WWD has a bizarre round-up of memories from a lot of people who weren't there, including Anna Sui—"I did read about it and definitely knew about it"— and some people who were there, like Courtney Love (?):

"Because I'm old, I was there. I remember mom and pop there, a woman screaming, and there's a guy - this woman with watermelon, watermelon on my body and this woman with pink on her face. And a black guy, with his guitar on fire - so that was one of them. And this woman screaming. And that is all. And I, you know, searched."

We're sure Love is confusing the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which took place in August 1969, with Woodstock 1999, which took place in July 1999. There was a fire, but it was an audio tower being burned to the ground by vandals, not Jimi Hendrix. And there were lots of women screaming, because they were being raped.

In addition to WWD, just about everyone from CBS News to the BBC to Ang Lee—whose historical film about Woodstock starring Demitri Martin opens in two weeks—is pausing to consider the significance of the gathering.

This is the fourth navel-gazing retrospective spasm devoted to the event that we can recall in our lifetimes. There was the 20th anniversary in 1989, when a half-assed gathering of not-particularly-interesting bands attracted 30,000 people to the concert's original site in upstate New York. Coming as it did on the heels of an orgy of boomer greed throughout the '80s, it had a dazed feel to it, as ex-hippies pondered the distance between the all-consuming ideas of their youth and the mid-life crises they were trying to avoid by revisiting them. From the New York Times' coverage:

Now the Woodstock Generation has credit cards and dares not leave home without them. It used to be that they did not trust anyone over 30. Now they are over 30, and the big four-oh has come and gone, too. And they have different ways of getting around now.

''The last time they came in Volkswagen buses; this time they'll come in Mercedeses,'' said Bob O'Keefe, an ice cream vendor. ''Here comes a Volvo.''

But the 20th anniversary was just a dress rehearsal for Woodstock '94, when Pepsi bought the festival and helped turn it into something actually marketable: A three-day festival featuring Metallica, Bob Dylan, Blind Melon, James, and a rogue's gallery of other band from the '90s you had forgotten about (Arrested Development! The Spin Doctors! Peter Gabriel headlined!). The rampant commercialism—it was chopped up and sold on Pay-per-View—sparked handwringing about whether a seat-of-the-pants, commercial-free, crazy happening like the original Woodstock was even possible in the '90s without the intervention and support of multinational corporations. It wasn't. And Trent Reznor stole the show with horrible teenage music, so the torch was passed from the Boomers and their hazy memories of hanging out naked in the grass to "Generation X," a nihilistic and mopy cohort raised by divorced parents and wholly without ambition.

Woodstock 1999 was an MTV production, forbodingly staged on a former Air Force base and Superfund site 200 miles from the site of the original festival. Rage Against the Machine played, bottles of water were $4, and ATMs were stationed everywhere. At 30 years on, whatever remained of the spirit of Woodstock had curdled into a rage and senseless violence as pissed-off concertgoers torched the place. Four women were raped while MTV's cameras scanned the crowds.

Mercifully there was no Woodstock '04. Who needs a festival that traces its roots to the activism and culture of a generation that stopped a war, when there's a war in Iraq to be fought?

Nor is there a Woodstock '09. There was going to be a concert in Brooklyn's Prospect Park—which would have killed your blogger's summer—but it proved too expensive. Instead there's a VH1 special on Friday night, and we're left to mull the meaning of those 40 years that have elapsed without the benefit of a hollow re-enactment sponsored by Facebook (which you know it would have been). So what does it mean? What tectonic cultural shifts are we to identify on this anniversary? We don't know, but each Woodstock remembrance takes on the character of the age in which it occurs, and the one thing that struck us looking back over the coverage of the original concert was this: Tickets—which no one even paid for anyway—were $15 $18. Jesus.

First, everyone basically went batshit when we found out that Blammo Barack picked what was sure to be seen by assholes as an Equal Opportunity Ringer.

