Salon.com > Martha Stewart http://www.salon.com Mon, 28 May 2012 15:05:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Live from Piers Morgan’s disastrous Twitter show http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/piers_morgan_alyssa_milano_twitter/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/piers_morgan_alyssa_milano_twitter/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/03/30/piers_morgan_alyssa_milano_twitter If you missed Piers Morgan's show last night about Twitter, don't worry, so did I. And I happened to be sitting in the audience. You see, before the show we were told that, in addition to such guests as Martha Stewart, Alyssa Milano, Twitter founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and Twitter entrepreneur and wine enthusiast Gary Vaynerchuk, we the audience would also be encouraged to tweet during the show.

Which meant, naturally, that I only caught about five minutes of looking at the actual stage, and spent the rest of the time tweeting about how ridiculous this entire concept was. Apparently I didn't miss much, either: Piers Morgan, in his typical celebrity ass-kissing way, spent the entire hour talking about how he was the inspiration for Charlie Sheen getting on Twitter (as if that's a positive thing?); for getting Martha Stewart to have her fans tweet her something about pierogis live on the air (technology!) while she spoke about the proper etiquette for shouting out into the Twittersphere (Martha uses Twitter the way a lot of celebrities do: not to interact with her fans but as a sort of message board for her thoughts of the day); and for talking to Alyssa Milano in a fascinating story about why she decided to tell everyone the sex of her baby on Twitter.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/piers_morgan_alyssa_milano_twitter/feed/ 11 Martha Stewart’s frenemy tells all http://www.salon.com/2010/03/18/martha_stewart_book/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/18/martha_stewart_book/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/03/18/martha_stewart_book Martha Stewart may be one of the most compelling and evocative brands of the last few decades. She created a hunger in a whole generation of women, a hunger for a pristine, well-organized, hopelessly tasteful but still down-to-earth home, a sunny, immaculate place filled with fresh tulips and big bowls of sea glass and refinished vintage furniture and bright shades of robin's egg blue splashed across spotless walls, a place where elaborate brunches are held, at which attractive professionals give eloquent toasts, and beautiful children scamper about noiselessly, dressed in shades of iris and ultra blue that match the table linens.

With a brand this perfect – a brand that, by merely existing, casts a pall over our own inferior, disheveled, dog-hair-covered lives – it's only natural that Martha Stewart (the woman) would pay dearly for the hunger that Martha Stewart (the brand) created in us.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/03/18/martha_stewart_book/feed/ 48 Martha Stewart works the pole http://www.salon.com/2010/01/20/martha_stewart_pole_dance/ http://www.salon.com/2010/01/20/martha_stewart_pole_dance/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:02:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2010/01/20/martha_stewart_pole_dance Maybe it's just a result of maturing into the "don't give a damn" years, maybe it's lessons learned from that time in jail, but Martha Stewart gets funnier and freakier.

Last month, she used Snoop Dogg's appearance in a brownie-baking segment as an excuse to not so subtly allude to the dessert's popularity among stoners; now, she's breaking out her Champagne Room moves.

 Welcoming S-Factor creator Sheila Kelley, one of the first and foremost ladies of the "strippercizing" field, Martha gamely rolled her shoulders, swiveled her hips, and yes, did a little swing around the pole before announcing, "I want to do the upside down things." 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/01/20/martha_stewart_pole_dance/feed/ 5 Martha and Snoop get baked http://www.salon.com/2009/12/18/martha_and_snoop_get_baked/ http://www.salon.com/2009/12/18/martha_and_snoop_get_baked/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2009/12/18/martha_and_snoop_get_baked If you're looking for two one-of-a-kind entertainers and all-around entrepreneurs, individuals who have put their unique stamp on American culture while keeping their tongues firmly in their cheeks, you'd be hard pressed to do better than Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. They've both had their own television shows. They're both on Twitter. One is known as a gangsta, and one has done time on the inside.

