Shaking his Finger at the New Yorker
Lewis Lazare wrote scathingly last week in the Chicago Sun-Times about the New Yorker’s recent all Target ad issue. “But make no mistake. Target advertising executives must be laughing all the way to the image bank because of the ad placement coup they have pulled off, while New Yorker staffers, […]
Will Play For Food or Money
Stepping past the entertainers in downtown Northampton, MA on Friday night.
How Flat Is the World, Really?
Joshua Clover writes in opposition to Thomas Friedman’s thesis that the world is flat in the Village Voice. “If Friedman’s no global economist, one might expect him to check in with one who works his beat: Fernand Braudel, say, or Giovanni Arrighi, highly regarded “world systems” scholars who study interlocking […]
Why He Won’t Wash His Hands
Peter R made the case against handwashing on errtravel.com. “Let’s assume you wash up before leaving your hotel room. Consider the germs, dirt, cleaning product residues, and other contaminants you probably picked up on your way out of the hotel, getting into and out of the taxi, paying the driver […]
When the Wind Really Blows
Most are familiar with Hurricane Andrew, which slammed into the Florida coast in 1992. Andrew is the costliest hurricane on record. CBS News reported on this in Sept 2004. “John Gurney of the National Weather Service says, “Hurricane Andrew dwarfs all other storms we’ve had: $26 billion in damage by […]
Vietnamese Vignettes
Amanda Hesser, the NY Times magazine’s food editor, wrote about a trip to Vietnam in Sunday’s paper. “Hoi An, which means “peaceful life union,” is a sleepy place easily traversed on foot. Down an alley off of Phan Boi Chau, we saw a man who stood in the center of […]
We’ve Been Doing it Like Banshees–Now he’s Yours
Augusten Burroughs is a brilliant writer who lives nearby in Northampton, MA. He wrote a column in this month’s Details magazine about various kinds of f**cks. “Turns out, the day the divorce had become final, Amanda and her now ex-husband had spent the afternoon in bed, in what was now […]
Less Destruction in the Amazon for the Year
Good news came out of Brazil from the AP yesterday. “The destruction of the Amazon rain forest has slowed dramatically this year, the government said, but environmentalists said it was too soon to celebrate and urged caution with the statistics. Preliminary data indicate that 3,551 square miles of rain forest […]
The Beach by the Seine Will Have to Suffice
The number of French vacationers has risen continuously, growing from an estimated 30 percent of the population in 1950 to more than 70 percent in the early eighties, Froidure said. CNN Travel had this sad story in today’s editions. “After stagnating for about two decades, these numbers appear on the […]
The Gaulic Dismay: "We were Robbed"
The New Yorker’s August 22 ‘all Target ads issue’ included among the creative uses of the red and white bullseye, a look at the sour mood in France by Adam Gopnik. He writes. “When the name “London” was announced, a punch-in-the-stomach silence struck Paris. The French Olympians insisted that the […]
Would You Pay Half a Buck for A Short Story?
David Utter writes in WebProNews about Amazon’s new Short Story Shorts. “For less than the price of a Coke Zero, customers can purchase short stories by a selection of published authors. It’s an experiment in little payments for little stories. 49 cents will gets the buyer a dozen pages by […]
Takes a Lotta Time to Write Reality Shows
On his first day as a story assistant for the reality TV series “Renovate My Family,” Zachary Isenberg said, his bosses made an unusual request: Fill out your time card for the next three weeks of work. Isenberg was puzzled. How could he estimate his hours before he worked them? […]
Dining on Gino’s Chicken to Honor the Man
Gino Piccin is a legendary salesman who taught me many things about the business. He was in the news recently, being honored by his fellow Dante clubbers in West Springfield, Tom Shea wrote about him in today’s Republican. Gino’s famous chicken with herbs will be cooked up by his brother […]
What We Really Want
Attention is becoming the holy grail of mankind, the thing we most strive for but get the least. I predict that there will be a surge in demand for someone’s full and undivided attention…and a valueing and delineation of this. This special thing will be what advertisers crave but rarely […]
Travel Vandals Invading Venice
Venice illustrates some of the complicated political and economic issues involved in tourism. The city receives 16.5 million tourists a year, most of whom shuffle down the main route from St Mark’s Square to the Rialto Bridge. The latest plague there is the cruise ships. Forbe’s Anna Somers writes in […]
A Tiny Town Kinda Tale
The Boston Herald editorial staff wrote a doozer today, on their website. “So does anyone think Aramark Concessions went to the Yellow Pages and by chance picked a security firm owned by a Suffolk court official who also happens to have a sister on the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission? No? […]
Like the Song Says, Women ARE Smarter!
A smart woman named Cindy emailed me this story from the International Herald Tribune by Thomas Fuller. “Christopher Clarke, the president of a headhunting company cites studies showing that women are better at performing many things at once, or multitasking, and that they have more sophisticated emotional intelligence, like being […]