Mr. Büsser had invited Mr. McDonnell to dinner because he couldn’t wait to show off the vintage Tiffany chronograph pocket watch that he had just bought. “I was so proud of it,” he recalled recently. But Mr. McDonnell was not impressed: “I could just see all its technical faults.” “Its precision is rubbish; all chronographs…
In the beginning, Jarrah Al-Buainain wasn’t interested in renovating. When his work as a lawyer brought him to New York from Berkeley, Calif., in 2019, he just wanted to enjoy all that the city had to offer. “I wanted something that was more or less turnkey, and just done,” said Mr. Al-Buainain, 35. At the…
The back story of Breac House, a tiny hotel in northwest Ireland’s County Donegal, sounds like a cautionary tale: Two city-slickers, accountants from Dublin, who’d never worked at a hotel or served a scone, decide to open a custom-built, designer property on a remote, windswept peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. Cue the…
First there was LOL (“laugh out loud”), an acronym that first appeared in the 1980s and became the reigning shorthand online for what people found funny. Then came ROFL (“rolling on the floor laughing”), LMAO (“laughing my ass off”) and even nonverbal cues like smiling emojis. Still, most type these terms straight-faced, relegating them to…
Taiwan is a self-ruling island of 24 million people that is officially known as the Republic of China. About only a dozen countries recognize it as a nation because China claims it as one of its provinces. Taiwan is called “Chinese Taipei” by international organizations and at the Olympic Games. The ambiguity of Taiwan’s nationhood…
This newsletter is designed to make you the smartest person in the room on any given internet topic, whether it’s a meme, a TikTok star or very specific Eurodance parody. Today, in a special edition, we’re going to help you understand this Mad Lib: A mega-famous Twitch streamer promised millions of fans that he would…
Mary MacCarthy and her 10-year-old daughter, Moira, had just deplaned at Denver International Airport when two Denver police officers met them at the gate, calling them by name and notifying them that they had been reported for suspicious behavior. The mother and daughter had flown a Southwest Airlines flight to Denver for a funeral. Ms.…
Rhoda Karpatkin, who pressed for painstaking product testing for safety and quality while promoting comparison shopping for value during more than four decades at Consumers Union as counsel, executive director and president, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 93. The cause was brain cancer, her daughter, Deborah Karpatkin, said. Ms. Karpatkin,…
What makes a perfect spiedie? It depends on whom you ask. The sandwich, pronounced SPEE-dee, consists of cubed meat — commonly chicken or pork, sometimes beef and originally lamb — that is marinated in a salad dressing of sorts (a blend of oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and spices), grilled and then stuffed inside…
As farm stands overflow with just-picked ears tasseled with silk, dedicated plates for serving corn are a joy to welcome to the summer table, like that turkey platter for you-know-when. John Derian, a designer known for his table wares and decorative accessories done with decoupage under glass, makes oval serving platters decorated with ears of…