2004-11-01, This Week In The New Yorker

In the magazine header, image: newyorker.com
Issue of 2004-11-01
Posted 2004-10-25
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ THE CHOICE/ The Editors on the coming election. [They used the first 3,856 words lay out Bush’s incompetence, failings, deceptions, and dangers, and 677 words to endorse Kerry as a strong, principled corrective and source of hope.]
A REPORTER AT LARGE/ Peter J. Boyer/ The Believer/ Paul Wolfowitz defends the war.
SHOUTS & MURMURS/ Paul Simms/ Making a Difference
FICTION/ Lara Vapnyar/ “Memoirs of a Muse”
PORTFOLIO/ Democracy 2004/ Photographic portraits of Americans by Richard Avedon.
THE CRITICS
BOOKS/ John Updike/ The Great I Am/ Robert Alter’s new translation of the Pentateuch.
POP MUSIC/ Sasha Frere-Jones/ 1979
The year punk died, and was reborn.
THE ART WORLD/ Peter Schjeldahl/ Memento Mori/ The Aztecs at the Guggenheim.
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Anthony Lane/ Aftermaths/ “Enduring Love,” “Hearts and Minds.”
FROM THE ARCHIVES
THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL/ PROFILES/ Winthrop Sargeant/ A Woman Entering a Taxi in the Rain/ A profile of Richard Avedon’s early work as a fashion photographer/ Issue of 1958-11-08
PORTFOLIO/ A collection of Avedon’s portrait photography from his years at the magazine.

Next We’ll Find Out She Bought Necromania

Madeleine Albright just told Jon Stewart that she’s seen Team America World Police.
Maybe it’s not that surprising; if you actually know the person who’s being portrayed as a diabolical puppet, you’re obliged to see the movie.
Bonus Kim Jong Il trivia: he wears high heels. Albright said she stood next to him for a picture, and they were still the same height, and she had heels on…

Switch II: Bush Voters For Kerry

Errol Morris’s series of John Kerry ads are powerful precisely because they don’t use any of the tactics–treacly hagiography, deceitful misrepresentations, fear-baiting, or mudslinging–that are the mainstay of politician-produced political ads.
He interviewed hundreds of people who voted for Bush in 2000 who are now voting for John Kerry and captured their individual stories and reasons for switching. Taken together, they form a persuasive argument for relieving Bush of duty.
See Errol Morris’s Switch ads and–if you’re a billionaire or a 527–run them where they’ll do some good. [errolmorris.com]
Related: the making of the ads
I’m Greg Allen and I approve this message.

Manolo, Manolo, Manolo!

And I thought two was a trend. Manolos are breakin’ out all over:

  • “I have been feeling good lately. Monolo’s got me on some new Zinc program and I am in week two of my Bowflex program.” Manolo, [not] Nick Nolte’s trainer/nutritionist/manservant
  • “He can’t sleep, so at 5 a.m. he takes his valet, Manolo Sanchez, to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They meet protesters, whom Nixon engages in repartee about … surfing.” Manolo, Richard Nixon’s manservant
  • “Manolo is speechless.” Manolo is writing the Manolo’s Shoe Blog [via Rexblog and Buzzmachine]

    • Tom Ford Channels Matthew Barney

    tom_ford_book.jpgWhy didn’t I think of that? After reading the page in Matthew Barney’s film-financing handbook where he describes selling sculptures and limited editions to raise money for the Cremaster movies, Tom Ford has released his own veritable work of art.
    Actually, it’s probably more of a catalogue raisonnee, but there is a white leather-bound limited edition for $350. Don’t worry, Amazon knows you never pay retail; they’ve got it for $238. [There’s also a pleather-priced edition, $85, down from $125.]
    Yes, this IS the book on Ford’s coffee table when The Times dropped by last weekend. Tacky? Not in LA, my friend. Not when a man’s got a book to sell. And a movie to finance. [via Towleroad]

