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…

There is a harrowing resemblance between the Internet dreams of the last decade, and the Web 2.0 excitement we are living today. I suppose that in our short span of a lifetime we are meant to experience the philosophical maxim that things do in fact move in a spiral – or in a circle, if one listens to pessimists. So what will it be for Web 2.0 – win or bust?

I have just gotten back from Midem in Cannes, and I am depressed. It is not the state of the universe or the sudden reprieve of global warming that are getting me down, and it is not even the fact that going to a music industry convention today is like visiting a terminally ill person at his deathbed. What got me truly sad is a complete all-encompassing lack of awareness that music executives have about what is truly killing them, and the supreme and unswerving kamikaze determination with which they are running their own ship into the ground. If, according to most spiritual traditions, the key to enlightenment is self-awareness, the music industry is destined to kick the bucket in the dark.

Whenever I have a business meeting at a real company – halogen-lit hallways, black shiny shoes, ties, cubicles, and shiny coffee-dispenser that smells of stress and futile attempts to extract a non-toxic espresso – I wonder what it would be like to live such a life. Would things be more efficient? Would there be more red tape? Would it be easier to find answers – or a shoulder to cry on? Would I think differently?

Media people don’t seem to understand the concept of good karma – they like to be paid in advance. This can be a self-defeating proposition in the world where the price of media is getting to be ever more difficult to determine…

10 years ago a famous digital thinker came to MIT to talk to about the impact of the Internet on social patterns. I remember the dim projection of the computer screen as she opened applications – a chat-room, a website, an email page, an online- community forum – a window after window which from afar looked as boring as a DOS page, yet had a life of their own, text messages arriving and departing.

“I am afraid you might be disappointed by this visit to Japan – you expect so many traditional things that are no longer there.” Our Japanese colleague was sadly striking his Samurai goatee after listening to my excited babble about the upcoming Tokyo trip. My preparation included reading books about Myamoto Musashi, watching the Miyamoto Musashi DVD trilogy and even getting through the first five pages of the “Book of Five Rings’, written by Musashi himself at the end of his illustrious career in 1640. I also had a list of things I wanted to see, buy or do in Japan, most of them for some reason starting with K – Kyoto, Kaiseki, Kabuki, Kimono, Katana – and of course the tea ceremony…

In 1920s a fashionable Parisian lady went to a famous milliner to order a hat. The designer picked out a luxurious piece of cloth, fixed it on the lady’s head with a dozen of pins, straightened a few folds – “et voilà, would that do, Madame?” “Lovely, “ murmured the lady admiring herself in the mirror, “How much will it cost me?” “A thousand francs, Madame.” “ A thousand francs?! For a mere piece of fabric???” the lady was shocked. The milliner calmly took the pins off, one by one, undoing his fabulous creation. He folded the piece of cloth neatly and offered it to the lady: “The fabric, Madam, is free.” …