{"id":13574,"date":"2011-12-05T00:18:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=13574"},"modified":"2011-12-05T00:18:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T05:18:10","slug":"why-i-love-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/why-i-love-queens\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Love Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of my jewelry is inspired by queens. By queens, I&#8217;m referring to <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/store\/categories.php?category=Inspiration\/Royalty\" target=\"_blank\">royal ladies<\/a> &#8212; not one of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.queensbp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">New York City&#8217;s five boroughs<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crisperanto.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Quentin Crisp<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13575\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1993\/06\/06\/movies\/film-quentin-crisp-on-playing-the-queen.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13575\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13575  \" title=\"orlando-02\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/orlando-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"247\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/orlando-02.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/orlando-02-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13575\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Double your queenly pleasure: gay icon Quentin Crisp played Elizabeth I in the movie &quot;Orlando.&quot; Click!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I love badass women in general and when queens are badass, they are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=supadupa\" target=\"_blank\">supa dupa badass<\/a>. Seventh-century <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/thursday-book-club-empress-wu-part-i\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chinese ruler Empress Wu<\/a>,\u00a0 for instance, said she would use a whip, a hammer and a knife to train <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/thursday-book-club-empress-wu-part-ii\/\" target=\"_blank\">a mean, wild horse<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cFirst, I shall give him a lesson with the whip,\u201d she said. \u201cIf he disobeys me, I shall blow him on the head with the hammer. If he still rebels, I shall slit his throat.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The horse was lucky. With people, Wu usually went straight to the throat-cutting part.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13584\" style=\"width: 471px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/store\/products.php?product=Empress-Wu-Dragon-Earrings\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13584\" class=\"size-large wp-image-13584 \" title=\"dragonearringslowres3\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dragonearringslowres31-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"461\" height=\"614\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dragonearringslowres31-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dragonearringslowres31-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dragonearringslowres31.jpg 1350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13584\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Detail shot of my Empress Wu earring design. Click for more photos.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>About 1400 years later, we frown upon murderous monarchs, so modern-day queens have to content themselves with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=throw%20shade\" target=\"_blank\">throwing shade<\/a>. Still, their shade is better than our shade. I was reminded of that by an article in the <a href=\"http:\/\/tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/11\/22\/sovereign-dress-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times Style Magazine<\/a> by fashion journalist Sarah Mower, who was named a Member of the British Empire &#8212; a British national honor. Writing about the challenges of dressing to meet the queen, Mower mentioned a famous insult dealt to former British prime minister <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Margaret_Thatcher\" target=\"_blank\">Margaret Thatcher<\/a> by Elizabeth II. Thatcher asked for advance notice about what the queen would be wearing to state occasions, apparently to avoid winding up in a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/category\/twins\/\" target=\"_blank\">twins<\/a>&#8221; situation. The response?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>&#8220;Her Majesty does not notice what other people wear.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s how you whip, hammer AND cut a bitch without lifting a finger! <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of my jewelry is inspired by queens. By queens, I&#8217;m referring to royal ladies &#8212; not one of New York City&#8217;s five boroughs or Quentin Crisp. I love badass women in general and when queens are badass, they are supa dupa badass. Seventh-century Chinese ruler Empress Wu,\u00a0 for instance, said she would use a&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/why-i-love-queens\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13574"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13586,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13574\/revisions\/13586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}