Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

Everyone's talking about Jonathan Franzen's new book Freedom, out this week. The novel follows a stifled middle class patriarch and the dark underpinnings of his seemingly ideal family unit. New York Magazine calls it a work of genius. The New York Times says this really long, good thing: "With this book, he's not only created an unforgettable family, he's also completed his own transformation from a sharp-elbowed, apocalyptic satirist focused on sending up the socio-economic-political plight of this country into a kind of 19th-century realist concerned with the public and private lives of his characters."

Okay. Sounds good. What's the cover look like? Oh. There's a bird on it. These books, also out this week, have men's ripped chests on the cover.

Read More »from 8 other hot new books about the measure of a man (specifically his chest)

When Back to the Future 2 premiered in 1989, we were all still patting ourselves on the back for inventing Velcro. Shoe security couldn't get any more evolved right? Wrong. Leave it to Michael J. Fox's McFly to inspire the next shoe-lace invention: the self tying sneaker. It was conceived, along wit

The new class: Twilight takes over colleges across the country.
Joyce, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Meyers? The Twilight Saga is entering the curriculum this Fall, at colleges and universities across the country. Shine combed through course catalogs from the Ivy League to the Big Ten, to discover the Stephanie Meyers trilogy on several syllabuses. With a third of ticket buyers for the movie Eclipse under age 24, according to a Fandango Poll, the current generation of college kids are largely responsible for franchise's success. So is academia responding to a cultural phenomenon or pandering to a powerful market group? That will depend on the course structure. But one thing is certain: the classes are totally going to sell out.

Course: Vampires: From Sin and Exile to Sex and Salvation
College: Rutgers University
The Vampire trend isn't just a inspiring entertainment. This course combines historical analysis of "the Old Testament,the Inquisition and many cultures' religious beliefs and practices that fueled the belief in vampires world wide." Bram

Read More »from 7 Fall college courses based on Twilight

Real Housewives of DC star Cat gambled her relationship and lost. (Bravo Network)It's an age old story. Girl meets boy. Girl meets reality show. Girl loses boy. Cat, the biting British villainess of "Real Housewives of DC", has seen her marriage of less than two years implode in the months since filming the new Bravo series. On the one hand, the exposure might translate to sales of her upcoming memoir. On the other hand, she lost the man she loved. Was it worth it? Cat may be on the fence.

In yesterday's New York Times profile of her photojournalist ex, Charles, she hints at second thoughts. "Having all that gone has been incredibly challenging, and I've had to do a lot of soul searching about how we've got to this point....Every time I see Charles," she added of watching the show, "especially last week, when he comes and surprises me on a photo shoot, and the look of love for him I have, and the admiration I had and in some way still have - it's painful."

Sure she seems sad, but notice the plug for the photo shoot for her new book embedded in her quote. A few

Read More »from Housewife Hold 'Em: Would you risk true love for fame?

If this looks like a musical instrument to you, you were probably the shortest kid in high school.

From elementary school through senior year teachers loved to arrange our bodies in height order. Assemblies, class pictures, sporting events, bus line-ups, lice checks, you name it.

Possibly the cruelest thing you can do to a group of kids, at any age, is organize them by their physical traits. Why don't they just do flattest to breastiest? Or smallest pores to largest erupting whiteheads? The height line-up is just as bad if you're on one of the extreme ends of the spectrum. I was. That's why I feel for 14 year-old Elisany Silva, who's recently been named the world's tallest teenager at six foot nine. As my grade's shortest teen, and pre-teen and zygote, I know what a major role height plays in school. Especially when you hear those dreaded dictatorship commands: "Class! Line-up in height order."

For the next four years, teachers will arrange the class according to height as if the students are a pile of blocks in a spatial psychology experiment. My only message of hope for Elisany

Read More »from Memo to world's tallest teen: at least you're not short

John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston are not back together, says John Mayer. Thanks for the update. That's fine with me. How many people even wanted them to reunite? About 52,000. That's my totally unscientific estimation based on the number of views their tribute video got on YouTube.
Sure he's a fickle opportunist and commitment-phobe and she's a damaged dater in need of a commitment, but remember all those times her rubbed her back on that one vacation they took? Celebrity break-ups are really hard for us non-celebrities. And some are just impossible to get over. In fact, some people (who make and watch tribute videos) are still holding out hope for the following former twosomes.

Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz: Both blond, both sporty, how will they ever find a better match?

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson: This video is called "A Perfect Couple". It's one of countless tribute videos posted as recently as last year beseeching the Ken and Barbie of our generation toRead More »from 6 Celebrity exes YouTube is desperate to reunite

And I've got an itching for a monkey. Ever since photos of that monkey and its adopted kitten surfaced, all I can think about is how I want a monkey to adopt me. He could nuzzle my face, prepare me lunch, clean my apartment, bare his teeth when I did something clever, detangle the knots in my hair (sidenote: he's welcome to eat anything he finds in there) and scratch my back until I fell asleep. I know this sounds like a fantasy but some monkeys are equipped to do most of that.

Through Helping Hands, an organization established in 1979, monkeys are trained to offer human assistance to those with severe disabilities, including paralyzation, at no cost to the patient. This organization is genius, and only trumped by the monkeys it mentors in a two year helper training program.

"Monkeys learn how to help people with simple everyday activities such as opening and setting up a drink of water, picking up a dropped or out-of-reach object, or turning the pages of a book. Monkeys use their

Read More »from Monkeys trained to scratch your itch

*Causes may or may not be real issues but refer instead to things that you can say seriously while looking into a camera. Any similarity to actual causes is purely coincidence.

The cause: Fashion's Night Out. It's to benefit fashion. Yeah, just fashion in general. Why? It just needs more money from you. Just a blank check made out to Fashion c/o Anna Wintour will do.

The models: Miranda Kerr, Chanel Iman and others

Why you should care: "You're making a choice to help a whole industry that touches us all," says someone with a thick, smoldering accent and some kind of throw blanket on her shoulders. That should be enough information for you. But here's more: Imagine a world without Campari sponsored after-parties, hyperbolic tantrums, or long walkways on which people walk back and forth for eight minutes. That could be in our future if we don't get regular people to spend more money they don't have. The biggest victim in the economic crisis has been the fashion industry, as we all

Read More »from Models and their amazing, inspired, brave causes*