Holy shit. In our analysis of what magazines are getting trimmed down to nothing in the upcoming weeks or months, we somehow overlooked entirely Men's Vogue. Because hell, it's Condé Nast, and nothing bad ever happens to those guys, right? Si Newhouse practically invented the upper echelon privileges of town car services, clothing budgets, and expensive dinners for the staff, billed to the company. So there is no way that say, Men's Vogue may be cut down entirely, and every single title under the Condé umbrella will be forced to do staff cuts, is there?
Si Newhouse's legacy will include more than reinforcing women's unhealthy body images and getting celebrities to cry for the cover of Vanity Fair. It also includes his namesake journalism school at Syracuse University, which I attended. And graduated from. (As did Stereohyped's Lauren Williams.) Walking the halls of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, you'll see the walls lined with framed photographs of famous alma maters: Bob Costas, Bill Safire. (Sen. Joe Biden graduated from SU, but not from Newhouse.) And beginning October 14, magazine journalism students (that was me) will have their very own … clubhouse! This is sort of big news to the students there, and it comes on the heels of the unveiling of Newhouse III, the school's third building, which has the words of the First Amendment etched in glass and running the circumference of the building — a giant "Yes, we're hypocrites!" when compared to news of SU wanting to ban gossip site JuicyCampus.com. So why is the unveiling of a new lounge for magazine degree candidates such big news? Because it's a sign that the Newhouse School is investing in, rather than backing away from, the field, even though all signs point to it dying. Or at least changing dramatically.
Also: Because New Yorker editor David Remnick, a Newhouse alum with chiseled cheekbones, will deliver the keynote at the ribbon cutting. CONTINUED »
One time a friend suggested getting a tattoo of a really cliche New Yorker cartoon panel near a *achem* personal area. The idea was to make it as quintessential as possible (for a goof!): something like two pigs with top hats in a bar, toasting each other with martinis.
While you hope that no one is actually pretentious/ironic enough to actually get this done, the anecdote does serve to illustrate the point that New Yorker's cartoons are something of a cultural touchstone: you can identify the line drawings and drôle witticisms from a mile away.
So you know that when NYer's entire cartoon collection for this week's issue feature nothing except panel after panel about the Wall Street crisis, even cartoonists are feeling less than optimistic about the current economic shitstorm.
Herewith, some Wall Street fist bumps: CONTINUED »
The Magazine Publishers of America will announce the winners of the their 2008 Cover Awards this Monday, which is sort of bittersweet news for an industry which is going down the shitter at an alarming rate. Well hey, it's like Michael Scott said in last night's weight-loss episode of The Office, "I don't care what any stupid scale says, you guys are all gigantic losers."
Pictures of the three candidates up for 2008 Cover of the Year, after the jump:
David Remnick has more than a hoard of angry cable news pundits, attack dog right-wing bloggers, and two perturbed presidential candidates to deal with in the fall out from this week's Barack Obama cover. He also has advertisers to answer to. Ad sales execs there say the cover was discussed with advertisers in every single meeting on Monday, "and not in a good way." Though counter that with the official NYer statement that clients haven't been voicing anger over it, and nobody is pulling ad pages. So while you needn't expect next week's issue to be any thinner, you might, in fact, see a thicker magazine in your mail slot of Remnick makes room for the flood of angry letters they've been receiving. Maybe they can beat Vanity Fair's 981?
So here's the takeaway from this New Yorker/Obama scandal: The magazine meant the cover as satire; no media outlet that expresses an opinion can take every viewpoint into consideration; not everybody is going to get it, and that was sort of the point; and yes, the right-wing is going to have a field day with this.
Also: The actual 14,500-word article "Making It" that the cover was illustrating, written by the magazine's Ryan Lizza, is getting zero attention.
Even when Lizza dropped by Hardball. CONTINUED »
While David Remnick spends his hours defending this week's controversial New Yorker cover, one thing is worth nothing: The magazine's liberal slant isn't the only evidence that it's actually on Barack Obama's side. Editors at NYer donated some $4,800 to his campaign. "The largest donation, $2,300, came in February from Francois Mouly, the art director for the magazine. Writer and editor Roger Angell gave $500 to Obama, also during the primary race; while staff writer Joshua Hersh and theater critic John Lahr each $1,000 to him in 2007." (A search for Remnick contributions this year turns up zilch.)
