by David Moldawer on October 7, 2008
If the New York Times’s Sunday Styles were a hairdo, it would be a wig. If it were on the menu, it would be a meringue. If it were a retail outlet, it would be Spencer’s Gifts. As a mélange of fashion notes, celebrity reporting, personal essays, and piffle, Sunday Styles resembles the old-fashioned supermarket tabloids in that it knows that it's a stinking pile of entertaining trash and makes no apologies for it.
So bestowing a “Bogus Trend of the Week” award upon Sunday Styles is a tad like berating Slobodan Milosevic for tracking mud across your nice, clean linoleum floor. The section exists to advance the bogus. Yet sometimes Sunday Styles promotes premises so flimsy that somebody must shout stop, if only to restore the section to its honest awfulness.
Slate.com: The Times’ Sunday Styles section discovers dudes loving cats
by David Moldawer on October 6, 2008
Today, I took the plunge and got an iPhone, despite the fact that I would have to leave Verizon for AT&T—a company I once swore would never see my custom again after making my life miserable with unbelievably lousy service in Seattle.
But it was well worth swallowing my pride. This thing is the promise of technology realized. I may not even need a desktop computer anymore…
by David Moldawer on October 5, 2008
by David Moldawer on October 4, 2008
I’ve always wanted to learn how to shave using a straight razor. Really, what’s manhood about beyond that?
Unfortunately, a beginner’s mistake with a 4-inch razor blade can be messy, painful, and death-ish. So imagine my delight when Sam and I discovered the 4-month-old New York Shaving Company down in Nolita.
This is a retro joint, where the music is as old-fashioned as the moustache on the barber. And this isn’t the faux-manly dandyhood of the Art of Shaving. This place feels like the real deal. They don’t even gouge you on the prices—a $30 haircut in Nolita!
After getting an excellent trim and a lesson in the art of pomade, the barber and I began discussing the merits of straight razors versus safety razors, and to my delight he informed me that he offers straight razor lessons for $30. You start off shaving a balloon and work your way up to skin. I can’t wait.
The New York Shaving Company
by David Moldawer on October 3, 2008
I'm an editor at Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Group, where I acquire business books. I live in Brooklyn with my wife and dog. (Then there's the