Category Archives: Media Update 2011

Be warned, New York. A new bartender is in town. “Any good bar has to have a pisco drink,” says Nathan Paluck, a bartender at Panca restaurant in New York City. MSNBC happened to find Nate tending Panca’s bar recently … Continue reading →

Today, the world ends. For real this time, says radio evangelist Harold Camping. He’s predicted that a cataclysmic event will today destroy the globe and take 200 million Christians to heaven on Oct. 21, 2011. “I do believe we’re getting … Continue reading →

I haven’t laughed so hard, I haven’t felt so good, as during and immediately after seeing the Broadway musical “Book of Mormon” on Friday night. Getting into the theater was an ordeal, but worthwhile. The show is sold out into … Continue reading →

Like thousands of other runners, I forked over $45 to run the Bronx Half-Marathon on August 25, organized by New York Road Runners (NYRR), the nation’s largest running organization. At first I was disappointed when Tropical Storm Irene caused the … Continue reading →

Here’s the problem with remembering the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the United States is doing today: We’re lying to ourselves. We’re indulging in self-pity and hero-worship. We’re selectively choosing what we want to recall and forgetting important facts such as how the … Continue reading →

New York City can really suck the life out of you, especially during the miserably hot summer months, unless you work hard at finding the life in the city. One way is through music. Under a gentle rain in June, … Continue reading →

Six weeks after starting a new job in New York City, I’m yet to actually move to New York City, as I haven’t yet found an apartment. I’ve been rotating between couches in Brooklyn and Manhattan, living alongside cats and encroaching … Continue reading →

Moments after landing in Vancouver last week, I had five Canadians competing to point me in the right direction on the subway. They were so helpful that it was unhelpful. They were confusing me with all their “abooots” and “eeh’s.” Angry … Continue reading →

Current Lima resident Nathan Paluck pulled together the following primer on Peruvian music for me, as I’ll be visiting him for two weeks. Hopefully I’ll get to sample first hand the Peruvian music during my first-ever visit to South America. … Continue reading →

The gun fired in Hopkinton at 10 a.m. I’d been up since 5:45 a.m. That’s because I, along with 24,000 other runners, had to show up at the Boston Common early that morning (I pedaled my bicycle there) and load … Continue reading →

If so, make sure your parents have a free room where you can crash, because it’s a low-paying and rocky road to financial security and editorial happiness (if either ever arrives). Rare is the journalism job that pays decent and … Continue reading →

I can be a liability in social settings. I often fail to recognize social norms. That’s how Claire found herself in Iraq with me talking about breasts, lesbians, and Mormons to a conservative Muslim family of imams, doctors, and lawyers. … Continue reading →

Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer: the pink city, the white city, the blue city, the gold city. Jaipur offered detailed Islamic architecture; Udaipur, a pristine lakeside palace worthy of the backdrop to a James Bond film; Jodhpur, Rajasthan province’s premier citadel; … Continue reading →

A stone walkway stretches hundreds of miles into the Himalayas, up steep cliffs and over narrow ridges. It’s the Nepali merchant’s version of the Great Wall, and over the past decades it’s become one of the most popular trekking routes … Continue reading →

I’ve never had a more raucous introduction to a country. Nepal’s roads were crowded, loud, jammed, and crumbling, although I thought the latter was somewhat excusable, because while roads are unpaved and potholed in many poor countries such as Cambodia … Continue reading →

Watching the sun set on Mount Everest was the highlight of China, and my seven days in Tibet. It took more planning, and money, than I’d anticipated, but for about $700 I was able to fly from Shangri-la to Lhasa and … Continue reading →

“I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds—even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself.” That’s a quote from the British novelist James Hilton’s wonderful … Continue reading →

It’s hard to enjoy a city when you’re suffering from swine flu. In Beijing I had come down with a cold, and it worsened in Shanghai to the point where I couldn’t leave my hotel room for several days.I barely left my … Continue reading →

From Beijing’s airport, a clean and pristine subway sped us downtown. The subway stations were immaculate, even the floors. I’ve eaten off dirtier dinner plates. The cleanliness ended as soon as we walked outside, where we hit China’s great wall of pollution, smog and … Continue reading →

Here in Ho Chi Minh City, we’re suddenly back in muggy weather in the high 80s. I am sitting inside an air-conditioned Highlands Coffee, a commercial chain of Starbucks-like cafes that sums up HCMC compared to the rest of Vietnam. … Continue reading →