Over four years ago, Molly Crabapple dropped out of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology to become a full time artist. This meant modeling for a hundred dollars here and there, often nude, to raise enough money to print and mail postcards of her illustrations to the New York Times, in the hopes of being …
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 …
Lorne Michaels: SNL’s Egalitarian Creative Process Read More »
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 …
Kim Hastreiter: Total Sweetheart & Community Organizer Read More »
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 …
Imagine fertilizing your garden with car parts. That’s the dream of Debbie Mielewski and her team of bio-engineers at the Ford Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, Mich. I was invited to check out how Mielewski’s Plastics Research Group is engineering an earth-friendlier plastic, at a time when crisis-levels are choking the Pacific Ocean. The …
In a letter to friends, F. Scott Fitzegerald wrote, “A writer not writing is practically a maniac within himself.” Those bitten by “the bug” would agree, but what about writing as a soothing outlet for everyone? That is the idea behind the New York Writers Coalition, a Brooklyn-based non-profit that organizes writing workshops for historically …
One thing volunteering for the Obama campaign in southern Virginia reiterated to me is that racism is alive and well in this country and there’s something that needs to be done about it. We were in the rural town of Lawrenceville, VA–about thirty minutes north of North Carolina, on a rainy election day. Lawrenceville and …
What do you get if the 1960s and a banker on Wall Street had a baby? Social entrepreneurism. Though it has a long history, it’s been a buzzword since Muhammad Yunnus and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for lifting people out of poverty through microloans. Social entrepreneurism isn’t charity; it’s business …
The New Recruits: Can Capitalism Save the World? Read More »
Everyone’s favorite satirical news source, The Onion, is coming out with a brand new book, Our Front Pages: 21 Years of Greatness, Virtue, And Moral Rectitude From America’s Finest News Source, just in time for the holidays. The book shows you vintage Onion, going back to 1988, to the satirical paper’s University of Wisconsin-Madison days, …
The Onion: just as divisive as regular news, now with new book Read More »
Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project is at it again. The non-profit, which works to revitalize parks and public spaces throughout New York City, built a community garden in one of New York’s toughest neighborhoods, in the Bronx. (To see the video of Bette Midler opening NYRP’s Target Bronx Community Garden on October 6, Walletpop.com …