"A yeasty brew"? Sure-- if you like to wash down your lunch with a big glass of fermented cat pee!
Those ubiquitous NYP boxes are pretty full at the end of the week. At film forum ( hip downtown theatre much frequented by the young and restless) the huge stack of tuesday's NYPs had been barely touched by Saturday afternoon. Russ smith is pretty good at getting publicity for himself in the mainstream media he claims to despise (in which he certainly seems to take himself VERY seriously) -- but you never hear a column or story in NYP discussed outside its pages, and almost none of its writers either (i think so far the most famous writer they've developed is Amy sohn, who wrote a column about her sexual humiliations, and went on to write for the trashy NYpost for about a minute.). Can you name their movie critic and describe his/her taste? you don't even see tag lines from their reviews in ads for books, records, movies.
I should mention in interests of truth in advertising that Russ Smith offered me a column. I declined -- politely too -- and that is probably why they go after me so often. Some people just can't take rejection! Still, it shows you what a jerk Russ Smith is -- obviously, he thought I was a pretty interesting writer when he wanted me to work for him! but once I said no thanks I became a boring liberal, a whiny feminist, a mediocre member of the journalistic Establishment (!) with nothing whatsoever to say.
Hard to respect a guy like that.
katha