Farm Report

NEWS FROM INSIDE CAMPUS DRIVE AND BEYOND

"I play with food because there's great fluid mechanics there." -- Jeffrey Koseff, professor of civil and environmental engineering, on the secrets of a lively lecture.

The Pajama Princesses of Pop Culture PJ PLAY: Deregowski and Maxwell dress for work. Mark Estes Lynn Deregowski and Jenny Maxwell have heard it before -- that they laze around in fuzzy slippers, that their lives are a perpetual slumber party. Such are the occupational hazards when you run a hip sleepwear company called The Cat's Pajamas. Deregowski and Maxwell, both '94, are unlikely fashion moguls. After realizing that their dream jobs (Jenny at Bill Graham Presents and Lynn at Lucasfilm) weren't all that, they brainstormed ideas for a company. The breakthrough concept: high-end ($70 to $90), sophisticated pj's that are also kitschy and fun. Now their creations -- printed with sushi, ladybugs and pin-up girls -- are in 150 stores, including Nordstrom and Anthropologie, and have been worn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mad About You. Each tv appearance brings a flood of orders. "We were on Will and Grace last night, and all of a sudden Germany, Arkansas, Australia -- everyone needs yummy sushi pajamas," Deregowski says. But the partners turned down a chance to be in the Victoria's Secret catalog. Ramping up production to that scale would have been a huge financial risk. They prefer to build the business slowly. "We started this because we wanted to sleep through the night," Deregowski says. "I sleep like a baby." Wearing the Cat's Pajamas, of course.

Glenn Matsumura

Diamonds Aren't Forever It was the first valuable diamond necklace fashioned in the United States, and Leland Stanford wanted to give it to his wife on their 26th anniversary. So, when the couple traveled east in 1876 for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, Leland bought the "Riviera demi-parure" from Tiffany's. It was the beginning of Mrs. Stanford's collection of Tiffany bijoux that grew to include three sets of Spanish crown jewels and six strands of pearls from Empress Eugénie of France. The collection earned her a nickname: the American Queen of Diamonds. All that remains of the collection is a peeling painting of 34 exquisite baubles. Mrs. Stanford commissioned the life-size rendering in 1897 as a way to remember the jewels, which she planned to sell to bolster the University's precarious finances. The original is stored in the basement of the Cantor museum, but a reprint appears in John Loring's new book Tiffany Jewels (Harry N. Abrams, 1999), which tells the story of Tiffany's decadent creations and the Gilded Age women who wore them. Mrs. Stanford's jewels were sold, and Tiffany experts say their whereabouts are a mystery. But the proceeds went to a nobler purpose -- an endowment to buy library books. Its name? The Jewel Fund. 'It's Not Exactly a Stanford Education' Glenn Matsumura The Jack Nicholson voice fairly drips with sarcasm: "Wanna spend a year at Stanford? Be prepared to hock the Mercedes." So begins an ad for the San Francisco Examiner that has aired on Bay Area radio stations for the past several months. The announcer goes on to extol the virtues of the afternoon newspaper, then concedes, "It's not exactly a Stanford education. But at least you won't have to listen to that annoying band." The creator of the radio spot, advertising executive and Idaho State alum Mickey Lonchar, is unapologetic. "All's fair in love and advertising," he says. "And for those who didn't go to Stanford, it is an annoying band." The ad is one in a series aimed at increasing newsstand sales of the ailing Examiner. "We wrote these spots to be a little bit smart-ass and left-of-center," Lonchar says. "We wanted to communicate that a 25-cent newspaper is an affordable way to learn things and juxtapose it with some things that are not so affordable." Then again, maybe you do get what you pay for.

Courtesy PeaceWorks

Make Food, Not War Daniel Lubetzky has his own formula for world peace -- and it relies heavily on sun-dried tomatoes, olives, eggplant and pesto. Those are some of the flavors of Spraté, the spreadable pâté imported by Lubetzky's company, PeaceWorks. Founded in 1994, PeaceWorks makes deals with specialty food producers in conflict-torn regions -- the Middle East, South Africa, Central America -- and in the process turns enemies into business partners. "When people from different groups work together, they shatter cultural stereotypes," says Lubetzky, JD '93, whose interest in reconciliation was sparked in part by his father's experience as a Holocaust survivor. Besides Spraté (marketed under the "Moshe & Ali" brand), PeaceWorks products include Alteca Trading Co. salsas and spreads from the Chiapas region of Mexico, Wafa chocolate bars from Israel and a new line of pasta chips out of South Africa. They are sold online and through 5,000 retailers. "It's a very enjoyable thing to make money and do good at the same time," Lubetzky says. In other words, give profits a chance.

Tune In, Turn On and Gas Up ON THE ROAD: The Madsens Courtesy Bruce Madsen What happens when you combine job burnout with wanderlust? Ask Bruce and Julie Madsen. Six years ago, the couple had high-paying jobs and a comfortable home in Shaker Heights, Ohio. But Julie, a psychotherapist, was tired of hearing people's troubles all day, and both felt demoralized by the violence that filled the nightly news. They decided to ferret out good news on their own. In 1995, Bruce, MS '68, quit his management job at General Electric, and Julie closed her practice. They sold the house, hitched a travel trailer to a truck and set off looking for uplifting people and upbeat stories. They found plenty -- from the one-armed woodcarver in Texas to the parish priest in Florida who single-handedly cleared a swamp to make a soccer field. In fact, the Madsens met so many ordinary people doing extraordinary things that their first book, Inner Views: Stories on the Strength of America (Quixote Publications, 2000), will spill into a sequel. Tired but inspired, the pair ended their wandering in San Francisco, where Bruce now manages computer-assisted design at an architectural engineering firm and Julie works on a UCSF lung research project. They'd hit the road again in an instant, Bruce says, "but for now, it's back to work."

I Was a Teenage Author GIRLS' GUIDE: Egerstrom Rod Searcey It's a common refrain among middle school girls: you just don't understand. And it's true, says Marisa Egerstrom, who just finished her freshman year at Stanford. Early adolescence is a pivotal time, she says, when girls are trying to form an identity while grappling with puberty, peer pressure and parents who don't get it. So, during her senior year in high school, Egerstrom wrote and designed a handbook to help girls cope with threats to their self-esteem. "There were a lot of things written by PhDs," she says. "What was missing was something coming from a girl." Egerstrom was inspired to write Lift Your Voice (Maple Tree Publications, 2000) after interviewing groups of 11- to 14-year-olds. The book's main topics -- stress, friendships, sexuality and body image -- come straight out of those talks. "They really can solve their own problems if given a forum," Egerstrom says. Egerstrom's Minnesota school district was the first to use the book, after awarding her a grant -- the first ever given to a student -- to publish 2,000 copies. She has since self-published another 3,000, which Girl Scouts, health classes and after-school groups around the country have snapped up. At Stanford, Egerstrom plans to major in sociology, although she doesn't necessarily intend to focus on girls' self-esteem. "But the whole thing seems to keep on snowballing," she says, "so who knows?"