    I [Heart] Huckstering

    My boy David O. Russell may be shooting negative karma beams at the back of Sharon Waxman’s head, but that’s not stopping him from spelling “P&A” with a capital “N-Y-T.”
    It feels like those multimedia interstitials for I [Heart] Huckabee’s have been running for weeks now (Seriously, what’s the buy on those things? If it’s entirely clickthrough-based, they’ll have to start pushing the DVD before too much longer.) And if People Who Don’t Skip This Ad wasn’t niche enough, Fox Searchlight is pitching the film at the even smaller People Who Actually Opt In For Ad Mail market.
    Here’s the kicker: This morning’s I[H]H spam was a plaintive 1,000-word Story of My Life And My Movie by the director himself. And I mean himself. No copy editors were harmed or even inconvenienced in the making of this email, which Gawker helpfully published this afternoon.
    And which I’ve happily pasted in its spamalicious entirety after the jump. Now if you copy it and forward it to all your friends, not only will you help save the life of a little girl with cancer–who’s been kidnapped–but Bill Gates will take you on a trip to Disneyland. Which has to be good for your karma.

    Continue reading “I [Heart] Huckstering”

    The Last Starfighter: The Musical

    An ecstatic review by Jason Scott of possibly the geekiest musical possible (without disrupting the space-time continuum, I’m sure), The Last Starfighter.
    As every teenage videogame addict living in a trailer park in the eighties knows, the movie, The Last Starfighter tells the story of a… teenage videogame addict living in a trailer park who is tapped by aliens to save a distant planet the universe from destruction or something.
    In any case, it’s now a musical, exuberantly and complexly well-done (apparently), and playing off^3-Broadway at the Storm Theatre. Don’t procrastinate and blow it like you did Rent; go see it before it moves to the big stage.
    “Geekdom, extreme geekdom, does not just have depths, my friends; it has heights…Sometimes, we think we have achieved the pinnacle, and then, slowly, we glance upward and see we have even farther to climb.” [ASCII by Jason Scott, via waxy]
    The Last Starfighter: The Musical, now playing at the Storm Theatre

    Nick Denton Sports Wood

    from the NYMDb work-in-process folder:
    Fleshbot Films [?!] gives Ed Wood’s last film the, um, full release it deserves. It’s the long-lost hardcore version of Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love!; the simulated sex version turned up at a tag sale in 1992, much to the glee of the late filmmaker’s hardcore [sic] fan(s). For the rest of you, no, Johnny Depp is not attached.

    IN THE VAULT/ Weird Love     [New Yorker]

    greg.org, heck yeah!

    Wingnuts on both ends of the political spectrum, it’s not about you. So take a chill pill, throw another fat Costco steak on the grill, and read Matt Stone & Trey Parker’s interview with Heather Havrilesky in Salon. I so called it.
    Embittered filmmakers, meanwhile, should read it to find out how the script went from South Park 2 comedy to Dr. Strangelove play-it-straight satire, before becoming the scintillating assfest you see before you.
    “it’s not just us, and the fact that we live in this L.A. bubble” [salon]

    Parallel Lines, No Kidding

    The Cinetrix has an engrossing review of an equally engrossing documentary, Nina Davenport’s Parallel Lines. The New York director was away on a freelance gig in San Diego on September 11th and decided to film her way home.
    Through the fall and early winter of 2001, Davenport asked the dozens of people she met along the way about the terrorist attacks, a question which, more often than not, opened the floodgates to each person’s most nakedly painful experience.
    Parallel Lines [pullquote]
    Parallel Lines site
    Souvenir (November 2001), my first short, set in this same moment in time, about kind of the same thing.

    Start With A Large Fortune

    NYT fashion reporter Cathy Horyn goes to Hollywood to see what Tom Ford’s up to. True to reports when he left Gucci, he’s looking to make a small fortune in the movie business.

    “If I’m going to get one shot to make an impression,” he said, “I want to have around me at least the padding of professional organization. I would not be able to make a little film that will go unnoticed the way it might for other beginning directors. Everyone will be looking. `Is he any good?'”

    Tom Ford’s Intermission [NYT]