A Day When None Rose Above

What's going on with our favorite Twitterati? Read what floats Jason Pontin's boat, discover the key to Shira Lazar's heart, and learn Aaron Task's wooing secrets.

What's going on with our favorite Twitterati? Read what floats Jason Pontin's boat, discover the key to Shira Lazar's heart, and learn Aaron Task's wooing secrets.

Did you hear Twitter is now bigger than Digg? That's because you can't vote on Obamanaugural headlines by text message. More OMG Barack!!!!!!1!1!! tweets from the media elite:
New York magazine has dropped columnist Kurt Andersen, reports FWD. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the layoffs last month or the salary cuts reported earlier today, which the mag's publicity chief, Serena Torrey, tells FWD weren't really cuts: Staffers are actually going to make more money now, she…
Kurt Andersen, who invented "snark" in 1986, is now "microblogging" at Twitter, the official web service of imagined pithiness.
Gina Duclayan's Facebook album of behind-the-scenes Spy magazine staff photos shows the soft, human side of the carefully-calibrated snark book of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As such it's both a supplement and antidote to "Spy: The Funny Years," 2006's "lush, coffee-table format book" launched at an insidery party…
Kurt Andersen's essay in New York has more cliches than a dog has fleas. Adam Moss, thank your lucky stars he's smart as a whip or you'd be red in the face! [NY Press]
Kurt Andersen has been entrenched in the New York media biz long enough to know everyone in town, which is why it's not surprising that most of his 687 Facebook friends either work at the Times, New York, Vanity Fair, or New Yorker, or used to at one point in time. But then there are a few oddballs, like Penn Gillette…
Kurt Andersen, the co-founder of Spy and former editor of New York and Inside.com, turns 54 today. Also celebrating: CourtTV creator Steve Brill is 58, hedge funder Dave Ganek is 45, and 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft is 63. Tori Amos is 45 today. National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry is 40. And Scooter Libby is 58. On…
Think of how easy it might have been to understand Arianna Huffington's bloggy animus toward Tim Russert if there were a book out chronicling all the sordid details of their decade-and-a-half-long secret feud. (There is.) Every gossip-mongering gadabout should know the full backstory on every spat, falling out, and…
So. Times columnist and former theater critic Frank Rich has a sweet creative consulting deal with HBO. They give him a paycheck, and he will sometimes call them up if he has a great idea (and Frank Rich has thousands of great ideas every day). He will maybe read some scripts and give notes. Did we mention he gets a…
Kurt Andersen, co-founder of Spy and former editor of New York, sees a future for print magazines. At last night's WNYC event, he said: "They will be beautiful luxuries, like sailboats in the 19th and 20th centuries."
After yesterday's story about a New York magazine critic apologizing to Harvey Weinstein, and the critic's suspect assertion that his apology was independent of the sharp-elbowed former Miramax chief, we heard from a well-placed media veteran who said Weinstein has long loved to brag about his ability to extract such…
We give up! 'Stuff White People Like' Book Sold to Random House For At Least $350,000. You win, Internet! Great work, Random House! Oh hey, Spy legend and man white people love Kurt Andersen "has taken an active interest in it and will play a role in its development." Thanks, Kurt! The press release says the book will…
Spy magazine co-founder who didn't make quite as good as the other one Kurt Andersen has been named the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design's "visionary in residence" for the spring semester of 2009. Kurt, admitting that he "should be flattered," admits to actually feeling "embarrassed." Which he should! Because…
Walking omnimedia content factory Kurt Andersen gives Anglos "another reason" to vote for Barack Obama: if you vote for Hillary Clinton instead, the media will "unfair[ly]" count your vote as racist and "perception will be reality" and you will be part of "a depressing morning-after metric rather than a hopeful one."…
Boy, has New York columnist Kurt Andersen got a challenge for you! The multitalented author's epic 2007 novel Heyday contained a factual error or two, he says on his blog. Nothing to be alarmed about, don't fret! They've been corrected in December's paperback version. But Kurt is an audience participation kind of…
The 'full disclosure of the week' this week comes from multitasker Kurt Andersen's 'Imperial City' column in New York mag: "I want to see Giuliani's presidential campaign harmed; don't you? (And I'll relish even more any exposure of [Fox News founder Roger] Ailes, who—full disclosure—once threatened to send a camera…