Si Demands Anorexic Babies
With the usual disclaimers that we have no idea whether this actually true or not, we present an email that recently arrived in our inbox. It's Si Newhouse's take on the forthcoming premiere issue of Cookie, the who-knew-we-needed-such-a-thing shopping-for-babies mag headed soon to a newsstand near you. All we can say is that the source is impeccable, the chain of custody intact, and the plausibility factor high:
You know how each magazine has to walk Si Newhouse through their "book" every month? (And how he's famous for the most feeble, general criticisms that lead to frantic editors hitting "undo" — i.e., "There's a lot of red in here. Too much red"?) Anyway, it came time for Cookie — Fairchild's shopping-for-yuppie-parents mag, which is launching in the fall — to present. On the cover is a sweet, white, perfectly scrumptious (imagine the casting rigors) baby under a Russian fur hat (probably real fur). Si looks at the whole issue and his response is: "I think that baby's too fat."
We nominate this as the all-purpose mantra that says everything there is to say about the fancy-baby aesthetic, the shopping-mag gestalt, and general Fairchild/Condeness, all in six words.
You think that's too harsh? Yeah, well, we think your baby's too fat.
