Beyoncé and the True Cost of Beauty
February 17, 2010
I am not a huge fan of Beyoncé. I admire her, but her music isn’t really my cup of tea. I do, however, love People magazine. It’s my 20 minutes of mental erasure once a week. With the added bonus that it keeps me up-to-date on popular culture.
This week I was stunned when I saw this quote from Beyoncé:
“I’m always in pain! My earrings are heavy, and my heels are hurting—they hurt all the time. But you know you have to sacrifice for beauty. You just get kind of numb after a… more
Comments (31)Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, and the State of Change
January 29, 2010
On Wednesday, I watched two big speeches.
On Huffingtonpost.com—along with about 800,000 other people (you could see the number of people watching it change in real time)—I saw a blurry Steve Jobs unveil Apple’s latest creation, the iPad, thanks to some guy holding up an iPhone to record the event. The video quality was spotty. In fact, you could tell that he was holding the phone because the image rose and fell with his breathing. While watching, I followed the bajillion Twitter updates… more
Comments (14)Perfect Happiness and Other Questions
January 20, 2010
My local paper, the Morning Call, asked me to answer these questions, from a book called Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire, which Rodale published last year. It’s a great book, featuring cultural figures from Jane Goodall to Johnny Cash answering a series of personal questions made popular by the French writer Marcel Proust (their answers appeared in a series in Vanity Fair magazine). It’s lots of fun to answer the… more
Comments (7)Last-Minute Christmas Shopping Gift Guide: Top 10 Online Sources
December 16, 2009
Here’s the sad truth: By the time you read this, I’m only just starting my holiday shopping. Most of it will be done online, with a few visits to my favorite local downtowns for some in-person holiday spirit. If you’re in a similar boat, here is my top-10 list of online stores for great gifts:
1. 2noteperfumery.com—I found this little store in Portland, Maine, this summer, and now I buy from them online all the time. It’s a shame you… more
Comments (4)Why Magazines Won’t Die
December 9, 2009
I spend more time than most thinking about whether or not magazines will live or die, since my family and I own a few of them. I’ve been to conferences about whether or not they will survive. I am barraged by consultants trying to convince me magazines are on the verge of death, and therefore I need their services immediately, or else.
Now, I do think e-readers and Kindles and iPhones will, and to a degree already have, subsumed much of our reading and especially information needs. And… more
Comments (22)ADVERTISEMENT
