home | contact | list all

Sep 15, 2008 Status Kuo: Reviving Forgotten Chinese Crafts Is More Than A Sheep Trick - Forbes My grandmother, an elegant woman who toured China in the early decades of the 20th century,  brought back a collection of tiny cloisonné boxes to decorate her living room. They were precious little affairs with bands of colored enamel in flowery patterns between brass wires.  More ... Jun 16, 2008 Cover Story: Stand Up Guy - Forbes Paddle Surfing Could be the Biggest Thing to Come Out of Hawaii Since "Tiny Bubbles." I am at a stage in life where an absence of time and stamina advises against taking up certain activities with any hope for proficiency.  More ... Apr 25, 2008 Dominican Republic - Forbes   Dominican Republic Punta Cana: Yes, you can leave New York after the closing bell and still make landfall in time for dinner and a stogie at this beachside jungle getaway. What is even more remarkable is that, despite the sprawl, there are still places in Punta Cana to get away from it all in luxurious privacy.  More ... Mar 01, 2008 Crockery Hunter - Forbes  One morning last November, in a special private skybox overlooking Sotheby’s New York main auction gallery, Richard Baron Cohen, 50, was growing despondent. “This is a collector’s worst nightmare,” he said.  More ... Dec 11, 2007 Poster Boy - Forbes Dwight Cleveland, a 48-year-old Chicago real estate developer, stares intently as a dry-cleaning squeegee steams the outermost poster from an old movie theater display board he picked up from an antiques dealer in Duluth, Minnesota.  More ... Oct 29, 2007 Cover Story: Hawaiian Dynasty--The Parker Ranch - Forbes Cover StoryHawaiian Dynasty For 160 years the Parker family ruled Hawaii's Big Island. Today their 150,000-acre ranch is a slice of paradise open to all. The Big Island of Hawaii is one of the strongest drugs you can buy without a prescription.  More ... Oct 29, 2007 The Alisal: Horse for the Holidays - Forbes Santa Ynez Valley: There are few things more worth getting out of bed for thana horse waiting to carry you over the oak-etched Santa Ynez mountains before the morning sun has yanked the Alisal Guest Ranch out of the shadows.  More ... Apr 23, 2007 Trekker - Forbes Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury's idea of exotic travel has always been a little bit...different. Few people have covered more intellectual and physical territory than Ray Bradbury, author of 58 books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and other required reading for modern civilization, both domestic and extraterrestrial.  More ... Apr 23, 2007 Lenin Slept Here: St. Pete's Hotel Astoria - Forbes RUSSIA St. Petersburg: For those who expect the Hotel Astoria, St. Petersburg's most glamorous hotel, to be anything like its newer, glitzier competitors on the nearby Nevsky Prospekt, the first sight of the stark, even forbidding building across from St.  More ... Mar 12, 2007 Fashion House - Forbes There have been milestones in the 16 years of this magazine's life span. In 1991, we announced that the Soviet government was going to auction off the embalmed corpse of Lenin. In 1995, we were credited with forcing NATO's intervention during the Balkan crisis.  More ... Oct 30, 2006 Sport School for Skids - Forbes   MotoVentures students are requested to bring an exceptional sense of balance, flawless timing and ball-bearings of steel.  More ... Sep 18, 2006 The Right Touch - Forbes       Peter Westbrook is discovering future Olympic fencing champions in New York's inner city.   Scanning the team photos cluttering the walls of the venerable New York Fencers Club on West 25th Street, it would be a cinch to presume that the "Sport of Princes" was the exclusive domain of Waspish-looking men with upper lips as stiff as a Park Avenue cocktail.  More ... Jun 19, 2006 Mixed Media - Forbes WHERE MEN HIDE, by James B. Twitchell, photographs by Ken Ross; Columbia University Press; $25 Who knew that reaching for another “tall boy” in the Barcalounger could be so fraught with ancient, ritualistic meaning? James Twitchell does, and after reading this provocative book, you will, too.  More ... May 08, 2006 Houdini in the Desert - Forbes Copperfield has grossed $1 billion.   HOUDINI IN THE DESERT The greatest collection of magic in the world lies hidden inside a nondescript Las Vegas warehouse.  