Separated at birth?
Both the Las Vegas Weekly and CityLife — Sin City’s dueling “alternative” weekly newspapers — ran tongue-in-cheek nightclubbing “glossaries” in their respective publications this week.
The Weekly‘s went for the throat, taking direct jabs at specific people in the scene with most of the definitions — including (and especially) it’s own staff (i.e., the article’s authors). Specific targets include nightlife photographer Jeremy Womack (“The Womack: any nightclub photo pose that involves a combination of winking, sticking out your tongue and doing something naughty with your fingers”), Weekly nightlife editor Xania Woodman (“Single and Ready to Mingle: Battle cry of the recently divorced or broken-up; a giddy, wild-child phase of personal rediscovery”) and Weekly writer Deanna Rilling (“Pseudosocialite: Someone who works within the industry and has connections with many important people, but doesn’t give a rat’s ass about carrying the latest overpriced handbag or owning a miniature dog”).
CityLife, meanwhile, went for more cerebral humor with its daffy-nitions, broadly painting nightlife stereotypes and concepts. Highlights include “the list” (“The list may also contain ‘phantom’ names, invisible to the eye, but still there according to their owners. I know it’s on there — I talked to Brandon or Brendon or Random or somebody — can you check it again?”), “VIP host, mohawked” (“same as VIP host, but less pleasant, more aggressively scheming, and with an especially troubled history of not having measured up in high school”) and “bottle service” (“a special ‘premium’ service in which patrons agree to purchase … a bottle of high-quality liquor for as much as 20 times the amount they would pay with their VonsClub card”).
Knowing the authors of both articles, it is remotely possible each camp knew of the other’s intentions, though it’s not terribly likely. Still, it was an interesting bit of synchronicity between the two publications. But though we’d usually go with the CityLife‘s more mature approach, I have to be honest here: The Weekly‘s is a hell of a lot more fun. And it has cute illustrations. People love cute illustrations, right?
Note: Thanks to CityLife A&E editor Mike Prevatt for correcting our original assertion that both articles appeared in their respective publications’ nightlife issues. The Weekly’s nightlife issue came out a month after the CityLife‘s.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Ahem: CityLife’s local nightlife issue didn’t run the week in question. It actually published a few days before Labor Day weekend, as it usually does.
As such, CityLife ran its nightlife glossary as a random Fear and Lounging piece, to mix things up. It had no idea the Weekly was running its nightlife issue that same week, let alone its own nightlife glossary, too. For the record.
And I’ll accept any criticism … except the notion CityLife has any synchronicity with the Weekly. Coincidence, apparently.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Thanks for the clarification, Mike. Unfortunately, the way the CityLife’s website is laid out, it’s nearly impossible to tell how the stories fit together in context with the print edition — or current cover — and when that story was found, it was online before a print edition had been gleaned.
However, though there is not an intended synchronicity between the two papers, the “special” issues do tend to come out in the same general time period. The nightlife issues were only a month apart, and the same usually happens with the local music issues. Come on, I know — I was in both mastheads for a total of 7 years.
Thanks to the magic of the internet, though, I can make the correction lickety-split. Yeah!
October 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Gracias, Pjeaches!