Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel doesn’t speak for all Jews in taking offence to being wished a Merry Christmas. Nessel’s histrionics distracts from her shameful incompetence and ineffectiveness.
Lifestyle
L.A.’s Big Little Lies
This month marks the fourth anniversary of my relocation to Los Angeles, a city I long romanticized after boarding a flight on a frigid Michigan morning years ago and walking around a few hours later in balmy 70-degree weather. Visiting the City of Angels is a lot more pleasant than living here.
My Most Memorable Bars and Bartenders
Jen Agg, a Canadian restauranteur, recently had a rant published in the Globe and Mail decrying “Best” lists of restaurants and bars. Here’s a taste (pardon the pun) of what she wrote: I have always been suspicious of lists. From Michelin to En Route to Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants, they…
The Wisdom of Dale Carnegie, Cal Newport, and Jan Wong
When I moved to Boston to attend graduate school, my uncle living there worked in the book publishing business. He saw infinite beauty in books, not just the information contained between the covers but the covers themselves and how they were bound. He was appalled by the stack of newspapers…
On Becoming an Angeleno
There’s a super upscale L.A. area food emporium that makes Whole Foods look like a 7-11. It’s called Erewhon, and while the quality of its food is unrivaled, so are its prices. A donut costs $7 (okay, it’s gluten free, vegan, organic, made with toctrienols, superfoods, and 10 grams of…
Sonos: A Rare Tech Company with Common Sense
EDITOR’S NOTE: Since I published this post, I discovered that Sonos has since offshored its customer service to multiple countries overseas. The company under CEO Patrick Spence has lost its way since going public. I no longer endorse Sonos or its products. It’s unfortunate because Sonos’ early success was predicated…
The Power (and Boredom) of Iyengar Yoga
My elusive search for a meaningful yoga practice began nearly three decades ago when I was living on New York’s Upper East Side. I was looking to meet spiritually minded people and, in those days, yoga was associated with the crunchy granola set. The practice was still sufficiently foreign that…
The Selfie Culture of Equinox Fitness
As a young adult in my native Toronto, I worked out at a dilapidated gym known as the “Old Jewish Y.” The moniker was due to Toronto’s Jewish community moving miles north and building a suburban state-of-the-art community center. The original facility was left open as a sop to the…
In Praise of Great Dentists and Dentistry
Dentistry and medieval torture chambers were once one and the same. When I was a kid, my dentist didn’t freeze before drilling – he’d just say “open wide for me” and started doing his thing. Patience wasn’t his strong suit – he’d get quite annoyed if you raised your…