Jezebel: Jane

Hillary Clinton Might Not Want Barack When Ted's On The Other Line

Megan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:40:00 EST

Hillary Clinton has not agreed to be Obama's Secretary of State even if she is officially offered it. [Politico]
She has, however, been asked to head Ted Kennedy's health reform task force next year. [The Hill]
Mr. Jowls will remain the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. Jane Hamsher and others say, in so many words, fuck that guy. [Politico, Firedoglake, Politico]
Chuck Norris might be able to defeat ninjas, cowboys and anyone who talks back, but what he's really, really scared of is boys who like to kiss other boys (we assume that, like most raging homophobes, he furiously masturbates to girl-on-girl porn). Chuck Norris, I have watched gay bear porn and survived with nary a scratch. I double dog dare you. [Queerty]

In the mean time, Eric Holder appears poised to become this country's first African-American attorney general. Some people have their panties all in a bunch that he might or might not have had something to do with the 11th hour pardon of Marc Rich in the Clinton Administration. [Newsweek]
Beau Biden, on the other hand, will not accept an appointment to his father's Senate seat and will likely deploy to Iraq as planned. [Washington Post]
Less gracious is outgoing Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) who has yet to officially concede the race she lost in a landslide to Democrat Betsy Markey or thank her staff, but what would you expect from the woman who staked her legislative career on trying to pass a Constitutional amendment to forever prohibit same sex marriage? [Politico]
Speaking of controversial pardons, apparently Ted Stevens wants one. [Politico]
Republicans are trying to decide whether to try and trample people's rights in order to regain some semblance of political relevance, or whether they'd like to try doing stuff for the Real Americans they so desperately swear they represent. [Huffington Post]
Chuck Hagel pretty much said that Rush Limbaugh can go fuck himself during a speech. I say that all the time, Chuck! Want to grab a drink and make fun of him sometime? [CNN]
Diane Sawyer conducted her interview with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, originally famous for fucking former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for money, who, if this picture is any guide, will heretofore be known for sneaking into Sarah Palin's tanning beds one too many times and stealing Jane Fonda's steez from 9 to 5. It's unclear whether she actually says anything to make the interview worth watching, but since she's probably not going to dish about whether Spitzer really tried to fuck her up the ass without a condom while wearing his socks and singing show tunes, I'm guessing not. Fine, I never really heard rumors of show tunes. [Huffington Post]

Daria Takes Aim At Jane Magazine

Tracie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:00:00 EDT

It sucks big time that Daria isn't available on DVD (only the two made-for-TV movies are). Apparently, it has something to do with music licensing problems. But there are some bootleg torrents available online, and we recently watched some episodes from the third season. One that totally escaped us at the time (we don't know how) is the episode based on Jane magazine, fictionalized as Val. Editor-in-chief Val visits Lawndale and goes undercover as a student to follow Daria around for the day for an expose she was working on about "cool, smart" teens. Jane Pratt must've rubbed some people at MTV the wrong way at some point because the thinly veiled portrayal—with constant references to Val's friend Drew—is kinda vicious. Clip above.

Karl Lagerfeld's Giant Chanel Jacket: Pretty Fucking Scary, Yeah?

Jennifer — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:30:00 EST

Marianne Faithfull on that giant Chanel jacket sculpture thingy parked outside their couture show: "phallic." How long before someone brings Hillary Clinton's gender into this, ya think? [Fashion Week Daily]
J.Crew's new, hipper, and less-expensive line, Madewell, has just tapped someone from the land of magazines for the brand new position of Director of Brand Marketing. Gigi Guerra was formally an editor-at-large at Lucky, and a senior editor at Jane before that. So it turns out that writing for women's magazines does train you for something, and that something is selling pretty shit to women. [WWD, sub req'd]
Madonna's stylist, "B,' on Madonna's next style incarnation: "Madonna's look is going to be more edgy, more fresh — with no more disco." [WWD, 4th item]

Poor Julianne Moore! Seems she had nothing to discuss with her fellow attendees of the Boucheron 150th anniversary dinner on Monday night, "When I asked if anyone knew who won the Packers-Giants game, you could have heard a pin drop." [WWD, 2nd item]
L'Oreal has agreed to buy Yves Saint Laurent Beaute for $1.68 billion. [WWD]
Viktor & Rolf: Now making $109 faux eyelashes for the Shu Uemura brand. [WWD, 1st item]
People are buying fewer luxury goods. Here's a theory as to why! [FT]
Taking a page from the Brit handbook — who isn't these days, really! — Jimmy Choo CEO Tamara Mellon is suing her mom. [Reuters]
Vera Wang's newest fragrance launches in April. It is called Vera Wang Flower Princess. Not to be confused, of course, with her past fragrance, Vera Wang Princess. [BellaSugar]
We never knew that we had to worry about putting our tongues through detox. [BellaSugar]
Rebecca Romijn is the new face of Bebe, but frankly we can't stop thinking of her as a tranny ever since she joined the cast of Ugly Betty as a man-turned-babe. [Sassybella]
Not at the final Valentino couture show yesterday? Watch a video of it here. [Sassybella]

