quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

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the most entertaining one involved two residents of low-income senior housing ... they were seeking restraining orders against each other (this happened in half of the cases - both parties wanting orders): apparently the old man (who was sporting an almost cartoon-like head bandage) had gone into her room without permission and he'd also screwed with her food in the kitchen or something and said mean things, and she had hit him with a skillet.

Not that our local council hasn't done some questionable things (the usual doing shit nobody wants after a joke consultation where it becomes clear the shit is unwanted) but when dude comes to me to sign his latest petition of THE GREEDY COUNCIL ARE DEVILS, DEVILS I SAY I try, in the nicest possible way, to get him to think about spellcheck and the responsibility involved when you insult others in print.

All this reminds me of the recent story in which an Orthodox Jewish couple living in an NYC co-op complained because motion-sensing lights had been recently installed in the building, and they felt that they therefore could not leave their apartment during Sabbath without violating the law against turning on lights. So they complained to the co-op board and asked if the lights could be either turned back to the old type, or turned off from Friday night to Saturday night. To which the board responded, "Actually, no, but you can sell your place and GTFO."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/nyregion/22hotdogs.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=food%20carts%20at%20the%20met&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23pubed.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1251064876-IPv95qmDLGyPcsgZkwWrFA

The Insult Was Extra Large

By CLARK HOYT
Published: August 22, 2009

THE J. C. Penney Company opened a new department store in Midtown Manhattan at the end of last month. It was greeted in The Times’s “Critical Shopper” column with what many readers perceived as offensive condescension.

“Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops” without even a makeover of its logo, asked the columnist, Cintra Wilson, a virtual sneer seeming to drip from her keyboard. She said Penney’s “has always trafficked in knockoffs that aren’t quite up to Canal Street’s illegal standards”; “a good 96 percent” of the clothing is polyester; the racks are full of sizes 10, 12 and 16, but not Wilson’s 2; the petites department has plenty of clothing “for women nearly as wide as they are tall”; and the store “has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on.”

Helen Berkeley, a reader from Baltimore, said she was dismayed at the column’s “fat hatred, class bias and nasty humor.” Kristin Anne Carideo of Seattle said that mocking people who want fashion but cannot afford designer clothing “is myopic and offensive.” Sarah Looney of Harrisonburg, Va., said the column was “saturated with disdain for the type of clothing that the average person wears, and, what is more troubling, the size of the average woman.” Others found the column “a voice for class privilege,” “hateful,” “genuinely cruel” and “smug.”

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, was unhappy, too. The column, he said, “would make a fine exhibit for someone making the case that The Times has an arrogant streak.” Keller said his mother was a Penney’s shopper for much of her life, and she would have found the review “snotty.” He told me that he wished it had not been published.

The column raised an issue that The Times and other news organizations sometimes struggle with: What is the difference between edgy and objectionable? Or, as one reader, Daniel Harris-McCoy of Boston, put it: How do writers “navigate the fine lines between observation, satire and snark,” and when should editors step in to restrain them?

Although Trip Gabriel, the Styles editor, said the lines can be blurry, it seems to me that they were crossed and left far behind in this case. Wilson’s editors should have saved her, themselves and the paper from the reaction they got from readers, who concluded that the humor was at their expense, not for their benefit.

Keller said, “The key, I guess, is to imagine that you are writing for an audience with a broad range of views and experiences, and to write with respect for them.” Dismissing a point of view “with a contemptuous sneer is not only bad manners, it’s bad journalism.”

Wilson, a freelancer who has written the “Critical Shopper” under contract for about two years, alternating with Mike Albo, seemed shaken by the angry response to her Penney’s review. “Ouch,” she said when I called her.

She pointed out that the column had good things to say about the store — an enthusiastic sales associate she encountered, “big, clean and well-tended” dressing rooms and a “remarkably smart” strategy of catering to larger-sized women and men. “This niche has been almost wholly neglected on our snobby, self-obsessed little island,” she wrote. “New York boutiques tend to cater to the stress-thin morbidly workaholic, Pilates-tortured Manhattan ectomorph.”

But by the time the column got around to some praise for Penney’s and the caricature of the kind of Manhattanite who does not shop there, the damage had already been done.

Darcie Brossart, vice president for communications at J. C. Penney, said, “We found the review very offensive to our customers.” The average American woman, she said, wears a size 12 and weighs 150, and the company stocked the Manhattan store initially just the way it stocks its others in the metropolitan area. Smaller sizes sold out quickly, Brossart said, and the mix will be adjusted to meet demand.

