Because the door hardly (and by hardly we mean never, ever, ever) revolves at New York magazine, this news is extra hot off the press. New York is taking on a new editor in Jonathan Paul, a former New York Times Magazine freelancer and Vitals senior editor.
With former Strategist editor Ben Williams' spot left vacant (Williams filled an on-line editor role) Paul will fill the role starting Monday.
Jonathan Paul will be joining the magazine as a senior editor starting Monday. He will be primarily responsible for working with Janet Ozzard on the Strategist section.
He is a master at the art of intelligent and revelatory service journalism, and we’re all very happy he’s bringing his talents to our pages.
Also, he's friends with Julianne Moore, so Adam Moss pretty much handed him the job on a silver platter. Fine, not really. Jossip extends its congrats to Jonathan, and hopes that he will enjoy his new job for the next hundred years.
New York magazine's food blog, Grub Street, breaks the news today that a former waitress at high end restaurant Megu is suing the hotspot for sexual harassment. Head chef Mitsuo Endo and line chef Lawrence Herman are among those accused of harassing the unnamed, former Megu employee.
And, of course, because this is a food blog, New York makes sure to decorate the story and it up all fancy and foodie like.
A sexual-harassment lawsuit filed today by a former waitress for Megu, the Tribeca outpost of the high-end Japanese restaurant empire, is hot enough to melt the place's trademark Buddha ice sculpture … Her complaint lists a variety of unappetizing behaviors, some of which involved the kitchen utensils … which were, she alleges, tolerated by the owners of the restaurant, whom she accuses of having a yen for keeping more than the sushi fresh around there.
We guess when it comes to sex and food, some of the descriptions are just reverberated. (Especially when you're eating raw fish.) Take New York's 2004 review of Megu, for example.
Expensive or not, just about everything is worth lingering over. Each piece of sushi, whether a velvet-smooth horse mackerel, a sweetly bracing uni, or bluefin tuna, sparkles … Fried rice tossed with oysters and kimchi prompts a giddy dive for the sake. A glorious chunk of tuna-neck toro crowned with caviar melts on the tongue far too soon.
Mmmm. We just hope hope Endo cleaned off his utensils before whipping up Hal Rubenstein's glorious spread.
Ex-Waitress Swats Back, Suing Megu for Sex Harassment [Geoffrey Gray, Grub Street]
Megu-Hit [Hal Rubenstein, New York]
See magazines, all you have to do is add some bloggers (who are contributing news and feature coverage, not chronicling their vaginas) and you could stand the chance of not folding under the weight of the Internet.
Just look at New York magazine, which has been beefing up their Internet coverage with blog postings and video devoted to such contradicting but NYC staple topics as fashion and food. In addition to hiring Jesse Oxfeld as their web editor and adding a forum for Adam Platt to trash various NYC restaurants, the site also devoted Fashion Week to continuous updates of shows, parties, and gossip. And it paid off. Last week the site was up 8 million page views and 300,000 unique visitors from spring's Fashion Week.
Though, while those number do impress, they actually pale a bit in the shadow of Style.com, who ranked in 54.4 million views on their site and 535,000 visitors. Style.com encompasses Vogue and W magazines — who still maintain their authority on fashion in New York.
So, in the end, Style.com ranks higher on the Approval Matrix of fashion blogs — though New York shouldn't feel too bad. At least NYM isn't running stories on how Women's Wear Daily totally beat them out in the web sector.
Tents Online [Stephanie D. Smith, WWD]
• New York magazines asks if development in Brooklyn begs arson. We have no idea what the conclusion was, but we sense the next victim will be the Nets stadium. [NYM]
• You know that book Jim McGreevey wrote? The man depicted as his lover claims the story is full of lies. See, James Frey can be an inspiration. [NYT]
• The latest trend in New York City high schools? Chlamydia. (We blame 50 Cent.) [NYP]
• Here's to hoping New York's new blog, Grub Street, has better luck than Frank Bruni's diary of a food addict. Also, can we start calling food blogs flogs? [Eater]
• Here's to hoping Michael's doesn't use spinach in their Cobb salad. [ABC]
This week, New York magazines explains how a gay American is made. Via, of course, the personal essay of New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.
We haven't read the whole thing yet … not only because it's five pages, but because of that really creepy photo and the eerie way McGreevey describes his "gay in the making" experiences.
This is how it started. I leaned forward and kissed his neck. It was wrong. I wasn't an ordinary citizen anymore.
Weird. All this time we thought it just took one night at Barracuda, a few passion fruit martinis, and a Banana Republic polo to make an American gay.
The Making of a Gay American [James McGreevey, New York Magazine]
• The DIY Fashion Week approval matrix is here! It's here! We're going to busy for like three hours with this thing. Ok, three minutes, whatever. [NYM]
• Peroni is officially sponsoring the shows this week. Which is all well and good until a model gets confused, thinks it's champagne, and gains 9 ounces. [WWD]
• Fashion inspires blogging, and fashion bloggers are, well, geeks. If you're going to get your fashion updates from anyone, get them from the guy who makes sure Ms. Jossip keeps enough gin money in her pocket. [Fashion Geek]
• Sure, Greg Gutfeld can remember what he would have worn if he had been alive when JFK was assassinated. But he's not that good. For instance, he'll never be able to answer the ultimate question: what were you wearing when you got your period? [Radar]
• Omigod, omigod, Fashion Week. Fashion week partieeees! Everyone will stand around and glare at each other — and it will be fabulous. [FWD]
We are so grateful New York magazine was able to capture this special moment between Sam Champion and Chris Cuomo, two of the new faces joining ABC's Good Morning America.
