Observer » Ariel Kaminer

NYT’s Urbanite: Second Only To ‘Borat’

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:57:56 -0400

Deputy managing editor and digital honcho Jon Landman sent a staff memo around the New York Times today, offically announcing Urbanite, "a daily newsletter devoted to some of the best stuff to do in New York today." It is, he writes, "the second-biggest premiere in New York this week." Edited by Arts & Leisure chief Ariel Kaminer, and written by former Boldfacer Melena Ryzik—writer, reporter, and snappy dresser—,the daily mailer has already made headlines this week on Jossip.

The "second-biggest premiere" status places the newsletter's debut below Borat—but above Volver! The memo follows.

To: The Staff
From: Jonathan Landman

November 3, 2006

It's got to be the second-biggest premiere in New York this
week: Urbanite has arrived.

What's Urbanite?

In its own words, "a daily newsletter devoted to some of the
best stuff to do in New York today - from culture to style to food to
nightlife, from the upscale to the underground. Based on selections
from NYTimes.com (with some bonuses thrown in), it'll be a handy cheat
sheet to enlightenment, adventure and fun."

It's also a first step toward something bigger: Our ambition
to be the people New Yorkers turn to for help finding useful and
interesting things - events, facts, places, analysis, clothing,
literature, tickets, conversation, whatever - on their computers, cell
phones or devices yet to be invented. It goes without saying that
these kinds of ambitions aren't limited to New York.

The first issue landed in e-mail boxes this morning with
advice on what to do if you're hungry for Kazakh cuisine (there are no
Kazakh restaurants in New York - who knew?) and news on the end of the
CMJ Music Marathon and the beginning of the real marathon.

(The first-biggest premiere? Hint in previous paragraph.)

Congratulations to Melena Ryzik, Ariel Kaminer, author and
editor, and on the web side, Dan Saltzstein, Mike Foley, Rebecca
Paterson, Nicole Mobley, Sha Li and Irene Kors.

If you haven't subscribed, you can do so here.

Arts & Leisure: In With the New

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 13:17:00 -0400

To: xxxxxxxxx@nytimes.com
Subject: news from Culture

I am pleased to report that Arts & Leisure has a new editor. She is Ariel Kaminer.

Ariel was deputy editor of the section under Jodi Kantor and, before that, an editor on the Magazine under Adam Moss. She brings to the corner office of A&L a prodigious talent for developing ideas and writers and a keen eye for the changing currents of American and international culture. She knows the terrain and the horses riding upon it. And she has a fast wit and immense patience, two traits that will prove helpful as she works with me, Jim, and the subject area editors to realize the final chapter of the Culture Desk's reorganization: full integration of Arts & Leisure into the department's affairs.

Clues to what sort of things to look for in the Kaminer era can be found in the annals of TimesPast: provocative critical essays from our critics (think of Michael Kimmelman on museums and money, or Kelefa Sanneh on rockism); and richly marinated narrative journalism of the sort so often delivered to our brunch tables by Dan Wakin, Randy Kennedy, and Jesses Green and McKinley, among others.

Ariel is a champion of excellence. She is an enemy of the mundane.

Please welcome her.

Sam

In The Newsroom, Dressing Truth Before Power

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 09:16:00 -0400

The Transom's reporters have recently been scolded by a fashion reporter for looking "terrified and clearly out of place" at fashionable events. (And: "SO nerdy, and they dress/ act like it! They walk around with glasses and little notepads. Nobody is going to open up to people like that!")

So it was with great interest that we saw that fashion powers-that-be have weighed in on two distinguished newswomen of the New York Times: prisoner of principle Judith Miller and prisoner of the Culture department, Arts & Leisure deputy editor Ariel Kaminer. They're two of our very favorite power journo-machers... but do their fashions convey their schwang?

As for Ms. Miller's big day in court this week, The Washington Post said:

She was also carrying a black shoulder bag whose most distinguishing feature was its ability to keep a multitude of writing tools within easy reach. [...] She was wearing the sort of practical, comfortable and just-stylish-enough clothes that can be worn in any situation [...] With her sensible pageboy and its trim bangs, she has the look of an English lecturer at Barnard. [...] She wore reporter clothes -- almost a suit, but not really.

Clearly, nobody is going to open up to people like that.

As for Ms. Kaminer: in a spread in the August, 2005, issue of Lucky magazine (p.158), she looks strangely, wondrously radiant for someone, in The Transom's opinion, who has been forced to sit so very close to former culture boss Jon Landman for so long. Though she does not, surely, appear as radiant as other members of the Arts department, nor could she have that special glow spread by a television critic in the office. (Perhaps this is a good place for The Transom to disclose that it once lifted a small suitcase of money from Arts & Leisure in exchange for a small suitcase of words.)

What The Transom is saying is: the New York Times, though not a terribly womanly place, is in fact a very fertile place at the moment. It is perhaps a dangerous and wonderful time to have ovaries.

But back on topic: "[T]he Times," Ms. Kaminer told Lucky, "is obviously a place where the emphasis is on working hard, not dressing up." (She also notes that in her first job, her fashion look was more like "an attempt to convince people I'd slept in my clothes," a sentiment the Transom can really get behind.)

And most importantly: "If you can't compete," Ms. Kaminer said to Lucky, "don't: nothing's more uncomfortable than looking like you're trying too hard." Clearly it's damned if you do and damned if you don't for The Transom. And so it is decided: The Transom shall err on the side of schlub.
—Choire Sicha