PARADE
'Parade' is always fun mainly for its reader-generated content, which is to say, the awesome questions posed to Walter Scott's "Personality Parade" and Marilyn Vos Savant's "Ask Marilyn." (Examples: "Dear PARADE, I've been a fan of ER's Mekhi Phifer for over a decade — ever since his breakout role in Spike Lee's Clockers. Is he married?" Dear Stephanie H. of Milwaukee: If you've been such a devoted fan for so long, why had you never Googled this information before? Do they not have Google in Milwaukee? Because if you had maybe Googled this information, say, seven years into your fandom, you might have found out before his relationship status became "engaged." Or "Dear PARADE, As I was studying one evening, I began to wonder how they get the graphite into a pencil." Dear Jennifer R. of Minneapolis, might we suggest Ritalin for that problem? Dear PARADE, John Travolta has spoken out about global warming. How does he reconcile that with the fact that he owns and flies two jets? Dear Michelle Levick of Ventnor N.J., the fact that you know that John Travolta not only owns and flies two jets but has also "spoken out" on global warming leads me to believe you might have also happened upon the fact that John Travolta also believes that an evil god named Xenu once ruled over a Galactic Confederacy that he decided to nuke 75 million years ago, and the radioactive spiritual residue is why they need Scientology to make them "clear." So like, "reconciling"... are you still following? B+
What you can learn from them: Um, obviously that you need a column like "Walter Scott's 'Personality Parade'", only written by someone unafraid to sling actual dirt...like say, someone at Page Six?

New York Times
The "Sunday Styles" section runs some story about a popular teacher at Horace Mann, oh who cares, Bob Morris's last column exhorts regular people to start sending proper thank-you notes so as to take the practice back from the social climbers who have co-opted the practice for their own sick and vulgar self-interest, and a piece purporting to be a "trend" piece on a drinking club called the "Secret Science Club" that meets unsecretly in a Brooklyn bar to do high-school level science projects. "Academia and academic pursuits have never been so aspirational," says a marketer predictably. Anyway, fun! But worthless without pics of some kids splattering their deep-Vs with the yellow fat of dissected frog...Or hmmm, maybe not...
Then the Magazine expounds for approximately 90,000 words on the "Sleep-Industrial Complex." Like your page 32 story "Sleepless in the City," we learn that Americans are obsessed with insomnia and spend $4.5 billion a year on sleep aids. But whereas the "angle" of your story is best described in the words of Laura Baran — "I felt like I was on coke" — the New York Times Magazine goes deep, back to the whole concept of the 8-hour sleep and how it really explains America. After all, people didn't always get eight uninterrupted hours...some tribes in some tribal nation like to sleep in shifts with all their limbs intertwined and that works for them... and studies in the fifties showed that people slept no better on a mattress than a carpeted piece of plywood...but see, in America we like to sleep better because we think it makes us work better. How American of us! So anyway, where did that whole eight-hour sleep idea first come from? And if it's such a creation of the sleep-industrial complex, could they maybe re-program Ambien so that you only needed, say, five and a half hours of sleep to use it? And is there anything really wrong with drinking yourself to sleep? These questions are not really answered. C+
What you can learn from them: Um, Bob Morris is out of a job maybe? So you can get rid of Lydia Hearst.

Wall Street Journal
The weekend "Pursuits" section tries to answer that age-old question, "How can yoga really be exercise?" Because your heart rate only reaches about half the level it would if you were walking, in other words "as much as you'd expend scratching yourself." A review of Steve Martin's new memoir says his real estate agent dad was such an asshole he actually wrote a negative review of his son's inaugural SNL appearance for a Realtor newsletter. A succinct review of Tom Brokaw's new book on the sixties, which is called something that is not "The Worst Generation." A piece on how all the big retail chains are going to be trying to get you to mindlessly purchase "accessories" to go with your holiday gifts, like skins for Guitar Hero guitars and something called bra jewelry." Obligatory holiday recipes. B
What you can learn from them: The stories in "Pursuits" seem more concise and information-packed than Times stories. They ask questions that seem obvious that aren't, without acting like they were so brilliant to think of that obvious-seeming-but-not-really obvious question. But it's not exactly the sort of section that makes you want to do like you would the moist turkey carcass they fetishistically describe in the lead Thanksgiving leftovers story and dive the fuck in.

