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Posts Tagged “
The New Yorker
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not afraid to be servicey
crypto-fascists
'New Yorker' Malkin Profile Hobbled by Idiot Subject's Unwillingness to Participate
Blogger Michelle Malkin is an impressively craven and vile human being, a dangerous demagogue who properly belongs grouped with slavery defenders, flat-earthers and Nixon apologists interned forever in the extreme fringes of the popular discourse, and she's too humorlessly vapid to plausibly attempt Ann Coulter's "it's just a joke" defense. But all that said, she reached her peak of influence and fame a couple years ago, thank god. Still, we'd love to read the New Yorker's forthcoming profile of the reactionary sophist, because maybe it would answer those burning questions about how much influence her insane husband has on her "writing" or maybe it'd just be a ripping good exploration of moral bankruptcy. Unfortunately, shrill Malkin won't cooperate with Rebecca Mead, because Rebecca Mead is a real reporter. Here is a fascinating series of emails demonstrating how not to butter up an unwilling subject. More »
Noooo!
This Cannot Happen
A report is floating around that former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief, former New Yorker EIC, and Princess Diana biographer Tina Brown will be turning her book on the monarch into a BROADWAY MUSICAL! Maybe it's not so far-fetched. After all, Diana—who did some charity work, was pritty, and died—is beloved by foreigners, Elton John fans, and other show-toony types. But, then again... More »
penny for your thoughts
No One Cares About Change
David Owen is a coin revolutionary. The New Yorker writer is in favor of the elimination of the penny, nickel and dime in the name of convenience and common sense. In this week's Money Issue, he argues that pennies have lost their utility. A piece about pennies is the perfect fit for the New Yorker: It's about money in a literal sense, but neither the author nor the reader are expected to know anything about economics or finance. Owen's article is good, but writing about the Mint is just an entertaining waste of everyone's time. More »
herogram
Ben McGrath Is More Than His Father's Son
The New York media scene is a bitchy place. Most people are quick to dismiss early success as dumb luck and/or good connections. But the fact is, at the highest levels, practically everyone has leveraged some kind of connection. Is having your father get you an interview more odious than having a friend from college do the same? After the interview, it's still up to you to prove yourself. After the Sarah McGrath-Margaret Seltzer disaster, people were quick to blame Sarah's connection to father at larger, Charles McGrath, which the Times Public Editor (and Gawker) dismissed as absurd. The same criticism could be leveled against his son, Ben, who is one of youngest staff writers (if not the youngest) at the New Yorker, where Dad was once fiction editor. But nepotism couldn't get anyone to write something as entertaining and exuberant as Ben McGrath's profile on Lenny Dykstra in this week's New Yorker.More »
facebook
I Am A Fan Of 'The New Yorker'
Guess who my new Facebook buddy is? Go ahead, guess. All right, I'll tell you. Eustace Tilley. Okay, not the Eustace Tilley, but I am now officially a fan of the New Yorker on Facebook. That magazine is so hip — first they hire cool kid reporters Kelefa Sanneh and Ariel Levy and now they're on Facebook! I have a link to my awesome blog on my Facebook account, do you think David Remnick will check it out? He'd definitely see from my elaborate explanations of what I did last weekend that I could be the next voice of the magazine. Do you think facebook messaging him some poetry I did in high school would be too much? [via ETP]
the new yorker
'New Yorker's' New Hires Will Explain, Attract the Cool Kids
With layoffs, cutbacks and buyouts everywhere else, the New Yorker is probably the only magazine around that's actually hiring. Kelefa Sanneh and Ariel Levy are joining the magazine, making them respectively the second black guy and first out lesbian on staff. The two are expected to report, presumably on cultural trends. And with these hires, the New Yorker is taking an aggressive step to up their cool quotient. More »
california here we come
This American Social Awkwardness
Last week, Ira Glass, host of This American Life spoke with This American Life contributor David Rakoff at UC Berkeley. What a nice thing for the students! But the engagement was spoiled by New Yorker writer Cynthia Gorney, who can't moderate an event to save her ass. The Berkeley student paper wrote, "In addition to her excessive exaltation thinly disguised as interview questions and an inexplicable penchant for interrupting the witty banter between Ira and David, Gorney's determination to get Ira to elaborate on precisely how he decided to mix in one song over another was an utter failure." Her moderating was so uncomfortable that the school offered tickets to another show to make it up to the guests. After the jump, Berkeley's admission of Cynthia Gorney's failures.More »
magazines
"Three Weddings And A Funeral"
Tina Brown, former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and (the failed) Talk Magazine got inducted into the American Magazine Editors Hall of Fame this afternoon. She summed up her career in the industry as "Three weddings and a funeral." The funeral being Talk. Her most recent claim to fame, a biography of Diana ten years after the princess' death, presumably falls under "grave robbing".
magazines
Why Don't You Just Draw Your Own New Yorker Cover?
