Radar magazine has come and gone for the third time, folding suddenly last Friday—but as Michael Musto pointed out, when a party's already been paid for, you might as well go ahead with it. And so a mockup of the magazine's last cover, featuring actress Shannen Doherty, sat on the red carpet in front of Citrine, where editor Maer Roshan was smiling for photographers. As of 11p.m., neither Shannen nor the party's promoter had been made aware that the magazine had unceremoniously folded, and that she was gracing the cover of its last issue. Directly in front of Maer, asphalt was being dumped onto the street and stamped into place by construction workers, leaving the people in line to cough on the fumes while they adjusted their Halloween masks. Was this irrational hubris or performance art?"You'll be seeing us again in some way!" he told us without blinking or laughing once. Performance art. "You're killing me," sighed the flack at the door when we were finally plucked from the line and had the audacity to bring in a guest. No, we're killing print! It did seem a bit ironic that the final Radar party was wildly oversubscribed. So Maer, how are you feeling? "We put out sixteen good issues," he said, adding that he'll be an editor-at-large at Tina Brown's Daily Beast, "helping out." Will he have to go into the office? "Only when I feel like it." Meanwhile, we heard the rumor of a party guest who was laid off at Radar on Friday, hired at Culture + Travel on Monday, and laid off again on Wednesday when that magazine folded. And this was all before covergirl Shannen Doherty arrived, who showed up dressed in black shiny leggings, looking like a sexy cat. (We were promised absolutely "no access" to her.) As Nick Denton wrote in 2005,
"Gawker has covered Radar to the point of absurdity, as if it was a reality TV show, in which every actor and every action, however minor, was worthy of mention. Maer said that, at Radar, everyone was a celebrity. The blogs have taken him at his word. One day he'll appreciate the attention; but not just yet."
While the party was just (yet another) Radar wake, it felt like much more: Maer Roshan has always been one of the biggest believers in magazines and in the now-outdated idea that they can be culturally relevant—a fine industry to dedicate your life to. After a brutal week of magazine foldings and months of layoffs, it felt like we were mourning much more than the third death of Radar.
[Photos: Nick McGlynnn for Random Night Out] Previously: Radar 2.0 Launch Party Radar 2.0 Wake Radar 3.0 Launch