Ses brillantes études l'ont amenée à Harvard et au MIT. Depuis, elle s'intéresse à l'évolution de la télévision. Elle vient de lancer une chaîne musicale sur IPTV.
I abhor demonstrations and parades, and refuse to belong to any movement or group whatsoever. I have never voted in my life – not since they kicked me out of a young pioneer summit in the 5th grade for laughing during the keynote. I staunchly distance myself from any ideology or social construct, be it feminism, nationality or digital networking. I reject any attempt to organize me in a group with a name or a mission, and have a tendency to unwillingly insult people when they sound too righteous for my taste…
When the Los Angeles police broke up the “Bling Ring” last month, it took all of a few days for its members to become famous. The intensely photogenic teenage burglars pillaged celebrity homes armed by Internet maps of star homes and TMZ.com information on when their intended victims will be out at some red-carpet event. In between their busy schedule, the high-school robbers found time to hang out on the beach, Twitter about offers from Playboy and sign up for reality TV shows. They hawked some of their loot for cash, but kept most of it to wear and show off to their friends…
It is always fun to report a revolution. Particularly when the old king was getting doddery and, frankly, a bore – and the new ruler is young, digitally savvy and chosen by the masses. What a great story it makes, and I am certainly glad to have a story on my way back from MIPCOM in Cannes. The convention has become so repetitive over the past years, I was worried I will once again wind up writing about anxious TV executives searching in vain for answers in the prisons of their minds…
On a recent flight to New York I wound up watching a movie so bad it was actually painful to follow. Sadly, it reminded me of a similar film I saw on an overseas flight just a few months before. I have trouble sleeping on planes, you see, and reading for seven hours requires a really good book. So, sooner or later, I end up turning to the movie options…
As we drive along the smoldering red rocks of Arizona, the radio is blasting the latest country sensation, Colt Ford – “ I got no trash in my tra-ah-iler , not since I kicked you out of here…”
Life is good. The office is nine hours of jetlag away, and closed for the day by the time I get up. The August heat has melted my brains. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and not a thought on my mind…
My friends joke that I came to this world with lots of lofty ideas … and a shopping allowance. This myth started in college, where I managed to have a rather flashy style, while living on about 50 $ a week – courtesy of cheap discount shops unknown to my trust-funded Harvard friends. My flamboyant style fueled a certain mystery, suggesting Russian Mafia ties or a Bond Girl lifestyle – in fact, it was a 70%-off bin at Urban Outfitters. Needless to say, a decade later my “high-street” secret has gone legit. A US magazine ran a feature last month, where some clever editor juxtaposed 2 similar outfits – one costing over 2,000$, another – under 200$. They showed pictures to random women and asked them to guess which getup was the expensive one. Unbelievably, the cheap knock-off won two times out of three…
When I left the MIT Media Lab 10 years ago, someone told me: “Congratulations, you now have the coolest education on Earth. There is only one glitch… It will take the world at least five years to have any use for what you’ve learned here”…
I was spring-cleaning my closet the other day, when a box of silver coated business cards fell on the floor. They were printed in ’98. Having just left the Media Lab, I accidentally found an investor in a next–seat neighbour on a flight to St Francisco. He proposed to finance my rather vague vision of online TV, though I suspect it may have been a tax right-off. Regardless, I quickly proceeded to buying a video camera and printing those cards, with an enormous “3001 Productions” in the center, and, in smaller type: “Have you thought about the next millennium?” …
If, like me, you have become accidentally addicted to an evil teen drama also known as “Gossip Girl”, then you too must be wondering how can a soap set in a New York prep school keep us watching into a second season…
On the afternoon of January 1st I was sitting by a pool in Dakar, watching the pool boy try to knock a coconut off a palm-tree. I was wondering whether the coconut was going to fall into the pool. I was wondering where they planned on making pina coladas, and if I should pre-order one. I was wondering whether someone was finally going to call me about the meeting, for I was in Dakar on business…
The other day I have decided to pick up exercising. This impulse was prompted by a photo of Barack Obama on CNN.com, walking out of a Chicago gym, looking as cool as ever. I mean, if the president-elect of the US finds time to go to the gym, so should I…
When I first came to the MIP market, I had ideas of what the most important TV convention in the world ought to be. I expected to see a mix of Cannes glamour and the off-beat spirit of MTV, with a dash of fascinating characters, like Charlie Rose or Jon Stewart…
My grandmother’s apartment overflowed with mementos from places she visited throughout her long career as Soviet Union’s cultural impresario. A kind of P-Diddy of 60s Russia, a Jay-Z of classical orchestras and provincial ballets, she was sent to flailing theaters and concert halls to breath limelight back into them. While there were no Grammies to be found on her shelves, they did display treasures beyond belief – furs from Irkutsk, caviar spoons from Baku, semi-precious stones from the Urals and a teacup from Café Flore…
They say there are only two kinds of people living in Manhattan today: those who can afford to stay, and those who can’t afford to leave.
Every time I get on a plane to New York, I prepare to hate it. Not that I have seen its heyday. By the time I arrived there in late 90s, Manhattan was already on its way out, according to the grumbling memories of artist friends who once occupied SoHo lofts for a laughable fee, or to historical movies like “After Hours” which show the Downtown of the 80s as a place no man in a suit would visit in his right mind…
The summer is back, and so is 007. I am suddenly reading “From Russia With Love” (great new cover art on a Penguin edition). I track down Bond films I have not seen yet (who on earth is Lazenby?). The other day, on the Eurostar, I even daydreamed of visiting the Fleming exhibit at the Imperial War Museum. You know those daydreams in the tunnel, when your phone stops working?…
Despite the outpour of eco-aware speeches, global warming was nowhere in sight at the recent MIPTV convention in Cannes. When it did not rain, a howling wind swept through the Croisette, uplifting scantily clad TV people who braved snowstorms in various European airports in hope for a sunny week on Côte d’Azur…
I have never been much of a feminist. In fact, I have never understood why being a woman ought to be so complicated. My early role-models – from Holly Golightly to Gilda to His Girl Friday to Lara Croft – had nothing in common with each other except for the fact that their behavior would be so much more acceptable if they were a man…
You’d think that history classes in a pre-Perestroika elementary school would seem quite useless in retrospect. In a span of a few years much of the past would be rewritten, leaving a poor student in doubt that there is such a thing as a historical truth. Yet it is my Soviet education that I often thank for an insider perspective on historical change…
French journalist Philippe Labro must have been channeling Oscar Wilde when he said “A woman in her thirties is a twenty year old who isn’t quite forty yet.”
Having first passed the thirties divide, I expected anxiety to hit me hard — but it somehow never did. Instead, I learned that a girl of my generation could enjoy her thirties without worrying much about what comes next. Thanks to the general decline in family values and simultaneous improvements in cosmesceutical industry, we can continue to confuse our parents by juggling boyfriends, wearing Converse and feeling hurt when called Madame…
Perhaps the most telling moment of my recent trip to Korea happened upon landing back in Paris. Groggy after a 12 hour fight, the passengers stumbled into each other as they disembarked into a glass passage at Charles de Gaulle airport. The exit door of the passage was closed…