More ... May 04, 2006 Presto: Your Own Collection - Forbes New York - Collecting magic memorabilia is a complicated business. Not only are there many different collectibles subsets--from magician’s throw cards to large scale illusions--but the prices can be affected by movies and books.  More ... Apr 24, 2006 It's De Limit, It's Deluxe, It's De-Lovely - Forbes Jazz Age architects Schultze and Weaver ushered in the era of luxury hotels with masterpieces like the Waldorf-Astoria, The Breakers and the Los Angeles Biltmore. Eighty-five years later, their work is getting a second look.  More ... Dec 12, 2005 My Father's Library - Forbes One man spent a lifetime collecting the books that would teach his son about life--even after they started disappearing. During the months after my father's debilitating stroke, his second wife divorced him, his bank accounts were emptied, his furniture disappeared, the cat ran away and a trio of booksellers purchased his book collection.  More ... Oct 31, 2005 Hotel National, Moscow - Forbes   Moscow: The formidable Hotel National, within easy rifle range of Red Square, is one of the 20th century's great survivors. Now being run to five-star standards by Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts, this 1903 eclectic art nouveau jewel is reclaiming its czarist-era prominence as Moscow's most elegant hotel.  More ... Apr 25, 2005 Landlord's Fantasy: Henry Darger's Nonrefundable Deposit - Forbes Your mysterious tenant dies, leaving behind $2 million in odd art. Talk about nonrefundable deposits.What was he up to all those years in that cold and shabby room? Other tenants could hear him shouting late at night, arguing--though Henry Darger lived alone.  More ... Apr 07, 2005 Iron Giants - Forbes L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum has gathered the classic muscle cars of the '60s and '70s. Their brawny beauty hasn't changed, but the price tags have. Long before airbags, headrests, cup holders and other such clutter, there were muscle cars.  More ... Nov 12, 2001 Into Finn Air - Forbes Mayhem erupts on Mt. Everest as an e-mail goes astray. "It's all bullshit on Everest these days."--Sir Edmund Hillary I stood in the sharp sunlight near my tent at Nepal's Everest Base Camp, in May 2000, sipping a mug of tea and scanning the route I was to take for my summit push the next day.  More ... Jun 11, 2001 Austrian Attitude - Forbes A pair of Viennese turned a shoddy Soviet-era camera into a fad item. What makes them think they can do the same for a wireless device? Second acts--even for a marketing whiz like Richard Branson-- are tough to pull off.  More ... Apr 25, 1998 The Legion marches on - Forbes So, are you ready to join?" the recruiting Sergeant glowers at me. "Can I bring my wife?" I gamely counter. The Sergeant looks at me as if calculating where he wants to stick the bayonet.  More ... Mar 09, 1998 Basket Cases - Forbes TO PARAPHRASE TOLSTOY, ALL GOOD HOT-air balloon landings resemble each other. Each bad landing is bad in its own way.The good landings, which occur more than 99.9% of the time, usually go something like this: your chase crew have successfully followed you in their van to the spot where you want to touch down.  More ... Nov 17, 1997 How I Spent My Summit Vacation - Forbes On my first morning approaching Aconcagua, I unzipped my tent and came face-to-face with my pack mule. Unfortunately, he was dead. His eyes were frozen in a determined expression, as if before expiring he had finally made up his mind to approach me and ask for a raise.  More ... Aug 16, 1997 Vive L'Amerique! Vive Budweiser! Vive Mickey! - Forbes I opened my bank account in Paris with a bank representative whose last name was, reassuringly enough, Million. Returning to my office after interminable form filling I was promptly called by Monsieur Million who invited me to his family's home that evening for dinner.  More ... Jul 12, 1997 French Paperwork -- a moveable feast for the 90s - Forbes Hemingway labeled his memories of the years spent savoring Paris' wine, women and Stein "A Moveable Feast." I am fond of this city, too, and thanks to Paris' omnipresent bureaucracy, my favorite souvenirs are almost equally portable; my wallet is bulging with multicolored fiches, tickets, resus, cartes and other numbered, stamped and triplicated delights.  More ... Nov 25, 1996 Hemingway's Apartment: The Price Also Rises - Forbes "Home in the rue Cardinal Lemoine was a two-room flat that had no hot water and no inside toilet facilities except an anti-septic container, not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse.  More ...