Working in advertising always seemed depressing, but wait! Publicis employees, you're in luck! Tomorrow, New York magazine is swinging by your office—as they are with a whole bunch of other offices in town—to take pics for an "Office Life" photo essay, and all you have to do is act NATURAL. Act natural, Eric Cosper! Yeah that's right. Just like that. Yeah, baby.
In an attempt to reach the diffident 20-something reader, New York magazine, that arbiter of cool to suburban orthodontists' wives throughout the tri-state area, has come up with a brilliant plan: Par-tays!
When Steve Fishman detailed the scandalous doings of fired Wal-Mart marketing exec Julie Roehm in New York's February 12 issue, he downplayed the possibility that Wal-Mart had been justified in firing Roehm and her colleague Sean Womack for having an inappropriate relationship in favor of a thinkier take on the flaws in Wal-Mart's corporate culture. Fishman quoted Roehm as saying that she knew what her former employer had in terms of evidence and that "It will look sensational, but it's irrefutable evidence that we're really good friends ... he's like a brother to me." Today, the Times excerpts some of that irrefutable evidence: "'I hate not being able to call you or write you,' Ms. Roehm wrote early last fall, according to an e-mail message Mr. Womack's wife provided to Wal-Mart. 'I think about us together all the time. Little moments like watching your face when you kiss me.'" Like a brother? Like an Angelina Jolie brother maybe!
Snakes In the Garden [NYMag]
Wal-Mart Fights Back [NYT]
"What makes me really sick is how New York now looks like a bad imitation of Sex and the City. Meatpacking is a good example of just how fucked up it is. You can't have a city that's interesting where the only people living in it are rich," Chris Noth told New York mag, echoing his earlier anti-Meatpacking sentiments—you know, the ones we recently used to justify breaking our ban on stalker sightings of the hounddog-eyed 'star.' He's repetitive, yes, but the thing is, he just gets righter! We hereby officially lift the ban. But when you send your sightings, make sure not to identify Noth by his Sex and the City moniker, 'cause he totally hates that: "When people call me 'Mr. Big,' I can't help feeling a kind of contempt."
Big Regrets from Former Mr. Big [NYMag]
New York's current issue works the well-worn "New York vs. [INSERT CITY HERE]" territory that local editors have been so thankful for lo these many years. This time around London is the other burg, and the questions are fast and furious: Who's the world's financial center? Who's got better food? Who's having better sex? It's essentially the stuff that you see in New York (or Time Out) each week, but this time with an opposing team. Sneaked in amongst the comparisons, though, is "Which City Is a Bigger Terror Target?," one of the more bizarre "mine's bigger" arguments we've heard in a while. The general consensus seems to be that New York is safer (See, advertisers? Nothing to worry about!), but can we just suggest that maybe we gather together in some kind of transatlantic alliance and point a finger towards Los Angeles? Or Dallas, maybe? After all, we've both already given at the office.
In this week's New York, under the truly hideous, execrable, bad, unholy, unbelievable, ridiculous, breathtaking, freakishly rotten headline "What They Were Magically Thinking," is an "intimate" slideshow chronicling the rehearsal process behind the dramatization of Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, starring Vanessa Redgrave. You won't learn much new, but we have to ask: When did our girl Joanie turn into Mary-Kate Olsen?
This morning's Sun reports that—due to his stunning popularity—the Barack Obama fundraiser already moved to The Grand Hyatt hotel from its original location was selling out its new block of tickets quickly. This did not come as news to us! We'd already gotten the following missive from event planner Serena Torrey, who is better known as New York magazine's flack.
Serena Torrey, the ice goddess publicist responsible for letting the world know just how excellent New York magazine—and everything associated with it—really is, may be more talented than any of us really know. She spends her days toiling in the trenches of Mosstown, lovingly handcrafting paeans to the mag's ever-growing ad page count, but she can't stop working in her spare time!
It's New York's Best of New York Issue! So many superlatives! So many fine things in our city celebrated! Take, for instance, the award for "Best Pig." It goes, quite justly (it is fucking phenomenal) to 11 Madison Park's suckling-pig confit.
All is not rosy in the land of New York mag's now-married former dating columnist Amy Sohn. In next week's magazine, she reveals that her husband is a "momblocker." A couple things, now. Sohn is using "momblocker" as in "cockblocker." But this PG modification doesn't really work. What Amy is trying to use English to say is that her husband, the pseudonymous "Jake"—real name CHARLES MILLER, for chrissakes—is "blocking" her from her mom-ly duties by being all perfect and super-dad-like. For starters, the borrowed term implies a weird hetero-homo hate-fucky aggression that just doesn't fly in the toddler-parenting arena.
