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critical mass
Posts Tagged “
New York Times
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NY Times critic Cathy Horyn reviews the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute's latest exhibit, "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy" in today's paper. Her take? Speed of lightning, roar of thunder — it's a hit: "The ideas that dominate fashion — identity, performance, gender, body shapes, sexuality, logos and the quest for state-of-the-art materials — pretty well describe the world of the superhero...The magnified, supercharged body runs through fashion, from the hyper-athlete (cleverly evoked by Alexander McQueen in a 2005 silk ensemble with pretty football pads) to the sexy pinup, and is well represented in the exhibition... Dolce & Gabbana's corseted minidress from 2007 looks as if it were molded from Tiffany silver. It is actually made of leather...it would have been nice to see more clothing examples from the 1960s and '70s, and more abstract takes on transformation — where is Comme des Garçons, the avant-garde label of Rei Kawakubo?" [NY Times]
critical mass
she works hard for the money
It's Called "Work" For A Reason
My brother is only 16, but he is very wise. Recently, upon hearing a grown-up-type person bitch up her job, he replied, "Well, it's called 'work' for a reason." At this moment I said a little prayer of thanks that my parents had imparted to the kid that, in life, you have to work hard, and working hard isn't always sexy. This sort of sentiment, however, is absent among many of the Gen Y-ers currently entering the workforce, claims Lisa Belkin in today's New York Times. The kids nowadays are all worried about "passion" and "life mapping," and less concerned with, oh, putting in the hours and being the best damn alphabetizer/stapler/photocopy-er they can be. Says Daniel Pink, (whose book The Adventures of Johnny Burko is supposed to teach young adults that hard work is a good thing): "This generation has been spoon-fed self-esteem cereal for the past 22 years. They've been told it's all about them — what they want, what they are passionate about, what they find fulfilling. That's not a bad message, but it's also not a complete message." More »
bonerkiller books
Which Books Send You Running Out Without A Cuddle?
What are my hypothetical "dealbreakers"? I didn't think I had any, until this fellow I know emailed me with a link to the story that sits atop the New York Times Most Emailed list. The story is about "literary dealbreakers," which is to say, "books that are bonerkillers" or "It's Not Me, It's Your Books." Now: there is little in the way of reading material I hold in lower esteem than the New York Times' Most Emailed List, whose prominence on the New York Times homepage — in addition to the internal and circlejerkospheric prestige a writer earns when she or he writes a story that finds its way onto the list — serves not only as an important signifier of the wanton consumerism to which the once-great news gathering institution has succumbed, but a shameless perpetuator of said consumerism. Migraines! Maureen Dowd! Shamu! Oh yes, and also: "People in New York are detestable in every way; come, let us count them!" Today in class: your one-night stand is judging your book collection. More »
exclusive!
Who Actually Buys Bottega Veneta? We Ask A Girl Who Actually Owns One!
There is a totally made-up story in today's New York Times about Bottega Veneta. You know Bottega. They make those basketweave-y leather bags. Unless you don't know Bottega, in which case now you know the source of all the noxious superiority fumes whenever you're in the realm of one of the carriers of one of those basketweavy bags. Well, here's the "trend": The idea is that Bottega's bags are getting popular because they are more "understated" than flashy Louis Vuitton bags, and people are sick of logos. You know, the basketweave, it is not quite like a logo. No one knows where it's from. Until they do. And then they recognize it everywhere they see it. So it's like a logo, but subtler. Plus, you can't knock it off! So people know you spent a lot of money. Sort of like with a logo, if all the people who stole other people's logos were rounded off and thrown in Guantanamo Bay like God intended. Seriously though. I have known about Bottega since 2006, when I took a press trip to Hong Kong, on which a publicist was hellbent on acquiring a knockoff...Bottega Veneta.More »
focus group
What Separates The Bullies From The Bullied?