So what better gift could we, the pop culture adoring public, receive this holiday season than an appearance by Mr. Gin and Juice on the very special cookie episode of "The Martha Stewart Show"?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/12/18/martha_and_snoop_get_baked/feed/ 7 Cramer talks down Stewart feud http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/cramer_stewart_2/ http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/cramer_stewart_2/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2009/03/12/cramer_stewart Sadly, when Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart finally meet face-to-face on "The Daily Show" tonight, the two are unlikely to produce the shootout we've all been hoping for.

Stewart himself said as much on his show last night, and now Cramer is throwing water on the fire too. The CNBC star, apparently trying to soften his image, went on “The Martha Stewart Show” this morning and admitted that Stewart has gotten the better of him so far. “My kids only know I have a show ‘cause Jon Stewart’s been skewering me,” the "Mad Money" host said.

Cramer's never hesitated to show emotion before, but on Thursday, he showed a new, vulnerable side. "I’m a little nervous. How bad is it gonna be? Is he gonna kill me?” Cramer said. “You should be nervous,” (Martha) Stewart said. "He’s fast as lightning!”

“I’m not, I’m slow as molasses,” Cramer replied. Considering that the entire conceit of “Mad Money” is that Cramer is manic -- “mad,” if you will -- this new, self-deprecating incarnation of the man seems pretty implausible.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/cramer_stewart_2/feed/ 31 Maddow and Martha http://www.salon.com/2008/11/04/martha_maddow/ http://www.salon.com/2008/11/04/martha_maddow/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2008/11/04/martha_maddow Martha Stewart spoke for many of us today, when on her daytime talk show, she told her guest, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, "I'm a nervous wreck. I'm as nervous as can be today."

Tell me about it!

Stewart, a longtime Democratic donor, had already had an Election Day headache: Somebody messed with her voting, and she was none too pleased about it. Stewart opened her show by describing how she arrived at her polling place in Katonah, N.Y., soon after it had opened. "There were some people there already at 6 a.m.," she said. But when Stewart went to pull the lever, she discovered that her district's voting machine had already broken. "I started to hyperventilate, because we're hearing about how our voting structure is broken in this country and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, even in my own hometown, it's broken." Stewart used a paper ballot, and watched as it was put in a white envelope, then that envelope was put in a brown envelope. "I asked about three people, 'Now, how is that vote going to be counted?'" said Stewart. "And there were no real good answers. I left quite upset, but quiet. I did not raise my voice and nobody did. Everybody was very polite. That's the way we have to be." Instead, Stewart dealt with her election anxieties by sending an e-mail to everyone in her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, telling them to vote and to prepare to wait in long lines.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/11/04/martha_maddow/feed/ 11 Rosie Trumps the Donald http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/ http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/#comments Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2006/12/22/rosie I don't apologize for loving the pop-culture innovations of the 1990s, reality TV and fake news. Every once in a while, though, the odd blend of celebrity worship and irony can make you feel a little sick, the way I did watching my beloved Stephen Colbert ham it up with Henry Kissinger on Wednesday night. Sure, it was funny, but blech.

We can also blame reality TV for making Donald Trump just a cool Cheeto-haired rich guy to a new generation who watched "The Apprentice," instead of the vain, greedy, loathsome laughingstock we learned to laugh at when he was regularly featured as a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy Magazine, the 1980s answer to "The Daily Show." Sadly, even Spy's (and Inside's and New York's) Kurt Andersen is glad he left his surly ways behind, telling an interviewer just this week that there was always "joy," never "anger" behind the often vicious if hilarious satire of Spy. I don't think he ever read it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/12/22/rosie_5/feed/ 134 What else we’re reading http://www.salon.com/2006/10/13/what_else_112/ http://www.salon.com/2006/10/13/what_else_112/#comments Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:37:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2006/10/13/what_else San Francisco Chronicle: Following the paper's recent series on sex trafficking, the paper offers a Friday editorial on how to stop the practice in San Francisco. Strategies include licensing tests, conditional-use permits and steep fines for massage-parlor owners -- as well as an increased law-enforcement crackdown on johns rather than on sex workers themselves.

