The End of ‘Mass Appeal’ 06/17/2008
Posted by Vaughn in Mass Media, Street Culture.comments closed
Photo Credit: heronpreston
BYE, FRIEND.
I never got to write for them. Just like Ego Trip. Just like Elemental. (Who does not even have an archived web presence anymore?) And just like Rap Pages (before their great fall). My goals are finding new ways to die in a world where everyone is supposedly “street” and every blogger is a “writer,” and independent print journalism is under siege. I know that I may not have had the juice to, but I have the history and heart behind every word and keystroke. (And I was with them for quite some time.) I am going to miss them and cross another goal off that I didn’t hit, for the only reason that the target itself, left the scene. Peace, Mass Appeal. I am a better writer because of your existence. (The final issue is still on newstands.) From Folio Mag:
In a refrain that’s becoming all-too-familiar for niche music magazine publishers, Mass Appeal, the 12-year-old Brooklyn-based hip-hop and lifestyle magazine, is calling it quits. The 100,000-circulation title had recently published its 50th issue. Colossal Media, which owns Mass Appeal, will continue to publish a female-targeted spin-off, Missbehave, as well as Mass Appeal’s Web site. Co-founder and publisher Adrian Moeller told the Web site Gawker that he is in talks to sell the Mass Appeal, and that a print edition of may eventually relaunch.
In 2005, Patrick Elasik, the magazine’s 26-year-old co-founder and co-owner, was found dead. He had been electrocuted while crossing subway tracks in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. Elasik founded the magazine with Moeller in 1996. The shuttering of Mass Appeal is the third nationally-distributed niche music title to do so this year. In February, Seattle-based alternative country music magazine No Depression folded; Harp followed suit. In March, Resonance, a small, well-regarded Seattle-based quarterly, shut down.
Additional Source: Grotesk
A Snapshot of Harvard’s ‘03 06/17/2008
Posted by Vaughn in Journals, Politics.comments closed
NEW YORK’S Intelligencier section, recently ran a survey of the 2003 graduates of the most prestigious American university (not the best, that has consistently gone to Princeton according to these guys). What is apparent is that the concentration of youth with that net worth (assets minus debts) were most likely already beneficiaries of an extreme privilege unfathomable by almost everybody. This is coming from a guy whose own university had a median (the number in the middle of income distributions — far more accurate than an average) household income nearing the six-figures. Even then, it still seems an impossibility that my classmates of relatively the same graduating class (give or take two-three years) would be on this gilded path:
A survey revealed that twenty alumni (1.3 percent) have a net worth over $10 million, with another eight worth more than $5 million. About 2.5 percent pulled in at least $500,000 in annual salary, and another 14 percent earn more than $150,000. (Thirty-seven percent make under $50,000 and 16 percent have no salary, but grad school can most likely be blamed for that.) Thirteen percent have had more than nine sexual partners since college, and 40 percent have sex more than seven times a month, but only 3 percent have children. And a mere 13 percent plan to vote for John McCain.
Photo credit: eileansiar
