It’s been almost three months since I’ve done this, so let’s get to it.
Bye, bye Miss American Eye - Did you know Max Factor is going to phase out its cosmetics in the US? According to Ad Age, they just don’t sell well enough (I love the undereye concealer) although they’re very popular overseas and will continue to be sold there. An excellent companion read is John Updike’s 2008 book review about the real Max Factor, published in The New Yorker. It includes a photo of his beauty calibrator, which looks like a torture device.
Political treachery - I’m riveted by the political mess in the UK, which could mean an end to Labourite Gordon Brown’s time in Downing Street. If you haven’t been following it, today’s Washington Post will get you up to speed, and the Telegraph, one of Britain’s many conservative papers, will provide the details of the in-party plotting and backstabbing. Speaking of plots, Watergate burglar Bernard Barker has died in Florida, age 92, and the Miami Herald has an interesting obitiuary that focuses on his hero status among Cuban exiles. Back to the Post, that’s where I read the best analysis of President Obama’s speech in Cairo. It educated me about its subtleties.
People - Alysa Stanton has been ordained as America’s first black female rabbi. How she got there and where she’s going is in the New York Times. One of the most famous Jewish women of modern times, Anne Frank, would have had her 80th birthday this coming Friday and the Anne Frank Trust UK commissioned a photo that shows what she might have looked like. It was created with sophisticated age progression technology and The Telegraph has the full story with a video of Anne’s step-sister’s reaction to it. The paper has taken down the comparison photo it had up yesterday, but you can see that now at the Democratic Underground.
Speaking of photos - Anyone who’s never heard the term “decisive moment”, coined by legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, only has to look at this memorable photo from National Geographic to get what it is. Cartier-Bresson usually shot people and this is an animal, but it is indeed the decisive moment and the shot was the photo of the day a while back.
