Former Republican Congressman (from Florida) and current MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough is today's NY Times magazine interview subject. Besides giving some credit to Obama (and also calling him Nixonian) and explaining he's genial, not angry, the commentator explains his potentially head-scratching residence to Deborah Solomon: "How did you end up living on the Upper West Side? I love the Upper West Side. I walk down the street all the time and am stopped by Democrats. I don’t think they’ve ever actually met a Republican before.Do they shriek when they see you? Actually, they hug me, especially the little old ladies." more ›

We admit that we’re a little late to this NY Times Magazine article, but we think the changes architect Ghiora Aharoni made to his 550 square-foot West Village apartment merit a second hearing. more ›

Right on the tail of the groundbreaking "bloggers drink in the LES" article in The Observer, The New York Times will not be outdone! Their article, Truly Indie Fans, is about black people listening to rock music, and it has caused quite a stir, with good reason. The article uses the term "blipsters" to describe black indie rock fans, as if another form of the already overused word "hipster" needs to exist - nevermind one based on race. The blog Colonel K Speaks has written an emotional response to the piece. more ›

It's so funny, we were watching WNBC 4 yesterday and there was a segment about engagement rings. If a woman receives an engagement ring on a holiday (Christmas, birthday, etc.) and then later breaks off the engagement, she can keep the ring because it was be considered a gift. So experts suggest that women request their engagement rings on holidays and that men not give them on holidays. more ›

at Union Square. Meyer is known and beloved as the guru behind many restaurants, such as Union Square Cafe, Blue Smoke, and Shake Shack, while the excerpt of Lewis' Blind Side in the NY Times Magazine two weeks ago made everyone curious about Ole Miss left tackle Michael Oher and his new family. Clearly, this calls for B&N to offer podcasts/streaming video of their author talks. more ›

Today's special NY Times section, Broken Ground, which has an article, "The Hole in the City's Heart" and a timeline of the rebuilding at the World Trade Center. There are maps, a timeline, and photographs as well as interviews and looks at the relationships involved. There's a great quote from Nina Libeskind about Pataki () and some interesting ones from her husband, Daniel, the World Trade Center's master planner, who original design for Freedom Tower was totally re-imagined by David Childs. At the end of the article, Libeskind discusses the current state of the overall project, at the heels of last week's unveiling of designs for Towers 2, 3 and 4:

Mr. Libeskind says he retains faith that the new World Trade Center will be “memorable’’ because of the combined talents — “It’s not some schlock architects’’ — joined together under the umbrella of his master plan. more ›

- Recently in Spain, we ate many of the fantastical jelly creations, as well as their other molecular gastronomic cousins, described in this NY Times Magazine article - we are still digesting it all so to speak. It all definitely provided a new perspective on the world food order. (via Megnut) more ›

Once in a while, there are Ethicist columns in the NY Times Magazine that are immediate classics. Like yesterday's column, in particular the second item about an item found on the subway:

I found a video camera on the subway. I could not get to lost and found that day, and the manufacturer had no record of the owner. When my mother lost a camera, the finder located her by viewing the pictures. Trying to do the same, I saw that this camera was used to look up women’s skirts on the subway. I was shocked! The police said that they couldn’t do anything. I don’t want to return it to the owner. Should I erase the footage and donate it to a school? M.H., New York

It would be another matter had the camera been used to shoot something erotic and shocking and consensual: you may not thwart what is voluntary and benign. But this up-skirt epic intrudes on the unwary. If the authorities decline to act, as they did, you may seek alternatives. Here’s one approach: Announce your discovery on Craigslist or similar lost-and-found sites: “Found: One video camera used to shoot up women’s skirts. Will return to owner, whom I will photograph, posting his picture on this site and on lampposts throughout the city.” Then, when the camera’s owner fails to step forward (and he won’t show up, of course, out of embarrassment), give it to a school.

