The Obama of the media industry?

We told you a few weeks ago how David Remnick ‘81 (a Press Club alum who has hit the proverbial “big time” as editor-in-chief of the New Yorker) was writing a “pimped out” new biography about President Obama. It hit bookshelves today, and critics are absolutely raving about it. And about Remnick!

Yesterday the Times ran a story on how Remnick makes running the New Yorker “look easy” while the media industry collapses around him. Quoth the Grey Lady:

It’s hard to make running any magazine, even The New Yorker, look easy these days. Last year, the magazine’s ad pages fell 24 percent, a little less than the industry average. But Mr. Remnick managed to eke out a small operating profit (excluding corporate overhead charges) by cutting costs, as he had for years.

Understated compliment maybe, but given the Times‘ financial state, you can bet they’re a little jealous of a publication that’s not disastrously bankrupt.

And it wasn’t just the old fogey media that was praising the Princeton man’s virtues. Even Gawker wrote something nice about somebody, and in this case, it was Remnick:

Remnick is perfect for his time and place in the industry. He’s no-nonsense, budget-conscious, and a wise cultivator of talent; he’s also a Princeton man and a willing cultivator of The New Yorker’s insular traditions. … Remnick is the best that anyone could hope for (which is to say, he’s excellent). We’re even willing to indulge his determination to write another fucking Obama book.

And then the media finally decided to like, read the book, I guess, and hey, looks like they love that too! (To save you the effort of reading the reviews, it was called “brilliantly constructed,” “flawless,” and other doting adjectives.)

Michiko Kakutani in the Times writes:

But if the outlines of the story told in “The Bridge” are highly familiar, Mr. Remnick — the editor of The New Yorker and the author of a thoughtful 2008 article in that magazine, “The Joshua Generation: Race and the Campaign of Barack Obama,” from which this book apparently springs — has filled in those broad outlines with insight and nuance. He’s used interviews with many of the formative figures in the president’s life to add details to the narrative of his political and sentimental education — in particular, his relationships with his self-destructive father and his romantic, sometimes naïve mother. Writing with emotional precision and a sure knowledge of politics, Mr. Remnick situates Mr. Obama’s career firmly within a historical context.

Which all adds up to say, “Yeah, we’ve read this Obama story a bunch of times, but shit, Remnick told it the best.”

So there you go. Princeton’s very own David Remnick – tearing up the journalism circuit and repping to the fullest.

(photo via dutchproblogger.com)

P-Krug's incisive editorials always get to the Croix of the matter.

From a profile of Economics Professor Paul (”Nobel Laureate”) Krugman in this week’s New Yorker:

When it is cold at home, or he has a couple of weeks with nothing to do but write his Times column [but what about WWS 543?], or when something unexpectedly stressful happens, like winning the Nobel Prize, the Princeton economist Paul Krugman and his wife, Robin Wells, go to St. Croix…

In the late afternoon, they lie on beach loungers underneath a clump of sea-grape trees, facing the ocean. Krugman sips a piña colada through a straw and reads the galleys of a book about the financial crisis. They were thinking of having dinner at a place in town, but then they discovered that there was to be an Elvis impersonator singing there, so they decided to go to the Sunset Grill, where the stereo is playing Wings. It’s getting buggy on the beach, and Wells hands Krugman a can of Off. The tide is coming in. Krugman puts his book down, eases himself out of his lounger, and, still wearing his hat and sunglasses, wades cautiously into the sea.

Hey, more power to him.  Sounds like a nice life.

Source: magazine.org

David Remnick ‘81, editor-in-chief of The New Yorker (and former Press Clubber aw yeah!), has a biography of Barack Obama in the works. The Alfred A. Knopf imprint of Random House said it plans to publish the bio on April 6.

Remnick’s written about Obama in the past, and he promises the book would not simply be a “pimped out” version of this New Yorker article published in November 2008.

Confession: Remnick didn’t say “pimped out,” but rather “pumped up,” but the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog had reported he had. Which is hilarious, because, does anyone at The New Yorker use “pimp” as a verb not ironically?

(hat tip to Daily Intel for catching the switch)

If you keep reading, this picture will make sense

You’d think the New Yorker would be solidly in the tank for the ol’ Orange and Black.  Editor-in-Chief David Remnick ‘81 didn’t teach himself, after all.

In recent years, however, Yale has been getting most of the love from this classiest of rags (see here and here and here).  But as long as the stories are as entertaining as this week’s take on the  timeless musical fantasia known as “That’s Why I Chose Yale,” we won’t complain.

