O, The Oprah Magazine articles from June 2002

O, The Oprah Magazine archives from June 2002

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2002... We Hear You! Readers weigh in on Oprah's interview with the Central Park jogger, the surprising side of strength, and other April highlights.... Thank you for the powerful interview "Oprah Talks to the Central Park Jogger" [April]. I...

Shooting from the hip. (Here We Go).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... OVER THE YEARS, HUNDREDS OF GUESTS ON MY SHOW have made some pretty courageous confessions--from admitting to adultery to finally acknowledging that they've allowed a habit to overtake their lives. While a certain freedom can come with public...

Wild geese. (Live Your Best Life).(Poem)
June 1, 2002... Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours,...

The un-restaurant. (Dream Big).(chef Jody Williams; restaurant Tappo in New York, New York)
June 1, 2002... Ever been to a place where the chef will cook up whatever you ask for? A warm, old-world, anti-finger-bowl, let-it-all-hang-out feastery? Welcome to Tappo (if you can get in). WHO COOKS FOR THE COOKS? ONE answer, in New York City, is Jody...

Dr. Phil: "do you want to want to be right or do you want to be happy?". (Tell it Like it).(relationship advice)(Column)
June 1, 2002... PHILLIP C. McGRAW, PHD, on a father's rotten legacy jump-starting a comatose sex life, and coping with a grown stepchild who can't stand you Q I've been divorced for 11 years. My daughters are 14 and 22 years old and have had a sporadic...

Suze Orman: "boy would I stick with my gut!". (Financial Freedom).(financial advice)(Column)
June 1, 2002... Sometimes a tricky money situation--whether it's accepting a loan from in-laws or confronting a sibling--requires as much intuition as financial knowledge. Q My in-laws have offered to lend us the down payment on our first home. My husband...

Is there a better way to love? (Healing).(Buddhist teacher and author Joseph Goldstein; attachment in interpersonal relations)(Interview)
June 1, 2002... THE DAY BEFORE MY MOTHER died, we were in her bedroom passing the time, with her head on my lap and a wall clock ticking, when suddenly she opened her eyes and blinked at me through a morphine haze. "What is it?" I asked. She blinked again,...

When bad listeners happen to good women. (Couples).(interpersonal communication)
June 1, 2002... Just sitting at the table with your head cocked adorably to one side isn't enough. The art of being attentive, as BEN SCHRANK discovered, is a journey to the seat of oneself. A WOMAN I WAS IN LOVE WITH would tell me stories quickly, without...

Mae Jemison's inner space: how to reach the stars? for the first African-American woman in space, it took sanding, sealing, varnishing, and finally, leaping. (Aha! Moment).(narrative)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... THIS IS SILLY, BUT FOUR YEARS AFTER I bought my first house and had settled in, I was still intimidated by the real estate broker who sold it to me. And I'm not easily intimidated: Since I was a teenager I had trained or worked in...

The O list.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... "A few things I think are just great...to the letter." -- Oprah Personal Best "These sandals come in every color combination under the sun, and the monogram really personalizes them." (Palm Beach monogram shoes, $110, C. Orrico;...

Cool in the shades; amethyst, sapphire, topaz, jewel-tinted and practically rimless, the best new sunglasses are updated aviators: You get maximum lens, minimum frame. No wonder they're in demand. (Fashion).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
June 1, 2002... If you insist on being a woman of mystery, hang on to your black lenses. Otherwise, scoop up some inviting sunglasses like these; they are an unbelievably speedy way to brighten your outlook. On stick, from top: Orange sunglasses, $180, Gucci....

Take your own sweet time: you can have too much candy. But too many watches? Heck, no. For lighter moods, try a squarish one with a pastel band; a black metal-trimmed number is perfect for work. (Fashion).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Strap on a timepiece that's as sleek as a sports car, with precison to burn. Clockwise from top life: Large-face steel watch with rubber band, Paneral. Round face with rubber strap, Chanel. Square watch with leather band, $95, Ann Klein. Round...

