It’s Not Easy Playing Graydon CarterJeff Bridges has to wear a coiffed wig to play Graydon Carter in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, but he didn’t wear a fat suit. Roger Federer told Anna Wintour that he will be wearing blue and white during the day and black at night for the U.S. Open, and Andy Roddick says that Elton John actually has a good backhand. Vivica Fox was allegedly drinking at their birthday party Tuesday night despite a court mandate forbidding her to on account of her March DUI. “Obama Girl” Amber Lee Ettinger is actually more enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton. Christiane Amanpour and other CNN staffers often saw Ted Turner in a bathrobe when he lived above CNN Center in Atlanta. Elizabeth Taylor will star in a play with James Earl Jones in December to raise $1 million to fight AIDS. Bill Clinton ate at Serendipity. Justin Timberlake’s manager got him a round of golf at Glen Oaks Country Club on Long Island.
atlantic yards watch
The Highbrow Case for Atlantic YardsFor some time now, it’s seemed that the richer, whiter parts of Brooklyn were opposed to Bruce Ratner’s gargantuan Atlantic Yards project, while the poorer, minoritier parts were in favor. The development, including lots of market-rate housing, some below-market housing, and a future Brooklyn Nets stadium, has always attracted a weirdly disconnected array of reactions: Most blue-collar local residents welcomed it (more jobs, retail, etc.), while highbrow liberals — looking out for the people! — were aghast. (Entitled NIMBYism? Wishful suckerism? Who knows.) Was it possible, then, to be a pro-Yards guilty intellectual? Yes! Acceptance is just another twist of pretzel logic away, as demonstrated by the contrarian post-ironists at n+1. The stadium, writes Jonathan Liu, is a great idea precisely because it’s all wrong for the borough. It’s our ossified idea of what’s right for the borough (brownstones, more brownstones) that’s the problem, he says. Or something.
Whatever he’s saying, it seems Atlantic Yards has — finally! — reached the “Backlash to the Backlash” point on our Undulating Curve.
A Sporting Chance [n+1]
Mr. Ratner’s Neighborhood [New York Magazine]
