Check out my baby Mozart ponytail.
I went undercover as a redhead for Into the Gloss. Find out whether I wore a merkin here.
“It never failed to annoy him that Savage, a Connecticut WASP and a Yale man, used Yiddish words to convey his toughness, or what he liked to call his “street smarts.”
People like secrets. Creative people REALLY like secrets.
I wrote about startups, business books, and the cult of the entrepreneur for The New Republic.
Zac Efron Freaks Out
About ten months ago I got in a car accident on I-10 in Los Angeles. The context was this: I was heading to the Chateau Marmont to interview a dull action star whose capacity for self-reflection roughly equaled that of a chicken nugget, and after absorbing the scare and filing the piece, I decided I would stop doing celebrity profiles. Not because of the car accident, but because every profile I wrote turned out horrible and was surrounded by a constellation of nauseating events. (eg haggling with publicists.)
I made an exception last month when my editor emailed me about Zac Efron. Don’t know why. I think I was curious to see what he looked like in real life.
In googling him before the interview, I found that Efron’s recent publicity accomplishments included being photographed in fuzzy ear muffs (cute) and being photographed in a sex shop, which resulted in the excellent New York Post headline Zac Efron Freaks Out After Being Photographed Near an Array of Dildos.
It appeared that Efron, understandably worried about creeping out his younger fans, sprinted after the paparazzo and begged him to delete the photos. The paparazzo declined. A day later we got images of a goateed Efron with a gleaming cluster of pink dildos—Efron blurry, the dildos in perfect photographic focus.
Beautiful photo.
Anyhow, the profile is for ELLE magazine and it is here.
Key Learnings from Workplace Sensitivity Training
•Don’t make suggestive gestures
•Avoid excessively lengthy handshakes
•Don’t do “elevator eyes”
•Not even as a joke
Here’s how we celebrated Easter. Bonus points if you can spot my cameo as a ball boy!
The 1st Annual SoHo Easter Egg Drop with teams Arch & Loop, Baron Von Fancy, Reformation and VEDA was held this past Saturday.
The four teams competed for a chance to win the Grand Prize, an extra large chocolate bunny.
WATCH THE VIDEO TO SEE THE RESULTS!
I’m on the Longform podcast this week. Max Linsky was a saintly interviewer. At one point I got hives on my chest and tried to cover it with my hair. He appeared not to notice. Thank you, Max, for that—and for everything else! Good thing you can’t see hives on the radio.
You can find it on iTunes, too.
“We’ve all been a little bit raped.”
And other thoughts from Amy Schumer, a comic whose show is debuting in April on Comedy Central. Here is my Encounter with her, for New York .
Something I wish I had known when I was freelancing full-time
Some people are better at exchanges. When they do someone a favor, they naturally assume it’s a transactional effort that they can cash in for another favor in the future.
Recognizing a situation as transactional is less intuitive for women than for men. That’s a generalization. Still, I think a lot of women (including me) will tend to do someone a professional favor and see it as a kindness rather than as a deposit. In friendships and relationships, favors are kindnesses; professionally, not so much.
You’re at a disadvantage if you don’t recognize this and the person on the other end does.
Fun thing to do
Sit at your desk and train your eye on someone as they walk around the office. When they notice and come over to ask why you’re staring, say, “I just don’t like you in my blind spot.”
