Richard Turley and Lucas Mascatello on Bad Trends, Egregious Typos, and Civilization Issue 7

FRIDAY 9:32 PM SEPTEMBER 12, 2025 LOWER EAST SIDE

Welcome to Issue Seven of Civilization, another charmingly impractical newsprint born from the chaos-loving brains of Lucas Mascatello and Interview editorial director Richard Turley. The new issue has it all: essays, interviews, confessions, diagrams, pleas, regrets, diary entries (and sometimes even just words crashing into each other). To celebrate the new launch, the duo hosted a three-day reading marathon down at Earth on Orchard Street. On Friday night, I stopped by to see how things were coming along, and grill my coworker Turley—and his coworker, Mascatello—about the trends that they hate, the worst typos they’ve made, and how they want to be remembered.

———

STRANGER: [Approaches the event] What is this?

RICHARD TURLEY: Just go in and find out.

STRANGER: I don’t want to.

TURLEY: Yeah, you do. 

STRANGER: Can you just tell me?

TURLEY: It’s people reading out loud from a big book of words we made. 

STRANGER: A reading?

TURLEY: Yeah, it’s like a reading. But anyone can read. You can read. 

STRANGER: Oh, like someone’s speaking?

TURLEY: I guess. Yeah.

STRANGER: Okay, got it. Thanks. [Walks away]

EMILY SANDSTROM: They didn’t like that. 

LUCAS MASCATELLO: There’s a lot of illiterate people, but that’s also kind of our audience.

———

What is the last thing on your Notes app?

MASCATELLO: My phone’s inside, but probably a checklist for the show.

TURLEY: It’s an entry from my wife’s dream diary, because we share an Apple ID. It says, “Richard was buying earrings in a fancy shop. I was looking at beautiful gems, and mum was so happy for me. In the end, I chose a silver interlocking hoop. Rich, at the same time, was looking at some ancient bowls. Then I was on my own and popped into a thrift store and was distracted by beautiful blue feathers. Then the owner was trying to say something, and I told him I was on my way to the jewelry shop. He said he knew the owner and they were good friends and he would take me. We had to cross over a river, which is not actually a cleansing river, but one smelling of waste. He warned me to avoid getting wet. There was an Asian lady helping her mother around it too. Then out of nowhere, the man came and he was shot. He was Jewish and his name was Frank. I was crying for him. He was such a nice man.” 

What’s the last book that you read?

MASCATELLO: The Bonfire of the Vanities. It was good, I liked it.

TURLEY: White Noise, by Don DeLillo.

What song do you have on repeat right now?

TURLEY: Oh, shit. It’s kind of an embarrassing one. I never really liked Death in Vegas, but there’s this sick track called “Consequences of Love.” It’s got that porn star Sasha Grey on it. 

MASCATELLO: There’s this band… It’s this woman’s name, Kassie Krut. K-A-S-S-I-E K-R-U-T. I like that record a lot.

How do you want to be remembered? 

TURLEY: As being an amazing graphic designer. 

MASCATELLO: For being a good friend.

What do you worry about?

TURLEY: Not being an amazing graphic designer.

MASCATELLO: Wasting my time.

Why do you believe in print publishing?

TURLEY: Because it’s all I know how to do.

MASCATELLO: Because there are things you can put in print that you can’t put online.

What is the last thing you discussed in your group chat?

TURLEY: Let’s launch the group chat. So Lucas said, “Going to the lighting store, be there at 5:15 or so.”

MASCATELLO: Yeah, and then I was late. I got here at 5:30.

How do you work best?

TURLEY: Hard and fast.

MASCATELLO: I have three hours every day where I can get everything done.

Favorite Interview cover of all time, and favorite one that you’ve worked on? 

TURLEY: What’s the best news we’ve covered, Jack?

JACK VHAY: The best Interview cover?

TURLEY: That Denzel one’s pretty good, right? By Herb Ritts.  And the second Lana one, which was all Jack’s idea. He gets none of the credit for it.

MASCATELLO: Oh, yes. But the mesh mask was such a moment in time.

RICHARD TURLEY: Yeah, but that was a terrible–

JACK VHAY: One of my favorites that I feel like does not get enough love is the Jack Nicholson one shot by Ara Gallant. It’s got the light going across his face and it’s in red. It’s like ’76 or something.

LUCAS MASCATELLO: My favorite thing I’ve seen in Interview was the Teletubby shoot.

Favorite Interview co-worker?

TURLEY: It has to be Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack. There’s no other answer. 

InDesign pet peeve?

TURLEY: I get a lot of those little flashing things that tell you to do A.I. now, which kind of drives me nuts. But I like InDesign. I think in InDesign. InDesign’s my friend. 

MASCATELLO: A locked layer. Or a locked spread that I don’t know about.

Favorite junk food?

TURLEY: I like a hamburger. What’s that new American place? Oh! Hamburger America. 

MASCATELLO: I like a hot dog. Just like a burnt hot dog.

Favorite living artist? 

TURLEY: I like Richard Prince.

MASCATELLO: I like Tino Sehgal and I like Richard Prince.

Worst print typo you ever made?

MASCATELLO: On one of the covers of the newspaper, we spelled “meditations” wrong and it was really big at the top of the paper. “Meditiations.”

JACK VHAY: It’s always the most obvious ones.

TURLEY: I forgot about that one. I’ll go with that one too.

A trend you hate? 

TURLEY: Well, it’s more of a problem in Europe, but girls get these huge tattoos on their thighs and it’s just not a good look. Do you know what I mean? The big thigh thing and it’s like a fucking butterfly or something. It just looks so fucking ugly, and it is just so fucking bizarre that anyone would want to do that. A cute little one on the back of the leg or something is good. I’m not dissing all leg tattoos. But I saw a lot of that this summer.

MASCATELLO: I can’t think of an answer that won’t make me sound old, so I’m just going to say I like them all.

What’s the best of civilization, and the worst of it? The paper, and then actual civilization. 

TURLEY: The worst is that I’m just so tired. I’m very old and tired and this has been a very long week and I feel very drained, and that’s all this newspaper’s fault. And in terms of the world… I don’t know. There’s quite a lot that’s bad in civilization at the moment. 

MASCATELLO: I think the best part is meeting people who really understand you, and friendship. That’s also the best part of the paper. The worst part is probably waiting. I hate waiting for anything. I hate being in line. I hate crowds.