Crazies parsed her Socialist yearbook quote. Fox News went crazy! The New York Post went crazy and was like SOTOMAYOR GASOLINA! New Yorkers, trying to get dinner with her, went crazy! Possibly Rabid Goatmolester Michael Wolff suggested that she might be gay, when he wasn't busy possibly molesting goats! Because she's a woman, there were at-large implications that she was a bizznatch! Diablo Cody hated on exclamation points! Oh, and she hates bloggers! We like her!

We sent an intrepid reporter out into the field. He came back with wonderful results:

The hearings came and went and nobody paid attention because they were really, really boring. Jon Stewart got tired of it and Al Franken had to ask/tell jokes. And then, on Thursday, she got confirmed, despite the better intentions of a few assholes like John McCain. And the end was anti-climactic.

So now, we turn to victory celebrations! And who better to help us than the creeps of the world, extremist political commenters on interweb sites Daily Kos and Free Republic! Now I know we're not supposed to look at these freaks because unlike cockroaches, they really do kind of fade into the background and stop eating your crackers if you don't pay them any mind. But I couldn't help looking at what they have to say. First, Daily Kos: nothing that great. Someone got teary and someone else noted the differences between us and how wonderful they are, or something:

I thought it was funny — and probably not done by mistake — that it was Sen. Franken who got to announce to the world that Sonia Sotomayor had been voted in to the Supreme Court. Think about it: A liberal Jew announcing that the black man's Hispanic Supreme Court pick had been approved. Chew on that trifecta, you haters!

Sure? Meanwhile, the creepy crawlies at Free Republic are naturally freaking the fuck out. There's a board that's apparently being heavily moderated right now: four comments have been removed, already. Things like "Flags at half mast today," "It's over. God Save the Republic," and a Photoshop comparison of Sonia Sotomayor to Manny Noriega are up right now. Classy.

For my appropriate tribute, here's a strange Japanese site with KRS-One's "South Bronx" on it. As for the rest of you, hooray, America, we actually got something done and now the economy might be turning around because someone just got another job. Nice.

[Pic via PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images]

"Untitled (Trouble/Sleep), 2007. Collage." Via.

"TBT, 2008. Photograph - Digital C Print." Via.

"TBT, 2008. Photograph - Digital C Print." Via.

" Untitled digital images, 2007. (Primed urine stained stretched canvas, painted image of baby, various clippings, urine, semen, spit, wax & Rivington Arms ad)." Via.

"Untitled (No.22 & 23), 2007, Polaroid, 4" x 4.25". (Easel, swimming pool, primed urine stained canvas, painted image of baby, various clippings, urine, semen & spit)." Via.

"Untitled,(Hell). 2005. Digital C-Print." Via.

"Untitled (Diptych). 2006. Digital C-Prints." Via.

Graf in Soho, NYC. Via.

In action on the Brooklyn Bridge. Via.

"Fuck the Police (Detail). 2005. 45 Framed press clippings, semen." Via.

"This Was Your Life. 2005. Leather couch, rosary, mask with human hair, mirror, fur coat, horny hillbilly, palm tree, snakeskin boots, silent witness." Via.

"Untitled, 2007. Mixed Media Installation. Via.

When Kari was out running the streets it was actually cooler not to like her, since anyone could be the NEXT VICTIM. But now that she's locked in the belly of the beast, she's the perfect antihero! TV news shows are already bulling their way into the story, to hilarious effect. Oh TV news, your overdone ominous tone only makes the self-styled counterculture embrace her more!

And what about this kid, Tremble (HEH), the one who snitched her out to the cops? Since snitching someone out to the cops is not even a permitted option for a "reporter" *cough* such as myself, I conveniently am not forced to have an opinion. Although many of you do, and that opinion is he is a hero, or a fucking bitch! One or the other. A funnier point that was totally subsumed by the SNITCH uproar was this: Kari Ferrell even lied about getting arrested. She said she turned herself in. Lie! Lying to the end!

