Penny Arcade

John Koblin looks at editors who moonlight as writers, and talks to The New Yorker's David Remnick who says, "As much as I love editing, reporting and writing is a way for me to get out of the house a little bit, metaphorically... Otherwise, it’s just the apartment and the office." Plus: As Economy Quakes, Home Mags Teeter.

Felix Gillette sifts through some recently released Rather v. CBS documents and unearths some interesting nuggets. Plus: Broke as A Peacock!

Leon Neyfakh reports on the Norman Mailer Estate's uneven relationships with Andrew Wylie and Random House. Plus: The Remaking of Ryan Lizza's Big Campaign Book 2008.

Plus: Rahm Poked Me!... Penny Arcade... Raging Belle.

Around 10 p.m. on a brisk Sunday evening in early November, Penny Arcade, the Manhattan performance artist and former Warhol starlet, was onstage with a four-piece pickup band at Joe’s Pub in the East Village. The petite and curvy Ms. Arcade, 58, who was wearing snakeskin platforms and a sleek back cocktail dress, explained she would be doing some improv. No big deal. Nothing too good, she joked. But before launching into the first number, a loungey “anti-careerism” piece called “No Mona Lisa,” she took a moment to quote her friend Quentin Crisp, the late British writer, actor and raconteur who is the subject of a new biopic tentatively slated for release early next year on a U.K. television network.  read more »

If you've seen Cynthia Nixon looking busty and pouty in New York recently, it's because she's channeling Village performing arts fixture Penny Arcade. Ms. Nixon is currently shooting British ITV’s drama An Englishman in New York, a follow-up to the 1975 TV movie The Naked Civil Servant, according to Variety.

John Hurt reprises his role as English eccentric Quentin Crisp and follows his arrival in New York in the early '80s, where the flamboyant writer and raconteur was embraced by celebrities and artists.