Diamonds in the rough

Last was an eye-opening weekend, what with learning about lubricated Ecuadorians and Poles, the high price of lattes for college grads, and one man who's trying to hawk children's paintings for a Manhattan pad in the same glorious Saturday-Sunday of Times reading! It's trite to say, I know, but Where do they come up with this stuff! Seriously, with that last one, it takes some stunning reportage to unearth a bespectled, mustached children's book collector with an Asian, art-propagandist man servant. One really can't make this up.

But would I be far off predicting that in scooping the Where the Wild Things Are guy, the Real Estate section tipped off their buddies in Arts for today's Bob Barker tribute? Like peas in a pod, right? Right? Eh?

Ok fine, it might be a stretch to compare the childhood founder of the International Wizard of Oz Club (which this Real Estate profile was) to patriotic "Price is Right" fan-boys. Either way, when digging through the trash, what a joy it is to come across those still-ripe apples:

"Everyone in the United States can identify with our show," he said. "On most game shows today you will see contestants between 20 and 45 who are physically attractive. We have people on 'The Price Is Right' who are between 20 and 45 who are physically attractive too."

Bloggers love indie rock

It's true. Sia knows it. Now, so does the Times, having made Michel a music regular, hopefully not just because she knows bloggers-- the bloggers. She knows their story. They love Tape n' Tapes.


Tapes 'n Tapes is indie rock's latest Internet-driven mini-success story, which is no surprise. This charmingly nerdy quartet is just the kind of band a blogger loves.

Usually between 5'6'' and 6'4'' (the ones who wear the hiked tube socks and try and look like Larry Bird), bloggers are always wistful for their 1993 mornings at Macalaster , when they messed around in their dorm rooms to a soundtrack of Husker Du, Pavement, and the Pixies. Tape 'n Tapes, and the Arcade Fire, make them remember mornings waking up with another girl from lit class. Yelping, a turned-down organ, and electric guitars do that, particularly when songs made like that are made by shags from Minnesota, far away from the magazine writers and bloggers who share pints and failed pitches every night at Daddy's.

A blogger loves, besides Tapes n' Tapes, beer, and black coffee - except the ones who went to Sarah Lawrence like lattes - and the self-satisfaction at talking with another magazine friend, over a beer or a black coffee, about failed pitches and pumping up a band like Tapes n' Tapes. They know all they have to do is wait a few weeks, maybe a few months - 6? - and then the New York Times will write about them, with the help of the ex-EIC of Spin. She knows who they are. They know who they are. They know the New York Times.

And Tapes n' Tapes only wishes it had been around in 1993, to share space on a mix-tape with Husker Du and Pavement, while future bloggers who are lit majors make out.

Don't let the days pass you by

But I have feared this day. The Times is onto why I've delayed my lap-pool regimen for 9 months now-- all I want to do is once-over the one-pieces. And I can't. It's 2006.


My laziness may rely on many things, but Jane Fonda's "butt cheek get-up" won't be helping it anytime soon. Her days are gone. Thank you Melena Ryzik. I forgot about that old Rolling Stone. I didn't know the racquetball club was full of duffers anyway. Nor that the local Gold's Gym - the one with the twee guidos stretching eachother - is really more of a "social" place, echoing the 1985 film "Perfect" starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. Those guys know to keep to their work-outs , at least before hitting the showers, just like beauty publicist know to wait until after work, after the gym, to get wasted and picked up.

If I'm not afraid of hip thrust, if I favor crotch-hugging, am I resigned to laziness - or at least weightroom shunning - it no longer being 1985?

And what about Jazzercise? I know it's a clever hook for your hopefully Gruppie readers to take - hook, line, sinker - but is it really dead, Melena. Really?

And now my impression of Woody Allen...

Like the shy kid at the dance whose charms are not readily apparent, unpopularity has kept some species in circulation, waiting to be discovered. Atlantic mackerel wears its reputation like a pocket protector and horn-rimmed glasses, but a little attention reveals its sweet side.

Whether because she just loves fish or is nostalgic for an old flame, vet-foodie Marian Burros imagines her dinnerplate as a geek—"he's the quiet, contemplative type...weird haircut...can't really see his eyes behind the big lens...but when you do!"— which is fine, I suppose. Fish guides are the things of print utility, to say nothing of a culinary compliment in a Dining Out section that has heart, and a transformed head. Ted Koppel and other newsies might have faded into the occasional cable-news-spot sunset, but not R.W Apple Jr., whose dashing byline from Tehran to the Balkans is now cosy by the freezer, thank you very much, whether that be in Shanghai, South Africa, or New Orleans.

After all, the world needs food. And snappy Dining writing. And, famous eaters, with Apple the most legendary of them all.

Keep barking for Scotch, Johnny. Keep padding Art with comfort food and kind words, Marian. It's what keeps this rig so regular, and so content.

