By Taylor Smith |Photos courtesy of @warbyparker
Trend setting eyeglass company Warby Parker is making its debut in the Garden State. Customers can now have fun trying on the company’s affordable and stylish frames at 126 Central Avenue in downtown Westfield. The bright, airy, and spacious store is adorned with book-centric murals designed by Keith Negly.
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By Taylor Smith
Husband and wife duo Mark Sopchak and Jenna Park began their baking company Whimsy & Spice at the launch of the Brooklyn Flea in the spring of 2008. In the years since, Whimsy & Spice has grown, thrived, and expanded. A trained pastry chef influenced by the flavors of international travel, Sopchak handles the baking-side of the company’s operation, while Park manages the graphic design and marketing end, shooting much of the photography for the brand. Viewers will be struck by the New York design sensibility combined with unusual flavors. more
By Taylor Smith
Companies like One Peloton (www.onepeloton.com) have engineered some of the most attractive and effective workout machines in recent years. Equipment like the Peloton Cycle and Peloton Tread enable users all over the world to get a boutique indoor cycling and running studio experience from the convenience of their own homes, day or night. For a lot of working people and parents, the opportunity to get a solid sweat session at any time of day (and no car travel required) is a huge relief. more
By Taylor Smith
With locations on the Upper West Side and in the West Village in New York City, RedFarm is a collaboration between Joe Ng and restauranteur Ed Schoenfeld. Chinese by birth, Ng was raised by a Jewish family in Brooklyn. As an adult, he was drawn to Chinese food flavors and developed the idea of bringing “Chinese cuisine with a greenmarket sensibility” to the New York population. more
By Taylor Smith
Looking for a holiday getaway? Makeup mogul Bobbi Brown and her husband, entrepreneur Steven Plofker, have opened a stately and fashionable 32-room inn in the New York City suburb of Montclair. A 35-minute train ride from Midtown Manhattan, The George is the perfect weekend destination for tri-state area residents. more
By Taylor Smith
Summit Medical Group Foundation welcomes a host of Broadway stars to the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn on Monday, December 10. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show begins at 7 p.m. General admission is $50 and VIP admission is $100 (VIP includes prime seating and admission to a behind-the-scenes reception. Tickets can be purchased at www.smg-foundation.org. more
By Taylor Smith
The mecca for all objects by designer John Derian is located across three distinct shopfront spaces at 6 East Second Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery in New York City. Derian’s signature découpage glassware is accompanied by hand-selected French and American antiques, home decor, linens, fine art, and accent pieces from around the world. A must-register destination for those who crave charming whimsy combined with craftsmen-like artisanship, customers can direct all inquiries to 212.677.1003. more
Rube Goldberg, Rube Goldberg Inventions United States Postal Service Stamp (included on sheet of “Comic Classics” stamps), date unknown. Sheet of USPS stamps.
Celebrating the Comic Art of Rube Goldberg
By Ilene Dube
Among the earliest of John George’s memories is going to the Automat with his grandfather. “There was a whole wall of windows and all these little doors, and you would open one and take out your pie, and then a hand would come place a new piece of pie in the slot where you’d taken yours from,” recounts George, 73, a Skillman-based psychologist. “The whole thing was a big Rube Goldberg, a kind of inspiration for the world he put down on paper.”
In fact, John George’s grandfather, with whom he shared the Automat experience, was Rube Goldberg. more
By Stuart Mitchner
Amsterdam was the first stop on my first trip to Europe and the first time in my life that I’d walked into a museum on a whim, on my own, casually, without thinking of it as a prescribed learning experience. Every painting was by the same artist. At 19, I knew about Van Gogh of course. I’d seen Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life. But here was the reality, vividly, wildly, uncontainedly there in the gobs, clusters, and swirls of paint everywhere I looked, and no one else was around, no crowds to contend with; somehow some way I’d lucked out and had the place to myself, just me and Van Gogh. I could almost hear him breathing, smell the smoke from his pipe, as if he were working as I watched, no brush, I imagined him squeezing the paint between his fingers and then slapping it on. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I’d landed all by myself on the shore of a new world of art.