Chronicle, again: A feminist dance troupe takes aim at the objectification of women by producing a live billboard-style installation in which dancers fly through the air (with the aid of some rope) at a busy intersection. We're guessing you had to be there.

Houston Chronicle: Showing a gift for cutting sound-bite we wouldn't have expected, Martha Stewart asserts that women like each other to fail. (She exempts herself, however.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/10/13/what_else_112/feed/ 9 Holy generalizations, Batwoman! http://www.salon.com/2006/07/17/daum_2/ http://www.salon.com/2006/07/17/daum_2/#comments Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2006/07/17/daum In her weekly Los Angeles Times column Meghan Daum uses the debut of a gay Batwoman comic to riff on a new "sexual identity crisis." She claims that there are currently only two ways to be female -- you're either a girlie girl or a lesbian.

"You either get the Botox, the boob job, the bikini wax and baby doll dresses, or you take the radical step of looking and acting like a fully formed, grown-up female," she writes. "Once upon a time, these fully formed creatures were called 'real women.' Now they're called lesbians. This is especially true in cases in which the women in question are not known to actually be lesbians. What do Hillary Rodham Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Christiane Amanpour, Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart have in common? It's not that they're accomplished, independent, talented, ambitious or rich, it's that they're all secretly gay!"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/07/17/daum_2/feed/ 23 Karen Finley smears Bush all over http://www.salon.com/2006/04/22/finley_2/ http://www.salon.com/2006/04/22/finley_2/#comments Sat, 22 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/04/22/finley When I was a younger man, I once remarked to Barnard professor of philosophy Mary Mothersill that a girl I was dating was "sublime."

"Flesh-and-blood women can never be sublime," I remember her scolding. "Not even girls you meet at CBGBs. To find a sublime woman, we must go to the classic tragedies of Racine such as Phaedra and Iphigenia." Ah, those old tropes about hysterical women, incest and slaughter. Mothersill was probably right in theory, but then she had never seen Karen Finley perform.

Finley is sublime. Finley is terrifying the way Rainer Maria Rilke writes "every angel is terrifying." For 25 years, she has been performing -- usually beginning or ending up naked onstage, hollering a self-penned blue tirade dotted with scatological grunts, a verbal eruption given while Finley smears her naked self with chocolate syrup or other foodstuffs, such as the mashed yams she once stuffed in the cleft of her buttocks while mooning the audience ("Yams Up My Granny's Ass"). (For the brave, other foods smeared on, in or across her naked body include ice cream sandwiches/kidney beans ("Mr. Hirsh"); chocolate syrup ("A Different Kind of Intimacy" and "Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman"); and honey ("Shut Up & Love Me"). She has also painted invisible black velvet paintings using her breast milk as the artistic medium.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/04/22/finley_2/feed/ 34 Putting out for women http://www.salon.com/2006/03/16/women_politics_event/ http://www.salon.com/2006/03/16/women_politics_event/#comments Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:44:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2006/03/16/women_politics_event The scene at Monday night's annual WCF benefit, to which I was invited as a special guest and as a journalist, felt just like old times -- old election-season times, that is. At the Doyle Gallery on New York's Upper East Side, some of Manhattan's wealthiest political donors packed taut-cheek to smooth-jowl among a bevy of candidates, talking about the political heft of the women's vote, sounding very much like they did back in 2004 -- when we also understood how the women's vote could make a difference.

