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New York, 12:16 PM
Tue Dec 1
57 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/24/09
08/24/09
People are defending her out of hometown pride or hating her out of her prejudice, but I want to change the subject: I found the piece to be clumsy. It's overwrought. Her phrases just don't make sense to me, like "imperturbably clunky," and they're ugly. It's maybe high school newspaper level, but not what I would want from this level of paper.
If you take her dangerous edge away, is she really a writer? I don't know; if this is a representative sample of her work, I don't want to read anything else.
How do writers like Wilson (and Alessandra Stanley) get and stay in the NY Times? Because I'm sure there are better people who can write funny, assholish columns hating fatties and loving Manhattan who will defend them with panache and no remorse.
08/24/09
08/24/09
The NYTimes spends a lot of money every day to promote home delivery on cable television throughout the country. You can buy a same day copy of the Times in every medium-sized city and it has one of the most popular websites in the world.
Penneys is considered an American institution. Their stores are throughout the country and though they may have some off-years, pretty much everyone shops in Penneys from time to time.
Ironic hipsters in New York City might decide to overpay for colored tees, but they don't generally read theTimes, if they read at all and if a columnist were to insult one of their favorite boutiques, they might not even know its name.
Penneys is a national insititution and pretty much everyone outside of the largest cities has something in their closet from the store, so the consumer backlash can be understood. Penneys also has a huge advertising budget and though it might be "cool" to let some unknown feature writer say whatever they please, the Times really can't alienate the purse.
08/23/09
and whats with the apologizing? pandering to the lowest common denominator of american culture is not going to save their sinking ship. that crowd hates the nyt and the 'liberal east coast media' anyway -- and it's a safe bet this will be all over fox and friends tomorrow ('nyt not in touch with real americans, elitist snobs!'). and maybe some of us are! shoot, i ought to be shopping at penney's but dammit if i don't aspire to bloomingdales!
nyt, rein in the cheap shots, but never stop calling a spade a spade. if i want to read fluff, i'll read the usa today or some other crap.
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At least the people shopping at JCPenny are trying to make a living on their own money.
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They're honorable, working class people! Sure, maybe their taste in fashion is lacking but earning an honest living is a quality I find more admirable than trendy and douchey.
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I'm guessing she's no size 0, either. Not that it would make her any less loathsome.
08/23/09
Then a couple of other commenters whose taste I respect said Wilson is actually funny and cool and they liked her. Then Wilson herself showed up in the comment thread and posted this - [gawker.com] - funny, self-deprecating comment about the whole thing.
So then I felt bad that I'd made fun of her.
But now I don't feel so bad any more. Making fun of folks because they're "bigger" ain't cool.
08/23/09
Also, that picture she posed for is not silly. She worked really hard to get her hair stringy, her blue eyeshadow vulgar, and her rather smallish tits shoved up inside her suit jacket so that she could approximate the pop singer/drag star Marilyn circa 1983, but with none of the charm.
08/23/09
08/23/09
@BookishLookish:
08/23/09
I wish she'd stop staring at me like that ...
08/23/09
08/23/09
Now THAT wouldl be interesting journalism.
08/23/09
I'm just sayin'.
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08/23/09
Don't know what Wilson's supposed to say. Yes, it was cutting, it was acid, it dripped with contempt. Come sit next to me, Cintra.
This is New York. It is a diamond-hard city, filled with cruel glamour. Deal with it. I've had it with people elsewhere being offended- as in politics, some people will always be offended. They dumb down the discourse, get inordinate amounts of attention from pollsters and the media. "Real America" versus decadent liberal coastal elites.
Wilson said what she thought, yes in a biting, sardonic way. But she's got every right to do that. Note that most of the complaints came frome outside NYC. Boo hoo. Can you believe these people have the time to complain?
In NYC, glamour is not a democracy, except for the especial pleasure of walking past exceptionally well-dressed people, or smelling an exotic perfume on our happily democratic sidewalks. I love this about New York. No, we can't all be supermodels, but it's lovely to appreciate style and beauty when we see it, and in NYC, it's a high standard. Don't hate, appreciate.
Let's keep the standards of NYC glamour high. Let's not dumb it down. I don't want Anna Wintour to be nice, I want her to frighten me. I don't care about your weight issues. I want New York to be glamourous, and fearsomely so. Cintra gave her opinion on the mediocre goods she saw, it should be her right in a city teeming with young designers to look askance at a suburban department store setting up in town. And the Times should not be apologizing for it, I think. Poor babies, subscribers in Cleveland were offended. Tough luck, deal with it.
08/23/09
Nicely done.
08/24/09
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08/23/09
No, I didn't miss her at all. I was just curious, the way I am to hear that one of my former bosses is now sucking cocks in the Port Authority terminal.
Memo Bill Keller: You'd like to think this is a teachable moment, and I'd like to think this is the last time that I'll ever hear about her. I see a way we can each get our wishes.
08/23/09
Then a few months back she did some horrendous "guilty pleasures" schtick on WNYC where folks talked about their "guiltly music pleasures" and such nonsense.
It was asinine and highly condescending and listening to Cintra Wilson praise-tear-apart-and-praise music based on a benchmark that only a 15-year-old goth girl hanging out in a school yard can justify made me decide to screw WNYC and not renew my "contribution" to that place.
She’s really just a indie-snotbag who can’t be edited down because her whole hook is being a caricature of NYC elitism.
I hate her because NYC is not that closed minded. You need dippy ex-pat midwesterners like her to affect that sad pose.
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None for Ms. Wilson.
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