God bless David Remnick. Were it not for his New Yorker cover this week, and his insistence that its depiction — of Barack Obama as a radical Muslim giving wifey Michelle a good old fashioned fist bump while, for extra effect, an American flag burns beneath the mantle, where Osama bin Laden watches over — the cable news talking heads might have to devote another five days of punditry to the economy, or bother touching on the near collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But now Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, and Lou Dobbs can wrap their heads around this glaring symbol of ANTI-AMERICANISM!
And while we all debate over whether this cover is a depiction of the Obama mythology and scare tactics perpetrated by the right wing — Barack is an Islamic radical! Michelle hates America! — we're nearly certain zero attention will be paid to the footwear that illustrator Barry Blitt chose to deck the couple out in. Michelle dons a pair of military boots to match her army fatigues, and Barack sports the sandals any Muslim in traditional garb would be wearing. And they're both stamping upon the eagle that represents all that is free and good and whole of this country. Burn them at the stake! CONTINUED »
Even your borderline autistic stepson could recognize the obvious similarities between the image at left, from a 1962 Tales to Astonish Marvel comic book from Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, and the image at right, a Cartoon Contest item from The New Yorker drawn by Harry Bliss. The New Yorker cartoon makes no mention of its origins, but after a mini scandal began brewing over plagiarism when a University of Wisconsin recognized the similarities, the magazine responded that Bliss intended the drawing to be an overt Kirby reference; that those in the know would just get it. [NYP] Nevermind, though: On the website, the cartoon will be re-identified as "Drawing by Harry Bliss, after Jack Kirby." Or maybe it should be "Drawing by Harry Bliss, after Jack Kirby, after stealing the idea of ripping off a New Yorker cartoon from Elaine Benes."
Reading The New Yorker each week is a lot of responsibility, so here is our completely biased guide about what to check out.
Calvin Trillin, Richard Ford and Amy Winehouse make an appearance in this week's New Yorker.
Trillin covers racism in Long Island, and we live just a train ride out from Long Island! The piece could be a conversational life raft if you're ever seated next to a bridge and tunnel'er at a dinner party.
Richard Ford has a new short story this week. We haven't read it, but we're assuming it deals with the existential struggles of the aging, heterosexual American male.
Sasha Frere-Jones, our favorite music critic second to the ever witty Kelefa Sanneh, reports on Amy Winehouse. Get ready for the ironies of "Rehab" to be parsed into oblivion.
• A letter to the editor of the New Yorker is a little self-serious, even for the New Yorker. Turns out that nice image above is scientifically impossible. Also, that cat would totally get trampled.
• Lesbian hands look like straight women's hands, only a little more wrinkly.
• Even with all the real-life spoilers, the extended season of The Hills looks really good.
• Shocker: The Gene Simmons sex tape is gross. That said, his lady friend is quite flexible.
• No American should idolize Paula Abdul after her new video. See what we did?
• Pink keeps up the pretense that divorce isn't heart-wrenching. You know, she's doing it for the kids. What a role model.
Reading The New Yorker each week is a lot of responsibility, so here is our completely biased guide about what to check out.
This week is the Anniversary Issue. There are a lot of great things to read, and you'll have two weeks to read them. Depending on how fast you go through the New Yorker, that's good or bad news.
Anyway, we're excited because three of our favorite New Yorker contributors have pieces in this issue. Alice Munro has a short story and Susan Orlean has an investigation about umbrella technology. We're betting Alice Munro will say something poignant about Canadian angst and Susan Orlean will change the way you think about umbrellas. Prepare to have your mind blown.
But more exciting than those two chicks is David Grann writing about true crime in Poland. That may not seem interesting, but this guy can make water systems interesting. In fact, he has.
Hendrick Hertzberg talks about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the comment piece. Advice: wait until Wednesday to read it. His rhetoric has the power to control minds.
Reading The New Yorker each week is a lot of responsibility, so here is our completely biased guide about what to check out.
This is a new feature, so just assume from now on that Talk of the Town is out. Guess what, the Bush administration sucks and a lot of funny things happen around the city. Moving on.
All the features this week are ostensibly boring, but probably will end up being great because they're well-written. The New Yorker is predictable like that.