But wait, it's not 2004 anymore. Now we have a terrifying Supreme Court; they're trying to ban abortion in South Dakota; insurance companies are not paying for birth control anymore; the healthcare system is eroded; we're still at war. Now the women's vote -- and women's leadership -- really will count. Right? It's time for a Gingrich-style midterm revolution, except that this time, deliverance is going to come in the form of female candidates, mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/03/16/women_politics_event/feed/ 12 Drunky rides again http://www.salon.com/2005/12/09/drunkryan/ http://www.salon.com/2005/12/09/drunkryan/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:27:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/video_dog/realitytv/2005/12/09/drunkryan And we thought Lisa from ANTM was bad. On Wednesday night's "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," Ryan thought it would be fun to get wasted while creating a marketing video for Song Airlines. Yes, there's nothing quite like the job applicant who compares himself to Van Gogh in a slurred, beery voice.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/12/09/drunkryan/feed/ 0 Cybill slights http://www.salon.com/2005/12/05/martha_and_cybill/ http://www.salon.com/2005/12/05/martha_and_cybill/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:39:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2005/12/05/martha_and_cybill Working from home this morning I happened to catch Martha Stewart teaching actress Christine Baranski how to make some sort of elaborate, paper-thin, red-striped cookies that you have to bake in small batches and roll up into little cookie cigars by hand when they've cooled a bit but not cooled too much because they might get hard and wouldn't roll up. Or something.

In the midst of the rolling or the striping or something, Stewart started commending herself for being so laid-back. "I am actually a very calm, patient teacher in the kitchen," she said as Baranski tried to paint straight red lines on the cookies. "About other things, maybe [I'm] not [so calm]. Well, you can just ask Cybill!"

By Cybill, Stewart meant Cybill Shepherd, the actress who has played her, unflatteringly, in two mini-movies, and with whom Baranski costarred, and famously did not get along, for three years on the CBS series "Cybill."

Stewart then smiled big and leaned over her cookies, muttering something about "we'll get back at her one way or another" while Baranski snorted happily.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/12/05/martha_and_cybill/feed/ 4 Salon’s worst calls http://www.salon.com/2005/11/15/worst_2/ http://www.salon.com/2005/11/15/worst_2/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2005 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2005/11/15/worst Amid all the hoopla and self-congratulation over Salon's first 10 years, the staff decided it wanted to get its humility card punched too. So we figured we'd collect Salon's worst calls, the biggest missteps and worst judgments, and have a good laugh over them.

Suggestions were called for and made, and we quickly ran into a problem: No one could agree about what constituted a bad call. One person's worst judgment in Salon history was another's greatest story ever posted. "Run, Warren, Run," Salon founder and then-editor David Talbot's quixotic plea for Warren Beatty to run for president, for example, got votes for this story and for the "Best of Salon" package.

It's not that it's hard to be humble when you're this good. It's just that it's hard to be humble when you can't decide which things to be humble about. And we're not even talking here about Salon Shop.

A conversation about bad calls at Salon has to start with the most controversial story we've ever published, the 1998 revelation that Sen. Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who was sitting in judgment of President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, had carried on an extramarital affair in the 1960s with a woman who was also married.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/11/15/worst_2/feed/ 27 Martha Stewart spazzing Omnimedia http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/martha_11/ http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/martha_11/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2005/10/24/martha Broadsheet (or at least one Broadsheet contributor) has a little thing for Martha Stewart's new live talk show, in which the recently incarcerated domestic goddess and awkward TV personality seems to really be making an effort to let loose. The result -- in the couple of episodes that we've watched -- has been a series of mind-blowing moments in which Martha has shown us what we can only hope is her true self: bawdy, no-bullshit, and appallingly frank. During a cooking segment a few weeks ago, she asked diminutive television starlet Jessica Alba: "Do you eat?" When a surprised Alba replied that of course she ate, Martha shrugged and said, "Well, you never know."

This morning, Martha was tasting wines with her friend and crafting "mentee," "Sopranos" actress Lorraine Bracco. When, during a break, a producer brought out a crock in which the women could spit out the wine, Martha commented on-air, "But I don't want to spit. I want to swallow. It's been that kind of weekend."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/martha_11/feed/ 5 Was blind, but now I see http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/frist_19/ http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/frist_19/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2005 13:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2005/10/24/frist When Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison went on "Meet the Press" over the weekend, she tried to equate the Valerie Plame investigation with the prosecution of Martha Stewart. Maybe she had Bill Frist on the mind.