Washington Post
In the Style section, Robin Givhan reflects on the unlikely death of Donda West, noting that black people account for a mere 6% of cosmetic surgeries performed every year in the country and that, as celebrity moms go, Donda was not exactly Dina Lohan. "Her death makes one marvel at the way in which popular culture pushes, pushes people toward an ideal. And then tut-tuts when they take the bait." Anthony Bourdain credits the Chinese with every "food worth eating" and Gene Simmons talks about how women don't understand superheroes. The magazine's popular "Date Lab" blind-date column features a really cringe-inducing back-and-forth between a mechanic and a Senate staffer who have wildly different notions of how the night went. (Him: "That kiss was the highlight of the evening!" Her: "It wasn't something I wanted to do.") B+
What you can learn from them: The Post is really forthright and in touch with its readers, which is how they get people like the "Date Lab" pairs once a week to be so painfully honest, I guess. Or maybe she was just like, "you know, I probably won't see that mechanic guy ever again, soooo."

Theme: There's a writers strike on. What's the future of non-craptastic television programming?
The New York Times Sunday Styles section: Runs the "strike diary" of a Daily Show writer, who describes picketing as very very very cold cold cold. And...um yes mainly cold.
P6M: Runs a short profile on Bitsie Tulloch, the star of a Youtube show called quarterlife. Oh my god, it is sooooo bad.
WSJ Saturday Journal: Runs a short profile of the Youtube success of a British show called That Mitchell and Webb Look that pokes fun at editors who try to inspire their writers by polluting their brains with retarded ideas.
Score: Tie, SSS and WSJ.

Theme: It's Veterans Day in the U.S. Military's deadliest year in decades.
WSJ: Features a recipe for "kickapoo juice," some sort of weird grappa-grapefruit concoction beloved by WWII vets, and bemoans the scarcity of liquor in today's foreign wars.
P6M: N/A
NYT SSS: N/A.
Score: WSJ. Would it have been so hard to find a war themed story, guys? You manage to find a different "on the street fashion trend" fifty two months of the year. But okay.

Theme: Are you lucky enough to have a job in this fucking economy?
NYT SSS: runs a story on a self-help guru who teaches people how to ignore stupid work shit. It's another in the "multitask detox" series.
P6M: runs a story on the city's best places to work, perk-wise. Google employees get free ceviche and deep-tissue massage, Engender Health gives free child care and Bloomberg has an on-site nurse practitioner you can visit any time to avoid having to run out to see the doctor for minor health issues. "You get a message 20 minutes later saying, 'Your medicine is here.' It's unbelievable." And also, might we wonder, cost-effective over the long term?
Score: Tie.

Theme: As Gisele Bundchen's monetary policy statements of last week showed, celebrities are not above heeding the coming recession:
NYT SSS: interviews Crispin Glover on his philosophy on spending: "Later, while enjoying $98 prix fixe menu at Jean Georges, Mr. Glover explained that fine food (along with Czech castles) is one of his few indulgences. Otherwise, he said: "I buy everything on eBay. Suits. Cars. Shaving cream. You can save a lot of money.
P6M: interviews R&B "reigning prince charming" Chris Brown on how he would spend $6 at a bodega: "Ten 25-cent juices, six bags of 25-cent potato chips, a couple honey buns, and save the rest."
Score: Tie.

Theme: Terrible people get ahead in this town in this town:
NYT SSS: profiles W. Edward Sheetz, a hotel executive for Ian Schrager's company who resigned from his job when a girl half his age was found dead from an oxycodone overdose in his hotel room.
P6M: profiles — and interviews — Mandie "Cunt Face" Erikson.
Score: Who else, P6M.

Theme: Wistful first-person observations of individuals immersed in the "scene."
P6M: From Faran Krentcil's Gossip column: "There's one guy who's stuck to a tabloid princess, and he's giving off a glow, the kind that keeps you snug and smug when you drop a famous last name in conversation. 'Look at him,' grins the artist. 'He's really worked on his social climbing skills. last year he might not have even made it to this party. I wonder if his drugs have gotten better?' She says it sweetly, as if the guy managed to shave time from a five-mile run."
NYT SSS: From the strike diary: "I wear four sweaters on my torso and one wrapped around my head. If I were at work today, what would I be doing? Probably working on a headline about Musharraf. Watching videotape of Bush urging yet another leader to rethink martial law. Ingesting vile amounts of Boo Berry cereal to stimulate the joke-writing process. Do I actually miss that? Yeah, I actually miss that."
Score: P6M. It's a little ridiculous, whereas the strike diary just makes me want to, you know, do that.

