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In the Magazine

1/28/08

6:12 PM

New ‘WSJ’ Luxury-Title Editor: Which Archetype to Assign?

Today we learn that Tina Gaudoin will be the editor of a yet-to-exist quarterly luxury supplement to The Wall Street Journal. We imagine it will be sort of like the Times magazine T. Well, probably it will be exactly like it. But anyway, according to the memo obtained by Romenesko:

Tina will bring [the Journal] a valuable set of skills from her extensive career in the magazine world. She began her career at Tatler working as beauty editor. In 1992 she moved to New York to work on the re-launch of Harpers Bazaar. During her time in New York she also worked at Vogue as senior writer and then as a presenter on Barry Diller's Q2 channel. Returning to London, she became deputy editor of Tatler before launching the women's magazine Frank. After that she became editorial director of the iVillage UK web site . She joined The Times of London in 2003 as style director of its Saturday magazine and was named editor of the quarterly magazine The Times Luxx in June 2007.

So … luxury-journalism experience … luxury-journalism experience … something about Barry Diller … luxury-journalism experience. Hm. There doesn't seem to be anything in there about whether she is qualified to run a luxury journalism title. That is, there's no explanation of whether she has a ridiculously over-the-top personality and outrageously self-demanding personal (and sartorial) daily regimen. With a touching underdog story.

But wait! A (very small) bit of research reveals that she might just have what it takes! »

More: bonnie fuller, harper's bazaar, meredith vieira, pursuits, tatler, times of london, tina gaudoin, wall street journal

In the Magazine

8/21/07

1:31 PM

Why Do New Yorkers Live Longer? Flavored, Sugared Water!

New Yorkers live longer than other Americans, and in last week's New York cover story, Clive Thompson tried to explain why. We walk more than most Americans, he pointed out, we climb more stairs than most Americans, and many fewer of us die young of onetime urban plagues like murder and AIDS. We have great hospitals and lots of healthy-eating options, and, as he noted, people who are ambitious and hard-working and appearance-focused can be just as Type-A about their health as about everything else. But leave it to a marketer to isolate the mysterious X factor, the key reason New Yorkers live longer than everyone else. It came in a press release this morning, and it's beautiful in its simplicity: "Life Expectancy for New Yorkers Increases as Snapple Grows in Popularity." Why didn't Clive think of that? Oh, the press release was, of course, from Snapple.

Read Snapple's press release »

More: clive thompson, health, pr stunts, snapple

In the Magazine

8/16/07

5:16 PM

‘Hairspray’ Turns Five

Hairspray — by which we mean the Broadway musical, which was inspired the Divine movie of the same name and in turn inspired the John Travolta movie of the same name — opened five years ago last night, and it's still going strong. (Stunt casting helps, sure — hello, Lance Bass! — but selling 101 percent of capacity, as it did last week, ain't bad.) A month before it opened, Susan Dominus previewed the show and essentially predicted a smash. "Everybody thought it was going to be the New York Times that would make it a hit," recalls Richard Kornberg, the veteran theater publicist who reps the show. "But when the New York Magazine put out this piece, that is the one article that put it through the top and sold Hairspray." To mark the anniversary, here's "Hairspray It On," from the July 22, 2002, issue of New York.

Hairspray It On [NYM]

More: anniversaries, broadway, hairspray, theater

In the Magazine

8/14/07

9:23 AM

Further Adventures in Crumbling Infrastructure

If it feels like the city is falling apart around you, it may not just be your paranoia talking. Early yesterday afternoon a section of midtown sidewalk collapsed under two construction workers jackhammering it, sending them on a ten-foot fall into the hole underneath and leaving both at Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. With exploding steam pipes and "structurally deficient" bridges, what else can go wrong? Christopher Bonanos considered that question in this week's New York. Our advice: Be ready for blackout, and watch out for falling bricks.

The Old Town [NYM]
Two Hurt in Sidewalk Collapse [Newsday]

More: explosions, infrastructure, sidewalks

In the Magazine

8/ 7/07

5:15 PM

Jay McCarroll Will Design for Food

Jay McCarroll, Project Runway's first-season winner and a major character in Jennifer Senior's "The Near-Fame Experience," the cover story in this week's New York, is not, it appears, happy with how he was portrayed in the piece, particularly with Senior's characterization of him as "still homeless in New York." Where did she get such an idea? Well, probably from this direct quote:

"I haven't been living anywhere for two years," he says. "I sleep at other people's houses. I sleep here [his sewing-machine- and fabric-filled studio] if I'm drunk."

And how do we know he's not happy about this? He's posted to YouTube at least six videos mocking the characterization, largely filled with him wandering lower Manhattan while repeatedly howling, "I'm homeless, I'm homeless," and "Will design for food." One version — we kid you not — is set to Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Women," which makes no sense contextually but at least blocks out the howling. It's the best one.

