http://www.post-gazette.com/lifestyle/ All Lifestyle en-us Copyright 2010, post-gazette.com. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:46:56 -0500 15 http://www.post-gazette.com/includes/2007design/images/150x30pg_now_logo.gif http://www.post-gazette.com/ 144 39 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042624-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml DAY after day in January, the rain poured down on the California coast without pause or pity -- some of the worst storms to hit the state in a decade. High winds took out power lines and overturned SUVs. Garbage washed up on beaches. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their mudslide-threatened homes. And on one particular Tuesday afternoon, in the Mission District of San Francisco, the heavens focused their fury on a visiting father from Brooklyn -- i.e., me -- who, so self-absorbed he was blind to the Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042625-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml THE rectangular white box beckoned from the exhibition room, mysterious and inscrutable. As winter clouds rolled across the Parisian sky, I watched as visitors to the Palais de Tokyo contemporary-art museum paused before the work -- "Untitled (A Curse)," by the American conceptual artist Tom Friedman -- and puzzled over its significance. Were we staring at something groundbreaking or derivative? Would this provocative creation be remembered as genius or bunk? Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042626-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml FOR many, Goa is synonymous with hippies, hedonism and all-night dance parties held under a full moon. But India's popular seaside destination offers more than deadheads and clichés. For one thing, Goa is not a single beach, but a rich and varied state -- one that offers 63 miles of coastline along the Arabian Sea. Beyond the beaches lies a lush landscape that conceals ancient temples, rich ecosystems and the hilly farmlands that proved irresistible to European spice traders. Centuries before the hip Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042627-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml EVERYBODY out, the military officer ordered us, as we pulled off the bumpy road linking the Tamil-dominated eastern province to Sri Lanka's hill country. My driver motioned to the back seat, where a police officer we picked up a few miles back was sitting. His presence lent an air of authority, and we were promptly waved through. But the busload of European shutterbugs in front of us -- unloading their suitcases and filing out in a single column -- was not so lucky. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042628-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml AT Mas Les Cols, a hotel and restaurant in the Spanish town of Olot in Catalonia, chickens roam free, surrounded by a 13th-century mas, or farmhouse, and a cluster of one-bedroom glass modules. The birds make for a pleasantly rustic element, but their winged brethren don't fare quite as well in the kitchen nearby. There, the chef Fina Puigdevall has earned two Michelin stars for the artfully reinterpreted Catalan cuisine she creates for her guests. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042631-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml MY mother, Bea, had always been a bit of a drama queen, so her behavior at the end -- the gasping and flailing and crying out incessantly -- didn't surprise me. I remained brutally aloof; I felt prepared. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042632-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml BALTIMORE Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042633-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Paris Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042634-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml A YEAR ago, I wrote about a job fair at the Sheraton in Midtown Manhattan, where over 5,000 mainly white collar, middle-aged jobless men and women waited in the cold for more than two hours, hoping to find work. The turnout was a sign of desperate times; until then, the organizer, Tory Johnson, who's been conducting these fairs in 10 cities for a decade, had never had more than 2,000 people at one of these events. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042635-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml ELIZABETH GREIG and Jason Extein's first date, in December 2006, occurred the night before she left for what until then had been her chief passion: improving medical care in Haiti. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1038219-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml KALAMAZOO, Mich. - Nighttime and 10 degrees....) Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042130-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml To longtime McKeesport residents, the house at 1608 Jenny Lind St. will probably always be the Waters estate, even though it was also a funeral home. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042344-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Every year we cruise the Home & Garden Show looking for some neat things to introduce to our readers. Here are some products and services that caught our eye: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042379-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Ever wonder what it feels like to cross the Bridge of Sighs, once Pittsburgh's ultimate perp walk? Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042380-62.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml It's not just every day that you can see a Scottish Fold, Egyptian Mau and Devon Rex all in the same place. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042383-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Q. The big snowstorm in February caused extensive damage to plants in my landscape. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042386-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml With all the innovative gadgetry that has showed up in kitchens the past few years, you'd think manufacturers might have run out of ideas. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10072/1042388-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml After such a rough winter, Phipps Conservatory's spring flower show is like, well, a breath of spring. The show opened Thursday in Oakland and continues through April 11. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042308-51.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml There are more than 80 local, regional and national summer camps listed so far on the Post-Gazette's annual online Summer Camp list. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:54:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042274-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042275-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Paris Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042276-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS -- The Lebanese designer Elie Saab turned to the dark side for his autumn/winter show and going bad has never looked so good for the designer. His femme fatales in form-fitting daywear looked deadly desirable in all-black ensembles. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042277-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml CÉDRIC CHARLIER is a designer who has a thing for monochromatic outfits. Cacharel is a 50-year-old French house known for its colorful prints. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042278-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS -- Hermès is a leather house -- and just in case you should forget it, everything from a top hat through a three-piece suit to extraordinary crocodile boots was made out of skin. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042279-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS -- The images of streaming water projected on the vast walls of the Valentino show area followed the blowing trees of the haute couture season. But this time, the work of the visual artist Kenneth Anger was a reflection of the forward flow of the designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042282-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Long after the dead have been counted and the world's attention has moved on, the terrible testimony of an earthquake can still be seen in the piles of twisted metal and chunks of concrete -- often all that is left of a region's buildings. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042283-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml TAIPEI -- Taiwan's luxury property market -- long passed over by international investors -- finally may be poised to attract overseas money, analysts here say. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042284-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml ANYONE who has attended or visited the MacDowell Colony, the nation's oldest artists' colony, has daydreamed about owning property in Peterborough. Quaint New Englanders with clapboard exteriors and regal Federal-style homes line quiet country roads. Whitewashed steeples, covered bridges and the preserved 18th-century buildings of its downtown rise against the mountainous backdrop that characterizes the Monadnock region. