In the history of contemporary gossip, New York City’s reputation for having the sharpest, most steely-nerved power players breaking news nobody else would — or could — touch was unprecedented. But something’s happened over the last few years where New York’s most powerful characters — and the powerful gossips of Gotham who covered them — have faded from the limelight. Is it as simple as blaming it on the Internet, or are there some juicier bits behind it? This week’s Village Voice cover story takes on New York’s Tower of Babble, and the fade of Gotham’s Golden Era of Gossip.
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Elsewhere this week in News:
- The Voice‘s own gossip columnist Michael Musto gets some good quote from Broadway fanatic Seth Rudetsky on how Mamma Mia‘s ruining Broadway. Brain cells, too. Also, Abba.
This week in Music, we hear people singing. They’re singing songs:
- Interpol, Phoenix, Pavement, Jay-Z, and Eminem? It’s Fall concert season. Mikael Wood has you covered in our Fall Guide for Music, which also finds us shopping with Karen O’s stylist, Christiane Joy Hultquist. “Fall” and “Fashionable” both begin with the letter “F.” You should know this.
- Shock-blonde Swedish pop star Robyn is a critical darling (for a pop star) everywhere else. And here? She’s a critical darling (for a rapper — kind of). Rich Juzwiak drops the beat on her latest, Body Talk Pt. 2.
- “Beep boop bop wop womp beep.” Techno music! It’s amazing. And it’s evolving, if Matthew Dear and Shed have anything to say — and emote — about it. Piotr Orlov explains.
- Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer has had one hell of a year, which he’s capping off with a few gigs around New York. He talks abut his latest, Solo, with K. Leander Williams.
In Food, we’re cooking up the juicy bits:
- If you can make it here — “it” being “pizza” — you can probably make it anywhere, given the ever-expanding number of places to get a slice in the city. Voice food critic Sarah DiGregorio finds two more, Olio Pizza e Piu and Campo de’ Fiori to see if they make the cut. Or cutter.
- Meanwhile, Voice food critic Robert Sietsema is off to find Rome in Long Island City, as a Testaccio — billing itself as a modern trattoria — is finally open for business after presumably more than a day of construction. Does Robert eat it up, or burn it down?
In Film, we’re not just getting gossipy, but greedy, too:
- Oliver Stone’s made every movie anybody’s every told him not to: some have done well, others, not so much. But is a sequel to 1987’s classic Wall Street — Stone’s first sequel ever — just a testament to the director’s own greed, or vision beyond bucks? For our Fall Guide for Film, Aaron Hillis talks to Oliver Stone.
- Other reviews: Karina Longworth thinks Robert Rodriguez’s action-packed Machete is dull when it’s not trying to be a cut-up; Melissa Anderson finds a cartoon about a dog that’s neither Disney nor Marley & Me and, surprise, My Dog Tulip is a good one; Mark Olson seems proud for George Clooney to be The American, even if it does alienate audiences by turning the thriller genre upside-down; Longworth thinks bromantic-comedy Going The Distance isn’t worth the trip; and Nick Pinkerton slurps up the Chinese remake of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple, entitled A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop.
- Finally, legendary Voice film critic J. Hoberman tries to explain how a film can be neither feature nor documentary as he puts together the puzzling — and fascinating — story of Our Beloved Month of August, while Eric Hynes puts together the various filmmakers who took the leap from documentaries to Hollywood and never looked back.
All that, plus more Music, Art, Theater, Film, Books, Dance, Restaurants, Michael Musto, Free Will Astrology, and Dan Savage. And then some.
Here at The Village Voice, we walk the walk, and we talk the talk. Keep it on the DL when you’re not telling all your friends.