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USA Today
6 days ago
- Health
- USA Today
Have you noticed smoking is making a comeback? I hate that. I love that.
I know smoking is bad for my health. We all know that. So why is it making a comeback? The sight of snuffed cigarette butts in an ashtray might feel jarringly anachronistic these days, given successful efforts to curtail the smelly act for decades. Nonetheless, we're edging toward a resurgence, at least in popular culture, of the classic combustion of an old-school cigarette, even if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assures us rates aren't yet increasing. Unfortunately, I've fallen into the quiet resurgence. I'm a 46-year-old diabetic who tries to be healthy, yet after quitting 20 years ago, I find myself back in the alley occasionally (always shamefully) puffing as I hold pleasure and consequence in the same breath. My friends call it nostalgia. I think it's deeper – a defiant exhale of the angst and authenticity I crave in an uncertain world. Smoking was eradicated. Now it's creeping back into the mainstream. The historical canon of smoking is well-documented from early 20th century glamour and association with sophistication, rebellion and artistic freedom – see flappers, film noir, World War II soldiers, the Beat Generation, the Marlboro Man and Bob Dylan. I grew up in the haze of the 1990s when smoking wasn't just a habit, it was a personality – raw and rebellious – butts smeared with Courtney Love's red lipstick, the thrift-store fantasy of "Reality Bites," the sultry detachment of Mia Wallace in "Pulp Fiction." But smoking fell out of favor over the past several decades, transforming the cigarette from an emblem of cool into a symbol of a bygone era, fraught with undeniable health consequences. Increased spending on public health campaigns successfully shifted public perception in the 1990s and early 2000s as tobacco control media campaigns vilified the act. Opinion: Is it Alzheimer's or am I just getting old? Here's how to find an answer. In 1998, federal law prohibited paid smoking product placement on TV and in the movies, and subsequent smoking bans made it difficult to light up where secondhand smoke might blow. Taxes made cigarettes pricey, and in 2007, the Motion Picture Association of America began considering cigarette use as a factor in film ratings. Meanwhile, I managed to quit smoking while navigating my career and a second marriage, as anti-smoking campaigns gained traction and thankfully weakened tobacco's power. Decades later, the old-school act of combusting nicotine is back in the zeitgeist. The New York Times recently reported on the aesthetic resurgence of smoking, and even the Republican Party brought the act back to the U.S. Capitol in 2023. Eight in 10 of the 2025 Oscar best picture nominees featured tobacco imagery. In the new Netflix show 'Too Much,' the character Felix practically begs you to tell him smoking isn't cool, as he puffs between his nail-polished fingers and we swoon. Mistrust of institutions and our angst are why smoking is back This cultural phenomenon unfolds against a backdrop of deep and precipitous institutional distrust in the U.S. government and a decline in trust across various sectors from 2021 to 2024, including pharmacies, hospitals, social service agencies, fire departments, universities, police departments and public health departments. Concurrent to these visual cues of lighting up, global anti-smoking efforts are quietly being defunded in favor of even bigger world problems. Without dedicated efforts to keep smokers focused on the undeniable health consequences, are we soon to face an even bigger health crisis? Recent legislation will surely compromise health care for 17 million Americans in the near term. Opinion: I'm taking a stand against jacked-up airline fees by taking the middle seat This rebirth points to a deeper longing for control. This stance was well-spun by Kurt Vonnegut when he said, 'The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.' In this chosen ritual, however infrequent, I signal a visceral middle finger to ambient anxieties and constant demands for optimization. I scroll my phone anxiously as I'm bombarded by news that's not immediately credible, often a polarized take on fleeting democratic norms. Smoking is terrible for my health. But it helps feed my need to