The back of the book is much more intriguing with Alex Ross reviewing Radiohead's guitarist Jonny Greenwood's compositions, Nancy "YouTube Who?" Franklin writing up In Treatment, and David Denby criticizing How She Move, along with the whole dance genre.
For our money, How She Move is the piece to read. When high culture judges low culture, everyone comes out either snobbish and stupid, the adjectives that describe us best.
Here's what you need to know about the shake ups going on inside Conde Nast: Vanity Fair will continue to run mindless celebrity cover stories and The New Yorker will continue to not select our caption contest entries.
Oh, and publishers are changing! Basically, Chuck Townsend is clearing out anyone who had an allegiance to the just-deceased Steve Florio. Golf Digest and Fairchild Fashion Group chief Mitchell Fox and Lucky publisher Sandy Golinkin are out. Fox will be replaced by Condé Nast Portfolio publisher David Carey; Golinkin will be replaced by Teen Vogue publisher Gina Sanders, who also happens to share a bed with Steve Newhouse (who should one day be running Si's empire). Meanwhile, New Yorker publisher Lou Cona is heading upstairs to run with Richard "Mad Dog" Beckman's pack, replacing Amy Churgin.
Fashionable toddlers, however, will continue to adorn the cover of Cookie. The more things change …
So yesterday we read part The New Yorker winter fiction issue while getting a mediocre workout on the stairmaster. Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz, two of our favorite writers, have stories, so it seemed like Chanukah came late this year. (Just kidding, mom. We love the scarf!)
Anyway, Jhumpa Lahiri's story, "Year's End" (which isn't online, ugh) was a continuation of her piece "Once In a Lifetime" from May, 2006.
We're not the literary paparazzi, but it seems like Jhumpa Lahiri's next novel will incorporate these two pieces.
We know speculating about the next book from a slow-moving and award-winning author has less scheudenfreude appeal than guessing how long it will take for Jamie Lynn Spears's unborn fetus to go to rehab. But if there's any time to be earnestly excited about something, it's around this season.
Last night we finally picked up the New Yorker. Jonathan Lethem’s story was weird, and frankly if the New Yorker didn’t run an excerpted version of Fortress of Solitude, which admittedly made us cry back then, there’s no way, no way, it would have gotten into this issue.
Lizzie Widdicombe had another classic Talk of the Town piece. Just because she’s good doesn’t mean we resent her any less for regularly publishing in the New Yorker 18 months after graduating Harvard.
And Malcolm Gladwell was back to his pre-Tipping Point days in his piece on I.Q. tests. In other words, we enjoyed him again. But apparently we were mistaken. CONTINUED »
Even though we know that special issues of the New Yorker are just an excuse for more ad pages, we still fall for the Cartoon Issue, which came out last week. After all, cartoons are the reason we still read started reading the New Yorker.
But this year’s edition featured a cartoon by Lee Lorenz (left) that seemed eerily similar to a drawing by Gary Larson (right) from 1984. CONTINUED »
Wherever there are anniversaries to be celebrated, stories to be told and drinks to be had, we are there.
So when we got invited to the Moth’s tenth anniversary gala, we started rummaging around for a pair of tights. Actually, we had no tights, but it was strongly suggested that we not wear jeans. In a business suit, we were the only female guest in pants. The women took this “gala” stuff seriously. So there we were, inappropriately dressed and uncomfortable. Sigh. CONTINUED »
There's much you can say about Sam Zell. This week, the New Yorker tried to say it all with an especially lengthy profile of the possible future owner of Tribune Co. And Ken Auletta wasn't even behind it!
Unlike the magazine's Mort Zuckerman profile – what's with the media mogul obsession? – this doozy is worth reading, if only for the anecdotal poetry. And the tidbit about the polyester jumpsuit. CONTINUED »
CMJ is the biggest week in independent music in New York. And since MTV is based in New York, it might as well make a perfunctory effort to cover the happenings.
And what a perfunctory effort it is! Today, Mercer Street NYSC regular John Norris interviews that hot new band, Vampire Weekend. You know, the one the New York Times and the New Yorker wrote up months ago.
MTV News would be better off giving up the music pretense and sticking to its strengths. Do you guys have any Heidi and Spencer news?
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