O, The Oprah Magazine articles from March 2007

O, The Oprah Magazine archives from March 2007

The men of O.(the back story)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... WHILE MEN TAKE UP a good part of our thoughts every day (we're talking to you, Hugh Laurie), they take up very little room in our office. Their minority status and the fact that they are required to read the magazine has led male O staffers to...

Our date with McDreamy.(the back story)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... ON THE 17TH OF NOVEMBER, 12 O staffers got to skip work and hit the legendary music venue Joe's Pub. They joined Lisa Ling (at center) and 75 other Grey's Anatomy addicts as the New York City contingent of Oprah's four-city telecast with...

A contributor takes a leap.(the back story)(Leap! What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives? by Sara Davidson)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... FIVE YEARS ago, after more than two decades in Hollywood writing for television, O contributing editor Sara Davidson found herself out of work and unready for retirement. So the 60-year-old packed up and moved to Boulder, Colorado, in search of...

Oprah's new school.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... As an attorney who represents abused and neglected children, I was inspired by "Building a Dream" [by Pamela Gien, January], about Oprah's school for girls in South Africa. Over the past few months, the passion I have for my job has been waning...

Dumpster therapy.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I felt as though I were reading about my own life and my own home (minus the mice, thank goodness) in "Finders, Keepers... Hoarders, Weepers" [by Michelle Herman, January]. I cried at what Herman said about her parents: "They saved...

Open book.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... While browsing through my mother's January issue, I was snagged by "The Burning Question," in which Mary Pleshette Willis considers the merits of destroying her journals before she dies. I've kept journals through my 25 years of marriage, and...

Misfit cool.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Thank you for Josh Groban's "Aha! Moment" [January]. Josh was one of my heroes even before I read what he went through in junior high school. I, too, have a hard time fitting in because I play the viola in the chamber orchestra and because I...

Habit forming.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I had to smile when I read Rebecca Skloot's "Why Is It So Damn Hard to Change?" [January]. She wondered how many times she would need to exercise before she began enjoying it and making it a habit. When I was 20, I lost 20 pounds by...

Thank you for sharing.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Amanda Robb did your readers a huge public service by writing "Hi, my name is Amanda... and I might be an alcoholic" [January]. I quit drinking two years ago after a long road of lousy hangovers, high blood pressure, rough sleep, and bad...

Who do you love?(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Oprah spoke one of my truths in "When Oprah Met Bob" [January], about her experience with her longtime trainer, Bob Greene. She said: "I didn't love food. I used food to numb my negative feelings." I'm now at an all-time high with my weight....

Raising Julia.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Every month I look forward to reading "Lisa Kogan Tells All." Lisa is witty, articulate, and funny as hell. But I was offended by her offhanded comment in the January issue that only "11 remaining members of society... can get by on a single...

Here we go!
March 1, 2007... This month's issue began with a bunch of O editors kicking around a few questions: How do you block out the ruckus, the rushing, the reproaches of work and world, friends and family, long enough to listen to the quiet, solid sound of your own...

March: the subject is ... becoming yourself.
March 1, 2007... "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim --Nora Ephron [TABLE OMITTED] "As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that."--Henry David Thoreau "Be spontaneous, be...

Go figure: it's about time; Daylight saving time kicks off three weeks early this year. Which got us thinking about time--how it flies, where it goes, why we can never get enough. How do O readers beat the clock? An oprah.com poll found out.(O-ZONE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... 84 Percentage of respondents who wish for more hours in the day. (Note to the 16 percent who responded that when things get crazy, they get Zen: You're making the rest of us look bad) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 17 Percentage who...

What's playing in Joss Stone's ear?(Music)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Joss Stone is a 20-year-old singer from Devon, England, with the idealism of a flower child and the voice of a sharecropper's daughter--and a gold and a platinum record to show for it. But her new album, Introducing Joss Stone (Virgin), finds...

TiVoThis.(O-ZONE)(television programs)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... * This American Life, the award-winning public radio show that has gained a cult following in its 12-year run--thanks to its charming host and executive producer, Ira Glass (right), who's wrangled aural contributions from illustrious humorists...

Amazing Grace.(MUST-SEE LITTLE MOVIE OF THE MONTH)(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... DIRECTOR MICHAEL APTED'S Amazing Grace accompanies 18th-century abolitionist William Wilberforce on his 20-year battle to end slavery in the British Empire. Played by Welshman Ioan Gruffudd (best known for his hunky Mr. Fantastic in 2005's...

