If you're like us, you cannot get enough information about the NYT's move into Casa Piano. Will they still keep the 212 area code? Who's managing food services? Will Bill Keller's giant tribal penis totem fit in the new space? Well, here's every detail you could hope for, in the shape of a memo sent out to employees. Eco-friendly (but not tree-huggingly so) information after the jump.
A tipster reports:
Today's Times Arts section:
SOME of the most powerful Democrats in America are split over a most incendiary household issue: rodents."I once had to pick up a mouse by the tail that Durbin refused to pick up," complained Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, referring to his roommate Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois. This characterization is not fair to Mr. Durbin, interjected another tenant in the Capitol Hill row house, Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. For starters, it overlooks Mr. Durbin's gift for killing rats. "He will kill them with his bare hands," Mr. Delahunt marveled. "Oh, will you stop with the rats," said the annoyed fourth roommate, Representative George Miller of California. He owns the house and is sensitive to any suggestion that he harbors pestilence. It's dicey enough that he harbors politicians. Think MTV's "Real World" with a slovenly cast of Democratic power brokers.
Pet a Silkie chicken and you understand how it got its name. The feathers are fine and flutter in wisps in the breeze. With a walnut-shaped crown of plumage, blue earlobes and feathers that come in a variety of colors, it's a striking-looking bird that's often raised for show. Breeders also like them because they will hatch other birds' eggs. "They are such good moms," said Frank R. Reese Jr., the founder of Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch in Lindsborg, Kan., who breeds Silkies for show. "They'll sit on anything and hatch anything. They'll hatch ducks, turkeys, chickens."
More good news for publicity-shy author Marisha Pessl: she not only has a fancy new paintbox, she now has a movie deal. Variety reported today that Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin have bought film rights to her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. A preternaturally prescient Pessl forsaw this outcome; in an interview in September's Bookslut (that we, uh, remember somehow), Pessl talked about what she'd want to happen with her book's movie rights: "I hope it goes to someone really good, like Sofia Coppola." Well, no dice on that front, but there's still a chance — albeit a slim one — that Pessl will get her way when it comes to casting: "I like the idea of hiring all unknowns!" We're happy for the Pessl, and we hope for her sake that the deal was a big fat one — the loft she shares with her hedge-fund husband looks a little cramped in this picture; and we were concerned that she wouldn't have enough room for her painting hobby.
Well, besides us and everyone else who matters. If you'll recall, back in the day (well, back in November), we linked to the Daily Intel's story about the "stylishly kitschy" hotspot's possible looming shutdown, which featured an especially adorable denial from owner Guy Jacobson: "I have a license to sell one drug; it's the one behind the bar." Today, however, a tipster alerted us to the fact that the bar, which was featured in yesterday's Styles 'Boite' column, was closed on Friday night, and that a coke bust was the rumored cause. Could a place whose denizens say things like ""I'm an enthusiast and I express myself sensually and I can barely hold myself in . . . I can tell that there's an element of the pulse, of neurotic, erotic perfection" really be a secret purveyor of high-grade snortables? We're scratching our heads and rubbing our noses spastically in confusion.
From the inbox:
You catch that Styles piece on the bright young things who like to breakfast late? Seems that what with the rise of disposable income and "late-rising professions like fashion, art, publicity and Web publishing," (we were up at 5:30, but whatever) a new "social tribe" of douchebags who dine after dawn has emerged. The article centers around Balthazar, and tells you everything you want to know about, uh, having coffee after eight, but is particularly notable for the following:
We were sick of Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman the from the moment we first heard of their illicit yoga love story in New York Magazine — (remember? "'[New agey blah blah],' Saidman says, sitting entwined with Yee on the floor of the shingled house they now share," etc, etc.) But we all must have done something really bad in a past life to deserve their Vows column this weekend. We mean, seriously:
You may have missed it, occurring as it did during the holiday break, but those stalwart defenders of morals at the Times offered up an Editorial Observer column from one Lawrence Downes which posited the immemorial question, What's the matter with kids these days? Downes sets the scene thusly:
