SLlinky* Friday: 8 Dangerous Travel Destinations for Women & One That Isn’t--plus Bradley Cooper, Ann Sinclair and Goya

* Caryl and Maryl troll the web for the best Second Life links this week:

Leaving On a Jet Plane: A week of unrelenting and upsetting headlines make us want to pack up and get away for a little R & R. Well, according to Business Insider, you won’t want to go to these 8 places if you are a woman and want to be safe. (Full disclosure: The article reads like a list of Caryl’s past vacation destinations.) But there’s one exotic locale where two of our favorite bloggers have done the advance work for your next trip--Morocco. Check out Shifting Gears where writer and friend Judith Ross traveled to visit her son, a Peace Corp. volunteer, in Tinghir. And don’t miss Slim Paley’s post on Ouarzazete from where she and a girlfriend departed for a luxurious desert camping trip. Both of these fearless travelers know how to shoot—pictures, that is.

Bradley Cooper with mother Gloria 

Home Again: Our adult children always know that they can return to the nest when they need us--but they also come back when we need them. Bradley Cooper, Oscar nominee and good son, has moved back in with his mother while the family continues to grieve the loss of Cooper’s dad.  Having his mom around is "not without complications," he says. "It's not like I live in a compound and she's in the guesthouse. No, she's in the next room." Read more at People.  

Arianna & Ann

Huff Post 60: Life for Ann Sinclair is getting better after 60. The recently-named head of Le Huffington Post, the French offshoot of Arianna Huffington’s internet empire, has finalized her divorce from Dominque Strauss-Kahn, disgraced director of IMF. Who knew Sinclair, 64, and her new boss, 62, have the same birthday? July 15. We learned this and more at The New Yorker.

Wanted: Smart Advertising for smart women. Do the people at Dove really think we are going to believe a forensic sketch artist can draw us to their beauty bar?  Well, they’ve got soap in their eyes, according to Salon.  For more on what the people behind the brand were thinking, fast forward to the videos at brandchannel.  Idea for the new advertising campaign: A + ; Execution: F. (And, that’s not for feminism.) 

Speaking of Feminism: You can 

buy social provocateur and author Susan Jacoby’s e-book The Last Men on Top for $2.99 starting April 23. Or, you can read  this excerpt (and learn a new word), "Sex in the Mad Men Era: Phallocrats and Fake Virgins",  at The Daily Beast.

Goya's “El Sueño de la Razon
Produce Monstruos” at Boston's MFA

Art Heals, we know that. Thank you to Mostafa Heddaya whose post on Hyperallergic  reminded us why museums are always “a place of respite” for our communities and gave us another reason to love Boston in this difficult week.

Pursuing Purpose, Passion and a Paycheck

Laura Lee Carter                                        Dana Buchman                                     Marci Alboher

Caryl recounts real stories of real women looking for the next thing

There’s a reason the word mid-life is often coupled with crisis. The years between 45 to 65 are often filled with loss—loss of a job, a marriage, a parent—but also a loss of identity. With children grown, careers stalled, relationships sometimes stagnating, as thinking women we know a fancy new sportscar or a Madmen-like affair would never be the answer. No, we are looking for something bigger, more profound, something truly life--maybe even world--changing. And, we wouldn’t mind some money too. The three women above have found purpose, passion and a paycheck in their second lives. Their stories provide inspiration, direction--and hope.

SLlinky*: Fashion Inspirations from Our Past and Present

Annette Funicello                                              Lily Pulitzer                                          Maggie Thatcher

*Maryl and Caryl troll the net for the best Second Life Links this week

Annette, Lily and Maggie:  One was a mouseketeer who traded in her ears for a bikini and capris in a string of 1960s cult beach movies but remained the modest girl next door and later a gracious spokesperson for Multiple Sclerosis. One was a designer and heiress who initially sold her brightly colored dresses along with orange juice at a Florida fruit stand proving that hard work is fashionable even for socialites. One was the first female major political leader in the West who put the power in power suit--no pants, just skirts and the right handbag-- and was thrilled when she was named to the international best-dressed list.  Annette Funicello, Lily Pulitzer, and Margaret Thatcher who all died this week left behind distinctive legacies of substance and style. Click on names for appreciations of the latter. 

NotDeadYetStyle

Style Sleuthing in the Present:  We love writing about what to wear in  our second lives but we're not a fashion blog exclusively. There is however, a dedicated band of women bloggers who devote themselves to finding clothes that work for our lives.  Here's 8 of the best fashion bloggers over 40 from Independent Fashion Bloggers.

Start Up Fashion:  This bias cut, cotton blend slouchy tunic can be yours for a pledge of $65 on Kickstarter, a new way to keep your closet current and help give deserving talent a chance.  "Cool, sexy, urban clothes designed for pursuing your passions" is how designer Patrick Robinson (most recently of Armani and The Gap) describes this collection of over a dozen pieces for both men and women. 

Warby Parker  frames

Seeing is believing:  We admit it, we were skeptical of getting reasonably-priced (starting at $95) vintage frames and filling our complicated prescriptions over the internet until we watched this video at Business Insider.

