Beauty Links

BY JESSICA GROSS As usual, now that our LABA discussions have primed me toward BEAUTY, the subject has been leaping out at me from all corners, from the highbrow to the lowbrow: Critic Mark Harris examines the media’s willful refusal to acknowledge Melissa McCarthy’s dependable bankability and talent at performing diverse roles: “Critics can like or dislike

Beauty Links

BY JESSICA GROSS Looking for a new dose of beauty musings? You’ve come to the right place. Over at The New Republic’s Intersection podcast, hosted by Jamil Smith, a recent episode on body image features discussions with writer Lindy West, editor Isaac Fitzgerald, trainer Andia Winslow, and blogger Erika Nicole Kendall. In an On Being interview with artist Ann Hamilton,

Reading: On Beauty’s Complications

BY JESSICA GROSS This week’s links and quotes complicate the idealization and idolization of beauty. The writers below valorize not the power of beauty, but the power of putting it in its place. (Except for that last quote, which plays with beauty’s more dangerous powers.) In an essay on Flavorwire, writer (and LABA alum) Sarah Marian Seltzer

Beauty Links and Quotes

BY JESSICA GROSS Once again, I can’t escape beauty: it seems to be eyeing me from everything I read and see, peeking out from nooks and crannies or smacking me right in the face. (And thank God.) Below, some of the best quotes and links on beauty I’ve come across in the past few weeks, from works

On Beauty: Listening and Reading

BY JESSICA GROSS As we at LABA delve deeply into how beauty weaves through classic Jewish texts, I’ve found I can barely go a day without finding echoes of our discussions in the culture. Below, a collection of contemporary meditations on beauty for your listening and reading pleasure. “One of the huge confusions in our times is to