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Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/22 5:35pm

Crowdsourcing

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

Get Life Advice From AJ Jacobs And His Facebook ‘Friends’

Esquire editor at large AJ Jacobs is starting a new advice column, he announced today in a blog post. But it is not just a regular old advice column. Instead of just getting advice from Mr. Jacobs, the column will include curated advice from his “100,000 Facebook Friends*” with whom he is sharing the byline.

“You will be getting the combined experience of a brigade of Ann Landerses, a stadium full of Dan Savages,” Mr. Jacobs wrote. “As for me, I will be the Nate Silver of this experiment, curating and collating and commenting on the mass’s responses. I will print the best, funniest, and oddest answers (providing full credit, of course). And we will determine the best course together.” Read More

By Warren Levinson 5/21 6:51pm

Editorials

I Like Bike

I ride a bicycle in New York City.

It’s not a political act. It’s transportation.

A lot has changed since I started in 1978, but the inescapable logic of cycling here hasn’t: Things are close together. The place is mainly flat.

It’s not for everyone, which is part of the allure. It demands an attention—to Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/21 6:34pm

The Transom

Ad Man George Lois.

The CLIO Awards: What’s The Big Idea?

The 54th annual CLIO Awards ceremony, held last week, seemed to straddle some kind of line between innovation and industry nostalgia—much like the ads they were celebrating. Instead of The Waldorf Astoria, they were held at the Natural History Museum. Instead of Paul Newman, who gave the keynote speech on a recent episode of Mad Men, the ceremony was hosted by Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet. And instead of dinner, there were hors d’oeuvres during a pre-ceremony cocktail hour.

But some things never change.

“What this night is really about is getting through these awards as fast as we can so we can all go drink again,” Mr. Stonestreet said, to cheers. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/21 5:53pm

Hiring

Photo credit: SNL/NBC

Be The ‘Voice of NPR’

Start practicing that soothing yet knowledgable NPR tone because National Public Radio is looking to hire someone to record all of those announcements that let the people know that they are listening to NPR and not, say, religious programming (we can’t be the only ones who have made that mistake, right?).

“Heard by millions of people each week, you’ll get to say, ‘This is NPR” each day,’” reads the job listing.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/21 2:00pm

New Grub Street

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New York Magazine Shuts Non-New York Food Blogs

Grub Street, New York magazine’s food blog, will shut down their local food blogs that cover cities other than New York, they announced in a post this afternoon. The URLs for the local food sites, which covered Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston will be redirected to Grubstreet.com, starting later today.

But foodies located in those other American cities need not worry about going hungry–Grub Street is expanding its scope to become more national.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/20 4:35pm

Village People

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People Still Want to Work at The Village Voice

The Village Voice is going through the latest in a series of rough times–in the past two weeks, following the resignation of their top two editors, the downtown alt-weekly laid off some of their most beloved writers. Today, two more writers resigned. But the fact that it might not seem like the most stable of places to work hasn’t deterred what we can only assume are young writers from sending in their applications.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/20 10:09am

TV News

Charlie Rose. (Photo via Twitter).

Charlie Rose Will Host Charlie Rose Weekend

Is waking up to Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning and ending a hectic weekday by watching Mr. Rose’s interview show just not enough Mr. Rose?

Good news: starting in July, PBS viewers will be able to kick off their weekends with the well-respected newsman. Charlie Rose Weekend , a new 30 minute series hosted by Mr. Rose, will air on Fridays at 8:30, the non-profit public broadcasting service (funded by “viewers like you”) announced this morning.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/17 4:39pm

books

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Changes at The New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review is modernizing under the editorship of Pamela Paul, who was appointed to the positon in early April. The section announced three changes in a new column in this Sunday’s issue (it was posted online today). Starting this weekend, the e-book bestseller list, which first joined the printed list in early 2011, will be online only. Additionally, book prices will no longer be included for any books. Read More