What you eat--not statins--is critical to a healthy woman's heart

Ruth's lists of foods to eat and foods to avoid

The Great Cholesterol Myth

New research has surfaced that proves it’s inflammation that causes heart disease, not cholesterol. For the last 30 years, doctors have told us to keep our cholesterol levels under 200 for a healthy heart. Not so. Doctors Johnny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra shatter The Great Cholesterol Myth in their recent book.  They present new research that has taken over the health news that cholesterol is what the body makes to put out the flames of inflammation. Because cholesterol deposits that turned into plaque built up in the arteries and caused blockage, the cholesterol has been diagnosed as the cause. But it’s like blaming the firemen for the fire. The body deposits cholesterol at the scene of the inflamed area.  It’s the inflammation that actually caused the heart attack to happen. Not cholesterol.  Here’s how it works.  

SLlinky Friday: These Women Make Us Want To Be Older (plus Countdown to Mad Men and more)

 Lauren Hutton, who just incidentally turns 70 this year, is one of those women. But the current issue of French Elle with Hutton on its cover isn’t about numbers (none of those tedious and ridiculous “what to wear when you’re 40, 50, 60, 70” articles). It is “more a celebration of women, and age be damned,” writes Tish Jett at A Femme d'un Certain Age. But the French have always known that.

What if you could learn to downsize and declutter your home and life while reducing waste and your carbon footprint at the same time?  Sounds time-consuming and way too hard?  Bea Johnson, lifestyle guru, makes it really simple in her latest book Zero Waste Home coming out April 9.

Source: pragmagraphr, Flickr.com

Your heart doesn't have to sink when you find the drain clogged with hair after you shower. It doesn't mean you're going bald, just shedding as part of your regular body cycle.  Read one woman's story about hair loss at Refinery 29 and ways to prevent it.

A Life Well-Lived: Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, screen writer and author, collaborated with James Merchant and Ismail Ivory on 20 films, but books were her first love.  She is the only person to win both a Booker prize (Heat and Dust) and two Oscars for screenwriting (A Room with a View—1985; Howard’s End—l992).  For four more surprising facts about this woman’s extraordinary life, read The Week. 

You'll have to wait until Sunday night for the two-hour premier of season six Mad Men.  But until then, try to name the 15 women Don Draper has been with in seasons one through five.  Who can’t remember Betty or Megan--or even Dr. Faye Miller? (She's definitely the only one with a Ph'd)  But what about Doris, Allison  and Candace? Go to Business Insider—for the complete list.

Can a two minute video "promote understanding between generations, and challenge perceptions about aging"?  Saga magazine from the UK held such a competition titled "Being 50" and here's the unlikely winner:

SPRING 2013 FASHION: NO NEW TRENDS, BUT LOTS OF FRESH LOOKS

Maryl shops her closet -- and a few favorite web sites and stores

I can’t conjure a list of five or seven or eleven brand new fashion trends for this spring.  Most are from this past fall and last spring and are still being refined and emulated along the fashion cycle.  That’s not a bad thing; it’s actually good because that means less time and expense to get a more current look when the weather finally – if ever, at least here in the northeast – warms up.   So here's the looks to shop for from your closet and your favorite stores:

SLlinky Thursday

Easter Greetings:  Sixty-five years ago, Fred Astaire came out of retirement to replace Gene Kelly and team up with the inimitable Judy Garland in the now classic Easter Parade.  Hear them sing.

  

   

                Forget Easter bonnets:  how about

                some trend-on multicolor pastel 

                shoes :

  

  

  First poems: from 10 famous poets including Proust, Plath and 

  Dickenson at Flavorwire.  Although he published his first poem at 

  age 18 in The Harvard Monthly, little Edward Estin Cummings--e

  e to all of us-- recorded this one when he was only three:

            My First Poem, (1897)
   
            Oh little birdie
oh
oh
oh,
            With your
toe
toe
toe.

Jane and Julia--two women our age going after the bad guys:  Film director Jane Campion's current HBO series, Top of the Lake, has a female detective confronting the criminals who have violated a teenage girl.  Julia Pierson, the first female Director of the Secret Service, was sworn in this week to fight off counterfeiters, cyber-attackers and anyone else thinking of messing with the First Family and other dignitaries.  

Second Life Gone Horribly Wrong:  

He was heading towards 60, his last kid had gone to college, his wife was teaching abroad.  His life felt empty until he found online shopping.  Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed writer of Friday Night Lights, describes "My Gucci Addiction" in this sad and disturbing piece at GQ. 

Buen Viaje, as they say in Spanish:  Travel consultants predict a rise in South American tourism now that the newly-elected Pope hails from Argentina.  As if you need another reason to go to Buenos Aires.

Joyce Carol Oates: Love, Loss and Just Saying Yes

Joyce Carol Oates, the prolific American author and feminist, whose new book The Accursed, which Stephen King praised as the "perhaps the world's first post-modern gothic novel", sat down with Caryl early this year for her first pre-publication interview. The conversation veered from vampires, demons and zombies to love, loss and the importance of saying yes to life. In February, 2008, after the death of her husband, the woman whose first collection of short stories came out a half century ago and whose canon includes more than 100 books and articles, found her self blocked, unable to write a single word of fiction. Raymond J. Smith, her soulmate of 35 years and her publishing partner in The Ontario Review, had died suddenly of complications from pneumonia two days after a routine visit to the ER. Oates found herself paralyzed, depressed, unable to sleep, shut down by the “ontological shock” of widowhood. What saved her was not turning her experience into a memoir –which she did eventually in A Widow’s Story but rather a simple coping strategy that could help all of us who are stalled, stunted or scared, all of us who want to move forward towards a second life, one that is not shaped by loss but informed by it, one we live fully with our eyes—and hearts-- wide open.