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Jewish World Review May 28, 1999/ 13 Sivan 5759
MUGGER
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
Move over Howie Rubenstein, you’ve got nothing on Brill. The prickly proprietor of Brill’s Content hasn’t made a dent in the magazine industry with his snore of a monthly, but man, Brill definitely knows how to promote himself. Against all odds, he recently procured some $10 million from George Soros to keep the dull journal afloat for another year or so. Talk about good money after bad. In addition, Brill owned the gossip and media columns last week when a story about his magazine by Jennet Conant was spiked by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. Brill claims he had nothing to do with it, but canny p.r. flacks let gullible reporters do most of the talking. Conant, who resigned her position at Vanity Fair, calling the killing of her article a “sad day” for the magazine, now has her agent peddling the piece to a number of interested periodicals, including NYPress. (Odds are that New York will pick up the piece, which was described to me by someone who’s read it as “not a homer, but a solid double.” Failing that, my bet is that the New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan will tick off contributors who aren’t paid well at his newspaper and open Arthur Carter’s wallet to spread Conant’s 6000 words throughout the weekly.) As for Brill’s Content itself, the self-righteous monthly lumbers along, putting most readers to sleep, save those who look for the contradictions in Brill’s strict journalistic code of ethics that he applies so stringently to the media the magazine covers, but doesn’t concern itself with. Brill’s current editor, Eric Effron, who sullies his boss every time he commits words to print, was worse than usual in his “Letter From the Editor” in the June issue. “A small yelp of joy could be heard around the offices of this magazine when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in April was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. It’s not that we’re friends of hers or even that we were rooting for her. It’s just that we had already decided to make senior writer Gay Jervey’s probing profile of Dowd our cover story, and Dowd’s Pulitzer win only serves to place in sharp relief many of the questions about Dowd’s work that Jervey addresses.”
Here’s Jervey’s idolatry: “[Friends] acknowledge that her desire for insularity does not inoculate her from the inquisitive. But for her sake they wish those of us who would pierce the veil of her privacy would go away. “Well, we can’t.” One familiar anecdote Jervey tosses in was even worse than her quoting some idiot describing reading Dowd’s column as a “guilty pleasure” or the subhed in the piece that read “On to the Gray Lady.” Dominick Dunne, the Vanity Fair writer who recently made a laughingstock of himself with his naive coverage of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in that magazine, tells Jervey that Dowd, in 1993, was “hostile” to him at a cocktail party because she was about to review his new book A Season in Purgatory. Dunne said he was “very, very hurt.” Poor dear. Then this winter, as the trial was going on, the two met up at a book party and Dowd apologized for her behavior back then. Dunne, apparently an easy mark, “was knocked out, stunned. I think it takes a lot of stuff to apologize like that. So I said ‘Maureen, over, out, done!’” The author then says that the very next day it was raining and a cab pulled over and the passengers invited him in: and gosh darn it, it was Maureen, The Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt and the Times’ Jill Abramson. Yikes, thank God I don’t live in DC, where the insularity of journalism is even worse than Manhattan, if you can imagine that.
