New York is a city of islands: Manhattan, Roosevelt, Governors and Staten, not to mention Long Island, which is anchored on the west end by Queens and Brooklyn. In fact, the Bronx is the only borough attached to the mainland. (more…)

Setting up an easel at concerts and inviting people to watch as you paint (or sculpt, or arrange flowers, or whatever art form you do that is more typically hidden from prospective audiences) is…different. (more…)

This year, the hottest toy isn’t a string rag doll like those that ancient Egyptian kids played with or a button-collecting game popular with kids of the Middle Ages. This Christmas, the hottest toy on every kid’s list is a robotic hamster. (more…)

In a scene from Martin Scorsese’s film about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home Joan Baez laughs while telling the story of the master songwriter composing lyrics. Baez says that Dylan told her that some day scholars will explain what these words mean, (more…)

If you could design a car right now from scratch, that could look any way you wanted, any shape or design, what would it look like? No matter what crazy ideas you started out with, chances are (more…)

A Rebiours. It is the title to J.K. Huysmans’s 1884 novel that loosely translates from French into English as “against the grain” or “against nature.” (more…)

I first encountered the Bradbury Building in the way I assume most people do: as the murky home of J.F. Sebastian in Blade Runner. As soon as the building’s stoically self-confident interior appears on screen, it turns the film from something hectically over-stimulating into something really, truly ominous. (more…)

In the beginning, there was silence. The Earth was formed and there was nothing but Adam and Eve. The Garden of Eden must have been a tranquil place where the silence was only broken for speech that was absolutely necessary. (more…)

Green Porno is a revolutionary series created by well-know actress Isabella Rossellini. The combination of ‘porno’ and ‘Isabella’ may sound very suggestive, but don’t be mistaken, I don’t think it will turn you on (more…)

Matthew Weiner isn’t chasing David Chase anymore. Weiner caught him.

At the recent Emmy Awards Weiner’s show “Mad Men” garnered several accolades including one for writing. It is in the design of the script, the planning of each word said onscreen (more…)