The Proposal Matrix

Alison Taffel is a self-described magazine nerd who’s obsessed with New York Magazine’s “Approval Matrix,” our “deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.” Last April her graphic-designer boyfriend, Marc Rabinowitz, stealthily replaced her magazine’s Matrix with his own, outlining some of the couple’s highbrow and lowbrow moments together, culminating with a proposal (their wedding is in June). Here, Marc breaks down his handiwork.

Photograph by Victor Prado