Thursday, July 30, 2009

(Other) Stuff I Read (by res ipsa loquitur)

There's more to come on I Don't, but in the interim ...

Two Christmases past, a friend gave me a two-year subscription to Time Out New York. Overall, I don't love the magazine, not because it isn't comprehensive enough in its arts/cultural listings (on the contrary: it's rather exhaustive), but because the feature writing style is sort of rote. It feels to me like writers (and not necessarily local ones) are just adapting a Time Out Template for local markets.

But there are two exceptions: First, I enjoy the Public Eye feature, wherein a TONY writer stops a random person on the street and asks them what they're up or how they're doing or where they got whatever interesting item of clothing they're wearing. Sasheer and Ewa were recent favorites. I think the feature helps me connect, in some small, but not insignificant way, with some of the thousands of seemingly faceless people whom I type or stereotype, consciously or unconsciously, as we whiz by each other every day.

I also like Jamie Bufalino's Get Naked sex and dating advice column: not because Jamie is a snarky smartass (he is), but because he is a mensch. People write him with all sorts of questions and problems and situations, mundane and out there, and he usually responds in a way that encourages them to feel okay about being themselves. He's not always right, and when he's not his readers let him know and he cops to having been wrong. And he'll also calls "Bullshit" when a reader is being a jerk, conning themselves, or especially when they're conning a partner. I suppose he's often compared to Dan Savage. His advice to Monochrome Guy in a Technicolor World and Hot Flash Guy piqued my interest. Check him out and see what you think.