Cargo

Here's part of the press release from the Ariel Foxman-sponsored art show we told you about the other day:

"The show is comprised of work that navigates and explores the transformative nature of art. Through sculpture and painting, Robertson takes a down-the-rabbit-hole journey into a new dimension where yesterday's news emerges as today's precious keepsake. Each piece is executed in a decidedly low-tech yet obsessively arts-and-crafts style, inviting the viewer into the singular mindset of an "artiste savant" who, with his unique brand of x-ray vision, can imagine the extraordinary in the everyday."

Robertson, as it turns out, is the former creative director of Cargo. We just figured out what "down the rabbit hole" means.

Earlier:: Ariel Foxman, Art Impresario

Though Cargo is long dead, it refuses to be forgotten, and this time it's the issue of subscribers and their replacement publication. A reader writes:

Cargo sent me a darling little postcard saying goodbye, and telling me I can look forward to Wired in its place.

I thought I was getting GQ. What will I do without GQ??

And why? Cargo and GQ at least share a target audience, at least in their fantasies (hip, rich, sensitive straight dudes who read---and LOVE to SHOP!---are a rare breed). But Wired?

What gives? Did Conde abandon the GQ plan in favor of Wired? Or did they split up the subscription list, assigning mags according to address or demographics? Chelsea boys get GQ, and Wired goes to...um, we've no clue. Never quite understood who, besides our boss, reads that one.

Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of the Late 'Cargo'

Virgin Megastore: still in the "denial" stage of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' grief cycle.

The Observer opens up its pink pages to retired Notre Dame English professor Tom Jemielity, a 72-year-old man who quite sincerely laments the loss of metrosexual magalog Cargo. He doesn't care about its sexual identity issues, writing, "I wear what I like and how I like it, and I don't give a shit whether someone else thinks I'm straight or gay because of it. I've got better things to occupy my mind with." And you know what? He's fucking right, even if it makes us feel particularly immature.

Above all else, during its all-too-brief existence, Cargo's shopping recommendations resonated with Jemielity. On its suggestion, he purchased a Sony Bravia HD TV, L'Or al VIVE thickening shampoo, a "close, rough" haircut, soft Banana Republic t-shirts, sunscreen, and Levi jeans. He's not, as he says, "into a youth kick"; rather, he's just an older guy who wants to know how to buy the good stuff. Without Cargo, Jemielity is lost -- and the idea of him wandering aimlessly about a JC Penney, confused and disheveled, is just heartbreaking.

72-Year-Old Explains Genius of 'Cargo' [NYO]

So the MPA has a daylong conference today at the Sheraton in midtown, "Magazines 24/7: Profiting in the Digital Age." Among the materials distributed was, as there is wont to be at such events, a 10-page list of attendees. And among that list of attendees was one lonely little boy listed without any affiliation at all.

Aw.

The full page is after the jump.

Magazines 24/7 [Magazine.org]

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At right, a house ad scanned from the final issue of Cargo.

It's sad to realize that now, thanks to Si Newhouse, the world's men -- or, at least, the 400,000 who read the now-deceased mag -- will never know.

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of 'Cargo.'

• If you do only one productive thing today, you must, MUST go by our brother Defamer and see his footage of Tom Cruise's BlackBerry exchange with Katie Holmes during his Primetime interview. Diane Sawyer told him the camera was off, but whoops -- she caught those lovebirds using emoticons! Well done, D, and major props to the cameraman who zoomed in on the 'Berry. [Defamer]
• Andrew Hearst is back to playing with Quark; Uterus Weekly is his latest masterpiece, which counts Jennifer Aniston's empty womb as a cover story. [Panopticist]
• Didn't we already tell you that Ron Burkle was having a party for the Clintons? Yeah, we did, which means you've had plenty of time to save up the grand it costs to get in. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Braden Keil over at the Post reports that Katie Couric is looking to buy in the Hamptons for around $6 or $7 million. A quick search for $6 million gems in East Hampton turns up this unfortunate beast. Perfect, she'll take it. [NYP / Corcoran]
• Is the Times trying to kill feminism with bottles of peroxide and books about binge drinking? [Broadsheet]
• A community stake-out on Shake Shack helps burger lovers time their visits. [ShackWatchers]
• To reiterate: ambisexual magalog Cargo is dead. Your subscription bill, however, lives on. [Big and Sharp]

At right, a subscriber's polybagged copy of Bon Appetit. Which arrived Friday.

(Also: Polybagging Cargo with Bon Appetit? No wonder it failed.)

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of 'Cargo.'

• The publication and paychecks have moved on to a better place, Cargo's moderately crappy swag lives on. [601am]
• Nick Sylvester offers the world's most incoherent explanation of what happened with that little mess he made at the Voice. It makes more sense if you get stoned before you read it. [Riff Central]
• Highly entertaining Jane editor-at-large Jeff Johnson steps down, presumably because of creative wanderlust. [Fitted Sweats]
• Alas, poor Krucoff travels all the way to the Javitz Center only to learn that the auto show lacks the sufficient skin-baring car sluts one would hope for. [Young Manhattanite]
• A new affliction: "Afflufemza," the condition of uncontrollable vomiting in regards to phrases like "motherhood is hot right now." [Powell's]
• It took just 10 minutes for every gay man in Manhattan to go broke buying Madonna tickets. [NYDN]

Cargo readers, still grappling with the demise of their beloved magalog, turn to the website's message boards to vent their heartbreak:

I am very sad. This is the funnest magazine to read. There must be some way to save it???

lets find out more about buying it or keep the website running.

Gee I wonder why they are folding? This magazine sucks ass. The writers constantly confuse substance with being tragically hip, and outside of fashion they dont know shit about anything they write about.