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042285-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml IN the living room of the apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that Robert Highsmith, 27, shares with his girlfriend, Stefanie Brechbuehler, 32, and their standard schnauzer, Kingsley, is a weathered Eames lounge chair that once belonged to Mr. Highsmith's grandfather and still smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042286-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml FINDING a way to store knives that is both functional and attractive has long been a challenge for home cooks of every commitment level. Even Chris Santos, the executive chef of the Stanton Social, a restaurant and lounge in Manhattan, and a judge on "Chopped," a reality show on the Food Network, keeps the knives he uses at home in what he describes as "a beat-up bag with burns and other war wounds." Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042287-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml At the Collective, a restaurant opening Mar. 17 in the meatpacking district, ordinary trash has been elevated to recycled art. Visitors will find chairs and sofas cut from bathtubs, above; light fixtures made out of packaging material; and an armchair that mixes a rusty steel frame with wooden mannequin limbs, below. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1042288-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Kartell has reduced the price of its popular FL/Y pendant lamp, below, designed by Ferruccio Laviani, from $293 to $149. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10071/1038217-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Prince Charming steps out with another man's wife. ... Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042052-68.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml WASHINGTON - The foreclosure crisis isn't over, but the pace of growth may finally be slowing down. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:36:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042009-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml LAST month, Johnny Weir, the United States figure skater, switched one of his costumes for the Vancouver Olympics after he said he received threats from anti-fur activists for accessorizing his already colorful wardrobe with just a touch of white fox. At almost the same moment, fashion designers in New York were showing fall collections with so much fur that they seemed to collectively stick a thumb in the eye of political correctness. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042010-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml FOR most people, the 2009 movie "Away We Go," directed by Sam Mendes, has all but faded from memory, a wry little comedy that didn't gain much traction at the box office and was all but ignored during the past awards season. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042011-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PERMANENTLY dyeing hair goes hand in hand with damaging it. The process dries out hair and leaves it jagged. Ammonia -- used to open the hair fiber so that dye molecules can nestle in -- is as delicate as a can opener. It also smells horrid and sets delicate scalps afire. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042012-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS -- Arcs of water rose from a fountain and fell in curtains of spray at the Louis Vuitton show Wednesday, the closing day of the four-week, four-city international women's shows for autumn 2010. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042013-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml RYAN, Ryan, Ryan. It's Journalism 101: who, what, when, where and why, as in, "Who are you wearing?" Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042016-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml CRUISER made four house calls on a recent rain-soaked Tuesday. There were two happy endings and two unhappy ones, a fairly typical outcome for a typical day in the life of a bedbug-sniffing puggle. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042017-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml MITCH KAPOR, the software mogul and philanthropist, has given millions of dollars to environmental groups. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042018-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml THERE are certain timeless truths about people who don't own a television, chief among them that they love to tell you they don't own a television. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1042019-47.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, a sturdy survivor in the embattled world of shelter magazines, enacted its own stimulus program last week, with the kind of feel-good giveaway associated with the glory days of television. Over three days, a team from the magazine's marketing department deposited 40 blue chairs around New York City, in a promotional tie-in with its March issue, which is devoted to the color blue. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1038215-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml DENVER - While ski and snowboard makers showed off their latest models at SnowSports Industries America's annual Snow Show this year, inventors with big ideas were trying to get retailers to bite. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1041657-94.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Do you have an older computer? How secure is it? Depending on its age, the computer may no longer receive updates and security "patches" and the manufacturer may not offer support for it. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1041710-51.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml While Pittsburghers Andy Warhol and Burton Morris have gained international recognition as innovative artists, one painter -- and Pittsburgh native -- helped to inspire local artists 100 years Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1041717-115.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, which just had its mission to explore Saturn extended to 2017, is one of the many robotic space probes NASA has used to explore the solar system since 1958. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10070/1041801-96.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Video game review Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041562-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml WHEN the world was young, there was a phenomenon loosely referred to as the Magical World of Television. Pains were taken to dazzle the eye. Chandeliers appeared extra-prismatic, with mescaline auras. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041563-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml AROUND the time I graduated from college, my parents sold the house I grew up in. It came as a shock to me to learn that my bedroom, which I had always assumed would be preserved for future generations to visit -- sort of like a Presidential library with a Bobby Sherman poster on one wall -- was being dismantled. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041564-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml LIKE millions of Americans, Marisa Tomei used to play with a Hula-Hoop as a child. And like most of those same Americans, she hadn't hooped since. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041565-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041566-314.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml PARIS -- The wall is pitch black, yet as eyes adjust to the dark, outfits appear like cats in the night: the gleam of satin on a lapel, the sheen of a button, the outline of "le smoking" -- the tuxedo suit. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041569-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml FOUR-BEDROOM TWO-AND-A-HALF-BATH HISTORIC HOUSE IN SURREY Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041570-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml HEBER CITY, UTAH Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041571-30.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml JOHANNESBURG -- Adam Levy was a teenager growing up in Melrose, a whites-only suburb in northern Johannesburg, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison 20 years ago. Today Mr. Levy -- much like the city itself -- has traded the racial restrictions of the apartheid era for a far more colorful (and cultural) urban existence. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1036264-37.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml Two points of consolation for any Olympics fans who find themselves in the wrong Vancouver - Vancouver, Wash., instead of Vancouver, British Columbia: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10069/1041421-51.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml The award ceremony to honor the local winners of the 2009 Jefferson Awards for Public Service has been rescheduled for April 21 at the Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History, Oakland. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500