March 28, 2007

Lighten up. It's just fashion.

The gossip says this happened at the NYT:
Fashion editor Anita LeClerc was the aggressor and her superior, deputy editor Mary Ann Giordano, the victim, sources say.

The two had exchanged words just moments before, allegedly over turf, and LeClerc began stomping around the office, muttering loudly to herself. But when Giordano, a talented import from the Metro section, came over in a conciliatory way and tried to smooth things over, LeClerc made it physical.

"She shoved Mary Ann and pushed her, and Mary Ann said, 'Don't you touch me! Don't you touch me!'" says a source. "Mary Ann grabbed her wrists to try to stop her, and [LeClerc] just started flailing."...

"They were in there for a long time," reports a source. ["]When they came out, Anita went back to her desk, but Mary Ann went out for a walk. She looked shaken."
Don't you find things a little too boring at the office? Take some cues from the Times "Styles" department.

Oh, Althouse is just printing that to make her Bloggingheads outburst look tame by comparison. No, no, I'm making mental notes for future performances. Let's see: stomping, muttering, shoving, flailing....

ADDED: Audio.

31 comments:

Maxine Weiss said...

As with so many things...

Catfighting just isn't what it used to be.

I miss the good 'ol days of biting, scratching, hair-pulling, tearing off each other's clothes etc.

Back to the roller derby!

At least there are still a few good dogfights going on.

Peace, Maxine

Anonymous said...

The MSM is in disarray, or should I say death throes! Check out the verbal contretemps from the LAT. (patterico.com)

Jeff with one 'f' said...

It's not fashion, it's journalism as careerism.

Jennifer said...

Ha! And Andre and Anna weren't even involved.

Howard said...

I'd like to see words like: flounce, swish, and maybe the old standby, sashay. But seriously, I've seen major fist fights between men in many offices and at least ten major wrestling deals when one guy was tossed over a desk. Office fights mean nothing, unless a gun is involved. What is true is that those hard feelings do NOT go away; at least they don't among men.

Galvanized said...

Tres gauche. Propriety is always in fashion.

PeterP said...

allegedly over turf

...you mean who had control of the office drugs trade? Clearly an important matter worth fighting over.

Says so in all the best Quality Manuals.

Bissage said...

Kirk said: “Now that would be an artful performance on Bloggingheads--one of you flailing away, the other unable to see it...

Oddly enough, that’s been done, sort of, by The Plasmatics.

'Dreamlover' is a romantic rock track that includes the over-the-top 'noise jam,' where the band members turned their headphones off and isolated themselves in different parts of the studio. By doing that, no one could hear what notes the other members were playing. This results in a 2- minute cacophany of beautiful chaos; the Plasmatics might as well have played their instruments while riding in a truck at 90MPH, only to skid off the road and tumble down a hill in a ball of flames!

PeterP said...

"Mary Ann grabbed her wrists to try to stop her, and [LeClerc] just started flailing."...

...how can you successfully 'flail' with another person hooked onto the end of your wrists?

We're talking an increased weight factor of roughly 25 times over the traditional farming implement used for the purpose.

Mind you, if you can then that is physical and mental strength worthy of a line-backer and should be put to better use than moving paper in an office - or threshing corn.

George M. Spencer said...

It's amazing how important fashion news has become in just the past 10 years.

It now gets huge play in, of all places, the Wall St. Journal because it's trying to win young, female business readers.

Based on the number of top of fold eye-candy stories you'd think Versace was bigger the US Steel.

reader_iam said...

My favorite newsroom contretemps had as its climax a writer dramatically ejecting the contents of a squeeze cheeze can onto an editor's keyboard. (NO, I was not one of the two involved.)

The incident still, oh so many years later, makes me laugh so hard that... well, excuse me. Gotta step away from the computer for a minute here.

reader_iam said...

However, I personally have been involved in one or two screaming matches in a newsroom context (no person-on-person physical stuff, though. And I have witnessed many, many instances of heat and conflict in newsrooms.

They're not exactly Places of Calm and Collected, you know, inherently, and they never have been. Not for the most part, anyway, to my knowledge.

Galvanized said...

It's just ironic that there is such ugliness in the business of making people beautiful.

Jeff with one 'f' said...

Ann, I'm interested in what you think of the attempt at reviving the ERA.

Gavin said...

Nasty old hag beats dead horse in a pathetic attempt at attention. Film at 11.

Titus said...

I just hope it is spontaneous when it next occurs, which I think it was during this last episode. But I don't wan't to feel like you are putting on an act in the future. All this talk about it makes me suspicious that you are plotting your next performance. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the drama, emotion, passion and strength. Queens love drama-especially when it comes from a strong woman.

By the way do you know that you have your own "gays"? I know quite a few gays who like reading you. You have been like a mini Madonna of the web for the gays. Don't forsake us-there is nothing worse than a bitter gay.

