JULY 23, 2007 BY ANONYMOUS
MUSINGS OF OSAMA JR.
Illustrated by Victor Juhasz
DON’T YOU SIMPLY HATE IT when you find yourself no longer in the mood for the Netflix movie you requested on the very day of its arrival?
Certain New York cab drivers seem to be under the impression that their backseat air-conditioners are powerfully blowing jets of cool air when, in fact, they emit only the weakest lukewarm puffs. And they grow offended when you roll down the window!
There are those who (rightly, I suppose) deplore the treatment of women in certain Islamic nations, but it seems to me that the widespread and rather gleeful mockery of Paris Hilton is borne of much the same impulse—that is, to keep female sexuality in check, wherever its power is on display.
I found Ratatouille to be charming indeed! Not only that, but the film was quite original and not so very formulaic. It strikes me that the built-in audience for animated children’s pictures allowed Walt Disney/Pixar to take more risks than the other big studios did with their summer-blockbuster fare.
I agree that the heliport on West 30th Street is quite annoying for those of us making use of the riverside bike paths and such. A device that will make the problem disappear very quickly is the over-the-shoulder antiaircraft gun. Simply fire the missile and—after the initial blast—no more noise!
Many New Yorkers love Daniel, where the waiters serve the tables in choreographed teams. While I certainly do enjoy Chef Boulud’s cooking, I must say I find the presentation more befitting a restaurant in a provincial town such as Las Vegas than one in the nation’s most sparkling jewel of urbanity.
How I hate all the scaffolding on the sidewalks when the day is sunny and bright! I feel as if I am walking through some tunneled city. But how I love it when the rain pours down and those planks help to keep my clothing and head dry. There is, perhaps, a lesson in that somewhere.
Allah be praised.
AUGUST 27, 2007 BY SARA VILKOMERSON
The O.C. Goes N.Y.C.
AT AROUND 3 P.M. ON FRIDAY, Aug. 17, things were looking a little dicey for the cast and crew of the new CW show Gossip Girl. The day’s schedule was running a little late. Curious tourists flashed pictures; bored-looking kids milled about; a banker-y fella pretended to read the Financial Times while gawking at the bright lights.
It’s unlikely that any of these observers realized that they were watching a scene from what is sure to be a monstrous megahit this fall. From the frighteningly fertile young mind of The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz, 31, and fellow O.C writer-producer Stephanie Savage, Gossip Girl, which will premiere on Sept. 19, has all the same elements that made The O.C must-see TV: a young, attractive cast of as-yet mostly unknowns, a unique universe of privilege, wealth, social-striving and exclusivity (trading the sandy shores of Orange County for the limestone-and-Town-Cars enclave of the Upper East Side), a pounding musical score of of-the-moment music, and campy over-the-top drama involving sex, scandal and betrayal, all set in the inherent tragedy of private high schools.
Illustrated by Victor Juhasz
SEPTEMBER 17, 2007 BY SARA VILKOMERSON
Members Only
IN ONE OF THE MANY STARTLING scenes in the new HBO drama Tell Me You Love Me, which debuted Sunday night, a young, attractive married couple sit side by side on a sofa, watching a boxing match on TV. The wife unbuckles her husband’s pants, and after some noisy kissing, she pulls away and says, “I want to see it.” She sees it and—holy cow—so do we.
Over the past few months, the buzz on the show has centered on its frank sexual content. Throughout the hour, as bodies moved and eyefuls of flesh flashed, it was the sight of that erect penis being clinically manipulated into a graphic orgasm that prompted did-I-just-see-what-I-think-I-saw gapes from less action-packed couches nationwide.
JUNE 26, 2007 BY GAY TALESE
THE KINGDOM AND THE TOWER
On Thursday, June 21, The New York Times spent its last day at 229 West 43rd Street. Gay Talese, The Times’ greatest chronicler and a former reporter there, returned to the gothic newspaper castle that housed Sulzbergers, Adolph S. Ochs’ 10-foot grandfather clock, thousands of journalists, massive underground presses that still ooze ink and defined an era in journalism
WHEN ARTHUR GELB JOINED THE NEW YORK TIMES as a copyboy in 1944, the uniformed elevator men wore white gloves, the desk editors donned green eye shades and reporters making phone calls from the third-floor newsroom had to be connected by one of the dozen female operators seated at the 11th-floor switchboard (perhaps the most vibrant center of gossip in all of New York); and up on the 14th floor, adjoining the publisher’s office, was a private apartment visited on occasion by the publisher’s mistress—and there was also nearby a bedroom for the publisher’s valet, a gentleman of high moral character and undaunted discretion.
