December 2011
22 posts
Randomly: a few of my favorite Observer pieces from this year, in no particular order:
A Twee Grows in Brooklyn: the Portlandification of the increasingly bourgeois borough by Adrianne Jeffries
Almost Amis by Christian Lorentzen
Peter Braunstein Still Has Issues by Aaron Gell
Pony Up, Haters: How 4Chan Gave Birth to the Bronies by Una LaMarche
The Situation and the Story: Press Corp Parties...
For FY 2011, the Observer Media Group will post a... →
Been dying to let that cat out of the bag for a while now.
In Bama for Christmas (which, more about that here) and Ma Spiers informs me that last week she killed a small rattlesnake in the house. She insists that this was a one-time thing, and assures me that there is no snake infestation generally. IN THE HOUSE.
Last year when I came home, the youngest baby Spiersbro (pictured here) had trapped a chipmunk. It was also declared a one-time thing; there...
This week’s issue of the Observer was the last of 2011 and I think it was a great one. There are several pieces I loved—Dana’s wrap-up, of course, with a fantastic cover illustration by the insanely talented Fred Harper—but also several other standouts:
- Kat Stoeffel’s “Meet Marie Calloway” on the bizarre Internet love triangle du jour (with the...
natashavc:
‘But as algorithms make consciousness a built environment, perception itself becomes in some way designed, in which sense 2011 wasn’t totally stuck in the past—it offered a new sensation-of-being: Drudge’s report on Trump’s quest for Obama’s birth certificate sends you clicking Facebook pictures of a lost love’s fat children as prelude to a brief viewing of the Muammar...
Dana Vachon wraps up the year for the Observer with the BEST LEDE EVER:
“You will surely make noise when I take you deep,” texted Representative Anthony Wiener, the great BlackBerry lover, to his virtual inamorata, Lisa Weiss, the famous dissident, aviatrix and Vegas blackjack dealer.
“Yes I will,” she texted back. “I will be sore for days.”
This past year took the world deep, and the world...
I can recall a lunch in 1991, when I was editing... →
Note to staff: don’t get any ideas.
I think I’m duty-bound to call a final session of the Christopher Hitchens Drinking Club (CHDC). Details TK.
1 tag
He said he’d been following my work and expressed... →
Aaron Gell’s epic Peter Braunstein story is now online:
The massive Clinton Correctional Facility is located in Dannemora, N.Y., in a breathtaking corner of the state not far from Burlington, Vt. Peter resides in what is called APPU, or the Assessment and Program Preparation Unit, and his neighbors include homicidal maniacs, child molesters, and rapists.
It’s about as far as you can...
felixsalmon:
spiers:
theawl:
felixsalmon:
spiers:
felixsalmon:
Elizabeth, if you want me to take you to lunch somewhere nice, you’re first going to have to win a bet. Which, I’m still waiting for you to propose something.
Are you betting against the new luxury mag? Cuz I’ll take that one. I say it’s still around in a year—and it’s profitable. Your move.
I’ll take that bet. Tell me...
theawl:
felixsalmon:
spiers:
felixsalmon:
Elizabeth, if you want me to take you to lunch somewhere nice, you’re first going to have to win a bet. Which, I’m still waiting for you to propose something.
Are you betting against the new luxury mag? Cuz I’ll take that one. I say it’s still around in a year—and it’s profitable. Your move.
I’ll take that bet. Tell me how you’re defining...
Hiring: Commercial Observer - reporter and intern...
While we’re on the subject of blue-moon-like print products that actually make money: we’re hiring for Commercial Observer, the NYO’s weekly real estate trade pub.
INTERNSHIP: The Commercial Observer, a weekly newspaper focused on New York City’s commercial real estate industry, is seeking an intern with working knowledge of the real estate industry for a position beginning in...
felixsalmon:
spiers:
Spiersblr: The Riches; They Buy Things!
harryh:
spiers:
(Or at the very least, bet against it with me on the other side of the wager so I can make some money off the deal. Any takers? Rex? Felix?)
No way I’m taking the other side of a bet against spiers, but I hope that someone does so I can watch!
Well, Felix Salmon bet John Carney that I wouldn’t last a year as...
Unrelated: there is a Basil Hayden’s ad on theAwl.
I assume this means they’re getting paid in bourbon and this was Balk’s idea.
Spiersblr: The Riches; They Buy Things! →
harryh:
spiers:
(Or at the very least, bet against it with me on the other side of the wager so I can make some money off the deal. Any takers? Rex? Felix?)
No way I’m taking the other side of a bet against spiers, but I hope that someone does so I can watch!
Well, Felix Salmon bet John Carney that I wouldn’t last a year as NYO editor the week I got the job. The wager was...
The Riches; They Buy Things!
The sort of amazing thing about the comments on this Gawker post about the new luxury mag we’re doing is there seem to be a lot of people who think you can’t make money off of rich people. Every print launch we’ve done this year has been profitable, and some extremely so. I get the EWWW RICH PEOPLE THING sentiment, but the suggestion that it doesn’t or won’t work...
