Modern Tart

When their workday winds to an end, most normal people don't exactly crave the chance to continue working. But a cadre of demented yet inspired magazine editorial staffers in New York finds itself doing just that in order to—we swear—put out another magazine. They're driven, they're possessed, they're upstarts in the name of Tart, and they can give moonlighting a good reputation. Tart is the downtown quarterly they started in '94 to cover iconoclastic arts and style with a jaunty slant. Giving it immense credibility, two of the mag's publishers, Riza Cruz and Lynn Moloney, are Vanity Fair editorial associates (the third, Aimee Shieh—a Northwestern grad like Cruz—works at Miramax), and among their contributors are 12—yes, 12—Vanity Fair staff members, 9 former ones, and two freelancers. "There's a different kind of energy that we have when working on it," says Cruz, "because Tart is not the big time like Vanity Fair." Moloney adds that the publication revels in an alternative ethic that provides for a freewheeling collaboration among those who work on the magazine and those they cover. Fair enough, but what happens if Tart becomes so big that it has to go totally commercial? "Abandon it," laughs Cruz, at work on the fall issue. Kill Tartl Well, it didn't work in Hawthorne, and it won't wash in this scenario, either. Let the Tart prosper! —M.M.

M.M.