By Taylor Smith
Six impressive properties will be on view in Basking Ridge and Bernardsville for The Somerset Hills Holiday House Tour on Sunday, December 9 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Brick Academy, an 1809 historic landmark, will serve as the hospitality center. The Brick Academy is a Federal-style architectural structure located in the center of Basking Ridge in Bernards Township. Since 1809, The Brick Academy has served as a boys’ private preparatory school, a public school, a meeting hall for different fraternal and benevolent organizations, and the Bernards Township municipal building. more
By Taylor Smith
Cannabidiol, also known as CBD oil, is a chemical compound derived from the cannabis sativa plant, but it contains no THC (the psychoactive constituent) and is not evident in a drug test. Also known as hemp oil, many wellness practitioners have begun to tout the many benefits of CBD oil for the treatment of everything from anxiety and/or depression to pain relief, PTSD, insomnia, skincare, digestion, and seizures. more
By Taylor Smith
Photos courtesy of The Rubin Museum of Art
Looking for a cultural day trip? Fall is a great time to visit The Rubin Museum of Art, located at 150 West 17th Street in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. With an emphasis on cross-cultural connections, the Rubin showcases the art, ideas, and culture of the Himalayas, India, and neighboring regions. Special exhibitions celebrate art forms that range from ancient to contemporary. more
Photos courtesy of Teach For All
Her newest organization, Teach For All, is a global organization with the goal of eliminating educational inequity, tackling the complex challenges facing children in disadvantaged communities, and developing leaders to address the educational access problems. She has spent her adult life trying to ensure that all children are able to fulfill their potential. Kopp has written and published two books: One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way, released in 2001; and A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All, published in 2011. more
By Taylor Smith
Photos courtesy of Girls Who Code
Girls Who Code was founded by Reshma Saujani six years ago with the aim of closing the gender gap in computing classes in schools across the nation. Girls Who Code is now 90,000 strong in all 50 states, building the largest pipeline of future female engineers in the United States. Its Clubs Program, Campus Program, and Summer Immersion Program help to create accessible pathways for Girls Who Code alumni to enter into university and workforce computing programs. The organization also offers continued learning opportunities for Girls Who Code alumni to enhance their professional computer science skills. more
Photo by Heather Bobeck
By Donald H. Sanborn III
New York has the Metropolitan Opera, while Pennsylvania has Opera Philadelphia. As such, it is tempting to wonder whether a company in New Jersey has a “phantom” of a chance of making a significant contribution to the scene.
Opera Theatre of Montclair, the 2018 winner of the JerseyArts.com
People’s Choice Award as Favorite Opera Company, and the first New Jersey company to be invited to join the New York Opera Alliance, chooses to answer that question by concentrating on making the art form accessible — to performers and young
audiences. more
AD Pat Hobbs and Rutgers Have Big Hopes in the Big Ten
By Donald Gilpin | Photos by Ben Solomon/Rutgers Athletics
Rutgers is embarking on its fifth year in the Big Ten Conference, and Athletic Director Pat Hobbs, in his third season with the Scarlet Knights, has a clearly defined goal in sight: the creation of a championship culture.
Hobbs refers to his “five-year turnaround plan,” which he adopted when he arrived in November 2015, and he looks forward to exciting developments on the field, in the classroom, and in the institution as a whole as Rutgers’ impact on the Big Ten and the Big Ten’s impact on Rutgers continue to grow in the coming years. more
By Stuart Mitchner
I never had to deal with the college search process. The Indiana University campus was five blocks away, and since my father was on the faculty, the cost was minimal. I’ve never regretted staying at home. Besides making some lifelong friends, I wrote a novel, having figured out a plot in a sophomore geology class taught by a man whose amusingly morbid mannerisms influenced my depiction of a predatory professor at a fictional Eastern college. So even though I didn’t go away to school myself, my main character did, and came home to Indiana disillusioned about love and life. When the book was published the summer before my senior year, several reviewers gave me credit for at least not imitating J.D. Salinger, while others took the patronizing tone of the notice in the New York Times snidely titled “College Capers.” The Saturday Review quoted Picasso to the effect that “it takes a very long time to become young.” more
Photo courtesy of Melick’s Hard Cider
By Laurie Pellichero
Hard cider has been enjoyed in the United States for hundreds of years, with its history dating back to the first English settlers. The colonists used apple seeds brought from England to cultivate orchards, and cider soon became a staple of every American table. It was consumed morning, noon, and night, and seen as a more sanitary substitute for water.
