nick sylvester = maker upper

xpost

i don't think they commission pieces from him, as he's on staff. that said, the blogger who is quoted heavily in the piece is claiming that she pitched them this very piece back in january.

NEW YORK The Village Voice suspended one of its editors
after he admitted fabricating material for this week's cover story,
a look at ``The Secret Society of Pickup Artists.''
The weekly alternative newspaper published an editor's note on
its Web site Wednesday night announcing the suspension of senior
associate editor Nick Sylvester.
In an article about the effect that Neil Strauss's book, ``The
Game,'' has had on the singles scene, Sylvester closed with a
description of a night in which he and three television writers
from Los Angeles tested strategies for picking up women at a
Manhattan bar.
``That scene,'' the Voice wrote, ``never happened.''
It attached a note from Sylvester, in which he said the account
was ``a composite of specific anecdotes'' shared by two of the
alleged participants. One of the people supposedly present, the
comedy writer Steve Lookner, wasn't involved at all, Sylvester
acknowledged.
``I deeply regret this misinformation, and I apologize to
Lookner for his distress, which I certainly never intended,''
Sylvester wrote.
Voice Managing Editor Doug Simmons said the paper was still
reviewing the accuracy of the rest of the story and planned to
publish a second statement in its next edition.
Simmons declined to comment further on the matter. He said
Sylvester, who also writes for the online music magazine Pitchfork,
joined the Voice staff in 2005.
Attempts to reach Sylvester were not immediately successful. He
did not return an e-mail message sent to him at Pitchfork Media.
Sylvester predominantly wrote music reviews for the Voice. His
few full-length feature articles included several interviews with
characters who told somewhat fantastical stories.
In an August story about cheating on college campuses, Sylvester
described interviewing a student who spent $500,000 to have a
multiplication table tattooed over his entire body; a Harvard
Medical School graduate who cheated with Morse code; a Boston
College junior named Simeon Criz who cheated using a specially
designed deck of playing cards; and a Manhattan doctor named Noam
Feldstein who delivers ``a hundred newborn babies each day.''
Boston College said it had no record of a student named Simeon
Criz. The board that licenses doctors in New York said it had no
record of a physician named Noam Feldstein.
Founded in 1955, the Voice covers arts, entertainment and news
with an irreverent bent that often stretches the conventions that
govern most big-city newspapers. Its staffers have won three
Pulitzer prizes.

http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0531,education7,66455,12.html

Education Supplement Fall 2005
Crib Sheet Confidential
Class clowning: Inside the shadowy world of 'retro-cheating'
by Nick Sylvester
August 2nd, 2005 1:06 PM

Ever since Back to School, the shocking 1986 film in which college's oldest living freshman, Rodney Dangerfield, pays Kurt Vonnegut to write his term paper on, conveniently, Kurt Vonnegut, students at American universities have been cheating on tests, homework, papers—literally anything they can. Over time a fast-paced game of cat and mouse has developed between career-driven students who will do anything to get ahead and the university professors who go to great lengths to defeat cheaters and uphold academic honesty.

The cats are winning. By the end of the 2003–04 academic calendar, nearly all popular methods of hi-tech cheating, including pocket Game Genie Scantron decoders and the Bluetooth wireless true-false bra, had been stamped out. Plagiarism virtually ceased when Internet search technology allowed professors to scour for tracts too similar.

Campus buzz across the country reveals that while universities spend their resources combating hi-tech cheating, students are taking lessons from the ghosts of Cheating Past, embracing low-tech cheating in unprecedented numbers and reminding their stodgy professors what it really means to "walk like an Egyptian": Cheat.

The ancient Egyptians were arguably the world's first and best cheaters—and today's slackers are raiding their tombs for tricks. Just as pharaohs would tattoo secret messages onto the scalps of messengers—the text then concealed by their grown-out hair—students across the country are turning to the tat as the next big cheat.