ScreenGems.(O-ZONE)(I Think I Love My Wife, Grbavica, The Lives of Others)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... * Normally we have little patience for a man with a wandering eye, but we'll make an exception in the case of the brilliantly funny, multitalented Chris Rock (left, with Gina Torres), who plays a restless husband in I Think I Love My Wife....

Mr. Smith's kitchen: the family that eats together ...(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... SURE, WE'VE GOT A soft spot for Art Smith, an O contributing editor and Oprah's chef. But notwithstanding our deep affection for his heavenly tomato pie, we really think he's onto something with his latest cookbook. Back to the Family (Rutledge...

Decorating for the birds.(How can I Help?)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... THANKS TO SUSIE Basler in Westport, Connecticut, birds have some stylish digs. Each March the executive director of Project Return, a group home for adolescent girls, enlists local artists and crafty laypeople to create one-of-a-kind...

The place to be: big news on Broadway.(O-ZONE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... WHEN RUMORS swirled not long ago that a musical based on Donald Trump's The Apprentice might be hitting Broadway, the death of theater seemed assured. But this month three new shows debut that restore our faith in the Great White Way and...

... And while you're there.(O-ZONE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... WHERE TO STAY * Forgo the chaos of the theater district in favor of downtown lodging and a taste of the good life at the newly renovated Gramercy Park Hotel (right), hotelier Ian Schrager's latest venture. The bold redo of the 82-year-old...

Book junkies, rejoice!(Sites to See)(websites)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... WEB SITES FOR bibliophiles are nothing new--hello, Amazon--but there are a few great ones bringing very cool services to those of us who live by the book. On the social networking site shelfari.com, you are what you read: Members connect...

On My Own: The Art of Being A Woman Alone.(NUGGET)(Excerpt)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... "We, who are so schooled in the art of listening to the voices of others, can often hear our own voice only when we are alone.... For many women, the first choice, then, is to give ourselves the necessary time and space in which to renew our...

5 numbers you want on speed dial.(The Short List)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Memorize them. Okay, program them into your mobile. Okay, have a tech-savvy friend do it. * FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: 800-FREE-411 Most phone companies hit you for $1.50 to $2 per 411 call. But if you can stand to listen to a quick,...

If you have only ...(O-ZONE)
March 1, 2007... 2 hours: Catch a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's North American tour, celebrating principal dancer Renee Robinson's 25 years in the company--that's about 75 in dancer years. (alvinailey.org) 1 hour 36 minutes:...

When good women make bad bosses: difficult leaders come in all genders, but female managers (though blessedly free of the oink factor) fall into their own particular traps. Suzy Welch points out the best ways around them.(advice, etc.)
March 1, 2007... THE DAY I WAS MADE A BOSS FOR THE first time, my own boss gave me a rhinestone-covered magic wand as a gift. "You're going to need this," she said with a wry smile, "to make all your mistakes disappear." Panic must have swept across my face at...

Dr. Phil: "your husband's jealous behavior has nothing to do with you"; Phillip C. McGraw, PhD: a wife resents her controlling spouse ... a woman is fed up with an overbearing friend ... and a daughter challenges her father's dying wish.(advice, etc.)
March 1, 2007... Q I married later in life and have a successful career involving a fair amount of travel. Whenever I announce an upcoming trip, my husband interrogates me about why I have to go and whether male coworkers will be there. He gets nasty before I...

Suze Orman: "what kind of man would want his wife to answer to his son for money?" A rich but stingy boyfriend ... wedding debt ... and an overspending stepdaughter.(advice, etc.)
March 1, 2007... Q I am living with a man who's worth more than a million dollars. When we started dating, I jokingly told him that if we ever got married and it didn't work out, all I wanted was a plane ticket home. Well, we're now talking about a prenuptial...

Martha Beck's 5 Best Pieces of Advice: are they counterintuitive? Maybe. Helpful? You bet. Our columnist lays down her personal rules to live by.(advice, etc.)(Column)
March 1, 2007... WHEN YOU SPEND ALMOST ALL YOUR time thinking about how people can achieve their best destiny, as I do, you often trip over little life lessons that had never occurred to you. (In my case, they're usually of the blindingly obvious variety.) On...