“American dream” while upholding their ethnic traditions.You may also remember that he won a NY Times Magazine contest last year (here's the slideshow of his photographs) for his 7 line photos. What's cool is that QMA and Liao have been holding a contest for 7 line photos, with three winners getting $50 gift certificate to B&H and QMA memberships. The contest ends on July 27 - see the website for contest details. more ›

Malcolm Gladwell profiles Cesar Millan, the "Dog Whisperer," in the New Yorker this week (the article is not online, but this Q&A Gladwell did with Ben Greenman about Millan is), and Gothamist cannot wait to get our issue from the mailbox. If you don't know who Cesar Millan is (like, you watched the South Park episode and thought he was made up), he's a total phenomenon. He communes with dogs, is able to walk huge packs of them, and even has a the Dog Psychology Center to study dogs who seem violent are really aren't (it's the humans' fault, Millan says). Everyone wants to know how to manage their dogs, so Millan is the go to man because of the way he speaks to them. more ›

Okay, if we could add one more thing to our list of things we must do before we die, it would be taking a commercial airline flight with comedian Todd Barry and some medical waste. First of all, because sometimes he travels first class. Second, because his NY Times Magazine "Funny Pages" story about the time he found a used syringe in the his first-class seat pocket is priceless. Here's some of it, post-syringe discovery:

At this point, the man sitting next to me chimed in, in a really annoying know-it-all voice, "We use a syringe to feed our baby." I don't remember punching him in the face, but if this were a perfect story, that's what would have happened. Then a group of special security guys entered the plane. They stared at the syringe, concluding that removing it was not enough; they had to yank off the entire seat pocket. Wow, I thought. That's hard core. more ›

NYC 2012 released the design for the Olympics Stadium in Queens yesterday. It's at the point where New Yorkers will soon need a crib sheet of all the stadium plans being proposed: Brooklyn Nets Arena, new Yankee Stadium, even the old West Side Stadium. The proposed Olympics Stadium would be the new Shea Stadium, but expandable to fit 80,000 visitors. The NY Times makes the point that it's not "high-tech" looking like the West Side Stadium, and Gothamist has to say, thank God (we really hated the West Side Stadium design), since something super high-tech would probably look slightly incongruous in Queens - though the World's Fair monuments are holding up well. more ›

A few weeks ago, the NY Times Magazine ran a great excerpt of Steven Berlin Johnson's new book, Everything Bad is Good For You, which proposes that society has not been dumbed down by TV recently; in fact, if anything, TV watchers have become more skilled at juggling multiple storylines and ideas while watching shows like The Sopranos, Lost, Alias, E.R. or Twin Peaks, offering up the suggestion that a lot of TV drama has gotten better since the '70s and '80s. Of course, this was instantly intriguing and inspiring to Gothamist, as it reaffirms our position that our TV is one of our bestest friends (even if there's an implication that Law & Order's single narrative isn't brain-exercising - we happen to be wondering where an exterior was shot or which headline it's ripped from!). Personally, we think there needs to be a balance of complicated (most anything on HBO) storytelling along with simple (most any sitcom, as 30 minutes leaves you little time, Arrested Development not withstanding) or else our brain will explode and then how will we watch the next Will Ferrell movie? Read the article yourself here, and let us know what your favorite complicated shows are as well as the fluffy ones (high on our list: Anything on the Learning Channel!). more ›

Gawker summarizes the salient points of New York magazine's as well as the NY Times Magazine's end-of-the-year pieces (hint, the NYTM's focus, The Year in Ideas, is less NY-Y). more ›

When M. gets home from school, he immediately logs on to his computer. Then he stays there, touching base with the people he has seen all day long, floating in a kind of multitasking heaven of communication. First, he clicks on his Web log, or blog -- an online diary he keeps on a Web site called LiveJournal -- and checks for responses from his readers. Next he reads his friends' journals, contributing his distinctive brand of wry, supportive commentary to their observations. Then he returns to his own journal to compose his entries: sometimes confessional, more often dry private jokes or koanlike observations on life.

Over the weekend, acting on a tip, police found 700 ecstasy pills in Queens. The pills, selling at $30 a pop, were to be sold to clubs in Flushing and Woodhaven. Gothamist noticed that one of the suspects, Luigi Caminiti, lives in Whitestone with his mother and sister. Which reminded us of the NY Times Magazine article this past weekend, about economist Steven Levitt, whose unorthodox approaches to understanding social situations has made him a guru in the field of modern economics. Specifically, it's the mention of his paper with Sudhir Venkatesh, ''An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances,'' (PDF here) which "found that the average street dealer lives with his mother because the take-home pay is, frankly, terrible." And therefore, crime does not pay. more ›