Isla Fisher

Acting Appreciation

Isla Fisher was born Isla Lang Fisher on February 3, 1976, in Muscat, Oman, to Scottish parents working abroad. When she was six, her family relocated to Australia, where she was raised in Perth. Fisher began appearing in television commercials as a child, showing an early comfort in front of the camera. Known for her petite stature—standing 5’2”—and expressive presence, she developed a screen persona that balanced physical comedy with emotional precision.

Her early acting career took shape in Australian television during her teenage years. Fisher gained national recognition playing Shannon Reed on the long-running soap Home and Away from 1994 to 1997, a role that earned her two Logie Award nominations. During this period, she also worked in theater and continued training, establishing herself as a disciplined performer rather than a fleeting soap-star success.

Fisher’s international breakthrough came with Scooby-Doo (2002), but it was Wedding Crashers (2005) that firmly positioned her in Hollywood. Her performance combined sharp comedic timing with unpredictability, leading to a steady run of high-profile roles in films such as Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Great Gatsby, Now You See Me, and Nocturnal Animals. She has also maintained a strong presence in voice acting and television, including Arrested Development and Wolf Like Me.

In her personal life, Fisher is married to actor Sasha Baron Cohen, with whom she has three children. She converted to Judaism prior to their marriage and tends to keep family life relatively private. Beyond acting, she is an accomplished author of young adult novels and the Marge in Charge children’s series. Fisher supports several charitable causes, including Save the Children and global education initiatives, aligning her public profile with measured, consistent philanthropy.

Sources:

Wikipedia

https://www.babepedia.com/babe/Isla_Fisher

https://celebmuse.com/celebrities/isla-fisher--

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0279545/

https://www.womensweekly.com.au/news/celebrity/isla-fisher-family-career-75387/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/30/this-much-i-know-isla-fisher

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/who-we-work-with/celebrity-supporters/isla-fisher

The Flying Lizards - Money

Music Appreciation

The Flying Lizards' offbeat cover of "Money (That's What I Want)" appeared on their self-titled debut album released in February 1980, following its initial single release in mid-1979. Originally written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford and first performed by Barrett Strong in 1959, the song went on to be recorded by The Beatles in 1963. 

The Flying Lizards version, masterminded by David Cunningham, embraced a deliberate eccentricity -- sharp, minimalist beats and experimental instructional textures combined with found-sound processing -- to deconstruct the classic into a quirky new wave anthem.

Deborah Evans-Stickland's deadpan vocal delivery -- flat, precise, and detached -- became a defining feature of this hit, transforming it into a cult favorite often heard in media reference to "money," from news broadcasts to film soundtracks. 

In the 1979 Jeff Willis-directed music video, filmed in an nondescript house, Cunningham appears playing with tape machines and effects boxes behind Evans-Stickland, whose emotionless recitation heightens the song's ironic mood. Their stage-toy setups--homemade audio gear, cardboard props--mirror the track's studio-built oddness, cementing their roles as pioneers of avant-pop satire. 

To this day, that stripped-back cool continues to underline every cheeky commentary on cash.

Sources:

Wikipedia

https://rock-reflections.com/blogs/videos-lyrics-facts/the-flying-lizards-money

https://www.stevepafford.com/money/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Holly Jane Johnston

Modeling Appreciation

Holly Jane Johnston first caught my attention with her curvy figure and an unpretentious, soccer-mom energy that feels genuine rather than staged. That mix of confidence and approachability made it easy to understand why her audience grew quickly—and why I followed her on OnlyFans soon after. 

Born February 2, 1983, in California, Johnston entered the adult-modeling space in 2021, bringing a perspective shaped by motherhood and everyday life rather than industry polish.

Professionally, Johnston balances modeling with influencer work, presenting herself as a housewife-turned-creator who owns her choices. Her content leans into body confidence and wellness, pairing fashion and fitness with candid reflections on parenting and self-care. 

