A communication and business development agency based in New York City with networks in Brazil, France and Mexico
The Colors of the Day: January 20, 2021
French version available via Le Petit Journal. Click Here
If changing the destiny of a country could be as simple as changing the colors and message of a drawing, then words and political actions would not be necessary.
The Vital Power of Youth and Words: 22-year-old Poetess Amanda Gorman to Perform at Joe Biden’s Inauguration
A Rock, a River, a Tree
Maya Angelou, On The Pulse of Morning
Hosts of species long departed
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
Live on the Web, A Star is Born
A French version of this article was published on Le Petit Journal
It was a first on the stage at the Bastille Opéra in Paris. Not the first performance of Rudolf Nureyev’s La Bayadère. This ballet—the last great creation of the Russian-born choreographer and director of Dance in Paris in the 1980s—has been part of the Paris Opera Ballet repertoire since 1992. Nor the fact that this Bayadère was sold and broadcast live on the internet through the new online platform “L’Opéra Chez Soi.”
No, the great novelty this Sunday 13 December 2020 in Paris was a nomination unlike any other, ultimate and without an audience.
Women Have Power: Let’s Hear Them
A conversation with Alyse Nelson, President and co-Founder of Vital Voices for Global Partnership. Co-editor of Vital Voices: 100 Women to Empower Other Women (Assouline)
Forget for a moment Joe Biden’s victory as President-elect and Donald Trump’s struggles with defeat, one of the main news from the 2020 American Presidential election is Senator Kamala Harris. For the first time in history, a woman—a Black, Asian woman—will become the first female Vice President of the United States. Harris will also rank first in line to succeed Joe Biden as President.
Besides the election of Kamala Harris, women seem to have taken center political stage whether it is in the United States or on the opposite side of the world.
Women actually played a key role in the 2020 American elections a mere 100 years after the 19th amendment of the American Constitution granting women’s suffrage was passed. Fast forward to 2020, 57% of women—and among them 90% of Black women—chose the Democratic candidate over the incumbent President, according to NBC News. Women also voted more than men (52%). In other words, they decided the Presidential outcome and chose Joe Biden although Donald Trump increased his base of white women voters.
Ahead of the Presidential election, another woman, Justice Amy Coney Barrett also made history and became the only the fifth woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court in 230 years. A woman Justice has replaced another one. While it surely seems to be a positive step for women’s empowerment and gender equality, succession might not be as simple as just having a woman leader succeeding another one. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the American champion of women’s rights; based on the 48-year old Justice Barrett’s past judicial positions show, the new Justice is not.
Which glass should I use to taste Champagne?
Excerpts from an interview with Clément Pierlot, Cellar Master of Pommery Champagne.
(This post was edited by Word Factor. Click here for more information)
A French version of this article was published on Le Petit Journal. click here.
It was an unexpected and happy movement. I brushed aside two glasses standing on a coffee table. They were wider in the middle and beveled down, yet their shape did not matter anymore. All that remained on the ground were shards of broken glass.
These two glasses were a gift, two champagne glasses that had nothing in common with the ones I used for my friends: six “tulip” glasses made of crystal, also known as flutes. Thin, elongated, fragile, and unique with reliefs of light on a stand, my flutes have a formal spot in my home.
I therefore could not care less about the two broken glasses, yet I was doubting: “Am I serving champagne with the proper glasses when I use the flutes?”
I asked the question to the Chef de Cave—the winemaker—of Pommery Champagne, Clément Pierlot, while interviewing him during an online tasting dinner in June 2020 organized by the French Institute-Alliance Française, Tastings and Vranken-Pommery America:
Pierlot’s answer was a resounding ‘no.’