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Tuesday, December 14, 2004

It Happened This Year: New York Magazine—Blogosphere Mash-Up 

I’m going to leave the personal retrospective for another time. There’s no use crying over spilled whiskey, and even less use bringing tears to others by spilling it in their eyes over and over again. The people I have hurt, betrayed and owe money to know who they are. Luckily I know who they are also, and I’ve done a good job of laying low.

Nonetheless, when one finds oneself as fascinating as, to be honest, we all find me, it’s hard to write about anything else without the proper inspiration. Thankfully, we have the year-end issue of New York Magazine. It’s got some superb pieces, by writers I love to read—Jay McInerney, Vanessa Grigordiadis, Chris Lehmann, Kurt Andersen, David Amsden, Hugo Lindgren. But I don’t know any of these people—unless you count the awkward moments with Vanessa at last New Year’s Eve party, full-on bourbon induced black-out conversations with Chris in Union Square dive bars or the recent whiskey-in-the-ear incident at the twentieth anniversary of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. And I’m far more interested in people I know, if simply because, by virtue of their proximity to me, they remind me of myself.

This got me thinking, don’t we need a blogster year-end wrap up? What if New York Magazine had asked blogsters (and a few writers who just drink with bloggers) to cover their year end stories? Well, they probably would have got a lot of notes about how all the pieces were going to be late because everyone was too hungover to write anything. In a last ditch effort to save the issue, however, the editors could have just complied the earlier blog writings on the assigned stories. It would have looked something like this.
Introduction—By Manhattan Transfer

The Republicans Got Us Drunk—by Swamp Citizens Meghan and Will.

McGreevey Covers His Ass—by Rob Sterling.

Overdone Meatpacking District—by Andrew Krucoff

Continuing Internet Fantasies—by Nick Denton

We Still Cousins? Why Iraq Won’t Work—by Steve Sailer

You’re Apartment Sucks—by Curbed

The Malling of New York—Gothamist

One Generation of Iconic Bars Makes Way for the Next—by NYCBP

Sex and the City—by Paul Frankenstein

Shhhhh…It Girls—by The Superficial

Martha Stewart’s Book Cooking—by Elizabeth Spiers

How the POD People Killed the DJ—by Stereogum

FreshDirect’s War Against the LES—by Lockhart Steele

Banking: It’s Not All Coke & Hookers Anymore, Except When It Is—by DNasty

Satellite Radio—by BuzzMachine

Poor Baby High Line—by Choire Sicha

Firefighters—by Maccers

Let’s Kill All the Architects—Curbed

Anarchy in Hell’s Kitchen, Or the Plot Against the GOP That Didn’t Really Work Out–by Hereitype

They Tore Brooklyn Down, And Put Up a Basketball Court—by Tennessee Whiskey

We’re In Charge of the Party That Isn’t In Charge of Anything—by Swamp City

The Yankees Go Down—by Lockhart Steele

Memories of Ice Rinks and Blood Feuds—by Ben McGrath

Poker? I Just Met Her—by La D

Cupcakes Take New York—by Standard Deviance

Step on a Crack, Get Electrocuted—by Gothamist

Old People's Clothes Against Young People's Clothes-by Meghan Stier

Get your hair did—by Maccers and Eurotrash

Slice of Life—by Slice

Getting Brazilian—by Ali-Z

When We Say Food, We Mean Sushi—by Night In the Big City

Honey I Blew Up the Museum—by Manhattan Transfer

My Own Private Art Museum (Or How I Got Maud, Maccers and Sarah Into My Apartment)—by Terry Teachout

Movies That Don’t Suck—by Cinetrix

The Most Important Women Playwrights I Have Known—by Manhattan Transfer

Does Anyone Remember Laughter?—by Nichelle’s Newsletter

How to Score Drugs and Influence People—by Uch

Art As a Bad Idea-by TMFTML

I Heart Jon Stewart—by Lindsay Robertson


[Ed. Did you really just go through every single one of the stories in the year-end section of New York Magazine and replace it with stories by bloggers? Uhm, yeah. Sorry about that. Sometimes I changed the titles of the stories but they are all thematically linked to the stories from New York. Ed. Did you forget your meds today? Does it show? Ed.A wee bit, laddy. Well, I actually would have liked to link to individual posts for each one rather than just the entire lbog but I couldn't find all the pieces I wanted. You can help if you want by finding individual permalinks? Ed. Oh, no. You're on your fucking own with this one. Maybe one of the nutters who read this will help, though. I doubt it. They're always drunk.]