Even before I liked the Yankees, even when I still cheered my beloved Baltimore Orioles, I knew that for someone who lived in New York, it was important for the Yankees to win. Their success changed the psyche of the city. People here are happy if the Mets, Giants or Jets win, and a certain …
Greg Olear, the author of a novel called Totally Killer that is “part thriller, part satire, part period piece” that has to do with the collision of conspiracy and pop culture in New York in 1991, writes about his “unlikely influences” on a blog on the Powell’s Bookstore site. After citing Weird Al Yankovic, Mad …
This is high season for sexual censoriousness. Facts are in short supply, but conclusions are abundant. We do know that David Letterman has allegedly been the victim of a crime involving affairs with members of his staff. We don’t know whether Letterman was married at the time of any of these events (as if it …
AFTER POLANSKI AND LETTERMAN, CAN “AN EDUCATION” SURVIVE? Read More »
Thanks to the Columbia Journalism Review for publishing my little tribute to Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their campaign for Mayor and City Council President of New York, and to Joe Flaherty, whose memoir of the campaign Managing Mailer, was one of the funniest things I ever …
Those condemned to live somewhere other than Manhattan may not know this, but we have this enormous skyscraper right in the middle of the island that we’re all rather proud of called the Empire State Building. Not content enough to allow the building to speak for itself and project an image of strength, power, sophistication, …
I’m pretty sure I would have been a fan of Mad Men in any event, but the fact that Don and Betty Draper make their home in Ossining–one mere town over from Briarcliff Manor, where I have lived for twenty years–always made the show especially appealing to me. Last Sunday, however, when Betty and her …
I don’t know if Joe Scarborough is running for president, but he is sure doing all the things he would need to do if he were. Over the last few years, Scarborough has taken some cues from the Ronald Reagan playbook. Like Reagan, Scarborough has maximized his best natural asset–his amiability–to position himself as a …
Tad Friend, once upon a time my colleague at Spy, has written a family memoir called Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor. It’s elegantly written, with many beautiful and touching passages, and the affection for his family really shows through. One very personal reaction it engendered from me was …
From an article in Editor & Publisher: “Since the financial meltdown began a year ago, journalism jobs have gone away at almost three times the rate jobs have disappeared in the general economy, according to a report by Unity: Journalists of Color. Unity’s 2009 Layoff Tracker Report shows an average 22% increase from month to …
Matthew Latimer, a former Bush 43 speechwriter, just published a memoir of his couple of years serving in the White House, and apparently it’s kicking up a small cloud of criticism from his former colleagues. “Without having read a single word, they’ve been on this mission against me—and it’s disappointing,” Latimer told The Daily Beast‘s …
WHY WOULD BUSH LOYALISTS WANT TO KILL THIS BOOK? Read More »