Caitlin Clark easily earns her first crowning as Dazzler of the Day thanks to her record-breaking feat of scoring the most points by a Division I basketball player, men’s or women’s during her final regular-season home game in Iowa. That means she has shattered the record previously held by NBA legend Pete Maravich.
PS – Perfect timing, as it’s Women’s History Month. Congratulations Caitlin!
Actor, model and producer BJ Gruber neatly earns his first crowning as Dazzler of the Day. Having built an impressive resume in works such as ‘The Queens Project’, ‘Younger’, ‘Daddyhunt: The Serial’, ‘Alex Strangelove’ and ‘Zero Avenue’, Gruber maintains a certain social media stardom, which is the current celebrity currency. Check out his website here for more of his magic.
There are certain Dazzlers of the Day who simply defy the limited trappings of this superficial title, and Barbara Smith brings a gravitas and solemnity to these proceedings in a way that dazzles more than most of us ever could. Smith’s alum info on the Mount Holyoke site indicates why this Dazzler of the Day is so merited:
Barbara Smith is a Black feminist pioneer, lesbian, activist, author, lecturer and publisher. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she and her twin sister, Beverly, began participating in civil rights protests in the 1960s. In 1974 Smith co-founded the Combahee River Collective in Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1977, she co-authored the Combahee River Collective Statement, with Beverly, and Demita Frazier.
Smith taught her first class on Black women’s literature in 1973 at Emerson College and has taught at numerous colleges and universities. She co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U.S. publisher of books for women of color, in 1980.
In 2005, Smith was elected to the Common Council in Albany, New York. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize that same year. Smith’s essays, reviews and other work has been published in The New York Times, The Black Scholar, Ms., The Guardian, The Village Voice, and The Nation, among others.
NPR has the best bios, and as such they have taken all of the work out of naming Ari Shapiro as Dazzler of the Day with the following except from their site. For my personal highlight, Shapiro more than earns this crowning for a career of impressive reporting, and even more impressive performing. A Renaissance man in the truest sense, take all of NPR’s words for it:
Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR’s flagship afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. He has been a question on Jeopardy and an answer in the New York Times crossword puzzle. He has filed stories from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One, and he has covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine and Israel. His debut memoir, The Best Strangers In the World, was an instant New York Times bestseller. He has also performed as a singer in some of the world’s most storied venues, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl.
Before becoming a host of All Things Considered, Shapiro spent two years as NPR’s International Correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics for NPR’s news programs. His overseas move came after four years as NPR’s White House Correspondent during President Barack Obama’s first and second terms. He was NPR’s Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates over surveillance, detention and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.
Shapiro’s journalism has won three national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for a global series that connected the dots between climate change, migration and far-right political leaders; another for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor; and a third for his coverage of the Trump Administration’s asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. He was named Journalist of the Year in 2023 by NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists. The Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana’s detention system after Hurricane Katrina. He was the first recipient of the American Judges’ Association American Gavel Award for his work on U.S. courts and the American justice system. And at age 25, Shapiro won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.
As a singer, Shapiro makes frequent appearances with the “little orchestra” Pink Martini. The band’s recent albums feature him on several tracks, singing in multiple languages. In 2019 he created the stage show Och and Oy: A Considered Cabaret with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming. They have since performed together across the US, including a sold out two-week run at the Café Carlyle.
Shapiro was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale. He began his journalism career as an intern for NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, who has also occasionally been known to sing in public.
As the problematic world of AI artwork swirls around us, it’s good to re-enforce the idea that I and so many others hold, which is that the artwork produced by human hands and our greatest living artists will never be successfully duplicated by any program, no matter how advanced. Human passion cannot and will not be reproduced by artificial intelligence; it will always ring hollow, because humans innately recognize and resonate with the work of another human. That brings us to this Dazzler of the Day, which goes to Daniel W. Green, an artist whose work bleeds with the fiery passion and exuberance that can only be produced by a real person invigorated and inspired by real life. Green specializes in oil paintings, many of which focus on the male form. Witness his work progress as seen in one example below (there are many, as Green is wondrously prolific). Check out more on the Dan Green Male Art page as well as his eBay page to purchase his work.
This Bro-Dazzler is the first and probably last of its kind, as my brother is not at all about being seen outside of his own carefully curated appearances in the world, and as such will likely be annoyed that I featured him here, but a birthday is a special event. After all that our family has been through this past year, I’m honoring my baby brother with this Dazzler of the Day because in so many ways he dazzles me and the world more than he will ever know. The older we get, the more important it is to share the gratitude and appreciation we have for our family while we are all still here. He’s been a great father, son, and brother – and in the end that’s what matters. Today is his birthday, so if you see him about, wish him a happy one.
