2,000 words on "Canadians who live in New York—sure, that's a trend" and yet the name "Sklar" does not appear once. You guys didn't do your homework. Still, we learned lots of other terrifying things about these foreigners and what they want from us: our jobs! Canadians, you see, are a mysterious and dangerous race of attractive young superbeings!
Canadian celebrity journalist Malcolm Gladwell got in a bit of trouble recently for telling an embellished story about sneaking a funny phrase into the Washington Post. Canadian less-famous journalist Clive Thompson recently received a minuscule amount of press for admitting that he's jealous of Gladwell. This, Clive, is not the healthiest way to work through those feelings: "These tools raise a fascinating, and queasy, new ethical question." [SilverJacket]
Fox News correspondent and alleged harasser Rachel Marsden was escorted from the News Corp. building last year after parting ways with late-night show Red Eye. But now she has been allowed back on the premises to distract terrified American homeowners into staring at her outfit instead of thinking about what she's actually saying, which is that the free market is about to foreclose on their homes. Marsden wrote in to say she did a Fox Business News segment Friday on subprime mortgages, and that it was in the building from which she had once been banned. Also? She loves everyone at Fox and they love her back. From the email:
Ex-Fox News host Rachel Marsden wrote in to let everyone know she's totally moved on from her former "Red Eye" co-host Greg Gutfeld. You'll recall that Marsden was once accused of stalking and questions were raised over a rape allegation she made in the late 1990s. Last year she was escorted from Fox studios after what she described to us as "a format change in the show from 'politics and news' to 'tits and ass,' which fell outside my area of specialization." (As to the photo at left, Marseden has said on her website it was taken "just for fun" for a site called "Babes for Bush.") Marsden, also known as Canada's answer to Ann Coulter, has totally moved beyond all her Fox woes, she writes in two not-at-all-bitter emails to Gawker, reproduced after the jump.
Thanks to New York's secretive and shadowy Canadian Cabal for their fast and servicy response to our story on how they control the media! Canadian media critic Rachel Sklar jumped into action, quickly posting her exhaustive list of all the Canadians she could think of. More than 70! Some of them are dead (Peter Jennings?), others of them not quite bigwigs (Rachel Marsden?), but we did forget some important ones. Like Dahlia Lithwick and Laurie Hibberd! Canadians are better even then Jews at knowing each and every member of their relentlessly polite tribe, but even Ms. Sklar leaves some unmentioned. Much thanks, then, to tipsters who supplied the following names:
A story in Canada's National Post about how Canadian journo Clive Thompson is secretly jealous of more famous Canadian author Malcom Gladwell made brief mention of "a Canadian mafia of print journos that exists in the Manhattan magazine world." There are more Canucks in the New York media world than you might imagine, and nearly all of them hold positions of terrifying power. Do you know your Canadian Mafia members? Join us on a trip through Manhattan's dirty underbelly with the Molson-guzzling old time hockey aficionados who secretly run the media.
Did you know Canada finally has its own Perez Hilton? It does, and he's named Zack Taylor, which of course isn't his real name, just what passes for a fun pen name in Canada. Anyway, he's more attractive than Perez and, because he's stuck in Canada, probably works a lot harder to find posts for his IsThisHappening.com. And they're so cute! Examples, along with identity of the Cannuck at left, after the jump.
· For at least their first three nights back on the air, the writerless Jay Leno has triumphed over WGA-sanctioned rival David Letterman in the Nielsen wars. In another sign that the TV apocalypse may finally be upon us, shows like Wife Swap, Supernanny, The Biggest Loser, and Celebrity Apprentice are so far either posting the same numbers as or outperforming the scripted shows they've replaced for their networks. [Variety]
· Walden Media deems High School Musical star/naughty nudie-photo-scandal victim Vanessa Hudgens still pure enough to employ, signing her on to their coming-of-age dramedy Will. [THR]
All too often in Hollywood, the price of success is finding oneself named on a lawsuit by an aggrieved individual who feels that his or her own hard work on a story about, say, the dehumanizing effects of suburban Christmas-lighting competitions or about the so-deep-undercover-we-don't-know-which-way-is-up adventures of whitefaced African-American FBI agents has been unfairly appropriated by a studio hellbent on enriching themselves with ill-gotten material. According to a CBC report, Knocked Up's Judd Apatow could soon find himself sued by a Canadian journalist who feels that her personal tale of an unplanned pregnancy (detailed in the book Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be—a match!) was too closely mimicked by Seth Rogen's wacky, yet human-condition-illuminating, insemination of Katherine Heigl:
Heather Mallick is a Canadian columnist-broad with an axe to grind against Roger Hodge, the new editor of Harper's. Heather's problem with Roger is that Harper's doesn't publish enough lady writers. (Their 2006 numbers: "118 male bylines, only 17 female"). Heather feels angry about this, and has also been upset by the way in which Hodge has responded to her complaints: "You don't read Harper's because of the sex or race or the regional background or ethnicity of the contributors." Fortunately for Heather, she can take some joy in the fact that the mag doesn't move a lot of copies.
