Blogger Gabe at Roth Brothers brought up a searingly important point, something that's been troubling us for a while: why does the placement of items on New York Magazine's Approval Matrix sometimes seem arbitrary, high/lowbrowness axiswise? Could it be that graphic design is trumping fairness when, say,
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This week's New York is chock full of handy suggestions for the amount New Yorkers should tip the various service types they encounter on a daily basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the list skews a little upper class in its recipients (doorman, personal trainer, nanny, etc.). After the jump Gawker offers some suggestions for those of us who don't have to worry about tipping the guy who garages our Beemer.
In New York's roundup of what luxury goods rich people who can afford eight of them want for Xmas, recently-rehabbed designer Donatella Versace's strikes us as telling. White sand, eh? Well, tropical vacations are fine and good, but nothing beats skiing.
Who cares about anything besides real estate, IVF, and getting into prestigious exclusive colleges? Not New York, clearly. This week's inferiority-complex inducer is an article about the insane impossibility of getting into college, wherein crazily overqualified applicants are evaluated, then dismissed ("a red flag is the Ping Pong club" "it still puts him in the right range for a minority, socioeconomically disadvantaged student") by an expert: "Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise, a school-admissions consulting company."
Don't get us wrong: we love pork as much as the next ex-vegetarian Jew (actually, probably way more). But as far as trends go, we think the upscaling of pig is pretty lame. We mean, $108/lb Lomo Iberico ham? People, it's pork! Oink oink! Not a luxury item to fetishize! The only thing worse than the luxeification of this formerly reliably humble meat has to be the horrifying descriptions of cocktails that reek of Iron Chef: Battle Pork in yesterday's Styles:
Two early-30s New York Magazine contributing editors, two strikingly similar reviews of 'Dirty Blonde' — one in the mag, one in this weekend's NYT Book Review.
First, the confession of fandom:
Ariel Levy: "For this I love Courtney Love. Oh that's right, I sometimes think when I hear her, her music is actually really different, and really good."
Emily Nussbaum: "Her 1994 album "Live Through This" was the first rock I'd ever heard that really focused on women, with lyrics about breast-feeding and rape and competition, but done with humor and a nutsy aggression rare among female performers. I listened to it about 50 times."
But what's Love's big failing?
Rubbing your success in people's faces without being tacky about it is always a tricky proposition. If you try too hard to flaunt your wellbeing, you might come across as braggy — or, god forbid, it might seem like you're overcompensating, or being pettily vindictive. So a subtle approach is probably best, especially if you're trying to make sure that, say, an ex best friend knows that you've succeeded where she has failed. A subtle approach like, say, a magazine column.
Craving even more information about things that are only relevant to Jay McInerney than you can get merely from perusing his latest thinly-veiled autobio or his House&Garden food blog? Boy, has New York Magazine ever got an article for you. In it, the leather-faced Voice Of Several Generations Ago dishes about a closely-guarded secret he's recently discovered: that the rich people whose parties he's invited to don't want to live on the Upper East Side anymore. No, they want to be downtown. But why?
In the intro to her review of Laura Kipnis's latest, The Female Thing, Emily Nussbaum asks a good question:
Every week, New York Magazine's 'Ask A Shop Clerk 'helps rich people get to know the twentysomething failed artists who are selling them their $500 umbrellas and $200 rubber duckies. This week, everything was going well for Kiki de Montparnasse salesgirl Jennifer Duenas at first. She stayed relentlessly on-message, emphasizing how "comfortable" she is with every product she sells, from the "Tickler two-way" to the "titanium diletto" ("It's Italian for dildo.") But then she came up against this vocab word:
In their reliably cringe-inducing Money Issue (uh, how is this week different from all other weeks, again?), New York Mag explores what life is like on both ends of the economic spectrum here — you know, the rich end and the insanely pornographically rich end. But they do make an effort to include an example of what life is like for the huddled masses who struggle to get by in this cutthroat town — take, for example, the "Spending Diary" of Brian, a 26 year old MFA candidate who scrapes by on $20,000 a year. Really, that's all, $20K. Oh, but wait, actually . . .
What's cooler than cool, but not as cool as ice cold? Unkempt asymmetrical hair and a strategically placed cigarette. This week's edition of New York magazine Look Book brings you the apparent spawn of Malcolm Gladwell and Lenny Kravitz, "massively Afroed guitarist" Alex Kennedy-Grant. And you're in luck because he just woke up and you're seeing the hair in a "totally raw state". Alex, who describes his musical style as "psychedelic soul and blues-rock" laments the fact that no one really plays the guitar any more, and will not apologize for being a virtuoso. "I'm totally independent," Alex proudly declares, but admits he wouldn't mind getting paid. Totally.
After the jump, Inter Alexis corrals Joshua Stein, Pat Driscoll and Timothy Michael Cooper to dig through the Afro for change.
New York mag's Grub Street had an item yesterday on a taping of Iron Chef America, which ended with, in their own, albeit with tongue somewhat in cheek, "earth shattering revelation".
It's belt-tightening time at New York. Someone passed along the following e-mail from managing editor Ann Clarke which presents the stark reality that the favored reading material in area chiropractic waiting rooms is "over budget by many, many thousands of dollars." How is New York to meet the shortfall? Well, no more sushi for Hugo Lindgren, for one thing. Kurt Loder can no longer be convinced to share his memories of Tower Records over a crackling pork shank at Maloney & Porcelli ("Entertain sources or subjects as infrequently as possible." Sources are being treated like readers now!) And our particular favorite, no free ride:
When Fabolous was gunned down in Flatiron earlier this week, we were shaken in so many ways that one could be shaken, and could not help but think of other New York rappers whose skins were pierced by bullets. Neither could New York mag's Daily Intelligencer, who listed the "illustrious pantheon of New York MCs to get caught up with violence and cops". But there is one glaring omission, points out Razor Apple: Notorious B.I.G.
You kids are in for a treat today. Why? From this week's New York mag, We bring to you a Video Look Book, featuring art student Chrissy Bradley. And the video is essential here, because Chrissy's inflection really completes the Paris-Euro-Cali ensemble that would otherwise look like something straight off the racks at H&M to undiscerning eyes. Chrissy lives in a "gorgeous big loft", believes that "fashion is the artifact of cultuuuuuure" and... oh, we can't do her justice.
Forget allergen-free cats — how freaking cute are these little guys? This week's edition of New York mag's Look Book appeals directly to the ovaries with Jeziah Robertson and Dakotarome Paul, 6 and 7-year-old cousins, respectively. Dakota thinks he's often mistaken for a 40-year-old because of his sharp suit, and Dakotarome loves dressing up and feeling like a model. Their favorite football team is the "Deadskins" and Jeziah wants to look just like his dad when he grows up and we're going to die old and alone and unloved and barren.
Hey, Arianne, it'll be news when someone praises Frank's prose.