New Jersey cider was especially popular. Rumor has it that George Washington even called Newark cider “the champagne of ciders.” more
By Ilene Dube | Photography courtesy of Princeton University Art Museum
At the heart of the Lewis Center for the Arts complex on the Princeton University campus — just south of Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads and Cargot Brasserie, the restaurant in the repurposed cargo shed of the old Dinky train — the earth
undulates in wave-like craters.
Like quirky hillocks with straight edges, they beckon a visitor of any age to climb to the top and roll down sideways, just as a child might. And I can’t help thinking that’s just what the earthwork’s artist, Maya Lin, hopes we’ll take away — not her name and bio as one of the most important artists working today, but rather a place to honor and connect with earth and grass. more
By Claire Curry
Throughout his childhood in Fort Worth, Texas, Jason Fox was an all-around athlete who dreamed of making it to the NFL one day. After the University of Miami recruited him, he achieved that goal and played in the NFL for several years with the Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins. But after a series of injuries, he began to plan for the future.
“As much as you think your career is going to last forever, eventually one day it’s going to end,” Fox said. “I wanted to be prepared for life after football.” Fox enrolled in an MBA program designed for athletes at the University of Miami and eventually retired from football. He said that the advanced degree provided the foundations for him to become an entrepreneur. “It gave me the tools and network to launch a tech startup,” he added. After a year in the making, Earbuds, his new social music platform, will go live this fall. more
Moderated by five-time GRAMMY winner Questlove, a musical force all his own, Kravitz will discuss the creation of, and inspiration behind his latest work. Regarded as one of the preeminent rock musicians of our time, Kravitz has transcended genre, style, race and class over the course of a 20-year musical career. Reveling in the soul, rock and funk influences of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has won four consecutive GRAMMY Awards, as well as set a record for the most wins in the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance category. more
By Jonathan Dusza
Merger includes plans for new addiction treatment center in New Jersey, more coordinated care and enhanced research and medical education opportunities
Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive and integrated health network, and Carrier Clinic, a leader in behavioral health with a 100-year history in the state, are proud to announce they have signed a definitive agreement to merge to deliver unsurpassed behavioral health care to the region. more
A selection of 8th grade boys will be welcomed each year to join our boarding community. With limited enrollment, our 8th grade boarding program is developmentally appropriate, individualized, and intentionally designed to nurture Middle School boys in preparation for the Upper School.
Here are a few highlights:
Day 1 —> The Human Development session was focused on time management. The new strategies HLers came up with included prioritization, eliminating distractions, finding a balance in our commitments, and planning ahead.
HLers applied the strategies to create time for extra plyometric training in between practice and class time. more
The director of Drew University’s creative writing program won The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.
Courtney Zoffness, a Drew professor since 2012, was honored for “Peanuts Aren’t Nuts,” one of just six stories short-listed for the prize—the world’s richest for a single short story. The finalists emerged from a long list of 15 and an initial pool of 810 entries.
Zoffness received the award at a black tie ceremony at Stationers’ Hall in London. The winner was also announced on Twitter and the award’s website. more
By Bill Alden | Photographs Courtesy of the USGA Museum
The famed architect John Russell Pope designed some of the iconic structures in Washington, D.C., including the Jefferson Memorial, the National Archives, and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. more
By Donald H. Sanborn III
McGuire is a fantastic example of what the Air Force Reserve can, and should, be,” asserts Col. Robert Dunham, a graduate of Princeton University. “McGuire is an associate unit, meaning that reservists share the same hardware with their active-duty counterparts. That is a model that has worked very well.” more
Twenty-five years since Walter H. Annenberg bestowed his historic gift on Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., the school is an example of how philanthropy can transform a school — and how a school can transform thousands of lives as a result.
On Father’s Day, 1993, Annenberg gave $100 million to Peddie — along with $265 million to the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California and Harvard University — as an endowed fund designed to expand financial aid, institute innovative programs, and recruit exceptional faculty. It was the largest cash gift ever given to an independent school, and it brought instant fame to Peddie. more
