The NY Times Steals Its Content Back from The Crunchwrap
plus Billy Joel beats Taylor Swift in a crucial Flushing poll
Dear Friends,
More and more people are saying this, but The Crunchwrap GETS RESULTS.
You may remember that in Tuesday’s newsletter I praised:
the NY Times Cooking app
Melissa Clark’s Cauliflower Shawarma recipe from a few years back
the Cooking section’s spirited commenters, including one named “RP,” who admitted to getting lightly roasted at 420° while making Melissa Clark’s Cauliflower Shawarma.
See below:
AND THEN TODAY, nary 48 hours later, the beloved Times Cooking newsletter – the mouthpiece of the mothership itself – conveniently decided to also blast the old Cauliflower Shawarma recipe out to its millions and millions of home chefs and home stoners:
Not only that! The newsletter featured – in both headline and body – the very same sage words of commenter RP (aka The Cauliflower Stem Master) that I featured in Tuesday’s Crunchwrap:
Are these two things related? Maybe.
Does it actually matter? Apparently not. After seeing the Times’ newsletter I immediately texted a friend about it who wrote back to say, “no idea what youre talking about.” Next, when I burst into the office of the future Mrs. Crunchwrap to tell her what happened, she kindly hedged by saying it was definitely a possibility that the Times Cooking section had taken its editorial cues from The Crunchwrap.
Whatever the case, this feels like as good of a time as any to suggest that if you’re on the fence about making this manic newsletter part of your regular media diet, this is a sign that you should subscribe and/or share this with a like-minded friend.
On 5/16, We Celebrate Billy Joel
Not to brag, but I went to a Mets game on Sunday. And one of the more wholesome fan features at CitiField is 8th Inning Karaoke, in which fans vote for the song they’d most like to scream-sing during a late-inning break in the action.
For Sunday’s installment, “Piano Man” by Billy Joel was up against “Wagon Wheel” by ex-Hootie frontman Darius Rucker and “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift. Now, despite the fact that “Piano Man” had apparently won the vote the previous two nights against other songs, in my mind, there was no way that “Piano Man” stood a chance against Taylor Swift. How could it? I once committed 2500 words in an attempt to make sense of Billy Joel’s enduring popularity and even I still thought he had no shot here.
But, when all was said and done and the voters had surrendered their personal data to the Mets marketing apparatus, “Piano Man” had taken the day once again:
I have a few thoughts about this. First of all, I need to point out that the voter breakdown at the Mets game was eerily similar to the popular vote outcome in the 1992 presidential race.
Second and more usefully, as a fascinating YouGov poll recently found, classic rock is head-and-shoulders above all other genres (including Taylor’s beloved pop) when it comes to overall popularity in America, across all ages and political persuasions.
Here’s one explanation for why classic rock reigns most supremely (broseph):
Because radio stations relentlessly appropriated fresh waves of chart-toppers as they aged, classic rock defies definition. One source says it began with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles in 1967 and ended with “Fragile” by Nine Inch Nails in 1999. Once the mark of a leather-jacketed renegade, it has become the anodyne soundtrack of modern life. The Rolling Stones have evolved from infamy at Altamont to ubiquity at fast-casual restaurants, from “Gimme Shelter” to gimme seltzer.
Lastly, I bring up Billy Joel because today’s date is 5/16, the area code of Joel’s beloved Nassau County and, therefore, an unofficial holiday by the rules of the internet. And you all know, I don’t make the rules here. I just report on them.
Your move, New York Times.