This week’s issue of the Observer was the last of...

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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 obligatory Tao Lin involvement).

- Michael Miller’s profile of novelist Helen Dewitt and her publishing troubles, depression and periodic disappearances.

- Drew Grant wrote her first profile for the NYO, a nice sketch of Aviva Drescher, who we’re sure—absolutely sure!—isn’t possibly, can’t be, the newest addition to the Real Housewives of New York. No, really!

- Emily Witt’s piece on Quarterly.com and how people use consumption to shape identity, for better or worse.

- David Freedlander went to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem to gawk at the hordes of European tourists who shop up there hoping for a glimpse of a real old timey gospel experience, much to the chagrin of many of the locals.

- Hunter Walker profiled New York’s first transgendered City Council candidate, Mel Wymore.

- Nitasha Tiku got the goods on what happened with Stanford’s supposedly in-the-bag bid for a new tech campus here.