The Times’ citadel of communication, whose neo-Gothic finials, scallops and fleurs-de-lis at 229 West 43rd Street were in accord with young Arthur Gelb’s vision of himself as an aspiring vassal in the House of Ochs, is now operational within The Times’ recently occupied skyscraper on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, thus terminating Mr. Gelb’s ties to where he had invested 63 years of his working life and left him at his current age of 83 as the most enduring employee in the history of the paper.
Having risen from copyboy to reporter in 1947, and from metro editor in 1967 to managing editor (1986-1990), and thereafter a fixture in the corporate hierarchy overseeing the paper’s scholarship programs and other forms of munificence, Mr. Gelb now continues his relationship with The Times as a consultant and, for whatever it is worth in an age when the journalism he knew and practiced may be on the cutting edge of oblivion, he exists as the institution’s éminence grise and one of its ceremonial hosts for such events as last Thursday evening’s farewell party to the chateau of the Good Gray Lady on West 43rd Street.
Hundreds of the paper’s employees and their guests were invited to dance in the aisles and drink beer in the vacated third-floor area where Mr. Gelb had once overseen the Metro staff and where his present-day successor, Joe Sexton, a physically fit and bespectacled man of 47 who had a salt-and-pepper goatee and was wearing a light blue cotton shirt darkened with his perspiration, danced with such tireless vigor around the room that he got the attention of someone with a digital camera and, promptly, his picture was available around the globe via Gawker.
Watching from the sidelines, with his facial expression suggesting benign noninvolvement, was Mr. Gelb in a suit and tie chatting with some of The Times’ veterans, myself included, with whom he had dined an hour earlier at Sardi’s on West 44th Street, next to the rear entrance of the Times Building. At the dinner, Mr. Gelb had begun by expressing condolences over the deaths of such Timesmen as David Halberstam, R.W. Apple Jr., Sammy Solovitz (a pint-sized lifetime copyboy) and Abe Rosenthal, who had preceded Mr. Gelb as the Metro editor and whose leadership in the newsroom was often defined by the staff as a reign of terror.
After leading the way out of Sardi’s, he paused on the sidewalk to remove from his pocket a key that he said held special meaning. “This key was given to me many years ago by [then publisher] Punch Sulzberger and it provides a shortcut from Sardi’s into The Times, meaning you don’t have to walk all the way around the block to get in. Oh, I’ve used this key thousands of times, and now, on this night, I’ll be using it for the last time.”
He then inserted the key into the lock of a metal door that was a few steps above what had once been a loading dock for Times delivery trucks, and soon we were following Mr. Gelb through the mail room, which was directly over where the huge printing presses used to function until this operation was transferred in 1997 to plants out of town. Still, as we passed one row of tanks, there was evidence of ink oozing out.
Following our ride on one of the back elevators up to the third floor, we immediately heard the loud music blaring from two self-powered Mackie speakers affixed to 10-foot-high tripods that ove
rlooked the Metro desk, and the L.P. records spinning around on two turntables sequentially introduced us to the voices of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Justin Timberlake and the Temptations. In rhythm with all of this music was the redoubtable Joe Sexton, and within the crowds of other dancers and onlookers—it was not easy to distinguish between them—were such newsroom notables as the executive editor, Bill Keller; a managing editor, John Geddes; and an assistant managing editor, William E. Schmidt.