I did like all of the facial expressions though. Now every time you have one of these episodes the expectation is that it is going to be more grand than the last.

I would like to see some real physical gymnastics and hair pulling-maybe cutting the camera when it is on you and then coming back a couple of minutes later composed with a glass of wine-as if nothing happened.

Pat Patterson said...

Doesn't muttering only count when its "darkly muttering"?

Anonymous said...

boston70: Just FYI, we have discussed the seemingly large gay contingent here before on a couple of occasions. I know that you've been around for a while, so I guess when we last talked about it was longer ago than I remember. How time flies ;-)

(BTW, because of our reasonably civil tradition of exchanges here, some people have actually modified their opinions.)

Fen said...

yes M, Jessica reminded me of those "feminists" who lean across my office desk towards me, almost falling out of their top, then express outrage that I "looked" at their breasts....

[And you should attrib your quoted material so peeps know its Althouse's and not yours]

Tibore said...

Damn, Howard, where do you work? Here with all us computer geeks, we never get into fistfights. The most we have to worry about is getting hacked.

... Oh, crap, my email!!! Where'd it go??!!...

JR said...

Ann,

New here.

Combining answers to a few different questions/threads here.

Combining catfights for fashion at NYT with your previous two questions about: 1) your different reactions to the television-versus-written words of Hillary with, 2) your other post, asking whom you might team up with on bloggingheads for mutual exchanges.

How about you pairing up with someone like Martha Nussbaum, a law/lit critter, but instead of doing literature reviews, stay with the visual media? – like doing free-for-all movie reviews?

Something like a merging of Nussbaum's feelings in her "Love's Knowledge," with you waxing on the love-hate ratio from Aguirre: The Wrath of God? -- a comparison of the effects of NYT catfight versus the effects of the spoken words, "I am the Wrath of God ... who is with me?" Or, maybe the catfight at the NYT is captured on a podcast? – so you could compare it with the whole movie, Aguirre?

Maybe Anita LeClerc and Mary Ann Giordano are sorta like Aguirre and Don Pedro de Ursua -- who got a little too close to each other, on the same raft (the NYT)? -- floating downstream seeking their own kingdoms?

Consider fashion. How fashionable for you and someone like Nussbaum to barb back and forth, from the sidelines of the NYT catfight. Following Okello's lines in Aguirre -- "that's not a real arrow (after he was shot by an arrow). It only seems like a real arrow because we fear arrows [inexact quote]."

Aka .. "that's not a real catfight ... it only seems like a real catfight, because you two women just fear other cats ...."

But really, what about it? Althouse-Nussbaum movie reviews?

Or, reviews of podcasts of NYT femme-fights?

For fashion's sake?

For the sake of love's knowledge?

~ Jim

Maxine Weiss said...

George: The rag trade has always had a sense of overblown self-importance. Seventh Avenue, and Woman's Wear Daily.

I remember the days when you'd kill yourself if you didn't see your name in WWD...Betsy Bloomingdale, Blaine Trump, etc..

It's always been cutthroat.

Peace, Maxine

brad said...

Is there anything in the world you don't think is about you, Ann?

Fen said...

..and another Buzzard gets sucked into the Vortex.

Ann Althouse said...

jprapp -- I love this new commenter!

boston70 -- I love my gay contingent. (Does it include "Maxine"?) I'm not really trying to put on a show for you, but I do appreciate the people who warm up to my eccentricities, compared to the -- they seem to me -- prigs who call any flash of emotion craziness and are always about repression and censoriousness. (Even if they aren't gay.)

Irene Done said...

I think this is what's needed here --

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/files/santino_lightenup.mp3

Ann Althouse said...

Brad: Yes! 1. The Superbowl. 2. Star Trek. 3. TJ Maxx. 4. World Music. 5. Physics classes. 6. Microbes. 7. Cars with automatic transmissions. 8. Seafood restaurants. 9. The Harry Potter books. 10. Cruise ships. I could go on. See if you can come up with the next 10.

brad said...

Yer trolling your own blog, Ann?
Sheesh. Anything for attention, eh?
I'd get all serious n try n explain stuff like why you intentionally provoking lefties makes them not like you, but you know it n need the pretense for your trolling.
I guess I should give you credit, it got you a guest spot in the NYTimes op-ed pages.
annieangel just gets banned. Tenure and aggressive self-promotion is the magic mix, it seems.

Ann Althouse said...

Bra-ad, have you been drinking again? ahem.

brad said...

Not yet. Haven't turned the hot tub on yet, either.
You planned your next attention seekin outburst?

Larry in Gibbsville said...

Wow, I don't remember a day that I had more fun on this blog called "Althouse." You were sure on your game today!!