Hello, look who wrote the New York mag cover story on Dave Letterman this week: Departed Observer editor Peter Kaplan, keeping busy! The piece has no new Letterman interview. It's a total write-around. Of which Kaplan is the master. Ingredients:

1. Poetic musing.
2. Material from watching Dave's show.
3. Material from a profile of Letterman that Kaplan wrote 28 years ago.
4. Analysis, which is just something—hopefully persuasive—the writer makes up.

That's it! If you're not as good a writer as Peter Kaplan, though, your writearound may suck.
[Pic: Flickr]

Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.