We know the caption says that Sam and Chris are saying "Good Morning, America."
Yet it seems that the phrase Cumo is uttering here went more along the lines of, "Omigiod, like America? Totally Fab Morning!"
Breakfast With Champion [Jada Yuan, New York Magazine]
In the midst of New York magazine's website updating (well, they say they're updating their website, and they gave Jesse Oxfeld a job, so we hope that's still happening) New York puts out their annual Fall Issue. Yes, on the heels of the Fashion Issue and Best Eats Issue and The Summer Issue and all the other listicles we can't seem to remember comes "The Most Brilliant Issue."
Fall, apparently, is brilliant. Not only because it's full of bursting colors in the parks, but because there is so much to do.
Like the pilgrims, New Yorkers associate the fall with abundance. But instead of pumpkins and yams and those weird nubbly squash things that no one eats, we’ve got Jack Nicholson onscreen, Julianne Moore onstage, and TV on the Radio.
As notorious huge fans (we'd go so far at times to say stalkers) of New York, we at Jossip are a bit disappointed. First off, what's with NY Mag's complete obsession with Julianne Moore? (We think Adam Moss has a little crush?) Secondly, "like the pilgrims?" Sounds like New York is really stretching for a valid reason to bring us more lists of potential advertisers.
Dare we say, "it's a good thing we have Radar now?"
We are going to skip chiding New York magazine for the extremely belated coverage of Katie Couric taking over CBS. We know, we know, it's "timely" because she's starting in a week or so. And the ever refreshing story is even more important to New Yorkers, because Katie stood in our plaza for 15 years. But still.
Gravitas, truthiness, and "Peace out homies" … it's all been run through the press' ringer about 879 times. In fact, we are going to go as far as to say that this article barely contains anything you haven't already seen in the New York Observer or an AP news feed.
Well, nothing except for this little Kurt Andersen-ism.
But if you strip away the jokes from Stewart’s Daily Show performances, what remains is an intelligent, charming, clued-in, puckish, apparently unpretentious, occasionally self-deprecating fortysomething whose responses to news stories seem recognizably, appealingly human. In other words: Katie Couric.
No. No, no, no, no no. Look, Mr. Andersen, save us the faux flattery. It is possible to be a female human being without being a man minus … whatever. So eerily Freudian and so … so wrong. Come on, if anyone is Jon Stewart without the jokes, it's Bill Mahr.
Humor Is the New Gravitas [Kurt Andersen, New York Magazine]
We are about to enter "phase one" of New York magazine's total take-over of the Internet. Before you know it, virtual Look Book people are going to sit on your couch and start rolling joint and painting birds or something. But before we get to that, Adam Moss is starting with Fashion Week. And you can play, too!
Beginning Sept. 8, reports and photos from the shows and around the Bryant Park tents will be collected on nymag.com. Users can group their favorite designs in a photo album, then share their books with other nymag.com visitors.
But it doesn't end there. Celeb socialites like Tinsley Mortimer and Melania Trump will share their fave photos and designs, too. And haven't you always wanted the Tins' input on something before you continue with your day?
The only thing we think is sort of cool in regards to "phase one" is the "create your own Approval Matrix" section. Not only do we predict a daily Choire Sicha creation, but we've always wanted the chance to put Tinsley on the "despicable highbrow" sector of the Matrix.
INTERACTIVE RUNWAY [Stephanie D. Smith, WWD]
If only the Time 100 party wasn't tonight, we might care a little more about New York magazine's list of the most influential people in our city. Well, maybe not even that would help. After all, Intern Zack has only been here three years and he is already so over 90% of these people. (We really need a magazine to tell us that Anna Wintour is important to the fashion industry? Psha.)
But the coverage on plagiarism is pretty hilarious … everyone hates a Harvard kid, after all. And who doesn't want to re-live their first prom? Hey, when you're not reading blogs you need something to bitch about at the water cooler. And while we work on the penny issue, discuss your town amongst yourselves.
• Sadly, Kaavya Viswanathan's saga confirms something we've known for years. Kids can't write for shit. [Generation Xerox]
• And also, thanks to Kaavya, the collective GPAs of most journalism students will go down considerably. [Where Have I Read That Before?]
• And the list, which makes us even more nauseous than the "most beautiful New Yorkers issue" has all the important media folks and real estate nerds. The most frightening? Rupert Murdoch really does own the enitre world. [The Influentials]
• Uh, you can call us art-retarded, but we see fail to see the artistic genius required to host a dinner party. [Let Them Eat . . . Um, What?]
• You know, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson are just so freakin' cute! They should totally have their own sitcom. [Spitz, Paterson Really Split the Ticket]
Table of Contents [New York]
Editorial Director
