Julie Atlas Muz is my favorite performance artist and burlesque dancer. She performed at the first burlesque show I ever went to and I've been hooked since. You can sometimes catch her at the Slipper Room or at my favorite place in the world, Coney Island. She's also the host of This or That and choreographs and performs in various shows throughout the year.
Jenna Bush, AKA Twinkle, has decided to grow up and get rich on her own. Banking on her year-long internship with UNICEF, Jenna's written a book (Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope) which she hopes will "motivate young Americans to increase their awareness of other young people around the world."
Though HarperCollins hasn't revealed how much they paid the 25-year-old for the publishing rights, it's believed to be over $300,000, of which a "portion" will be donated back to UNICEF.
The book recounts the life of a young woman named Ana whose life has been one struggle after another: born HIV-positive, both her parents died from AIDS, her grandmother's boyfriend molested her. But, just like real life, this book has a happy ending: she "falls in love," has a baby and "finds a peaceful home where she can plan a new life."
Maybe if Jenna had spent less time writing her book, and instead lobbied against her father and his anti-woman policies like the Global Gag Rule, she could've actually helped someone. But alas, just like her father, it seems she's a greedy hypocrite.
Links:
Guardian UK, NYT, Reuters, Booklist via Amazon
An abandoned baby Macaque finds a friend and the will to live. It's tough being a primate. All those feelings and such.
Here's a photo from one of my favorite photographers on Flickr, Sarah K. Andrew.
Jeff Brouws is a photographer who has captured a desolate America full of abandoned stores and factories, and lonesome highways dotted only with fast food chains.
An Ames store in upstate New York in its last days:
I saw Liza Minelli yesterday.
She's not someone I ever would have cared about seeing in person, but for some reason, it was very exciting. She was getting out of a town car in the theater district when I rode by in a friend's car. I was five feet from her face and, surprisingly, she looked fabulous, though she did not look like this:
For those of you who want to experience Liza's greatness too, but do not live in NYC, you can call Elyse and this woman will come to you:
To have naturally raised meats and organic beans in our burritos? Apparently not!
I ran into some very nice folks from Chipotle at Farm Aid a couple weeks back (working with OROE to make sure folks recycled/composted at the show). It was an eye-opening conversation.
I've been going to Chipotle for the last year or so and always felt mildly guilty considering their association with McDonald's. But the Chipotle peeps gave me the scoop - McDonald's fully divested their shares last year so Chipotle is free to be a great company. They use local, naturally raised meats as much as supply allows (100% in NY stores), as well as organic beans and rBGH-free sour cream. Hence their presence at Farm Aid. They call it FWI - Food With Integrity.
I had a lot to thank my new Chipotle friends for - besides freeing me from the fast food guilt, they also gave me a coupon for a free burrito and some chapstick ("guac-stick" it's called). And as if that weren't enough, I went back for lunch the next week and once again got a free burrito - this time for simply bringing back the bag from my previous lunch.
Check out their fun website. Good stuff.
Well here's your chance to ask her a question about 30Rock or SNL or her recent AMEX ad.
30Rock was renewed for another season, and premieres October 4th at 8:30. Here are 10 very funny clips. Finally, some good comedy on TV.
Go Tina!
One of the wonderful things about beer marketing is that since most folks (at least in America) choose their beer based more on badge value than on actual quality, one can do silly things that are just cool and say nothing about actual product attributes. Enter a recent website for Guinness. Launched earlier this year, it's an elegant little site (sitelet?) full of stop-motion fun. Let's hope it increased sales...
I have a blog. I am excited to have a forum for sharing things I find interesting. More to come!
