My brilliant, brave and beautiful friend Mary Herczog lost a rare battle today, and to an especially unworthy opponent: breast cancer. She fought it heroically, and with great humor and style, for a dozen years. It finally got the better of her this morning. I met Mary through an AOL message board, not long after…
A few friends on Twitter found some recent suggestions of mine about managing their Tweet streams helpful, so I thought Id present them in blog form. You didnt catch my tips on Twitter? Not surprising. One paradox of Twitter is that the more people you follow, the less likely you are to see any given…
A clever idea (even if, as one commenter points out, the red and blue panes should be reversed for accuracy). 3-D glasses dress by Nicole Lindner – Swell 3D (with thanks to Ben for finding it).
For those following along at home: I had my six-month post-op visit with Dr. Friedman (my oncologist) yesterday. “You look perfectly normal,” be pronounced upon examining me for any signs of recurrence. Pause. “Well, actually, I can only speak for your vagina. Whether YOU are normal or not I’m unable to vouch for.” Gotta love…
In case you don’t follow me on Twitter (and why on earth not???), here’s a tip: The new single from Tears for Fears co-founder Curt Smith, “All Is Love (featuring Zoë Keating),” is available for the next few days as a free MP3 download from AmazonMP3 (U.S. only – it’s an Amazon U.S. thing). It’s…
My favorite new iPhone app is PhotoTropedelic by Larry Weinberg ($1.99). I’ll say upfront that v1.0 auto-adds a credit to your photos – BOO for a paid app –  but the developer  heard the cries of his public and has submitted a 1.1 revision which he promises will eiminate this annoyance. Here are a few…
… and how you can, too. I received this email late on Saturday from Lee Kagan, our personal physician and longtime friend: Dear Friends: The photo below was taken today (Saturday, Jan. 16) at the hospital in Jimani, Dominican Republic, where a medical team from the International Medical Alliance (www.imaonline.org) is now working. The town sits…
A dear friend, who’s three years my junior, learned yesterday that the breast cancer she’s fought fearlessly for a dozen years will soon have the last laugh. She sent a typically wry email around to announce this news to her “Best Beloveds.” In it, she muses about how best to use her remaining time. “Does…
A welcome, perhaps even necessary, bit of perspective as we ring in the New Year, this short film vividly depicts the Universe as scientists best know it. Produced by Michael Hofman and directed by Carter Emmart, it’s well worth six minutes of your time. Click left or below to view. The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered…
On the Sunday after Christmas, we (Tom, Steve, Sims and I, accompanied by Jefferson, S&S’s chocolate lab) hiked the lovely Shelf Road Trail in Ojai. Â Below, some iPhone photos from our walk:
By Ben Wszalek I love watching movies, and once I moved into my college dorm room, I wanted better sound and picture than my laptop provides. Â This is what I’ve devised so far: my dorm room bed – aka “The Screening Room.” This sheet acts as a curtain that helps to keep light out. It’s…
Sundown, Christmas Day
The pond is plenteous The land is lush, And having turned off the news I am for the moment mellow. With my book in one hand And my drink in the other What more could I want But fame, Better health, And ten million dollars? – Kenneth Burke
You can purchase this, and similarly imaginative Seb Lester prints, here. You can also follow him on Twitter, where he’s @seblester.
For the past two months, I’ve been following a near-Vegan, near-gluten-free diet for two reasons: 1) to improve my general health and minimize chances of further disease and 2) to lose weight. Only time will tell if I achieve goal number 1, although my already-low cholesterol had dropped another three points by my physical last…
This recipe was sent to me almost a decade ago by my Aunt. It was from the February 2001 issue of Food & Wine Magazine, and credited to Alex Urena, executive chef of Manhattan’s Blue Hill Restaurant. Servings: 2 to 4 Ingredients: 3 tablespoons canola oil One 14-ounce vacuum-packed jar of cooked and peeled chestnuts…
I’m a longtime fan of Michael Josephson. He’s the founder of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, and provides the  “Character Counts” segments to which I listen on KNX radio here in Los Angeles. (He’s also the uncle of a close friend of mine, but I didn’t know that until long after I became a devoted…
As my mom likes to say, “there are pros and cons on both sides” to Twitter’s new RT function (at this writing, still being rolled out in Beta). Here are what I perceive them to be at this point. First, the good. It makes the process of retweeting much easier. Just click a button. No…
Everyone’s all atwitter (forgive the pun) over the service’s new Lists feature. It is, if you will, a glamorized, organized version of the site’s ubiquitous “Follow Friday” meme, in which users recommend people for other users to follow. Some seem to regard the Lists function with a combination of fear and contempt: that it will…
This is my friend Cliff’s pug, Hiccup. I want to hug him.
The brilliant poster, designed by LeAnne Wagner, for a Bard College program held earlier this year. It examined ‘the manifesto as a context in contemporary art.”
The five generally agreed-upon human tastes are bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami. I propose a sixth: Context. Dodger Dogs don’t taste the same at home as they do at Dodger Stadium, even if it’s the same dog, bun and relish. Guinness tastes different at the brewery than it does from the tap at your…
We spent the weekend with our friends Steve and Sims at their lovely ranch in the Upper Ojai Valley. A good portion of Saturday was taken up by the preparation of an amazing eggplant parmesan for dinner that evening. Steve is a master gardener, and Sims a master chef, so we knew we were in…
Twitter is on the verge of implementing a new feature: the ability to automatically append your location (via latitude and longitude) to your tweets. This feature will be affirmatively opt-in. In other words, the default is that the functionality will be turned OFF, and you must request it to be turned on in your settings….