Just how a hipster antihero should be. There's no such thing as a "hipster," but there is such a thing as a "grifter," and she's one. The Kari Ferrell game is just getting started, people. It's out of our hands now. The Hipster Grifter story rushed from Vice to the Observer to us to Animal and now it's hit the MAINSTREAM, and once it's there, there's no going back. There's no controlling it. She's hotter than an Amazon Firefighter. Learn to love it.

[Thanks to anon tipster for Kari's artistic business card, front and back]

Fort Worth, Texas, specifically, which is where Liz was born, way back in 1923! She married her high school sweetheart, left him, got a journalism degree down there in Texas, then made that grand journey up here to New York, city of lights!

Her first big gig was as a producer for Mike Wallace—who would later go on to become a famous journalist himself. What are the odds? She started ghostwriting a gossip column in the 50s. And she was hooked! The golden dust of the gossip world had seeped into her blood!

She had editor gigs with Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated, but in 1976 she started writing her own gossip column for the NY Daily News. That propelled her to years of TV reporting, as well. She moved to Newsday in the early 1990s, and added in her Post column several years later. Where she stayed, writing all types of illustrious gossip, until today. In her book, she recalled the heady early days:



Liz was also one of the highest-paid women columnists ever, anywhere. This gossip thing has made her a boatload of cash!

Let's remember a few of the great moments we've shared with Liz over the years, shall we?

She likes to sleep in the nude!
She was sometimes at odds with her employer!
She decries tackiness of all stripes!
She loves pets. Possibly more than she loves people!
She can't get enough of Nicole Kidman's breasts!
She admits that the internet is too hard!
And now, at long last, she's come to the conclusion that gossip is bullshit!

It is a sparkly career to be proud of. And you must respect her good cheer! So don't be mad at the Post, Liz Smith fans; reminisce on her accomplishments, then go catch her all new work over at Wowowow...owowow. [Pic via]

These "Anna Wintour is leaving" rumors seem to pop up on a regular basis. They're quite standard contract negotiation tools. This, for example, from a 1999 Daily News story:

While Hurricane Floyd raged outside the Times Square headquarters of magazine empire Conde Nast yesterday, an even bigger storm appeared to be brewing inside.
One source said "it's all over the building" that Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour will soon leave her powerful perch to become head of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One executive said Wintour's departure is expected "within the next six months."

The most recent rumor concerto built gradually:

• November 18: Hey, look at the bad year Vogue has had. Is Anna Wintour ready to retire?
• November 20: Rumor: Anna Wintour for some sort of Obama ambassadorship!
• November 21: Anna Wintour really doesn't want to talk about it.
• December 2: Ooooh, Conde Nast insiders at the Waverly Inn are all whispering about how Conde wants to replace Anna with her French counterpart, Carine Roitfeld. Oooooh.
• December 2: Si Newhouse says that is bullshit.
• December 5: Anna sez, I'm not leaving!
• December 15: Leaky, leaky. Team Wintour leaks Page Six details of just how incredibly fabulous she really is. Priceless.
• January 8: Oh hey the ambassador thing for Anna is still totally a go!
• January 15: Did Anna tell a film guy she thinks about leaving Vogue? Maybe, maybe not!
• January 22: 60 Minutes working on a piece about Wintour. All part of her devious plan!
• Januaray 23: Cityfile says all these rumors are just being dropped by Wintour and Conde Nast to try to bolster their respective bargaining positions, for Wintour's next contract. This is the thing most likely to be true.

[Pic via]

Time Inc. launched EW in 1990. Back then it was supposed to be a sort of halfway point between, say, Variety and People. That was then! Today celebrities have taken over all media, and everything has become more like a celebrity magazine than an insidery trade magazine, including EW.