After the review went up on The Times’s Web site and even before it appeared in print, Wilson issued a sort-of apology on her own Web site. As bloggers began reacting strongly, Wilson wrote, “You know I didn’t mean it that way, so please remove the knot from your panties and when you’re ready, join me for a cigarette and several Pucker martinis.”

Two hours later, she wrote, “I very much regret that my J. C. Penney article in The Times caused any wounded feelings whatsoever, particularly to people who already feel they take more than their share of abuse from our very shallow and ridiculous society.” She said, “I sincerely apologize.”

If there is a surprise here, it may be that Wilson’s reviews haven’t created more of a controversy before now. “She’s a sharp-tongued writer whose columns are only to a secondary degree service journalism,” Gabriel said. He said she is more of a social critic whose “style is to quite exaggerate things. She goes over the top.” Gabriel, who was on vacation when the Penney’s review was published, said he read it in the paper and did not anticipate the strong reaction that followed, though he now understands how some readers were offended.

Anita Leclerc, the fashion editor, said she was so used to Wilson’s “stream of consciousness writing style that is so full of barbs” that “the alarms weren’t set off that should have been.”

Past Wilson columns have had a real bite: “Tory Burch clothing inhabits a privileged, prim, declawed, deodorized look that culturally symbolizes a state of voluntary submission to the males of her tribe.” And they have contained cutting references to size: a size 14 caftan “looked like a shower curtain Berry Gordy would have bought for the Shirelles.” That sort of arch tone is pushing it even when reviewing the highbrow likes of Christian Louboutin, Gucci or Christian Lacroix. It really doesn’t work when taking on a mainstream retailer like J. C. Penney.

Wilson told me she usually writes about “obscure stores that don’t exist outside of Manhattan,” and she thinks of her audience as “1,300 women in Connecticut and urban gay guys in Manhattan.” She said it was “kind of provincial of me” not to realize how big The Times was and how her audience would expand when she reviewed a store like Penney’s. She said she also thought she hit a raw nerve with people already disposed to think of The Times as disconnected and unsympathetic. “It was dumb on my part not to see this coming,” she said.

Keller said, “I’d like to think this will be, as they say, a teachable moment.”

The lesson, I think, is that it is O.K. to have fun with your readers. It is not O.K. to make fun of them.

i love clark hoyt hes like the IAB of the ny times

Wilson told me she usually writes about “obscure stores that don’t exist outside of Manhattan,” and she thinks of her audience as “1,300 women in Connecticut and urban gay guys in Manhattan.” She said it was “kind of provincial of me” not to realize how big The Times was and how her audience would expand when she reviewed a store like Penney’s. She said she also thought she hit a raw nerve with people already disposed to think of The Times as disconnected and unsympathetic. “It was dumb on my part not to see this coming,” she said.

^^ huh wonder why the style section is such a pile of hot garbage

“Tory Burch clothing inhabits a privileged, prim, declawed, deodorized look that culturally symbolizes a state of voluntary submission to the males of her tribe.”

This quote is relevant to my interests. The rest -- meh.

navigate the fine lines between observation, satire and snark

new ILE tagline?

“She’s a sharp-tongued writer whose columns are only to a secondary degree service journalism,” Gabriel said. He said she is more of a social critic whose “style is to quite exaggerate things. She goes over the top.” Gabriel, who was on vacation when the Penney’s review was published, said he read it in the paper and did not anticipate the strong reaction that followed, though he now understands how some readers were offended.

Anita Leclerc, the fashion editor, said she was so used to Wilson’s “stream of consciousness writing style that is so full of barbs” that “the alarms weren’t set off that should have been.”

so as long as nobody complains her "edgy" writing is fine?

If a writer is edgy in a digital forest and nobody gives a fuck...

Wilson told me she usually writes about “obscure stores that don’t exist outside of Manhattan,” and she thinks of her audience as “1,300 women in Connecticut and urban gay guys in Manhattan.”

I mean this is most likely true.

(xpost) the sound of one hand clapping is giving me a headache

Zen Koans by Maureen Dowd

probably more people read this article than the usual style section fare, isn't that kind of the point. "controversy sells magazines" as a former boss once told me. the editors could just as easily defend her "edgy" writing as an exercise of personal opinion and uh style -- criticism remember? -- while saying they don;t agree with it and giving some JC Penney defenders equal time. guess they're worried about losing readers in the suburbs.

well, yeah, and they should be

i really didn't think the article was as bad as it was made out to be but that probably says more about my expectations of the style section than anything.

just cant believe that a contracted writer for the 3rd-largest daily newspaper in the united states is under the impression shes writing for, like, new york magazine

i mean i also cant believe that the times has TWO style sections every week

if i was carlos slim, those fuckers are the first to go

tbf most of the stuff the nyt publishes in its arts, style, and lifestyle sections would def not dissuade her from that impression.

