Barking Scribes
Is there a between-the-lines debate going on at The New York Times about whether human beings are more important than animals? In recent weeks, public editor Daniel Okrent criticized an article about a dog’s bar mitzvah and the paper’s flood-the-zone coverage of Pale Male, the displaced hawk; metro page columnist Clyde Haberman asked demonstrators objecting to Pale Male’s eviction if they ever protested on behalf of homeless people; and Francis X. Clines penned an editorial about a new magazine focusing on New York’s pampered dogs. Clines learned long ago never to find out a dog’s name after he wrote about “unforgivably draconian” welfare cuts proposed by the State Legislature. He was surprised to learn readers sent cases of pet food and lots of money to Sheppie, a dog whose welfare owner was about to lose pet ration funds, and little was sent to others who would also be cut, including a mother of eight and an elderly woman who was abandoned by her family.
Willie Christmas
Willie Randolph, the new manager of the New York Mets, was apparently not scoping out the City Hall area for a possible Canyon of Heroes parade for next October, but he did do some of his last-minute Christmas shopping across the street at J & R Music, picking up a few CD’s and DVD’s.
Supermodel Tsunami
Sports Illustrated model and tsunami survivor, Petra Nemcova, reportedly has no immediate plans to return to her Tribeca digs, which she shared with her sister Olga. She will be transported to her native Czech Republic while her crushed pelvis heals. Her neighbor, singer Marc Anthony, told the New York Post that the 25-year-old super model was desperate to find her missing beau, British photographer Simon Atlee.
Tribeca Coddle
Alexandra Wolfe, Wall Street Journal reporter and 24-year-old daughter of author Tom Wolfe, will soon be holed up in a Tribeca office to pen her first treatise, “American Coddle,” aptly about kids getting too much positive reinforcement. She recently rented the pad from Norman Mailer’s movie producer son, Michael, 40, with the help of his little brother, former High Times editor John Buffalo Mailer, 26.
Odds are the wordsmiths offspring won’t host a family rendez-vous at Wolfe’s new hideaway anytime soon: their dads have been throwing literary daggers at each other since 1989, the New York Post reports. The feud came to a head in 1998, when Mailer reviewed Wolfe’s book, “A Man in Full.” “At certain points reading the work can even be said to resemble the act of making love to a 300-pound woman. Once she gets on top, it’s over. Fall in love, or be asphyxiated,” he wrote.
Daddy Mailer has yet to weigh in, however, on his white-clad nemesis’ latest tome, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” disturbingly about the sex lives of college girls. We won’t ask if Wolfe visited his daughter’s recent alma madder, Duke University, for research.
Libeskind Speaks
In case you haven’t heard enough from World Trade Center architect Daniel Libeskind, he’ll be on show at the new Tribeca Hebrew next week. For $15, Downtowners can listen with bated breath as he “provides a rare insight into his visionary life” at the new Tribeca after-school spot where kids “can express and explore Judaism’s rich culture and traditions,” according to Tribeca Hebrew’s website. Libeskind, the creator of Berlin’s Jewish museum, will be signing his new tome, “Breaking Ground.”
Daniel Libeskind lecture and book signing, Jan. 6, 7 p.m., $15. Tribeca Hebrew, 67 Hudson St., 212-608-0555.
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