What we have here is an ad for Canadian clothing chain Harry Rosen featuring New Yorker scribe Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell did the ad for charity, so we're going to let it go this time, but, uh, wow, they really have a different idea of celebrity up north, don't they? Also, we want to know if they used a hairstylist for the shoot or if that's just the way he showed up.
While scouring the web to search for an appropriate image to accompany our earlier item on Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse we came across this photo of Si with loveable New Yorker scribe Malcolm Gladwell. We find the Blink author's expression priceless, if somewhat inscrutable. Any guesses as to what's going through his mind?
'People have forgotten that - and this is not by any means an exaggeration - David was the great newspaper reporter of his generation. And had he never been anything but a newspaper reporter he would be, right now, the best. At the Washington Post there was one day when he had three stories on the front page, which I don't think has ever been repeated. He was in a league by himself. So the idea that he would have a second act where he would outperform his first act is kind of unbelievable.'
• We did not go to Slate's pre-party panel discussion last night on the future of newspapers in the internet age, as we long ago decided we'd never attend another print-vs.-web panel. Others have a more flexible stance on this issue. [E&P]
• Speaking of The Note, Eric Boehlert kind of hates it. [Wash. Monthly]
• Lauren Weisberger's eye-catching title, The Devil Wears Prada — by which we mean the actual four words of the title — perhaps wasn't even her own coinage. The horror! [WWD]
• Look, mom! We're in Nexis! [Media Mob/NYO]
Got fifteen bucks and a tremendous amount of self-hatred? Then you'll want to spend it on the provocatively titled discussion "Online Media and the Future of Journalism" at the Public Library on June 22. That's right, as a celebration of Slate's tenth anniversary, the online mag has put together a panel to consider the ways in which the Internet has affected the delivery of news. In accordance with federal laws concerning the approximately three thousand panels each year on this subject, Arianna Huffington is a participant. Other members include Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Kinsley, Norman Pearlstine, and Jacob Weisberg, which, in other circumstances, would make for the world's most annoying poker game. Don't get us wrong - we're pleased as punch for Slate. Has it really been ten years? So many memories: Learning about the joys of monkeyfishing, watching Judy Shulevitz apply for a job at The Times, seeing every prediction made by Mickey Kaus turn out to be comically wrong... we could go on and on. As for the panel, though, we're going to take Gladwell's advice: Our first instinct says this may be the most boring event at the library since Frank Rich's play about Adolph Ochs. We've got to believe that instinct is correct.
The Time 100 party was held last night at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was a swell event filled with local swells, all dolled up in black tie and entertained by Stephen Colbert, the Dixie Chicks, and Paul Simon. (Liberal media, you say? Feh.) We were standing off to the side of the room when rhymin' Simon started playing, and we had a spectacular view. Until Malcolm Gladwell decided he liked our view, too.
• Time for another Fake Writer to emerge... How about Dan Brown, the far-too-rich author of The Da Vinci code? Two London writers are suing Random House over allegations that Brown's novel lifts key elements from their 1982 book — just in time for the movie, no less. [MSNBC]
• A tip of the hat to pop star George Michael, who was arrested in London this weekend after authorities found him parked outside of Hyde Park, high as a kite. Oh, how far we fall from the halcyon days of bathroom masturbation. [Rolling Stone]
• More on Caligula and the awesome perv behind it all. [Artforum]
• Malcolm Gladwell blogs, signifying the medium's tipping point (ba-dum-dum). [Gladwell]
• Artist Neil Goldberg captured the expressions on subway-riding New Yorkers' faces at the exact moment when they realized they'd missed the train. It's depressing enough to make you stick to cabs. [Encyclopedia Hanasiana]
• Speaking of which, Melissa Plaut — the voice behind the delightful cab-driver blog New York Hack — gets her big coming out party in the Washington Post. Not too shabby. [WaPo]
Tina Brown, on her decision to invite entertainment mogul Barry Diller and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell to participate in her talk show: "There must have been a good reason why I had decided to team these two people together in the first place. It was some creative high concept rationale about them both being mavericks in different spheres. I must have been insane to invite two of the smartest people I know to come all the way out to a shake-down cruise in a TV studio in New Jersey. Was I on drugs? I should have booked Celine Dion."
The Washington Oscars [Times2]
Tina Brown's new talk show, "Topic A with Tina Brown" debuts tonight at 9PM EST on CNBC. Tonight's guests: Barry Diller, Sony Corporation of America chief Howard Stringer, Hollinger Inc. chairman Conrad Black and Queen Noor of Jordan, writer Malcolm Gladwell, and historian Simon Schama. Tina on her absence from the magazine world: "I miss being a journalist as such, being a journalist in the mix of the news. I keep thinking every day of articles that I would assign. And I keep thinking, why isn't anybody assigning Anthony Swofford, the author of 'Jarhead,' to go to Iraq? It seems to me mad. I would have done that instantly."
Tina Brown: I've always put myself in the hot seat [IWantMedia]
Dialogue with Tina Brown [Hollywood Reporter]
Press release: Topic A with Tina Brown [CNBC]