'Jane' Ex-Eds Plead With Ex-Subscribers To Maybe Look Into 'Portfolio' Instead

Moe — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:00:04 EDT

Ah, poor exiles of the timber-wasting empire that is Conde Nast. Subscribers to its now-shuttered ladymag for people who don't read ladymags Jane are now getting Glamour, which is sort of to Jane what Jane is to .... The Paris Review... and old Jane staffers are pissed that readers have yet to call up and complain en masse about the fact that, duh, the existence of Glamour is what made them appreciate Jane in the first place, as ex-EIC Brandon Holley points out:

"Glamour is not at all like Jane," says Holley. "It's the exact opposite. They preach fake empowerment of 'loving your flaws.' Jane doesn't point out flaws."

Which brings us, obvi, back to Jane's fatal flaw that will now haunt it for the entirety of this whole shiva-sitting thing we're doing right now. Magazine subscriptions are so oversubsidized by the purveyors of salves for your flaws — you know, how you're bipolar, small-chested, smelly and grossly in need of a right handed diamond to exhibit your sense of "independence" or whatever — that no one gives a shit about that $9.99 they spent on the magazine that failed because its readers have already fucking figured out the "best jeans for their bodies." Anyway, our plea to Jane subscribers is this:

The only Conde publication worth reading is the New Yorker, but it comes out every week and your leftover Jane dollars won't go that far. Vanity Fair and GQ are okay, and saving trees is even better, but the true Jane devotee will call up Conde now and demand a subscription to its ill-fated, ill-advised business magazine Portfolio, because it will be really fun to be able to have this conversation again in six months when Conde shutters that, and it will be soooo much less emotionally fraught parting with them on eBay for birth control money on eBay in five years. (And then you get to say, I paid for that abortion with my Portfolio holdings!)

Glamour Is Sooooo Not Jane [Jossip]

Amy Winehouse Is A Bloody Mess. Literally.

Dodai — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:00:00 EDT

Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil "were involved in a violent row which left them both bloodied and bruised."Amy says,"Blake is the best man in the world. We would never ever harm each other... I was cutting myself after he found me in our room about to do drugs with a call girl and rightly said I wasn't good enough for him. I lost it and he saved my life." [Daily Mail]
One possible reason Amy is bloody? She injects heroin in between her toes. Blech. [The Sun]
You may have heard? Nicole Richie went to jail last night. She was there for 82 minutes. [TMZ]
Lindsay Lohan: "I am addicted to alcohol and drugs." Admitting you have a problem is the first step! And then there are like, 11 more, we think. [TMZ]
Kirsten Dunst's hotel suite was robbed! Thieves got a $13,000 handbag, $2500 in cash, digital cameras, cell phone and an iPod. The burglars were caught on a surveillance camera and some of the items have been recovered. The idea of a $13,000 purse makes our head hurt, by the way. [Yahoo! News]

The fake feud between Kanye West and 50 Cent is over — they had vodka shots together Wednesday night at the 40/40 Club with Jay-Z and Diddy.Like we said before, as long as no one's getting shot! [Page Six]
Forest fires in Sun Valley, Idaho, threaten the vacation homes of celebs like Teresa Heinz and John Kerry, Tom Hanks, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. Hard to feel bad for people with 2nd homes. [Page Six]
Former Jane staffers are pissed that their readers are getting Glamour. Plus, a former Jane editor who was up for a job at Glamour was told her stories needed to be "dumbed down." [Page Six]
Tammy Lynn Michaels (Melissa Etheridge's wife) is not a fan of President Bush or Karl Rove. She calls W "an idiotic, parasitical, country-raping piece of [bleep]" on her blog. [Page Six]
Blind item! "Which rapper - and it's not Diddy - has exaggerated his hardscrabble childhood to help build his reputation? In fact, he had a middle-class upbringing and his mom wasn't as bad as he rhymes." [Page Six]

'Marie Claire': Serial Shoplifter Of 'Jane' Magazine Ideas?