I've Found the Man I'm Going to Marry

It's been a long and grueling search, folks. And the fact that so many primos have already found their wives has made the task all the more difficult. That said, I know that neither Allison "Petrol" Petrullo nor a Cal Spas grill can keep me away from the man of my dreams any longer: Mr. Dave American-As-They-Come Petrullo, clad in an Hawaiian shirt from Daffy's and sporting a $6,600 grill. (Which he and his wife have only cooked upon three times since they bought it, the Times reports. What concupiscent decadence!)

The point of this post is to offer the times a simple suggestion. Rather than degrade yourself any further with Al Gorian stunts of the "I'm down with the kids...and awkward!" variety, why not turn to the far more lucrative endeavor of match-making? It's lined many a pocket in the past decade and is loaded with street cred to boot. That’s right, NYT--go on ahead and put Match.com to shame! Who needs a gimmick like the "personality test" or a front man like Dr. Phil when you've got the original village yenta right under your fingertips?

The ol' Gray Lady would hook all of us all up if you'd only let her, Arthur. In the meantime, let us pray that Allen Salkin continues to help America 'pimp its grill.' When male whiteys in tapered mom jeans can find their mojo in $6,500 grillers & Doogie Howser look-alikes tap into Bedford Ave cool with $200 skinnys, then the Style Section is doing its job after all--God bless the U.S. of A., no glass cielings here; not even on the road to metrosexual machismo.

Like when Christo asked me what I thought of The Gates

Where's Dov when you need him?

Kristof finally picked America's most groveling enterprising young journalist to kick it with him in Africa! And winner Casey Parks sure doesn't skimp on the sob stuff. But if self-aggrandizing pity stories are grounds for wylin' out in Rwanda (this is, after all, going to run on MTV, hopefully replete with confessional booths in NGOs), then the winner, without a doubt, shoulda been Lauren Wiesner, whose precocious tales of harrowing surgeries pale in comparison to her admission of wasting her college years away at the Muhlenberg Weekly, "dragging a mouse in the glow of a computer screen to create and fill text boxes in Quark." Note the conspicuous absence of, say, "designing spreads" or even "resizing converted jpegs." That's because you can't do that on Quark! Maybe, just maybe, if she'd won the damn thing, she coulda stopped by Times HQ and stolen a copy of InDesign! (Trust me, guys, when Africa was just a twinkle in her eye, she would've killed for some Photoshop integration.) Kristof, this is one bird you don't wanna piss off, so where's the love?

And of course, if promotion's the name of the game, then the Times nailed this one-- "marketing" is in the URL!-- infesting the blogosphere with a litany of exclusive TimesSelect features-- don't miss the phone call!-- and the aforementioned baller package deal with mtvU. All during the same week the OGL debuts their spankin' new no-spin blog! You know, Punch, if you're not gonna put me on the payroll, wanna lend me some of your web design army? Because until The David rears his ugly head, Judy sure isn't getting one of those fancy Gawker-style polls.

So for now, we're going to have to settle for posting your fave submissions in the comments section. Me? It's gotta be the guy who makes me shudder when contemplating a Gawker Media internship (quite a feat!)-- Henry the Intern, whose ass, we've just discovered, is available for kicking just a few minutes up the Hudson. Perhaps modesty isn't overrated?

Young man! Are you listening to me?

"Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here."

Live from the streets of Chelsea-- whoops, just the East Village-- it's Guy Trebay! As if sobbing about the prevalence of the untucked shirt and examining men's packages (beating Eric Wilson to the punch by about a year, mind you) wasn't enough, Trebay's incisive piece about gym culture begins with a lede so downright homo, it's-- I can't even begin to explain. All I can say is: floor please!

I know what you're thinking. Another Grey Lady Style article made for Massachusetts grupsters-- big deal! But what sets this article apart from, say, the Galliano piece directly below is Trebay's nose to the grindstone research. Facts painstakingly gleamed by our intrepid reporter include: the demise of the Arnie ubermusclo in favor of the twee Yoga fag; gyms remain remarkably fashion-free; and the gist, I believe, is that, come 3 am, if he isn't popping Ambien, the average American is running on a treadmill next to Calvin Klein. Oh, right, and he's probably fatter than his dad was!

Bill Nye This Is Not

The Science Times hates sources, or at least giving the appearance that some of their writers are actually journalists, rather than disgrunts who hate doing their underwear laundry. This bit about "Frankencotton": it spewed straight from James Gorman's head, like Athena, only dressed in Eric Wilson's edits from his winded, May 11th press release on white shirts, Manhattan Ducktalers and the Whitney.

How would the world feel, how do you feel, knowing that at the moment you are reading this you may be wearing transgenic underpants?

And history shows the great diversity of clothing that humans have worn, from the loincloth to low-rider jeans, from the toga to the tail coat.

Gorman has one source, "a recent report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of Arizona," and it's not even directly quoted. Does he mean this one, or this one, or maybe this one, or even yet, maybe this beaker chillaxing Sideways in the desert, soiling his genetically-engineered undies with desalinated Pinot Noir?

With 670 words of back-porch, blither/musings that are really just veiled promotion for the Summer Shirt, what else can we expect from Science?...More axed-Style articles! It's up, up, and away to the dippy galaxy of SPACE FASHION!!!