rebel. Smoking offers a palpable pause, a singular moment of physical presence in an existence mediated by the ever-present pressure of political machinations. And when those threats feel ambient and involuntary, smoking is a sensory language all its own, where the health consequences almost fade to black (like my lungs) as I relish each tantalizing feature of personal agency. If I asked my therapist why I returned to a pack of Kool 100 Milds as a way to subconsciously control the world's chaos, she'd likely say it's like thumb sucking, a childish habit that I need to eradicate – immediately. I can't disagree. Smoking is awful for my health. Still, the choice to engage with a known threat paradoxically feels safer than the chaos beyond my control, where fundamental freedoms, like the right to bodily autonomy, are increasingly debated and denied. It speaks to my desire for imperfection, a reclaiming of agency over my body, and deliberate choices in defiance of a societal narrative that often conflates moral virtue with absolute health. For those, like me, who sometimes justify with a 'one or two won't kill me,' it's important to remember all the reasons we quit in the first place. In addition to the risk of lung cancer or worse, I remind myself of the absurdity of Botoxing my forehead wrinkles and injecting Ozempic if I'm willing to suck on a cancer stick. I put saccharine, bubble-gum flavored vapes and nicotine pouches in this category, too – they're all really bad for our health. There's no dispute on that, whether or not we fully demonize smoking. And maybe the fact that we all know how bad it is is the problem. Smoking is Chapter 1 of the original anti-authority playbook, creeping back into consciousness the minute we look away. Akin to slipping on my classic black leather jacket, it will never truly go out of style. Society, it seems, once again sanctions both as my potent symbols of defiance in a world rife with involuntary consequences. Andrea Javor is a freelance writer and marketing executive based in Chicago. She spends her free time playing poker and working on her memoir. Connect with her on Instagram: @AndreaEJavor
Elle
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
Winona Ryder: 'I Started My Career As The Youngest And I Always Wanted To Be Older'
PHOTOGRAPHS BY OLIVIA MALONE, STYLING BY NATASHA WRAY Actors famously hate talking about relationships, but I plunge in anyway and ask Winona Ryder about her relationship with her hair. 'My hair?' she asks. We're having lunch in a café on a bright, blue day in a leafy part of Los Angeles. Ryder is wearing denim overalls, a T-shirt from the Beat Generation holy land that is San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, a pin with Jim Jarmusch's face on it and Converse high-tops as yellow as the sun in a kid's drawing. Her hair – loose, shaggy, falling past her shoulders – is her natural deep-brown with just a few silver stands, like tinsel. She has ordered tea with milk and sugar and a chocolate croissant, which she is eating in the only rational way: by tearing it apart in search of the chocolate. 'Honestly, I always loved having short hair,' she says. 'One thing is, I have to cut it myself.' All those iconic pixie cuts in the 1990s? She did that? 'Always. It's easy. And for Reality Bites , I just went like this…' OLIVIA MALONE Dress with collar, £10,500, DIOR. Ear cuff, £70, and rings, from £45, all PANDORA. Bra, stylist's own Ryder lowers her head, puts her hands behind her back, and pretends to be chopping away. 'Upside down and you cut up,' she says. She rights herself and the mood shifts slightly. 'I always knew I looked young,' Ryder says. 'But I also knew that when I started ageing, it was gonna happen fast.' I state the obvious – that it hasn't happened yet. 'It kind of has,' she says, and points to her forehead. 'I don't mind it. But what's weird is when you're surrounded by young women getting weird shit done.' She's talking about buccal-fat removal, during which, yes, fat is sucked out of the cheeks with a vacuum. 