Good. This magazine is crap. This is yet another magazine run by fags trying to be hetero who dont know their ass from a hole in the ground outside of fashion and makeup.

i'm not too disappointed, i kind of enjoyed reading it but if you think about it, cargo magazine was kind of a weak concept. a magazine that is sort of like a catalog but not really. it's sort of like gq but not really. there is a very specific demographic of self-concious men with low self-esteem that truly enjoyed this magazine and as superficial as today's society is, very few people are so uncertain of themselves that they would enjoy this magazine fully.

Help Save Cargo! [Cargo Forum]
Cargo Magazine Is Folding [Cargo Forum]

How sad: Just as the magazine dies, the website masters irony. We'd assume your money is well spent on a GQ subscription, but, well, it's GQ.

Cargo

It seems like just yesterday that we were mourning the loss of Cargo, but Conde moves along quickly, and there's no time for tears. Given that some believe Vogue editor Anna Wintour may have pushed Cargo a bit closer towards the death knell, lest it become a threat to her babies at Men's Vogue, it's an amusing coincidence that Men's Vogue is possibly taking over Cargo's old space at 4 Times Square. But that's the nature of intra-Conde warfare: divide, conquer, set up new cubicles.

Meanwhile, Cargo can't fade from the public consciousness quickly enough -- we hear there was a whole pile of copies on the giveaway rack in the departure lounge at London's Heathrow.

Related: Did Anna Wintour Remove the 'Cargo' Feeding Tube?

This week cranky Simon Dumenco is, for a change, happy. Why? Because Cargo died. It's not that he's pleased people are losing their jobs; it's that he's pleased to use it as an excuse to dance on James Truman's grave. Truman was editorial director of Conde Nast for a bit over a decade, and Dumenco takes this chance to recap his career:

• His early success was as editor of Details, which propelled him to the editorial director job, where he...

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Last week we noted that despites bosses' assurances to the contrary, most of the newly soon-to-be unemployed Cargo staffers weren't having much luck finding other jobs within Conde Nast. Today, however, WWD carries the heartwarming story of one Cargo vet who has indeed obtained other employment within Si's house of magazine-y fun:

[W]ord on Friday was at least one associate editor had definitely already secured another position at the company: Steven J. Florio, son of former Cond Nast chief executive officer Steve Florio, evidently has switched career paths and taken a corporate job. "He's been going to business school part-time recently, and he took a job with [Cond Nast] consumer marketing, if I'm not mistaken," said one colleague, who was packing up his desk and had few prospects for immediate work.

Imagine that.

Earlier:
'Cargo' Still Dead; Unemployment Looms Over Dark Horizon
The Children of the Ruling Class: Fortunate Slaves
Children of the Elite Masquerade as Working Stiffs

Some amusing but probably baseless emails we've received lately:

• A concerned reader asks, suggestively: "Any leads on Cargo not being the only thing getting pruned this spring at Conde? Absolutely no evidence here, just a vibe and a look at the next year (new expensive mags, space in 4 times sq at a premium) and the cold manner with which cargo was dealt (last day for many [was Friday]). have an idea who i'd guess was next, but hate to panic anyone w/o hard info, so please, no "Conde Deathwatch" unless you got something."

• Why was Nick Sylvester finally fired? "[A]bout a week ago I heard from someone inside the Voice that when Sylvester sat down with a lawyer to go through his emails on the story, his entire account has been mysteriously deleted. At that point, they asked him to leave, for real this time."

• What will NBC do if Katie Couric leaves? "Meredith Viera is leaving the View to join the Today Show as a replacement to Katie Couric. This was rumor once but is now fact. You are the first to know."

But what happens to The View if Viera leaves for NBC? After the jump, another unverified tip, from a different reader, spells out the full, three-network musical chairs.

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Click to enlarge.

Andy Towle, magazine guru, has figured out how to make Cargo and Radar work a business ventures. He calls it "acknowledging their audiences in a more appropriate way," you call it gaying 'em up. And it makes sense, really -- it's what saved Details.

Cargo and Radar Back as Real Laddie Mags [Towleroad]

• New York to anoint hot young editors; those photographed rumored to include TNR's Franklin Foer, The Atlantic's James Bennet, Roger Hodge of Harper's, and the Paris Review's Philip Gourevitch, who, at 44, calls the whole conceit into question. [Media Mob/NYO]
• The Times nominated Dargis for a Pulitzer, and no one there understands why; New York is pitching a Look Book book. [WWD]
• The Washington Post gets 88 New York Timeses every day, costing $18K annually. At least it's nice to know someone other than us isn't getting free papers. [WCP]
• Cargo was confused, and nobody will miss it. Um, yeah. [Slate]
• Bob Woodruff, the ABC anchor badly wounded in Iraq, last night received the Radio and Television Correspondents Association's David Bloom award, named for the NBC correspondent who died while covering the early days of the Iraq war. [B&C;]

A tipster writes to tell us that despite what newly deposed Cargo staffers may have been told, finding a new job within the halls of Condé might not be as easy as one would hope. Though we can't exactly confirm much of this, let's just say that we don't find the following completely implausible:

Looks like Conde's ability to help their peeps find jobs on the inside is little more than lip service ...

The staffers were told there were "70 jobs" available. This supposedly came from Tom Wallace. However, when they went in for their HR interviews, the editors were pretty much told there was nothing available. HR suggested that they post their resumes online at the new Conde Careers site. (Huh? Why?) And, they were told to mark that they weren't an employee so that they would be allowed to post a resume.

"Hardly a preferential interview," the person said. "People were almost universally disappointed with the way we were treated by HR."

Like we said, no clue if this is true. (If you can confirm or deny, do let us know.) But think about it -- when aren't you disappointed by HR? Make that the extra-specially frigid Condé HR, and you can only imagine how cold and lonely things must be getting.

Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Cargo