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Generation R.I.P.
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Picture Ed and Audrey, Boise sophisticates, stopping by the Blockbuster to rent "Little Voice." They settle in for the previews, gee-whizzing about all the celebrities Woody Allen has jammed into "Celebrity." There's Leonardo. Kenneth. Bebe. Melanie. Then trailers for a bunch of Merchant Ivory knockoffs. Finally, a chic-let of a woman with an ineffable accent pops up. She has claims on a single name too. Tina. ("Herself" as she is known at her new shop.)

"I think a new century needs a new magazine and new voice," she says. The "new"-ness is a reach, but you have to appreciate the modesty that claims only the next century as her realm and not the next millennium.

The bold words on the screen instruct Ed and Audrey to "Get Ready to Talk."

A loping bass line walks in, and journalism's first true crossover star begins to -- you only wish I was making this up -- rap. Tina's wordy rappinghood is parsed, clipped and edited over percussive video, a blizzard of buzzies shot through 30 very fast seconds. The screen goes dark.

"What the hell was that?" Audrey says to Ed.

"I think it was a magazine."

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Ed's only partly right. Somewhere between the trailer's streaming litany of high-culture hot buttons (opera, ballet, biographies) and low-culture preoccupations (chocolate, pizza, smoking) lies Tinaworld, Disney's first portable theme park. Talk, if the ad reflects the product, will land Aug. 2 as most everything to most everybody -- "weather" even makes the topical cut. The wide net leaves Brown's (brand) name as the only discernible thread.

America's Coolhuntress-at-Large may be selling vaporware, but everybody who lives in Manhattan -- or wishes they did -- is buying. It's a self-defined elite, better dressed but not fundamentally different from the nerds who were beside themselves wading through the hype for Windows '95. Brown wants her "cultural search engine" to be just as ubiquitous, a product that will rest comfortably on tea tables in the Hamptons, checkout counters in Duluth and desktops in Dallas.

But software that takes the form of a shiny, lavishly produced magazine is risky. (Just ask John Kennedy Jr.) In order to stoke a general-interest magazine, Brown must reach beyond the media echo-chamber thick with mentions and find a way to mass market elites to non-elites. People like Ed and Audrey.

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