TBH the Times does not give a runny shit about pissing off JCP shoppers, paper is probably engaging in contrition so as not to piss off an advertiser.

Everytime my wife and I see a hipster with a pot belly, we whisper to eachother, "dudes sportin' a Kramden!" Thanks style of the times!

i'm the biggest cintra wilson stan there is but it's true that this article fits the brief of the thread

as far as the "controversy" goes, it's her editor's fault. this is the kind of column that she's written for years. if it's not going to fly in the nytimes style section, don't run it, or don't hire her. hoyt's post-mortem (itself very very worthy of inclusion into this thread, on its own merits) dodges this completely

I think maybe she's too old to be writing this kind of thing.

he doesnt dodge it, tracer...

Although Trip Gabriel, the Styles editor, said the lines can be blurry, it seems to me that they were crossed and left far behind in this case. Wilson’s editors should have saved her, themselves and the paper from the reaction they got from readers, who concluded that the humor was at their expense, not for their benefit.

does this count?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/sports/tennis/24rackets.html?_r=1

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/24/sports/24rackets_190.jpg

How is this not an Onion photoshop.

What an oddball.

woops i missed that bit, max

it would have been nice to have her actual editor actually named rather than just "her editors" although the overall styles editor is named and what a perfect styles name it is too - "trip gabriel"

but yes hoyt did his job. i am a bad mang.

Mueller, who has a Ph.D. in chemical physics and a sideline in daffy showmanship in the persona of “Dr. Bones,”

what a stereotype

He spends some of his spare time calling newspaper editors looking for publicity for the unsanctioned sport.

and it works!

lol

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/business/26lawyers.html?_r=1&ref=business

After he lost his job as a television reporter two years ago, Derek Fanciullo considered law school, thinking it was a historically sure bet. He took out “a ferocious amount of debt,” he said — $210,000, to be exact — and enrolled last September in the School of Law at New York University.

“It was thought to be this green pasture of stability, a more comfortable life,” said Mr. Fanciullo, who had heard that 90 percent of N.Y.U. law graduates land jobs at firms, and counted on that to repay his loans. “It was almost written in stone that you’ll end up in a law firm, almost like a birthright.”

Good lord.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/26/business/26lawyer01-650.jpg

"I keep looking for this green pasture on here! They said it would be here!"

He looks like the work study I had to fire because he went psychotic and threatened one of the librarians.

The American Psycho route to success.

Like Ms. Figurelli, many students say that for the first time, they are considering and seeking work with government and public-interest groups.

Oh the agony.

http://tkfiles.storage.live.com/y1pn3iPCe2784hGENMC0F59kNjaWoKtdak1iDkvAoeMqgrCV2vn43NGugnJMPVBPvhmj-7kU1WpmL48MX2pwnmXpQ

Hahah

"Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom"

They may be the "juggernaut" of NY, but I've never heard of them. That's the kind of law-firm name someone would make up on the spot in a sitcom script meeting, then have it rejected for sounding too improbably stupid.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/23/skadden-merger-takeover-business-cx_df_0123skadden.html

uh, seems like a real place to me?

Yeah, Skadden Arps is like THE M&A law firm, and has been for several decades. Not just in NY, but in the world.

Skadden, Arps is definitely real! xpost what Pancakes said!

“It was thought to be this green pasture of stability, a more comfortable life,” said Mr. Fanciullo, who had heard that 90 percent of N.Y.U. law graduates land jobs at firms, and counted on that to repay his loans. “It was almost written in stone that you’ll end up in a law firm, almost like a birthright.”

Apart from the very bad choice of the word "birthright," I have sympathy with this. Top law schools are really expensive and not exactly all fun and games; the draw of going through them is that you may well get to work 80-hour weeks at a huge firm for the loads of money it takes to pay off that debt; I think it does genuinely suck right now for people coming out of those schools and finding nothing, jobwise, especially since it disrupts the usual course of those careers.

I mean, that can be less of an "I'm fundamentally entitled to these things" mentality and more of a "holy crap I put all of this energy and debt into walking down this path and suddenly the end goal has disappeared"