The boy toys of summer: this Father's Day, buy your guy a toy that you can, uh, borrow when he's not looking. (Beauty).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... DID HE STEAL YOUR HEART? HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO steal something back. Give him a gift so luscious, so practical, that you'll love to use it yourself. A superlathering soap, a fresh green fragrance or a deliciously citrusy one, a creamy...

Behind every great woman...is a butt she can learn to love. (Beauty).
June 1, 2002... I'VE COME TO BELIEVE THAT IF I could walk backward into a room, I would never want for a man. My bottom's not small or even perky. To the contrary, I've got what LL CoolJ would call an around-the-way-girl butt. It's big. And it's the one part...

The care and feeding of summer skin: don't let the sun catch you frying. Laura Flynn McCarthy tells you how to keep your beautiful body and face clean, safe, and protected from memorial to labor day. (Beauty).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... SHAKESPEARE DESCRIBED HIS BELOVED AS POSSESSING AN "ETERNAL summer [that] shall not fade." What a great notion: a sweet season in our soul that somehow illuminates our outer selves. At this time of year, when we've shed the heavy clothes of...

Block those rays! the secret to beautiful skin is a no-nonsense sunscreen. Experts search high and low (budget) for the best protection out there. (Beauty Shopper).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... NOW THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN INTO THE good habit of wearing sunscreen, you might have noticed that there's a wide spectrum of prices between drugstore brands and those you can buy only in a department store. But does price necessarily reflect the...

Take care of yourself! the O guide to getting vaccinated. (Minding Your Body).
June 1, 2002... Which vaccine do you need and when do you need them? And are they safe? KATHY MERRELL explains everything you're recently wanted to know about vaccines but were too squeamish to ask. IF YOU HAVEN'T TRAVELED TO A PLACE like Africa or India...

Are we safe? halting the next plague. (Minding Your Body).
June 1, 2002... Lawremce Brent Brilliant, MD, helped eradicate smallpox in India. Today he's on the front lines of our country's fight against an unimaginable horror: smallpox's return. He reports from the still point where fear stands side by side with hope....

Eating out eating way out: you need good weather, unfussy food, a tolerance for ants and/or grass stains. Just add style -- bright, easy touches that are a out above the usual throwaways. (Comfort Zone).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... THE ARTFUL BARBECUE A sophisticated picnic (witness this jazzy pattern mix) carries home comforts into the great outdoors From left Plastic cutlery, $4 for a 12-piece set, Pier 1 imports, Polka dot tumbler, $8 and striped plate. $11 French Bull...

The breakfast club: his father passed along many things -- style, charm, a complex life, and, at the last possible moment, his recipe for an omelet shaped like a sleeping bag. (Dish Fulfillment).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... FIRST HE'D WHIR THREE EGGS IN A blender, then empty the foamy contents into the cast-iron skillet atop the burner. Spatula in one hand, he'd tilt the pan against the flame with the other hand, continually scraping the eggs from the sides back...

You've got rapture: writer-director Nora Ephron prefers to couch her words (with a squishy pillow and a quiet afternoon). (Books that Made a Difference).
June 1, 2002... I,VE JUST SURFACED FROM SPENDING SEVERAL days in a state of rapture: I was reading a book. I loved this book. I loved every second of it. I was transported into its world. I was reminded of all sorts of things in my own life. I was in anguish...

Personal Velocity & A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. (Bookshelf).
June 1, 2002... Personal Velocity A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You BY REBECCA MILLER BY AMY BLOOM These two books have nothing in common except that they're both collections of short stories mostly about women, and I loved them both....

The Golden Notebook. (Bookshelf).
June 1, 2002... The Golden Notebook BY DORIS LESSING At an early point in this novel, Lessing's heroine, Anna, says that she wishes she could write "a book powered with an intellectual or moral passion strong enough to create order, to create a new...

The Eustace Diamonds. (Bookshelf).
June 1, 2002... The Eustace Diamonds BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE If you haven't read Trollope, this is a good place to begin. Along with Can You Forgive Her?, The Eustace Diamonds is among the most delicious and contemporary of Trollope's Palliser novels, and...

