Owlspotting

(Disclaimer: The whole point of the story below is to promote this article I just did on the prevalence of personal stories in a series of media projects, ranging from blogs to magazines to stage shows.) My life changed in the summer of 1996. This was the summer when the first copyright law was introduced […]

Mix tapes are very consuming enterprises even for someone who makes plenty of playlists on a regular basis. I finally got around to putting together a bunch of songs to stand as my 40 American months mix, and I have to admit I’m pleased with this one (read about past ones here). I went through […]

This story is about the randomness of life. It began Tuesday night, when Martha McPhee’s heart-breaking book “L’America” reminded me of how our choices open us up to unforeseen events, which will—when the lights go off—define our life. Beth and Cesare met because their seemingly inconsequential decisions brought them to the coast of Greece at […]

The Romanian newspaper “Cotidianul” published an article today about what it called “Journalism 2.0,” a clever play on the Web 2.0 idea. The premise of the piece is that traditional media and citizen media are about to enter into an all out turf-war. The author, Cosmin Popan, says it’s a conflict between “media with a […]

I am currently reading a series of books on nostalgia for what I hope will be a news story. On my way to the news, I’m finding some great nuggets of wisdom in books like Svetlana Boym‘s “Future of Nostalgia.” Here is one on how people from Eastern and Central Europe (who in the days […]

Books: I stepped out to a cafe in my neighborhood to read Calvin Trillin’s “About Alice.” The book is a tender 78-page remembrance of his wife, who died in 2001. The book was originally a New Yorker essay I had read back in March, but I wanted to own it bound between covers because of […]

An American friend I met recently in Boston told me a story last night about a trip she took to Romania in 2004. Like other trips you might have heard of from foreigners, this one involved stops in Bucharest, Sinaia and Sighisoara. But the best part came when she checked into a Poiana Brasov hotel […]