In a throwaway column last Sunday, about how everyone in DC is mad at everyone else, Dowd writes: “The Clintons and Gores, whose ’92 campaign was like a yuppie double date on a cross-country bus, are not so cozy now. That New Age communitarian spirit has been replaced with old-fashioned crankiness. “Hillary is mad at Bill. Duh. “...Bill is also mad at Al because there is one word Al never utters on the campaign trail: Bill. (Bill is not mad at himself, or course. He never is.) “...Tipper is mad at Bill for continuing to make messes just as Al is trying to shake off Bill’s dirt. “Hillary is mad at Tipper for abruptly distancing herself, saying she’d be a very different kind of First Lady.” Okay, there are a few laughs there. Problem is, and it’s not Dowd’s fault, is that the Times’ op-ed page is so barren, with the exception of William Safire, that her whimsy is that much more exaggerated. If Dowd, on the same day, was balanced by a hard-nosed columnist like Michael Kelly (who has no talent at humor), with rotating one-off appearances from writers like John Judis, David Tell, Mickey Kaus, Peggy Noonan or John Seabrook, that would be a stellar editorial section, unrivaled by any in the country. Unfortunately, publisher Arthur Sulzberger has no vision. His refusal to fire Bob Herbert and Anthony Lewis is proof enough of that. Planting Fiction In the Press I’m not Kurt Andersen’s agent, so I don’t get paid to read every single review of his new novel Turn of the Century. However, since I thought TOC was a remarkable achievement—aside from a quibble that Andersen’s foil Timothy Featherstone was too wild ’n’ crazy—and is certainly the late-90s equivalent of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, I was appalled at just how dishonestly Slate hosed both the book and the author. Appearing as a weeklong discussion in “The Book Club,” Vanity Fair’s Marjorie Williams and Microsoft’s Nathan Myhrvold, while acknowledging some witty writing, largely dismiss the novel as elitist and without a plot. Translated: It’s way too Manhattan- and Los Angeles-centric, and its characters are snide white people with too much money, who are bereft of morals. Yet, incredibly, on Wednesday, Slate bannered the exchange as “Bonfire of the Nerds: Nathan Myhrvold on Kurt Andersen’s Microsoft Novel.” Yes, Slate’s parent company figures prominently in the book, but by no stretch of the imagination is it a “Microsoft Novel.” Also not revealed—pay attention, Steve Brill!—is that Williams is the wife of Timothy Noah, who regularly writes for Slate and recently panned the book himself in the May 10 issue of Fortune.
Why was Andersen completely mistreated by Slate? I don’t know editor Michael Kinsley, but I suspect the twisted darling of the Beltway (he may live in Seattle, but he’s as much a slave of the ghastly Washington, DC, culture as Al Hunt), has it in for Andersen. After all, it wasn’t that many years ago that Kinsley was offered the editorship of New York and ruminated back and forth before declining. Andersen took the post instead. Kinsley apparently regretted that decision, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he harbors some weird grudge against the cofounder of Spy. But who can account for Kinsley’s abhorrent behavior? It was just last summer that he made a jackass out of himself after similarly stroking his chin over whether to replace Tina Brown as The New Yorker’s editor. When the offer was withdrawn, he immediately e-mailed the world about what a jerk Si Newhouse was. Williams begins her critique on May 17 by writing that reading TOC is “so much like being locked in the longest cocktail party of your life; a little one-on-one conversation appeals to me as balm just now.” She pays lip service to Andersen’s intelligence, but claims the book is ultimately “decadent” and “creepy.” Williams writes: “Clearly, [Andersen] has decanted into Turn of the Century every telling detail that ever caught his eye... On almost every other page...Andersen stops dead and clears his throat before delivering The Clever Thing I Always Thought About Headwaiters, or The Three Types of Men You Find in West-L.A. Restaurants. These pronouncements are almost always withering and funny, but not the kind of thing you want to read, back-to-back, for a 600-page stretch. It’s like eating nothing but guacamole for dinner; before long, you think you never want to read a puckish aperçu again.” I suppose this would be the anticipated reaction to TOC from an earnest Washington journalist who’d have us believe she’d rather read books about arcane environmental theories. Still, it’s fairly ironic that Williams, who writes hatchet jobs for Vanity Fair from her smug neoliberal nest in DC, is slagging Andersen for writing a novel with smart and prosperous protagonists that will be read by smart and prosperous people (unlike the majority of literary novels, which I suppose are read by steelworkers). “Decadent”? What does that mean? No need to spell it out: not enough poor people and straight-ahead left-wing, wimpy politics and cultural concerns. It goes without saying that Beltway journalists like Williams and her husband Noah aren’t obsessed with the “status” that she ridicules Andersen’s characters for. Kinsley has no shame, but his hitjob on Andersen was disgraceful; I can’t believe there are still people in the media who believe that the man has one scintilla of integrity. Michael Wolff, in his May 31 New York “Media” column, uses Andersen’s book—which I think he liked, sort of—as a vehicle for trashing all the smug “old media” poobahs who don’t understand that a new information age is well under way. And they’ve missed the boat. He describes a forum he attended at “one of the schools where we aristocrats send our children,” which included as panelists Jann Wenner, Steve Brill (“in dapper-don Mafia attire”), Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines. He took a vicious shot at Jonathan Alter (not that I minded), the moderator: “Alter, who in his Newsweek column and television appearances has assumed the grandeur (and become a self-parody) of the public moralist—the last of a long line of would-be Walter Lippmans...”
