventional and jumbo rates to vanish:
— The government in 2012 began raising the fees it charges lenders for guaranteeing payments on conventional mortgages. Lenders passed along that increase to borrowers in the form of higher rates. The fees are meant to stop home buyers from once again borrowing more than they can afford — a trend that fueled the 2007 housing bust.
— Bankers say they've begun using mortgage rates to woo high-net-worth clients: Attractive rates on jumbos have become a way to secure additional business from those clients — from managing their investments to supplying a broad suite of financial services. What's more, those borrowers tend to be clustered in neighborhoods that lenders consider more stable.
"Jumbo borrowers represent the holy grail of what financial institutions are pursuing: that much-desired, mass affluent consumer," said Greg McBride, a senior analyst at Bankrate.
In the first three months of 2014, 37 percent of the money Bank of America lent for mortgages went to jumbos, compared with 22 percent at the same point last year.
The lower rates are geared for affluent borrowers living in "sweet spots" with strong employment and stable home prices — areas like metro New York City, Boston and sections of California, said Matt Vernon, who leads consumer mortgage lending at Bank of America.
"We're lending where we believe home ownership is sustainable," Vernon said.
Wells Fargo offers jumbos starting at 4.25 percent, about 0.25 point lower than for conventional mortgages. This month, Wells trumpeted the spillover benefits of increased jumbo lending: A 14 percent year-over-year increase in loans from its separate "wealth, brokerage and retirement" division.
"Hopefully, it'll continue to go up," Wells' CFO, Timothy Sloan, said of prospects for continued jumbo lending.
Sales of homes exceeding $1 million leapt 7.8 percent over the past 12 months. That contrasted with a 7.5 percent drop in overall home-buying in that period, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Prices have appreciated in areas such as San Francisco, New York and Washington, which have higher thresholds for jumbo mortgages than the national average. Jumbos in these cities are for loans above $625,500, about $200,000 more than the national average.
The median price of a two-bedroom home in San Francisco is $1.02 million, according to the real estate site Trulia. The median for New York City homes: $1.2 million.
Nationwide, just 2 percent of homes fetch prices that large.
Jumbos are a necessity for nearly everyone in communities such as La Jolla, Calif. That's where Aniqa Jaswal and her husband in February bought a four-bedroom house about 10 minutes from the beach.
"There are no homes below jumbo mortgage prices here," Jaswal said.
The trend coincides with the lopsided nature of the U.S. economy's nearly 5-year-old recovery. Almost all the U.S. incomes gains from 2009 to 2012 flowed to the top 1 percent of earners, according to tax data analyzed by economist Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley.
By contrast, median household income was $51,017 in 2012, $4,600 below its peak in 2007, according to the Census Bureau. Squeezed by scant pay raises, the middle class has struggled or hesitated to take on mortgage debt. Many recall the high-risk loans that ignited the housing meltdown and led to the financial crisis and recession.
Not even jumbo borrowers feel completely safe. Some are borrowing in anticipation of setbacks in an economy where bills can multiply even when incomes barely budge.
One is Stephanie Kellen, who in December refinanced her home in Marin County, Calif., with a jumbo. The lower-than-usual jumbo rate helped replace a line of credit for her husband's auto repair business.
"The best way to have security was to have low interest rate loans for as long as possible," Kellen said.
Nearly one in five homeowners still owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth. Without home equity, they have little or no wealth even as richer Americans have benefited from rising prices for stocks and upper-end real estate.
At the same time, the government has reduced its support for middle class homeownership after having rescued two companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that enabled lower rates. The housing bust devastated Fannie and Freddie, which guarantee conventional mortgage payments. Both were forced into federal control at taxpayer cost.
To limit taxpayer exposure, Fannie's and Freddie's regulator required them to raise fees for guaranteeing mortgages. Those fee increases have boosted conventional mortgage rates and likely blunted the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve's efforts to keep rates low to invigorate the housing market and the economy.
"We're cutting off the avenue that has the most proven success in wealth building," said David Min, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in mortgage finance.
The higher fees have left the industry concerned that more people won't be able to afford to buy, said Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans, though the fees might help protect some people from assuming unaffordable debt.
Walters doubts that rates for traditional mortgages will ever again fall meaningfully below jumbo rates.