The evening was very successful, in the opinion of Charles Kaiser, a writer who had worked as a Metro reporter for The Times until 1980, having first gained Mr. Gelb’s attention in the early 1970’s, when Mr. Kaiser was a Columbia student serving as a stringer. “What we saw in this place tonight was what you’d never have seen when I started as a reporter here in 1974,” he said, adding, “You saw all these young people of color, and people of all kinds dancing with one another—men dancing with men, men dancing with women, women dancing with women—and it really reflects the fundamental change in The Times since Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. became the publisher [in 1992]. When he started out here in the early 1980’s as an assistant Metro editor, he figured out who all the gay reporters were, and then he took each of them to lunch, and one by one he said: ‘I know you’re gay—don’t worry about it. When Abe Rosenthal leaves I’ll make sure that the fact that you’re gay will make no difference in your career.’”
* * *
The Times’ citadel of communication, whose neo-Gothic finials, scallops and fleurs-de-lis at 229 West 43rd Street were in accord with young Arthur Gelb’s vision of himself as an aspiring vassal in the House of Ochs…
* * *
After the music stopped, most people left the building; but others were free to roam around, and even wander up to the executive suite on the 14th floor, as I did, to get a final look at the exalted domestic quarters occupied many years ago by the publisher, the publisher’s mistress and the publisher’s valet. Although the beds are gone, I assumed that what I saw was pretty much as things looked a half-century ago, notwithstanding the fact that there are draperies sprawled along the floor, and the ornate chandeliers were dislodged from the ceiling, and a few plush chairs, tables and other furniture were scattered here and there and sometimes turned upside down.
The Times’ new headquarters building on Eighth Avenue, a 52-story “shimmering tower of transparent glass” (words by Paul Goldberger), has already received much welcoming attention from architectural critics and has elicited few negative comments from members of the staff, even though the top editors were more prestigiously endowed when they were at 229 West 43rd—which is to say that in the old place anyone holding the rank of managing editor or above had offices with private bathrooms. But not in the new place. Not even Mr. Sulzberger will have one, as he apparently wishes to convey his egalitarian sensibilities, whether they truly exist within him or not, and at the same time he emphasizes his paper’s devotion to transparency by making it virtually impossible for any reporter or editor in this glass-walled emporium to enjoy a single moment of privacy—be it a furtive gesture of flirtatiousness expressed across the aisle toward a co-worker, or an upraised index finger in the face of an irascible colleague. But it behooves me not to enlarge upon my meanderings, for I have only briefly visited the new premises, having done so during the past weekend while accompanied by Mr. Gelb and two amiable Times escorts who deal harmoniously with Mr. Sulzberger.
In the lobby of the new building, as Mr. Gelb and I headed home and thanked our escorts for showing us around, I noticed a bronze statue of Adolph S. Ochs that had held the preeminent position in the lobby of 43rd Street, but now in the new building it was positioned at an oblique angle behind the reception desk, with the statue’s foundation wrapped in packing cloth, and the imperial gaze seemingly adrift.
“Where’s that going to go?” I asked one of the escorts.
“We don’t know yet,” he replied.
Illustrated by Philip Burke
NOVEMBER 5, 2007 BY DOREE SHAFRIR
The Bicycle Thief: Philip Gourevitch’s Paris Review
PHILIP GOUREVITCH, THE EDITOR tor of The Paris Review, can be blunt about the magazine bequeathed to him in March 2005, two years after the death of longtime editor and co-founder George Plimpton.
“I thought the magazine was physically unattractive,” he told The Observer on a recent rainy afternoon. The 45-year-old Mr. Gourevitch is, like the young Plimpton, personally attractive and preternaturally successful. He also writes for The New Yorker, and his book about the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, was well received. His hair is a curly black mop, his dark eyes piercing; he moves his hands when he talks. When Mr. Gourevitch took over the highbrow literary magazine, he was charged with the formidable—some might say unenviable—task of revitalizing a magazine that had for decades been the expression in print of George Plimpton, arguably New York’s most fashionable and well-loved arbiter of literary taste.
NOVEMBER 12, 2007 BY SPENCER MORGAN
LYDIA UNLEASHED
LYDIA HEARST LEADS A RIDICULOUS life.
She is a successful model—despite being 5 feet 7 inches short. She often has her pick of runway shows and photo shoots around the world. In the past two months, modeling has taken her to Paris, London, Florence and Los Angeles. She designs handbags for Puma, and is putting finishing touches on a line of Puma fitness wear. She sometimes stays up all night looking at color swatches. And she writes a column for the New York Post’s Page Six Magazine, called “The Hearst Chronicles.” She writes it sitting at her desk, which belonged to her great-grandfather, William Randolph Hearst.