Current print-hater Jeff Jarvis was, ironically, EW's first managing, a fact which he has used to establish his own credibility with print people ever since. At the time, EW's launch was considered a big risk. From Folio, in 1989:

Unlike the previous expensive newsstand prototype of Picture Week, which never got off the ground, Entertainment Weekly was tested by more traditional direct mail. Initial circulation will be 500,000; subscriptions will be priced at $1 per issue, and single copies will sell for $1.95.

The launch of Entertainment Weekly is the first since the costly failure of TV-Cable Week in 1983. With a sigh, Brack says, "Eveybody is looking for a connection between this launch and that one—it's irrelevant and I'm tired of it."

We all still mourn the death of TV-Cable Week! But EW flourished, mostly because its sections are bite-sized, it's not too far down on the stupid scale, and it could make outsiders feel, uh, a wee bit insiderey, I guess, so it had broad appeal.

It launched at a circulation of 500K; by the early 2000s it was well over 1.5 million. Plus EW had the bright idea of naming the "Entertainer of the year" every year, which naturally resulted in a ton of free PR, because news holes are huge and the media is desperate. Though some of their choices were kind of vague cop-outs, like Time's Person of the Year is sometimes. Particularly:

Bart Simpson (1990)
Jodie Foster (1991)
...
the cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Fast forward to the modern days of dying print and a plunging economy and all that, and EW is widely considered to have serious troubles. We should note that they do smart things every once in a while. But I do wish that "Owen Gleiberman, film critic for Entertainment Weekly," would get the hell off my TV on NY1 so early in the morning. If EW does, indeed, end up going online-only (which is just a rumor, and not imminent even if it's true), some people will lose their favorite bathroom reading. And we'll probably gain a competitor.

[A mere sampling of the highlights]:

New York Times:

2/3/99: "Murderous Pirate Attacks Are on the Rise"

9/12/01 (OMINOUS DATE!): "Pirate Militias From Somalia Spill Into the Gulf of Aden"

7/1/05: "Somalia: Pirates Seize Tsunami Aid Ship"

11/6/05: "Pirates Attack Liner Off Coast of Somalia"

12/4/05: "After Attack, Cruise Ships Rethink Security"

7/3/06: "Waters That Prompt Fear From the Toughest of Sailors" (The waters of Somalia, that is)

1/10/08: "Pirate Attacks Increased in 2007, Maritime Group Says"

9/27/08: "Somalia Pirates Capture Tanks And Unwanted Global Notice"

That's the one that started this most recent wave of coverage. Everyone has been getting worried about these pirates for years! The Washington Post was late to the game, but they jumped on the story in 2005 when a cruise ship was attacked and have been covering it regularly ever since. Others saw it much earlier:

USA TODAY:

2/2/01: "Pirates loot the fruits of 21st century trade 'There is no law' in certain waters of Southeast Asia"

The Brits were on the case even earlier!

The Guardian UK:

9/18/99: "Bizarre tale of Briton killed by pirates; Family's doubts about attack on yacht in lawless seas off Somalia"

And later:

11/7/05: "Seamen call for UN piracy taskforce"

HEH. So you see, it's not all fear and terror. Pirates inspire us! Many people would secretly love to be pirates. We only get serious about them if any other response seems inappropriate. The best evidence of that:

New York Post:

11/6/05: "YO-HO-WHOA! PIRATES HIT CRUISE SHIP" (Funny)

4/12/08: "FRENCH NAB PIRATES & BOOTY" (Still funny)

10/1/08: "EXTERMINATE THAT PLAGUE OF PIRATES" (Now it's serious!)

He's a lover:

...and then to Paris, where the most famous woman in the world, Coco Chanel, developed a sort of crush on me—or perhaps on my beautiful, young American wife.

A persistent success:

I will now officially be "older than dirt," one of the oldest journalists still working a beat, interviewing movie stars for Parade magazine and its weekly audience of 70 million, and writing this media column each Thursday for Forbes.com, largest business news Web site anywhere.