"I don't see the days of those microscopic guarantee fees coming back," he said.
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Project Members
- Diana Forker
A Grammar of Hinuq
The project aimed at the description of Hinuq (Nakh-Daghestanian). The description included the phonology, morphology and syntax of Hinuq as well as a couple of texts and a short dictionary.
Hinuq is the smallest of the five Tsezic languages spoken in south Russia in the Caucasus, by about 500 speakers. It belongs to the Nakh-Daghestanian language family. The speakers of this language live mainly in one small village in the Daghestanian mountains near to the Georgian border. Although they acquire Hinuq as their first language, Russian is becoming more and more dominant since Russian is used in formal schooling, television, and public life in general.
As is typical of Daghestanian languages, Hinuq has certain interesting features such as a rich local case system with about 28 local cases and a noun-class system with five classes used to mark agreement between nouns in the absolutive case and verbs, and coreferential adjectives or adverbials.
The project was intended to give a description of the various grammatical aspects of Hinuq. The description included several glossed and translated texts such as traditional narratives and culture-specific texts and a Hinuq-English dictionary. The project was supervised by Prof. B. Comrie and was related to other projects on the Tsezic languages (Bezhta, Khwarshi and Tsez) at the MPI-EVA.


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"88 year old male who woke from a nap with bilateral visual loss. Symptoms resolved when he
opened his eyes. We will admit for stroke work-up, and consult neurology."
A Blog detailing the insanity of my medical practice and the stupidity of everyday life.
OhfertheloveofGod. It wasn't April 1 was it?
Please tell me you're not serious.
I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
Perhaps the workup shouldn't be for the patient but for Dr. Hospital
Neuroconsult for the admitting doctor - rule out functional anencephalia
Ortho patient, no doubt.
I'm thinking internal medicine patient...
Dear Doctor,
Thank you for the interesting referral. I have examined our mutual patient Mr. Jim Smith, an 88 year old man with an unremarkable medical history, save for increasingly long naps. You admitted Mr. Smith for stroke workup and neurology consult because he woke from a nap recently with bilateral visual loss which resolved when he opened his eyes. I'm pleased report my careful examination of Mr. Smith revealed no significant findings. It is my considered opinion that his admitting physician obtain a neurology consult as soon as possible to rule out dementia vs a severe case of ass-covering. Thank you again for the interesting referral!
Ibee NotKiddingAround
Well, you'd have to compromise both optic and both occulomotor nerves, which is incredibly unlikely.
I'm going with TIA of the ascending aorta.
Obviously a really severe but transient vertebral artery dissection.
Did the referring doc just purchase a new boat?
Ooh, ooh, me, me, pick me! The 88 year old male patient was pregnant! TADA!
Must be related to the a patient I had last summer who called 911 because her husband stated she "passed out in her sleep".
That's a tough one Doc. Do you think it may have something to do with his eyelids?
I feel left out, i guess I'm not "neurologist smart". Wait a minute...he got better from his loss of vision once he open his eyes?? as in he couldn't see because his eyes were closed?? really?
"Patient also reported being chased through Berlin by his old third-grade teacher, even though she's been dead for half a century, Berlin looked more like the local shopping mall than like any of the usual pictures you see of it, and for some reason he'd forgotten to put on clothes and was completely naked. Symptoms resolved when he opened his eyes."
Bilateral you say? - Ancient Aliens
Or possibly the patient was the creepy monster from Pan's Labyrinth? (pic related)
pure genius! did you ask if the symptoms were transient? or just nocte?!
I think the patient will have a complete recovery every time he opens his eyes. Think of the joy of knowing from a real, live brain doc that a person can heal themselves. Praise that referring doctor. You gave this patient a real gift.
I'm not sure if this is neurology or not. Obviously the real problem is sensory--he couldn't feel that his eyes were closed!
And what did your note back say???
Thank you for this interesting consult.
Utterly miraculous recovery.
And there you have it, a legitimate reason for insurance oversight. Le sigh.
A bitchy high powered accompanying family member with connections who refused to listen to reason? So an admit to get them out of their hair?
Obviously you are all missing the bigger picture here. The really concerning part of the consult is this constitutes a CHANGE in the patient. Before this, he could see with his eyes closed.
I'd refer him on to psych...
