Here's a good one: Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes reports that Times art critic Grace Glueck sits on the Board of Trustees at the Clark Art Institute in the Berkshires. Which makes writing about art so much easier for her, really. Except:
Despite the recently shitty weather, this week's New York Times Book Review had high hopes for summer, bravely going forth regardless of nature with its Summer Reading issue. Alas, the review's idea of summer reading begins and ends with baseball. That's it. Fantasy baseball, baseball statistics, baseball for tykes, and so on. It was a little much for Intern Alexis, who received nary a peanut or a Cracker Jack for her efforts. For all that time exposed to America's pastime, you'd think the Times would at least give its readers a free foam hand or something. After the jump, Alexis' guide to acting like you're literate.
The bride: "Mrs. Murphy, 30, is a strategic planner at Anomaly, a marketing and advertising company in Manhattan. She graduated from the University of Richmond and has two graduate degrees in psychology, a master's from the University of Virginia and a doctorate from Harvard."
• Five news orgs — including NYT — pay Wen Ho Lee $750,000 to settle his case. Which seems not a not entirely unreasonable amount after mistakenly being labled a nuclear spy. [NYT]
• CBS News Iraq reporter Kim Dozier now off respirator, breathing on her own. [CBSNews.com]
• Charlie Gibson thinks New York's Joe Hagan "is something of a snake" and will never talk to him again. Mind you, this is over a fluffy Q&A. [Chicago Defender]
• Best attack on Judy Miller ever: She could have prevented 9/11. [TAP]
• Time loses Baghdad reporters; New York to lose dapper WSJer Matthew Rose. [NYP]
• Time's Jim Kelly to take sabbatical, visit Statue of Liberty before starting new corporate gig. [MW]
• GMA EP Ben Sherwood quits. Presumably he just couldn't bear not having Charlie Gibson's full attention. [Media Mob/NYO]
For Memorial Day weekend, the Times' resident geek David Pogue attempted to install a portable GPS unit before he and his family took a road trip. The GPS device was a Christmas gift, given to him by a relative. Unfortunately, Pogue had some problems — tiny memory, no loaded map data, a "dog-slow" data transfer, outdated road maps, invalid authorization code, etc. Ostensibly, Pogue writes an 850-word review of the product's inadequacies, with some lessons learned:
It took Intern Alexis a little longer than usual to get through this week's installment of the Times Book Review — not because of the long weekend, but because she had to stop every 3 paragraphs and get something to eat. That's what happens when the Gray Lady subjects you to an all-foodie edition of the review, complete with both cookbooks and cook's books. This week is light on the literature but heavy on the celebrity chefs; after the jump, Intern Alexis gets more than her fair share of Mario Batali's clogged magic and Anthony Bourdain's bad-assery.
The front page of today's Times dining section carries a story about the increasingly sophisticated food sent to U.S. forces stationed around the world, both by patriotic citizens who send individual troops things like organic granola, power bars, and Starbucks coffee beans, and by the Pentagon itself, which is upgrading the food offered.
Because American Idol is not merely a television show but rather a very popular television show, news about its winner has been elevated — perhaps everywhere, but certainly at the Times — from the remote precincts of the Arts section to the sober pages of the National Report, where today, for the second consecutive edition, Alessandra Stanley is given an A-section spot for her musings about cheesily overwrought TV-show singers. But you know what makes Alessandra's report today particularly compelling? That we count at least three errors.
But while "a little tube time" can be beneficial for babies, studies have found that prolonged exposure, especially to cooking shows, can prompt some children to hang themselves.
• Philly guys officially snag KR's Philly papers from McClatchy. [NYT]
• Al Siegel has left the Times Building. [NYO]
• Despite AMI noncompete, Star vet Mark Coleman to become deputy editor at Bauer's Life & Style, setting off various other staff moves too mundane for you to care much about. [NYP]
• Magazines want more readers, who are younger and richer. And some even got what they wanted. [WWD]
Today's dining section carries a huge Frank Bruni piece (or, at least, a hugely arted Bruni piece) detailing a cross-country drive on which he sampled nearly ever sort of fast food known to Americans — 9 days, 15 states, 3,650 miles and 42 visits to 35 establishments, as he reports. He ate In-N-Out burgers in California, Whataburgers in Louisiana, Varsity hot dogs in Atlanta, Sonic tots in Kentucky, and White Castle sliders in New Jersey. He did it all in a rented Taurus.
It doesn't officially open, for normal people, for another week. But, even so, today is apparently New Le Cirque day in the New York press. The are nearly 4,000 tag-teamed words on the cover of the Observer about it — and, in fairness, about the Bloomberg building in which it resides. David Carr has another 1,500 words on the front of the Times dining section about the restaurant and its many opening parties. There's even a Carpetbagging-style video report on the opening party on the Times site, reminding us of both Le Cirque's fabulosity and why Carr became a print reporter in the first place. The message of all of this? That it's a big, very fancy, important restaurant for a big, fancy, very important people. That it's exclusive and in-demand, and high society is quietly calculating how to get a table and which table to want to get.
Quarantined from society in upstate New York, former Page Six-er Jared Paul Stern has taken up obsessive emailing, knitting, and, of course, blogging (so maybe we had something to do with that one). If you can ignore the usual Stern propaganda, he does take a discerning eye to the Times and notices that the Gray Lady sure does love to delicately dance:
• Brad Pitt announces that his baby with Angelina Jolie is "imminent." Really? Did he just figure this out? What tipped him off? Did Zahara tell him? [CNN]
• Former Nanny Fran Drescher tells Howard Stern that she'd love a career in New York politics. Too bad not many people would willingly listen to her while she explained her platform. [Cityrag]
• Times mag on May 7; New Yorker on May 15; the Times today. It's official: the Dog Whisperer is overexposed. [NYT]
• Al Roker goes to Philly and gets a face shot. [Philadelphia Will Do]
• Got a hipster band but no success to speak of? Strong arm your way on the Misshapes playlist with a Joy Division cover. Ian Curtis = cash money. [My Old Kentucky]
• In LA, Madonna kicked off her world tour in fine form: by hanging herself from a giant disco crucifix. Those $400 tickets are going to be worth every penny. [AP]
• Kelly Ripa smells like fish. She won't tell you why, but we've some guesses. Nothing a little Summer's Eve can't fix. [BWE]
• Attention ladies and gays: looking for love? Try riding the subway between 5 and 6 AM, when the male/female ratio is 9:1. [Graphpaper]
This week's edition of the Times Book Review attempts to rank the best works of American fiction, surprising no one and making Toni Morrison, if possible, even more wealthy. Moving onward, Intern Alexis is horrified to find reviewer Walter Kirn sloppily fellated by Thisbe Nissen, who's clearly campaigning for something. Meanwhile, Curtis Sittenfeld gets the same treatment, albeit less sloppy, and Dave Itzkoff writes in computer speak, scaring off any readers he may have had in the process. After the jump, Alexis helps you fake your way to being well-read.
• Leave no stone unblogged, Times launches one on New York politics, called Empire Zone. Catchy, eh? And it's even got video. [NYT]
• Philly group imminently set to buy Inquirer and Daily News from McClatchy. Unless they don't. [NYT]
• Who will public-edit the public editor? Tom Scocca, of course. [Media Mob/NYO]
• Newspapers acknowledge need to adapt to changing media landscape, express wonderment at newgfangled "horseless carriages." [AJR]
• CBS Public Eye stakes out controversial stance opposing what's-on-your-iPod-stories. See, Memogate never would have happened if only this important site had existed sooner. [CBSNews.com]
