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Elizabeth Spiers
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Proliferating Alabama Writers
The distinguishing characteristic of a meme—even the fragile idea that there's an Alabama school of writers such as Howell Raines, Warren St John and Elizabeth Spiers—is that it's self-perpetuating. Which is the only explanation for the precocious literary ambition of 17-year-old Alex Niedenthal from Birmingham.
The distinguishing characteristic of a meme—even the fragile idea that there's an Alabama school of writers such as Howell Raines, Warren St John and Elizabeth Spiers—is that it's self-perpetuating. Which is the only explanation for the precocious literary ambition of 17-year-old Alex Niedenthal from Birmingham.
first ladies of blogging
alum report
Elizabeth Spiers: Harsh Critic
Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is a demanding critic—not even Evelyn Waugh's brilliant The Loved One impressed her enough to receive that fifth star in her Facebook book ratings—so her three-out-of-five stars to travel writer Lawrence Osborne's The Naked Tourist are no surprise. Except that travel writer Lawrence Osborne is her boyfriend. Maybe Spiers just knocked off those two stars as punishment for Osborne taking her to Brazil on the world's worst airline? (And They All Die in the End, Spiers' first novel, is due this summer.) UPDATE/CORRECTION: Spiers comments, below. More »
Things we don't understand: Why would Slate start a separate website to cover business? (Besides the ad dollars? Or is there a "besides"?) And: Slate has a video site called SlateV? ("Did you mean to search for: Schteve?" asks Google.) And why did former Dealbreaker founder and Gawker original editor Elizabeth Spiers turn down the new site's top job? I mean, clearly, she'll work anywhere. [NYO]
nevermind the pollacks
Neal Pollack, Unblock Me From Facebook Right This Minute!
I don't know about you but when I search Facebook for "Neal Pollack," I get two Neal Pollacks, neither of whom are the Neal Pollack that I want to find. (I'm looking for the Alternadad writer and blogger Neal Pollack who writes about his son so much!) But when I search from my friend's account, I get three Neal Pollacks, the last of whom is the Neal Pollack I want to find. How could we tell? Though we couldn't view his profile, we could view his friends. They include Timedouche columnist Joel Stein and his lovely wife, Cassandra Barry; Biblically-living author AJ Jacobs; Defamer editor Mark Lisanti; Gawker's once-upon-a-time editor Elizabeth Spiers; and Sloane Crosley, the indefatigable publicist. Come on, Neal! We want to poke you so hard!
the frailty of the outer boroughs
Was Heath Ledger All That Was Keeping Brooklyn Together?
In a trenchant piece of geosocial commentary, not-a-she Alex Williams tackles some big questions: "What if Brooklyn's recent cachet as the locus for what's next is little more than a thin and fragile crust of chic, hiding the insecurity of people who constantly measure the social currency of their ZIP code by Manhattan standards?" Gee, what if! More »
five year plans
Let's Play Editorial Shuffle!
Today on the New Republic website, retired blogger Elizabeth Spiers reviews the second issue of Portfolio. Spiers finds the title pretentious and lacking in substance. Her suggestion? Replace editor Joanne Lipman with former New Yorker head Tina Brown, who will bring both flash and purpose to the title. Surely Tina, who is currently sitting on her ass awaiting royalty checks from that Princess Diana book, would go for it. But what would happen to poor Joanne? We've come up with a plan that requires a little editorial shuffling throughout the media world, but ends up with everybody comfortably ensconced in positions for which they might be better suited! More »
Scenes from what appears to be Gawker alum Jessica Coen and her boyfriend's Amagansett beach house, where Times food writer Peter Meehan, Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman and chef David Chang grill burgers. Update: Ah ha! Is actually their friend Ben's house! [NY]
history is written by the winners
The Man Who Taught Elizabeth Spiers To Tolerate The Gays
We just received a copy of the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men, which is pretty much what you'd expect. We were thumbing through the contents, wondering about what its contributors might have to offer (Does Ayelet Waldman love her fag more than her kids?) when we noticed an essay by Gawker founding editor and current layabout Elizabeth Spiers! Who was the gay who showed her the way? It's someone we all know and fear here at the office. More »
media bubble
Tiny Dynamine
elizabeth spiers
New Media Blowup: Elizabeth Spiers, Solo Again
It was March 29, 2006, that Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers launched Dealbreaker, the first of her grown-up internet ventures. Just a few weeks more than a year later, that new media party is over. From her email, just sent: "My partners and I have an insurmountable difference of opinion regarding long-term strategy for the company and we've come to point where I would like to do some projects that are materially riskier and more experimental than Dead Horse's existing properties, and they would prefer to pull back and focus solely on the sites we have." We always thought the safe, happy years for talent came when you stopped working for the millionaire and went out in partnership. Guess not. (Who were we kidding? Oh right, ourselves.) So how long until Ken Lerer turns on Arianna Huffington? How long until Michael Jackson and Barry Diller turn on Kurt Andersen? Heck, how long until Barry Diller tries to spit-roast the College Humor boys? Jon Fine has more.
