NYT Magazine, Seattle Edition

The New York Times has long shown an unusual affection for Seattle, considering our damp corner of the universe to be a national bellwether of sorts for all things hip and progressive. Normally, this infatuation plays out in one of the NYT's quarterly glossy mags, whether they be devoted to style, design, or travel. But today, the main Magazine has two long features with notable Seattle ties. On the cover is 71-year-old Booth Gardner, the subject of a marvelously textured piece by Daniel Bergner on the former governor's crusade to legalize assisted suicide in the state of Washington. Painting the issue in shades far more morally nuanced than black and white, the piece also resonates as a commentary on the missteps in Gardner's personal life — in particular, his ongoing failure to connect with his son, Doug, who opposes his father's Kervorkian-esque crusade. It's a must-read not only for those interested in assisted suicide and Gardner, but for anyone needing a reminder of the sort of public service long-form journalism provides. Christian Sinderman, Margarita Prentice, and others play supporting roles in Bergner's narrative, which is broken up by a welcome shot of well-reported levity by former Weekly contributor Bruce Barcott, who probes a watershed incident in Galveston, Texas that touched off a bird-lover v. cat-lover shitstorm like no other.

Topics: Magazines

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New Yorker establishes satellite office in Capitol Hill!

Cartoon courtesy of modernarthur.com

 
The Stranger has a new editor in Christopher Frizzelle, the paper’s former arts chief. (Old editor Dan Savage is now “editorial director.”) It’s a coup for a journo who’s yet to hit 30. I predict that such a meteoric rise in the news world can only end one place. See if you can guess where that place is, using these hints Frizzelle has dropped into his Stranger articles and blog posts over the years:
 
“This week’s New Yorker has four different covers, all by Chris Ware.” (10/31/05)

“After posting my dissenting opinion about Batman Begins here yesterday…I came home to my lovely New Yorker to find that I wasn’t the only person in America cringing over the screenplay.” (7/8/05)

“I know I always post things from The New Yorker, but I can’t help it, this is great. They’ve dubbed last week in the White House ‘Hell Week.’” (10/31/05)

“The New Yorker has a new poetry editor…and it’s Paul Muldoon.” (9/20/07)

“Savage, I know you hate it when we constantly link to the New Yorker, but Annie, have you seen this Margaret Talbot piece from a couple months ago about valedictorians? It’s awesome.” (12/2/05)

“Maud Newton has some problems with Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece on Enron.” (1/4/07)

“I Have So Much to Do…and I’m not doing any of it, because there’s a short story by Miranda July in the new New Yorker. (Saw it at a bookstore just now and bought it, even though a copy is destined to arrive in my mailbox tomorrow or so. Yes. I am that much of a nerd.) Unless I blacked out at some point, this is the first time she’s ever been in this here favorite magazine o’ mine.” (9/13/06)

“I know I borrow the New Yorker voice a lot....It’s probably just because I write fiction and my protagonists tend to be gay and I read the New Yorker all the time and think about the choices you make.” (11/17/05)

Continue reading "New Yorker establishes satellite office in Capitol Hill!"

Topics: Magazines

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Larry Flynt's Gold Wheelchair

The former publisher of Hustler, like most larger than life personalities, looks a lot smaller in person. Yesterday afternoon, Seattle University law school students had the opportunity to take a gander at the first amendment devotee where local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Constitution Society sponsored an appearance by the patron saint of smut.

His bodyguard called 15 minutes after he was scheduled to begin to say he had just landed at Boeing Field so spectators had to wait an extra hour for him to arrive, gold wheelchair, bad red hair dye and all.

But as one student blowing off his instructors observed: “I’ll probably learn more about the constitution here than in class.”

“I know, he’s a living legend,” his slacker friend added.

Larry Flynt is the man that bridged the gap between the ambiguous references to where babies come from in sex ed and the way it really works, sort of. He publishes photographic representations, complete with whips and chains, of the real nuts and bolts of the procreative process. He fought for the right to distribute his material, taking on his equally vehement conservative counterpart Jerry Falwell in a faux print ad that led to the 1988 Supreme Court decision protecting parody as free speech. As Flynt himself says, without Hustler there is no Daily Show. (This and other moments in his life were immortalized in a 1996 movie starring Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love. Earlier this week, Rick Anderson delved into Love’s latest legal battles.) 

But these days, Flynt is more quaint than edgy. He’s still making a pitch for the acceptance of graphic material in a world where the internet has made the pages of Hustler look tame.

He has a series of platitudes he draws out to justify his own material: “The price we pay to live in a free society is toleration.” Or: “The church has had its hand on our crotch for over 2,000 years.” 

While this may all ring of truth, Flynt just isn’t under the kind of assault he used to be. He asserts that anyone broaching the subject of sex is attacked, but universities around the country have started porn studies classes. Even Seattle Pacific University, a local Methodist school, has a class on human sexuality that gets into the biological role of foreplay. Flynt himself seemed to miss the irony of the fact that he was speaking at a Catholic school.