We hear conflicting reports about New York magazine's upcoming move—their lease is up in September and they're a-lookin'. Some staffers are waiting in high suspense and haven't heard anything, but we also hear from inside that it's a done deal—that the lease has been signed and it's still under wraps. The staff would be very surprised if the new address wasn't Holland Tunnel-adjacent 1 Hudson Square. "I don't believe that that's entirely true but I will let you know when it is," a icy blonde spokeslady Serena Torrey told us, when we asked earlier this week if the lease was signed. Ooh, we'll just sit here by the phone then!
The book that was the real reason for Judith Regan's firing—at least according to New York magazine—has found a new unscrupulous publisher. The Lyons Press, which according to its website is "proud to publish the most distinguished list of fishing books in the world, as well as quality works on horses" has acquired the rights to 7, the Mickey Mantle bio that reads like bad erotica (For instance: "Mickey enters [Marilyn Monroe], going in nice and easy ..." ). "It's one of those books that a lot of people will love, but some won't," author Peter Golenbock told the Times yesterday. Those 'people' presumably include HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, who "hit the roof" when the book was decried on the cover of the Daily News. Will anyone still care by the time the book comes out? Well, says Golenbock, "The only change was from 'Regan' to 'Lyons." So... no.
Our day-after breakdown of last evening's New York mag Oscar party at the Spotted Pig was so brutally detailed, we had to take a break and come back. In this second and final installment, the gals learn who Bill Hemmer is, discuss the spelling of former Jane editor Jauretsi Saizarbitoria's name (she's pictured, sparklingly, at right), and contemplate using the Spotted Pig as an apartment.
Last night, you watched the Oscars from your couch with a bucket of Cheez Things. Gawker editor Emily Gould and Gawker associate editor Doree Shafrir watched the Oscars at the Spotted Pig with people from reality TV and the bitchy queens of New York magazine, while Gawker photographer Nikola Tamindzic took lovely pix. Jealous much? Well, don't be: it was damn hard to see the show over all those people's heads. (Ooo, sort of a pun!) But Doree and Emily did make some fun new friends at the party, like ganja-toking socialite Arden Wohl (pictured above with a pregnant pal). And they even made it home in time to catch John Travolta's bizarre allusion to his queenliness. The first half of their epic postgame IM convo is after the jump.
Oh, God, today's Lloyd Grove piece on Barbara Walters. The thesis: Barbara was badly damaged during the recent Donald Trump/Rosie O'Donnell contretemps. The question: Can she survive the age of blabbermouth stardom? The article: A semi-competent rehash of everything you've seen about Walters in the last twenty years, written around a subject who wouldn't talk directly to the author, but who did offer plenty of friends to give quotes. We can handily save you the agony of reading the whole thing.
Well, you know we'd been lying awake at night wondering what Britney's public combustion meant—not just in terms of her status as a simulacrum of our culture, but in terms of the symbolic values she herself is assigning to her subversive actions. Umm, yes, that's what we were thinking. Today, thank heavens, New York magazine's art critic, Mark Stevens, has explained it all.
No doubt you've seen New York mag's Fashion Week food diaries by now. And if you're anything like us (or like some other blogs), you marveled at the decidedly, er, minimalist intake of Elle Fashion-News Director and Accessories Editor—and onetime Project Runway judge!—Anne Slowey. Anne managed to make it through Fashion Week on, basically, packets of Emergen-C, grande iced skim lattes, and three olives. We aren't even really exaggerating; lady is restrained. As an experiment, we decided to see how our eating habits stacked up to Anne's. Gawker Editor Emily Gould, whose dignity is pretty much 100% gone already, volunteered to contrast her daily grazing with Anne's. The results will probably not surprise anyone.
Or, to be more precise: Bratz-y! New York mag catches up with the contestant who consciously filled the villain slot on the last season of the Bravo hit, and reveals that his success isn't going so successfully: "I'm totally broke," he's quoted as saying. But hasn't the show helped him sell out, like, at all?
Ben Mathis-Lilley, last week in New York Magazine:
We are so excited that New York magazine picked Fabiola Beracasa as one of their extra-special celebrity bloggers for Fashion Week! She is so knowledgeable about fashion! And she knows everyone!!!!! Let's take a peek at her first entry:
