Author Archives: Felix

There’s been some very interesting activity this month in the comments thread on an old post of mine about Summit Communications. Since I don’t expect anybody to plough through more than 12,000 words of comments, I thought I’d summarise the … Continue reading →

Vonage has had a torrid few weeks since it went public in May at $17 per share: the stock closed today at just $6.84. And who better to weigh in on this state of affairs than our old friend Henry … Continue reading →

Dana Stevens is Slate’s new film critic – this is a good thing, since Slate’s last film critic, David Edelstein, was dreadful. But can you see a pattern emerging from her last three reviews? You, Me and Dupree: "A fantasy … Continue reading →

My local branch of the New York Public Library is coming to the end of its Summer Book Sale, where books which are surplus to requirements are sold off for 50 cents (paperbacks) or $1 (hardbacks). There’s not much left … Continue reading →

Thank You For Smoking: 5/5. Witty, smart, hilarious. See it. Pierre Huyghe at the Tate: 4/5. Witty, smart, gorgeous. See it. (And I’m not even a Pierre Huyghe fan.) The Rem Koolhaas pavilion at the Serpentine: 3/5. Smart, gorgeous, pointless. … Continue reading →

I was in Europe for the past three weeks, hence the light posting. I travelled around London and Germany, and although it won’t surprise anyone to hear that the public transportation system in Germany is much better than it is … Continue reading →

So here’s the idea: Emily is an underemployed realtor in New Jersey, married and about to have kids with her financial consultant husband, Steven. She then finds out that Steven is having an affair with her best friend Laura. Coincidentally, … Continue reading →

On his own site, Nick Denton calls it "battening down", against rising costs and an entirely hypothetical downswing in entertainment-industry advertising expenditure. In the New York Times, Denton goes a bit further: "We are becoming a lot more like a … Continue reading →

It was a long, hot and frustrating day, spent working and trying to tie up loose ends in New York. I’ve finally got my advance parole, which allows me to leave the country — which I’m doing tomorrow. Michelle left … Continue reading →

There are very few reasons ever to visit the western suburbs of St Louis. In fact, I can’t think of any – or at least I couldn’t think of any, until Wednesday night, when I had the great good fortune … Continue reading →

Restaurant: Max Meal ordered: Bottle of house rose Fennel salad Lamb ragu Antipasti: My fennel salad was lightly dressed with balsamic vinegar. I could easily taste the fennel which had been finely sliced, it was refreshing and cleansed my palate. … Continue reading →

While I’m in St Louis and notblogging, Michelle’s dining in New York and finding time to write foodblogs. Here’s her first: Right! So my nose has been in Bill Buford’s new book for over a month. My reading is incredibly … Continue reading →

A few months ago, Jack Shafer wrote a story whose subhed ("Spotting a bogus trend story on Page One of today’s New York Times") could probably appear quite a few times on his Slate columns. So I’d like to get … Continue reading →

A man walks into a widget shop with the intention of buying a widget. He picks out a nice widget for $100, but just as he’s about to take it to the counter to pay for it, he gets an … Continue reading →

Liberty Park is back, and much better looking than it was, it must be said. (I know Liberty Park is not its official name. But I’m sure it will no more be called Zuccotti Park than Sixth Avenue is called … Continue reading →

John T Unger left a comment on my last blog about how art makes a terrible investment. No it doesn’t, he said: I’ve found that art makes a great *short-term* investment. I buy what I like, because I want to … Continue reading →

Dad blogs about the TV going away; Mum blogs about the TV coming back. Apparently it was necessary for the World Cup, which means the grown-ups caved before the kids forced them to. Are there no pubs in Berkeley? I … Continue reading →

Eater has it half right: the amazing, wonderful, fabulous, incredible, delicious Snack Dragon Taco Shack on Avenue B and 3rd Street is no longer. The Taco Shack is dead; long live the Taco Shack! For yes, the Snack Dragon Taco … Continue reading →

Things have come to a pretty pass when Apple’s entry-level laptop (which doesn’t even officially support Final Cut Pro and runs it in a slowed-down simulation mode) handily beats a dual-processor G5 desktop machine running Final Cut Pro natively. Me, … Continue reading →

What’s happened to the legendary fact-checkers and copy-editing at the New Yorker? Flicking through this week’s issue, I first stumbled across a reference to USAID in a piece on telenovelas by Hanna Rosin. Now the New Yorker has a thing … Continue reading →

Let’s say there’s a virtually unregulated business, open to all comers in the private sector, in which a state-owned company, which receives subsidies from the state, competes. We all know that state-owned companies are pretty inefficient, so the private sector … Continue reading →

So Californian wines are still the best, say the experts. That’s good news for those of us on budgets. As Mike Steinberger notes, This new Judgment of Paris comes at a time when a large segment of the French wine … Continue reading →

I can’t make head nor tail of the Senate immigration bill. It’s incredibly long, incredibly complicated, and full of references to other bills, making it to all intents and purposes incomprehensible. So I have no idea what I think of … Continue reading →

Hedge fund managers and investors in hedge funds are generally very smart and very sophisticated. They like to talk a lot about risk-adjusted returns, and especially about "alpha" and "beta" – central components of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. And … Continue reading →