Just to remind the good senator from Texas, the Plame case involves the outing of a CIA agent amid charges that the president lied about the reasons for a war that has claimed the lives of 1,997 American troops. The Martha Stewart prosecution involved charges that a woman famous for her homemaking skills lied about a stock sale that saved her $51,000.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/10/24/frist_19/feed/ 7 Martha makes … nice? http://www.salon.com/2005/09/22/martha_10/ http://www.salon.com/2005/09/22/martha_10/#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2005 14:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/2005/09/22/martha On paper, the idea of letting Martha Stewart host her own version of "The Apprentice" must have looked brilliant and fun, like one of those clever, beautiful crafts you're always seeing in her magazines and TV shows and vowing to one day try to create yourself. The thing about those crafts, though, is that, inevitably, you screw up the implementation: You fold your origami picnic table backward, say, or end up creating a yarn flower that looks vaguely like a bloodstain. The endeavor often ends in failure, a sticky mess of glue, dried flowers, pipe cleaners -- whatever the craft, pipe cleaners are always involved -- and the heavy stink of personal failure.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/09/22/martha_10/feed/ 0 Uncle Sam’s extreme makeover http://www.salon.com/2005/03/12/new_america/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/12/new_america/#comments Sat, 12 Mar 2005 21:32:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2005/03/12/new_america Listen. Do you hear it? There's something in the air, and it's not just mercury emissions. It's a sound, a feeling, a movement, and like the flock of reporters returning to a courthouse in Santa Maria, Calif., it's growing bigger every day.

All across America, people are witnessing a remarkable transformation. You can see it in the crowding of a school, feel it in the crumbling of a bridge, and smell it in the water from a drinking fountain. It's a new era for a new land, and it's headed your way.

As the poet Walt Whitman might have blogged, "I hear America cringing." Welcome to America Lite. Now with 3,700 percent more deficit!

In America Lite, cutbacks run free and contractors ride off into the sunset. And seldom is heard a discouraging word in the wide open spaces of your retiring TV news anchor. Good morning, America Lite! Join us as we gloss over the results of your Extreme Makeover. Lady Liberty has had the principles liposuctioned right out of her, Uncle Sam is on steroids, and the biggest enemy of the United Nations just got nominated as ambassador to the United Nations. What's next? Lizzie Borden for secretary of health and human services? MC Hammer for secretary of the treasury? Donald Rumsfeld for secretary of defense? But enough about that. We now return you to our regularly scheduled Martha Marathon, already in progress.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/03/12/new_america/feed/ 0 Rumors of Martha’s redemption are greatly exaggerated http://www.salon.com/2005/03/04/martha_traister/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/04/martha_traister/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2005 18:16:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2005/03/04/martha_traister "In anticipation of spring -- and Martha's homecoming!" reads the desperately hopeful headline in Martha Stewart Living editor Margaret Roach's newest letter to readers. In it, Roach describes the attitude of her once and future boss -- finishing her five-month stay at Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia for having lied about a stock sale. Roach tells us, "The anticipation of these new beginnings -- a new house, a new garden -- has certainly sustained her spirits ... I can tell you she is, indeed, ready to get planting ..."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/03/04/martha_traister/feed/ 0 Martha-hater, heal thyself http://www.salon.com/2005/03/04/martha_zacharek/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/04/martha_zacharek/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:39:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2005/03/04/martha_zacharek When Martha Stewart was convicted last April, juror Chappelle Hartridge called it "a victory for the little guy." The point he missed was that Martha Stewart's whole career has been a victory for the little guy, because long before Martha Stewart was Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she was Martha Helen Kostyra, the daughter of Polish immigrants living in Nutley, N.J., a girl who learned to garden from her father and to sew and bake bread from her mother -- skills they themselves had brought over from what we used to quaintly refer to, at least in the days before the Internet, as the Old World.

Before Martha Stewart was a businesswoman (or, for that matter, a convicted felon) she was a woman who knew how to cut out a dress or plant a tulip bulb. Before she built a massively successful enterprise, she built an aesthetic -- an aesthetic based on the humble mongrel origins that we Americans, all of us descended from people who came from elsewhere, share: She knew how to make stuff, and she was damn good at it.

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