Category Archives: Uncategorized

Just as my cable-modem bill increased to $42 per month, my cable-modem service started getting horrible. Connection is very spotty: internet access seems to come and go on a minute-by-minute basis, and is sometimes very fast and sometimes incredibly slow. … Continue reading →

So after having to cancel my trip at the last minute in March, I’ve now rebooked, and am all set for a trip all the way down to the Antarctic Peninsula in November. Can’t wait! I’m looking to spending some … Continue reading →

Jenufa tickets are on sale now. Buy them. (I’m going Wednesday February 14 if you’d care to join: tickets are cheaper Mon-Thu.)

One of the more minor differences between English English and American English is the way that investment banks are referred to. The English have a weird habit of pluralising everything: Goldman Sachs becomes Goldmans, Lehman Brothers is Lehmans, NM Rothschild … Continue reading →

Two art-world doyennes, Diane Shamash and Annely Juda, died last Sunday. I don’t want to read too much into the coincidence, especially considering that although they died on the same day, they were born 41 years apart from each other. … Continue reading →

I just got the Met Opera‘s 2006-7 season guide. Excerpted without further comment: the marvelous tenor Macello Giordani exceptional baritone Dwayne Croft the greatest Rossini tenor of our time, Juan Diego Flores the great Strauss interpreter Deborah Voigt the celebrated … Continue reading →

I wouldn’t live in the Sculpture for Living if you paid me. (Well, of course I would if you paid me, but I doubt that’s likely to happen any time soon.) I rarely agree with Michael Blowhard on matters architectural, … Continue reading →

"I was being ironic" really is the last refuge of the scoundrel. If you do a stupid or offensive thing, you can almost always claim that you were being ironic. Once in a while, you might even be right, in … Continue reading →

I got an "exclusive limited time offer for Preferred Professionals" in the mail yesterday: a 1-year subscription to the Wall Street Journal, including online access, for just $99. Seemed like a pretty good deal, so I compared it to the … Continue reading →

Claire Hoffman’s LA Times article on Joe Francis reveals the Girls Gone Wild entrepeneur to be a raging id. This is unlikely to come as a great surprise to anybody who knows much about who he is and what it … Continue reading →

It was hilarious, while it lasted, but now, for unknown reasons, it’s gone. In memoriam, a post from July 30 which I happen to have cached, after the jump.

I’m flying quite a lot this year, so I used the (not particularly user-friendly) CarbonNetural flight calculator to give me some idea of my total emissions. Most people fly less than this in a year, I’m sure, but then again … Continue reading →

Coming soon to a film festival near you (we hope): Ayamye, a wonderful, heart-warming documentary by my friends Tricia Todd and Eric Matthies, about the Village Bicycle Project. If you want to watch it, let me know, and I’ll see … Continue reading →

We all know about the cult of the opening weekend: film producers will do almost anything to maximise their opening weekend gross. In the case of the the new Oliver Stone film, World Trade Center, that includes standard tactics like … Continue reading →

Stephen Dubner, co-author of the global bestseller Freakonomics and resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is not happy with his lot. Turns out he’s part of that small minority of Manhattanites who owns a car, and he feels … Continue reading →

This is just a wonderful, wonderful story (via the excellent StreetsBlog). It turns out there’s a cycling union in Holland (where else), which actually does really useful things instead of just screaming and shouting a lot. In this case, they … Continue reading →

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 →