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Lorne Michaels: SNL’s Egalitarian Creative Process
One of my favorite points that Lorne Michaels, the creator/exec-producer of SNL, made last week at the Emmy-sponsored panel on SNL, featuring the show’s stars and producers, is that a comedy workplace is egalitarian. Maybe every creative workplace should be? And… that comedy is all about taking on the big elephant in the room. Shouldn’t…
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Kim Hastreiter: Total Sweetheart & Community Organizer
Kim Hastreiter, founder and editor of Paper Magazine, basically revealed to the New York Times’ Guy Trebay in this wonderful profile that the secret of her joy as a taste-maker among taste-makers (including friends Madonna, Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz) is to be community-focused. From the article: This very week, Ms. Hastreiter noted, “this genius…
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Marc Jacobs and Spring Captured in NYC
My resolution for spring is to take more photos, even with my iPhone. I live in one of the most exciting cities in the world, in one of the most exciting neighborhoods–the East Village, where my parents grew up, met on the night the Beatles landed at JFK, and fell in love in Little Ukraine…
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George Lois: His Formula, Revealed
Many significant artists and great media minds today worship at the Church of George Lois, the legendary art director who captured the turbulent 1960s on the covers of Esquire magazine. Don’t credit the rich material, iconic characters of the decade Lois had to work with; it was his disdain for bullshit and love of cutting…
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The Yellow Dogs: An Illegal Rock Band Breaks Out
What repression can do for art: The Yellow Dogs are an amazing rock band in Iran, where rock bands are illegal, along with other important things that make life worth living. I don’t think I’ve felt this way about discovering a band since the White Stripes. My God– the Yellow Dogs are brilliant. You wouldn’t…
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Earthquake Weather and How to Prepare For It
What seems dangerous often is not–black snakes, for example, or clear-air turbulence. While things that just lie there, like this beach, are loaded with jeopardy. A yellow dust rising from the ground, the heat that ripens melons overnight–this is earthquake weather. —Amy Hempel, from one of my all time favorite stories, In the Cemetery Where…
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Monsanto Watch: Targeting American Farmers With Lawyers, Fear and Money
Monsanto is Big Brother of the agriculture industry. To farmers trying to make a living, Monsanto is watching you, especially if you buy their wonder seeds or your neighbor does. Bob Cesca, a contributor to Walletpop and the Huffington Post, interviewed Scott McAllister, an Iowa farmer driven out of business by Monsanto’s harassment. After confronting…
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Roger Ross Williams: A Case Study In Choosing Your Collaborators Wisely
Roger Ross Williams hated his job as a television producer. Desperate for something different, he went to the Catskills, N.Y. home of his neighbor, Elinor Burkett, an author and journalist who also has a home in Zimbabwe. "’Save me,’" Burkett jokingly recalls Williams said to her, to an audience in the Catskills in early 2009.…
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Hate Groups On the Rise — It’s Only the Economy, Stupids
The economy is driving people crazy, literally, when it comes to the growing number of hate groups in this country. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization that monitors the activities of such groups, reports that the worsening recession, soaring public debt, bailouts for bankers, and misinformation — death panels, really? —…
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Wedding Dresses for Cheap in New York City
Even if I wasn’t engaged, I would still be a fanatic of the TLC show Say Yes to the Dress. It’s one of the most soothing reality shows out there — it doesn’t make you feel depressed about humanity, like Jersey Shore. And the setting — a 69-year-old bridal boutique in downtown New York —…