The NYC alternative paper New York Press, for which I’ve written from time to time, has launched a re-design this week- its third, in fact, since Jeff Koyen took over the editor’s chair just over a year ago. The paper is now going by “NYP: New York Press,” and I like it- much better than the Village Voice’s awful new design scheme.
The first issue of the latest “new era” features the paper’s second annual “50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers” list. A few observations:
- They apparently decided to disqualify anyone who was on last year’s list, which means obvious suspects such as Ted Rall, Michael Moore, and ’03 winner Keith Blanchard were ineligible.
- Rather than obvious choice Michael Bloomberg, NYP decided to give the #1 spot to his predecessor as mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Bad move- regardless of what we thought of him pre-9/11, the man is a national hero. And what’s he done in the past year besides lay low?
- Even more unforgivable: Anti-Defamation League head Abe Foxman is #37- I’m not a big fan of Foxman myself, but does this supposedly mainstream paper really need to share bizarre conspiracy theories about the ADL, much less endorse the notoriously anti-Semitic book “The Holocaust Industry”? The ADL was bashed as "liberal" during the 'Passion' controversy; now apparently Foxman is "Likud's point man."
- Best quote: in bashing former NYSE head Richard Grasso (#28): “When Forbes.com calls you ‘dangerous,’ you're either Hugo Chavez or a Wall St. monster so grotesque you threaten to bring down the house on the whole party.”
- While I find it hard to object to the inclusion of Bud Selig (#36) on any “most loathsome” list, in this case he’s out of place, as he neither lives nor works in New York, and runs MLB out of Milwaukee.
- Also included, at #15, is Gawker editor Choire Sicha and NYP makes clear, in case you were wondering, that “yes, folks, that's pronounced ‘Cory’, and yes, it's a dude.” No response yet from Sicha, though when Elizabeth Spiers edited Gawker she would post e-mails from Koyen that called her “a nasty little cunt.”
- The bashing of Joan Rivers (#30), Sarah Jessica Parker (#13), Bonnie Fuller (#27), and the Hilton sisters (#26) is welcome, unoriginal as the targets may be. And it’s interesting to point out that NYP’s “most loathsome” idea was pretty much ripped off from a similar piece in the Buffalo Beast last year- that Beast article included Parker and called her “a woman's idea of what a sexy woman looks like”; NYP this week says “when girls think another girl is beautiful, but guys know she isn't, call it the Sarah Jessica Parker syndrome.”
- Janeane Garofalo (#9) is called “a liberal Dennis Miller with tits.” Somehow not as biting as when the Beast called Ann Coulter “Goebbels with tits.”
And outside the “Loathsome” list there’s a convincing piece by Matt Taibbi comparing the metrosexual craze to Communism.
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 31, 2004 04:44 PMI kind of agree with the NY Press' assessment of "Lost in Translation" as "the most pretentious, overrated movie of last year" - it had its fine points, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as most people.
Posted by: Joe at March 31, 2004 07:21 PMI also enjoyed the trashing of Chuck Klosterman (#38), Chuck Schumer (#34) and the Queer Eye cast (#21).
Posted by: Joe at March 31, 2004 07:27 PM