Several recent articles have grabbed my attention for various reasons — sometimes, unpleasant reasons. Starting out on the bright side, I enjoyed the Wall Street Journal’s story about how Janis Joplin came to write the acapella song, “Mercedes Benz.” CLICK HERE TO READ THE WSJ STORY ABOUT JANIS JOPLIN. As a designer, I’m always interested…
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New Necklace Inspiration, Thanks to Jill Abramson
I need to thank my gorgeous online friend Marguerite for pointing out the Instagram from Jill Abramson‘s daughter, Cornelia. “Mom’s badass new hobby,” Cornelia wrote as a caption on a picture of Jill in boxing gloves, using the hashtags #girls and #pushy. This Instagram is giving me life! It also made me finalize the idea…
Jill Abramson Out at New York Times; Cue My Side-Eye
If you’ve been on Twitter today, you already know it: This afternoon, the New York Times reported that Jill Abramson, its executive editor, “is unexpectedly leaving the position and will be replaced by Dean Baquet, the managing editor.” Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. made the announcement in the Times newsroom at 2:30 p.m. ET. Abramson, 60,…
The Weeks in Review
The past two weeks have been wild around here! The big news was the announcement that the Columbia Daily Spectator — the undergraduate newspaper of my alma mater, Columbia University — would focus on its website, while reducing its printing schedule from five times a week to once a week. As the chairman of the…
A Note About Hurricane Sandy
During my journalism career, I worked at news organizations including CNN. I loved the profession, but sometimes I hated knowing that I was delivering bad news to people. We all say, “No news is good news” but, really, good news isn’t usually news at all. (I think only The Onion would run a story saying,…
Frankenstorm Sandy Status in the WendyB Household
As of this writing — just after midnight on Tuesday, October 30 — my New York City neighborhood still has electricity despite the Frankenstorm, aka Hurricane Sandy. The lights have blinked ominously, so I keep bracing for total darkness, but for the moment it’s okay. If the electricity stays on, I will see if any…
Anna Wintour’s Genius Comment About Kanye West
The musically talented but otherwise insufferable Kanye “Gay Fish” West showed his first line of women’s clothing in Paris on Saturday, earning reviews such as “Good thing Kanye West has a day job.” I’ve become inured to random-ass celebrities who deem themselves qualified to launch clothing and jewelry lines to great fanfare just because they’ve…
Things I’ve Read in Newspapers
Today the New York Times wrote a story about maternal deaths in Uganda. These paragraphs jumped out at me: “It also raises broader questions about the unintended impact of foreign aid on Africa’s struggling public health systems. As the United States and other donors have given African nations billions of dollars to fight AIDS and…
The New York Times Is a Movie Star and Other Journalism Stuff
Five days after I saw Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about New York Times style photographer Bill Cunningham, I went to a screening of another documentary called Page One: Inside the New York Times. The New York Times has become a big movie star! But what if the fame goes to the Times’s head?…
Elizabeth Taylor: A Diamond’s Best Friend
The world lost a screen goddess today: actress Elizabeth Taylor has died at the age of 79. She lived an amazingly long life considering her myriad health problems, which included a bout of pneumonia and an emergency tracheotomy in 1961. Shortly after that crisis, Taylor won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her…