December 2003 Archives
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Opinions
2003 Holiday Survival Guide for Slackers
Last year you did all your shopping on the drive to grandmother’s house, but this year you’ve got a chance to make good.
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Letters From the Editor
The Corrections
To the people who came to last night’s Third Thursday, a few corrections for things I may have said while toasting, and, at the time, been wrong about. I...
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Stories
Free Red Wine and Other Humiliations
Your parents and friends enjoy Christmas for similar reasons: your personal embarrassment, shame, and discomfort, assuming you’ve behaved badly enough to warrant their bowls full of jelly.
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Gallery
Everything Is Illustrated
Successful illustrations need strange perspectives in order to tell a story and, hopefully, strike a viewer across the mouth. An interview with pro illustrator Richard May, plus a gallery of his recent work.
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Stories
Rules for the Holidays
Surviving relatives, co-workers, and lovers drugged by cheer is easier when there are guidelines for action. THE EDITORS share some tips to help keep your step-dad’s paws off your Christmas sweater.
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Birnbaum v.
Peter Carey
To win the Booker Prize twice certainly requires talent, but to celebrate only one of the winnings suggests a particular madness. A conversation with author Peter Carey about his new book, private schools in New York, and the terrors found in boredom.
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Albums of the Year
The Top 10 Albums of 2003
The iPod got a lot of use this year. After hundreds of albums and thousands of hours of listening to music, Andrew Womack narrows it all down to his top 10 albums of 2003. Here are his findings.
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The Non-Expert
Snowmen
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we welcome the beginning of winter with helpful advice for those who want their snowmen to survive into spring.
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Stories
Sweeping the Dirt Floor: Life in the Fishbowl
It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes an American to teach him how to armpit-fart. Former Peace Corps Volunteer and temporary Bolivian celebrity Matthew Baldwin remembers his days in-country.
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People
Peter Hertzmann
The serially obssessive Peter Hertzmann behind ‘à la carte’ discusses learning French just to read ancient cookbooks, doing his stages across the Atlantic, and a few other signs of an extremely focused mind.
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Roundtables
New Fathers
For some reason not involving pods or alien harvests, a number of our writers are about to be fathers, or have recently become dads, and it seemed appropriate to convene a meeting of minds. A discussion of fears, frustrations, and why the name you’ve picked out for your kid will inevitably be mocked.
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Letters From the Editor
Third Thursdays
Update: All Third Thursday parties are held at 7 p.m. at Hi-Fi at, suggested to us by Khoi. Hi-Fi features New York’s only MP3 jukebox, 2-for-1 drink specials until 8...
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Gallery
Diagrammatics
Sometimes it’s difficult to explain things without the use of visual aids. An interview and gallery by artist Claire Oswalt, who does exactly that, taking the essential pieces of everyday things and finding the connections between them.
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The Non-Expert
Haircuts
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we give you the skinny on some of the best tress-work we’ve sported in the past, all relevant details included.
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New York, New York
Big Districts, Small Blocks
Our lives can seem awfully small in the giant city, especially when they’re lived from one petty but direly significant moment to the next.
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Birnbaum v.
Dale Peck
Being the most hated man in literature isn’t easy, but it helps to have a backbone of lauded novels behind you, plus an actual hatchet for publicity stunts.
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Stories
Welcome Back From Baghdad, Mr. President
After taking off on a top-secret Thanksgiving Day jaunt to Baghdad, President Bush appears to be on a mission to be the Badass-in-Chief. Or are there other motives at work? Our writer chases the paper trail.
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Opinions
Where I’m Coming From
Southerners routinely get trashed up north, where they’re either derided as racists or hayseeds, or the offspring of siblings.