Cooking the Books: Sam Lipsyte and Ceridwen Morris Make Momofuku Pork Buns @12:00 PM
Sam Lipsyte, the author of Home Land, whose new book is The Ask, and Ceridwen Morris, whose latest is From the Hips, were interviewed by Emily Gould. Cooking the Books is directed by Valerie Temple and shot and edited by Andrew Gauthier!
A Conversation with Paul Ford, the Now-Former Web Editor of Harper's Magazine @10:20 AM
Choire Sicha: Dear Paul Ford: Why did you quit Harper's this week?
Paul Ford: I am leaving to pursue other opportunities. Not a euphemism! I'm working primarily with Activate, which is the amazing new-media/technology convergence consulting micro-megacorporation that sprung fully formed from the heads of Anil Dash and Michael Wolf, and also with Predicate, which is a powerhouse content strategy consultancy operated by Jeffrey MacIntyre. Both are working with me so that I can mention them in the Awl, so now I can invoice. READ MORE 18
"If a woman makes more money than a man, the minute she pays for everything, she becomes the man. If she chooses to be the man, if she enjoys being the man, if she doesn't want to be a female, it's OK. It works if the guy is OK with being the female."
—Millionaire Matchmaker of reality TV fame Patti Stanger… enjoys being a girl? @11:05 AM 16
A Conversation with Paul Ford, Web Editor of Harper's Magazine @5:29 PM
Paul Ford is an associate editor at Harper's Magazine. His duties include the full operation of the website. We requested that he join us for a conversation about the magazine, its website and the site's paywall choices and goals.
Choire: Hey Paul! Thank you for joining me. At the outset, let me disclaim that we are somewhat friendly, and in fact for one night shared a bedroom in Sag Harbor, though not in any way that calls your heterosexuality into question.
Paul: That was a beautiful weekend.
Choire: Ha, well you just made that sound a lot worse for you, but okay! Innuendo aside, I requested your attendance here because I wanted to know a bit about the Harper's website, which you designed and schemed up and built (as in coded!). READ MORE 41
Really I'm just posting this because, hey, what's better than watching Johnny Weir take a reporter (ESPN's Jim Caple) for a pedicure? (This is the full video from Caple's piece earlier this month.) Also: "I don't have sex. I don't have time anyway—man, woman, tree." Part two is here if you really get into it. (via) 11
Interview With Actor Shockingly Enjoyable @3:20 PM
Words I did not ever expect to type: This AV Club interview with Bronson Pinchot is almost certainly the most entertaining thing you will read all day. I'm not even gonna pull anything out because, honestly, it's all good. [Via] 20
A Friendly Chat, with Logan Sachon: Chris Andino, Our Man in Libya @12:05 PM
I met Chris Andino my first semester at the University of Virginia. He was the managing editor of the weekly humor and news magazine, and I was a first-year staffer. Dino, as they called him, was one of a group of guys on staff who were super smart and incredibly funny and quick in a way that I had never encountered before. They made jokes about the characters on C-SPAN. I was scared of them. My first year was Dino's last, and after UVA he moved on to DC and the Foreign Service. After a two-year stint in Bogota, Columbia, he is currently serving in Tripoli, Libya. We spoke in the late summer; it was late morning in Libya and 2 a.m. in Portland. Attempts to follow-up, get a little background info, some pictures maybe, to try to get him to say something funny about Qadhafi, whatever, were thwarted, because: the Lockerbie bomber was released, there was an African Union summit, it was the 40th anniversary of Qadhafi in power, he had a human rights report deadline, and then there was that whole G20 thing.
THE AWL: One of the articles you wrote in college, you said you could kill a cow and you could drive a bus, so at the very least, you'd always be fed and working. I remember that sometimes and think: I have no skills.