Mira Nair's aha! moment: poetry, politics, music, art. Her ambitions were all over the map--until her sitar teacher told her something that struck a chord.(advice, etc.)
March 1, 2007... MY FATHER'S CREDO WAS PERT: PRODUCTIVITY. EXERCISE. Regularity. Time efficiency. And even though I am loath to admit it, I was influenced by him to forever make "productive use of my time." This is why, from the age of II, I took over his...

Truth journal.(something to think about)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Saying that you liked the movie everyone at the party is raving about (when, actually, you didn't) or that an outfit looks good on a friend (when it doesn't) can seem so innocuous. What does it matter if you fudge your opinion? But if you think...

The O list.(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... "A few things I think are just great."--OPRAH Tails, You Win "Attention, seafood lovers: The Continental Collection Sampler contains six luscious, juicy, tender, and wildly extravagant lobster tails from six different parts of the...

Six ways to love yourself--just the way you are; We don't know who decided that it's unfashionable to be very tall, very small, or very curvy--but we do know what authentic style looks like, and these six women have it: they dress not to conceal but to celebrate.(getting dressed)
March 1, 2007... "I want to be a model my way." Crystal Renn, 5'9", size 12; plus-size model STAYING HUNGRY "I had to starve myself to learn the big fat lesson that I can be a happy person at any size." As a teenager, Crystal developed anorexia--eating...

Shop spring (for under $100).(getting dressed)(Steve and Barry's University Sportswear)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... At these prices, anybody can afford to dress well. Bargainista's rule: Subtle colors always look more expensive. $44 Crisp shirtdress in a nice dusty lavender with tie belt and roll-up sleeves, Apostrophe; sears.com. [ILLUSTRATION...

Look what we found! Ten glamorous new ways to spritz ... groundbreaking soaps and lipsticks ... a rich, rosy body cream ... and more. Here's what O's beauty editors--Valerie Monroe and Jenny Bailly--fell in love with this month.(beauty)
March 1, 2007... Famous labels have never impressed us. So we approached this collection of Chanel fragrances (Les Exclusifs, $175 each) stifling a yawn and casting our usual gimlet eye. And then... we smelled them. Swaying slightly as we collected ourselves...

Ask Val: you've got questions? Our beauty director, Valerie Monroe, has answers.(beauty)
March 1, 2007... Q Can exercising my facial muscles prevent my skin from sagging? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I wish. Unless you don't eat or talk or laugh or cry--or you've overdone it with the Botox--you're exercising your facial muscles all day long,...

If looks could kill: lead in lipsticks ... microbes in mascara ... hormones in shampoo ... should you be worried? Jolene Edgar gets to the bottom of the latest beauty scares.(BEAUTY REPORT)
March 1, 2007... THERE'S NOTHING that makes you sweat like opening an innocuous e-mail to find a warning about antiperspirants causing breast cancer. Or reading a story in The New York Times, as I did recently, suggesting that breast growth in some boys has...

Great pretenders; Persuasive paste diamonds. Fruit that invites a bite. Trees you can see through. Phony isn't necessarily baloney: some copycats can definitely pass for real; others, frankly fake, are a way to have a bit of ironic fun.(comfort zone)
March 1, 2007... IT'S CRYSTAL CLEAR that a petrified forest of nature-driven shapes links interior spaces to the great outdoors, reproducing every beautiful whorl, knothole, and feather. Because porcelain and crystal are mainly about texture and reflection,...

Snow falling on seedlings; Winter is to gardeners what summer is to ice-skaters: the off-season. But it's also a time to plan (maybe this year!) the perfect plot of land. Michele Owens dreams green.(comfort zone)
March 1, 2007... IT'S WINTER. IN MY PART OF THE world, even with global warming, that still means five solid months of nothing blooming in the flower beds. Four months in which the most exhilarating of all forms of exercise--digging--is impossible because the...

Whey cool!(great food)
March 1, 2007... American cheese. For most of us, those two words evoke lunchboxes, grilled sandwiches, and stifled yawns. But across the country, small family-run farms and creameries are turning out exquisite artisanal Cheddars, Camemberts, and chevres that...

Outrun a cold: short of washing your hands all the time and shunning small children, there's little you can do to avoid catching a cold--or so we thought....(body wise)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... A new study shows exercise to be a surprisingly potent vaccine. In the first randomized clinical trial to investigate the connection between physical activity and colds, sedentary, postmenopausal women were about twice as likely to get sick as...

