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“Consuming Passions”: Apple

Received! Redeemed! Reborn! Hallelujah, Lord, I have seen the light and I am converted. Well, a sucker, they say, is born every minute, but I don’t care. Not now. For all those years I travelled the venal byways of the PC, persuaded by evil people that if I switched, I would be condemned to never again communicate with most of the world. For years I suffered the slings and arrows of this stupid system that broke down constantly, of my Dell computer encased in a hideous box. And then it happened. I’ve …[Read more]
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New Amsterdam

In a city where tradition meets the avant-garde in shops, cafés, even living room windows, Reggie Nadelson finds the heart of modern Dutch design. BY REGGIE NADELSON Along Amsterdam's Prinsengracht Canal, in the heart of this cold, upright, lovely northern city, some of the tall, thin houses are four or five hundred years old. And some of the faces you see in this staid paradise of exquisitely correct social policy still resemble the merchants, matrons, and maids painted by Rembrandt. Go to the …[Read more]
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Bangles, Baubles & Verdura

On the 12th floor of a dull gray office building on Fifth Avenue is Verdura—part showroom, part shop, and part archive. Call it the candy store. Even with the elegant rooms and the ever-so-polite glass cases, there's something intoxicating about Verdura's jewels, something luscious, sensuous, yummy: The vintage bubble-gum-pink topaz bow brooch mounted in gold with diamond ribbons, the fat heart fashioned of cabochon emeralds the color of glazed fruit and wrapped up with strings of diamonds, the …[Read more]