ANDINO: I was a bus driver in college, and I was also sorting trash for recycling. So those were my career experiences. READ MORE 8
Frank Bruni: "There are a lot of reviews I would write differently." @4:49 PM
Also! In other things That Should Be Read, here is an extensive exit interview with outgoing Times food critic Frank Bruni. It took place at Babbo—and, most telling about our current time, the meal's waiter wrote his own account of the meal. I'm sure the busboy has a Twitter account somewhere. 5
A Friendly Chat: Molly McAleer on Blogging, Auditioning, Videoing, Making It and Networking In Los Angeles @12:30 PM
Molly McAleer has about sixty million projects going right now, and one of them is going to lead to something that is going to make her rich and famous-famous, as opposed to Internet famous. Her current renown stems in some part from the irreverent and often bonkers videos she made for Defamer, as their employee in 2008. Her current projects include: her blog (Molls She Wrote), her Twitter (Molls), her web series (The Molls Show, produced by Justine Bateman's FM78.tv), a reality show she is pitching with friend Chuck McCarthy (Boy Meets Blogger), guest blogging stints (including gossip blog Evil Beet), PR work for one friend's makeup company (Marakele Minerals) and another friend's movie (Stuntmen)—and most recently, auditioning for TV commercials (spots she is particularly interested in: personal lubricants, tampons). She spoke to me on a Wednesday afternoon from her new, smaller apartment (across the hall from her old, larger apartment), in Koreatown, Los Angeles. READ MORE 20
An Interview with Intern Thomas Kaplan, From Inside Vanity Fair's Closet @4:39 PM
Vanity Fair.com's summer intern Thomas Kaplan has been locked in a Conde Nast research closet to watch cable news from 9-5 for four days straight—while being broadcast on the internets. Today, while he alternately sat through CNBC, had lunch with a pretty, young fellow intern, and asked his viewers what celebrities he looks like, he also chatted with me—a former Vanity Fair intern myself—about his experiences at the forefront of modern journalism. READ MORE 5
A Friendly Chat: Michael K, Web Entrepreneur, Blogger, Pottymouth @11:50 AM
Michael K runs and writes the website Dlisted, which gives a rundown on the day's celebrity comings and goings with crude humor that often verges on the vulgar (though he disputes this point). Our 3 p.m. conversation took place between a post that featured some pap photos of A-ha! singer Morten Hackett ("For being almost a half-a-century old, dude is….still doing things to me. Take on my no-no, Morten!") and one that questioned the authenticity of Soulja Boy's Twittered pic of his groin ("Is that a bottle of Strawberry Suave in your boxers?"). Michael K lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side with a roommate and a chihuahua named Elvie (he admitted the breed with sigh: "it's such a gay man's dog," he said). READ MORE 31
Michael Anthony Steele: Kids Screenwriter, Novelizationist, Ad Man @11:57 AM
Michael Anthony Steele goes by Ant and is a freelance writer for kiddos. He started his writing career as a staff writer for Wishbone, the PBS series about a talking terrier, and as a freelancer has written 25 episodes of Barney and Friends, five videos for BOZ: The Green Bear Next Door (a preschool show about a green bear, next door), and some 60 licensed books based on popular kids' properties. Sometimes he is hired to write an original story starring an existing character, which he did for Shrek, and sometimes he is hired to turn an upcoming movie into a book, which he's done most recently for The Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. He also does some more random stuff, like a recent book he wrote for the Department of Public Works. Also, he had George Carlin propose to his wife via this answering machine message. He works out of his home office in Dallas. READ MORE 1
Funny Women Hate Attention @2:09 PM
Why are there like four women in Mike Sacks' new book, And Here's The Kicker, a Q&A book that has interviews with 21 (largely penis-laden) funny writers? "I asked about 15 top women writers if I could interview them, and all either didn't get back to me or didn't want to do it," he tells Awl pal EA Hanks. Mmm hmm. 3
A Friendly Chat: Damian Mason, Farmer, Corporate Comedian, Bill Clinton Impersonator @1:21 PM
Damian Mason is a Bill Clinton impersonator, a corporate comedian, and a farmer. He attended Purdue University and was selling lighting fixtures in San Diego when he won a costume contest dressed as Bill Clinton and decided to make a go of it. Today he still does his Bill Clinton show but he also does two shows as himself: one for corporate events, and one for agriculture conferences. Mason is the kind of man that uses your name when he talks to you, and he asked me just as many questions about myself as I did about him. When we spoke, it was lunch time in Indiana. He had just come inside after working on his ranch.
DAMIAN MASON: I'm glancing around at The Awl while we're talking. How do these guys make their money? I see a little bit of advertising for a movie.
THE AWL: I'm not sure! I don't think they do yet! READ MORE 7
Hooker Explains Music, Drugs, Mariah Carey, Woodsmen @11:30 AM
And here is an interview with a musician-hooker in which it is described what the juke music is and how to be a truckstop whore and how Mariah Carey is awesome and how to have sex with cab drivers and eventually they all take some speed. Basically it is like, oh suck it, Rolling Stone, who's on top and who's on bottom now? 2
