Something Good Happened. What’s the Catch?
A postelection discussion with David Freedlander.
Today has been a roller coaster of feelings for those still able to experience them! Is this what happiness feels like? Even if politics aren’t your bag, it’s fun to see someone genuinely not expect to get a thing and then get it. What a nice change of pace. Anyway, Woody Allen has written a novel! —Emily Gould
POLITICAL PARTIES
At Zohran’s Victory Party, Everyone Was Feeling the Love
Ella Emhoff left with the Subway Takes guy, but they’re not dating, we’re informed.
My colleague David Freedlander reported from the Mamdani campaign’s LIC victory party last night, where Cuomo’s concession speech was met with screams “ loud enough to rattle the windows.” As is traditional on Wednesdays, I asked him a handful of stupid questions about the party, the vibes, and whether we’re now both too old/objective to experience feelings.
So you were in the room where it happened last night. You saw Mira Nair crying, Rama Duwaji also crying and comforting her, you felt the windows shaking, you saw Ella Emhoff cheering, you heard people singing “Na na na na hey hey good-bye” to Cuomo. I have a dumb question, which is, Who was invited to this party?
Every campaign holds an Election Night party, mostly for volunteers and supporters and mainly for the press, since local TV networks are covering it live. At a losing campaign’s Election Night party, you can just walk in, but for Mamdani, they had someone checking names at the door.
I see some faces that are familiar to me from social media in the photos (my own councilman, Chi Ossé, etc.) and some people who just look like they are attending a Lorde concert in “Hot Girls for Zohran” T-shirts. How did they — and how did you — get on the invite list? (No offense, not trying to imply that you're not a hot girl for Zohran.)
I was just one of probably three dozen reporters there.
This is a slightly deeper question: What's next for everyone who is feeling happy and energized and a little sad for Brad Lander today?
I think the Mamdani campaign and its supporters are over-the-moon excited. Some were expecting victory but nothing like this. This was a blowout. And they owe a lot to Brad Lander. He came by last night and got some of the loudest cheers of the night.
What should the people who ran his extraordinarily successful campaign now be doing to channel the energy of this tentative victory into definitive victory in the fall?
Boy, this is the question of the day. I'm not a political professional, so I can't really answer, but I think they are in pretty good shape for the fall considering the size of the victory last night and the Democratic tilt of the electorate.
Also, he’ll now become a "bogeyman" on a national level for Trump et al. What should we expect that to look like? I mean, I can use my imagination there, but what's the chaotic, weird thing they're likely to do next?
Look at what happened to AOC after she won in 2018. I think there will be an immediate effort to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party. We will see how it works, though. He's got a pretty good face!
On a personal level, did you experience feelings last night? I have a strong memory of the night Obama won and people dancing in the street, going to three different parties, etc. A lot has happened since then (17 years, for starters). But did you catch even a contact-high version of that feeling?
That Obama ’08 moment was like nothing I have experienced. I remember being at the victory party for that, for New York Democrats, and looking behind me on the press riser, and it seemed like the entire political press corps was in tears. I don’t think I get those feels, though, because I am a reporter, and at the end of the day, these are all politicians. I think Mamdani is an incredible story, and an incredible political story, and I have truly never seen a movement quite like his on the local level, not just in New York but anywhere, and it’s really fun to be at a party like that with all these people who are way closer to my teenage daughter’s age than to mine and who are feeling that feeling you describe. I think I feel happy for them, but I kind of just want the night to end so I get my middle-aged ass to bed because the kids are going to be up in a few hours.
Yeah, I feel that wholeheartedly. I also just think the capacity for the kind of hope that produces tears is dead in me forever. It’s not because I’m a reporter; it’s because I’m dead inside. But maybe I’m just old! Who can say.
BOOK GOSSIP
Unfortunately, Woody Allen Is Publishing His First Novel
But on the plus side, his book-publicity team is pretty fabulous in their way.
Have you ever heard of an outfit called Post Hill Press? No? How about Woo Girl PR? Well, that’s about to change, I’m sorry to say! Today Woo Girl sent out the following press release:
“Woody Allen has written his first novel – and it's everything fans could hope for and more. "What's with Baum?" delivers Allen's signature wit, existential anxiety, and razor-sharp observations about modern life in a beautifully crafted literary work that marks a major publishing event.
THE STORY HOOK
Meet Asher Baum, a middle-aged Jewish journalist-turned-novelist who is quietly losing his mind – and frankly, who can blame him? His publisher has dropped him, his third marriage is crumbling, he suspects his brother may have seduced his Harvard-educated wife, and in a moment of spectacular poor judgment, he's tried to kiss a young journalist during an interview she's about to make public.”
Not his publisher dropping him! Not his third marriage crumbling! Not his Harvard-educated wife!!!! It’s going to be somebody around here’s thankless job to read this book eventually, but it’s pretty clear already that it’s what would happen if you took a copy of Fleishman Is in Trouble and surgically removed that part where actually, it’s not really about Fleishman; it’s about women, you idiot!!
Curious, we Googled “Post Hill Press,” which turns out to be, somewhat boringly and confusingly, an independent publishing house distributed by Simon & Schuster that focuses on “conservative and Christian” titles. We googled “Woo Girl PR” and found this cute pink website, which right up front promises to “make your book stand out more than a rhinestone cowgirl!” They should be able to do that for Allen, no problem. The explanation for the rhinestone-cowgirl thing is that they are located in Nashville. A list of books they’ve previously publicized — or, per the website, “What We’re Workin’ On” — reads as if the writers at The Daily Show were given 20 minutes and tasked with coming up with 15 satirical titles for fake conservative books. I mean, I know that these books are real. But also, are these books even real?? The Diversity Con: The Secrets and Lies Behind the Shady DEI Industry. Perhaps you’ve heard of The New Jim Crow? Well, hold on just a minute there. Why not counter it with The Myth of Overpunishment: A Defense of the American Justice System and a Proposal for How to Reduce Incarceration While Protecting the Public. But my favorite title of all is probably from their fiction list. A True American Patriot gets this blurb: “‘a fast-paced action thriller.’ —J. Soltys, a former U.S. Navy SEAL.” Well that sounds like a real person and a real book! Unsurprisingly, many of these titles (maybe all of them?) are published by Post Hill Press.
Congratulations to Woody Allen, but more importantly, congratulations to Woo Girl Public Relations, which could probably get a Bravo show green-lit based on this website alone.
Click Your Way Out
In the latest (and my final) edition of the "Going Through It" column: "Do people only want to be my friend because I have a cool job?"
The Hamptons aren’t for everyone. They’re for very few people, actually. And the undocumented workers who make the whole thing possible are starting to self-deport.
“Cuomo’s campaign to return to power shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
- returns to her newsletter after a brief hiatus to share (if you scroll down past the chat) a rough first draft of the first chapter of Eileen, which is in the third person present tense. This is the kind of thing that gets my blood pumping.
I bought tickets for the first day of previews of CHESS on Broadway, in case you were concerned, or just wondering. They are even in the orchestra. Not SRO … S-R-OOOOO!! (A CHESS joke.)
Another populist with empty promises on housing , education and other free services while tapping into anti Israel/Jewish prejudice. How is it NYC produces so many con artists?