'I thought they were kidding. I want to say, like, 'In 10 years, you're gonna want that back!'' OLIVIA MALONE Cape, £4,050, shirt, £2,300, and beret, price on request, all DIOR. Ear cuff, £70, PANDORA Lately, female directors have made it clear they think Ryder would benefit from some Botox: 'They'll say, 'Just relax your forehead. Relax.' I'm trying to be a great actor, and they're saying that over and over. It's nice that people are talking about how it's OK to age, but there's still enormous pressure. Every role I get is for a mother, you know? My career has definitely shifted.' Ryder smiles, unphased by all this. She seems to wear the pressure of ageing like a sundress. 'So, I think what I aspire to, finally, is to play the judge who's like, 'Chambers now, counsellor! Too far!'' She rises slightly from her seat to deliver the line and booms it out giddily. OLIVIA MALONE Blazer, £895, and trousers, £850, both SPORTMAX. Bangles, from £150, both PANDORA. Heels, £410, JUDE I first interviewed Ryder for a cover story when she was 19 (before Mermaids and Edward Scissorhands hit cinemas) and again when she was 22 (ahead of Reality Bites ). She was bright-eyed and impassioned in those days, and en route to being an icon, thanks to the fact that she was clearly in on the dark joke that was growing up. Even then, Ryder didn't hide the fact that she'd dealt with anxiety, heartbreak, intermittent self-loathing around stardom and literal years of insomnia. (It's not by random chance that she helped Girl, Interrupted get made.) Often, this shadowy stuff manifested as humour. In 1994, as the 5'3' actor padded barefoot through the chandeliered lobby of her Manhattan apartment building, she told me, casually: 'All the famous models live here. I feel like a tiny f*ckin' freak.' I say all this because I never saw Ryder as happy and at ease as she is now. I'd only add two caveats. One is that the US government is currently a hellmouth. The other is that Ryder – the proud daughter of counter-culture writers and activists, who learnt not long ago that she was actually conceived in the City Lights Bookstore after closing time – recently became acquainted with tear gas while protesting deportation raids in LA. OLIVIA MALONE Jacket, £5,210, top, £1,330, skirt, £2,920, tights, £190, and heels, £975, all GUCCI. Ring, £45, PANDORA Some of Ryder's equanimity has to do with locating the love of her life, the green-fashion entrepreneur Scott Mackinlay Hahn. (When they met at the Black Swan premiere in 2010, Hahn mistook her for Milla Jovovich. 'I thought it was the most charming thing in the world,' Ryder says – so, later, she chased down his phone number. 'I was very direct. I was like, 'Listen, do you want to go on a date?''') Some of her happiness has to do with playing Joyce Byers on the Duffer brothers' colossally popular sci-fi/horror hit Stranger Things , which ends this autumn. When she signed on for the show, the deeply non-techy Ryder only dimly understood what Netflix was. In a series about parallel universes, she was the one who insisted on more than one dimension for her character, who struggles to reclaim her younger son from the mouldering nether-world known as the Upside Down. 'I had to fight really hard to make Joyce real and flawed,' she tells me. The Duffers admit she was just 'the mom', and it's tough to convince people that flaws are good. The coolest part of Stranger Things , though, seems to have been getting to know the young cast. 'I was the oldest person on the set,' she says. 'I started [my career] as the youngest, and I always wanted to be older.' So, when Stranger Things became a smash, Ryder helped the teens keep it all in perspective. 'I was like, 'This doesn't happen. This is weird – the phenomenon. The work is the gift. That is why you're doing it.'' Which was what was instilled in me. And I think I was successful with some of them.' Ryder also told the cast to remember their own value. 'I've been trying to sort of change this narrative with the kids, because they have it drilled into them that they're so lucky and, you know, that this show 'made' them. I'm like, 'No. Netflix is so lucky. You guys are the special ones. Like, you guys are magic.'' OLIVIA MALONE Jacket, £5,210, and top, £1,330, both GUCCI. Rings, from £45, all PANDORA Over lunch, Ryder – who's known as Noni to her friends – shouts out the many mentors she herself had, most vociferously Laura Dern. 'I don't think I'd be here without her,' she says. 