Anna — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:30:00 EDT

Marie Claire stealing ideas from another magazine? Never! On Friday, Radar called out the struggling Hearst women's title for the curious similarities between a fashion feature in Marie Claire's September issue and one in Jane magazine's (final) August issue. Marie Claire editor in chief Joanna Coles denied everything — she's known for her original ideas, remember! — telling Radar's Sarah Horne that she stole the idea for the feature (in which magazine staffers swap clothes for a week) from a ladymag in her native England:

I'm a total magpie. I stole the idea from a spring issue of 'British Vogue'. It would never dawn on me to look at 'Jane' magazine for ideas.

Never? Really? That's not what we heard!

Marie Claire's So Jane [Radar]
Earlier: 'Marie Claire' Sees 'Jane' As Role Model, Requests Model Rolodex
'Marie Claire' Editor Joanna Coles Has Huge Handwriting, Frontal Lobe

'The Fashionista Diaries': More To Hate!

Tracie — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:00:00 EDT

You guys wanted it, so here it is—a Stephanie Trong clip-reel from Wednesday night's episode of The Fashionista Diaries. Whereas Seven House PR mentor Mandie "Cunt Face" Erickson deals with the assistants by alternating between verbal mockery and ostracism, Stephanie Trong, the former executive editor of Jane, utilizes the far more subtle tactics of bitchy verbal intonation, body language, and facial expressions. Enjoy/cringe!

Earlier: Who'da thunk? Ummm, maybe the editors of Jane, who quoted Lydia saying, "Sitting around in a ball gown sipping champagne is not going to save someone's life," in an almost identical feature (featuring three of the same models) back in February. What gives? We spoke to a former staffer of the now-defunct ladytitle.

Apparently, the Jane staff was surprised as we were — because editors at Marie Claire had openly gushed to their editors about their piece, "Model Citizens," during Paris Fashion Week last winter. "They were asking questions like, 'oh, how did you get them to talk to you,' and 'how did you find out about it' and all this stuff," notes the former Jane person. "Oh well, at least we can say Jane lives on in some way." Um, yeah, but if they keep up this slavish imitation of Jane for much longer, Marie Claire might not. Not that we're against them trying!

Some pics from the spreads. (Yeah we hate Photoshop.)

Top, Marie Claire; bottom, Jane.

Left, Jane; right, Marie Claire.

Partying With The Ill Girls Of 'Missbehave' Magazine

Moe — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:00:35 EDT

"I'm having trouble holding the camera straight because I had a little too much Ritalin today," I apologized. "THAT'S SO MISSBEHAVE!!!" gushed a tidily attractive Asian girl named Mary in a black dress and almost spookily perfect eyeliner, as I shakily aimed my cameraphone at Samantha, a tan, girlish thirty-year-old in chunky hoop earrings and a New York Kings cap. The afternoon's torrential rains had subsided to accomodate the rooftop party commemorating the latest issue of Missbehave magazine, a colorful quarterly that aims to fill the more sneaker-obsessed reaches of the void left by Jane, and I and Intern Maria had braved the chance of a relapse to attend and speak to Mary and Samantha, two pillars of the team upon whose shoulders that dream rests. "We've got the illest troop of girls together," Samantha said, a gold "MISSBEHAVE" nameplate necklace hanging from her neck. "And we like, let it rip. We speak our fuckin' mind. But we are not fuckin' feminist by any means."

Indeed, Missbehave is fairly unabashed in both its hipsterdom and its seeming viewpoint that girls — its writers and its audience, presumably — are obsessed with getting boys to like them and don't really want to read anything else advising them otherwise. A story in the current issue analyzing male "types" uses the characters on Entourage to explain the pros and cons of dating a "Turtle" (he'll make pretty much any girl happy; "borderline monumental man mammaries") versus a Vincent ("a face you've got to sit on to believe").

Another story, "In Defense Of The Porno Blowjob" advises readers counteract the fact that promiscuous times have "robbed" the BJ of its value by incorporating props and heels. "When it's done, rejoice as if your face had previously been enduring an epic sperm drought. Like he just put the 'man' in 'manna'." LOL!

"I was actually going to post on what you did, how Nylon sucks," Mary went on. "It's just so wan. I mean, could it be more anemic? We're in the business of unbridled enthusiasm. We really want to capture the mind of the seventeen year old girl in podunk Texas." Mary, it turned out, had gone to high school in podunk Texas (specifically, in a suburb of San Antonio), after a childhood spent as a Korean expatriate in Hong Kong, reading issues of Sassy that came in a few months late. She had spent most of her adult career at hip-hop magazines when she met Samantha, an editor at her husband's graffiti magazine Mass Appeal. They hired a small group of Lower East Side hip-hop creative types and went to work.

