“The book costs $129.” A clerk at the local bookstore looked at me with eyebrows lifted. He could probably tell by my shocked expression the price wasn’t what I’d expected. “What?”I resisted. “Are the pages made of gold leaf?” The young man laughed. “It’s a textb
Andy Warhol, the man who painted Campbell soup labels and framed them as art, once said, “Good business is the best art.” (“Damage Control, by Ben Lerner, Harper’s, Dec. 2013 p. 46) Certainly, when it came to art Warhol knew his business. When the performance artist, Dorothy P
Finishing Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and picking up Herman Wouk’s memoir, The Language God Talks was like gulping fresh air after holding my breath for too long. I admired Morrison’s work. Her characters were moving and I despaired for the anguished lives of her characters, f
My hair dresser is a young woman who came into a small inheritance recently. The amount wasn’t large but it was enough to make her pause and ask for advice. I told her to save the money. My suggestion wasn’t as exciting as a proposal that she take a sun break in Nevada or buy an e
No doubt people will find a number of electronic gifts under their trees this year so, after the turkey and the pumpkin pie, much of the afternoon will be spent perusing the accompanying manuals. True, reading manuals is a small price to pay for gadgets intended to make our lives simp
“I don’t know whether I’m coming or going,” people sometimes say when they’re being pulled in several different directions. I feel the same way about my presence on the internet. So many bits and bytes of me are floating in the Cloud, I’m not sure how to maintain my identi
2013 has been a banner year for many of my artistic Facebook friends. Betty Dravis is writing a script for the film, 6 Packs of Blood. Katie Kelly has snagged a big agent for her upcoming book; Madeline Roosevelt has received an award for her work as a make-up artist. Yoly Fivas has c
I have always disliked sports. I don’t like playing sports and I loathe watching it in any form. I do like Title IX, however, which gives American female athletics greater recognition than in the past. My dad tried to teach me to love baseball the moment I was out of diapers. I li
A month ago, I was a panelist at a gathering of professional women, and there I mentioned I didn’t think leadership always meant being at the front of the line. Sometimes, leadership meant standing back and enabling others to achieve their goals — the position a mother mig