Ooo! I know what the problem was: Dr. Hospital is an idiot. (and I didn't even have to go to med school for that diagnosis)
Similar case here:
I believe this case could be the beginning of a medical paper:
"Transient Oculooclusive Blindness Cured By Eye Opening."
The Journal of Irreproducible Results would probably publish it.
While the condition is probably common, I doubt there are many (if any) peer reviewed articles on the problem.
A second paper could be written on "Transient Nocturnal Blindness Cured By Turning On Lights."
I would test for alzheimers... maybe he "forgot" to open his eyes. LOL and then call a psych consult since the doc who ordered all the useless tests must be crazy.
Good thing he wasn't wearing blackout eyeshades...that would have made the diagnosis much more confounding.
Is this an ongoing problem, or new onset? How frightful for the patient and his family. Good to know there are medical personal with years of post-secondary education to crack this case wide open. Perhaps you could do some reasearch and then publish. Are you sure it's not contageous? I'm scared to close my eyes now.
Psych consult for coming in to the ER with this complaint.
I think I saw this one on House.
Cue the 3d animation flying through the patient's brain, zooming in on the evil little gnome who's pulling the plug on the optic nerve at random intervals and plugging it back in whenever the neurologist is around.
In comes House who, after making sure nobody forgets that the average toddler has better social skills than him, orders every test ever known (and a few he makes up on the spot). Making the wrong diagnosis four times in a row, each time with more expensive tests, he finally notices that the patient never takes sugar in his coffee and makes the brilliant diagnosis only he could make.
Everyone is suitable impressed, since House, having graduated from the John Edwards school of Jedi Mind Tricks, has erased from everyone's memory his frequent incorrect diagnoses and the numerous times he's nearly killed a patient.
The county sheriff deliver an eviction notice to the gnome and everybody lives happily ever after, except the patient with the $1,200,982.78 bill for the world's most expensive workup, ever. And, of course, the now homeless little gnome.
Dr. Grumpy. Sadly you are a man of science and not a man of faith. Can you not see a miracle when it is staring you in the face. The man was blind and now he sees Hallelujah.
So...was it lupus?
It's Lupus.
Those must have been some heavy eyelids.
Sassy - you beat me to it!!!!!
Although, upon further review, I believe that a Recto-Craniectomy be performed.
On the person who wrote the admitting note.
Oh my God, I've got it too! I never even realized it was abnormal!
Gosh Darn! Are you sure that wasn't me after 'my grumpy doctor' had just tried for the 4th time to explain why he had not faxed in my BP meds after returning from his vacation!!!!! ....It happens you know!
LOL, as funny as that sounds, I actually had a similar experience once. Throughout my entire life, I have always opened my eyes AS I awakened. One morning I woke up without opening my eyes, and actually didn't realize it. I lay there for some time, thinking it was before before dawn because it was dark in the room. When something made me open my eyes, I was shocked that the room was bright and sunny. (This was probably before I got my CPAP machine, and I imagine I was just plain tired.)
Put me down for blepharospasm with spontaneous remission. I just love playing doctor.


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One project that I have been wanting to try for a while was making a Cuban style roast pork and with a recent sale it was the right time to make it! Cuban style roast pork, aka lechon asado , is traditionally made by roasting a whole pig until cooked and the skin is nice and crispy but at home it is much easier to make a smaller cut of pork, say the shoulder or picnic cut and roast it in the oven. Lechon asado is made in many different spanish speaking countries and what makes this one Cuban is the Cuban style mojo sauce marinade. The mojo sauce is made with sour orange juice and
plenty or garlic along with some oregano and cumin and it is used to both marinate the pork before roasting and also at the table for drizzling or dipping.