A suddenly groovy Frank Sinatra. The Mod Squad. Wenner, for instance, botching the explanation, tried to explain the difference between at T1 line and a cable modem to Brill, who kept insisting he knew the difference.” It’s true that Wolff fashions himself as Mr. Internet, and so carries his own prejudices, but after reading the slime on Slate about Andersen’s Turn of the Century, the New York column was a refreshing tonic. Al From Baltimore Reports May 14: I heard John McCain on the radio and read him in the Journal. He’s the only one with a coherent position on Kosovo. He’s been presidential. He’s the only Republican in a position to attack Clinton after the deal is cut, or if things get even worse there. And by extension, to go after the Democrats on China, too. Even with all the front-page coverage, this is the most underreported scandal I can remember. The involvement of the head of Chinese military intelligence in Democratic fundraising in this context is the story of the decade. All this Chinese outrage on the bombing of the embassy is just fog to divert attention from their spy efforts. McCain is going to own Republican defense and foreign policy. I’m sure he’s still nowhere in the polls, but what if he wins an early primary? Is it really sewn up at this point, barring a big mistake? Peggy Noonan’s take on George W. yesterday reflected my own. Jeb’s success in Florida is great for George W., because it gives him cover on the right. Still, Democratic vulnerability is going to be defense and Bush isn’t laying the groundwork for his assault. Bush might not need it, but who knows where the knuckleheads who vote in this country will be in a year?
I’m embarrassed to admit I’m having trouble finding a recent picture of Sam. Dina says she will find me one and Sam is totally excited about having his picture in the paper. I’m going to do my best to write more but I’ve got a ton of cleaning/emptying out the house this weekend. I’m probably not going to be allowed to go to work. I can’t get away from how inept/stupid the Republicans have been lately. For their vote against gun screens at gun shows, they should be shot for both political and substantive reasons. They can own the reasonable middle ground on that issue. The National Review piece you forwarded to me hit it right on the head. They’re lost. May 17: Sorry I didn’t get a chance to write, but I was lifting way too many boxes for someone my age. Didn’t go in to work Saturday. Missed my Sunday morning run. Cleaned and hauled about eight hours each day, and it’s not like I didn’t have help. We filled a 15-yard dumpster with stuff, to the brim. All of our old playpens, swing-o-matics, high chairs, humidifiers and toys that didn’t make the cut for Goodwill. Plus pink-eye medicine, boo-boo bunnies and 20 bottles of mostly used cough syrup. I love not having young children. I did find a note from Annie to the tooth fairy when she was about seven. It was a plea for a bigger payoff. At the bottom of the note it said “over.” On the back it said “HI DAD!” Unquestionably the highlight of my cleanup weekend. I personally hauled about 40 30-gallon bags of stuff to Goodwill, plus 25 bags of junk to the curb for the garbagemen to pick up, stuff we missed when the dumpster was at our house. I even vacuumed the attic, which was especially fun, given the mess that was there from the last squirrel invasion. Besides the physical labor, the part I found most aggravating was that the cleaning people who we’ve been paying to clean our house don’t know how to clean! I’m no Martha Stewart, or even Heloise, but when I see grease, I apply soap and water, scrub, and it comes off. Shelves and baseboards have not been dusted for years. So, I haven’t watched any news and have barely read the papers. I did notice that the Bosox had a piece of first place and the Orioles are playing .333 ball. Is Clinton still president? I heard on the radio the Kosovo deal may be cut this week, and I saw the headline that perhaps 100,000 have been massacred there. If that’s the case, this becomes Rwanda II, and shows how full of it these world liberals are with their International Human Rights trials. They’re willing to self-righteously prosecute people after they’ve committed unspeakable crimes, but they’re not willing to take real risks to save the victims beforehand. We knew the massacres were going on in Rwanda, and I’m assuming we know what’s going on in Kosovo, or we wouldn’t be there bombing away. I think I’ll clean my office. May 18: I’m going to buy Turn of the Century, but I’m highly skeptical. Good MUGGER. Loved the Conason exchange. May 19: In