Everything that’s wrong with the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine in one handy graphic and one quoted paragraph
I guarantee you, that no one, not James Taylor’s most rabid fan, wanted to see that. And, the article is pretty much six pages of this:
“We’re eating a lunch of poached salmon, soba noodles, bok choy, and spring rolls in the dining room of his large, unfussy hilltop house. The meal was prepared by Taylor’s wife of six years, Kim, a longtime executive with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The couple’s 4-year-old twin sons, Rufus and Henry, are hurling themselves onto their father’s lap and biting my nose with a snapping turtle made out of a paper plate. Taylor feeds them chunks of fruit and sings “Kumbaya” with new words about honeydew melon until Kim manages to shepherd them into the family minivan for a trip to Seiji Ozawa’s pool.”
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:17 am
Uuurp!
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:42 am
Oh my God. I hate the Globe magazine. After they printed my picture, they lost their direction.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:03 am
Well, the prose is pretentious bibble-babble, but I don’t see anything wrong with the picture. He looks pretty satisfied with life, and definitely knows that he’s putting on a show — but why not? That’s his profession.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:58 am
John, I think something that showed “satisfied with life” would be fine (well, maybe annoyingly smug, but something I might have let pass without comment). Maybe some golden retrievers licking his face as he walks around his unfussy hilltop house. It certainly would have been consistent with the article.
It just seems like they were going for a sexpot angle. I’m not saying that a pasty 47-year-old guy can’t ever be sexy (I mean, I certainly aspire to be when I’m a pasty 47-year-old guy); I’m not even saying JT can’t be; I just think it’s very unflattering. I thought even the photo of him that they used in the table of contents page (not online) he looked a lot more relaxed and happy. I think the 9×14 print version shows this more, but I think he actually looks uncomfortable, like “man, I’m going to be itchy tomorrow”.
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:03 am
Also, for the record, my post title is hyperbolic. There are a lot of other things wrong with the Globe magazine, especially Miss Conduct. I just think this story made me snap.
Or course, I read the entire thing, just so I could feel the outrage, Ignatius J. Reilly-style.
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:42 am
OK, slightly more explication, which may not be obvious to non-Bostonians.
There are a certain number of celebrities which Boston feels like it owns and the Globe can’t shut up about them.
These are:
and I’m not counting intellectual celebrities who teach at Harvard or MIT, or celebrity chefs.The fact that they just had to make the Seiji Ozawa connection kills me!
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:10 am
“Kumbaya.” That’s all I have to say. He was singing “Kumbaya” with a reporter present, and the reporter thought it was cool.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:38 am
He needs to put a shirt on. That picture is just creepy.
October 31st, 2006 at 3:28 pm
ugh…the boston globe has been disappointing me for years. I can’t read it without getting really annoyed at at least one article.