By Sarah Emily Gilbert
The fashion industry is going all Alice in celebration of Disney’s May 27 release of Alice Through the Looking Glass. Starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, the Tim Burton movie is teeming with fantastical costumes, colors, and scenery that has inspired a myriad of fashion collections. more
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
India is a place of raw, natural beauty. Its vast plains swelter under the golden sunrise. Its rivers churn through winding countryside, and its hills are a kaleidoscope of native plants and flowers. As is evident in photographer Henry Wilson’s newest tomb Floral Patterns of India, these splendors are often reflected in some of India’s most illustrious buildings and monuments. more
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
10 of the year’s most memorable hashtags become art in this upcoming exhibit at Caelum Gallery, NYC
For the active social media user, these hashtags require little to no explanation. That’s because they are partnered with millions of images and posts from around the world that say more than we could’ve imagined. more
Traditional Zulu work and it is made from coils of telephone wire wrapped around a solid metal core, to define its shape. It has a modern twist to its make with the infusion of bright colour patterns. The intricacy in the design makes this basket so precious due to the long production days involved in its design. No two pieces are the same. Designs may vary, making each individual piece that much more unique.
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
Moms are the best, but not just the human sort. The animal kingdom is full of mothers who are ready to – quite literally – go out on a limb for their children. Between teaching their young to forage food, defend themselves against predators, and battle the elements, animal moms have a big job. In celebration of Mother’s Day, we rounded up some of the fiercest mamas in the animal kingdom. more
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
Mother’s Day cruise around the NYC Harbor: Hornblower Cruises is offering a family brunch cruise on Mother’s Day. At 10am the yacht leaves Pier 40, located at 353 West Street, for a two-hour ride along the Hudson. The cruise includes a brunch buffet, a dessert station, coffee and herbal teas, a live jazz band, and a DJ. more
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Public Ice Skating at The Ice House in Hackensack, NJ.
8 p.m.: The Bergen County Players present Enchanted April, 298 Kinderkamack Road, Oradell, NJ. more
Bibliophiles rejoice – as of April 7, 2016 the Park Avenue Armory in NYC will be converted into one of the world’s most distinguished book fairs, The New York Antiquarian Book Fair. This year’s event, presented by The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA), will feature over 200 international exhibitors of rare books, maps, illuminated manuscripts, photographs, ephemera and singular items of historical interest. Featuring items like Robert Frost’s personal cane carved “Miles to go Before I sleep,” to a First Edition copy of “Where the Wild Things Are,” the fair will interest everyone from a seasoned collector to a literary novice. Preview tickets are $50 and include a return visit and daily tickets are $25, both of which can be purchased here. more
Lauren Conrad visits Bookends Bookstore in Ridgewood, NJ on Tuesday, March 29 at 7 p.m. to read from and signs copies of her new book, Celebrate.
From lifestyle and fashion icon Lauren Conrad—#1 New York Times bestselling author of Lauren Conrad Style and Lauren Conrad Beauty—comes her dazzling and essential guide to entertaining, filled with an inspiring array of lifestyle tips and personal stories. more
Now that spring has arrived, there is no excuse not to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Whether you’re running, walking, biking or surfing, exercising outdoors is a great stress reliever. These products will help to track your workouts and progress, allowing you to keep a helpful record and to stay accountable of your daily fitness. Simply click on each product image to purchase. more
Author and illustrator Eric Carle has delighted three generations of readers with his iconic and colorful collage style art. Now, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show” has come to the 47th Street Theatre in New York City for a very special 60-minute performance that is perfect for families and kids of all ages. more
Make Easter fun for the whole family with these personalized Easter gifts. Simply click on each item to purchase.
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
Mommybites is the mecca for everything mom-related. Whether you’re looking for a prenatal yoga class in your neighborhood, a tofu veggie bowl recipe, or a sleep solution for your toddler, Mommybites has you covered. In addition to an online community for moms, Mommybites offers free tele-classes, e-articles, one-on-one phone or Skype sessions with parenting experts, a nanny directory, coupon codes, giveaways, and more. (We weren’t exaggerating about the whole mommy mecca thing.) more
10AM-9:30PM Meet the Easter Bunny at Paramus Park Mall in Paramus, NJ (through March 26)
4PM Meet The Very Hungry Caterpillar at The Curious Reader in Glen Rock, NJ.