The opening line of your new girl-about-town Faran Krentcil's gossip column "Six & The City": "The problem with cliches is they're usually true: Me, the blonde, curly haired girl writing tales of my 'fabulous' life..." was but a mere apertif to the entree of mindblowing WTF-ecdote about the stockbroker with the hedge fund husband who tried to get a clause inserted into their pre-nup granting him the right to renegotiate if she gained more than five pounds in any three-year period.

I was floored. I didn't know it at the time, but within a few hours I would receive an email from a reader, subject headed "are you going to post on this week's P6 Mag?"

Because you and I are the only people I know who read it and I am now addicted to both it and your column. My bf is the one who buys the Post and I stole P6Mag out of his copy before he could get to it. At this point, is Lydia Hearst just trying to sound like an idiotic asshole so that Gawker will cover her? Her diary page was amazing. Also, the pull-quote from Chenowith's interview that they put on the cover was awesome.

"There are a lot of egos in the yoga world."

At which point, I looked up from my egg sandwich to read the line aloud to my roommate, when I caught a "look" from the waitress, and realized it was time to make way for her next 20-25%. They don't fuck around, the brunch people. There's not a lot of time for reflection, or whatever; onto the next yoga class already! Ha ha ha, or maybe the next DRINK.

Which reminds me of the story that comes directly afterward, "Priced Out Of New York," on the types of young "creative professionals" who would, in any other section of the country, probably be tempted right now to walk away from one of those subprime mortgages, given the way the real estate market has snapped, but thankfully, because it's New York, they couldn't in a million years conceive of a mortgage, and so now they're homeless because their landlord raised the rent 19% in a single year. Ummm, maybe not the right crowd to try and sell on the virtues of getting canned?

Which is all a probs-oversnarky way of saying: you still need to pick an audience. Personally I'm with the latter camp getting evicted from their apartments, because it's a fairly real danger to me, and having also gotten fired I can tell you that twentysomethings living in imminent danger of getting priced out of Bushwick may be all too susceptible to your soft pitches for cute brunch places and stiletto ankle boots — nice selection of accessibly-priced shoes on page 38, btw! — but convincing them that losing their only revenue stream with two weeks to find a new one is a totally awesome life experience is a not something you can do lightly. As someone who's been there I can attest that it's an interesting, life-changing experience to be fired, but it's not one I ever could have approached thinking, "If Tina Brown and Paula Zahn and Marc Jacobs and Kate Moss can do it, there's no reason I can't!" (Your readers, to be sure, could be on stronger drugs than mine.)

Moving on, there's a feature about Emily Listfield, the old Redbook "Sex & The Single Mom" blogger I'd been curious about ever since an incident in which her commenters went apeshit after she left her middle schooler at home so she could sneak out to have a cocktail with an emotionally unavailable sex buddy. Turns out Emily's husband disappeared a few years ago after they had separated, which happened after he had become one of those alcoholics who drinks beer from a Starbucks cup in the morning. He probably drowned in Florida, but their daughter wrote a diary full of alternate theories as to what might have happened to him: "Maybe he was hit by a car and is lying on the side of the road in gooey bits." To make it all more fucked up, she's torn between mourning the guy and seething that he'd been staying with an ex-girlfriend when he disappeared, and that, beyond that, the dumbass ex-girlfriend had waited four days to alert the authorities. It's some heavy shit, all the way to the point at which she brings up that age-old mystery, "Can you ever really know another person?"

It's probably the best story, "material"-wise, you've had thus far, but it's either too long or too short to be quite powerful enough, and it's laden with cutesy little local details to make it more "New York"-y, when really it probably should have either been isolated from the New York theme altogether — the Washington Post used to do this on Sundays with a little "human condition" section called "Life Is Short: Autobiography As Haiku" — or pushed into a more New York centric format, the obvious one being, how does this place make it harder or easier to feel as though you really know another person, and engaging along the way with all the things that have become become such common props — therapy, introspection, blogging, memoir-writing — in our struggles to deal with stuff.

It seems like most of your non-feature pages are occupied by seasonal shoes, with a two-page exception that addresses the subject of clutches, which are those obscenely-priced wallet-sized purses that have no straps and are basically made for someone like me to lose, so I have to admit I didn't read them that closely. But I LOVED your feature on the legendary day H&M debuted its Stella McCartney collection, "the Antietam of mass-market sales." This was a really good idea that could have been made brilliant if you'd tracked down five or six women who were there and cobbled together an "oral history" of that sale and the countless frenzied high-design/discount store collaboration debuts that have occurred since, with a little context as to how and why to shop them.

