Jay McInerney, he of Bright Lights, Big City, Rielle Hunter, and Gossip Girl cameos, has found a new reason to melt his cynics heart. Barack Obama represents a new era of tolerance and inclusion, says McInerney, and he's just so happy Middle America has gotten on-board with the coastal states on this one:
While we were celebrating here in New York, we should have raised our glasses to the voters in Virginia and Florida and Ohio because they were the ones who decided to change course, and who decided the election. We should feel very glad to have them back. After all, a liberal elite can't run a democracy by itself. Perhaps they were responding as much to the frightening meltdown of the economy as they were to anything else; at any rate the Democrats in Washington would do well to treat them better than the Republicans did during their ascendancy.
Yeah Jay. You and your BFF Brett Easton Ellis did a really great job depicting how all-inclusive and magical LA and New York was in the 80s. Too bad the American Psycho era ended when all the Patrick Batemans of the world lost their jobs on Wall Street.
Just sayin': Jay McInerney made a career out of books depicting the hedonism and excess of the East Coast wealthy. Let's not pretend that those aren't the same people who voted for Reagan.
For some reason today you're lucky enough to be treated to a list of famous people in NYC who will shoot first, ask questions later. Some unsurprising results: did anyone think Robert De Niro really left his Taxi Driver days behind him? And some truly stunning examples of homeowners who own more firearms than silverware.
Alexis Stewart, Martha's daughter, bought a gun for her $3 million Tribeca loft after 9/11. Not for potential burglars or rapists, mind you. But just in case she has to leave and go all Old Yeller on her pets:
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As bad as that town hall presidential debate was on Tuesday (it was the worst), a lot of it could be blamed on the terrible format, the weird lights, and Tom Brokaw's incessant whining. So the third and final debate next Wednesday in New York is going to be better right?
Not if Bob Schieffer has anything to do with it. The anchor of CBS's Face the Nation is moderating, and yes, it will also be the worst debate:
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Is it just me, or is Woody Allen's UES home a little bit…WASPy? It looks like the type of place owned by Diane Keaton's family in Annie Hall, instead of the "under the Cyclone" Brooklyn feel of Woody's own childhood. But whatevs, when Architectural Digest gives you a tour of one of New York's most famous iconoclasts, you don't complain.
You just look for all the creepy pedophile stuff. See if you can spot it in this picture:
After a fare hike whose implementation saw neither the subway's efficiency increase nor its piss smell decrease, the New York MTA has a plan to drum up some much needed cash to cover next year's $900 million deficit: whole subway cars wrapped in hideous advertising.
Entire cars have been turned into commercials before, but those ads were relegated to the the cars' interior. Now, even the sad bastards just walking past a midtown shuttle full of schmoes off to some other hellish destination in this filthy city will have to face pictures demanding they watch the History Channel.
It's like the graffiti the NYC government worked so hard to combat, just without all the annoying artistry and anti-commercialism.
Uh oh! Will.I.am, he of crap.py quartet the Black Eyed Peas, got a big head in light of the success of his "Yes We Can" video. Prepare to be positive video-ed to death.
On Thursday in New York City, Will, his band mate apl.de.ap, musician Angelique Kidjo, actress Kristin Davis and model Elle Macpherson all helped launch a "new" campaign to halve global poverty by 2015. Neat, if not really new.
In fact, this campaign is an initiative to help revitalize a plan originally put into motion eight years ago by the United Nations. Many of the countries the UN had hoped would be well on their way to destroying poverty by now are nowhere near achieving their goals. Clearly, this is a job for apl.de.ap.
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Why buy the cow when its way of life is so reliant upon you that it can't leave, despite the fact that you rob it blind? That's apparently the abusive husband-like thinking of the city of Los Angeles, which continues to watch shows formerly filmed in its borders – Ugly Betty, In Treatment – head east after failing to offer film and television productions tax breaks comparable to those of New York City.
LA has always sucked, but it's going to suck even more if visitors driving around and looking at it can't every 20 minutes go, "Hey, that's that building from that one movie." According to the numbers, that's happening quite frequently these days. The mayor's office estimates that in just five months since the city of New York enacted their massive tax breaks, city-based shoots have contributed $505 million more in spending than they did during the same time last year.
And New York's not the only city wising up to how profitable playing nice with the movie stars is:
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Um, what the hell just happened? No, seriously. I have never been more confused and at a loss for words than I am at this very moment.
I chose to witness the David Blaine Dive of Death from the comfort of my living room instead of trekking over to Central Park to hang out with Crazy Jennifer. The ABC special lasted over two hours — packed with filler and the host's false claims that David had stayed in an upside-down position for 60 hours — and Blaine still couldn't complete his stunt in time. He performed some of his world-famous card tricks, he caught a bullet in (a metal cup in) his mouth, and then he performed the Dive of Death. This DoD was never fully explained, so the DB-hating roommate and I just sat staring at the screen in utter confusion as he dove from a 44-foot-high platform while attached to a harness. He got stuck about halfway down and then was lifted back into the air. This is where things got really weird: The production crew flickered the lights on and off a few times and then cut away from David in the air, claiming he "vanished into the night." And … credits.
