G21 TRIO: A Series of Voices
Picture this: an all night bacchanalia, food, good wine, constant chatter with Tina Brown, Lewis Lapham, Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Lynda Sargeant, Barbaras Ehrenreich and Jordan. I call that an orgy I'd like to attend.
I am one of those people who, when invited into someone's abode for the first time, immediately snoops by checking their CDs, tapes, (if they have them) record albums, bookshelves, and coffee-table reading.
I am searching, by this practice, for a quick "take" on who I'm dealing with. It's like a cat thrown into unfamiliar surroundings; I try to get my bearings as rapidly as possible.
A visit to my own dwelling, and a quick scope of the coffee table, in the first half or so of this decade, would have revealed a monomanical penchant. My magazines of choice were Harpers, Z Magazine, Mother Jones, the American Journal, and --- odd-man-out of the crowd---Tina Brown's Vanity Fair.
 U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy wants to start *another* Irish-American organization. In IRISH EYES, JOE O'NEILL wonders about motives.
 BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH on professional choices and heroes. Part One of Two.
FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN, the man a lot of American's wanted as their President, wants to be Mayor of Oakland, CA. JOE O'NEILL tells you why in a G21 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: irish eyes
 TRIO: ROD AMIS talks about his personal Guilty Pleasures in "Tina Brown, Lewis Lapham, Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Lynda Sargeant, and Me."
 BOB POWERS mano-a-mano with LARRY SMITH of Working It Out. If you haven't checked POWERSBOOKS yet, it's your loss, Kids!!
TRIO, our thrice-weekly commentary column, features our new Third Coast writer, Austin's own THOMAS HART "GUESTBOOKS ARE LAME
TRIO, our thrice-weekly commentary column, slugs you again. RAHEEM on "CHEERLEADERS!"
 JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences!
 You knew the Media column as "Trend Bends." For version 3.0.1, it's reborn as CULTURECAST: Jennifer Blue looks at "Informers"...
G21 COMIX: Bix the Snowboarder - The Legend Continues! 
VOX POPULI, YOUR page for talking to us, is updated. This week Carlene, the Misanthropic Bitch, fires off a response to THOMAS HART. THOMAS fires back! Rod breaks out the flame extinguishers!!  FLISS USSHER's LONDON CALLING! talks about finding the "Common Ground. " Coming This Week: FLISS REPORTS FROM BERLIN!!
You need to use The Message Board HOUSE OF CARDS!" |
Vanity Fair was my Guilty Pleasure. There was nothing wonky about it. And, unlike Harpers, it had manageable delusions of erudition.
As difficult as it is for me to make the confession here, in front of my writers and our Readers, my notion of what an entertaining magazine should be about came from my consorting with Tina Brown, Lewis Lapham, SusanSontag, Noam Chomsky, Lynda Sargeant, over the last couple decades. (Okay, I'll admit it, Sontag I've been following since the '70's.)
HOTEL SATIRE in Z Magazine, Lynda Sargeant's project, never ceased to knock my socks off. It was a fitting counter-balance to the serious cultural indictment provided by a Chomsky. We needed that. God Forbid becoming part of the Humorless Left.
So that fed into the refuge that Vanity Fair would become. Here was a magazine that sucked-up to, while pretending to dish on, revile, and expose the peccadillos of, the very people who were the sworn enemies of my class, sensibility, and politics --- as evidenced by my other casual reading.
A National Enquirer for the intellectually snobbish! How could I not love it and make it one of my Guilty Pleasures?
When Tina Brown went to The New Yorker, I was heartsick. I had just launched my InterNet magazine.