'I met her on my first screen test for Lucas – I didn't know what a screen test was. I remember walking in, and River Phoenix held the door open for me. I was like, 'Oh, that's so nice.' I recognised him from Stand By Me , and he had broken his leg. Laura was there to read for the older girl, and she talked me through it, 'cause I didn't know what the f*ck was going on. She befriended me. I was literally 12 and – nobody knows this – she took me under her wing into my twenties. That relationship got me through. I was probably living at her house when I was talking to you [in the Nineties].' Ryder's star rose fast. Her first Oscar nomination, for The Age of Innocence , came when she was 22; her second, for Little Women , when she was 23. Even The Crucible , which floundered at the box office, was riveting. Still, Ryder has been pressured by people, just like her Stranger Things castmates. 'I was told I was never gonna work again if I did Heathers ,' she says, admitting: 'I did lose a job.' She's not sure she wants to reveal what job it was. I point out that it was 35 years ago. 'OK, OK, I'll tell you. You remember the movie The Freshman ?' Yes: the comedy with Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick. Ryder had landed the role, but then the film-makers saw Heathers . 'They thought it was making fun of teen suicide. They were deeply offended and, yeah, they revoked the offer.' She affects a weepy voice: 'I'm like, 'I can't work with Marlon Brando?' But I had to stand my ground. I wasn't gonna apologise.' Later, I ask if she ever watches her old movies, and she says: 'I never turn off Heathers if it's on. I know it basically by heart.' OLIVIA MALONE Jacket, £2,900, DIOR. Skirt, £2,000, PRADA. Sunglasses, price on request, MM6 MAISON MARGIELA. Ear cuff, £70, and rings, £45 each, all PANDORA. Gloves, £95, DENTS. Tights, £9.99, CALZEDONIA. Boots, price on request, COURRÈGES Ryder has experienced much more difficult stuff in Hollywood, too. She remembers telling the producers of a movie that the director was being inappropriate with her and asking if they could talk to him. 'The next day I had a big scene,' she says. The director approached her on set to discuss said scene, then changed his tone to a whisper. 'He came up to me, and he was like, 'OK, so, um, if we just try it like – you f*cking c*nt, I'm gonna destroy your f*cking life.' OK? So let's just do it like that?' And I had to f*cking act. And what's so crazy is my brother was working as a PA on the movie, and I didn't even tell him, and I didn't complain.' Two years ago, Ryder told that anecdote to Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton and Catherine O'Hara while shooting Beetlejuice Beetlejuice . 'I was almost telling it like it was this funny story,' she says. 'Then I'm looking at Jenna's face and imagining it happening to her. It wasn't until that moment that I was like, 'Oh my God, this is bad.'' OLIVIA MALONE Jacket, £4,950, PRADA. Ear cuff, £70, PANDORA For every unsettling tale, Ryder fortunately has 10 ecstatic ones, and she waves her arms around when she tells them, like an air-traffic controller at the aiport guiding a plane into its gate. She seems happiest when she's lampooning herself – she tells me that she was once so besotted with Christopher Walken that when he gave her a rotisserie chicken – from a supermarket – she kept the carcass a weirdly long time because it came from him. Later, I will text Ryder to make sure that I understand this saga correctly. She writes back: 'I still have the wishbone and am trying to make it into a necklace.' At the café, Ryder also relates the following adventure in humiliation while beaming: 'I was absolutely in love with Al Pacino when I was working with him. We were doing that workshop for Richard III , which I didn't know was gonna be a movie. I was actively in love with him. He was obsessed with coffee, and he would take me all over New York – like, to the weirdest places – to try different coffees. I'm 22, or whatever. Finally, he's dropping me off wherever I'm staying, and I'm like, 'I love you, you know. I really am completely in love with you.'' And he was like – she pretends to be Pacino reaching out to touch her hand pityingly – 'Aw, honey, noooo.' Then, like 10 years later, I meet his girlfriend, who's younger than me.' She laughs. 