7PM The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents Legends at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. more
By Ilene Dube
Getting kids to eat, and like, their vegetables isn’t usually the work of an architect, but for Amale Andraos, who is working on her second design for the Edible Schoolyard Project in New York, there is a connection between designing buildings and “the artistic and aesthetic dimensions of food.” Teaching the next generation about both is a big part of what she does. Named one of the 25 Most Admired Educators for 2016, Amale Andraos, 42, the new dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, has taught architecture at Princeton, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and American University in Beirut. more
By Ellen Gilbert
Illustrations by Maira Kalman
That is so not me,” emphatically says writer/illustrator Maira Kalman after being asked if she would please consider being nominated to serve as the next Librarian of Congress. With the recent retirement of James Billington, who dutifully filled the post for nearly 30 years, one could only hope that someone with some joie de vivre—someone capable of exclaiming, as Kalman once did, “hallelujah for the knowledge and for the honor of Language and Ideas and books”—would come on board. In retrospect it probably was an unfair question. Kalman, whose work will be familiar to many from her regularly featured New Yorker covers, thrives on disorder, randomness, serendipity and lightning flashes of intense pleasure during the course of everyday life; promoting digitization and literacy in a nine-to-five job would probably do her in. more
By Stuart Mitchner
The most effective art therapy book I know is the Audubon Guide to Wild Flowers. My son must have been eight when he began looking through it, fascinated by the bright images, especially the more exotic flowers. The Audubon became his book of choice at bedtime. It wasn’t long before he wanted to make up his own guide. We found a large bound book of blank pages, gave him crayons and marking pens, and he spent many happy hours following the Audubon model. First he drew his idea of the flower, gave it a name, and then a description like the ones he knew. These were all his own inventions. more
By Taylor Smith
Author and public speaker Gabrielle Bernstein thinks she can help. With May Cause Miracles, Bernstein offers a 40-day guide to creating subtle shifts in one’s life. Bernstein tackles roadblocks like self-image, compassion, fear, forgiveness, and risk taking. Her approach is youthful and fresh. She cites her corresponding iTunes app and web videos, as an additional resource.
Named “a next generation thought leader” by Oprah Winfrey, Bernstein is a New York Times bestselling author and regularly appears on The Dr. Oz Show. She is also the founder of HerFuture.com, a social networking site for women to inspire, empower, and connect. more
By Mort Zachter
Sixty years ago this month, the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees to win their first and only World Series. Less than two years later, the Dodgers played their final game in Brooklyn and moved to Los Angeles.
For Brooklyn, the loss was immeasurable. The Dodgers were a source of civic pride—a final link to a time, before 1898, when Brooklyn was an independent city. Especially when it came to baseball, Brooklyn had always been cutting-edge, as well as quirky.
In 1862, the first enclosed baseball field ever built, the Union Grounds, opened in Williamsburg. A Brooklyn writer, Henry Chadwick, invented the box score. A Brooklyn pitcher, Candy Cummings, threw the first curve. A Brooklyn player, Dickey Pierce, laid down the first bunt. A Brooklyn manager, Wilbert Robinson, was the first, and probably the only person to try catching a grapefruit dropped from an airplane. And a courageous Brooklyn player, Jackie Robinson, became the first black man to play in the major leagues in the 20th century. more
Part of Urban Agenda New York City’s Social Media Mixer Series: Great Authors to Follow on Twitter
By Taylor Smith
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of four novels, most recently Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award. A previous novel, The Singer’s Gun, was the 2014 winner of the Prix Mystere de la Critique in France. Station Eleven has most recently been licensed as a feature film. Mandel shares her thoughts on her best-selling novel and the seed of her inspiration.
Mandel was watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager when she was struck by the line, “Survival is insufficient,” an elegant expression of something that she believed to be true. Her award-winning novel Station Eleven is based on the premise that “no matter what the circumstances, we always long for something beyond the basics of mere survival.”
Unlike most dystopian fiction, Station Eleven begins more than a decade after an illness has ravaged society. The worst of the pandemic has passed and so with it has gone electricity, the Internet, modern medicine, and the majority of artistic expression. In spite of all this, a group of musicians form a travelling theatrical troupe, performing Shakespeare at small towns that have formed around abandoned gas stations. more
By Stuart Mitchner
First things first, whatever the opposite of “foodie” is, I’m it. While my wife may also make faces at that precious little word, she fits the dictionary definition and then some of “a person who enjoys and cares about food.” Say the name “Yotam Ottolenghi” and her face lights up. Say it to me and I go “Duh?” My wife came of age in Los Angeles eating Mexican food along with other ethnic fare. I grew up in Indiana eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If it were possible to estimate my consumption of PB&J, I might rate a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Until I met my wife, an artichoke was as alien to me as an ottolenghi.
VIBRANT VEGGIES
I spent a year in India without eating curry. Not until after the marriage vows did I take the spicy plunge, and now it’s the one thing I can cook without the help of a cookbook. Yet here I am, contemplating Yotam’s latest, Plenty More (Ten Speed Press $35). The subtitle says it’s about Vibrant Vegetable Cooking. If you look through the big full-color world of images between the covers, some 339 pages, the vegetables are nothing if not vibrant. They do everything but dance on the page. You can get drunk just looking at them. In fact, just looking at the one-word chapter titles on the contents page becomes an activity in itself. You get Tossed, Steamed, Blanched, Simmered, Braised, Grilled, Roasted, Fried, Mashed, Cracked, Baked, and Sweetened. Which, now that I think of it, is one way of describing what happened to me in India and on the way there and back. more
By Sarah Emily Gilbert
Knotted and gnarled, solid and strong, every tree tells a story, and in Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, they’re able to do just that. From the United States and Europe to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, Beth Moon’s collection of photographs capture the world’ most enchanted trees. The result of her 14-year search for the perfect subjects, Moon’s book provides immensely detailed images of trees in their natural environments. Using her signature platinum printing process, Moon’s photographs offer a depth of tonality that emphasizes the weathered exteriors of these massive beauties. Complete with Moon’s narrative captions that describe the natural and cultural history of each tree, the tomb provides a stunning documentation of how trees can thrive when virtually untouched by civilization. more
