Over at Crassparenting, I’ve shared my thoughts for parents about how to prepare their students for the college admissions process. Knowing my audience, I thought that Crasstalkers would rather hear the war stories from my odd job.
There are stupid questions: One father asked in front of 600 people if our food service had diet food because his fat daughter couldn’t afford to gain the Freshman 15. Continue reading
In a surprise move, the Catholic Church’s Cabal of Choosing has chosen British character actor Jonathan Pryce as the new Pope. Pryce chose the papal name “Francis,” as a tribute to his two entertainment-business idols: Francis the talking mule from the popular movie series, and obscure twentieth-century saloon singer Francis Albert Sinatra. Continue reading
And they hinted at a possible tour! Continue reading
I don’t know how many of my compatriots realize this — but we currently live in a golden age of American comedy. And this glittering era doesn’t follow from anything projected onto various screens by Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey or Tina Fey. Nor is it due to anything written or directed by Seth MacFarlane or Judd Apatow. And it’s not because Charlie Sheen left Two and a Half Men, finally allowing the flagship brand of televised network comedy (cough!) to reach its true potential.
Instead this golden age has resulted because Marc Maron — a formerly little-known standup comedian with more than two decades of performing experience, but little lasting success — has been producing his uniquely tense and revealing comedy podcast for more than three years now. Continue reading
Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn share an Eskimo kiss awkward moment at the Project Runway Fashion Week finale. Continue reading
This post was originally run last year. In honor of Groundhog’s Today, we’re bringing it back.
Friends, I need to talk to you about something very important. For today is Groundhog Day, and I cannot stand by another year without speaking up on behalf of these corpulent woodland creatures.
According to reliable source Wikipedia, one of the earliest recorded references to this holiday is from 1841. A shop owner called James Morris wrote:
Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemans day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate. Continue reading
Your friend, your cousin, your boss, your next-door-neighbor has just suffered one of the commonest calamities of life: being dumped. Do you say anything? And if so, what do you say?
As many times as you’ve heard and read and learned that “I’m sorry” is always okay and always welcome, it feels somehow inadequate. Well, here’s the thing, nothing you can say is truly adequate. That is why it can be so difficult to say anything at all. But we try, oh do we try. And often, we screw up. Continue reading
A few weeks back, I was in a Twitter conversation with Wendy Brandes (@WendyBrandes) about how she had missed seeing Polly Mellon at the 92 Street Y as part of their lecture series on Fashion. During the course of the very short conversation, one of my favorite documentaries of all time came up: Unzipped
It was the 90s. It was fashion. It was everything.
I had always been a devotee of fashion and the fashion industry. How many young men get up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays to watch Style with Elsa Klench before heading off to tennis practice? Or Fashion TV with Jeane Becker? Or Tim Blanks’ tour de force Fashion File? And I would be remiss in not mentioning House of Style, BTW the show is coming back and TODD FREAKING OLDHAM IS DOING CAMEOS, which has left a long lasting impression on this man. So needless to say when I hear about a new documentary about the creation of Isaac Mizrahi’s 1994 Fall collection, I’m in. More than in actually. Since I don’t drive at this point, I actually figure out how to get to the one movie theater in the city that was showing this movie via the city bus, that’s how determined I am to see this. Continue reading
Reviews are the stuff of life nowadays. Very rarely do we encounter anything anymore where someone hasn’t written an opinion about it. Of course there are reviews for every place or event you can think of, but what about the places or things that you’d never consider? Who the hell would go to their computer or phone, load up Yelp and start typing out a tome to the DMV? Well, ok, everyone knows why someone would do that but still?
Out of curiosity, I’ve done some completely random, non-comprehensive, non-scientific research to find out who these people are and some of the places they felt the need to share their view of the world for: Continue reading
Wow. It has been an incredible year for the world’s assholes. Whether they were bombing little children, stealing investor money, or just generally blocking the march of human progress, this year’s biggest jerks made us all a little ashamed to be human beings. Here are the best of the worst. Continue reading
