• NYT managing editor Jill Abramson gets into it with playwright David Hare, tells him that the Times is "the central arbiter of taste and culture in the city of New York." We'd argue with that—but if it isn't, well, what is? Right. Also: theater people are never fucking happy with anything. [NYP]
  

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"The history of American poetry, like the history of America itself, is a story of ingenuity, sacrifice, hard work and sticking it to people when they least expect it," says Times poetry specialist David Orr, before going on to do just that. The stick-ee is New Yorker contributor Dana Goodyear, who recently pontificated at some length about Poetry magazine's unseemly efforts to make poems more mainstream and palatable, perhaps in order to please the rich philistines who recently gave the foundation that owns that magazine a buttload of money.