"For you are called plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom..." That's from Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." While Kate the curst might not be accurate for Kate Middleton, it is Kate that is at issue -- still being called...

Loss is made endurable by love...

It is a line I "found" in an expected place, the voiceover of the PBS series Call in the Midwife.

I was watching it with my cousin while trying to explain to her what spending most of the week in Sandy Hook, Conn.,...

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!" Turns out Hurricane Sandy was just following King Lear's advice.

And rage she did, leaving up to $50 billion in damage in her wake -- so many areas in rubble and people trying to rebuild their homes and their...

I think everyone would agree that, for the most part, the proliferation of coffee bars is a good thing. I mean it's better than, say, a proliferation of opium dens (although I have noticed a lot more hookah bars of late). The easy access to this rich, dark, aromatic liquid...

As the sun sets on the Twilight saga (although it is a movie about vampires, so it could be undead), a friend of mine and I discussed watching another Kristen Stewart film, Snow White and the Huntsman. I had seen it on the big screen, but wanted to see it...

I just learned that October is National Anti-Bullying Month. It's also Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Menopause Month, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and a host of others, including National Squirrel Awareness Month. Given all this, it is perhaps understandable that I missed it.

It...

For women on the front lines of war, the glass ceiling is lined with barbed wire.

A few weeks ago, two female soldiers filed a suit against the Army and the Department of Defense "to end policies prohibiting women from serving in a combat role," according to the

Ghosts and vampires and zombies, who cares? Movies can't hurt you, but the curse of Macbeth in the theater is real.

Almost nothing makes me happier than sitting in the theater as the lights are going down at the start of a play. This past weekend it happened to be...

The notion of a New York Walk of Fame first crossed my mind when I was putting together the slideshow on film director/producer/studio mogul/cinema visionary Alice Guy-Blache... I suggested she deserved a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And she does. Although she didn't really work in...

My shoes were killing me. Even though the Bard Graduate Center gallery where "Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones" was being celebrated with an opening night gala was only three floors.

On the way to the top floor, I asked the elevator operator if he would carry me....

They're coming for your mom, they're coming for your dad, they're coming for your elderly aunt or nice neighbor.

This last weekend saw the premiere of the documentary film Last Will and Embezzlement, a chilling account of how the senior population in this country is being vampirized.

The Big Question: Can St. Patrick's Day be rebranded?

I sat down with Malachy McCourt, author, actor, and arguably the godfather of the Irish American at this point, to hash out the preconceptions and misconceptions of the Irish Big Day Out. As a supporter of Sober...

I don't mind fairy tales. I like them actually. But not the watered down, commercialized, PC-corrected, gutless ones.

The real, original stories in all their gritty, rough-and-tumble glory are rich with real life. They are stories of the soul. Ask psychologists such as Bruno Betelheim or

It turns out it's hip to be square -- as far as hairstyles are concerned anyway.

While I was interviewing New York City stylist James Corbett of the James Corbett Studio & Spa for NBC's StyleGoesStrong.com on the best hairstyle shape for men -- he was explaining...

Here are 5 things your hairdresser knows for sure (yes, that ol' 1950s Clairol ad is still packin' its punch...):

1. What your real hair color is.
2. How long you can let your roots go before recoloring.
3. Hairstyles that just will not work on you no...

The last Fashion Week is (finally) over--I was waiting for Japan (yeah, that's it). Although frankly, at this point, there's probably always a Fashion Week going on somewhere in the world.

But what's our takeaway? Certainly not the wardrobe of our dreams. Even our online Lookbooks are bulging at the...

NPR revisited their story on Alison Pearson's "I Think I Love You" when it came out in paperback recently, which spurred me to revisit the Swoon List for Smart Women I compiled at the onset of summer.

Pearson's novel, inspired by her passionate childhood

Pop quiz: Who was at the beginning of the film industry? D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille, and Alice Guy Blache immediately spring to mind, right? Yes! Wait, what? Who?

Ah. That "who?" is about to be remedied: On October 13, as the DGA -- Directors Guild of America...

When did we start saying 'It's a small world'? Could it really have been Disney, and the 1964 World's Fair? Little did they know in 1964, that the personal computer, still in its nascence, was about to make it even smaller.

Now, with the...

"Look at all this bonding going on!" said a stunning woman as she stepped up to the microphone. "We like bonding!" she exclaimed, breaking into a wide smile and shoulder shimmy as she introduced the next panel.

"That's June Sarpong," said a fellow journalist friend of mine, who happens to...