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…

When Homer recited the Iliad, it was full of nostalgia for heroes of yore, much unlike the mortals of his own times. When the last ruler of the Classical World, Emperor Hadrian, extolled the beauty of Greek art, his was an ancient ideal standing up to the vulgar reality of his Roman contemporaries. When Hollywood released “The Giants”, it told a story of men and women whose stature much surpassed the suburban America of the 50s. And in the late 90s Marcello Mastroiani reflected in an interview ( I quote by memory): “You used to go to the cinema and see them larger than life: Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, John Wayne. Their faces were huge, looming above you. Now we see everything on a TV screen, and it’s so small. The actors have become tiny… piccolo, piccolo”…

A neon sign outside my window says “ YES TO ALL”. I have been wondering about it. A solid bright sign like that – not some fraying paper poster or childish graffiti – takes time to make, to put up, not to mention turning the lights on every night. Is it a message? Is it a question?

A commercial for Madonna’s clothing line for H&M features a young woman in a plaid skirt and black schoolboy socks – very Japanese schoolgirl as seen by Quentin Tarantino – entering the fashionista lair run by Madonna herself (armed with a leather whip), a set of her blonde and brunette clones in generically slick suits, and two flamboyantly obsequious designers mumbling in an indefinable accent. At the end of the commercial the girl emerges dressed exactly like Madonna. The latter pronounces “You made it” (“IT” having been the leitmotiv of the story) and the two exit handin-hand. It is a good commercial, which makes you want to become “it” as well. It does not show close-ups of the collection, for it does not sell clothes – it sells attitude…

I wrote about the Long Tail in this column some months ago, so I feel it is my duty to inform you that it no longer exists. I discovered this remarkable fact last week, when dozing off while trying to look intelligent as part of a panel of digital music entrepreneurs. The panel was there mostly to listen – albeit on stage – to a predictable report on the plight of the music industry, commissioned by a number of acronymic organizations, behind which, I can only assume, hid the industry itself…

I have a scoop for you, and it’s called P2P. It’s nothing new for those who work in technology, but, if you are a media executive or simply watch videos on the Web, it’s about to about to add some digital confusion to your life. Yes, I am talking about peer-to-peer, or, as many of us still think of it, pirate-to-pirate…