And on a final note, I would speak to your cover story on Jennifer Esposito, only I don't really know who she is. Which is to say, I know, like about her marriage and that movie and some show and crap but I don't really care, which is to say, I don't really feel bad that I don't care and the story didn't make me feel like I should have felt bad. The same went for Samaire Armstrong, incidentally. I guess this is the time of you magazine life during which publicists are granted favors that will be returned with bigger celebrities later on, but no magazine should really be playing that game until it's clear what they are, and that's not quite clear for you yet, and you don't even have to sell newsstand copies, so you might take a week or two of every months as an opportunity to do a theme cover or a news cover. Experiment! It's not like this isn't the third or fourth time Page Six Magazine has launched!

Yours,

Moe

Well, yeah, since it was your fact-checkers that corroborated all this, but man, it's hard to believe there was ever a time before rehab was just a natural career milestone, like getting fat for a role in a movie, which isn't to say it doesn't get old for some people — ahem, Renee! — but these days you've almost got to do it once or twice, if not to give the public a personal narrative to work with, at least for the networking.

But yo, Ally went to rehab and I never heard from her again. Am I the only one who finds this a little staggering? Look, I'm going to guarantee you I'm not. But your story is pretty standard-fare "Reality TV star claims to be nothing like her character on her reality show" profile, which was a shame — though hey, props for not starting the story with a fascinating anecdote about how she chewed contemplatively on a portobello mushroom sandwich at some restaurant in Midtown — because all those things I have said already are the lens through which you turn a story on a celebrity who is doing nothing into a story on a celebrity who symbolizes some palpable shift in the culture. In this case, the story of Ally, who had a blockbuster reality show based on her friendship with a fellow rich girl, then had a falling out with the rich girl and went to rehab and failed at everything she tried to accomplish after that — ooh, and does the "flash-in-the-pan" thing remind anyone of dad??? — is on a larger level the tale of a generation of reality show stars who were reviled and forgotten and did not manage to emerge unscathed that preceded this current crop of reality show stars, with their shamelessness and Prattitude; a generation imbued in something someone I know once labeled "false meta-ness, the Shakespearean tragic flaw of the generation." Man, so true. Who said that to me? Oh yeah, it was one of your very own editors. Anyway, maybe "false-metaness" is a little smart-for-smart's-sake New York-y, and I'm the last person to advocate couching celebrity fluff in "intellectual" terms, but sometimes figuring out how to smarten up a story is a good way to figure out what questions you'd like answered in a celebrity profile: namely, "What's it like to watch the dynamic of all your interpersonal relationships play out on a television show? What's it like to figure out you have no actual talent?" Etc. etc. You can ask Ally these human condition-type questions, because she came before the era of False Meta-ness. She feels. And I felt for her, reading your piece; just not enough. I didn't feel satisfied. I wanted to empathize. Instead I thought: "oh god does her art sound awful."

Okay, moving on: you hired Fashionista's Faran Krentcil as your gossip columnist; seems like a good move, she knows everyone. I skimmed the stories on New York's best personal shoppers and another on free-birthers because I'm neither rich enough to ever warrant the services of a personal shopper nor enough of a hippie to even want to read about hippies who give birth in their homes, but maybe that's just me. (Though hah = maybe not!) Fashion is, as usual, the high point, and my horoscope seemed pretty accurate, which is to say, I think it said something about "shut up for once," which is what I have to do until next time. More then!

Related: Highlights From The Ally Hilfiger Piece [NY Mag]

"I don't want to look back and wonder how life would have been different had I just worn a pair of dark, skinny jeans. For fall, I decided to try something new. My friend Marcella, who works for Seven jeans, convinced me to get into a skinny pair in a new wash... My agent said I should wear them every day."

As usual I have lots of misc. comments: you did a feature on skyscrapers ("Edifice complex" — LOL) that seemed un-pegged to anything; "The secret world of straight hairdressers" was a typical blueballer that should have, as long as it wasn't going to feature drugs/orgies/boldface names/anything really of interest at all, been re-cast as a think piece about the appeal of gay-seeming straight guys or guys in traditionally-gay fields or something like that; the "As told to" story about the woman with bipolar disorder was wan and pointless and didn't so much as prove the headline ""I could lose my job because I'm bipolar" — (Really? Wait, is that illegal??) But it all comes back to Miss Skinny Jeans. Is this groundbreaking territory we're covering here, or have we at least figured out a new angle? Can this person even write? And is he/she at all sympathetic? You can get away with the answer to one or two of those questions being "no," but when it's all three.... time for a kill fee.

