Josh Schwartz Explains It All“Dan still goes to NYU. He was just hanging with Nate for a soccer game, and offered to accompany Nate to his health center.”
Hannah Upp Mystery Still DeepeningYesterday’s ‘Times’ story about the Harlem schoolteacher who went off the grid for three weeks last fall raises a lot of questions it doesn’t quite answer.
ByChris Rovzar
mysteries
Double Snugg-ingWhy is the ‘Times’ so hot for the Snuggie all of a sudden?
Did Rudy Giuliani’s Use of the Mystery Method Cause Him to Blow Out the Election?Employing “Neg Theory” — insulting a woman in order to pique her romantic interest, as defined by the book The Game and the show The Pickup Artist — may work to pick up chicks, but does it work on states? Conventional wisdom would have that the Giuliani campaign’s decision to “neg” the early-primary states, opting out of campaigning in them in favor of wooing larger, delegate-rich states, was what caused his numbers to drop in polls nationwide. He would have done better there, people reasoned, had he, you know, tried. But today’s Wall Street Journal uses market data to analyze how Giuliani went from certain front-runner to “the biggest loser among the mainstream candidates” and finds that Giuliani’s recent decline is due less to his strategy than his “poor campaign.” In other words, the problem was not his game, but his personality. “Unfortunately for Mr. Giuliani,” the Journal concludes, “a candidate who is unpopular in both the early-voting small states and later-voting big states, just can’t win.” No medallions for him, either.
How Rudy’s Bet Went Wrong [WSJ]
in other news
Paul Rudd vs. the Pickup Artists: It Is On!Writers’ strike aside, there’s still original content being filmed in New York City. My Damn Channel has been running Webisodes of a show starring David Wain, formerly of The State which are pretty hilarious. In the new Webisode, “The Pickup” airing today, Wain’s too-nervous-to-approach-women character consults Alias, a Mystery-like character for help. Played by Paul Rudd, resplendent in a smoking jacket and tight pants, his long straggly wig restrained by a top hat and velvet headband, Alias promises great success picking up women with lines like, “Great hair. Looks silky as shit. What is it, horse hair? You dumb, cheap hooker,” and using made-up words to explain his philosophy. “Beautiful women are told they’re beautiful all day long,” he says smoothly. “What we do, is we deny them our approval hones, that way they’re dependent on us.” It’s pretty much the funniest and smartest takedown of Neil Strauss’s The Game yet.
The Pickup [My Damn Channel]
party lines
The Horror! Stephen King Considers HarlemNo bucket of pig’s blood dropped as Stephen King was named Grand Master at the Mystery Writers of America ‘s 61st annual Edgar Awards Banquet last night, but, still, the horror master suggested something mysterious might be afoot in Manhattan: He’s been inspired to write a horror novel set in Harlem, he said, in which the crimes come courtesy of some old-school voodoo. “I’d have to live four years in Harlem to write it,” he told us. “I’m a country kid, and this is the city. I’m a white kid, and it’s a black neighborhood. So I’d have to do some research.” The Edgar Award itself, a pale ceramic effigy of its namesake, is the ugliest but most cherished prize in the mystery world, presented for outstanding achievements in crime fiction. William Monahan won Best Motion Picture Screenplay last night for The Departed, and The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin was named Best Novel. Al Roker, the evening’s master of ceremonies, confided that he identifies with King’s Christine, the 1958 Plymouth Fury with a taste for blood. “Because it’s a big, hulking guzzler,” he said, explaining the affinity. If only it could have had gastric bypass. —Nicole K. Sia
