By Drew Grant 1/10 4:27pm

Longreads

Lindsay Lohan and James Deen in The Canyons (Facebook)

Alternate Titles for NYT Mag’s ‘Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie’

If there ever was a week for longreads, this would be it. After Elizabeth Wurtzel’s 5,500-word essay published in New York about crazy landlords/Not Compromising on Life, The New York Times Magazine proved that it hadn’t cornered the market on histrionics. Thus, an 11-page exposé about Lindsay Lohan and The Canyons, the Kickstarter-funded film written by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader, co-starring porn heartthrob James Deen.

As you can imagine, the piece chronicles what a nice time everyone had on the short shoot—which took place over three weeks last July–with a lot of fond, funny anecdotes. Like the time Ms. Lohan took too many sleeping pills, locked herself in a closet, and refused to come out until Paul Schrader took off all his clothes? That one is great. The pitch-perfect tone was immediately reflected in its  blog-snark title, “Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie.”

A fine choice, but a little unsubtle. We offer these 10 other titles that would have equally reflected the appeal of such a long, labor-intensive piece of journalism. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 11/27/12 6:57pm

Homecomings

Andrew Goldman

Andrew Goldman Returns to The New York Times Magazine

Andrew Goldman made his triumphant return to the pages of The New York Times Magazine on Sunday. Mr. Goldman, you may recall, was suspended from the magazine after he got into a Twitter kerfuffle with novelist Jennifer Weiner over a Q&A in the magazine’s “Talk” column that raised Ms. Weiner’s ire—and provoked Mr. Goldman’s own sharp tongue. The suspension lasted a little more than a month.

For his first “Talk” column since returning, Mr. Goldman played it safe with Lemony Snicket creator Daniel Handler. But that wasn’t the only piece Mr. Goldman had in Sunday’s Magazine. He also wrote a six-page story about Oliver Stone, who is busy promoting Untold History, his new mini-series. In the piece, Mr. Goldman spends a lot of ink describing the director-cum-liberal historian’s propensity for putting his loafers in his mouth. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/24/12 11:30am

Q&As

armstrong-huffington-300x165

Arianna Huffington Hung Up on New York Times Writer Andrew Goldman

New York Times Magazine writer Andrew Goldman kicked off his “Talk” with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong by revealing that Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the AOL-owned Huffington Post, was not very pleased with her own turn in the Q&A column.

AG: After AOL purchased The Huffington Post last year, I interviewed Arianna Huffington. She hung up on me and complained to my editors. So I was pleasantly surprised that you agreed to this interview.

TA: I read the interview when it came out, and it looked like it was rough. We don’t hold grudges around here.

Back in April, Mr. Goldman and Ms. Huffington got into it over the alleged red shift that had struck the news site, once known as the liberal’s Drudge Report, since its merger with AOL. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/02/12 4:46pm

off the record

New York Times Magazine Hires Thought Catalog Writer

More than a year after Hugo Lindgren took over as editor in chief, The New York Times Magazine is still evolving. Last month it debuted a new column: “They’re Famous! (On the Internet),” by Gaby Dunn, a 23-year-old stand up comedian who has written for Thought Catalog and GOOD.

Unlike the short-lived “Last Month on the Internet” column, a sort of collage of found Internet gems, “They’re Famous!” takes Internet personae for its subject matter but otherwise sticks to the conventions of traditional journalism.

As far as Internet correspondents go, Ms. Dunn is practically embedded. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/12/12 4:59pm

yoga

This is what anger looks like on people who do yoga

The 10 Best Responses to New York Times Magazine’s Yoga Article

We’re calling it now: 2012′s best Non-Controversy (Nontroversy?) of the Year is going to New York Times Magazine’s excerpt of “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body.” The item in question ran over the weekend; part of a book by yogi William J. Broad, who claimed that people can get seriously hurt or injured or dead from practicing yoga. Notice the word “can” in the title. Yoga can wreck your body. Not “Yoga Will Wreck Your Body.” It’s a subtle distinction that most of the article’s readers seemed to have missed.

Instead of saying “Namaste” and moving on with their lives, yoga disciples are coming out of the woodwork to decry Mr. Broad as a traitor and fear-monger. Some of the yogis used in the article have been interviewed by other publications to say Mr. Broad misquoted them. Other places are jumping on the brand new thought-train that holding positions for long periods of time can do your body damage in the long run.

In the end, this whole debate is a non-starter because, as Sarah Miller from The Awl points out, “Yes, you can get injured doing yoga; you can also get injured walking across the street.”

We found the 10 best articles that capture the absurdity of this Times health scandal du jour. Enjoy, and remember: take deep breaths. Read More