STREET THEATER
The Seattle bullpen at Shea Stadium, Tuesday June 24, around 8 PM
TAKE US OUT TO THE BALLGAME
Ah, the smell of horsehide and fresh-mown grass—and that was just on the bus! Yes, it was Tuesday night at the ballpark, as about forty or so Playboy staffers headed off to Shea Stadium on an office outing to see the hapless Seattle Mariners play the even haplessier New York Mets in an inter-league struggle …
IT’S SEXIE!
Exciting news: “Sex in Iran”, an article by Pari Esfandiari and Richard Buskin that I edited for the May 2007 issue of Playboy, has won the first Sexie Award for sex positive journalism. This award is given by the the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and the Center for Sex & Culture, and “Sex in …
STREET THEATER
Henri Bendel’s on Fifth Avenue, Monday, June 16th, arund 9:30 AM.
CARA SINGS!
I had the happy Father’s Day treat of seeing a performance of the Croton Teen Chorus, featuring my brilliant daughter Cara Malanowski. I had heard Cara sing at any length in more than a year, and it was lovely to hear her high, clear voice in ensemble, and in a solo rendition of I Got …
FLATTERY AT ITS FINEST
I received a nice letter from Lewis Burke Frumkes, the Director of the Writing Center at Marymount Manhattan College: “I thought your talk was terrific and highly informative. . . .Mr. Stupid may have gone to Washington, but in my book, Mr. Smart came to our conference in New York.” Lewis, I’m blushing!
A CRAZY HAMLET
One of the best highlights of summer these last few years has been seeing Shakespeare in Central Park with my daughter Molly. We’ve seen Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona: The Musical, Mother Courage, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hair, and, last week, Hamlet. The productions aren’t always great, but it’s always fun …
OBAMA, CLINTON, IMITATE THE COUP?
Last night, “under the cover of drakness” as NBC’s David Gregory hyperdramatically set the scene, Barack Obama met with his defeated rival Hillary Clinton–much like Jack Mahone met with his defeated rival Godwin Pope in the opening pages of The Coup! Okay, okay, so they met a Diane Feinstein‘s house, and not in a parking …
LUNCH WITH NEAL RECHTMAN
Had lunch last week with Neal Rechtman, nearly a neighbor from Ossining, and the author of an interesting first novel called The 28th Amendment, which I was happy to blurb. A good guy, and talented, and like me, a onetime student of J.R. Humphreys at Columbia. I hope he sticks with it.
KEYNOTE!
Thanks to an invitation from the inimitable Lewis Burke Frumkes, I delivered the keynote address at the Marymount Manhattan Writers Conference this morning. Lewis asked me to talk about being an editor, so I got to gas on about some of my favorite editorial thoughts, mainly, about how the job of an editor is to …