As a former Gourmet employee (pre Conde) and longtime subscriber, this is sad. Not surprising as Ruth Reichl, while a capable restaurant critic, never really was able to capture a consistent look or theme to the publication. In fact, of late, Gourmet started to revert back to some of what made it a great magazine under the direction of the MacAusland family.
From the penthouse at the Plaza to the Conde Nast trash can in Times Square...Gourmet it was quite a ride! Adieu!
Given the guys I knew at college who went to work for McKinsey, I'm not at all surprised they'd recommend cutting primarily "chick" stuff--bridal mags, food mag, kids mag--and keeping Details and the multiple golf titles intact.
Um, do so hate to rain on the parade here, but one must also look at the "bigger picture" here and see the forest for the trees (chock full of trite sayings today!).
Over the past couple of decades the business and marketing world has whipped us all into a frenzy of big weddings, planned obsolescence, short skirts, long skirts, blah, blah, blah.
And all of that has certainly built up our cities with lots of fab corporate headquarters, but after a few decades of all of this, people now are tied to their desks trying to make sense of the pile of bills, worried about their FICO score (can that still be a vlaid indicator?), deep in debt, working way more than they wanted to, the wives are working, ALL are worried about getting one of these "memo's", and are generally on a treadmill that ultimately winds up feeding the bottom lines of various big businesses and it is quite miserable.
This recession is way more than a few bad seasons of spending. Society now knows all of the tricks of Wall Street, big banks, retailers and the like. Kind of like the cloak is off.
Sadly, this new way of thinking might be here to stay and the once luxurious array of products and choices in everything might become the lore of the late 20th century and give way to an austere society born out of greed and upsetting the balance of money on both sides of the equation (consumers/business).
It's just gotten too complicated with 401K's, cell ohone plans up the ass, APR's, bailouts, rising costs, $5/gallon gas, real estate bubble, recession and on and on.
One can almost feel the collective groan and desire for a more peaceful less "shiny" existence. This conversion will take time, but it is definitely headed that way, partly out of necessity.
The above-mentioned Conde Nast memo is just one example. With so many things like the State of California, the MTA, the banks (no sympathy there), investment houses (there either), the Federal Government, individuals, families, GM, Chrylser, and on and on it just seems that the spiral has begun and we all know how hard it is to stop.
Again, we as humans and Americans are face with a fork in the road, and it is up to us what the outcome of our enormous troubles will be. Most do not know how precarious our way of life is at this moment. If they did, more would be angry at the very few individuals who have amassed untold riches while the general population struggles with unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy and all of the ills that accompany these situations with regards to the American family unit.
These bankers with their financial wizardry have blown up the road we were proverbially traveling on and caused this major blip on the success and future of our mighty Nation. Corporate greed has been the culprit that has ultimately brought down a lot of these big businesses as they have bled us dry of every dollar, and we no longer have the funds or inclination to keep this corporate fleecing of our resources going.
Maybe this will create a different society where everyone is comfortable and private jets are used to help people around the world rather than to ferry bloated, greedy, clueless CEO's from one exotic locale to another. Just cause thay can.
@MelitaPolyhymnia: Are you auditioning for a job at Gawker or are you just really generous and prolific? ..with what I see as excellent writing that you are giving away for free...
@610Dean: That is what we do here: give it away for free. As for Melita whoever, a lengthy rant that is all over the lot and only needs "think of the children" for an ending is hardly the best of Gawker...
@spencerwrichards: Very often they'll send you something in place of the any remaining issues. When Sassy folded, then sent me YM or Teen instead. FAIL.
Nooooo! Of all the bullshit mags in their crumbling empire (THREE bridal mags?) Gourmet was the only one I actually liked. I used to read my stepdad's old Gourmets from the 70s when I was a kid. For a kindergay it was like finding your dad's old Playboys in the garage. I could dream all day about mail-order hams and duck-presses and honey from Vermont and Lobster Newburg. It was the perfect fantasy of late-Woody-Allen brownstone-living vaguely-academic coq-au-vin-making "paring knives I bought coming back from the Montreux Jazz Festival" elegance. Now what do we have? Sandra Fucking Lee sprinkles Costco chicken nuggets with Pixie Sticks and Ocean Spray Lite?
Condolences to everyone at CNP: those who lost their jobs today and those who remain and are terrified. When I was there, people who worked on the bridal books tried to explain to me the difference between Brides and Modern Bride; I never got it. Elegant Bride was going after a more upscale audience, a narrow niche within a niche. What Conde still doesn't quite get is that the bridal market is substantially online these days, and Conde is late to every online party. Cookie and Gourmet were surprises (I thought it would be Bon App). Meanwhile, Teen Vogue soldiers on. Go figure.
@LucilleTwoStep: Most likely they'll just replace Gourmet with Bon Appetit and. Modern/Elegant Bride with Brides. Cookie fans might be screwed, but fortunately I'm not sure there are any.
@DahlELama: I actually liked Cookie, and I don't even have kids. It had a lot of spunk, and I liked their sex advice columnist and the "What's in your fridge?" feature.
my heart was in my throat reading that internal email, even though it has nothing to do with me. i could only imagine the pounding hearts as staffers scanned down the memo to see if they were going to be let go. ugh.