Visually, she favors clean compositions and natural styling—blonde hair, green eyes, and a compact frame—while emphasizing health over numbers. That focus resonates with followers who value consistency and relatability more than spectacle.

Sources:

https://www.instagram.com/holly.jane.johnston

https://onlyfans.com/hollyjaneloves69

https://x.com/Hollyjane469

https://www.facebook.com/therealhollyjane/

https://beacons.ai/therealhollyj

https://www.babepedia.com/babe/Holly_Jane_Johnston

Dance: Tinashe - Nasty

Choreography: Marion Kang

via Tiana Shern

Cosplay is an Art: Vienna Comic Con 2025

via Mr. Green 

Suzanne Jackson

Art Appreciation

Suzanne Jackson was born on January 30, 1944, in St. Louis, Missouri, and came of age during a period of social and artistic change. She studied art in San Francisco before relocating to Los Angeles in the 1960s, where she became a student of Charles White. These early years shaped her belief in art as both a personal practice and a communal act, grounded in observation, discipline, and lived experience.

Jackson’s career spans painting, poetry, education, set design, and gallery ownership. In Los Angeles, she founded Gallery 32, a vital, community-centered space that supported Black artists such as Senga Nengudi, Betye Saar, and Emory Douglas. After closing the gallery, she turned toward theater design, earned an M.F.A. from Yale, and later taught at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her visual work resists fixed categories, favoring light, movement, and open composition over rigid form.

Hilton Als profiles Jackson as an inventive, light-focused painter whose work reflects decades of engagement with nature, community, and intuition. In his discussion of her exhibition Light and Paper at Ortuzar Projects, Als notes how works from 1984 to 2024 explore light as a shifting force—never static, never resolved. Jackson’s use of acrylic, netting, fabric scraps, seeds, and bamboo results in surfaces that feel suspended between painting and sculpture.

Among her most recognized works are Frozen Elsie (2000), a luminous meditation on color and perception, and 9, Billie, Mingus, Monk’s (2003), a layered homage to jazz innovators. As Als argues, Jackson’s art occupies a liminal space—between memory and material, control and chance—capturing the quiet persistence of light and creative life.

Frozen Elsie, 2000

9, Billie, Mingus, Monk’s, 2003

El Paradiso, 1981-1984

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Jackson_(artist)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/suzanne-jackson-art-review

https://www.ortuzar.com/exhibitions/suzanne-jackson2

https://missionlocal.org/2025/10/sf-suzanne-jackson-art-sfmoma-exhibit/

https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/suzanne-jackson

http://frieze.com/article/suzanne-jackson-profile-247

Barnett Newman

Art Appreciation

Barnett Newman was born on January 29, 1905 in New York City to Polish-Jewish immigrants and grew up immersed in philosophy, literature, and politics. He studied at the City College of New York, initially pursuing philosophy rather than art, a background that later shaped the intellectual rigor of his work. 

During the 1930s and early 1940s, Newman painted intermittently while working as a teacher, critic, and civil service examiner. Much of his early figurative and expressionist work was later destroyed by the artist, reflecting his dissatisfaction and his search for a visual language that could address fundamental human experience.

Newman emerged as a central figure of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s, though his approach differed sharply from the gestural style of peers like Pollock or de Kooning. He rejected dynamic brushwork in favor of large color fields interrupted by vertical bands he called “zips.” These zips were not compositional devices but structural elements, meant to assert scale, presence, and immediacy. Newman sought to evoke the sublime—an encounter with vastness, creation, and existential meaning—using simplicity, flat color, and monumental scale.

Among Newman’s most recognized works is Onement I (1948), which introduced the zip motif that defined his mature style. Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1950–51) remains one of his most ambitious canvases, enveloping viewers in red while confronting them with scale and intensity. His series The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani (1958–66) stands as a stark, spiritual meditation, using black and white to explore suffering, silence, and transcendence.

Onement I, 1948

Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51

Sources:

Wikipedia

https://www.moma.org/artists/4285-barnett-newman

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/barnett-newman