Category — Cool News

Chicken Dinner

During the Great Depression, the Sperry Candy Company introduced a timely confection of nuts and chocolate and named it Chicken Dinner, reports Steve Almond in the Wall Street Journal.

May 14, 2009 Comments

Sister Schubert

Down South, some folks have "an elastic concept of what constitutes home cooking," and that helps explain why Sister Schubert’s frozen biscuits are so popular, reports John T. Edge in the New York Times.

May 14, 2009 Comments

The iHouse

"I think it is smart. It is fresh. It is kind of hip for a new generation of homebuyers," says Stacey Epperson of Frontier Homes in an Associated Press story by Duncan Mansfield.

May 13, 2009 Comments

The Kolumns

Former People’s Bank ceo David E.A. Carson calls his Wellfleet, Mass., home "The Kolumns" because of "the pairs of dark-red steel K-shaped ceiling supports," reports Lisa A. Phillips in the New York Times.

May 13, 2009 Comments

eBay Couture

The great recession is really mixing things up for luxury-apparel retailer Stanley Korshak, which has taken to selling its excess inventory, quietly, on eBay, reports Ray A. Smith in the Wall Street Journal.

May 12, 2009 Comments

Norma Kamali

"The idea of branding, we have to re-think that," says designer Norma Kamali in a New York Times piece by Ruth La Ferla.

May 12, 2009 Comments

Che’s Afterlife

"It is a book about how ideas travel and mutate in this age of globalization, how concepts of political ideology have increasingly come to be trumped by notions of commerce…"

May 11, 2009 Comments

Sans Comic Sans

Little did Vincent Connare know that a whimsical font he designed 15 years ago would become the target of a global campaign to have it banned, reports Emily Steel in the Wall Street Journal.

May 11, 2009 Comments

Four Seasons

The last time "luxury was no longer in vogue," Four Seasons hotelier Isadore Sharp increased advertising and refurbished his hotels, reports Laura Landro in a Wall Street Journal.

May 8, 2009 Comments

Norske Skog

A Norwegian newsprint manufacturer is using “operations research” to figure out what to close and whom to fire — while making labor unions like it, reports Stephen Baker in BusinessWeek.

May 8, 2009 Comments

The First Tycoon

In "The First Tycoon," author T.J. Stiles delivers "a revisionist history of American capitalism’s original sinner," writes Dwight Garner in a New York Times review.

May 7, 2009 Comments

Becoming Bucky Fuller

Loretta Lawrence tries to revise Buckminster Fuller’s reputation in her new book, "Becoming Bucky Fuller," reports Michael J. Lewis in a Wall Street Journal review.

May 7, 2009 Comments

Shopper 46

"Despite our best intentions, we buy food impulsively and irrationally," writes Kate Stein in a New York Times op-ed essay.

May 5, 2009 Comments

Pete Seeger

"Over the decades, Pete Seeger has made no effort to cash in on his longevity, to adjust his brand or repackage the old highlights as fresh commodities," writes Sam Anderson in New York magazine.

May 4, 2009 Comments

New World Disorder

"The Age of the Unthinkable," by Joshua Cooper Ramo, posits that, because we live in an "age of surprise," where small changes can have big consequences, we need to take a larger view of problems and their solutions, reports Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times.

May 1, 2009 Comments

Animal Spirits

As reported by Louis Uchitell in a New York Times, a couple of economists have written a deadly serious book about Keynesian theory but I couldn’t help thinking that what they really were writing about was … marketing.

May 1, 2009 Comments

Rome Falling

Adrian Goldworthy, author of "How Rome Fell," finds himself to be a popular guy in Washington D.C. these days, reports Peter Stothard in the Wall Street Journal.

April 30, 2009 Comments

Political Twitter

"However current it may be technologically, Twitter seems somehow out of step in its political sensibility," writes Matt Bai in the New York Times.

April 30, 2009 Comments

Publix Service

"Publix is always at its best when the economy is at its worst," says Burt Flickinger in a Wall Street Journal article by Timothy W. Martin.

April 29, 2009 Comments

Balducci Excess

"They priced themselves out of the market, it was hubris," said Barbara Colasanti, referring to Balducci’s, in a New York Times piece by Cara Buckley.

April 29, 2009 Comments

A.G. Edwards

The story of the late Benjamin F. Edwards, who died last week at 77, is a story of growing from 50 retail outlets to nearly 700 by building a "reputation for personal service," reports Stephen Miller in a Wall Street Journal remembrance.

April 28, 2009 Comments

In-N-Out Burger

For a family business founded on "quality, cleanliness and service," there was a whole lotta mayhem happening behind the scenes, suggests John Tayman in a Wall Street Journal review of In-N-Out-Burger, by Stacy Perman.

April 28, 2009 Comments

Lunatic Farmer

"I’m a third-generation lunatic … I don’t do anything like the average farmer," says Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in a USA Today piece by Joshua Hatch .

April 27, 2009 Comments

Terroirist Vintner

"I actively resorted to all manner of marketing tricks … I don’t want rely on winemaking tricks anymore," says Randall Graham in a New York Times article by Eric Asimov.

April 27, 2009 Comments

Vernacular Design

“A store sign had to be bold, eye-catching and immediately recognizable, so that customers would understand the purpose of the establishment,” writes Steven Heller in the New York Times.

April 24, 2009 Comments

Pepsi Citi

Citi Field looks hideous from the Whitestone Expressway, but of course that’s because you’re looking at its backside.

April 24, 2009 Comments

Scuderi Engine

Carmelo Scuderi is dead and gone, but his dream of a more efficient internal combustion engine lives on, reports Neal E. Boudette in the Wall Street Journal.

April 23, 2009 Comments

Nascar Oil

"With Nascar increasingly cracking down on the use of technology in sport to cut costs, motor oil is one of the last places teams can innovate without restraint," writes Reed Albergotti in the Wall Street Journal.

April 23, 2009 Comments

Viva Los Zappos

"You have as much power to help a customer as Tony does himself," says a Zappos employee — or Zapponian — in the Economist.

April 22, 2009 Comments

Your Call

"The approximate cost of offering a live, American-based, customer service agent averages somewhere around $7.50 per phone call," writes Emily Yellin in "Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us,"

April 22, 2009 Comments