case you need help responding to Roy Neal Grissom [“The Mail,” on page 44 in the tab], here it is. He makes some interesting points about the harsher treatment anti-abortionists like Falwell receive relative to people like the pope, who has the world’s best p.r. and is as anti-abortion, actively, as anyone. Falwell is ridiculed for pointing out the very obvious with the gay Teletubby. The proper response should have been “so what?” Not, “he’s a homophobe looking for queers everywhere.” Mrs. M: Great to hear from you. First, regarding my alleged lack of executive function, I had eight guys cleaning and hauling on Saturday. I have had two different cleaning services, employing as many as three people each in my house, every other day (it seems like). I’m not fixing anything. But trying to get a contractor out to your house is a chore in itself. As for this past weekend, the real estate agent is making us empty out 2/3 of all our stuff. We had to do the sorting and packaging. What am I supposed to do, tell my assistant, yes, let’s recycle everything from Kurt Andersen’s oeuvre, but for Pete's sake, put the Milton Friedman back on the shelf? After the hauling people left, we still had more and more stuff that had to be put away or trashed. I preferred to get it out of my house rather than trip over it for two days. Plus, you can’t see what else needs to be done when there’s so much clutter. And, I did make three runs to Goodwill myself, which in truth, could have been handled smarter. But enough about my aggravation. Gas is absolutely the way to go, though you may want to make sure your building doesn’t have restrictions against propane tanks. I have a nice $500 Weber grill, which is great. However, I bought Donna [Al’s business partner] as a combination wedding/housewarming gift an all-stainless infrared gas grill that is really jizzed. It is absolutely the way to go. It is the same kind of cooking surface that the best steakhouses use. It cooks at 900 degrees. It’s very fast. It burns so hot, it vaporizes all the grease and dirt, so there’s virtually no cleaning to the grill. It sears meat big time. It’s just as safe as a regular gas grill. And it is fast. It costs about $1700. The bad news/good news is Donna thinks her building has a ban on propane; she might have to give me the grill to “hold.” I can’t remember the brand name. I’ll call Donna and get it and send it later. I don’t know anything about the brand, anyway, it was recommended by the salesguy. The only limitation with the grill is it’s not great for slow cooking. On a gas grill Weber you can slow-cook (10 hours) a rubbed brisket or pork shoulder and have great barbecue. But how often are you going to do that? The kids are great. Annie leaves for Israel Monday for two weeks with her class. No playing cards allowed. I read MUGGER, so I think I’m up to speed on the boys. Write for more consults when needed. May 21: The NYPress website looks nice. Didn’t notice any of the things Rodrigue did. When’s the “construction” going to be over? I assume it’ll be up in a couple days. Will there be more graphics throughout? It’s a shame to not use your lead graphics. I know about the space/loading issues, but otherwise, your pages will look like all the other Web mags. I love the outrage that comes from the media when they are wronged. The media are so fallible, it’s only when you’re written about, directly (remember how The Washington Post butchered the story about Jeff Stein in ’82?), that you realize how inaccurate and biased the media almost always is. GTG. May 24: I read the Starr/Steele piece in Slate. It’s interesting, but ultimately just a reminder that Clinton skillfully obstructed justice. (If I were Ben Stein, I’d say it made me sad). But it really is ancient history at this point. Clinton more and more seems like a peripheral figure again, like he was from the ’94 elections until his successful budget showdown with Congress. I was going to write you about how crazy the media reaction was to the Jenny Jones trial was, but that too seems like ancient history. It was post-Columbine, wasn’t it?
The media commentators were obsessed once again with the potentially
chilling effect of the decision. This decision illustrates not the
vulnerability of free speech but the regular flow of crazy awards made
by juries on a routine basis. Did Jenny’s show set this guy up for
humiliation? Absolutely. Did that contribute to the murder? Definitely.
Should the fellow humiliated have known that going on a show like Jenny
Jones carries that kind of risk? Of course. Should the show have
liability for the murder? Absolutely not.
