All posts tagged: Isaac

Isaac Mizrahi’s “Unzipped” shows why flawed artists matter

Isaac Mizrahi’s “Unzipped” shows why flawed artists matter

Published by Sam Flores

On a cold November morning, designer Isaac Mizrahi gets up, leaves his apartment, and trudges to the corner newsstand to pick up a copy of Women’s Wear Daily. It’s the day after Mizrahi’s Spring/Summer 1994 show, and the ink on the reviews is still wet. Reading from the pages, he quotes, “‘His usually great color sense failed him, his fabric sense failed him, and certainly, his sense of how a modern woman dresses after 8 p.m. failed him.” The verdict is withering. Mizrahi, one of the great artists of ’90s ready-to-wear fashion, has been tossed out. Disgraced. Lightly “cancelled,” as some might call it these days.  Douglas Keeve’s sublime 1995 documentary, “Unzipped,” follows Mizrahi in the aftermath of a train wreck, piecing his reputation back together with his next collection, attempting to make something beautiful from the rubble. We find Mizrahi’s world in grayscale, drained of color in the wake of critical and cultural failure. Then, the opening notes of Sandra Bernhard’s 1994 cover of Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” cue the pigmentation, …

Itching for a Fight | Merve Emre, Isaac Chotiner

Itching for a Fight | Merve Emre, Isaac Chotiner

Published by Jenni Sidey

I don’t understand why people talk to Isaac Chotiner. His reputation as the best interviewer-assassin at work today—maybe ever—precedes him. I suspect that each guest thinks he will be the one to finally best Chotiner. And he makes good use of this hubris. He calmly and respectfully dismantles the tendentious arguments people make about everything from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to gerrymandering, genocide denial, and deportation. But he also has an appreciation for deep knowledge. The opposite of the gotcha interview is the expert interview, when Chotiner lets people who know their trades inside out explain them to his devoted readership. As our conversation shows, the flip side of his savagery is his generosity.  Merve Emre: Are you used to being on the other end of this? Isaac Chotiner: Yeah, but I’ll survive. Can you tell us the story of how you got from being a college student to being the premier “assassin” interviewer? I worked in politics briefly after graduating from college, on the John Kerry campaign in 2004. I …

Clarté Founder Isaac Douek Designs Jewelry for Alix Earle and Says Diamonds Belong With Sweatshirts

Clarté Founder Isaac Douek Designs Jewelry for Alix Earle and Says Diamonds Belong With Sweatshirts

Published by Daniella Wilson

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and few know that better than Clarté NYC CEO Isaac Douek. Alongside his wife and co-founder, Marielle Douek, the designer creates custom lab-grown diamond pieces that have caught the eye of Alix Earle and Bethenny Frankel, with a focus on making fine jewelry feel a little more within reach. Alix Earle/Instagram “I spent about six years working in the diamond industry before launching Clarté, so I understood the business and knew there was an opportunity to do things differently,” he tells ET. For Douek, that meant putting a fresh spin on the classics. “I never understood why beautiful jewelry had to feel unattainable. A woman should be able to wear the diamond size and design she truly loves without paying an enormous markup simply because of a name on the box,” he explains. “Lab-grown diamonds allow us to offer incredible size, quality, and design at a much more approachable price. We are not trying to make jewelry feel less luxurious, we are giving more people the opportunity to experience that luxury,” the …

Recalling Isaac Prilleltensky’s Psychopolitical Validity

Recalling Isaac Prilleltensky’s Psychopolitical Validity

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Miles Thompson and Ecesu Keskin This post is about a framework within community psychology called “psychopolitical validity,” proposed by Isaac Prilleltensky. Below, there is a brief overview of the framework and its two main lenses: i. “Epistemic validity” and ii. “Transformative validity.” While the original idea is over 20 years old, this piece is being written now as both Isaac, and his wife Ora, died in May 2026. There is already a touching tribute to Isaac elsewhere on Psychology Today, as well as on the website of the University of Miami. More about him and his work can be found on his personal website. But this piece simply seeks to amplify his ideas around psychopolitical validity. Why Psychopolitical Validity? In his 2003 and 2008 articles, Prilleltensky introduces psychopolitical validity (PPV) as a framework. As the article titles note, there was an original focus on: understanding, challenging and overcoming oppression (2003), and later a focusing more broadly on the role of power in wellness, oppression and liberation (2008). Fundamentally, PPV encourages community psychologists and …

Where to Get Started Reading Isaac Asimov

Where to Get Started Reading Isaac Asimov

Published by Jenni Sidey

Blackstone Publishing Reissued after seventy-five years out of print—and in hardcover for the first time in a generation—David Starr, Space Ranger is the first book in the Lucky Starr series by the legendary Isaac Asimov, author of Foundation and I, Robot. Conway remembered the exact minute the news reached Science Tower. Patrol ships shot into space, attacking the pirates’ asteroid lairs in unprecedented fury. They also found something else: a tiny lifeboat between Venus and Earth, radiating automatic calls for help. Only a frightened four-year-old was inside, who said only, “Mother said I wasn’t to cry.” It was David Starr. Isaac Asimov is one of the most towering and influential writers in the history of science fiction. Born in 1920, he was an actual scientist: a professor of biochemistry at Boston University. Along with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, he’s considered one of the “Big Three” of science fiction. He was of a generation of sci-fi writers who put ideas at the forefront. His characters may seem a bit flat and one-note. His plots …

Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, Denounces Israeli Violence

Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, Denounces Israeli Violence

