Goodbye, cupcakes. Hello, Best Life.
We have it on good authority (from trend forecasters and tomorrow's Post-Gazette Food section) that "the" pastry for the new year is pie -- and no doubt you'll be scarfing it down while "living your best life," either courtesy of Oprah or any number of enterprising people who have seized on what may become 2011's signature feel-good slogan.
"As the new year begins, many will confront the issue of personal change, and a new book provides advice and resources that challenge readers to live their best life," according to one press release about Krystalina Soash, who may -- or may not -- be appearing on Oprah's new TV Network OWN soon.
And that best life will include, no doubt, a very pretty slice of apple raspberry pie.
"Very few pies are ugly," noted Leith Steel, accounts manager for the San Francisco-based Andrew Freeman & Co., which predicts trends in the lifestyle and hospitality industries. "They're a little more homespun than cake and they fit right into the craft-y, do-it-yourself movement that's big right now."
Who exactly decides these things? Possibly the same folks who decided, 18 months ago, that purple and fake fur would be acceptable fashion trends, or that James Franco will, apparently, never wear out his welcome.
We've gathered a half-dozen trends for 2011, some of which are emerging, some of which have been around for a bit but are poised to really take off.
For the record, we still like cupcakes -- especially the chocolate malted ones at Vanilla Pastry Studio in East Liberty.
Even if Groupon weren't founded by out-there Mt. Lebanon native Andrew Mason, we'd love it for the wacky descriptions of today's deals, not to mention those deep discounts on manicures.
And the deals keep coming. Groupon's massive success worldwide -- after turning down a reportedly $6 billion offer from Google before the holidays, it recently announced raising about $1 billion in private equity funding -- has sparked the creation of hordes of group-buying sites, from LivingSocial to GoNabit, and the Post-Gazette's PGDeals, which debuted Monday.
Anyone with an auto club card knows there's power in group buying, but never have the deals seemed so spontaneous, so attractive. Everyone from spas and dry cleaners to hot air balloon concessionaires are clamoring to sign on.
A deal is announced, and if so many people go for it, it's on. Otherwise, no dice.
"They've cracked the code on a formula for how to basically give access on the Internet as a marketing channel for offline merchants," said Marc Andreessen, co-founder of new Groupon investor Andreessen Horowitz.
But even big businesses are getting into the act; Wal-Mart sold HDTVs through a similar kind of marketing and soon, "ShopFans" will make it easy to group buy via Facebook.
We're talking romance, not basketball.
2010 saw a bumper crop of splits, made "after much thought and careful consideration" -- or not -- but with the Royal Wedding looming in April, could 2011 be the year of the rebound?
First, let's assess the long list of casualties: Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes, Sandra Bullock and Jesse James, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter, Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar, Tony Parker and Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds, Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller ...
One of the most spectacular breakups: Courteney Cox and David Arquette, after 11 years of marriage. "We're not having sex and I completely understand," he told Howard Stern. "She's in a place of wanting to be real and emotional."
But look at it this way: love is like a bus, and another one always comes along. And already some of our more durable celebs have hopped on for another ride in 2011:
Hugh Hefner is engaged for the third time to Crystal Harris, who is 60 years his junior. Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp are together, just after he separated from his wife. Rachel Weisz, recently split from "Black Swan" director Darren Aronofsky, was seen canoodling with "James Bond" star Daniel Craig. Kelsey Grammer traded in his wife Camille for a younger model after 13 years of marriage. Wexford's own Christina Aguilera had no sooner separated from Jordan Bratman when she hooked up with Matthew Rutler, whom she met on the set of "Burlesque." And Halle Berry, who split with Gabriel Aubrey, the father of her child, earlier this year, began dating her co-star Olivier Martinez while filming "Dark Tide."
Will more jump back on the bandwagon, inspired by Prince William and his princess bride, Kate Middleton? Just five weeks after William and Kate became the big wedding story for 2011, the prince's cousin, Zara Phillips, announced her own 2011 nuptials to rugby star Mike Tindall.
Murder and mayhem are no strangers in opera, but composer Stephen Schwartz attempts to introduce the element of film noir thriller into his first show.
"Seance on a Wet Afternoon" is about a psychic bent on earning the recognition she feels she deserves. How she tries to get it is the subject of an eerie 1964 British film, and the inspiration for Carnegie Mellon grad Schwartz.