Sad about Gourmet, but the magazine has had waaaaaay too many ads in recent years, and I would only find a few recipes to be plausible for me. I've come to love Saveur- fabulous photographs, great recipes and a lot of information about the ingredients. And Cook's Illustrated, too- that's like cooking porn.
Second, I suppose it would be impractical to roll a couple of titles into Postmodern Bride, which would be obscure, self-referential and ignored by anyone outside of academia.
@Smitros: Given the current market, how about Post-Marxist Bride? First issue feature: "The Dialectic of Lighting: The Cosmetics Industry as Mass Deception"
@Smitros: You know, I thought about this before: A magazine so convolutedly postmodern, self-referential and obscure that it would bore every potential reader on the planet to tears. On purpose.
Stuffed with pieces like an oral history of all my kitchen appliances, or an essay on the emotional lives of vowels and consonants. Do they actually get along? Do they sometimes get jealous of each other and/or engage in sordid affairs?
Just imagine--a whole book filled this kind of stuff, livened up with a few completely BLANK pages in every issue. A magazine so utterly purposeless and pretentiously dumb as to transcend into meaningfulness. And then become a huge hit.
If I'd actually got this going instead of wasting time commenting on Gawker, I'd be rich by now. And insane. Either/or.
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10/05/09
From the penthouse at the Plaza to the Conde Nast trash can in Times Square...Gourmet it was quite a ride! Adieu!
10/05/09
10/06/09
10/05/09
10/05/09
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10/05/09
Over the past couple of decades the business and marketing world has whipped us all into a frenzy of big weddings, planned obsolescence, short skirts, long skirts, blah, blah, blah.
And all of that has certainly built up our cities with lots of fab corporate headquarters, but after a few decades of all of this, people now are tied to their desks trying to make sense of the pile of bills, worried about their FICO score (can that still be a vlaid indicator?), deep in debt, working way more than they wanted to, the wives are working, ALL are worried about getting one of these "memo's", and are generally on a treadmill that ultimately winds up feeding the bottom lines of various big businesses and it is quite miserable.
This recession is way more than a few bad seasons of spending. Society now knows all of the tricks of Wall Street, big banks, retailers and the like. Kind of like the cloak is off.
Sadly, this new way of thinking might be here to stay and the once luxurious array of products and choices in everything might become the lore of the late 20th century and give way to an austere society born out of greed and upsetting the balance of money on both sides of the equation (consumers/business).
It's just gotten too complicated with 401K's, cell ohone plans up the ass, APR's, bailouts, rising costs, $5/gallon gas, real estate bubble, recession and on and on.
One can almost feel the collective groan and desire for a more peaceful less "shiny" existence. This conversion will take time, but it is definitely headed that way, partly out of necessity.
The above-mentioned Conde Nast memo is just one example. With so many things like the State of California, the MTA, the banks (no sympathy there), investment houses (there either), the Federal Government, individuals, families, GM, Chrylser, and on and on it just seems that the spiral has begun and we all know how hard it is to stop.
Again, we as humans and Americans are face with a fork in the road, and it is up to us what the outcome of our enormous troubles will be. Most do not know how precarious our way of life is at this moment. If they did, more would be angry at the very few individuals who have amassed untold riches while the general population struggles with unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy and all of the ills that accompany these situations with regards to the American family unit.
These bankers with their financial wizardry have blown up the road we were proverbially traveling on and caused this major blip on the success and future of our mighty Nation. Corporate greed has been the culprit that has ultimately brought down a lot of these big businesses as they have bled us dry of every dollar, and we no longer have the funds or inclination to keep this corporate fleecing of our resources going.
Maybe this will create a different society where everyone is comfortable and private jets are used to help people around the world rather than to ferry bloated, greedy, clueless CEO's from one exotic locale to another. Just cause thay can.
Good luck America!! We will nedd it!!
VIVA AMERICA!!!
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Dang. First Reading Rainbow, now this...
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I thought that was going to be one of the safe bets for remaining honestly.
10/05/09
I'm gonna be pissed if they don't give anything.
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Second, I suppose it would be impractical to roll a couple of titles into Postmodern Bride, which would be obscure, self-referential and ignored by anyone outside of academia.
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10/05/09
That's good.
There could also be an article on the replication of false consciousness in ice sculptures.
10/05/09
Stuffed with pieces like an oral history of all my kitchen appliances, or an essay on the emotional lives of vowels and consonants. Do they actually get along? Do they sometimes get jealous of each other and/or engage in sordid affairs?
Just imagine--a whole book filled this kind of stuff, livened up with a few completely BLANK pages in every issue. A magazine so utterly purposeless and pretentiously dumb as to transcend into meaningfulness. And then become a huge hit.
If I'd actually got this going instead of wasting time commenting on Gawker, I'd be rich by now. And insane. Either/or.
10/05/09
I'm kind of a geek, but depending on how those pieces were written I might buy a magazine like that. There may be others.
10/05/09