Spreading the health.(body wise)
March 1, 2007... IT'S HARD ENOUGH to work out when the gym is just down the street. But many people living in low-income and high-crime urban areas don't have a place to exercise for miles--and if there is one, it's too expensive. Recognizing the problem, three...

Antidepressants: a reality check.(body wise)
March 1, 2007... FINALLY, A MAJOR federal study has tackled the question of how well antidepressants actually work. And the results are both hopeful and sobering. * The largest trial of its kind, STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve...

Invisible fitness move.(body wise)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... If slouching has started to redesign your silhouette, here's a suggestion from Sharyn Pak, creator of the DVD Desk Sets: 5 Minute Desk Workouts. Sit on the edge of your chair, with your hands in your lap. Keeping your spine straight, lean back...

Pill alerts: think twice if you ...(body wise)
March 1, 2007... * take migraine drugs with antidepressants. New research has found that mixing triptans (Imitrex, Frova) with SSRIs (Paxil, Prozac, Celexa) or SNRIs (Cymbalta, Effexor) can cause serotonin syndrome--high levels of the brain neurotransmitter,...

Germ-free toothbrush.(body wise)
March 1, 2007... WHEN YOU CONSIDER what unseen microbes might be eddying around your bathroom, using a toothbrush sanitizer seems like a no-brainer. But skeptics question whether these products are necessary, and whether your toothbrush isn't just the latest...

The way to eat: David L. Katz, MD, sorts out the healthy, the harmful, and the hype.(body wise)
March 1, 2007... Q | I just learned that I'm intolerant to more than 25 foods. After eliminating them from my diet, I dropped 21 pounds in two months. Do you think the intolerances were making me fat? --ANONYMOUS [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Unlike food...

Losing it on the Web: I eat, therefore I blog about it. So are more and more women, who are finding strength, hope, and stick-to-it-ness after a coffee-Heath-bar binge, thanks to a virtual community of been-there-done-that strangers. Sara Reistad-Long wonders if you can blog yourself thin.(body wise)
March 1, 2007... "LAST NIGHT I WENT TO A BUFFET AND DUG IN," SAYS SUZANNE BARNETT, a 45-year-old e-commerce dealer in Johnson City, Tennessee. "I blogged about it, and, boom, right away Jennifer sent me a scathing e-mail telling me to quit cheating because...

Lisa Kogan tells all: between the perm of 1976 and the lasagna of 1993, our columnist has had her share of regrets. Here, she looks back at the one thing she'd never change.(connections)(Column)
March 1, 2007... REGRETS, SINATRA CROONS OVER my ridiculously old JBL speakers, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. Which leads me to this conclusion: Ol' Blue Eyes never had to write a monthly column. If he did, he would know that when you're...

The naked truth.(reading room)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Don't cover your eyes. The women who appear in Bodies and Souls: The Century Project (Heureka Productions) want you to see them--really see them--in all their naked humanity. For nearly 25 years, photographer Frank Cordelle has crisscrossed the...

How'd I know that? Premonitions. Spot-on insights. Logic meets ESP in a risky, profound, convincing new book.(reading room)(Extraordinary Knowing)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... WHEN TWO OF THE MOST INSIGHTFUL heavyweights in their respective fields--psychologist Carol Gilligan and physicist Freeman Dyson--introduce a book, you know you're in for an eye-opening experience. In Extraordinary Knowing (Bantam),...

The office: a funny, fanged novel about showing up for work (ugh, must we?) at an ax-wielding ad agency.(reading room)(Then We Came to the End)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... In a wonderfully comic first novel, Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown), Joshua Ferris selects the surreal world of a Chicago advertising agency to reveal some larger truths about corporate American life. Ferris focuses on the near insanity...

Between rock and a hard place: Jonathan Lethem's ruefully comic riff on music and melancholy in Los Angeles.(reading room)(You Don't Love Me Yet)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... JONATHAN LETHEM'S NEWEST NOVEL, THE SLEEK AND effective You Don't Love Me Yet (Doubleday), is being billed as a light romantic comedy and, one gathers from the marketing, as some sort of relief from his supposedly heavier and more idea-laden...