An editing phenom:

Late in '64 I came home to succeed John Fairchild as publisher of WWD, a post I held for the next seven years, turning the little trade paper a Time magazine cover story had called, "plain as gingham and just as reliable," into a publishing phenomenon, a must-read for the rich and fashionable.

An author extraordinaire:

And I wrote a dozen more books, some serious work about Marines at war, including a memoir, The Coldest War, and a novel, The Marines of Autumn, which I can't read today without sobbing.

An active literary titan:

I'm finishing a serious non-fiction book for Steve Power of Wiley and will then embark on an amusing yarn for Tom Dunne at St. Martin's Press, When the Name-Dropping Was Fun.

And kind of a pompous bastard. [Forbes]

You have to remember that for a lot of reporters, today is the last gasp of glory. By the end of this week the campaign will be over, and there will be far fewer opportunities to go on TV and be "experts." There may also be far fewer opportunities to be, you know, reporters; some percentage of these people are bound to be laid off in the coming year. We already know that the LA Times will be laying off the bulk of its Washington bureau. And most ofl those plucky young embedded reporters from TV networks are preparing to be fired when this thing wraps up.

Everybody wants to make sure that you know that they were on the inside. Just because you, the consumer, didn't get all the colorful anecdotes in your morning paper doesn't mean that they didn't happen. Reporters have all types of fun memories from the campaign that they would like to share with you now that the campaign is over! Most of these fall into two categories: the "God these candidates are more morally bankrupt than I could ever say outright in the pages of my tepid publication," and the (more popular) "I made friends with important people!" Some key examples of each:

God these candidates are more morally bankrupt than I could ever say outright in the pages of my tepid publication

Michael Scherer from Time went to some Republican retreat in Michigan where politicians "came there to speak to state party activists, serving up stump pomp while waiters in white-tie tuxedos served drunk diners with pecan-coated ice cream balls." Then he finds a regular lady who says everyone in town is not like that. He rejoices.

HuffPo's Sam Stein was set upon by a gang of disgruntled Hillary supporters in a Washington bar. "And soon the denizens were letting me have a piece of their mind. 'HuffPost sucks! HuffPost sucks!' they chanted, as I bit into my now-arrived Reuben. 'Fox News, fair and balanced! Fox News, fair and balanced!'" Although he does not say so, he hates them.

Marc Ambinder from the Atlantic recalls watching Obama's little daughter Sasha talking to her daddy on stage at the Democratic convention; it "was very cute, but it also revealed how staged even Obama’s campaign had become." The thought of a little girl talking to her dad now makes him want to absolutely vomit. Politics has ruined him.

I made friends with important people!

Wacky old Dana Milbank from the Washington Post remembers Mike Huckabee "taking reporters hunting, taking them jogging, taking them to the barber for a face massage and shave." Dana Milbank would not object to being asked to appear on Mike Huckabee's teevee show, if Mike Huckabee so chose.

Ana Marie Cox from Time had fun singing karaoke with McCain campaign hacks Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt. Salter even sung Dylan tunes! Later they went back to figuring out how to oppress black people.

Adam Nagourney from the Times liked nothing better than sharing his Christmas dinner with failed Hillary flack Howard Wolfson: "We were quick to discover that there aren't a lot of restaurants open in Des Moines on Christmas night (or bars, but that's another story). But what was open was sure to warm the heart of two displaced Jews from New York: A Chinese restaurant." Aw! Then they made passionate love.

You see, just about everyone on the campaign trail goes a little crazy. It's classic Stockholm syndrome; trapped on buses and planes for months on end, reporters come to regard their captors as friends. Just to get a fact-free look back at the election season to fill a hole in its Week in Review section yesterday, the NYT had to turn to Frank Bruni, who's spent the entire campaign eating brains at Manhattan's finest restaurant. But they needed an outsider who could say about this godforsaken campaign, presumably with a straight face, "that we have, if anything, undervalued and even lost sight of its significance at times." Had they put Adam Nagourney on that story, the editors would have had to spend hours rewriting his knowing asides about Howard Wolfson's bewitching cologne.