Okay, so: the gist of Emily's story, for which she agreed to be semi-"soulfully" photographed, was: "I have a love-hate relationship with drugs," the most harmless subgenre of the reliable "Addiction" narrative. Specifically, Emily had the kind of drug problem-ish common to many creative urban precocious types who derive motivation, solace, inspiration etc. from some illicit substance on which he/she eventually becomes paranoid that he/she is hopelessly dependent, especially if he/she has achieved some sort of sudden success he/she is constantly wondering whether or not he/she actually deserves, and then, in a related development, wonders if the drug deserves some/all of the credit, or alternatively whether the drug is the only thing from keeping everything from falling apart all at once, like some pin in a grenade or some other, less-overused cliche; you see where I'm going. (Or wait, you probably don't.) Anyway, put simply: it's hard to say where the internal monologue stops and the actual problem begins, and the only problem with that is, lack of jail stints, prostitution, occasions of bone-chilling, gut-churning debasement etc.

This particular piece gets written a lot, I think because a lot of people abuse substances, especially when they are writers, because writers were generally dorks in high school. But the problem is that most people who were dorks in high school were too sheltered to have a huge number of other real problems in the world outside the self-loathing, insecure recesses of their brains, which is why if they really want to be writers they should spend more time talking to other people, which is to say "who are not self-obsessed substance-abusing writers." (And before I say another word: "Guilty — DUH!")

THAT SAID, you have something special with this story, which is to say that it is about weed, which is a little exotic in this town because it usually involves a carbohydrate chaser. And what a magical drug it sounds like! The way Emily and her band of overachieving potheads tell it, weed both enabled them to concentrate AND relax; focus on neuroscience homework AND feel "brain dead." Who are they buying this shit from? I wanted to learn more. But I was confused. And this, you see, is where any hack editor could tell you, words like "neurons" and "receptors" and maybe "lobe" come in. What is the drug doing to her brain? Could a doctor maybe have given her some words to make me at least feel a little bit enlightened? Marijuana isn't supposed to be physically addictive the way coke and alcohol and heroin and all the usual non-munchie-inducing New York drugs of choice do, so why exactly do people smoke so goddamn much of it? I want to feel that and smell that and watch movies on the couch with that a little more. Or fuck, maybe I should just buy some.

Similar problems beset the cover story on Kissing Jessica Stein writer Jennifer Westfeldt: the language is vague, the anecdotes are broad and hazy, and she doesn't seem like much more than a cliche to me: the fabulous female writer who moves to LA to do something in Hollywood because it blah blah pays better. But the cover line doesn't approach "They Need Weed To Succeed" (lol!); it's... "Jennifer Westfeldt Brings Smart To The Big Screen"... and that would be why she's shooting a come-hither glance in a sequined purple cocktail dress and there are approximately nineteen wardrobe changes in the accompanying photo shoot? So she has a new movie out — a second in a 15-year career or whatever — give me a decent subhead! "Woody Allen's got nothing" on her? Um, really? Do you mean, in terms of having pretty hair and a vagina?

And on a final copy editing note: the sentence at the beginning of the fashion feature on hedge fund types who buy their suits in London, "The sub-prime market is down, but so is buying off-the-rack clothes for many of the monied bosses who work on Wall Street," makes no sense, and if that's your attempt to feel the pain of all the Wall Street guys losing their shirt in this wretched market — yeah, it just hit a new high so save your pity for the sub-prime people losing their houses right now. Which reminds me: do you intend on featuring middle-class people in your magazine? I know everyone who reads Page Six is like, a trust fund kid or whatever, but there is such a thing as voyeurism.

Do you watch their new TV show? On Saturday's episode they featured a segment on American Pie MILF-fucker Eddie Kaye Thomas. A videographer had asked him what he'd been up to, and he got all bashful and "aw, nothin" about it, and so after reminding the world that Eddie was a distinguished actor with a pretty impressive IMDB resume, TMZ pulled up clips of worthless celebrities' responses to the same question, ending with Paris. "And the only thing she's working on his her next cold sore!" LOL!

This is the same TMZ whose founder the same Paris depicted lovingly in her most famous work of art.

