Jann Wenner starts a magazine; David Carr mixes metaphors
David Carr’s NYT column today is just plain fun to read in its attempts to be as brash and colorful as its subject, media mega-macher Jann Wenner. In reporting on Wenner Media’s planned new Us Weekly-type magazine for “busy women,” the brainchild of Wenner and Ken Brownridge, Carr has them playing chicken with a chicken who crosses the road, flying the skull and crossbones as booty-seeking pirates, driving off cliffs like Thema & Louise (but which one of them gets Brad Pitt?), risking a bust in blackjack, reloading guns, gunning engines, and generally being badasses. He also manages to invoke an image of Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta in spandex and legwarmers. Which the NYT just doesn’t do enough of, in my view.
The best quote, though, comes from Simon Dumenco, who is hilarious and frank in his summation of the two:
“It occurred to me that he is the soul — the very moral center — of the magazine business laid bare,” Mr. Dumenco said. “Other grandees, like Jann, try to disguise their ruthlessness with charm and smoke and mirrors, but Kent, God love him, just lets it hang out. My nickname for him was Dr. Evil because there is actually an admirably playful edge to his evilness.”
The new, as-yet unnamed, mag will be a “one-stop read for busy women,” aimed at being a younger/hipper People with “elements from Real Simple, Lucky and Us Weekly.”
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