Since this recipe is an in home adaptation of roasting a whole pig, there are several ways in which you could cook the pork. Cooking the pork in a slow cooker would be the easiest solution but since the picnic cut of the pork shoulder comes with the skin on I wanted to roast it in the oven to get some nice and crispy crackling. The first step was to make the mojo sauce and most recipes called for pureeing the sauce in a blender until smooth but since I do not have a blender I went with my food processor and ended up with a slightly chunkier version, though I kind of liked those nice chunks of garlic and it certainly tasted pretty amazing anyways. Next up was marinating the meat in the mojo over night which was pretty easy but it did create some difficulties with my desire to get some crispy crackling as wet skin does not crackle well. In the end I decided to pull the pork out of the marinade and early, pat the skin dry and let it dry out for an hour before scoring it the skin and rubbing in some salt. You can serve your Cuban style roast pork in one of two ways, sliced or pulled and the only really difference is how long you cook it. To get the crackling I started out by roasting the pork at a high temperature until the skin got nice and crispy and then I lowered the temperature to continue roasting until the pork was cooked. In the end I was able to get the crackling that I was after but it was more of a blackend crackling which was still addictively tasty but I did need to cover the pork with foil part way through cooking to prevent it from burning.
Once the pork was done roasting I pulled it out of the oven and while I let it rest and cool down before pulling it I caramelized onions in some of the mixture of mojo and juices from the bottom of the pan to mix into the pulled pork. When I marinated the pork I made sure to reserve some of the mojo to both mix into the pull pork and to serve with the meal for even more mojo-y goodness! I have to say that this Cuban style roast pork with crackling was an amazingly successful and fabulously tasty project that is definitely worth making for your family Sunday night dinner!
(Of course you all know that I did not make a roast pork just for the initial roast pork dinner! Keep an eye out for what I use the Cuban style roast pork in next!)
I served the Cuban style roast pork with rice, Cuban style black beans (recipe to come) and fried plantain in addition to plenty of extra mojo sauce. This was one truly tasty and satisfying meal and luckily I have plenty of leftovers for quick meals during the week!
Cuban Roast Pork (Lechon Asado)
A Cuban style slow roasted pork marinated in a super tasty sour orange and garlic mojo sauce.
- 1 bone in, skin on pork shoulder about 4-5 lbs
- 20 cloves garlic
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1 1/2 cups sour (seville) orange juice (or 1 cup orange juice + 1/2 cup lime juice)
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon cumin, toasted and ground
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 large onion, sliced
- Puree the garlic, onion, sour orange juice, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender, place 2/3 of the mixture into a large sealable bag with the pork and marinate in the fridge overnight.
- Pull the pork out of the fridge 1 hour before roasting, take it out of the bag, set it with its skin side up, wipe the skin dry and let sit for 1 hour.
- Score the skin in 1/2 inch intervals and rub salt generously into the skin.
- Place the pork in a roasting pan, skin side up, roast in a preheated 450F/230C oven for 20 minutes or until the skin has become crackling, ie it has become golden, hardened and crispy.
- Reduce the heat to 325F/170C and roast until the pork reaches 170F for slicing or 195F for shredding, about 2-3 hours or 4-6 hours respectively. If the skin starts to get too dark tent it loosely with foil without folding the edges over to prevent steaming.
- Let the pork rest for 15 minutes, remove crackling and cut into small pieces, discard any extra fat and then slice or shred the pork. Remove the fat from the juices and serve with sliced pork or mix into shredded pork.
- Meanwhile heat 2 tablespoons of the juices from the roasting pan in a pan over medium-high heat, add the onion and saute until tender and caramelized, about 7-10 minutes.
- Serve the pork with the caramelized onions and remaining mojo.
Slow Cooker: Implement step 1, place the pork and marinade in the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-6 hours before continuing with step 7.
Tip: Mix some mojo into the pork after pulling it; man is that mojo ever good!
Cochinita Pibil (Puerco Pibil)
BBQ Pulled Pork
Jerked Pulled Pork
Al Pastor Pork
Lighter Carnitas
Carne Asada
Cuban Mojo Grilled Pork Chops
Slow Cooker Balsamic Glazed Roast Beef
Cuban Mojo Pulled Pork Quinoa Bowls with Pineapple Salsa
Chipotle Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
Chashu Pork (Marinated Braised Pork Belly)
Korean Grilled Steak Tacos with Pineapple Gochujang Salsa
Carne Asada with Avocado Salsa Verde
Grilled Mojo Chicken


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Preventative maintenance is the best way to ensure your vehicle stays reliable, and lets you avoid major repairs as well as the expenses that come with them. At Nova Tires & Auto Repair, we provide a complete preventative maintenance program, and carry all the necessary parts and expertise to take care of the little jobs that let you avoid the big ones. Choose from a comprehensive range of the fluids, oils, filters, and belts that your vehicle needs to keep running happily and healthily. Relax while your ride is inspected by our highly-trained technicians, and rest assured that it'll keep running smoothly for miles and miles.
