There’s a type of dream that certain city folk have. For some, it’s a Canadian backwoods scenario. For others, it’s an Appalachia vibe they’re looking for. For a lot of people, it’s a California escape (Route 1, anyone?) But that quintessential American dream of riding off into the sunset involves a notion of the Wild […]

I remember the first time I ever heard about the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, the annual four-day gathering in Long Beach, California, of the world’s foremost thinkers in the aforementioned areas. It was two years ago, and a friend told me not only that she had gone, but that it was the most amazing […]

National Geographic made headlines recently for winning a National Magazine Award in reporting. The win was considered something of a coup, given that National Geographic is famous for its photography, but not necessarily for its prose, yet it beat out heavyweights including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair. (Another shout-out […]

Moms are sometimes an underappreciated species. We live in their stomachs for nine months, get born, suck on their breasts for a few months, grow up, move out, and then never call to thank them. Mother’s Day is as good an opportunity as any to remember these facts, feel guilty about them and maybe do […]

Science writing tends to fall into three categories: incomprehensible (a la textbooks and academic journals), middle-aged (Bill Bryson, Mary Oliver), and alpha-manly (Sebastian Junger, Jon Krakauer). And yet, what of all the other writers out there with a flair for the written word and a weakness for the scientific method? They tend to get the […]

First Oprah’s Sophie, now Martha’s Paw Paw—what’s a rich and powerful woman to do? Blog, apparently. At least that’s what Martha Stewart has done a lot of since Paw Paw, her “beloved dog Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow” (Damn, that’s a mouthful. Does it even make sense?) died on Saturday, April 12. Martha […]

Sometimes it’s fun to just peek into the minds of cool people and see what the hell is going on in there. If there were a King of Cool election, I might just cast my vote for former Talking Heads frontman, musician, artist, designer, filmmaker, writer, general creative-type and genius, David Byrne. And if that […]

I love YouTube as much as the next person, but when I really think about what I use it for when I’m left to my own devices (meaning if I’m just browsing and haven’t gone there to look at something specific someone recommended to me), I would be lying if I didn’t just say, “Well, […]

Truth be told, Women on Web is not a beautiful site. And by “beautiful” I’m talking well-designed, easy to read or easy to use. It is none of these things. And yet it is to-the-point, it does a job that needs doing, and having it out there in cyberspace is a beautiful thing, indeed. Using […]

Just like The Economist is kind of one-stop shopping for the thinking person who doesn’t have time to read The Wall Street Journal every day, More Intelligent Life is one-stop shopping for those poor, busy souls who don’t have time to religiously read The Economist, Salon, ArtForum, The New York Times’ Style Section, etc. The […]