On Tuesday, the Disney Store makes a triumphant official grand opening in Times Square, shutting down the so-called “Crossroads of the World” with an appearance by a rodent that’s huge even by Manhattan standards. The store has been open to customers for the past few days. I went, and although I’m pleased to see that… Read more »
Today was the only time I have ever had to cross a protest line to see a musical. As I approached the Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street for today’s matinée of The Scottsboro Boys, I could see the shapes of banners, and I could hear a chant emerge from the noise around Times Square: Scottsboro… Read more »
I was lucky enough to be one of 1,600 people invited to the naming ceremony of the QE3, which is just called the QE. The Queen herself will be here tomorrow. Some images from the ship, which takes its maiden voyage on Tuesday. [tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9PzdiYEoWI[/tube] <
My interview with Ken Burns, published in time for the premiere of Baseball: The Tenth Inning on PBS, is here! I’ve chopped it into three bits for your digestion. Think of them as three more innings: You may remember I was all a-titter about meeting him on the day we shot this. I was so… Read more »
I went to the TBEX travel writers’ cocktail soiree last night at the Hotel Giraffe in Manhattan. When we entered, we filled out our name tags (I led with “@bastable,” since there are lots of people who know me by my Twitter handle and not the name I was born with), and put our business… Read more »
My mother and I have an ongoing argument. “Life was simpler in the ’50s, Jay. It really was,” she says. I call baloney on that. Just think about what the ’50s offered Western culture: atomic bomb terrors, the HUAC, segregation, women who lived in fear of unwanted pregnancies and could only choose from a few… Read more »
In case you didn’t know, I also have a “fan” page on Facebook, where my videos, posts, and general blathering are published. If you’re looking for me by name there, you have to search in Pages (not People). I love Cristina Pellerano Jambon for many things, but one of the more recent ones is that… Read more »
Hold me down! I’m big-time digging Jeff Schroeder’s Around the World for Free on CBS.com. Some of it has been slightly canned, like the plugs for American Airlines (a sponsor), but the majority of it is killer stuff. Anyone who backpacks will recognize what he’s going through right now as he tries to make it… Read more »
I can’t be the only one who hates when sites only show me stuff based on what I like. “Personalization,” they call it. Choice. Customization. “Navel-gazing,” I do. Far too many sites and apps are doing this. Based on the ads it shows me, Facebook has me boiled down to a neat consumerist stereotype of… Read more »
I just got back from Fox News, where I talked to my long-distance BFF, Kerri-Lee Halkett, who has slightly better hair than I do, about five steps you can take to get out of personal debt. The basic truth is that getting out of debt is a lot like staying fit: You have to balance… Read more »