Free Advice
It all started in downtown Manhattan one Saturday afternoon in 1988 when three New York advertising agency employees offered advice to a lovelorn waiter. Soon they had set up shop on a Soho corner, peddling "Free Advice" on anything from "Getting Rid of Your Jerk" to "Involuntary Hair Loss" and "Dog Couture." Quickly, the three--Amy Alkon, Marlowe Minnic, and Caroline Johnson--became a big hit, and before you could say "human interest," they were making the talk-show circuit and being featured in the Living sections of metropolitan dailies from coast to coast. Surprisingly perhaps, the advice ladies' no-longer-quite-as-free advice plays just fine on the page, even without the ambience of that Soho street corner. Whether they're categorizing jerks or offering tips on where not to break up ("somewhere distant where you've driven in one car" ), they manage to combine humor and commonsensical advice, always remembering that taking any problem too seriously is the biggest mistake of all.Ilene Cooper