'Dude, I'm f*cking throwing myself at you.' Ryder pauses, then puts a bow on the story: 'I still play poker with him sometimes. It's the best.' OLIVIA MALONE Jacket, £4,950, and skirt, £2,200, both PRADA. Rings, from £45, all PANDORA. Tights, £9.99, CALZEDONIA. Heels, £410, JUDE How can she share these memories so freely and easily? Well, she's found Hahn, the aforementioned love of her life. I ask her if she ever considered having children – she clearly has maternal feelings for the Stranger Things cast – and she says simply: 'There was a time that I was really thinking about it, but I hadn't met Scott.' Hahn arrives at the cafe towards the end of lunch. He has a soft, welcoming face currently engulfed by a mountain-man beard and, where Ryder is concerned, he just about glows with care and protectiveness. A few days later, I follow up to ask Ryder how Hahn would like his life's calling described, and I'll get this answer: 'Ecological warrior/diplomat by day, Noni whisperer by night.' Ryder says she already thinks of him as her husband, and the couple plan to marry before long. She was 'never the girl who dreamt of a wedding', so I point out that they could get married at City Lights Bookstore. Ryder stops short: 'Wow, that is such a good idea.' OLIVIA MALONE Blazer, £895, and trousers, £850, both SPORTMAX. Bangles, from £150, both PANDORA. Heels, £410, JUDE I ask Ryder and Hahn if they're homebodies. 'We're homebodies when it comes to food,' Hahn says. He does the cooking because she doesn't think she's great at it, and, as she puts it: 'He has this gift that my mom had, which is making healthy food delicious. He made a curry last night that was better than any curry I've ever had.' As for their day-to-day life, Ryder says she loves the band Saint Etienne but admits that the music most likely to be drifting through their house is stuff that's been nesting in her heart forever: Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and The Replacements. She loathes AI and avoids social media but consumes movies and books like they're not just entertainment, but sustenance (she loves many writers, including Zadie Smith, Isabel Allende, Alice Walker and Philip Roth). At one point in the interview, she surprises me by reaching forward to touch the notebook paper I've written questions on. When I tell her that she's not allowed to read them, she says, 'No, no, no. I'm just excited to see paper.' OLIVIA MALONE Coat, £2,900, DIOR. Sunglasses, price on request, MM6 MAISON MARGIELA. Ear cuff, 270, and rings, 245 cach, PANDORA. Gloves, 295, DENTI Ryder says she likes to read during daylight hours and, when I ask where in the house she reads, she paints a picture that will stay with me. 'There's a little brick room that's lit by the sun, which looks out over David Lynch's house,' she says, pausing mournfully when she mentions the late director. 'I usually read until it gets dark. I've always done that.' Ryder knows a book is good when she doesn't want night to fall, which reminds me of how she has always lived a bit out of step with time. 'I remember when I first read American Pastoral – this was so long ago – I was, like, panicking as the sun was going down,' she says. She mimes clutching a book and reading feverishly before it's too late. 'Why I didn't just turn the light on, I still don't know.' HAIR: John D at Forward Artists. MAKE-UP: Francelle Daly at 2b Management, using Love+Craft+Beauty. NAILS: Yoko Sakakura at A-Frame Agency, using Spa Ritual and Orly. STYLIST'S ASSISTANTS: Marissa Pérez, Harry Langford and Crystalle Cox. SET DESIGN: Maxim Jezek at Walter Schupfer Management. ON-SET PRODUCTION: Fox & Leopard OLIVIA MALONE OLIVIA MALONE This interview is taken from the September issue of ELLE UK, on newsstands from July 31. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE . Stranger Things S5 Has a Release Date Winona Forever
Chicago Tribune
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Scott Vehill, artistic force behind Prop Thtr, dies at 68
Scott Vehill was the co-founder and longtime artistic director of Chicago's Prop Thtr, a scrappy, experimental theater company that throughout its 44-year history has staged intense, intellectually challenging plays, often on shoestring budgets, and put an emphasis on new work. 'Scott made a lot of things happen,' said Stefan Brun, Prop's co-founder with Vehill in 1980 and the group's executive director. 