As for guns, I think the Republican performance in the Senate was a
disgrace. Aside from giving Gore a nice political coup, Republican
antipathy to sensible gun regulation is bad policy and bad politics. I’m
as anti-big government as the next guy, but I like the fact, for
example, that an inspector is keeping an eye on the processing plant
where the chicken I eat is slaughtered. I’m also happy that 12-year-olds
can’t buy guns, that people have to go through a criminal background
check to buy one, etc. I’m glad people can’t go to Wal-Mart and buy
mortars. To fight all gun regulation is as stupid.
Now that cities (including Baltimore) and states are suing, or planning
to sue gun manufacturers in Tobacco II, the sequel, the governments
themselves are promoting the abuse of our tort system while
simultaneously trying to further their policy ends (and get more taxes
at the same time). It’s a disgrace.
Whatever happened to individual responsibility, both for kids and the
parents? When we as a society say you smoked for 40 years and you’re
dying of cancer, but it’s not your fault, what message are we sending?
Gun ownership in this country has been huge since its founding. Do the
guns now operate on their own? Little by little, our society erodes the
principle of individual responsibility.
The question is, are we as a country no longer willing to rely on the
judgment of our fellow citizens as individuals to organize our
day-to-day life? Every time you take a curve in your car at 50 mph,
you’re counting on the other guy in the opposite direction taking that
curve as well (which is why, I think, liberals love mass transit). The
problem is, we live in an era when nothing bad is supposed to happen,
just as long as no one’s freedoms are in the smallest way impinged
(thank you ACLU and the gun lobby). We’re supposed to live in a no-risk
world where we still get everything we want.
So as for Kosovo, the outcome will be a face-saving settlement for us,
and then we’ll sue the bumb.
My Boys Ain’t Afraid of Irving
Yes, I understand a return to Irving the Wolf was promised many, many
weeks ago. But first, three other familiar topics: Korean delis, cab
rides and the Downtown Little League.
Last Tuesday night, on the way home, I stopped at my local bodega,
picked up a roll of Kodak film and a pack of smokes. The inflated total
came to $10.21 and I gave the cashier a $20. She was distracted by a
disgruntled customer questioning the ripeness of the bananas, and then
said, “You still owe me 21 cents.” I told her, politely, that I’d just
forked over a Jackson. “No you didn’t,” she replied with a rudeness that
wasn’t quite appropriate, “it was a 10.” We went back and forth for five
minutes—I knew I was correct since I’d had only a $20 bill in my
pocket—and then the manager intervened and said he’d play back the
transaction on videotape. Five minutes later I’m vindicated and the
woman offered a hurried apology—“Oh, sorry”—after she’d basically
accused me of being a thief. I was angry, especially since most of the
people at this deli are courteous, but did marvel at the ingenuity of
using the surveillance to settle the arbitration.
Last Wednesday, I’d promised Junior that I’d pick him up at school and
we’d head down to Brooks Brothers to purchase the seersucker and khaki
suits he’d been bugging me about. The boy’s a dapper little tyke and
knew exactly what he wanted, plus all the accessories. That part of the
afternoon went fine: Sure, he squirmed a bit when the tailor fitted the
pants, but it’s pretty tough for a six-year-old to stay still for five
minutes. Transaction completed, we walk out onto Madison Ave., at 44th
St., at 4 o’clock, the worst possible time to find a lit cab, given the
shift changes, the midtown location and rush hour. To make matters
worse, it was pouring and neither of us had an umbrella.
In these situations it’s dog-eat-dog, with New Yorkers abandoning all
manners and snatching cabs any way they can, even if it means racing
ahead of people who’ve clearly staked out a corner. No complaints,
really; in dire straits, that’s acceptable. Finally, we moved over to
5th Ave. and spotted an empty taxi; we ran to it, and a businessman
tried to muscle in front of us. Junior looked him squarely in the face
and said, “Beat it, buddy, we were here first.” We got inside and he
sported a grin the size of Rhode Island and told me, “Man, Dad, we
nabbed this one by the skin of our teeth!” Three buttons popped off my
Harvie & Hudson shirt (that one’s for you, Mr. Thomas!) when I heard
that smart aleck remark.
