This Recording

Links for Journos and Master Chiefs

Ms. Grigoriadis at the Gawker book party, gotcha

God we hate this woman. Putting down Gawker is like putting down the ocean, or bears. It’s just a fact of life.

At the risk of sounding like a wounded old-media journalist, let me share a story about my experience with the media-gossip blog Gawker.com, which I, like most journalists who cover stylish topics in New York, have read almost every day for five years. In addition to recently finding attacks on some of my female journalist friends—one of whom was described as slutty and “increasingly sundamaged”; another variously called a “tardblogger,” “specialblogger,” and “developmentallydisabledblogger”—as well as a friend’s peppy little sister, who was put down for wanting to write a “self-actualizing screenplay or book proposal or whatever,” I woke up the day after my wedding to find that Gawker had written about me.

“The prize,” said the Website, “for the most annoying romance in this week’s [New York Times] ‘Vows’ [column] goes to the following couple,” and I’ll bet you can guess which newly merged partnership that was. It seems that our last names, composed of too many syllables, as well as my alma mater, Wesleyan; the place we fell in love, Burning Man; our mothers’ occupations as artists; and my husband’s employer, David LaChapelle—in short, the quirky graphed points of my life—added up to an unredeemably idiotic persona (the lesson here, at the least, is that talking to the Times’ “Vows” column is a dangerous act of amour propre).

Gawker’s commenters, the unpaid vigilantes who are taking an increasingly prominent role in the site, heaved insults my way:

This is a woman who became a reporter because she “liked acting.” Awesome.

“Grigoriadis writes for New York Magazine. Her last article was entitled, ‘You Too Can Be a Celebrity Journalist!’ With that kind of work and the newfound fame that comes with a Times wedding announcement, she’s on the fast track to teaching a class at The Learning Annex.”

“Sorry, but I’m obsessed with these two. The last names alone? They have nine vowels between them. And can’t you see it when they have their painful hyphenated named children? Does anyone out there know them? Please offer up some stories. Perhaps their trip to Nepal, or her internship with Cindy Sherman. I need more…”

Grow up. Also, your husband is fugly.

“Those two are such easy targets they have to be made up. C’mon, Wesleyan? LaChapelle? The immigrant artist parents? No two people could be that painful.”

“Immigrant artist parents=house painters.”

Are we ridiculous? Perhaps a little, and I was contemplating this, nervously, when I got a call from my new mother-in-law, who had received the news by way of a Google alert on her son’s name. She was mortified, and I=pissed: High-minded citizen journalism, it seems, can also involve insulting people’s ethnic backgrounds. I felt terrible about dragging my family into the foul, bloggy sewer of Gawker, one I have increasingly accepted as a normal part of participating in city media. A blog that is read by the vast majority of your colleagues, particularly younger ones, is as powerful a weapon as exists in the working world; that most of the blog is unintelligible except to a certain media class and other types of New York bitches does not diminish its impact on that group.

Like most journalists, I tend to have a defeatist attitude about Gawker, dismissing it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 of journalism, or accepting its vague put-downs under the principle that any press is good press.

The fact that she is even believes there is still such thing as a journalist is telling. I’m going to stick that right next to lawyer and race car driver on the list of occupations you don’t have to be anything but a dumb shit to do.

This from the woman who married a man who said this:

“Both of us are only children,” Mr. Maldonado said. “Both of our fathers are immigrants. Both of our mothers are painters.”

We are barfing for a period no less than Dunder Mifflin Infinity right now. This from a woman who is so addicted to her own publicity she posts all her press hits. I mean, she writes articles about South Park, what’s next her investigative report, 30 Rock?

People complaining about Gawker is just sad. Grow some balls.

Rivers Cuomo is gonna release a demo and a book.

Ron Paul finally gets some respect!

Laura Ulewicz died.

Christian Wiman, a spectacular poet, has cancer.

The DaVinci Code, this time with Shakespeare. I bet that was an easy pitch meeting.

New Korean film looks to be great.

30 Rock may yet be canceled.

AS’ new book is in paperback.

Hospital-derived staph infections kill more people than AIDS.

J.K. Rowling looking hawt.

CMJ picks, day two.

Jennifer Beals…awesome.

NYC is gonna spend about $387 million to renovate the Jamaica station in Queens.

More fun from indexed.

The average TV is on for 8 hrs a day.

Sweet Orhan Veli poem.

The Death of Socrates.

Affirmative action is pretty much a disaster.

Starbucks is a hit in Queens.

New York Magazine becomes aware of Sufjan Stevens. Spectacular.

Congress wasting time, what else is new, says Thomas Sowell.

Face transformer!

Cemetery workers in Iraq feeling the pinch.

A reason to be pro-life? Nah.

MySpace opens a San Francisco location.

“No Fit State (Audion remix)” — Hot Chip (mp3)

“No Fit State” — Hot Chip (mp3)

Hot Chip website

Our girl Lucy is in a new play. We like the title.

Written by Damien Atkins
Directed by William Carden

Featuring Lisa Emery, Lucy DeVito, Keira Naughton,
Scott Sowers, and Christopher Duva

Vivian is an anthropologist at the top of her field. She craves solitude — motherhood was never an option. But when forced to care for her estranged teenage daughter, Lucy, her life is turned upside down. Lucy is autistic … and might be the next step in Vivian’s evolution.

H.L. Mencken on Nietzsche.

USA brings back Debra Messing’s latest series.

Ed Koch reviews Lust, Caution:

This movie is interesting in that it covers a period of the Japanese occupation of China and, in particular, the City of Shanghai in the early 1940s.One of the lead characters is Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). A flashback shows her as a young Hong Kong college student. She joins a Chinese student cell organized to kill the Chinese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), who ran a Gestapo-like network intended to protect the Japanese occupiers. She reminded me of Mata Hari, the famous German spy during World War I.

Mr. Yee moves to Shanghai before the cell can assassinate him. The cell follows him and several years later they are able to implement their assassination plot aided by Wong who is to seduce and ensnare him. The sex scenes demonstrate the many positions of the Kama Sutra with full frontal female nudity. Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom) is part of the assassination cell and knows to what lengths Wong is prepared to go sexually to carry out the plot. The performances of all three actors are excellent.

SMALL PRESSES THAT MEET WITH OUR SEAL OF APPROVAL

Hot Whiskey Press.

Kitchen Press.

A Twin Peaks-inspired anthology.

Friedrich over at Small Fires. I highly recommend their origami balloons.

Scott Pierce at Effing Press.

The juvenile boxfish, aka Molly Lambert

“Inside Out” — Eve 6 (mp3)

BLOGS FOR THE QUIET TIMES

Coolfer

Daily Refill

Damn Kids, Get Off My Lawn!

Fluxblog

Colleen at Sugartown.

Crucial Minutiae

Lusty Lady

The Singles Jukebox

Human Giant Season 2 Production Blog

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

We started watching a prime-time soap.

Molly euthanized Jean Baudrillard.

Tornados in BK, Quakes in LA.