Upon hearing that David Blaine would idiotically be hanging upside down over Central Park for three days and two nights, I dispatched my lovely roommate Sara to witness the spectacle during her lunch break. Among her findings: "David Blaine is SUCH a little cheater."
Turns out the whole promise of hanging upside down for 60 hours straight failed to include the times he stretches his body horizontally and then stands straight up, on his own two feet, for multiple check-ups. Oh, and the whole suspension thing is a joke: Most of the time he's hovering over the ground, chatting with tourists and bystanders. So this — "he will hang upside down above New York's Central Park for three days and two nights … suspended six stories up on a highwire" — is totally false.
The Anchorage Daily is Alaska's biggest newspaper. And with a readership that large (probably not that large, it's still Alaska after all, and everyone there speaks Russian), and with so few home heroes to to celebrate, perhaps the daily would be kinder to their "hottest governor" and current VP candidate Sarah Palin.
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We all know violent sexpot New York has no respect for herself – really, how could she? – but had you any idea how little she cares for the feelings of others?
In the newest episode of televised pockmark New York Goes to Hollywood, Pollard attempts to research Japanese culture for an upcoming commercial role. Of course, she goes about this not by heading to the library for The Book of Five Rings or scouring Wikipedia, but by asking every Asian person she sees if they can explain Japan.
New York City’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade theater hosted a 72-hour improv comedy marathon over the weekend, so it’s not surprising that the jokes eventually turned to Heath Ledger, Estelle Getty and Bernie Mac’s recent deaths. But guest panelist Brooke Shields was evidently caught off guard:
Last night Swoon magazine had their 4th issue release party at the Clemente Solo Velez cultural center on the L.E.S. We went to check out the crowd, and see if anyone there, unlike us, had actually read the magazine—which has poor, fallen Leelee Sobieski on the cover, and Charles Bukowski's unconsenting ghost giving style advice inside.
And for the most part, no one had! So why did they come? One bewildered young man said, "I was following some girl I have a crush on, but I think she left. But she brought me here! That's a good sign, right?" (Um, maybe not). A girl wearing a plaid bra as a top said she'd never read the magazine, "But my friend's one of their photographers." That's honest!
Genesis P-Orridge DJ-ed and generally looked exhausted, and Preacher and the Knife played—we'd never heard of them before, but they didn't suck. We might even like them.
This young lady's outfit was made entirely of kitchen supplies. From the back, it gave new meaning to Swoon's "NYC Radical Cheek" tagline—assuming the tagline had an old meaning, of course.
New York Governor David Paterson’s sticking to his good, gay word.
The politico, who took over after Eliot Spitzer’s hooker scandal, vowed earlier this year to bring same-sex nuptials to the Empire State. While couples can’t yet marry within state lines, Paterson and his team this month declared that New York must accommodate gay marriages performed elsewhere, like California, which will likely start issuing same-sex marriage licenses June 17th.
Oh, New York!
Home to scalliwags, hoodlums and people who glamorize living in rat-infested lofts. It's really quite spectacular.
After the jump, intern Anastasia indulges her New York loving side with a romanticized dissection of city living. But not everything's hunky dory, of course, like - wait for it - "misplaced" anger at hipsters.
Yeah, we were shocked, too.
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You know that part in Breakfast at Tiffany’s where Holly Golightly’s telling super-boring Paul Varjak about the mean reds, and she says, “When I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's”?
Well, for intern Anastasia, Mars Bar is just as good as Tiffany*. Nay, better!
She explains it all, after the jump…
[*Don't you hate it when people call it Tiffany's, like in the movie?]
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See this horror to the right? That's a girl dancing at last week's so-called Silent Rave in Union Square.
You're probably thinking, "What in the world is a silent rave?" We wondered the same thing, so we dispatched brave intern Anastasia to find some answers. She didn't exactly find anything concrete, but her experience makes us worry for future generations.
And ourselves…
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I sat through fifteen minutes of Robohamlet before walking out. I know, I know - it's lame and rude and all that, but I had no choice.
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We know, we know, we're a bit late in bringing you Intern Anastasia's latest "Here Is New York," but we've got a great explanation - um, well… Okay, we don't have any explanation, so, without further ado, here's Anastasia's take on Ryan McGinley's latest pictorial exploration, I Know Where The Summer Goes” at Team Gallery.
POWER TO THE DELIVERY PEOPLE A judge has ruled in favor of the Saigon Grill delivery guys. saying their owner illegally fired them last March and should reinstate them. If you don’t live and/or work on the Upper West and/or Greenwich Village, the Saigon Grill delivery people have been striking over unfair work conditions. But before you order their Mi Xao Don guilt free, the restaurant is planning to appeal the decision. [NYT]
Editorial Director
