"Would you like a dinner companion who changes the location four times, shows up late, answers an endless succession of cell phone calls, talks about how much money he makes, drops the names of his more famous friends, doesn't ask you so much as what you do for a living, ducks out before the check comes, and probably won't acknowledge your existence if you should run into him again?"
amNewYork, the newsprint equivalent of TV in the classroom, has finally arrived. The free morning daily's marketing plan: treat mohawked L-train riders like Walmart-working Middle Americans. AmNewYork's publisher says of his rehashed-wire-feed advertising circular, "[People] don't particularly need vast autobiographical tracts by self-indulgent writers with a point of view."
Yesterday New York Mag's senior editor Michael Steele jumped ship for Us Weekly, following the path of New York's former Intelligencer columnist Marc Malkin. Is it going to be an exodus while the magazine is up for sale? Or will this induce the publishers to give New York's senior editorial gang loyalty payoffs like the cash thrown at editor Caroline Miller and others? Yeah, that'll happen.
Keith Kelly [NY Post, last item]
"The Medienneurotiker is to have offered in a conceivablly short "Expos " its autobiography for the purchase," writes Der Spiegel — well, in a bad Babelfish translation. The skinny is: Woody Allen's autobiography is for sale at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (That Fair is where the vast majority of publishing's foreign rights are sold). Mr. Allen says that as soon as he gets signed to the highest bidder, he'll actually start writing the memoir. German publishers are reported to be cackling at Mr. Allen from behind their Wursts and Biers in that demonic German way they have.
Von Krieg und Gier und Liebe [Der Spiegel]
Of War and Greed and Love [Der Spiegel in bad translation]
"Dressed in a green sweat shirt and blue jeans," Buffalo convenience store owner — and film-maker Vincent Gallo's sister — Janine Gallo was sentenced to six months + probation for harboring the daughter of an allegedly abusive family.
A (possibly drunk) reader writes in to SpiersWatch™:
So quickly the tide turns. In yesterday's NY Observer, media-lover Sridhar Pappu wrote, "By now, it seems that half the men s-room attendants in this town can rattle off a list of would-be bidders and their prospects." In Media Life, Jeff Bercovici insinuates that it's hard to care about the magazine's sale, and dismisses New York mag as a washed-up remnant of a once-great institution.
The Shrivernator, new Queen of California, is back at work at NBC. She and the network now must figure out what news stories La Maria may cover without conflict of interest.
As a rule, I do not read the Op-Ed page of the Times. Consider today: "Ground Zero" financing (boring), White House labor legislation (care? could you?), Muslims in Europe (yawn), and, worst of all, an editorial on baseball.
With the sort of hard-hitting exclusive for which they've become infamous, Sridhar Pappu brings a stunning story to the front page of this week's New York Observer. According to media reporter Pappu, the Post's gossip maven Cindy Adams has secretly died several weeks ago.
Joe Dolce (dumped as Details editor in 1997, not chosen as a cast member of Queer Eye in 2003), may now move from temp to perm as editor of Bonnie Fuller's Star magazine. Dolce had allegedly been working on film and television projects post-Details; he then found solace back in magazines at the celebrity mag Us Daily. Dolce was famously accused of gaying up Details during his reign; given the fruity state of men's magazines today, I'd say he was just a few years ahead of his time. Mr. Dolce lives in TriBeCa with his gay homosexual lover, Miramax Books' fast-talking salesman Jonathan Burnham.
Star Fails to Find Editor [NY Post]
Not a week goes by that we don't receive a concerned email regarding the publishing schedule of Radar magazine. Actually, these emails are not usually so much "concerned" as they are "snide." Our stock reply has been: "The second and most recent issue of Radar appeared in June. You connect the dots."
The anonymous scoundrels at TMF,TML are as obsessed with the NYT Magazine's laughable description of the 00s as the 70s as we are. In their outlandish rant on the Magazine, they provide the Gawker Official Definition of New Yorker-hood:
We're all a little freaked out today (and not just because we can't tell if we really are living in the 70s, as per Sunday's NYT Magazine). Seriously: none of us knew just how much New York Mag's media columnist (and Dr. Evil impersonator) Michael Wolff was getting paid. Now that we do, we all feel sort of... unclean.
New York Magazine gets into the GroveWatch™ act with a group of gossip hounds (including yours truly) providing helpful advice to Lloyd Grove, the Daily News' new gossip man.
That singer unfortunately named Dido is something just short of a celebrity. (If it were the 70s, she'd be Studio 54-level famous.) Most New Yorkers would walk right past her without her even registering. Last week Dido released a new album or something and had a big party in the library at Soho House; the popstar at least had the sense to take note of the room's misnomer — the library does not actually contain books. We're sure it made her feel right at home.
A Diva Rides the Whirlwind [NYT]
The Post on Soho House's Library
It's the 60s that are definitely back, not the 70s, in this Times Sunday Styles article on George Plimpton, Paris Review editor and party animal. In the archetypal photo of one of Plimpton's famous parties printed in the Times, William Styron and Truman Capote look remarkably untortured; Gore Vidal isn't touching anyone inappropriately, and a couple of women are being allowed to actually speak.
The Sunday Times' Book Review has once again, with just a few weeks lagtime, caught up with Gawker. (Personal to the Book Review: while there's that big editorial shakeup going on over there, a note to the new editor-to-be — please fire your art director. The Book Review looks even more stodgy than it actually is. I know the 70s are back, as the Times Magazine so very rightly said, but c'mon.)
