William Butler Yeats

The Daily Beast, Tina Brown and Barry Diller's nascent Web venture, was supposed to launch yesterday, as Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici pointed out on his Mixed Media blog.

While Ms. Brown's much-anticipated entry into the news aggregation business continues to be fashionably late, the site does have a new landing page. And that landing page has a logo!  read more »

Sept. 11 has occasioned a lot of art, and most of it is lousy.  read more »

We've never entirely understood the communications director/press secretary distinction. Nonetheless, we bring you word that the Mayor has found that Ed knows enough Yeats to absorb Cunningham's job:

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced today that Press Secretary Edward Skyler will also serve as the Administration's Communications Director....  read more »

"'I am pleased to appoint Ed Skyler as my Communications Director,' Mayor Bloomberg said. '...I know that this dedicated public servant will continue to make every effort to make sure the City is well represented during my Administration.'

"...As Communications Director, Skyler will continue to run the Mayor's daily communications operations and ensure an open dialogue between the public information offices at City agencies and the news media."

We were pleased to see the Times this morning take a peek into Bill Cunningham's soul, which is apparently full of Yeats. The Irish poet was a famously bad politician, but he did write a very nice poem called Politics. We trust it doesn't reflect the attitude up at Bill's new office: How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms!  read more »

The Dying Animal , by Philip Roth.  read more »

There are three very good reasons to rush to see the new production of Harold Pinter's 1978 Betrayal  read more »

Paradise, by Toni Morrison. Knopf, 318 pages, $25.  read more »