UPDATE: McCarroll heeds our advice, maybe? He's removed all the videos except the Crystal Waters version. Be thankful.

Jay McCarroll Homeless Crystal Waters Remix [YouTube via Radar]
The Near-Fame Experience [NYM]

More: jay mccaroll, jennifer senior, new york magazine, project runway

In the Magazine

7/24/07

4:47 PM

The Fred Thompson Letters: ‘Looking Forward to the Hamptons!’

Fred Thompson speaking the Virginia Republican Party earlier this month.Photo: Getty Images

When Stephen Rodrick profiled former senator Fred Thompson, also the incumbent New York County district attorney on Law & Order and an all-but-declared presidential candidate in real life, Rodrick took a look at Thompson's Senate papers, which the then-lapsed politician donated to the University of Tennessee in 2005. Among them was a good deal of his senatorial correspondence, both letters received and those sent. And there were some good ones. After the jump, highlights from a few of our favorites.

More: bill clinton, bruce willis, fred thomspon, oliver stone, police, president, republicans, trent lott

In the Magazine

7/24/07

10:55 AM

Steamroller Stalled: Could You See It Coming?

In a nutshell: In an effort to score political points by claiming his nemesis, Joe Bruno, was inappropriately using state resources (aircraft, cars, troopers) to travel to political events, Eliot Spitzer, or at least people working for Eliot Spitzer, inappropriately used state resources (the state police) to carry out their oppo research. A.G. Andrew Cuomo released a report yesterday saying so, and saying, incidentally, that Bruno hadn't actually done anything wrong. Spitzer indefinitely suspended one aide, transferred another out of the governor's office, and denied any knowledge of what they were up to; Republicans are skeptical he was really so oblivious. So much for being the White Knight, eh?

In last week's New York, Steve Fishman profiled the governor and examined his (many) feuds with other state officials, most notably Bruno. There's lots of fun foreshadowing.

More: albany, eliot spitzer, joe bruno, steve fishman

In the Magazine

7/13/07

11:32 AM

Summer of Sam Revisited: The 1977 Blackout

Thirty years ago tonight, the lights went out in New York City. Unlike the placid blackout of 2003, the 1977 blackout plunged a weary, wary city into inky mayhem. Fires burned in Bushwick. Looters tore into Crown Heights. A significant chunk of Broadway was ablaze. Damages went into the hundreds of millions. And no one got shot. In a special issue on the blackout published on August 1, 1977, New York's Thomas Plate wrote about what the cops did and didn't do that dark night. "…[I]t is still somewhat reassuring to know that the NYPD's behavior during the blackout was far more thought out than Con Ed's." Considering what happened in Queens last summer, that is reassuring indeed.

Why The Cops Didn't Shoot [NYM (pdf)]

More: blackout, broadway, bushwick, crown heights, summer of sam

In the Magazine

7/12/07

2:15 PM

Summer of Sam Revisited: The 1977 Championship Yankees

Though the Yankees eventually won the 1977 World Series, the title was not assured that summer. The team, one of the most racially mixed in franchise history, had the flash and character of the city. Reggie Jackson joined the Yankees that year, only to clash with manager Billy Martin and several teammates who regarded his ego as outsize and overbearing. But it was also when Jackson became "Mister October" and helped the Yankees beat the Dodgers four games to two. In a season preview published in New York in April 1977, Peter Bodo wrote: "[The Yankees] are in a number of ways the ball club of the future, given the increasing freedom demanded by the players, their increasing preoccupation with money, the increasingly frantic shuffling of talent by owners who need to make a winner to make a budget." Sounds like an accurate prediction to us. Except for the budget part.

Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio [NYM (pdf)]

More: 1977, baseball, yankees

In the Magazine

7/11/07

12:47 PM

Summer of Sam Revisited: ‘New York’ on the Dems' Lousy Mayoral Campaign

The Summer of Sam was also the summer of a hotly contested Democratic mayoral primary. Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo, and Bella Abzug were just a few of the politicians vying for the city crown amid all the chaos, and in a September 1977 issue of New York, Doug Ireland was disgusted with the whole process. "Surely this is the oddest Democratic primary in recent history. Seldom have the voters in our town had such a hopeless welter of nonissues thrown at them in a mayoral campaign," he wrote. "[I]n a city still reeling from a swelter summer of blackouts, looting, criminally high unemployment, and Son of Sam, most candidates are as afraid of the voters as the voters are of the muggers in the streets." Take a look at the whole article for a flashback to city politics, seventies style.

Democratic Dogfight: A Hopeless Welter of Nonissues [NYM (pdf)]
Earlier: Summer of Sam Revisited: ‘New York’ on the Search for Sam