Unceremoniously dumped (or self-dumped!) during the sale of Spin a year ago, glamourpuss Sia Michel, once the first woman to edit an American rock mag, has finally made her berth at the Times permanent. She'll now be the pop music editor, in charge of all the Arcade Fire needs of the young generation of newspaper semi-readers.
Much as we admire the whippersnappers who bring us Weekend Gawker, we must take issue with their decision to award the coveted "Best cat-related remark" T.M.I. award to someone other than Sue Pike, who is a "slender 45 year old" from Prospect Heights who is "in the field of animal communications." That's right: Sue is a kitty psychic! The Times finds her tending to the needs of aggressive Gatti and shy Lola, whose voices she channels in a "high-pitched girlish tone." After the jump, Gawker's own Mulder and Scully (guess who is who!) try to figure out whether Sue really has the power of sight beyond sight. Hint: no.
The New York Times mag fills a front-of-book page with a grab bag of the week's correspondence. Some of the people they print are mad, some are sad, and some are impressed. Who are these people? Why did they decide to write in? Did they read whatever they're writing about during brunch? Or, was it on a porch! Gawker Weekend will provide you with that back story.
Remember when Randy Cohen, the Times Magazine's morally-minded advice columnist, revealed a lady's name when he wasn't supposed to? Well, we're not about to say he's done it again in his latest piece, but the ghost of last week's gaffe is unmistakably present this weekend as Cohen appears to take shocking pleasure in publicly exposing the unethical behavior of someone who has sought his counsel. This week's target is Paul Kramer, a reformed Jew from Montclair, N. J. who serves as the production director at Glamour (hate to say we told you so). After the jump, we examine Krame's crime in light of last week's controversy, and catch up with him on the phone while he's shopping at the supermarket.
The Boston Phoenix's Adam Reilly notes some cherry-popping in the Globe: On Wednesday, "for the first time, the Globe published a story from the New York Times News Service," which was followed by two more yesterday. Globe editor Marty Baron told Reilly that "[W]e're likely to use the stories that represent especially strong enterprise and scoops—particularly anything that we're unlikely to find from the other wire services we have." See, Globesters, it's not so bad after all: They're not outsourcing your jobs to Banglaore, they're insourcing them from New York!
Why does the profile of celeb stylist Rachel Zoe in today's Styles bring to mind some other recent take on the career of a maligned, super-successful lady? Maybe it's quotes like this one: "She brings almost a prescient sense of where the market is going to be, and of where peoples' tastes are." Yes, Rachel Zoe is totally the Ultragrrrl of LA! Or fashion! Or being thin! Or something. And like yesterday's controversial Voice article, this piece doesn't have much new info, or many quotes that don't sound political or hedgy. In fact, the truest-sounding thing anyone says in the whole thing is probably Rachel herself: '"Over the last year I've learned to develop a really thick skin." Well, clearly.
Today's Times features a heartbreaking story about perinatal hospice programs, which help parents who choose to carry fetuses diagnosed with fatal conditions to term cope with the grief and trauma associated with the loss. The article starts off on—get this!—an unhappy note!
"Occasionally we're surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It's an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It's not about getting the joke. It's about getting along." This was the not surprising finding of a recent study involving a horribly unfunny joke about talking muffins and female grad students, who laughed much more if the joke-teller was perceived to be in a higher-status position. Hear that, Christopher Hitchens? That "real, out-loud, head-back, mouth-open-to-expose-the-full-horseshoe-of-lovely-teeth, involuntary, full, and deep-throated mirth" is just ladies reacting to your famousness, not your funniness. OKAY?
What's So Funny? Maybe Nothing [NYT]
"The history of American poetry, like the history of America itself, is a story of ingenuity, sacrifice, hard work and sticking it to people when they least expect it," says Times poetry specialist David Orr, before going on to do just that. The stick-ee is New Yorker contributor Dana Goodyear, who recently pontificated at some length about Poetry magazine's unseemly efforts to make poems more mainstream and palatable, perhaps in order to please the rich philistines who recently gave the foundation that owns that magazine a buttload of money.
We always treat the New York Times like a closet full of stuffed shirts. But one should never forget that it's staffed by the nerds of the forensics club, the once-quiet bookish folks you ignored in study hall, with a smattering of the gays of the school theater and some mathletes. Witness today's Q&A with departing Times Book Review copy editor Alison McCulloch, published by the in-house school paper, Ahead of the Times.
What happens when gods start sinning and angels fall? That's the question raised in today's issue of the Times Magazine, in which Randy Cohen, the once infallible man better known as The Ethicist, admits to accidentally Robert Novak-ing a creative writing professor in the Feb. 25th edition of his column. Apparently Wendy Rawlings, who teaches scribble skills at the University of Alabama, didn't want her name disclosed when she asked Cohen whether her colleague had been wrong to submit a student's short story to a fiction anthology without receiving the student's permission. It's the first correction Cohen's had to run in eight long years of Ethicizing, and as it happens, it's a double whammy.
Today's issue of T is devoted to men's fashion, and just about everything—from the piece on how Greek-style homoerotica is making a come back in advertising to the photo essay on flirty college kids— is par for the course. Except! On page 104, which features the above picture, and a column called "The Mantry." Apparently, this will be a recurring feature, in which author Oliver Schwaner-Albright will "[demystify] cooking for greenhorn gourmands." This piece in particular is called "Race for the Cured." It's about all the different salamis you can eat.
You know, the good thing about weekends is it gives you time to relax. To unwind, to stretch your legs a little, and also maybe your word count a bit. But what to do with that extra space and freedom? Recently we've noticed that the New York Times has taken to filling the weekend void with poetic, allusive, hyper-detailed descriptions of underage girl-bodies that seem, well, just this side of yucky. Don't believe it? Read on.
The New York Times mag fills a front-of-book page with a grab bag of the week's correspondence. Some of the people they print are mad, some are sad, and some are impressed. Who are these people? Why did they decide to write in? Did they read whatever they're writing about during brunch? Or, was it on a porch! Gawker Weekend will provide you with that back story.
Earlier this week, David "Skulls" Colman declared in the Times that d tente has been reached in menswear for the first time since the French Revolution, or maybe the '70s: everybody's wearing slim suits. But leave it to the contrarians at Journal Pursuits to problematize things for the weekend; according to Ray A. Smith, the present era isn't one of tight jackets and low-slung trousers—it's about fat ties!
