Author: jenharlan
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You’ve Been Scammed
We spend a lot of our time on Zelda & Scout trying to figure out what exactly makes someone a New Yorker. We’re transplants, both of us, uprooted from our bluegrass homes. Most days, it feels like we’ve put down roots in Brooklyn, blooming in the borough where we have planted ourselves for the foreseeable…
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Why “Queer Eye” is the Southern Show We Need Right Now
A few weeks ago, a show started bubbling up on my radar. A few friends mentioned it. A stray gif or two began to make its way onto my feed. My sister recommended it. My brother recommended it. And finally I found myself with some time to kill and in need of a happy, entertainment…
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GRITS: Jesmyn Ward
This article is part of our series “GRITS: Girls Raised in the South,” in which we profile some of our favorite Southern ladies and the things that make them awesome. Got an idea for a fabulous femme we should feature? Shoot us an email at zeldaandscout@gmail.com! (Alliteration optional.) Name: Jesmyn Ward Hometown: DeLisle, Mississippi Profession: writer,…
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Thoughts from New Orleans
“We dance even if there’s no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we’re suspicious of others who don’t.” – Chris Rose There are some cities whose reputation looms so large it can overshadow reality. For many people, New York is one such place.…
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On Mrs. Maisel and Moxie and Marvelous Manhattan
Awards season officially kicked off a couple weekends ago with the 75th annual Golden Globes. I have a soft spot for award shows, even if acceptance speeches have an uncanny ability to make me cry, and this ceremony, with its black-washed, #MeToo, #TimesUp theme, was particularly moving. Fierce, brave, powerful women took the stage again…
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8 Tips for Throwing the Ultimate Holiday Bash
‘Tis the season to be jolly, they say. They might also say ’tis the season to be exhausted. December can be a marathon, y’all, and drain all the holiday spirit from even the cheeriest of folks. There are work parties and family parties and cookie swaps and White Elephant exchanges. And this poses a particular…
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Zelda’s Holiday Gift Guide 2017
Some call it the most wonderful time of the year. Others call it a commercialized, expensive anxiety dream masquerading as fun. I most definitely fall into the former, but I can understand the concerns of my friends in column number two. Gifting can be stressful! There’s a lot of pressure to find the perfect something…
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Civic Duty
Twenty-five strangers walk into a room, where two men stand at a table. One is well-dressed, dapper even, with a fastidiously trimmed beard and a bold choice of colored necktie. He gesticulates freely and frequently, projecting his slight lisp all the way to the back of the fluorescent-lit room. The other wears his rumpled suit…
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Everything is Terrible: Tips for Self-Care
Hi friends. It’s been a rough couple of weeks (slash months…slash years) in the world. There have been hurricanes and earthquakes and mass shootings and wildfires, disasters both natural and political, the stripping of rights and the exposure of decades of sexual harassment. The avalanche of bad news is overwhelming and incessant, and it’s easy…
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Required Reading: Volume Eleven
This post is part of our “Required Reading” series, in which we share some of our favorite tales and tomes of New York and the South — classic and contemporary, fiction and nonfiction, short form and long. These are the stories that open our eyes to other walks of life, that shape who we are,…
Zelda & Scout 