The exile's tale: out of Africa, but not quite into America.(The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... What a fiction writer does, says Grace Paley, is "illuminate what's hidden"--and that's exactly what Ethiopian-born Dinaw Mengestu does in The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead), his tender, enthralling debut novel about the hidden...

From pixel to print: e-literate.(The Unbinding)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Walter Kirn's wildly original fiction The Unbinding (Anchor), now in book form, was written serially for Slate in 2006. His twisty narrative about "the plight of what people used to call 'the self' in an age of high-tech snooping" is still a...

In dog we trust: Mark Doty's radiant memoir of loss, renewal, and unleashed affection.(Dog Years)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... "To choose to live with a dog," Mark Doty writes, "is to agree to participate in a long process of interpretation." Life-affirming, lyrical, and profoundly affecting, Dog Years (HarperCollins) is the record of that interpretive journey, from...

Biblio: the art of happiness, doctors' dilemmas, spirit hunger, survival songs.(The Other Side of You)(How Doctors Think)(Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion)(On My Journey Now: Looking at African-American History Through the Spirituals)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... * "It takes faith to love. But perhaps it takes greater faith to be loved." So ruminates psychiatrist David McBride about his patient Elizabeth Cruikshank, a failure at both suicide and romance. David himself has long been haunted by the death...

The Triumph of her will; Gifted, driven, amoral: a gripping biography of Hitler's favorite filmmaker.(Leni)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... "I MUST MEET THAT MAN," LENI RIEFENSTAHL USED TO say whenever she sensed that a powerful male might advance her film career or enable her to navigate the tricky political and social minefield of pre-World War II Berlin. Seduced by her beauty...

Books that made a difference to John Edgar Wideman: reading is his business, his air, his water, his way to "chase the creature" he might turn out to be. The writer on the titles at the top of his list now.
March 1, 2007... READING IS A KIND OF BREATHING FOR ME. I GREW up with four siblings in tiny houses and apartments. Privacy was a luxury. Reading provided personal space to negotiate, no matter what was going on across the room or at the other end of a sofa....

The authentics.
March 1, 2007... WE KNOW IT WHEN WE SEE IT, and we love the people who live it--the ones we can count on, always, to be brazenly, exhilaratingly themselves. In the age of spin and truthiness, authenticity is the real deal: speaking up for what you believe in,...

A life that's truthful: "you don't want to show off. You want to just be who you are." The inestimable Grace Paley sits down with Genine Lentine.(Interview)
March 1, 2007... OPEN ANY PAGE OF GRACE PALEY'S cherished and acclaimed stories, poems, and essays, and you'll hear people talking, often directly to you; Paley's voice is unmistakable: startling in its diamond compression, its encompassing heart, its honesty...

Great moments in authenticity (and a few milestones in the history of fakery).(Chronology)
March 1, 2007... Early 1400S Joan of Arc sets the bar high when she says, "To sacrifice what you are and to live without belief is a fate more terrible than dying." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1427 Renaissance master Masaccio unveils his fresco...

We vs. me: not knowing where one of you leaves off and the other begins sounds romantic, but, Valerie Monroe asks, how do you stay true to you when you're also half a couple?
March 1, 2007... HAVE YOU EVER FOUND IT DIFFICULT to be authentic in a relationship? Have you ever wondered why? "Well," says Laura Kipnis, author of The Female Thing, an account of the conflicted state of the female psyche at the 21st-century point, "we...

Life is an improv show: if you're willing to make a fool of yourself, you're on your way to being yourself. But you don't have to take the stage at a comedy club to get real. Katie Goodman explains.
March 1, 2007... I'M STANDING BACKSTAGE ON OPENING night, waiting for the second act of my new show, Broad Comedy, to start. A Pepto-Bismol moment under normal circumstances, but this time an entire bottle of Nexium wouldn't help. This is the part of the show...

Why a real Picasso costs zillions: what's the difference between a poster and the original--besides the money? Alain de Botton looks at the strokes of genius.
March 1, 2007... My feeling is that works of art conjure up very intense, very personal feelings in people: They make us cry and laugh and reflect on our lives. Through this power, we develop a feeling that is akin to a friendship. Works of art tell us...

I've got a feeling ... Wall Street types "earn" millions on theirs, sportscasters make uncanny predictions, and entrepreneurs start businesses that defy logic and become legends. It's all about having the guts to trust your gut. Chip Brown explores what science now knows for sure--and not so sure--about the crystal ball in your belly.
March 1, 2007... AS MY WIFE TELLS IT, GUT THINKING saved my life. Not my gut thinking--hers. Had she not been prompted by some hunch, some deeply felt, hard to describe, scientifically ambiguous inkling from that part of the body that houses what's now often...