Happy birthday bro!
There’s nothing I love more than a massive reinvention of one’s image, particularly when it stems from an authentic and genuine change of lifestyle and/or mindset. Case in point is Pamela Anderson, who is currently enjoying a Renaissance of fame and donation thanks to her brave and bold new make-up free endeavor to be more natural in a world defined by the fake and false. That it should come at the hand and face of one of the 90’s most caricatured celebrities is a neat trick of the universe, and speaks to Anderson’s unique evolution. She gets this Dazzler of the Day crowning for showing us that beauty can be earned.
Thrust into the white-hot phenomenon of ‘American Idol‘ in its glory days, David Archuleta is one of the most talented and beloved stars to come out of that franchise. Since that time he’s been rather candidly and openly going through the journey we all go through, including the exploration and acknowledgement of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. After a strict upbringing as a Mormon, that cannot have come easily, and my hat’s off to anyone who dares to be themselves in a world that’s constantly telling them not to be. David earns this Dazzler of the Day for his continued artistry, that indelible voice, and the courage to tell his story as an example for anyone who needs a bit of inspiration. Check out his website here for further evidence of his brilliance.
We are blessed to live in a world where Jay Perry never met a Speedo he didn’t completely work in the best way possible. Witness the photos below as reasons alone why Perry is crowned Dazzler of the Day, then do a deeper dive into his body of work, particularly his lengthy curriculum vitae of stagework.
This may be a controversial choice, given the power of the Swifties (don’t come for me please! I’m a Swiftie myself!) but Jake Gyllenhaal also has a powerful body of work that merits this crowning as Dazzler of the Day. He recently appeared in the remake of ‘Road House’, and he also appeared with recent AI wunderkind Tom Holland as a villain in one of the Spiderman movies. In my age bracket, Jake will always be remembered for his career-defining performance in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ with Heath Ledger. That movie alone cements his status as today’s Dazzler.
Today is publication day for Anthony Nerada’s new LGBTQ+ Young Adult novel ‘Skater Boy’ and as such Nerada earns his first crowning as Dazzler of the Day. Most writers are dazzlers in their own way, and many will have their own dazzling write-up somewhere on their website. Here is Anthony’s:
Anthony Nerada became a writer after his fifth-grade teacher told him it was his destiny. Since then, he’s read too many books (if there is such a thing) and explored worlds far outside the reaches of his own. Anthony holds a BA in psychology and two diplomas (one in public relations, the other in publishing), which allow him to write the day away while simultaneously psychoanalyzing his friends. Anthony lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Coast Salish Peoples. Skater Boy is his debut novel.
Check out more dazzling merriment on Anthony’s website here, where you can also order his new book.
{Photographs by Jordan Doak Photography.}
Yes, we know, he’s Kenough.
And he has been for quite some time, which makes this Dazzler of the Day crowning intentionally redundant, since his star has been dazzling for a number of years, particularly this last one, which found him giddy surrendering to the phenomenon that is/was ‘Barbie’. (He also pulled an Oscar nomination out of it, even when some of the key players on that film didn’t – oh, you silly academy people…) Gosling has been turning in gritty dramatic performances in between all the pretty ones (witness the devastating ‘A Place Beyond the Pines’) and this second Dazzler is a long overdue honor, one promised in this previous shirtless post.
While the nation comes under the indomitable grip of Super Bowl mania, the performer of the half-time show earns his first Dazzler of the Day crowning, so join me in congratulating Usher on this latest achievement. He joins the vaunted pantheon of performers like Madonna, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Maroon 5 (and Adam Levine’s nipples), Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake on headlining the biggest field audience in the world. Usher’s career has easily won him the honor of Super Bowl stardom, and if history is any indication, he knows how to put on a scintillating show.
We are knee-deep in the end-zone of the final days leading up to the finale of the football season, the Super Bowl, and so we have another footballer being crowned as Dazzler of the Day, Trevor Lawrence, even if he’s not headed there this year. Vidal Sassoon, get this guy a sponsorship immediately – or at least get Garnier on the phone! His locks alone are enough to dazzle – throw in his on-field talents and you have all the reason for this crown.
It’s taking me all the restraint and editorial self-control I can muster not to make any cute references/puns/limericks regarding the last name of this Dazzler of the Day, so I’ll keep this brief for the sake of honoree Brock Purdy. He’s on his way to the Super Bowl as the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Once upon a time, not so long ago, I’m told he was deemed Mr. Irrelevant. I love a good comeback story.
PS – Apparently he has another nickname, ‘Big Cock Brock’, which is reportedly more of a reference to his attitude than his actual stick shift. But supporting pictorial evidence is always welcome…