'He was the vision guy, and somebody else would follow up. He had vision, he really cared about the people, and … he loved the stories.' Vehill, 68, died of complications from Parkinson's disease on June 5 at his Lincoln Park home, said his wife of 30 years, Kristen. Born in Detroit, Vehill grew up in the Southwest Side's Marquette Park neighborhood and later in north suburban Wildwood. After graduating from Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Vehill attended downstate Monmouth College before transferring to Columbia College Chicago. After producing student theater together at Columbia, Vehill and Brun founded Prop in a space that formerly housed a strip joint on an off-the-beaten-track stretch of North Lincoln Avenue. With a program of nontraditional performance, European and Beat Generation theater, Prop had to fight to survive and attract audiences, Brun said. 'We started it together, but he is the one who held it,' Brun said. 'Many other people came through, including (onetime managing director) Jonathan Lavan and (onetime artistic director) Olivia Lilley, but Scott was Prop. There was no ruling aesthetic — the show we were currently doing was who we were.' Vehill kept the theater company moving forward after Brun left Chicago in 1987 for Germany. Although his title was artistic director, he was a jack-of-all-trades, directing performances, co-authoring plays and, as Tribune theater critic Chris Jones wrote in 2000, finding ways 'to pay utility bills, keep the doors open at a variety of rented spaces and produce … forms of esoteric theater in dark garages with the minimum of financial resources.' Prop put up three to four productions a year. Some pushed the boundaries — a 1986 staging of 'Biker Macbeth,' an adaptation of the Shakespeare play, drew a stinging review from the Tribune — while others, such as the 1988 staging of Vehill's adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel 'The Last Words of Dutch Schultz,' garnered critical praise. 'Everything about him was bigger than life,' said Charles Pike, a co-star of the Burroughs adaptation. 'Scott embraced chaos. He saw that sometimes things needed to be broken, and he did not hesitate to break them. He had a heart for the outcast, for the underdog. He was a sucker for a good Chicago story. And we both embraced Beat literature and wanted to make sure that future generations saw (Lawrence) Ferlinghetti, (Jack) Kerouac and Burroughs the way he saw them.' Vehill directed plays by Neil Gray Giuntoli, who also co-starred in Prop's staging of 'The Last Words of Dutch Schultz,' and Paul Peditto, who was part of the old Igloo theater group. Vehill collaborated often with Peditto, both at Igloo and also at Chicago's bygone Live Bait Theater, where in 1991, the duo staged 'BUK,' a drama inspired by the life and work of poet Charles Bukowski. Prop's hard-hitting, commercially successful and critically acclaimed 1994 stage adaptation of Nelson Algren's 'Never Come Morning' garnered nine awards at the annual Joseph Jefferson Citation Awards for productions operating without Actors' Equity contracts — still a record for a non-Equity production. Vehill subsequently tried, without success, to raise money to turn the novel into a film. In 1995, Vehill directed Prop's spoof of former President Ronald Reagan's life before politics, in a play titled 'Reagan: Dementia in Absentia — An Unauthorized Tribute.' Two years later, Vehill staged Peditto's '1,001 Afternoons in Chicago,' a play inspired by screenwriter Ben Hecht's daily columns from the early 1920s in the Chicago Daily News. In 2000, Vehill directed a play about countercultural writer Terry Southern. In 2004, he directed 'Struggling Truths,' a fable exploring the origins of Tibet's conflicts with China. 'It's like a Brechtian parable and the audience, who will be literally divided into two sections, must decide which is the truth about Tibet,' Vehill said of 'Struggling Truths.' 'Was it a people's revolution that got rid of a feudal regime or was it an embattled Buddhist theocracy threatened by a totalitarian state? Both sides will try to stir up an audience to back their cause.' In 2006, Vehill oversaw the staging of Prop's biggest hit ever, 'Hizzoner,' a critical and popular success featuring Giuntoli playing Mayor Richard J. Daley. In a 2006 review, Jones called it a 'thoroughly gripping … bio-drama' that was not to be missed 'for students of the old man and the city he maybe hurt and maybe saved.' The production of 'Hizzoner' was in keeping with Jones' 2002 assessment in the Tribune that Prop is a theater company that is 'proudly blue-collar' and 'cheerfully intellectual,' with 'hard-working and mature creative leaders.' In the late 1990s, Vehill helped found the National New Play Network, a consortium of theaters from around the country committed to showcasing new work. Prop became the Chicago hub of the network, whose rolling world premiere program simultaneously brings new productions to partner theaters across the U.S. More than a decade ago, illness caused Vehill to pull back from Prop, his wife said. For the past two years, about 20 or so friends gathered monthly at Vehill's home to bring the homebound Vehill art in the form of songs, readings and even visual artwork, in what were affectionately called 'Scotty Salons,' his wife said. 