Why do kids get singled out for torment? The New York Times explores the topic today in its profile of Arkansas bully magnet Billy Wolfe. And It's really odd, because the kid looks so normal: no physical imperfections to speak of...clear skin...DC cap. "Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry," the story's author speculates, but anyway, he gets bullied, beaten the shit out of really, over and over and over again and everyone — kids, parents, school officials — complies. (There's a Facebook group too, devoted to airing sentiments such as: "There is no reason anyone should like billy he's a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.") Now, I have always been pretty sure I know why I was bullied in school, and that's because I was basically asking for it. But that's maybe the wrong question. More »
Perhaps you heard: The Hills are back, and even the New York Times seems to be excited! Says the Gray Lady: "The theme of ambition permeates the new season, although it detracts not at all from the show's canny sense that there's no such thing as postadolescence: you're a teenager until you start having biopsies and paying a mortgage." (The paper also - jokingly - calls Heidi Montag a "feminist hero".) You know what NYT? We love trashy television too, but there is no need to attempt to intellectualize something aimed at 16-year-olds. Just beach out in front of the television with a bottle of wine like the rest of us. (Speaking of, we'll be live-blogging the show tonight at 10pm Eastern.) [New York Times]
The New York Times has a bit of a problem in its breaking news headline regarding the Oscars: 'Old Country for Old Men' Wins Best Picture. Maybe the fact checkers are sleeping on the job because the awards show was so boring. (Click image for larger version.) [NY Times]
crappy hour
Did Cindy McCain Grow Her Hair So John Could Tell Her Apart From His Lobbyist Stalker Mistress?
Can you tell the difference between these two ladies? Can John McCain? See, one is John McCain's patriotic wife, and one is some telecom lobbyist who liked to show up at his events and tell her bosses that John McCain was doing her all sorts of favors. So did he go down on her? Can you do that with dentures? Did former campaign strategist John Weaver tell the media about how he had to chase Vicki Iseman away from McCain because he's still mad McCain didn't go along with his prescient plan to defect from the Republican Party back in 2000? Probably doubtful! But is this why that other McCain adviser says he's leaving the campaign if his guy ends up running against Mr. Nuclear Family Obama? Maybe so! More scurrilous gossip/hearsay/hypothetical conspiracy theorizing with me and Glamocracy Megan after the jump! More »
hells bells
The Wedding Industrial Complex Is Turning Egyptian Men Into Radical Jihadists!
Twentysomething Egyptian men like Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid are turning to hardcore Islam because the job market sucks, upward mobility is a total fraud, taking a blue-collar job would be an embarrassment to the family, and prayer is the only thing that doesn't make guys like him feel like total failures. Not that it really helps that much; Sayyid is still a depressive sometime shut-in who lives with his mom and often skips out on the check at restaurants. Sayyid would like to impose Islamic law upon the people of Egypt namely because he wishes everyone was left with as few options as he has been, and he's pretty average in Egypt, where over the last two decades the population has doubled and the number of mosques has increased twentyfold. "What do you think? Of course I am bored," he tells the New York Times. And to think all that kept him from happy healthy secular life was that he couldn't scrape together enough money to get married. More »
idiocracy
Are Men Or Women More "Hostile To Knowledge"?
Susan Jacoby says Americans are dumb. Oooooh, bold thesis!! Well but, remember that book Everything Bad Is Good For You about how videogames are actually good for kids' brains? Susan says that guy is full of shit. And it's a message that seems to be striking a chord. A New York Times story about her new book The Age Of American Unreason has been on the site's Most Emailed list for five days now. (Could it beat out What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage? Only time will tell!) I would have just ignored it but then for her column in yesterday's Washington Post, which now sits atop that site's "Most Viewed" list. How'd she decide to do the book? Well, the day was 9/11... Remember that? What year was it again? Anyway, depressed and confused, she found herself in a bar... More »
Does the pinko New York Times have a covert bias against abortion? The New Republic's Debbie Nathan thinks so. Nathan posits that while superficially, the Times supports pro-choice legislation, sex-education and birth control availability, "Not a season goes by that a news item or magazine feature doesn't imply that women who get abortions are acting with egotism, unhealthiness, and cruelty." The most recent example Nathan uses is Annie Murphy Paul's piece, "The First Ache," which ran last weekend in the Times Magazine. Paul quotes a doctor who says that fetuses can start to feel pain at 20 weeks, but also quotes a host of other doctors who vehemently disagree with that stat. Even so, Nathan argues, "Paul never specifies that the vast majority of abortions—more than 96 percent—are performed before 18 weeks' gestation, the earliest date being claimed for the beginning of fetal pain...Without these statistics, the article's main effect is to make female readers feel guilty and confused about abortion." Is Nathan being nitpicky, or does she have a point? [The New Republic]