Published by Sam Flores

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, on Sunday delivered an unusually harsh indictment of what he described as “a terrible process of brutalization” creeping into Israeli society. He cited examples of thuggery like a surge of “mob” violence by Jews against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the abuse of detainees in Israeli custody. Mr. Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, was speaking at an event to award the annual Jerusalem Unity Prize at his official residence. The award was established by the families of three Israelis who were abducted and killed by Palestinians in the West Bank in 2014. “I wish I could speak today only about unity,” Mr. Herzog said before launching into a discussion of the actions taken by some Israelis that have prompted international censure and, he said, are “threatening us all.” “There are segments among us that are barely shocked by violence anymore,” Mr. Herzog said. “Certain other segments treat it lightly.” He warned that extremist and inhuman behavior is being normalized, and even celebrated, by some people on the margins …

Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac in Netflix Smash

Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac in Netflix Smash

Published by Daniella Wilson

The philosopher Biggie Smalls once pondered the nature of dangerously escalating rivalries. In a song of the same name, Biggie asked, “What’s beef?” Beef The Bottom Line A bold, well-acted, slightly over-extended follow-up. Airdate: Thursday, April 16 (Netflix)Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, Cailee Spaeny, Youn Yuh-jungCreator: Lee Sung Jin His answers included the straightforward “Beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep,” and the playful “Beef is when I see you, guaranteed to be in I-C-U.” Christopher Wallace passed away, likely a victim of a beef, long before the rise of the limited series, so Lee Sung Jin had the exploratory lane all to himself when he released the eight-episode bleak comedy Beef back in 2023. The series, about the unforeseen consequences erupting from a relatively minor instance of road rage, dominated the Emmys and eventually was picked up for a second season, transitioning from limited series to anthology and reframing Biggie’s question as: “What’s Beef?” Or, put a different way, what is the Beef brand? And could a second …

Isaac Asimov Reviews George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Calls It “Not Science Fiction, But a Distorted Nostalgia for a Past that Never Was”

Isaac Asimov Reviews George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Calls It “Not Science Fiction, But a Distorted Nostalgia for a Past that Never Was”

Published by José Betancourt

Here in the twen­ty-twen­ties, a young read­er first hear­ing of George Orwell’s Nine­teen Eighty-Four would hard­ly imag­ine it to be a work of sci­ence fic­tion. That would­n’t have been the case in 1949, when the nov­el was first pub­lished, and when the epony­mous year would have sound­ed like the dis­tant future. Even as the actu­al nine­teen-eight­ies came around, it still evoked visions of a tech­no-total­i­tar­i­an dystopia ahead. “So thor­ough­ly has 1984-opho­bia pen­e­trat­ed the con­scious­ness of many who have not read the book and have no notion of what it con­tains, that one won­ders what will hap­pen to us after 31 Decem­ber 1984,” wrote Isaac Asi­mov in 1980. “When New Year’s Day of 1985 arrives and the Unit­ed States is still in exis­tence and fac­ing very much the prob­lems it faces today, how will we express our fears of what­ev­er aspect of life fills us with appre­hen­sion?” The occa­sion was one of a series of syn­di­cat­ed news­pa­per columns that Asi­mov seems to have pub­lished each new year. At the dawn of Nine­teen Eighty-Four’s decade, the syn­di­cate asked …

Talk to Your Own Personal Isaac Newton With Ailias’s Hologram Avatars

Talk to Your Own Personal Isaac Newton With Ailias’s Hologram Avatars

Published by skeptic

It’s the classic awkward icebreaker: If you could invite anyone, dead or alive, to a dinner party, who would it be? Aristotle? Ailias is a company based in Surrey, UK, which promises to make that hypothetical a reality. It can reanimate historical and current legends with 3D hologram avatars that are fully conversational, knowledgeable, and can be delivered to you in a box. The technology isn’t bespoke. Many companies provide life-size hologram displays for events and parties, everything from floating 3D displays of Santa’s sleigh or 3D Holo-Trucks. The physicist Dennis Gabor even won a Nobel Prize in 1971 for his work that led to holography, even though a life-size Elon Musk isn’t probably the result that he (or anyone) had in mind. What sets Ailias apart is the company’s playful focus on history and education, which the company describes as “ultra character creation.” The company focuses on animating dead notable personalities into real-feeling conversational holograms, designed for interaction rather than spectacle. Ailias’ holograms can juggle, do squats, or even breakdance, making your party, exhibition …

Isaac Hayes’ Estate Settles Suit With Trump for Unauthorized Use of Song

Isaac Hayes’ Estate Settles Suit With Trump for Unauthorized Use of Song

Published by Daniella Wilson

The family of Isaac Hayes has reached a settlement with Donald Trump after suing the president and his campaign for the unauthorized use of the Sam & Dave hit song “Hold on, I’m Coming.” Isaac Hayes III, the late soul icon’s son, shared on social media Monday that his father’s estate was “satisfied with the outcome” following a legal battle over copyright infringement. “All parties stipulate to the voluntary dismissal of this action with prejudice with all parties bearing their respective fees and costs,” according to court documents obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. “The Hayes family and the Estate of Isaac Hayes, Jr. announce that the lawsuit filed against Donald John Trump and Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc., regarding their use of ‘Hold On, I’m Comin’ has been mutually resolved, and we are satisfied with the outcome,” Hayes’ estate shared in a statement. “This resolution represents more than the conclusion of a legal matter. It reaffirms the importance of protecting intellectual property rights and copyrights, especially …