'Kristen told me that the therapeutic benefit lasted for several days afterward,' said Keith Fort, who chair's Prop's board and organized the salons. 'That's the healing power of art.' In addition to his wife, Vehill is survived by three sisters, Julie 'Gigi' Paddock, Trisha Peck and Jaime Freiler; and a brother, Raoul. A celebration of life will take place from 5 to 11 p.m. on Friday, July 18, at Facility Theatre, 1138 N. California Ave.
Los Angeles Times
26-06-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
It's time to escape to California's Gold Rush towns for postcard charms and swimming holes
You could argue that Nevada City peaked 170 years ago, along with Charles Darwin, Herman Melville and Queen Victoria. But we're still talking about them all. And Nevada City, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento in the Sierra foothills, is reachable without a séance. In the 1850s, it grew from a miners' outpost into a Gold Rush boomtown of 10,000 (heavy on the bars and brothels) before anyone got around to naming that other Nevada as a territory or a state. Today it lives on as a tiny town with a lively arts scene and a liberal bent, home to about 3,200 souls. Advertisement Perhaps because there's so much to escape from these days, Nevada City and its larger, more middle-of-the-road neighbor Grass Valley have been drawing more visitors than ever lately. Nevada County's hotel and vacation rental tax revenues have doubled in the last five years to a record high. Planning your weekend? Stay up to date on the best things to do, see and eat in L.A. 'A lot of people are coming up from the Bay Area and settling up here because Nevada City is in a lot of ways like the Bay Area,' said Ross Woodbury, owner of Nevada City's Mystic Theater. 'It's a very blue town in a very red region.' If you're from elsewhere, it's easy at first to overlook the differences among these Gold Rush towns. Once your feet are on the ground, however, the distinctions and fascinating details shine through — as do historic rivalries. 'Nevada City thinks it's a little better than Grass Valley and Grass Valley think it's a little better than Nevada City. I don't think that's ever going to change,' said restaurateur John Gemignani, standing by the grill of the Willo steakhouse in Nevada City. Advertisement 'That's never going to change,' confirmed his wife, Chris Gemignani. Nevada City's intimate size, upscale shops and throwback 19th century architecture alone are enough to win over many people. Its downtown is a 16-acre collection of more than 90 historic buildings, cheek by Victorian jowl. Say you have breakfast at Communal Cafe, lunch at Three Forks Bakery, dinner at Friar Tuck's, a drink after at the Golden Era. You haven't even hit 1,000 steps for the day yet, unless you've been dancing to the live music that often fills the area. (One night, I stepped from Spring Street into Miners Foundry — an 1856 landmark now used as a cultural center — and found about 200 locals gathered for a community sing, a chorus of Beatles-belting Boomers.) For those who seek higher step counts, forested foothills and miles of trails wait outside town, along with often-perilous springtime whitewater and summer swimming holes along the South Yuba River. And in surrounding hill country, the Empire Mine and Malakoff Diggins, once the major employers (and polluters) of the region, now serve as state historic parks. The Beat Generation poet Gary Snyder (95 years old and well represented on the shelves at Harmony Books on Main Street) still lives on a ridge outside town. Meanwhile, four miles down the road from Nevada City in Grass Valley, changes are afoot. The Holbrooke Hotel (statelier sibling to Nevada's City's National Exchange