dana vachon
Mergers and Acquisitions: A Book Party
The author needed to meet some very important person from the world of publishing, and his tightly-wound editor let him know it by waving frantically and then physically dragging him over to the corner of the bar. Dana Vachon had been born wealthy and healthy and handsome and he was right to view himself as entirely blessed, especially considering that his first novel, Mergers & Acquisitions had already gone to a second printing that very day. No one wore costumes on the night of his book party at Felix, that Eurotrash magnet on West Broadway, but there was no need for costumes to have a masque ball. Everyone knew their role and played it. More »
remainders
Remainders: Currently Working On Our Breakthrough Soccer Story
elizabeth spiers
'Fashionista:' Even Better Than We'd Feared
Today marks the debut of snarkiness-inventor turned stand-up comedienne Elizabeth Spiers's Dead Horse Media empire's girly blog, Fashionista. Like Spiers's stand-up, it's pretty impervious to our signature brand of joshing (Damn her! Did she build in that mechanism somehow?!) They've inaugurated a few promising recurring features — our favorite so far is Streetwalker, a street-snaps analysis that's better than 90% of all NY Mag Look Books by dint of these two quotes alone: "his giant gold Marc by Marc bag is both undeniably adorable and totally not okay" and "jeans that are skinny but somehow not anorexic." Even better is 'Deal or No Deal,' wherein fashion experts weigh in on whether a discounted item is worth its reduced price. The first one features the expertise of our fave punching baguette, Tinsley Mortimer: More »
elizabeth spiers
Elizabeth Spiers: That Blogger's Crazy
We toddled over to Comix last night to catch the Fresh Meat set by Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers. Shockingly, given our well-known affinity for the Meatpacking District, we had never been to the venue before, and found its "Albert Speer designs a comedy club" aesthetic a little bizarre. The lineup was pretty strong: Apart from Ms. Spiers, the talents of Jessi Klein (decent bit about Lindsay Lohan as a "slutty little unicorn" and mom Dina as a "skanky old Rockette"), Annabelle Gurwitch (oddly mannered TV-person style; told some interminable cat story), Jonathan Ames (if you've seen one Jonathan Ames performance, you've seen them all, i.e., he told a story involving his mom and his dick; he did keep the crowd happy, though) and David Rakoff (what does it say about the world that David Sedaris can write for the New Yorker whenever he wants but David Rakoff is forced to share a stage with a blogger and the chick from "Dinner and a Movie"? Nothing good, that's for sure. The man is a genius.) But how was Elizabeth? More »
cocktail weekly
We Would Totally Read 'Vadge Weekly'
It was reported today that a new magazine from Bauer, which publishes the ever-classy Life&Style and InTouch, will debut this fall. The mag will be titled Cocktail Weekly, though it won't have anything to do with booze, instead covering "a mix of celebrity news, relationship advice, health coverage and fashion and beauty spreads." Why Cocktail? The easy answer, we guess, is "because Cosmo was taken," but on further reflection (and a bit of perusal of Elizabeth Spiers's blog), we realized that naming a servicey blog or publication for the ladies isn't so easy. Spiers settled on Fashionista.com for the blog that will join her Dealbreaker empire on Wednesday, after realizing that the Sizezero.com domain was too damn pricey (not to mention too damn much of a grossout for readers who can't get past the rexiness to the supposed tongue in cheekiness there, but we digress.) Anyway, it turns out that naming a lady mag is harder than we thought. But still, they ought to be able to come up with something better than these cheesy choices. Please, leave your suggestions in the comments. More »
elizabeth spiers
The Button-Down Mind of Liz Spiers
Busy on the 23rd? No? Then head over to Comix, the Meatpacking District's new chuckle hut, and catch Fresh Meat, a monthly comedy show hosted by Catie Lazarus. This month's installment includes the comic stylings of Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers, who will more than likely be performing her famous smashed-watermelon routine. In a related note, Jesse Oxfeld will be doing a couple of sets at the Montclair, NJ Rascals sometime in March. More »
elizabeth spiers
Newly Fashionable Liz Spiers Means Us No Harm, At Least This Week
We were disturbed to learn, via a Dealbook profile of Dead Horse Media (Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers' burgeoning online empire), that "Spiers registered some other interesting Web domains, including Size0.com and the provocatively named GawkerKiller.com, and has even started posting content to some of them". Could it be? Did Elizabeth really plan to damage our livelihoods? Or persons? Reached for comment, Ms. Spiers chuckled."The domain was registered by our general manager around the time that we launched Dealbreaker. We had some inclination to do something with it initially, but I'd have to write the whole thing, so, no. We're considering writing some sort of script that filters the boring service journalism out of Gawker, but that would probably make more sense under gawkerenhancer.com."Ouch. We note that gawkerenhancer.com is still available. As is spiersmaimer.com. Consider that news you can use. More »