In a week that has seen the death of Jane and a summer that has given us a book on the enduring mythology of Sassy, it was refreshing to know there was still room in New York for girls conspiring with one another to bring back something with a bit of both magazines' essence.
"I was like, you miss Sassy, I miss Sassy, ab-so-fucking-lutely I will edit this magazine," said Mary.

"There is so much email that we get from girls who are like "OMG my life is complete," added Samantha, who had found her way into the publishing world through the downtown graffiti scene and her husband, business partner and babydaddy, whom she met "in a stairwell" at a graffiti party.

Intern Maria, who is too young to miss Sassy but likes Missbehave repaired downstairs with me for hot dogs and dancing, though we were both feeling a little too sober and, well, white to partake. As we exited, a group of colorfully clad teenagers in limited-edition sneakers lurked outside. They too, Maria pointed out, looked pretty white. She grumbled something dismissively. Hipsters. We were all too old to be hanging out with them, but that didn't mean we couldn't enjoy the mindless fruits of their ubridled enthusiasm alone on the couch. "It's a really good magazine." We went home and read it.

Dear 'Jane' Readers, Explain To Us What You See In 'Nylon'?

Moe — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:30:41 EDT

How will you replace Jane? (Or as a newly jobless Jane alum just mused to us, how will Jane replace its jobs? "Do they write about diets now? Do they turn themselves into fashionistas?") Yesterday we took a poll as to your feelings on the matter, and last we checked the vast plurality of you said Nylon. Really? Nylon? We'd never actually read it. Until today! And we must conclude: "meh." The magazine really seems to like MySpace, which makes sense because it's sort of the less-unruly Myspace of paper, in that it might be fun for us if MySpace had not renedered all of hipsterdom (and the world) functionally illiterate already, so instead it reads like a braggy self-consciously dumbed-down menagerie of hipster references set off by pictures of hipster kids in hipster poses and ew there's Leigh from Misshapes. (Do you know who Leigh Lezark of the DJ collective Misshapes is? Did you only know because you read Gawker? We actually knew who Leigh from Misshapes was before she landed herself on Gawker, because we went to her party, "Misshapes," which would have probably been the most forgettable party we had ever in our lives attended if she didn't insist on reminding us of her incredibly substantive and influential existence so often). Anyhow! Onto the magazine.

Where a typical sentence in the last issue of Jane goes: "The conversation was our normal patter—cremation versus burial, a friend's recent abortion and the convenience of peeing in the shower," a typical Nylon sentence goes "Stockholm isn't just a music capital — it's also home to some of the most exciting fashion anywhere" — accompanying a fashion spread in which every single model is wearing a T-SHIRT. Berlin! Peter Bjorn & John! A story on Dani Stahl's trip to Seattle to customize Microsoft's "cool new media player" the Zune! A four-page ad spread for Zune! A clothing line called "Illionaire"! In our favorite feature, wherein the magazine attends a party at Cinespace and interviews some attendees, "Sam" is quoted saying he is there "To see Steve [Aoki] and D.J. A.M. spin. So talented." Are you a hipster? the magazine asks. "I don't know. I haven't been defined yet." Well Sam, actually, the Nylon marketing department probably has defined you, and though they're smart enough not to put their media kit online we'd bet they have a douchebaggy corporate term they use to sell the fact you like CocoRosie and wear American Apparel slim slacks as some sort of evidence you are a "tastemaker" to the Microsoft guys. Too bad all those tastemaking classes never taught you to read!

*Oh no! Missbehave must have found our poll cause now they're totally winning. Um, we'll hate on them next. Though we actually sort of like them.

What Will You Read Instead Of 'Jane'? Presuming, Er, You Read 'Jane'...

Moe — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:36:51 EDT

"Loneliness blows," begins a story in one of our leading contenders to replace Jane as the only women's magazine we actually enjoy reading. "And if you say that being single isn't lonely, it makes us way sadder for you, the delusional girl saying it aloud. Alone. As the words ping off your apartment wall to land in front of your morbidly overfed cat." Ughhh, right on top of the morbidly overfed pile of worthless magazines. That was from Missbehave, a new magazine that in the coming months will be vying from newsstands for whatever place in your heart Jane once occupied. We've assembled three others for a poll as to which one you'll be choosing. You might notice that Lucky, a publication chock-full of ex-Sassy staffers, is not among the candidates, because it is not really a magazine, while Elle is almost too much of a magazine to satisfy the sophomoric yearnings of the Jane reader. What will? You tell us!