The first part of our preventative maintenance program deals with your vehicle's fluids. Your car needs these fluids to keep running smoothly and prevent overheating. Most of our fluid change services are completed quickly so you can get back on the road in Sunrise, FL . Our technicians are happy to monitor and refill your engine oil, automatic transmission fluid, brake fluid, anti-freeze, power steering and wiper fluids. We also perform checks on your radiator to ensure there are no small leaks caused by stones and other road debris.
The next area of our program deals with the filters in your car. Whether filtering oil, fuel, or air, your car's engine and drivetrain rely on pure ingredients free from power-robbing particles. Your vehicle's fuel system, for example, wants only the purest gasoline or diesel. When microscopic particles build up in the system over time they reduce its efficiency and cause issues like decreased gas mileage. The same goes for your engine's air filter. An engine needs a mix of fuel and air to create combustion, and that can't happen if your motor can't breathe. Regularly changing your car's filters will prevent this from occurring. Nova Tires & Auto Repair will make sure all your car's filters are flowing smoothly and clear, as well as the often-overlooked cabin air filter which can make a huge difference in how pleasant a car is to be inside.
Tire balancing is an important area of preventative maintenance where we excel. If your car's tires are out of balance, they could be putting undue strain on components in the suspension, braking, and drivetrain systems, which can cost you greatly further down the road. Ensuring a smooth ride with professionally balanced wheels and tires is a much cheaper, easier, and safer way to make sure your car stays on the road, while ensuring a long life for your tires.
Your car's timing belts are extremely important to examine during the course of preventative maintenance. There are a number of events that need to take place for one full revolution of your car's engine. These belts ensure that they all line up with each other, and occur at exactly the right moment. Should the belts become damaged or break, the events can fall out of sync and happen at the wrong time, which can be seriously detrimental to the health of your engine and your car overall. Nova Tires & Auto Repair ensures that all your car's belts are healthy, and that all of those events keep happening at exactly the right time.
If you want Nova Tires & Auto Repair to make sure that your vehicle is well-equipped to continue transporting you safely for years to come, call us at (954) 780-7900, or visit us in Sunrise, FL so we can schedule a time to take a look at it!


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Writing in the dark
Mrs. McFeely Friday/The Weekly Squeeze (and visiting blog friends) will resume after WonderBaby's Royal Tour. HBM is currently blog-challenged, and struggling to overcome...
I've been having trouble blogging.
In part because I've been off the electronic grid for four days: there's no wireless connectivity in the small desert town where my mother just bought a home and where she plans to retire. (Yes, Canada has desert. Semi-arid desert, with cactus and tumbleweed and rattlesnakes and everything. It's desolate, and beautiful.)
But being off the grid shouldn't have stopped me from writing. I've drafted many a post off-line. And, ordinarily, I'm constantly working words, weaving sentences, knitting ideas in my mind. Crafting posts as I nurse, rock, sing, walk, play.
But I haven't done this. Not since Tuesday night.
Tuesday night (Wednesday morning, long before dawn) I sat up awake in the guest room of my sister's house, WonderBaby asleep in a Pack'n'Play beside me, computer open on my lap. A Serious Family Drama had played out that evening, the second evening of our trip, and I couldn't sleep until I had purged my mind of the surging emotion and clattering worry and slowed the pace of my frantically beating heart. So I wrote. I blogged. And as I blogged, I fretted about the destination of my words. Would I publish this post? Could I publish this post? The words were so fraught with worry and confusion. They revealed so much.
Was I blogging too close to the bone?
I was. But I had nowhere else to go. Husband was dead asleep, miles away in Toronto, not answering the phone. All I could do was write. And the place that I write – the place where my writing lives and breathes, the place where the writing becomes real – is the blog. So I sat there, in the dark, and wrote a post. And when I was done, my fingers hovered over the mouse pad. Hit Publish? Or Save as Draft? Publish? Or Save?
