I was distraught to learn on Friday that iconic ’80s DJ Anita Sarko had killed herself. I didn’t know her personally, but she was a big part of the club scene that I read about avidly in Details magazine and Michael Musto’s Village Voice column. I was so fascinated by Anita that I have a…
In the News
Piercing Insight
Today I found out that fitting oh-so-perfectly into a New York Times consumer-trend story can make a person feel really … basic. The story, called (in the print edition) “Earlobes Are a Canvas for Women Over 30,” reports: “…many women in their 30s and 40s are doing something they had not considered for maybe a…
Recommended Reading: Ketzel the Composing Cat
I’ve written before that the most beneficial way to read a newspaper is in its print form, even though it’s not always beneficial for newspapers to continue to produce a print edition these days. But as long as print exists, I’ll read it, because act of turning the pages means I come across articles that…
Recommended Reading/Viewing: Nichols and May
I enjoyed reading Vanity Fair’s oral history of the late director Mike Nichols so much that I couldn’t stop with that article. I had to read about 10 others. Nichols had such a fascinating life. Born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, he fled Nazi Germany as a child, traveling alone with his younger brother. He arrived in…
Fourteen Years, and Marcy Borders
Last month, Marcy Borders died of stomach cancer. She had had a difficult life since Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, she was 28 and had been at her job at Bank of America for just a month. Her office was on the 81st floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. She…
Pet Peeve: Celebrity Profiles and SANS FARDS
I’ve been wondering if it is possible for a writer to profile a famous woman for a magazine without mentioning in the first paragraph that the woman in question is SANS FARDS (without makeup). The answer: It is not possible. Here is the first paragraph of Lynn Hirschberg’s profile of model Gigi Hadid, who is…
Recommended Reading: The Children of Strangers
I have all kinds of work to do, which means I am, instead, procrastinating by catching up on August issues of the New Yorker. (I will read yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story on procrastination tomorrow. I swear!) The August 3 New Yorker has a beautifully written, happy/sad story by Larissa MacFarquhar about Sue and Hector…
An Inexplicable Magazine Cover
Sometimes, you look at a magazine cover and just think … That’s how a number of people reacted when they saw the September cover of the new Spanish Vogue, featuring Penelope Cruz. Seriously, the magazine didn’t do her justice. But I’ve been pondering the matter of the totally inexplicable magazine cover since last month when…
Recommended Reading: Clemantine Wamariya
I’ve been meaning to recommend the story of Clemantine Wamariya for a long time. “Everything Is Yours, Everything Is Not Yours,” written by Clemantine with Elizabeth Weil, is best described by its own introduction: “At age six, I ran away with my sister to escape the Rwandan massacre. We spent seven years as refugees. What…
Recommended Reading: The Best Donald Trump Story
Donald Trump is terrifying, but the story that Drew Magary wrote about Trump and his fans for GQ Magazine is laugh-out-loud funny. It starts with … “The bus tells you everything you need to know because the bus is a piece of shit. You would expect a Donald Trump campaign bus to be MOST LUXURIOUS,…