Scientific equations seem to be the most popular at the moment, students opting for tattoos with the most long-term value and breadth of application. Tattoo parlors consulted for this piece all cite inside-arm tattoos of the quadratic equation as the street favorite, with full-stomach tattoos of the Periodic Table of Elements as the second, though infinitely more painful, most popular option.

"Science is sexy," says Colin Klein, a college student, "but it's also very useful." Klein's tattoo, a multiplication table that covers his entire body, took 10 years and over $500,000 to complete—you do the math.

But not all tattoo cheaters are in it for the long run. "Down my left arm I got a list of 30 adjectives," explains Simon Moerder, a student at a well-known American university who's using tattoos to take the GRE at the end of the summer. "Down my right arm I got another list of adjectives—except they're antonyms. So when the test people look at my arms, they see art. But when I look at my arms, I see answers."

Tattoos are expensive, however, so the dusty return of Morse code to Cheat University comes as no surprise. The fast-paced language of beeps and held tones allows for cheap, relatively undetectable in-classroom "team-cheating," as popularized by the notorious State College High School "Clickz N Cutz" homework gang in 1987. Morse code also allows for transatlantic cheating, an option heretofore forgotten by most cheaters on test day.

"I don't know how I would have gotten through med school if it weren't for Morse code," says Dr. Conrad Boccuti, a recent Harvard Med grad whose real name has been changed so his patients don't sue him. Medical students are often under intense pressure; Morse code cheating is nearly essential, even after a degree is conferred. "Click click click, clap clap, long-clap—you see, I just told that man over there he has herpes."

A lot of cheaters complain that their art has lost its sense of mystique; Boston College junior Simeon Criz aims to reclaim exactly that. "Everybody hates magicians because they cheat," he notes, "but everybody loves cheaters who do magic tricks." Criz recently designed a deck of playing cards that, instead of diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts as suits, has A, B, C, D—all possible answer choices for a test.

"When the teacher comes up to me during a test and says, 'Hey, you're playing cards when you should be taking the test," I tell him to pick a card. Then he picks a card. A quarter of the time that card's got the right answer on it."

But how long will the new tricks last? University officials remain confident they can thwart the latest wave of cheating, already coined retro-cheating, without attacking students' personal liberties. "If I see a tattoo made of letters, or that kid with the cards, or an Egyptian, I'll probably do something," assures an unnamed college provost. "I'll probably kill somebody."

And lastly, what ever happened to the good old-fashioned crib sheet? Does anyone still use them?

"Never leave home without one," admits Dr. Noam Feldstein, an OB-GYN at a Manhattan hospital who delivers close to a hundred newborn babies each day. "That's why they call them crib sheets," he explains. "Right, like I'm going to deliver your baby without a little cheating."

god nick pulled one over on us there!!!

the method:

Criz recently designed a deck of playing cards that, instead of diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts as suits, has A, B, C, D—all possible answer choices for a test.

"When the teacher comes up to me during a test and says, 'Hey, you're playing cards when you should be taking the test," I tell him to pick a card. Then he picks a card. A quarter of the time that card's got the right answer on it."

AP in non-possession of basic math skills shocker?

Lie defector: Voice blogger accused of telling the truth

(This story was removed from online editions of the Boston Phoenix.)

Lie defector: Voice blogger accused of telling the truth

By Carly Carioli and Matt Ashare

The Village Voice yesterday suspended serial fabriactor Nick "Riff Raff" Sylvester, after it was revealed that elements of a cover story he wrote this week were actually true.

Allegations of truth in Sylvester's writing sent shockwaves through the blogosphere, where Sylvester, a former Harvard Lampoon staffer and Pitchforkmedia.com editor, was widely loved and loathed for his humorous "fictional" interviews with semi-famous musicians on his blog, "Riff Central." On the basis of these so-called "fake" interviews — and perhaps on the basis of an article or two in the pages of the Boston Phoenix — Sylvester was hired last year as the Voice’s chief music blogger, reprising his schtick under the heading "Riff Raff."

