"Authenticity is like authority or charisma: If you have to tell people you have it, then you probably don't." --Andrew Potter "Whenever you find something described as authentic, you know that you are already in the realm of fake authenticity," says Andrew Potter in his recent book "The Authenticity Hoax." It's not unlike [...]
For the last 8,000 years, the wine grape has had very little sex. This unnatural abstinence threatens to sap the grape’s genetic health and the future pleasure of millions of oenophiles. [Italics added.] . . . [M]erlot is intimately related to cabernet franc, which is a parent of cabernet sauvignon, whose other [...]
Pity poor Hannah, who received a startling text message on her cellphone, sent from her father: "Your mom and I are going to divorce next month." After Hannah registered her alarm, her father quickly texted back: "I wrote 'Disney,' and this phone changed it. We are going to Disney." Welcome to the world [...]
I have tried to keep diaries before, but they didn’t work out because of the necessity to be honest. -- John Steinbeck Quote from article at: NYT 22Jan11: Tales of Lives Richly Lived, But True?
Shortly before the iPad tablet went on sale last year, Steven P. Jobs showed off Apple's latest creation to a small group of journalists. One asked what consumer and market research Apple had done to guide the development of the new product. “None,” Mr. Jobs replied. “It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what [...]
The only way to get rich from a self-help book is to write one. --Christopher Buckley Quoted in: NYT 16Jan11: "The Spirit Of the Mensch" (book review of "Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing")
“Three Seconds” [a Swedish crime novel], . . . is not the first book written by the odd-couple team of Anders Roslund (journalist) and Borge Hellstrom (ex-criminal). But “Three Seconds” [is their first] book that has been wishfully packaged to suggest that “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” has a second cousin. . [...]
Q. Just to clarify, do you suffer from manic depression or bipolar disorder? FISHER They say bipolar now. It’s the same as manic depression. I think manic depression is more descriptive. Bipolar sounds like a gay bear. [Italics added.] See article at: NYT 05Dec10: "No Business Like Their Family Business" [featuring a joint [...]
[T]he essential difference between plagiarism and forgery [is] in the first, one passes off another's work as one's own; in the second, vice versa. --from obituary of Denis Dutton, founder of the website Arts & Letters Daily, summarizing one of his opinions. See obituary at: NYT 01Jan11: "Denis Dutton, Philosopher, Dies at 66"
"You won't be able to order a cup of coffee at the f---ing deli without hearing or seeing me," Lada Gaga [Stefani Germanotta] told her boyfriend in 2008. It took only two years for her prophecy (or threat) to come true. Tickets to her Monster Ball global tour were so in demand that [...]