“I try to sleep at least five hours,” she chirped in her crisp New England accent.
At the tender age of 23, she tries not to let her family’s great wealth and illustrious history cloud her judgment.
“I tell her, ‘Listen, you’re a socialite, it’s a fair enough description, you come by it honestly,’” said her mom, Patricia Hearst-Shaw. “For ‘heiress’ we usually substitute ‘airhead’ around here. Just on general principle, lest anyone get too full of themselves.”
“I am definitely not a socialite,” Ms. Hearst explained over dinner recently in Soho.
Wild Cards: Yankees Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez
Illustrated by Philip Burke
NOVEMBER 12, 2007 BY STEVEN GAINES
MY LINDA STEIN: POWDER KEG FULL OF SOUND, FURY
ONE OF THE MANY THINGS I’LL miss about Linda Stein was dropping by her comfy Fifth Avenue penthouse on late weekday afternoons where an impromptu salon of sorts would form. There was always an unexpected collection of people—real estate brokers exchanging co-op board and sales gossip, a pop star down on his luck, a billionaire from Australia to whom Linda was trying to sell a $20 million apartment, or a pot dealer from Harlem whose pager number she had called.
It’s inconceivable to me now to imagine Linda Stein dead in that elegant apartment lying facedown in a pool of blood, bludgeoned to death with a jagged weapon, perhaps a hammer, the hood of her sweatshirt presumably pulled by her murderer to cover the horrible wounds.
Who could have killed Linda Stein this violently? Why? Did she have enemies? Plenty—the line forms on the right. There were dozens of people who were furious with her. But was there anyone who could have been angry enough to kill her?
A lot of her intimates think the answer is yes.
He’ll Huff and He’ll Puff and He’ll…: Dow Jones’ new owner, Rupert Murdoch
Illustrated by Victor Juhasz
NOVEMBER 26, 2007 BY LEON NEYFAKH AND DOREE SHAFRIR
If She Did It
Judith Regan has theories of who drove her from HarperCollins; here are some: Kerik, Ailes, Giuliani, Murdoch, Jane Friedman; retribution is her plan
Illustrated by Robert Grossman
“I ALWAYS GOT ALONG WITH creative people,” said Judith Regan, the 54-year old former book p
ublisher who has brought a $100 million lawsuit against News Corporation, its book publishing division HarperCollins, and HarperCollins president and CEO Jane Friedman.
That is Judith Regan 2007 speaking. About a year ago, Ms. Regan was head of her own imprint, ReganBooks, at HarperCollins, granted by News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch himself in 1994. Earlier that year, she completed her staff’s move to Los Angeles, and dark-sheened, glossy-lipped, hard-nosed Judith Regan was doing what Judith Regan would do in L.A., signing authors and making deals. She also had a radio show, on Sirius Satellite Radio, that she recorded in her new offices.
It seemed as though the whole impetus behind the L.A. move—the synergy that would package the entire Judith Regan style, a raw, unflinching, sexy, direct, aggressive curiosity, a dismissal of prissy publishing convention, a roaring office manner, a personal voraciousness, a good old-fashioned vulgarity—might actually work in Hollywood.
She had booted the New York stiffs and taken her business to L.A., where they didn’t know from publishing convention, and where a tough boss could yell like a studio executive as long as she was a success. And if there was one thing Judith Regan knew it was how to make best sellers—four Times best sellers in 2006, though that was a drop-off from the previous year, when she’d had 14.
And then, last year, it crumbled around her.
In November 2006, HarperCollins provoked a public outcry when it announced plans for ReganBooks to publish a bizarre “hypothetical” tell-all by O. J. Simpson, in which he described the steps he might have taken had he killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. The royalties of If I Did It would go to a trust for his children. To accompany the book, Fox would broadcast a two-hour interview that Ms. Regan had conducted with Mr. Simpson, after Barbara Walters and ABC had backed out, in which she asked him about the murder and just about got him to confess.
The Kingdom of New York: Knights, Knaves, Billionaires, and Beauties in the City of Big Shots Page 65