For the media, the campaign means life. It means purpose, and employment, and attention, and a sense of self-importance. It's an unparalleled opportunity to cast oneself as an expert with no qualifications whatsoever, and to profess to speak for millions of "real Americans" without any factual basis. In reality, campaign reporters have a far less objective view of the Presidential race than a fat, laid-off auto worker sitting on his ass playing XBox in the ugly part of Toledo.

It takes a rare breed to remain sane during the ordeal. And we should salute those who do. So Joshua Green of the Atlantic, we salute you; you alone have found a moment that appropriately embodies American democracy:

My most memorable moment on the trail was getting offered weed by a Ron Paul supporter during the Republican primary in Ames, Iowa. He had urgently wanted to discuss the gold standard and I wasn't having any part of that, so I guess the weed was intended as an enticement.

USA.

[Pic: HST]

Also, hi, it's a magazine. Of course people in the "media beltway" are going to be interested in it! Particularly when everyone's got a friend who went to work at Portfolio and is worried about that friend's future, working for a hapless and megalomaniacal editor. And it's more than a little disingenuous, at this point, for Condé Nast to insist that it's so weird for people to be interested in how the magazine's doing. Their publicity campaign for the magazine was really something special.

As these things usually do, it all began with a press release almost exactly two years ago—August 24, 2005. "CONDÉ NAST PUBLICATIONS TO LAUNCH NEW BUSINESS GROUP; JOANNE LIPMAN NAMED EDITOR-IN-CHIEF; DAVID CAREY NAMED PRESIDENT," the release trumpeted. At the time, Lipman said, "Condé Nast is the premier magazine publishing company, and I am delighted to be joining the team."

Things were quiet for a few months. Then, in March 2006, Lipman's BFF from the Journal, Amy Stevens, announced she was quitting the paper to become a deputy editor under Lipman, along with the Times's Jim Impoco. (We all know how that ended.) So, two relatively high-profile hires.

In April 2006, it was reported that David Carey was staffing up the ad-sales side of things; Carey also announced that he expected the mag to be "fully staffed," on both the business and editorial sides, by Thanksgiving of that year.

At this point, also, recall that Condé Nast was still deciding on a name, which in itself was a way to drum up press. So a story was planted in WWD on a Thursday in June 2006 announcing that the magazine was really close to deciding on a name, which would be announced the following Monday. Ah, the suspense!

As promised, on Sunday, June 4, 2006 (in time for Monday deadlines!), Condé sent out a press release announcing that, yes, the magazine had a name! It would be called Portfolio. Also, this:

Condé Nast Portfolio will feature the high caliber of writing, photography, and design that readers of Condé Nast magazines have come to expect. Early circulation efforts will capitalize on the company s newsstand authority, and will also take advantage of Conde Nast's existing relationship with millions of top management readers, as well as the database of American City Business Journals, a unit of Advance Publications.

The next day, there was more coy "we don't know what the magazine will be about" stuff in the Post, except that as we pointed out, "Maybe the tab was tuned to the wrong station? Because the Times, Women's Wear, and Mediaweek somehow manage to get some details on that editorial thrust." Buzz! Let's create some!

Finally, there's the whole thing about other publications perhaps engaging in just a touch of schadenfreude, since Portfolio made so much noise every time the mag stole a reporter or editor. Take the June 23, 2006 announcement about former Time reporter Matt Cooper becoming Portfolio's Washington editor (at the time of his hiring, he was working as a Time.com editor):

Matt Cooper has been named Washington Editor of Conde Nast Portfolio, it was announced today by Joanne Lipman, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine. His appointment is effective in September.

"Matt is one of the most brilliant political minds in the business," Ms. Lipman said. "He has also been an inspiration to journalists everywhere and we are delighted to have him as part of our team."

Conde Nast's Portfolio Is Reaching A Point of No Return [Marketwatch]