If I hit Publish, somebody might read, and understand, and send words of commiseration, of comfort. But more importantly, I would be advancing the true story of our lives – my life, WonderBaby's life, the life of our family – in all of its gore and glory. I would be honest. WonderBaby's Royal Tour is not, will not be, a series of picture perfect snapshots, family portraits against postcard backdrops, amusing anecdotes and colourful stories about eccentric grandparents and boisterous cousins. The story of this trip is one more instalment in the serial narrative of our lives and it has more than its share of pathos and drama. It's a messy story, as full of tears and anxiety as it is full of laughter and kisses. Writing this trip honestly – holding true to the narrative as it unfolds in our real lives – means writing the truth. But what if the truth is sloppy and naked and scared?
How much revelation is too much? Where is the line between writing honestly, and exposing one's self?
I hit Save. Better safe, as they say, than regretful. Better safe.
But I haven't been able to write since.
All of my thoughts and feelings and worries over the past few days have defied composition, because I begin each mental post with a caution to myself: you can't blog this. You shouldn't blog this. You won't blog this. And that stops me cold.
My determination to stay safe is choking the writing. I need to find a way to write honestly, without crossing whatever line exists between honesty and overexposure. To tell my story, our stories, without violating trusts, without divulging secrets, without baring souls too completely. And without turning pathos into bathos.
I have to find that way. So that I can continue writing, in a way that keeps my mind and heart and conscience clear. And so that the stories I pass on to WonderBaby are true stories, the truest stories, so that she can know her mother, her father, her family. Her history.
Her story. Her true story.


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Also available as a greeting card.
This fine art print is created from a hand drawn & digitally colored illustration signed by Sarah Jane. Each illustration is printed with a giclée fine art printing process on archival museum quality paper.
All prints include a white border (approximately ½ in. / 1.27 cm on all sides) to allow for framing.
- Available in 5x7", 8x10", 11x14", 16x20"
- Printed locally in the USA
- Ships flat (up to size 11x14") or rolled (16x20")
- We ship worldwide (Check your country's customs office for additional duties/taxes/fees they may charge)


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8 Gorgeous Hairstyles for Frizz-Prone HairA little frizz never hurt anybody. The key is to wear the right hairstyle. See the best hairstyles for frizzy hair now |
To get the look: Apply a light, leave-in conditioner (like Philip B. Lovin' Leave-In Conditioner, $24) through clean, damp hair. Dry it with a diffuser, scrunching as you go. Finish by wrapping a few random sections of hair around a large-barrel curling iron; "just be sure to leave the ends a little wild and loose," says Philip B. If necessary, smooth a drop of hair oil between your palms and run it over your hair to keep the texture touchable and sexy.
SEE NEXT PAGE: Textured Wavy Bob
Older comments
These styles are too "big," not soft. I was anxious to get some help here.
by GigiSD Monday, April 15, 2013 at 03:29PM Report as inappropriate
it looks like the frizz still has to be tamed before trying these styles...
by AstridB Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 02:58AM Report as inappropriate
Ok article but seriously no ones going to wear an Afro that huge.
by kfloyd01 Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 12:02AM Report as inappropriate
I'm not a fan of ANY of the hairstyles in this article.
by MissPurple Friday, January 25, 2013 at 12:44PM Report as inappropriate
The beehive updo, I love my hair just too fine to get that look. Also my Husband thinks it too much. I still like it...
by Tlee Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 06:48PM Report as inappropriate
love the new hair looks recommended for frizzy hair. Really great... Looks like its the new retro 80's look. Great...
by Tlee Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 06:41PM Report as inappropriate
Textured wavy bob, beehive updo, and messy fishtail were the best among these!
by Chantilly Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 01:01AM Report as inappropriate
I wish my hair could look 'windswept and effortless' instead of the morning after a really rough night! Really good tips though!
by WiccanLady Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 05:10PM Report as inappropriate
Even though I love straightening and curling my hair, It seems the best hair style for me is wearing my natural curls. Recently my stylist put a few long layers in it and I must admit it totally made my natural curls look fabulous plus it's low maintenance!
by MizzPink Friday, January 4, 2013 at 07:02AM Report as inappropriate


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Selecting a stencil Grade:
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.030" HIPS – HIPS has been used for stencils for many years, also known as PVC, This material is great for a custom stencil or something that is only used a few times. HIPS lays flat right out of the box and is our more cost effective option, while still being 4 times thicker than our competitors thinnest stencils.