On Saturday morning, while MUGGER III and Mrs. M painted at home, Junior
and I went off to the ballfield where his team was playing the Mt. Sinai
Bears. Our team, the NYPress Giants, was missing three or four players,
but played exceptionally well and Junior slammed his best hit of the
season, a solid grounder that zoomed past the third baseman and
shortstop. The game was a bit more competitive than usual for t-ball,
because of an incident in about the third inning. Scott Franchi was
leading off for the Giants and powered a shot that was heading to the
outfield, when a Bears coach just picked it up like he was one of the
players. Talk about cheating! Robbing a kid of a sure triple is some
kind of sin for which punishment is deserved: perhaps spending two weeks
in the audience of a Rosie O’Donnell show. From that point on, our
coaches let the Giant boys and girls take extra bases and run up the
score.
Not everybody on the Bears was a bad egg, however; when our pitcher,
Ella Smithie, stopped a ball with her mouth and was a little dazed,
their manager came over to see how the champ was. That’s the way t-ball
is supposed to be played; not stopping line-drive hits by kids under 10.
But back to Irving. I wrote several months ago about the anthropomorphic
wolf who was the subject of bedtime stories when I took care of my
nephew and niece on a European tour back in ’75. Abbie and Cal were
transfixed, laughing hysterically as I told them about this crazy beast
who always helped me out of jams. The tales grew more fantastic as the
strong lagers went down my gullet, and I had as much fun as they did.
In Bermuda last summer, I revived Irving for MUGGER III and he, too, was
spellbound. Junior was onto me, but didn’t spill the beans to his little
brother that Dad was a big old fake. In fact, we’d huddle in the morning
and he’d offer suggestions for various plotlines. I told him that there
had to be a germ of truth in the story: It had to involve some place
that I’d visited when I was in my 20s or after I’d met his mother. And
then, I counseled Junior, let the imagination go wild. Trouble is, about
a week ago I ran out of fresh material, since after the Bermuda
vacation, MUGGER III wouldn’t go to sleep without an Irving cameo.
I was on a roll for nights on end before the cupboard was bare. There
was the time that Irving was banned from the Bristol Hotel in Paris for
staining the dining room’s carpet because of his incontinence after a
huge meal (a gigantic hit with my poop-conscious four-year-old); Irving
tracking me down after I’d got lost in the hills of Cannes; the time
when Abbie and I were at a port in Italy and ran into trouble with
knife-wielding teenagers and Irving decked every single one of them; and
the odd appearance of our favorite wolf taking over for the matador at a
bullfight in Madrid, where my brother Doug and I had first-row seats and
Irving presented us with an ear apiece from the beast he gored.
What else? Irving, of course, was present at the birth of both Junior
and MUGGER III, telling the doctors to knock off the chatter and give
Mrs. M more painkillers; he cradled MUGGER III at our rental in
Bridgehampton one afternoon and got him to stop bawling; Irving eating
steaks and sausages with Mrs. M and me in Buenos Aires; saving us from a
faulty tram in Santiago by walking nearly a mile on the highwire and
repairing the facility’s motor; lunching with the extended Smith family
in Capri, after playing engineer on the funicular up the hill from the
water; and the time he met us all in the Black Forest and gorged on the
“farmhouse snack,” which consisted of head cheese and other gristly and
jellied pig parts that even I couldn’t stomach. There was an incident in
Switzerland where Irving and a clockmaker got into a ruckus; lots of
wine-guzzling on the Rhine and the communist cabby in Manila who tried
to rob me until you-know-who showed up. And of course there was the time
when Irving was speeding in a van in North Baltimore, got stopped by a
cop and promptly chomped off his foot. That particular story was MUGGER
III’s favorite.
I suppose by now my son has caught on, for he’s invented his “own”
Irving, and in the morning tells me his own fables. They also include
his imaginary friends Snacker, Giant and Dolphin. They almost always are
a version of the previous night’s Irving the Wolf session, but it’s a
joy to hear him twist the tale just a bit to conform to his own peculiar
worldview. We’ve agreed on a moratorium on Irving stories for the time
being; MUGGER III told me, magnanimously, that reruns would resume when
we return to Bermuda this August. I’m just hoping he doesn’t question me
when the yarns deviate from the original plot. This sharp cookie is
often quicker than dear old
05/26/99: Gun Control Solves Everything
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