I spent Saturday night celebrating a dear friend, along with a brochette of great guests. Delish conversations oscillated between the disappointing post Earthquake developments in Haïti to the inevitable I-Phone vs. Blackberry debate. Then later in the night, many glasses of champagne later, my friend Adrian asked a simple question: what would I do if [...]

Bons Baisers de Paris (Kisses from Paris): “It doesn’t matter how many times you go to Paris. It will always be breathtaking, stylish, old world ……”

I’ve before voiced my opinion on Katie Couric. Despite my unfavourable words towards the overpaid anchorwoman, I had begun to root for her again following her Tour de force during the Sarah Palin interview. A Tour de force not because the interview was so spectacular but simply because Couric kept a straight face while conducting [...]

Fashion is like a heartbeat: everyone has their own and everyone needs it. Styles and trends go but the vehicles remain the same: people in the streets, music videos, television and aaarrgh, magazines. The latter is the leading culprit in the degradation of Fashion. Some Fashion magazines are unequivalently a plague for Fashion. Extreme photoshop, [...]

Some media reports, fueled by actor Dennis Haysbert, have been suggesting Americans were more willing to vote for Barack Obama because of the TV hit « 24 » where Haysbert played a Black President. I purposely ignored this story when I first read it in the famed French www.rue89.com but was forced to revisit it [...]

There was a time when carrying your newborn’s picture in your wallet would suffice as a bragging tool. Nowadays, you must get the cover of People, US Weekly or InTouch and command a vulgar price for it, ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars (sorry Jamie-Lynn, overexposure’s a bitch) to multi-million dollar price tags (proof [...]

Today, famed-French magazine and new Milagro friend Paris Match releases a special issue, declaring its love for the province of Québec. It does it with style and photography like only Paris Match can do. The mag also recently released poignant commercials, evoking life’s various emotions since after all, la vie est une histoire vraie. Here’s [...]

Last week, Québec’s Women Council rang the alarm on the hypersexualization of girls and women by men. I wish they would shut up and concentrate on real issues like increasing the number of shelters for battered woman and on toughening laws against the cowards who beat them up. I wonder why the Council has chosen [...]

Over the weekend, pictures of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus in a Vanity Fair spread, surfaced to stunned pop cultural followers. It isn’t the image of a bare-backed 15-year old that was shocking but rather the fact that anyone, would toy with the billion-dollar Industry both the Disney Channel and Team Miley Cyrus have created. That’s simply [...]

Here we go. First there was the article in Fortune magazine last year. This week, it’s the front page of Entertainment Weekly and the matching media tour, starting with the Today Show. Tyra Banks is out and about and, to my complete disbelief, has risen from likable supermodel to mogul-to-be? Yes, almost a mogul. Her [...]

Year ends bring on a ton of emotions and tasks. Regret, surprise, stupefaction, and lists. Top Ten this, top ten that. Who in the world is accredited to decide what and who’s cool? What looks good and who should wear it? Still, I have a list of my own. A wish list, if you will. [...]

Now here’s a trend I can understand. Advertisers, car makers, clothes designers, many have understood that ostentatious is passé. The dangers of too much flamboyancy have only deepened the wedge between the poor and the rich. The tasteful and the tasteless. We have survived a period where everything was monogrammed, studded or stamped with tartan. [...]

A couple of weeks ago, famed malletier Louis Vuitton unveiled its new brilliant advertisement campaign, starring various pop cultural figures. Amongst the Catherine Deneuves and André Agassis of this world, an unlikely pinup: Mikhail Gorbachev. What is extraordinary with this Louis Vuitton shot is that it forces us to look at this towering historical figure [...]

Here we go again. After the start of what its organizers swore would be a clean edition, the Tour de France was splattered by doping allegations. This year’s culprit? Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov. Singled-out since the Tour’s early stages as a plausible future yellow-jersey wearer, Vinokourov was kicked off the Tournament, leaving this prestigious event with [...]

Ahhh! The month of May. For Canadians it means the time to stop procrastinating and finally bring in our car to service to have your summer tires installed. If you’re lucky it also means your hockey team is in the playoffs. For students all over the globe it means graduation or time to break it [...]

And then, they were three: Blake, Melinda and Jordin. American Idol has weeded out the challengers and now three potential winners are left standing. Three different types of performers, three demographics but only two I actually won’t mind hearing on the radio. Blake: Enough with the beat-boxing. There is no longevity in it. Will Blake [...]

Just when you figured out a Botox allowance in your budget and thought you could escape the ravages of time, BAM! an event sneaks in to remind you that you are almost as old as dirt and that no matter how many cool tech gadgets you own hoping to stay cool, the hands of time [...]

Recently teased by my single-status at a dinner amongst friends, the conversation rapidly turned to the intricate variations in semantics & jargon in today’s boy-meets -girl date-o-sphere. Initiated by my statement that I don’t date, the debate begged for a clarification in terminology. In my book, dating is an almost extinct Art form which consist [...]

I recently joined the group “Save Foie Gras” on Facebook.com in retaliation to the protest I recently was exposed to in New York. Many restaurants in the Big Apple have joined the Chorus of their French, British, Chicagoans (to name a few) counterparts in banning foie gras from their menu. Why, oh why would they [...]

Can we talk? We must set ground rules when it comes to electronic devices. We have become slaves to various pda’s and have lost any notion of social acceptability. So here it is … a suggested etiquette “how to” NO mobile phone or Blackberry in a restaurant unless: You are a parent in which case [...]

We are a society of excess. Our collective gluttony has made its way to our eating habits creating a very lucrative diet Industry. With all the labels and suggested food restrictions, your average grocery store can double as a well-managed police-state. As a constantly evolving epicurean, I have to tell you that the “zero trans [...]

Cash registers are closed. The numbers are in. In this year’s first quarter, Senator Barack Obama has raised 25 million dollars for his Presidential campaign, breathing down Senator Rodham-Clinton’s neck. The fact Barack Obama raised only one million less that Rodham-Clinton means one thing: there is no clear front runner in Camp Democratic Party. I’m [...]

In case you didn’t know or didn’t remember, sex does sell. Case in point: Kim Kardashian.A quick briefing: Miss Kardashian is the daughter of the late Robert Kardashian, member of the OJ Legal Dream Team; She’s also the step-daughter of ex-Olympian and Plastic Surgery disaster Bruce Jenner. She has dated actor Nick Cannon singer Nick [...]

Like so many other media-enhanced currents before, “The Secret” is being blown out of proportions. Of course, the co-authors subsequent appearances on both Oprah & Larry King did nothing to calm the madness. “The Secret”, a series of “get-it-now” mantras has swept TV audiences & local bookstores shoppers, thirsty for pardon for past & current [...]

Remember when all you had to do to be cool was own a pair of Chuck Taylor’s, wear jelly bracelets and know the dance routine to Thriller? How times have changed. Today, there’s a multitude of “things” to do to be cool or hip or at the very least, to be up to date. This [...]