The gut whisperer: listening to your body can help you know yourself, make decisions, solve problems, go for what's good for you and avoid what's bad. Psychotherapist Nancy Napier has a few exercises for tuning in.
March 1, 2007... A DECISION-MAKING GUIDE Choose a situation in which you're wavering between two choices. You're going to give your body a chance to help you discover the right option for you. Sitting in a place where you won't be disturbed, take a...

Oh, lighten up!(Buyers guide)
March 1, 2007... Your body is awfully glad it's spring: Adios, thick layers; hello, floaty dresses, pretty blouses, trenches in fresh colors and light fabrics (like silk)... Breezy Dresses They flutter, billow, and just about take off into the wild...

Breathing space.
March 1, 2007... SUNSET AT HERRING COVE BEACH, PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, 2003 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Photograph by Alison Shaw

Dinner on the spice route; Colin Cowie's sweet, tart, tangy Indian feast is delicious, visually sumptuous, and easy to prepare (our host's secret weapon: mail order).
March 1, 2007... IF I WERE TO CHOOSE MY FINAL MEAL ON earth, without a doubt it would be Indian food. I've been in love with the flavors and spices of this amazing cuisine since I was a boy growing up in Zambia. (A little-known fact: Durban, on the South...

Is this any way to treat a face? High concentrations of acid peel away several layers of skin--and can leave you red for weeks.
March 1, 2007... AN AWFUL LOT OF WOMEN--ON TV, ON THE STREET, IN the next office--are suddenly looking remarkably smooth-cheeked, uncannily fresh-faced, suspiciously rested. How did everyone (including certain people whom we know graduated six years ahead of...

The innocence project: a lot of fathers hope their daughters will be virgins until they walk them down the aisle. But some are going a step further--taking pledges to support the girls' commitment to chastity. And formalizing those pledges at what are called purity balls. Amanda Robb gets herself invited.
March 1, 2007... THREE DAYS BEFORE HER 15TH BIRTHday, Elise Forte is at a formal ball. She's radiant in a spaghetti-strapped white tulle gown. Brilliants scattered in her updo catch the soft light of Colorado Springs' five-star Broadmoor hotel. In between...

Honey, I shrunk the jacket: the smaller, shorter jacket--crisply buttoned for work, elegantly fitted for evening--is spring's freshest, most mixable piece. Prices range from sweet and low to generously high-end.(Fashion)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... HOW TO WEAR A CROPPED JACKET * These pieces look best layered over solid separates. * If you're short, stick to minimal ornamentation. To look taller, slip a long, fitted tee underneath, allowing the hem to peek out. * Hide wider...

Cheek sheet: a swipe of blush can be a stroke of genius.(Beauty)
March 1, 2007... I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT of blush the way I think of popcorn with a movie, or lemon in my water--a nice touch but not a must. Yet when I mentioned this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to a few makeup artists recently, they were appalled. "Blush is...

Dinner on the spice route; Colin Cowie's vibrant Indian feast: sweet-and-sour mango cocktails, fragrant spinach and herb rice, snappy shrimp curry, and citrus-spiked bananas over snowy coconut sorbet (for story, see page 238).(THE RECIPES)(Recipe)
March 1, 2007... Bananas in Lime Juice with Coconut Sorbet and Berries [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This dessert can be made up to 24 hours in advance, so it's an easy way to end a meal. 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup fresh orange juice 1/2 cup fresh lime...

Shop guide (all prices are approximate).
March 1, 2007... COVER/HERE WE GO P.43 Dress (available in black and gold), Alexander McQueen, $1,075; 212-645-1797. Earrings, Ted Muehling, $2,000; 212-431-3825. Belt, Alexander McQueen, $545; 212-645-1797. Bracelet, Stephen Dweck, $420, Bergdorf Goodman, NYC;...

The adventure begins: the Oprah Winfrey leadership academy opens its doors.(what I know for sure)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... IT STARTED WITH A CONVERSATION WITH NELSON Mandela, about building a school in South Africa. Before long that idea became my most cherished dream--a school for smart, deserving, underprivileged girls. And as you know, I like to dream big!...