SAN JOSE, Calif. -- By snapping up everything from a toothbrush taken from Paris Hilton's trash to an O.J. Simpson rubber Halloween mask, Americans turned pop culture obsessions into commerce this year* on eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), where you can find and win practically anything.
What's the obsession with Google? Is it justified? ZDNet Editor-in-Chief Dan Farber looks at Google's business model and its services, including Wi-Fi, maps, desktop search, Gmail, Froogle, and Gtalk, and predicts where the company is headed. He says while the Google mash-up does justify the obsession, it's...
Cashing in on the burgeoning youth market has become a national obsession in the United States, and given the global focus of many corporations, an international obsession as well. Yet, advertisers and marketers are consistently making marketing and research mistakes, most of which are avoidable. This paper highlights some of...
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I was flashlight-deprived as a child. That must be the explanation for my obsession with personal lighting devices. That, and later experiences which burned this message into me like a bar-code: He Who Rules The Night Wins The Fight. And folks, sometimes the darkest, most dangerous...
Rebel heiress, Warhol Factory superstar, artist, and creator of Tit Prints, tapes, and Polaroids, collector of costume jewelry (see "Obsessions," page 62) ... Is it any wonder that Brigid Berlin has electrified something as seemingly demure as needlepoint? Berlin has produced an exhibition's worth of material: Her embroidery, which features...
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Brigid Berlin Is one of the great underrated artists of our time. Best known as Andy Warhol's closest collaborator from 1964 until his death in 1987, Berlin has often been branded as the pill-popping star of Chelsea Girls (1966) and an all-around Factory troublemaker. Today she's...
MULLOVA / BEZUIDENHOUT Queen Elizabeth Hall, London ***** The crowd that came to hear Viktoria Mullova open her "artist in focus" series was as heterogeneous as you'd expect, given the scope of this statuesque star's activities. Her recital on period instruments was to be followed by...
THE CLOCKMAKER Time should be heard as well as seen, Says the clockmaker, carving a cuckoo bird. My wife gives the sick child his medicine. Who said children should be seen, not heard? I work all night until my sight...
Composer of the Week 12NOON RADIO 3 This week, Donald Macleod profiles the jazz bassist Charles Mingus. Part one explores his early life, music and career, which took off in 1943 when he toured with Louis Armstrong. Afternoon Play ...
IN NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD SHOES With a fanbase that includes Manolo Blahnik, this shoe designer is headed for superstardom. Cordwainers-trained, Kirkwood's obsession with shoemaking is evident in his footwear, which looks as if it would be more at home in a contemporary-art gallery than pounding a pavement. ...
Stay the night The Greenwich Hotel As an actor, Robert De Niro is a famous perfectionist. And he's just as obsessive as a hotelier. The Greenwich opened only this month, but so far this year De Niro has fitted three fireplaces in its library - the...
Theatre By creating so many characters in a dysfunctional rut, writer EndaWalsh has landed in one of his own The Walworth Farce NT Cottesloe LONDON Riflemind Trafalgar Studios LONDON The Girlfriend Experience Royal Court Upstairs LONDON Just last month, I saw the Edinburgh Fringe premiere of...
Fiction There's a riot going on in this campus novel, not to mention sex and war. So it should not be this dull Indignation By Philip Roth Cape Pounds 16.99 It's the start of the Korean War, and a working-class Jewish boy, son of a hard-working...
BOYZONE star Keith Duffy has admitted his daughter knows more of the band's lyrics than he does. The multi-million selling boyband are releasing a new Greatest Hits album, titled Back Again No Matter What, to coincide with reforming. But cheeky Duffy, 33,...
WHEN a couple of clapped out reality "stars" resort to filming themselves filming a promo for their own show it's the end of the line. Come in Katie and Peter: The Next Chapter - your time is up. Close the bloody book. It's getting longer than...
WEDNESDAY David Hockney's Secret Knowledge 8.50pm BBC4 David Hockney propagates the revolutionary theory that rudimentary forms of photography were available as early as the 15th century. The painter argues that this would solve the mysteries attached to celebrated works by artists such as...
Zodiac: the Director's Cut (15) Warner Home Video 15.74 David Fincher directs a measured, old-fashioned investigative crime drama centred on the Zodiac serial killer, who terrorised the San Francisco area from 1968 to 1974. Zodiac is a study of obsession, with three men, a sozzled reporter (Robert...
Blast off We are, as you may have noticed, obsessed with bizarre funerary arrangements. And we've been generous in sharing the many, many ways you can have your remains, er, remaindered, from corallike cremain reefs off the coast of Florida to diamond pendants made from your carbon....
Conan Doyle by Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, pounds 10.99. SIR Arthur Conan Doyle's name is now recognised the world over, but for decades he was overshadowed by his creation, Sherlock Holmes. He was a man of contradictions, all explored in full in this fas cinating biog raphy....
Byline: BRENDA HOLROYD WHAT is the agenda behind this obsession, and I mean obsession, to add fluoride to our drinking water? Protection is there already, as has been mentioned many times before regarding the care of children's teeth. Recently I contacted Yorkshire Water and...