In this issue:
Seriously Funny: Onstage and in his new documentary, Chris Rock says what you can't—and why we're glad he does.
Also: Taylor Swift: Our Q & A With Music's Girl Next Door
Friday, September 25, 2009 by Rudy Maxa.
I’m back from tying on the feedbag in Los Angeles and can report that Mason jars are all the rage on the best tabletops. Mason jars usually filled with duck pâté or duck confit. Big Mason jars, little Mason jars. I have no idea how or when this trend developed, but there it is.
Thursday, September 17, 2009 by Rudy Maxa.
Don’t you love it when you fly coach and the person in the seat in front of you reclines to the maximum degree for the entire flight? It’s just one of those little irritating things about travel, and it’s not just flying where fellow travelers can give you a case of heartburn. There’s the driver who stays in the passing lane unnecessarily when others want to pass him. The train passenger who sprawls over two seats in order to block you from sitting down. Or the annoying cruise ship passenger who’s decided you’re his new best friend and won’t leave you alone. . . .
Friday, September 11, 2009 by Rudy Maxa.
While my fellow blogger Jason Oliver Nixon jets between London and New York City, I’ve just returned from Stockholm. Wisconsin. You know, from the heirloom tomato festival?
Thursday, September 03, 2009 by Rudy Maxa.
Are travel agents obsolete? When airlines stopped paying agencies fees to issue tickets in 2002, and with the rise of travel planning on the Internet, you might think so.
Yet although there’s been a decline in the number of storefront travel agencies throughout the past 17 years, the actual number of travel agents hasn’t changed much, according to the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA). Given the extraordinary number of hotel, airline, and car rental reservations made online today, how can that be?
Rudy Maxa is host and executive producer of the public television travel series, Rudy Maxa's World. The 78 episodes he has hosted have won numerous awards, including a 2008 regional Emmy for his episode "Rajasthan." He's a contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine and has written for a host of national travel magazines and newspapers. For nearly 15 years he offered consumer travel commentary on public radio's business show Marketplace as "The Savvy Traveler," which was also the name of a one-hour, coast-to-coast weekend show on public radio that he co-created and hosted for four years. Prior to his career as a travel writer and broadcaster, Maxa was an award-winning Washington Post investigative reporter, magazine writer, and columnist for 13 years, during which time his reporting was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He was a senior writer at The Washingtonian magazine and Washington, D.C., bureau chief of Spy magazine. The author of two non-fiction books, Maxa lives in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.
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