Gray Lady

By Terry Gratuity

The New York Times online is shockingly good. The entire paper and all its archives have been made free. News is updated by the minute. The layout is a triumph of accessible and easily navigable design. Efforts to expand content with interactive graphics, videos, music samples, web logs, and the like are working out better than anyone could've anticipated. Every day reveals some new way of expanding coverage and offering new content that brilliantly illuminates prose in an unprecedented fashion. The fact is that www.nytimes.com can lay serious claim to being the best site on the web.

And if that wasn't enough, the paper may have finally found its tone. After decades of a certain pomposity (referring to the rock singer Meatloaf as "Mr. Loaf" comes to mind, but the faux-gentility extended beyond that), followed by a crazed dash into chattering first-person thumb-sucking in the 1990s, the Times may have at last found it's voice. The paper is demonstrating a certain wise, regal wit.

One need look no further than the great picture and caption that accompanied and April 19 article: Putin Denies Reports of Divorce; Newspaper Suspended. The art is a photograph of Ms. Kabayeva performing. She wears the obligatory spangles and nude hose. One hand is above her head; the other is outstretched and cradling a shiny red ball. Her left leg is lifted and fully flexed. Her toes are tucked beneath her chin. The deck reads: "Alina Kabayeva in 2006 at the Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships. She has since retired and now holds a seat in Russia’s Parliament."

Does it get any better than this? The red ball, the literal proof that she can bend her legs freakishly behind her. The outfit. Note, too, that it's not just gymnastics. It's "rhythmic gymnastics." Well, you may say, of course, she's retired. And 2006 was a long time ago. Where else should she be, but in Russia's parliament? No doubt this limber twenty-four-year-old policy maven has mastered the vitals of Russian political life: Where to buy cool furs, what to say when speaking with the teenage prostitute companion of billionaire thug while at the symphony (hint: you don't stop talking just because the music has begun), and, of course, rocking a muscle-bound 56-year-old dictator's world.

Look at the face, the red bowling ball-like object, the right arm extended inadvertent parody of a fascist salute. As a nation we may be in decline, but some facts remain: China and Russia still can make the U.S. look damn classy. And our paper of record is reaching new highs, even as its bleeds money. God bless America.

Mark Yankus, Midtown, NYC, 2004, ClampArt, New York