rag trade
Marc Jacobs Is In Ur Blog, Pissy-Fitting In Ur Commentz
- So, Marc Jacobs hater/International Herald Tribune critic Suzy Menkes may have loooved Marc's show, but general MJ fangirl, the NY Times' Cathy Horyn, missed it altogether! Only to then check it out online and write, "[I] can see why some people found it a little slack." Only to then be responded to huffily, via the COMMENTS, on Marc by Marc himself, if you will: "Dear Cathy....I wish you could have been at my show...I deliberately stated I was uninspired this season as I have felt that talking about inspiration is so not the point to making and showing a collection." So yeah, any time you thought about dismissing the entire industry as one big neverending middle school...you were pretty much right. [WWD, 1st item]
- Oh no! Pink eye rampant at London Fashion Week! Think it's a deliberate conspiracy to sabotage the whole "certificate of health" thing? Yeah, fashion people are not that smart. [Vogue UK]
- The latest victim of an eye-infection? Hagyness herself! [The Sun UK]
- Aw, Benetton is getting back to its awesome ad roots: Its newest campaign is a promotion for a microlending program in Africa. [Fashion Week Daily]
vagina monoblogs
Beauty Bloggers Are The Lowest Form Of Freeloader
A story in the Times today chronicles the "growing power" of beauty bloggers. Hey, how come we never read those?, we wondered, and resolved to end that neglectful habit today and point our clickers to every one of the Top 10 Beauty Blogs as anointed by last week's WWD. Wrote Fabulista over at beautybloggingjunkie (Motto: "Beauty is the promise of happiness"): "Kiehl's in-store customers can also customize lip trios for Valentine's Gifts!" (punctuation hers.) Meanwhile over at Makeupbag, we learn "this limited-edition Clarins Single Eye Colour in Sunny Yellow is making us very happy today." AllAboutThePretty was all about the new "hip" line being marketed to the blog generation by Avon. "How cute is this mark Little Block Box palette by Avon. It contains the cutest baked shimmer cubes." Nice vocab! But all was not well in the beautyblogosphere, as the more introspective Nadine Haobsh (pictured) had actually read the New York Times story:Oh no! It makes us look like swag whores."Hahahahaha. More »
news roundup
Saddam Hussein Made Up That WMD Thing To Deter Invaders
- So it turns out Saddam Hussein lied about having WMD so the rest of the Axis of Evil would leave him alone. [CBS News]
- How much would you bet even he couldn't have kept that lie up 935 times! [Wash Post
- Isn't it funny how yesterday's enemies are today's...[Reuters]
- The New York Times to endorse Hillary Clinton? Identity politics much, Gray Lady??? [Radar]
- George Soros says it's the worst economic crisis in 60 years. Because financial instruments masterminded by crafty hedgies like himself just got too hard for central bankers and bureaucrats to understand. And speaking of hard to understand... [Financial Times]
- But anyway, everyone else smarter than you agrees. [NY Times]
- "Tax cuts in general perpetuate the excessive consumption that has marked the American economy." [NY Times]
- Suck it, Stiglitz, I want my six hundred bucks. [WSJ]
- Bill Gates is over capitalism. Convenient. [WSJ]
fashion victims
Fashion Blogger Announces That "It" Bags Are (Finally) Dead
On November 1 of last year New York Times fashion writer Eric Wilson put forth the bold headline: "Is This It for the It Bag?". Today, Los Angeles Times fashion blogger Monica Corcoran responds with the following: "The It Bag Is Dead. Designers Mourn." Well there you have it! Wrote Wilson back in November: "There is too much inventory. Prices are absurdly high... Status handbags, you see, are a lot like housing. After the rise of the $1,000 purse, fashion's equivalent of the $1 million studio, there inevitably comes talk of a backlash." (In the new issue of Harper's Bazaar, Bottega Veneta designer Tomas Maier rails against the very idea of such bags, calling them "bullshit".) But in her piece today, Corcoran suggests that the death of the It Bag has less to do with economics and more to do with celebrity, i.e., that the way we consume paparazzi images of women more famous more for forgetting to wear underwear could be impacting the status of the objects they carry that we are supposed to aspire to. More »
Chinese visitors to America have for generations scratched their heads as to where the fuck fortune cookies came from. Now they know: Japan. Where else, right? [NY Times]
gray ladies
From Homemakers To War Reporters, Women Now Get 46% Of The Vote
Although women got only 17% of the attention in the New York Times' "Notable Deaths of 2007" review last week, the "fairer sex" fared, well, better, in the newspaper's Sunday magazine, out yesterday. The magazine's annual "Lives They Lived" issue features a whopping 11 women (out of 24 profiles total), most of them not-so-boldface names and none — with the exception of designer Liz Claiborne — repeats of individuals found in "Notable Deaths". In fact, the Times magazine chose to honor women who were not tabloid trainwrecks but those at the top of their games, some of them domestic doyennes intent on transcending the confines of the kitchen or the hospital ward.