A choice passage:

James Goodale, Class of ’55, and a former general counsel for the Times, made it through all seventeen minutes—more collegians bursting into song, accompanied by “Up with People”-style dance numbers, and even some electric-guitar shredding in the art gallery—before reporting that the production seemed “intended for an audience that I couldn’t divine.” He added, “My God, if you’re a hockey player, you think, I’ll go to Princeton.”

In other New Yorker-related news, apparently Princeton Politics Professor Gary Bass sometimes writes in to give his opinion on current cinema?  Most random New Yorker blog post about one of my former professors EVER… The subject is The Young Victoria, a no-doubt sumptuously costumed historical romance starring British bombshell Emily Blunt — and whether it holds any appeal for the male segment of the viewing public.  Professor Bass writes in to say:

I’m a guy and I liked “Young Victoria” too, and not just for Emily Blunt. [Queen Victoria's husband] Albert was an antislavery activist, and Victoria drove Disraeli barking mad with newspaper clippings about the killing of baby seals and, in 1876, Bulgarian civilians.

But what does he think about Victoria’s chances of winning the Oscar for Best Costume Design?  If you ask me, it’ll face some stiff competition from Bright Star, an equally sumptuous period piece featuring a winsome heroine who just happens to work as… a costume designer.  But I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise.  Perhaps a trip to GBass’s office hours will provide some clarity?  I’ll report back.

(image source: wikipedia.com)

During summer, when there are no parties to break, or drunk students to catch urinating, what exactly does PSafe do? Catch criminals, that’s what. In this week’s edition: Water guns? Public lewdness? Princeton quickly becomes the next possible locale of a CSI spin-off. Meanwhile, The New Yorker is all like, “You guys were so right about the Kindle thing,” and coincidentally “the Kindle ate my homework” becomes a viable excuse. Also, oh my God!, the Princeton Review made lists of colleges and people  freak out about them.

Public enemies.

• Remember that call you got Monday morning from the automated robot woman who cried wolf? About a possible gunman on campus and staying indoors and all that? That was because Public Safety heard from an employee that spotted a young man with what looked like a gun (prompting the flurry of emails and calls to students and faculty). Well, couple minutes later, turns out the guy was a camp counselor carrying around a water gun. Again, those sick sons of bitches at Nerf spark a Princeton lockdown . While we certainly appreciate the attention to campus safety (really! we do!), we’re sure that everyone would prefer a little more discretion at PSafe Headquarters before pressing the big red panic button.

• Moving on down the police blotter… Guess who decided to make an appearance on campus this weekend? Yes, that’s right, our very own Professor of Public Lewdness, the Princeton Masturbator. Not to be outdone by watergun-toting teenagers, the wanker struck again, this time between Clio and West College. Sporting a hip but conservative white button-down and jeans, the young man asked a visiting lady for some directions Saturday night, while, you know, exposing his genitals. But folks!, this might be the end of an era. Shortly after receiving the call about the man, PSafe sprang into action and actually caught the perp, took him into custody, and charged him. Could this have been the wanker’s last strike? Is there more than one of them? Just why does he always hang around Clio Hall and East Pyne? Why does he always ask for directions? Is he lost and looking for a way home? So many unanswered questions – we’ll keep you updated with any answers.

• This week in “Dude we were SO right about this“: This week’s New Yorker features a review of Amazon’s Kindle. Fervent book-fan Nicholson Baker issued a harsh review of the Kindle 2, noting the paltry book selection in the Kindle store, the crummy textbook graphics on it, the fact that it “kills the joy” of newspapers (besides not including all their content), how the thing is so “cold and grey” and sucks the life out of words (or something), and on and on. Oh, right, also: Apparently if you take notes on the thing, there’s a chance their existence hinges on the whims of Amazon. A student had taken notes on a novel on his Kindle, only to have the book and his notes deleted when Amazon pulled the book from their store (1984, of all ironies). Like a good litigious American, he’s suing. So, to those of you diving into next semester with a Kindle DX: have fun lugging that thing around!
  

  Sadly, we didn't chart for "Students pack the stadiums." Or even for "Students know of stadium's existence"

• What do colleges like? Lists. What do colleges like Princeton like? Being at the top of lists. Good news for us, then: the Princeton Review released their “Best 371 Colleges” this week, with 62(!) ranking lists. The press is a-buzz because, wow, college kids drink (that, and colleges have 62 chances to say, “Look we made the top of a list!”). Princeton nabbed a few of these titles, like “Best Library” (#2), “Students who study the most”(#9), “Most beautiful campus” (#7), and “Most politically active students” (#18). You’d think our students are always carrying around freshly-checked out books on Eastern philosophy and modern geometry, reading them on lush lawns and basking in the warm sunlight, studying intently for their midterm three months away, all while coordinating their latest sit-in against the administration. Which, I think, is only true in the admissions brochures.