Anne of Green Gables. (Bookshelf).
June 1, 2002... Anne of Green Gables BY LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY Well, of course you probably read it when you were a girl. Read it again, In Canada it's almost an object of worship since the author is Canadian, but the truth is it's an absolutely...

Emma and Pride and Prejudice. (Bookshelf).
June 1, 2002... Emma and Pride and Prejudice BY JANE AUSTEN For many years I had a problem with Emma, as compared to, say, Pride and Prejudice. I loved P and P, and I loved its practically perfect heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. Emma, on the other hand,...

The Sweetest Sounds: Oscar Hijuelos's new novel, A Simple Habana Melody, is a lushly detailed song you can't get out of your head. (Reading Room).
June 1, 2002... ALL IT TAKES IS ONE SENTENCE: "IN THE SPRING OF 1947, when Israel Levis, composer of that most famous of rumbas 'Rosas Puras,' turned to Habana, Cuba, from Europe aboard the SS Fortuna, those of his old friends who had not seen him in more than...

Orchid fever. (Reading Room).
June 1, 2002... The Dutch were the first to bring back from the New World the alluring orchid, which by the early 20th century, in a frenzy of "orchidmania," had been nearly hunted into extinction in some countries. At right, a member otthe...

Ghost town. (Reading Room).(Shadow Theatre)
June 1, 2002... Dreams have a logic all their own: People fade in to one another's form, time is nonlinear, and the overall meaning can be hard to grasp. With magnificent sleight of hand, Fiona Cheong has created a novel that obeys the laws of such dreams...

Here's to us. (Reading Room).(Here and Now)
June 1, 2002... As a cancer patient, I know that one of the unspoken side effects of my disease is loneliness. So I look for books that say, "I've been where you are--here's what I've learned." Or "This is what you'd do well to bear in mind." I want to know...

In the air tonight: the distracted rattle of today -- computers, security, love, paranoia -- is the subject of Mark Costello's profound new novel, Big If. (Reading Room).
June 1, 2002... THE FUNDAMENTAL IMAGINATIVE ACT OF FICTION IS GODLIKE, creating character out of the dust of words. This act requires something more than language. It requires the capturing of gesture and manner, and the evocation of the present--brought...

Color it black and white: two heart-rocking new books--about a vicious Texas murder and a little church that could--paint blistering portraits of race in America. (Reading Room).(Hate Crime: The Story of a Draggin in Jasper, Texas; Standing on Holy Ground: A Triumph over Hate Crime in the Deep South)
June 1, 2002... WHEN HER BOSS AT A CBS RADIO affiliate in Dallas told reporter Joyce King he was sending her to Jasper, the East Texas town where a black man named James Byrd Jr. had been dragged to his death behind a truck, she had a gut reaction: Don't go...

Cath, the heroine of Kate Jennings's smart new novel Moral Hazard (Fourth Estate). (BibliO).
June 1, 2002... Cath, the heroine of Kate Jennings's smart new novel Moral Hazard (Fourth Estate), is having a "bloody awful" year: She hates her job as a speechwriter for Wall Street tycoons, and her adored husband is slipping away into Alzheimer's in his...

Gary Shteyngart. (BibliO).(The Russian Debutante's Handbook)
June 1, 2002... Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States at 7. His sense of the exploded past and volatile present suffuses this gifted first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (Riverhead). Its roguish young hero,...

Marlowe & Company. (BibliO).(Inside Islam)
June 1, 2002... In Inside Islam (Marlowe & Company), with an introduction by American University professor Akbar S. Ahmed, 14 gifted writers weigh in on a religion whose conflicted relationship to the West has never been more scrutinized. Among the standout...

In 11 artfully linked stories, Stephanie Rosenfeld's What About the Love Part? (Ballantine). (BibliO).
June 1, 2002... In 11 artfully linked stories, Stephanie Rosenfeld's What About the Love Part? (Ballantine) explores Abby Hillman's life as wife, mother. divorcee, lover, and best friend. Rosenfeld's bright, restless Abby wrings meaning from every...