Commissioned and performed by Opera Santa Barbara in 2009, it gets its Big Apple debut by New York City Opera in April.
As for some of the other fine arts, we have just two words: Black Swan.
Mr. Aronofsky's twisted, dark fantasy film imagines a world of good and evil struggling inside the high-strung mind of Natalie Portman's Nina.
Like Mr. Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," Nina has to perform; her world is all she knows. And like in "The Wrestler," bones break. Nina is falling apart in many ways, cracked toenails and all. Thank goodness this movie didn't have any staplers, although Winona Ryder with a nail file is even scarier.
And speaking of violence, New York Magazine's "Approval Matrix" (which bills itself as "Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where in our taste hierarchies.") gave a shout-out last week to HBO's "24/7," the behind-the-scenes look at the Penguins and Capitals.
From Pittsburgh defenseman Deryk Engelland casually enduring three stitches along his left eyebrow to super slo-mo camera shots of the pucks flipping through sprays of ice during practice, sports' bloodiest game was elevated to a four-hour work of art.
Will 2011 be the year they finally merge for good?
We had Bristol Palin and Tom DeLay on "Dancing With the Stars," and Sarah Palin got her own reality show -- complete with Kate Gosselin in tow -- but more important, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert went from satirists to a rally that brought 200,000 to D.C. Some see Mr. Stewart as the Edward R. Murrow of his day.
James Fallows first donned the Murrow mantle on the "The Daily Show" comedian/host nearly two years ago in his blog in The Atlantic after Mr. Stewart had grilled CNBC stock pundit Jim Cramer about his network's poor track record on Wall Street's meltdown.
"I thought Stewart, without excessive showboating, did the journalistic sensibility proud," said Mr. Fallows, former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.
Then, more recently, Mr. Stewart appeared to play a major role in convincing Congress to pass a bill providing health care for 9/11 responders into
For his part, Mr. Stewart continues to insist that he is a comedian.
For those on the other end of the political spectrum, there's always Glenn Beck, who, conservatives claim, got far less attention for his "Rally to Restore Honor" than Mr. Stewart did with his "Rally to Restore Sanity."
Journalists or entertainers? We report, you decide.
Fantastic visual enhancement or cheap, annoying ploy to sell more expensive movie tickets? You decide. But 3-D is leaping off the cinema screen onto your television, even your Nintendo DS hand-held game console.
Everyone from Martin Scorsese ("Hugo Cabret") to the good folks working on "The Smurfs" plan to use 3-D technology on more than 45 film projects set for release between now and the end of 2012. Baz Luhrmann let slip at a recent tech convention that he might consider 3-D for his coming "The Great Gatsby."
3-D television is expected to be the Next Big Thing, but for now, lack of programming is a problem, as well as big price tags (sometimes double that of regular HD sets) and manufacturers using different technologies. Panasonic, for example, is pushing tech that requires a type of active shutter glasses to view.
These glasses don't come cheap -- about $150 a pair. And they won't necessarily work on 3-D sets made by other companies. A better idea might be sets using parallax barrier, a technology that produces 3-D images without the viewer needing glasses.
Nintendo uses a similar techology in its 3DS hand-held game model, available later this spring. Depth perception is altered through adjustable graphics, no glasses necessary and the game player can turn off the 3-D if he wants.
Celebrity scandal, 2011 versionThere were lots of Celebrities Behaving Badly in 2010. Rather than go through each sordid scandal here, let's just hope that 2011 will be the year that:
• Lindsay Lohan avoids spending a single night in jail.
• Mel Gibson has his vocal cords removed. Oh, wait: could the ranting, wife-berating actor -- prone to anti-Semitic outbursts -- be on the comeback trail? We've just learned that Mr. Gibson has earned the "Sexist Pig Award" from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
• Christian "Bedhead" Bale win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, which means he'll actually get a job and cut his hair. "I haven't worked since 'The Fighter,' and it's nice to just not bother cutting your hair," he told reporters at Sunday's Golden Globes.
• Annette "Bedhead" Bening wins the Oscar for Best Actress and grows her hair.
• Courteney Cox and Sandra Bullock, now well rid of their cheatin' husbands: Live, along with all the rest of us non-celebrities, their Best Life in 2011 -- without ever having to watch a minute of Oprah's new TV channel.
First published on January 19, 2011 at 12:00 am
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