How 'Jane' Virgin Sarah DiMuro Does Not Want To Lose Her Virginity

Moe — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:43:03 EDT

So did you check out 'Modern Love' in the New York Times over the weekend? The one with the 25-year-old virgin who works at an abortion clinic and gets jealous when her friends have pregnancy scares? Because she feels like a lack of sex, although not a big deal, is a really big deal? That is trapping her in childhood and preventing her from being a "real woman"? So she goes on the pill, for the hormones or something, and finally gets laid? But doesn't feel good until the moment after she takes the pregnancy test we all know the result of, in that moment before she actually knows the result, because she doesn't necessarily believe she isn't pregnant, even though she couldn't have sex before she took pills that would prevent her from being so? Wait, what?? We tracked down the one woman we thought might be able to shed some light on Kate McGovern's situation, renowned virginity expert — and 30-year-old virgin — Jane virginity bloggerSarah DiMuro. Her thoughts:

I read this in Bryant Park and I was just like, whooah. I'm biased, but I feel like she didn't help herself by actually having sex. It as weird to me that she felt 'not like a woman' before. On one hand she's surrounded by sex because she works at Planned Parenthood and she claims to have this really clinical view of sex, where she says it's a technicality, but then she says it's really important. For most of the column I was thinking she didn't really want it.

And then she has sex only after she went on the pill, and she said she had hormones raging through her that she didn't need. But clearly, you know, she was paranoid. I wonder if she went to Wellesley, they're all a bit unbalanced over there. I was really looking to relate to this, but it was hard. I mean, she was a late bloomer and I could relate to that, but she said when she posted on Craigslist she was surprised by all the guys who emailed her saying, you know, wait, save it for something special. That didn't surprise me. The thing is she has this really clinical viewpoint on sex but she's not having it, and yet she surrounds herself with it all the time; I think she probably doesn't even know what she thinks. I was thinking, she probably thinks about sex when she goes into McDonald's and thinks, "Oh my god, everyone in the world is having sex but me." She's thinking about sex all the time and never having it, so she doesn't know what she thinks, it's like a puzzle. I thought it was weird that she had lied to people in her life about being a virgin. I love telling people, like my gynecologist, it's like this crazy thing! So whatever, then she goes and tells Sabrina, who's cleaning out the uterus vacuum, and she totally puts Sabrina on this pedestal and Sabrina could not give a shit whether she's a virgin or not, which you think is going to be the point, and then in the last line she has sex and has that pregnancy "scare" and says she's finally "the woman I wanted to be." That was like the creepiest line ever. This girl totally needs to be in therapy. Hey, I'm in therapy! Everyone should be in therapy! But I really hope that she's talking to someone.

My Virginity Went From Choice To Burden [NY Times]

The Unbearable Quirkiness of the Unstoppable Charm Of Zooey Deschanel

Anna — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:07:46 EDT

At the beginning of this month's Jane cover profile 'The Unstoppable Charm of Zooey Deschanel', writer Shelly Ridenour finds herself with the actress at a farmer's market. It's crowded, cluttered with street musicians and "family-run cheesy" but it's also "shiny" and "fresh" and "a little bit too predictable." Sort of, we might venture to say, like Zooey Deschanel, whose stubborn quirkiness is starting to make us wish she'd find a narcotic to abuse. But gosh! Such a cute dresser! (Seriously!) After the jump, all the actress' quirky attributes as pounded into our heads by Jane magazine.

Zooey: Taught herself to play ukelele because "I just think it's cute".
Zooey: Sings on "A Mixtape From Ben Lee".
Zooey: Occasionally performs with a cabaret act she formed called "If all the stars were pretty babies". What does that mean?
Zooey: Is an "amazing whistler".
Zooey: Likes to sing Linda Ronstadt songs at karaoke.
Zooey: Also sings for her friend/ex-boyfriend Jason Schwartzmann's musical project.
jason schwartzman's musical project is called coconut records
Zooey: Goes shopping at a store called "Dream Articles Apparel For People" where she buys a smock and a bunch of cute animal pins. At another store she buys heeled saddle-shoes.
Zooey: Fusses at Jane creative director Marie for smoking.
Zooey: Is unnerved by street musicians.
Zooey: Loves the website "The accent archive" at transbuddha.com.
Zooey: Hates sentence fragments.

The Unstoppable Charm Of Zooey Deschanel [Jane]