Preservation Hall Jazz Band is making an East Coast swing this weekend — Kent, Conn. on Saturday and Lancaster, Pa. on Sunday. Just ahead of the band’s journey up here, I plan to interview Ben Jaffe, who took over the jazz institution his parents started in New Orleans and has balanced a reverence for tradition with an infusion of new ideas. Ben serves…
Grumpy old man Carl Fredricksen is an unlikely cartoon hero — his wife has just died, developers want to tear down his house, and after he beats one of the developers with his cane, a court order is about to send him to a nursing home. “Up” is a cartoon that tackles some grown-up themes: love, loss, change, the evaluation of how you’ve…
A friend of ours who is active in the Brooklyn blogging community recently sent me an e-mail that gave me a real boost of excitement — hey! what I’m doing is reaching someone! Eleanor Traubman wrote: I am a big fan of your blog. I like the combo of personal/professional development. Thoughtful without being fruity/crystal-waving. (speaking of fruity, remember Jack…
Making the rounds on the Internet the last month or two, fueled by graduation season and a story in the New York Times, is a beautiful commencement address the author David Foster Wallace gave back in 2005. The insights on how to live life become that much more profound after Wallace’s suicide last year. Maybe he knew what he needed…
I love getting confirmation that I’m not the only one interested in reinvention — like a recent e-mail from Mediabistro promoting a “Reinvent Yourself” seminar this Saturday. If you’re available Saturday afternoon and live in the New York area, instructor Latia Curry’s class is described like this: You’ve been dissatisfied for a while. Maybe you woke up this morning and realized…
Have you ever had the experience of hearing someone articulate what you need better than you could yourself? Keith Ferrazzi, author of the hit business book “Never Eat Alone,” spoke at the Mediabistro Circus conference I went to this week. He has a new book out called “Who’s Got Your Back?” and I expected a talk that would be part…
I’ve already seen numerous takes on the “laid off workers decide to pursue new path” story. I blogged about it a while back, linking to a few versions the Times had done, including focusing on white-collar professionals deciding to become disc jockeys. (Why that career and not massage therapists or sign-language translators? Who knows.) A story in the Washington Post…
Whether there’s a shared sense of the narrative of the recession, or perhaps some collective wishful thinking, certain stories seem to be popping up frequently: The recession is causing Americans to re-examine their consumerist spendaholic ways Layoffs are prompting Americans to pursue new, more fulfilling career paths I think the common thread in both these themes is a hope that…
New York magazine recently had a thought-provoking cover story with the teaser headline “New York Without Money.” Its headline asks us to consider: No money changes everything, from murder rates to museum attendance, from career choices to what you eat for dinner. And not all of it for the worse. Writer Jennifer Senior shares a number observations about the supposed…
New York magazine shows us P Diddy’s white party. Obviously after Memorial Day. It seems like at least once a year I read an article in Vogue or Glamour that says the “don’t wear white before Memorial Day” rule is dead. Wear lovely white wool pants in the winter, wear a beautiful white winter coat, they suggest, and forget that…
I don’t know if I’m a scientifically valid sample, but recently I had an a-ha moment recognizing my own behavior with my blog and the implications it might have in the media business. I’m a data geek and WordPress enables this compulsion by giving me access to who has clicked on which postings, where they came from, what search terms brought…
And now for the trifecta — a third post on enjoying your precious time on earth while you can. It’s the theme this week. It was the great prophet Frank Sinatra who implored us to live until we die. And though sadly I couldn’t find video of Frank singing, I can offer you this audio courtesy of YouTube. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQh0-CYTPj0] Related…
Randy Pausch has gotten about 9 million views on his YouTube “Last Lecture” so there’s a decent chance you’ve already seen this — but in case you haven’t, or it’s been a while since you last watched it, I’m asking you to set aside the hour to do it. C’mon, you watch some TV shows that waste an hour of …
Lara Zielin is my sparkly, cute author friend. I think that’s a big part of why her silly YouTube parody, Editing Letter, has become such a hit — she’s just doggoned likeable. Lara’s first novel, Donut Days, is due out this summer. She worked hard on lengthy revisions to get it ready for publication and poked fun at the writing…
Newvine Growing’s audience is growing each month, but I still have Chuck Close to thank for lot of my visitors. I blogged about artist Chuck Close’s reinvention back in January, just a few weeks after launching this new effort, and that entry continues to lead many people here. Maybe even you? Here’s a sample of some search terms that landed…
The media industry is going through massive transformation, from the long, slow decline of newspaper circulation to the continuing Internet revolution and now the financial crisis of several major media companies and the folding of some large newspapers. If you’re looking for the green shoots of recovery in the media, the recent Bar Camp NewsInnovation in Philadelphia was like a garden…
If you’ve visited Newvine Growing any time in the last few months, you might have noticed I’ve done some redecorating recently. As a birthday gift, my artist husband, John Tebeau, offered to design business cards for my blog. He planned to use moo.com, a nifty site that allows you to add full-color artwork to the back of your card instead…
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival starts today. Jazz Fest runs the last weekend of April and first weekend of May, and we’re excitedly looking forward to being there for the second weekend. I didn’t expect to like Jazz Fest. Several years ago when our friend, Rachel, invited us to join her in a large rental house for the…
So far on this blog, I’ve written a lot about career transformations. Given the economy and the number of people out of work, that’s obviously a theme on a lot of people’s minds but it’s far from the only way you might improve your life. Maybe you’d like to: — improve your relationships? — make time for a hobby or…
Imagine John McCain without the life-changing experience of being a prisoner of war. Imagine John Walsh without the devastating grief of his son, Adam, being murdered by a serial killer. In the news last week was the story of researchers working on a drug to erase certain memories. The spooky story in the Times starts off: Suppose scientists could erase…