Who should win the New Yorker's Eustace Tilley contest, in which the people re-interpret everybody's favorite foppish dandy? We decide! The contestants' work is shown here, but we've sorted through the boring ones. Click to see our favorite entries—they include stoners, a monkey, and hipsters! More »
media
New Blog at The New Yorker
The New Yorker has a new daily "cultural happenings" blog, Goings On. Today includes: Amy Winehouse news, something about author Henry Roth and Hollywood, and a post that begins, "Lunch in Midtown tends to extremes."[Goings On]
the new yorker
Draw Your Own New Yorker Icon
Oh, cute! The New Yorker is having a contest where you can create a modern version of Eustace Tilley, that stuffy ascot-wearing dandy from their first cover who has been peering at us through his monocle ever since! Tilley was created as an "ironic" character, they explain. As it never fails to surprise, "The New Yorker was launched as a gossipy, facetious weekly for in-the-know Manhattanites, a sort of Jazz-age Spy." (Oh...really?) Anyone can play, anyone can win! But can anyone really beat R. Crumb's interpretation? [New Yorker contest]
New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones is concerned that all the indie kids don't try to sound like black people anymore. He went to an Arcade Fire show and was totally bored! Do they even have a rhythm section? It's all shouting and French horns, isn't it? "But, in the past few years," says Sasha, "I've spent too many evenings at indie concerts waiting in vain for vigor, for rhythm, for a musical effect that could justify all the preciousness." Ok so he didn't he get there in time for LCD Soundsystem then? [New Yorker]
gawker underminer
Deviants And "Deviants" At The 'New Yorker' Festival
In this occasional column, one of the authors of The Underminer or, The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life refracts the news of the day through a bile-green lens. This week: the New Yorker Festival and also Internet pervs! More »
It's not that I am suggesting that you go to the New Yorker cartoon bank and try your hand at making a LOLNewYorkerCartoon. I don't care either way. I'm just putting it out there that this is an option.
the riches
The Backlash Begins Against Rich People 'New Yorker' Profiles
Old-school blogger Jason Kottke only got to the third paragraph of this week's New Yorker profile of Donatella Versace (which, ridiculously, is not online). This was what stopped him: "The trouble began when, between appointments, Donatella repaired to an outdoor terrace to smoke. Seated at a wrought-iron table, she thumbed open a pack of 'special DV Marlboro Reds' (so called because her staff in Milan is instructed to cover the customary 'Smoking Kills' label on every pack with a sticker bearing a DV monogram in medieval script)." Writes Jason: "That's as far as I read before deciding that reading yet another article about someone wealthy enough to have a staff helping them opt out of reality is a waste of my time, no matter how well written the article."
they get letters
'New Yorker' Subject Responds
Forget about the ludicrously inane letters that get printed (or written for) magazines like Interview; this week's New Yorker has one of the most amazing pieces of mail we've ever read. It's equally amusing and touching at the same time. More »
no kidding
Shocker: The 'New Yorker' Festival Is Smug And Self-Congratulatory
The Village Voice takes aim at the New Yorker Festival, calling it "the Live Earth of the mind—minus the whole giving-the-proceeds-to-worthy-causes bit. Like Live Earth, the brand infuses the event; the festival features exactly the headliners you'd expect; and the whole production tends toward the endlessly self-congratulatory. Live Earth tickets are more dear, granted, but with New Yorker events running from $16 for a fiction reading to $100 for food tours through lower Manhattan, the competition is stiff." We'd ever so gently suggest that expecting anything associated with the New Yorker to not be "self-congratulatory" is either willingly naïve or charmingly optimistic, but we can't totally disagree with any piece that contains the line "The only satisfaction of the night came in realizing that [film critic David] Denby is just as irritating live as in print."
Pleased to Meet Me [VV]