Anyway, Frontline it is not, but TMZ TV entertains me because the people working there are not afraid to remind the world they did not go to college for this. Neither did you guys! And to be quite frank, neither did I. But hey, you have this audience and group of people you're supposed to care about; do it for them!

In its second issue — which I found to be a solid improvement over the first — Page Six seemed to be a magazine aimed at twentysomething girls who find themselves working in Manhattan and suddenly needing to read Page Six. But why? They don't quite know. In some corner of their brains they are probably asking themselves: Who the fuck is Tinsley Mortimer, anyway? What do all those vapid publicists meditate about in their yoga classes? What exactly is the difference between a run-of-the-mill spawn of a wealthy high-profile family and a socialite? I went to this "Misshapes" thing once and it was empty, so why does the press keep telling me it's cool? Why do all these big givers spend so much money buying new clothes for charity events when they could so much more efficiently just give the money away? Just how delusional are they, really? Your "Socializer" columnist Kelly Killoren Bensimon yaks on and on about how training for a marathon will somehow help cure cancer — does she really not see how that's a little absurd? And by the way: marathons: what's up with them? They make your nipples bleed. Wouldn't a simple three or four miles every other day suffice? And what is it with investment bankers always training for marathons? Why is overcompensating on your tax bracket never enough? Seriously, what ever happened to reading in your spare time? Which brings me back to: you have these readers; don't waste their time with something less enriching and fulfilling than a fucking spin class. You landed Lydia Hearst for your cover! Whose last name isn't technically Hearst...Which brings me to:

• A little rule: unless a hit man busts in and shoots someone or something, don't begin a profile with a scene in which your subject is sitting in a restaurant ordering/eating food. It just doesn't convey much about "why I should give a shit about this person" because it's too busy conveying "Yes, I really ate a meal in the presence of a FAMOUS MODEL" and that is annoying. And on that note:
• If the most interesting thing about your profile subject is their eating disorder, they are probably not worth profiling.
• All rules have exceptions and so for your purposes think of this as the "Rachel Zoe May Be An Exception" rule.
• There's a story about the new urbane, Just Like Us brand of swingers. None of whom are photographed. Because if you actually saw them, you might confuse them for the seedy, flabby, sadomasochism brand of swingers you already knew about? Or because none of them would agree to be shot? I bet you could have found someone to agree to a photo shoot. Or shot them artfully so as to disguise their identities or some shit, not that I know shit about photography. Anyway, the money quote is at the end, where the swinger runs into her boyfriend on a date with another woman, and she acts like it's fine, but she feels like she's been kicked in the stomach. Been there! Think maybe hers was maybe just a more intense version of the pang we all feel when, after years of building up heartbreak immunities and coping mechanisms and self-preservational instincts, we are reminded that, oh shit, we are still vulnerable? That maybe should have been your "angle." I know, I know, who died and made me ombudswoman?
• Which brings me to: meetings. In my experience, meetings are critical, because at every magazine I have ever worked for there was some dude — it was always a dude — who would just say over and over again, "So, how can you really advance the story?" and "What's your peg" and "Maybe you should talk to X" and most of all "I feel like I've read that before." I have never worked for a women's magazine, but my sense is that this dude does not work at them, or else "Is _______ making you fat?" might have jumped the shark as a concept by now. Anyway, this dude is a twerp, but your stories are always the better for arguing with him.
• Whatever, fuck dudes. You've got me! (You must feel sooooo privileged)
• Okay, so moving on: "Model Turned Boyfriend" on page 12 is cute. And so delightfully service-y you could even make the text smaller! New York does it, and I bet your readers have wayyyy better vision.
• Pretty clothes: this is the best thing about the mag so far. And I hate looking at pretty clothes! But when they're not being modeled by despicable celebrities and Lucky editors' friends, they turn out to be kind of fun to look at. I also love that the cutest subject of "Block Watch" spent probably $70 on her entire ensemble, and half of that was black Chuck Taylors.
• Gym Rage: I get this. Working out makes me a total bitch. No, I mean even worse. And I've never read anything about it.
• "10 Hospitality hotties NYC" — fun! Especially STK waiter Edwin Thomas: "Sometimes patrons make it known that what they want for dessert isn't always on the menu." More of that! And so symbolic! Ladies, make Edwin your AIM avatar and be inspired every time you look at his chiseled face! You're trying to give the guests something not on the menu. Make it chocolate!!!
• (Oh yes I did.)