Personals column

I wrote this specifically for all my readers, friends and fans who cheered me on as I became one of the highest-earning contestants ever on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

Ticket to ride

Somehow I just keep those Beatles-related headlines coming. (Other recent ones I've come up with include "Baby boomer group wants to get by with a little help from its friends," and my favorite, about a synagogue's Fab Four-related holiday musical: "And your shul can sing...")
This story was fun because I got to visit some of the liveliest seniors in Orlando at Kinneret Apartments, and because I love to write service pieces. If even one person's life changes for the better because of something I've written, I'm happy.

Vogue Orlando

OK, so there really isn't a Vogue Orlando (*sigh*). Or maybe there is one in my dreams....
The Jewish Pavilion, one of my favorite local organizations, scored big when they got Carmen Marc Valvo to bring a show to their January charity event. Besides the fun of seeing lots of my friends and bonding with new ones over Carmen's swoon-inducing creations, it was a chance to write about one of my great loves, the art of fashion.
Now, Lucky Magazine bans its writers from describing clothes with food-related metaphors for good reason. Here, I only slip on that banana peel once--with "confections." But to me, the word connotes the soft sigh of a swirl of chiffon (the fabric, that is, not the pie) as much as it does a more, er, comestible item.
I loved my brief encounter with Carmen, and when he told me his collection was inspired by sea and surf and sand, it was easy to set the mood with a few beach-y metaphors...

Colors of the imagination

Why I really love my job: Who else gets the chance to call up fabulous and famous people and have them tell you anything you ask? (Well, within the fairly fluctuating bounds of reason...)
I adore Peter Max's work--he worked with the Beatles among others. Peter was one of the first artists I ever interviewed for the newspaper, and I wondered if he'd be rambling and difficult to talk to. But he was erudite, thoughtful and wise and a great conversationalist, someone completely at home with himself and the world. I especially loved his stories of growing up as a refugee child in Shanghai, since I share his great love of Asian art and culture. (If you want to see something truly beautiful, visit the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco--www.asianart.org.)
The wonderful documentary film "Shanghai Ghetto" tells the story of the Jewish families who fled there, and seeing it soon after I interviewed Peter made me feel even more connected to him.
I thought a while before coming up with my lead for this piece, but when I focused on the feelings Peter had evoked during our talk, it came right away: A story fit for the Arabian Nights....

Elle Magazine Readers' Prize

I was thrilled to be chosen to contribute reviews to Elle Magazine for its 2004 Readers' Prize column. Free books and a byline are always an enticement. :)
I really loved the first book here, "Leg the Spread." I like non-fiction that's evocative and opens up a whole new subculture for me, especially about things I hadn't thought of getting interested in--here it's the vicious but oddly exhilirating world of stock brokering. "Journey From the Land of No" should be required reading for anyone interested in the real people of Iran, although I found the author's tone a bit detached.

Oren surveys 'Power, Faith and Fantasy'

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with scholar Michael Oren. Before he wrote "Power, Faith and Fantasy" he gave us a magisterial history of the Six Day War and even penned a suspense novel--which I'm now eager to read.
Another thing I loved about Oren: He said I really made him think.

Reflections of silver, beneath the rain...

In this review, I was aiming for something a little different. The film itself was so different from the usual American fare, the whole viewpoint so European, that I felt I had to strive for something that would let the reader taste that flavor in my review.... I also experimented with alternating among the first persons singular and plural, and the second person, as needed--and, contrary to Creative Writing 101, it worked.