Judi Giuliani, Puppy Killer?Vanity Fair’s forthcoming takedown of Judi Giuliani paints her as “opportunistic, puppy-killing homewrecker.” ABC News employees were reminded not to surf for porn on company time after it was discovered that an intern had nude photos online. Married cosmetics heir William Lauder may be the illegitimate father of a child with nightlife honcho Howard Stein’s daughter. Mets pitchers John Maine and Aaron Heilman partied at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane might not technically be married to the mother of his two children, journalist Allison Pearson. Penélope Cruz and Bono were spotted holding hands in St. Tropez. Star Jones claims women on TV get a raw financial deal. Rachael Ray and Ron Jeremy were in Saratoga for the opening of the racetrack.
cultural capital
McCarter on Pogue: He Went Out There a Tech Columnist…
Yesterday we happened across — okay, we were urged by our father to happen across — Times tech columnist David Pogue’s song-and-dance ode to the wonders of the iPhone, titled “iPhone: The Musical.” We argued it was more of a karaoke number, but they’re calling it a musical, and if it’s a musical, then it must be reviewed. Here’s New York’s theater critic, Jeremy McCarter, on the latest production to open on 43rd Street Eighth Avenue:
Tech journalism hasn’t heretofore struck me as a hotbed of lyrical craftsmanship, but after watching David Pogue’s mini-musical about the iPhone, I stand extremely corrected. The video is, as Daily Intel pointed out yesterday, hilarious. If you listen closely, it’s also pretty impressively put together. (And I’d listen now if I were you — spoilers abound below.)
in other news
‘Times’ Techie Pogue Sings iPhone’s Praises
Our father is not typically on the cutting edge of technology, nor of technology coverage. So while we’re used to one-sentence e-mails like “Make sure you read Bruni” or “David Brooks lost whatever negligible credibility he had left today,” we were entirely surprised to open the in-box this afternoon and find, exuberantly capitalized, this message: “No further discussion: DAVID POGUE IS THE COOLEST PERSON IN AMERICA!!!” What was Pogue up to now, we wondered, and why was Dad so into it? Then we saw. Behold “iPhone: The Musical,” which is not so much a musical as a big-budget karaoke number. To Sinatra. It’s hilarious, and we’re jealous.
iPhone: The Musical [NYT]
in other news
Countdown to iPhone: Two Important Thumbs Mostly Up
Been feeling smug lately, looking down at your friends who’d drank the Apple Kool-Aid? Convinced yourself that the phone wasn’t going to be all that? That you’d wait for the second generation? (“First-generation Apple products always suck” may be the single sentence we’ve heard most in downtown bars these last few days.) Yeah, well, the reviews are out today, and it looks like the crazies were right.
“But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles. In other words, maybe all the iPhone hype isn’t hype at all. As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, ‘It ain’t bragging if you done it.’” —David Pogue, New York Times
“Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.” —Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal
And at 3 p.m. this afternoon — that’s 51 hours before the thing goes on sale — ten people were queued up in front of the Fifth Avenue Apple store. It’s 92 degrees out.
Earlier: Daily Intel’s coverage of the iPhone.
Related: Steve Jobs in a Box [NYM]
