NY Observer > Matt Haber

Pinging the Sonar: Radar Sets Sail!

Observer Staff — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:20:58 -0400

Radar's back, baby. And it's bountiful, with a crew of pasty young men laboring night and day. Local well-known job-jumping ne'er-do-wells Jeff Bercovici and Matt Haber and Marcus Baram are all stuffed belowdecks on the Viking slave galleon that is the good ship Maer Roshan. Homeless no more!

In fact, that galley is packed; the two main blogs alone list eleven staffers, giving it, no doubt, the highest staff costs of any weblog site in existence. (It could have been more expensive! Apparently former Radar employee Remy Stern didn't make it to sea, having been chucked overboard at some point pre-launch. (Or perhaps he threw himself over?)) And the "Reviews" section lists a staff of eight.

So clearly she's a seaworthy vessel, yah—if a bit battered about the poop deck.

Reportedly, these new-fangled things called "RSS feeds" will be available later today.

Marie Antoinette: Blockbuster?

Observer Staff — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 06:09:51 -0400

AIM IM with Matt Haber: 10:01 AM

Matt Haber: wanna hear something mildly funny? The Transom: always! i like my funny mild. Matt Haber: I was at Duane Reade and there was an in-house radio spot for Vogue and some special Marie-Antoinette contest. and they referred to the film as "this fall's blockbuster Marie-Antoinette." who thinks Sofia Copolla is making a blockbuster?? The Transom: well, no one who's seen it at the Conde Nast advanced screening, that's who. Matt Haber: besides which, period costume dramas tend not to bust blocks. as a rule.

In Today's Observer

Observer Staff — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 09:31:00 -0400

Michael Calderone reports that a few weeks after an alleged “groping” last May, Christian Slater bought himself a condo. And a new synergy comes to open houses in the form of celebrity book signings!

Matthew Schuerman chronicles the campaign the International Freedom Center is waging to stay at Ground Zero.

Matt Haber reveals the true story of living on Chambers Street with literary it-boy Benjamin Kunkel. And Anna Schneider-Mayerson learns the fine art of milkshakes over at The Shake Shack.

Immature Magazines Borrow; Mature Magazines Pay Homage

Observer Staff — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:09:00 -0400

Left, RADAR (via Gawker); Right, Esquire, April 1968. Update: It turns out that the art director with the balls to rip off George Lois' legendary Esquire cover was none other than... George Lois. (Very sneaky, RADAR!) From a press release just received at Mob HQ:

Radar magazine's Maer Roshan has brought legendary adman and cover designer genius George Lois out of retirement to design the issue's September/October issue, on sale August 16th. [...] "Magazines don't even try to do covers with actual ideas any more," Lois says in the forthcoming issue of Radar. "I get calls from these big magazine conferences -- always some big goddamn deal -- and they're always the same thing: 'Could you come down, George, and make a speech about why all magazine covers suck?' Screw that! Everybody knows that already! You can't just slap a picture of Nicole Kidman on your cover and expect people to say, 'Wow! What a cover!' It's just another picture of Nicole. Who gives a shit?"

--Matt Haber