But if sex doesn’t suffer the same censorship as it did in the eighties, free speech may still need protection in a country where for years after the September 11 attacks, journalists and opinion makers who questioned the evidence leading us into war were branded disloyal and unpatriotic.

And maybe this is where Flynt still has something important to say.

“If you’re not going to offend anybody, you don’t need the protection of the first amendment,” he says. “It’s the people out there that are really raising hell that need that protection.”

And that’s why I’m not ashamed to say that a purveyor of porn in a bad dye job and a gold wheelchair spouting cliches can also be a source of inspiration.

Topics: Magazines

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Thes Arms Are Rolling

A handful of people might know that Weekly art director Ryan Frederiksen doubles as the lithe, raven-haired guitarist for the critically-lauded local noise-rock outfit These Arms Are Snakes. Frederiksen has been on leave for what seems like forever (Douglas Deay has filled in capably) touring with the Snakes, who were featured in a November 30 CMJ roundup in Rolling Stone. Frederiksen is quoted extensively. Hopefully Frederiksen's list of requirements when he returns in mid-December will be more modest than cheesemeister surf boy Jack Johnson, who purportedly demands that his dressing room be covered in several inches of sand before fielding a steady onslaught of panties onstage.

Also in the Nov. 30 RS is a glowing Robert Christgau review of Dead Moon's recently released anthology, the seeds of which were covered extensively in the Weekly by music editor Brian J. Barr a couple months ago.

Topics: Magazines

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Our Former Publisher

Terry Coe, who left Seattle Weekly recently after four years as publisher here, has landed at Tiger Oak Publishing, whose best-known title is Seattle. Terry will be associate publisher in charge of Seattle Business Monthly and Northwest Meetings & Events, the company said in a news release.

Topics: Magazines and Seattle Weekly

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Refined, Yet Sophisticated

There's a new lifestyle magazine in town, and its name is not Seattle Metropolitan. It's called 425 and will launch in the fall. There's an extensive Web site up that reveals 425 to be basically Seattle and Seattle Metropolitan without the news—and without Seattle. So they likely won't be writing anything about the backyard landscaping project at the anarchist commune on Beacon Hill. Writes Editor-in-Chief Dana Ohler:

There's a different feel on the Eastside. A distinct aesthetic that sets it apart from the rest of the Puget Sound. Refinement, sophistication, and luxury find new levels of articulation here. Yet the feel is one of easy elegance, where upscale doesn't mean affected or stuffy.

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Bill Gates Gets Schooled, Con't.

There's some talk on the Romenesko media-news site about our earlier item that noted how closely this week's BusinessWeek cover and cover story topic resemble our similar cover and article from almost a year ago.

Stephen J. Adler, the editor of BusinessWeek, writes on Romenesko:

I wrote the headline, "Bill Gates Gets Schooled," for the BusinessWeek cover and was unaware of the Seattle Weekly headline, story or cover art until I saw the Romenesko posting today. Our reporters hadn’t run across the Seattle Weekly piece during their research. I've now read the Seattle Weekly story, which is excellent. Both their story, and ours, are well worth reading.

I'm a BusinessWeek subscriber, and he's right. Their package, national in scope, is an excellent look at the Gates Foundation's foray into education.

Topics: Education, Magazines, Media, Newspapers, Seattle Weekly, and Web/Blogging

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Stoli Martinis and the Left

The left needs more people like Victor Navasky. The appearance by Navasky, the former publisher and editor of The Nation, at Town Hall on Thursday, June 22, is a great opportunity to get his wisdom in person. Navasky kept The Nation, the country’s oldest magazine, in the red for 27 years, charming a succession of wealthy owners to keep subsidizing the publication while never allowing the monied backers to control its editorial direction.

His lively and warm memoir, A Matter of Opinion, just out in paperback, recounts the long lunches and many Stoli martinis that Navasky endured for the cause. At the same time, in the pages of The Nation, Navasky was letting a broad spectrum of writers from liberals to anarchists inform, propagandize, and debate the direction of the left. My personal favorite was the letters section where The Nation’s columnists would carry on vituperative debates with one another: It was an Algonquin Round Table for radicals. The Nation continues under the direction of Katrina vanden Heuvel but isn’t quite as much fun as it used to be. Come out and hear Navasky’s accumulated wisdom at Seattle Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave. Tickets: 206-325-2993, www.foolproof.org. $10/$5 members, students, seniors. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., June 22.

Topics: Magazines and Media

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Bill Gates Gets Schooled””Again

Top: Seattle Weekly, July 20, 2005 (cover image, article).

Bottom: BusinessWeek, June 26, 2006 (cover image, article).

Do journalists in New York do any original thinking at all? 

Topics: Education, Magazines, Media, and Seattle Weekly

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