"I wish to apologize to the Voice's readers," Sylvester wrote in a tersely-worded statement published Wednesday on the newspaper's web site. "I invented only about one-third of this week's cover story — which was about how girls won't date some dudes I know because they've already heard all the pickup lines we stole from Neil Strauss's book The Game, which we all bought because we thought it was actually about G-Unit. The other two-thirds of the story were the product of factual reporting. I deeply regret this information."

In what might have been the day's most shocking revelation, Sylvester also admitted that all his past "fake" interviews had in fact been real. It turns out that the Hair Police song "Not Raft But Cage" really is the sound of "two gorillas . . . shitting into their own microphone." The Ying Yang twins really did almost change the words to "Wait (The Whisper Song)" from "Ay bitch, wait’ll you see my dick" to "Hey, where’d my dick go?" And both of Ariel Pink’s parents write for Desperate Housewives.

Several Voice colleagues who wished to remain anonymous hinted that there have been newsroom complaints in recent months that Sylvester was "coasting" — going to actual concerts, conducting verifiable interviews, and writing diligent criticism instead of making funny shit up like he was supposed to.

Indeed, it appears that Sylvester's slide down the slippery slope toward the truth in print began even before he arrived at the Voice. It was assumed by Phoenix editors that the "cult folk singer Vashti Bunyan" was a figment of Sylvester’s fertile satiric imagination. But this week the Phoenix's research department turned up disturbing evidence that not only is Bunyan a real person, but she actually came out of retirement to record with Animal Collective.

Sylvester's editors at the Voice were dumbfounded. "We thought we had a really talented liar on our hands," said Voice music editor Chuck Eddy, "but it turns out the kid just lucked out and had a funny chat with the Game."

"We used to say to ourselves, 'You just can't make stuff like this up,' " said Pazz and Jop grand poobah Robert Christgau. "Turns out we were right."

DOWNLOAD: AC/DC's "Riff Raff" at Buddyhead.

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid4211.aspx

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/riffraff/archives/2006/02/dem_franchize_b.php
the topper is the comments from folks like "I hate rap" egging him on.

Well, some gangstas don't. They just lean wit it, rock wit it. They might just set in one place, moving back and forth or moving side to side--or leaning and rocking.

It just seems like gangsters would want to dance. Like, you're a gangster--dance.

I hate that we live in the shadow of "Lean Back." It's OK to dance guys: it's supposed to indicate how well you fuck. Why are you afraid of showing that?

Select: What about the whole murder/gang/violence allegations surrounding you?

Snoop: That don't matter. Like if I pulled a gun on you right now, you'd be scared, right?

Select: Possibly.

Snoop: But if I dropped a rhyme right now, you'd love me?

Select: Perhaps.

Snoop: Do you wanna hear me bust a rhyme right now?

Select: No.

But really, that's the subtext that upsetting people.

now i get it.

that interview was bad.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

1) Nick is now the effigy of the Village Voice for everyone who wants to take a shot at them. This has been picked up for national dailies via the AP.

2) In more Shattered Glass parallels, everyone wants to play the cool snoop role and dig up the huge conspiracy a la Caruso's AP story, which ends with:

In an August story about cheating on college campuses, Sylvester described interviewing a student who spent $500,000 to have a multiplication table tattooed over his entire body; a Harvard Medical School graduate who cheated with Morse code; a Boston College junior named Simeon Criz who cheated using a specially designed deck of playing cards; and a Manhattan doctor named Noam Feldstein who delivers "a hundred newborn babies each day."

Boston College said it had no record of a student named Simeon Criz. The board that licenses doctors in New York said it had no record of a physician named Noam Feldstein.

They're playing themselves in the movie of this in their minds.

xpost: But who WOULDN'T want to be Peter Sarsgaard in that movie?? Even if he does look exactly like Chloe Sevigny.

One your 1), Chris, yes, that's what happens when you create situations out of whole cloth and run them as fact. Your publication's reputation takes a big fucking hit. This is about much more than NS now.