Hotel) reopened after a dramatic renovation in 2020. Soon after, spurred by the pandemic, the city closed busy Mill Street to cars, making it a permanent two-block pedestrian promenade full of restaurants, bars and shops. About This Guide Our journalists independently visited every spot recommended in this guide. We do not accept free meals or experiences. What should we check out next? Send ideas to guides@ Still, if Los Angeles moves at 100 miles per hour, Foggy Mountain Music store clerk Pete Tavera told me, 'Grass Valley is like 60.' Advertisement Both towns preserve their mining heritage, and when you stroll through them, you can just about hear echoes of those raucous Gold Rush days. Here's a little more of what I learned during a three-day visit: In the early days of the Gold Rush, most of the area's mine workers lived in Grass Valley while the owners, bosses and other white-collar people built their upscale Victorian homes in Nevada City, the county seat. The Great Depression of the 1930s never really reached this corner of Gold Country, because the big hard-rock mines kept on producing gold. In 2024, when a company tried to restart gold mining at the nearby old Idaho-Maryland Mine, residents of Nevada County, which includes Nevada City and Grass Valley, rose up and the county board of supervisors shut down the idea, citing environmental risks. These days, it seems, Nevada County wants to remember gold mining, not live with it. Because everybody needs a break now and then, here is a closer look at 15 essential spots, starting in Nevada City, continuing with Grass Valley.
Time of India
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Madonna and the Pope are distant cousins? The internet can't get enough of it
In a plot twist that feels straight out of a Dan Brown novel (minus the murder and secret codes), it turns out that Madonna—the Queen of Pop, is actually related to the new head of the Catholic Church. According to none other than renowned historian and genealogy expert Henry Louis Gates Jr., Madonna and Pope Leo XIV (aka Robert Prevost) are ninth cousins, several times removed. This revelation comes from Finding Your Roots, the long-running PBS documentary series hosted by Gates. The show, which has previously connected celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper to historical surprises, took a deep dive into the new Pope's lineage. And what do you know? Tucked somewhere in the tangled family tree is a 16th-century Québécois man named Louis Boucher de Grandpré, born in the 1590s. He's the common ancestor linking the 66-year-old pop icon and the 69-year-old pontiff. As Gates explained—and as The New York Times confirmed—this unexpected bloodline connection doesn't stop with Madonna. Pope Leo XIV is also distant cousins with Justin Bieber, Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, and even Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Esse novo alarme com câmera é quase gratuito em Ilha Comprida (consulte o preço) Alarmes Undo That's one serious crossover between the Vatican and the Vanity Fair party guest list. And let's be clear: this isn't just a fun celebrity trivia nugget. It actually tells us something bigger about the world we live in. Genealogy—especially in this digital, DNA-testing age—is starting to reveal just how interconnected our stories are. It's a reminder that lineage doesn't care about public personas or controversies. Families are messy. History is messier. It also speaks to how celebrity narratives have evolved. This isn't just tabloid material. It's part of a larger conversation about heritage, identity, and the complicated legacies we inherit—even when we have no idea they exist. We probably won't see a family reunion anytime soon (though the internet would absolutely lose its mind if they appeared in a selfie together). Still, it's kind of comforting to know that even the most unlikely people might be connected in some small way. And maybe, just maybe, it's proof that the past has a wild sense of humor. So there you have it: Madonna and Pope Leo XIV are ninth cousins, several times removed. One changed pop culture. The other leads a billion Catholics worldwide. And somewhere, their shared ancestor from 400 years ago is probably watching this unfold and thinking, 'I did not see this coming.' Welcome to 2025—where Madonna and the Pope are family. Literally.
