Virtual City Helps You Live in a Techno-World
Maia Szalavitz caught her boyfriend flirting with another woman--by computer modem.
“All I could see was the two of them fondling each other in cyberspace,” the writer and TV producer recalls in the premiere issue of Virtual City. “It got me wondering: Just where do you draw the line? . . . Would it be cheating if one of us had cybersex with someone we didn’t know?”
Interesting question--and easy to grasp. Which is the intention of Virtual City, a fresh and readable guide to cyber culture aimed at the masses who want to use the Internet in their daily lives and care little about the techno-wizardry that makes interactive media work.
The magazine explains even the basics. Its expansive cover story “What Is Cyberspace?” pauses to define the Internet as “the global network of computer networks, a huge stateless techno-world made up of parts with weird names like Gopher, Usenet and the World Wide Web.” In case you weren’t sure.
A quarterly that plans to go monthly next year, Virtual City was launched this week with a cover showing Colin Powell, Jim Carrey, Newt Gingrich and Courtney Love. Besides the 300,000 copies laid down on newsstands, a condensed version of the magazine appears inside 1 million copies of Newsweek’s Sept. 25 issue (the Business Plus edition). In a rare expansion for Newsweek Inc., the newsweekly bought a piece of Virtual Communications Inc., the San Francisco company that developed Virtual City, which is based in New York.
Jonathan Sacks, 44, the magazine’s publisher and editorial director, is a former newspaperman who worked for Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., the computer-publications giant, before founding Virtual Communications.
“Computer magazines are read only by computer nerds, and yet there’s all this cool stuff going on online that matters to everybody,” he says. “When Lewis D’Vorkin joined us as editor in chief, I told him: Think accountants in Dubuque. They’re going to come aboard if we put out the right product.”
Contributors include Douglas Rushkoff, the author of “Cyberia” and “Media Virus,” and Ben Stein, the Los Angeles-based writer and actor.
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On the Racks: It’s week No. 2 on newsstands for the Weekly Standard and the right-of-center magazine is hitting hard. Diana West’s cover story, “Here Lies Children’s Literature, Murdered by R.L. Stine,” hammers the wildly successful and prolific author of horror tales for kids.
West writes, “And so, reading becomes a crude tool of physical stimulation, wholly devoid of mental, emotional, or spiritual engagement. Does that sound like a working definition of pornography? This certainly is a disquieting thought.”. . . .
Bill Maher, host of the nightly “Politically Incorrect” on the Comedy Central cable channel and star of his own HBO comedy special this weekend, appears in the October issue of Playboy as the subject of the magazine’s “20 Questions” feature.
Maher brushes off what passes for TV “talk” shows, saying “programs like ‘The Tonight Show’ are no longer real talk, just cogs in the publicity mill. . . . Who can talk is not the premium. It’s who has the biggest name and the prettiest face.”
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Afterwords: Howard Stern says on the radio that he has yet to title his next book, due in November from HarperCollins. However, a source close to the project indicates that the title “Sloppy Seconds” already has been chosen. The question: Will Stern bump Colin Powell (“My American Journey”) from the top of the nonfiction bestseller lists?. . .
Joseph Wambaugh has cut a seven-figure deal with Bantam Books to publish “The Cup” and the money is all his. This time, no lawyer stands to pocket 15% of his advance. The best-selling author and former LAPD officer recently invited three publishers to submit bids and marketing plans for his next cop caper, going with Bantam based on the house’s sales proposal. (William Morrow & Co. had been his hardcover publisher.) “The Cup” is expected to arrive before Father’s Day next year. . . .
Delacorte Press will announce shortly a publication date for “Harrington Street,” the late Jerry Garcia’s illustrated memoir of his childhood, which the rock star had been working on in recent years. . . .
Dr. Susan Love, an associate professor in clinical surgery at UCLA Medical School and a respected authority on women’s health, has agreed to write “The Hormone Dilemma” for Times Books. The publisher, which acquired the book after making a preemptive bid that effectively blocked all competing offers, says the book will be aimed at women approaching menopause and “will provide readers with a clear framework within which to make their decision about hormone replacement therapy.” Publication is scheduled for 1997.
* Paul Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Fridays.