From the ashes: he didn't know how to be a father until his teenage daughter was involved in a terrible accident. Robert Evans reports on their mutual trial--and transformation--by fire. (Family).(narrative)
June 1, 2002... IN THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF THE burn ward in Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, I looked down at the small, still form that was my daughter Sian. Shaking my head in disbelief, I stared at this 17-year-old girl wrapped in white sheets and...

Oprah talks to Chris Rock: one of America's funniest men on panning laughs from the everyday, his 9/11 baby-to-be, transcending race, and why he suspects he was put on earth. (The O Interview).(comedian)(Interview)
June 1, 2002... I WILL NEVER FORGET THE FIRST time I saw Chris Rock perform--I laughed so hard my side ached. As he paced the stage in a rhythm that has often made him seem as much a call-and-response southern preacher as the consummate comedian he is, he...

Splendor in the grass.(Recipe)
June 1, 2002... After a day at the beach, a few good friends gather in Ina Garten's herb-scented garden. They sip and feast, laugh and dish. Here's to freshness, ease, eating outdoors, and the most sumptuous summer pudding ever. INA GARTEN, A COOKBOOK...

True confessions: who to turn to when to tell--and when to zip it up. Martha Beck on letting some of it hang out. (Summer Cooks Can).(confessing secrets)
June 1, 2002... The problem with keeping secrets is that tyey're alive. We like to think that our secrets can lie quietly in our minds, as inert as dirt, but we're wrong. Secrets aren't just our creations, they're our creatures, beings with wills of their...

Spilling the beans.(authors' secret life episodes)
June 1, 2002... Francine Prose It's never too late to tell all--and strangely enough, sometimes it's easier to open up to millions of readers than to one close friend.Writers ranging from Molly Ivins to Francine Prose, Mark Leyner, Judy Blunt, and others...

The interrogation room.(interrogation tactics used by law enforcement, media, health care professionals)
June 1, 2002... Manhattan DA Linda Fairstein knew the suspect wasn't telling the truth. But could she get him to confess? Peter Blauner talks to prosecutors, detectives, journalists, psychiatrists, and documentarians about the art and craft of getting people...

I confess six ways to right a wrong.(confession and forgiveness of interpersonal transgressions)
June 1, 2002... After committing verbal violence against her husband, Winifred Gallagher wanted to atone. But how? She traveled to six experts (a philosopher, a Buddhist nun, a rabbi, a priest, a psychologist, and one very smart mom), who brought her...

In the heat of the night.(actress Eva Mendes; includes related note on fashion)(Interview)(Product Announcement)
June 1, 2002... Say you're invited to a summer party. You don't care to wear anything too bare, too formal, too tight. But what's just right? Softly flowing, lightly Provocative clothes like these, worn by our own evening star, Training Day's Eva Mendes. ...

The appeal of a peel: do at-home peels really work? How? And are they safe? Christine Fellingham goes below the surface. (Practical Matters).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... IT'S THE SKIN CARE EQUIVALENT OF JUST-WALKED-out-of-the-salon hair: the dewy posttreatment afterglow and scrupulously clean, smooth complexion that follows a great facial. Once I experienced that, I knew I wanted to try to duplicate it. Which...

All things bright: the colors are intense, but everything else--the style, the price--is very laid-back. (Fashion).(Product Announcement)
June 1, 2002... Nothing special--just a sleeveless shirt. Then you notice it's silk. Hmm. Maybe you're not too tired to go out. Top, $99, Jones New York. A brilliant little clutch in sunset colors gets extra sparkle from the buckle. Satin bag, $84,...

What I know for sure.(appreciating miracles in every-day life)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
June 1, 2002... I MUST CONFESS THAT EVERY MONTH THIS COLUMN gets more difficult to write. As I assess what I can be sure of, I'm often confronted by things about which I have no certainty at all. So I probe my deepest beliefs--those that lurk in the shadows...