The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 03, 2017, 12:40:21 pm ---Based on the TOC, lots of interesting stuff in this issue. I've already read Adam Gopnik on Ulysses S. Grant. Next up for me will be the Atul Gawande. I haven't decided what comes after that, the Willa Cather fans or the Aung San Suu Kyi, though I will read both.
--- End quote ---
I know! That looks like such an interesting issue that I'm doing something I rarely do, which is paging through it in order, cover to cover, starting even with the event listings and then Talk of the Town!
serious crayons:
OT again, sorry, but I thought this was an interesting article (Vulture, not the New Yorker) about the Jimmy Kimmel effect/choir/audience issue.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/why-jimmy-kimmel-is-the-most-important-host-in-late-night.html
--- Quote ---Last night, it was personal again — Kimmel grew up in Las Vegas and reminded audiences that’s not a dream palace but a real city filled with real people. And he got very specific about Congress’s consistent failure to pass or even consider gun laws, saying bluntly of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan that “the NRA has their balls in a money clip. [They sent] their thoughts and prayers today — which is good. They should be praying. They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country.” This wasn’t Kimmel chasing the studio-audience political approval known as “clapter”; his audience leaned in, absolutely silent for more than seven minutes before finally applauding at the line, “No American needs an M16.” Kimmel concluded his remarks, his voice continuing to break, by saying, “I’m sorry for getting emotional. I’m not great with this kind of thing. But I think it’s important.”
Being “not great with this kind of thing” is exactly why Kimmel is, right this minute, the most important host in late-night TV, a designation he would no doubt shun. In March, I wrote a critical piece that rounded up how various hosts were handling the Trump administration. I had a lot to say about many of them, and little to say about Kimmel other than that he doesn’t “seem to have an immense appetite” for taking on the politics of the moment. I stand by that: He doesn’t. And his reluctance — he didn’t ask for this — is what makes him so essential. In politics, elected officials fear few things more that the swing voter, or the voter who goes from indifferent to galvanized. That does not describe Seth Meyers, who gets into politics with welcome precision and terrier avidity, or John Oliver, who makes a banquet of wonkish specifics. Kimmel doesn’t — or didn’t until this year. His awkwardness — his voice quavers when he’s angry or upset, he can ramble, and every word isn’t perfectly chosen — is the awkwardness of someone who is awakening to the fact that “politics” can’t be walled off in an area that’s separate from personal experience. Kimmel is why, in every State of the Union address and political stem-winder, elected officials trying to make a point resort to “Like the story of Mary Smith, from Ames City, Iowa, who …” In their clumsy, manipulative, PowerPoint-and-whiteboard way, they’re trying to teach you that “politics” matters when it happens to you.
--- End quote ---
Jeff Wrangler:
I just read Rachel Aviv's truly terrifying article about guardianship in the October 9 issue.
It makes me feel that I should try to find out what the law is in Pennsylvania, not so much for my father's sake as for my own sake.
Probably not a bad idea for all of us who are aging.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 05, 2017, 09:17:47 pm ---I just read Rachel Aviv's truly terrifying article about guardianship in the October 9 issue.
It makes me feel that I should try to find out what the law is in Pennsylvania, not so much for my father's sake as for my own sake.
Probably not a bad idea for all of us who are aging.
--- End quote ---
I haven't read it yet, but I will. I have two friends, brothers around my age, whose mother was poor all their lives. On Welfare. Lived in an old house with all kinds of structural and other problems. (Eventually one of the sons, a successful construction contractor, built her a new one.)
Finally, long after the kids had left the house, she inherited some money. Quite a bit -- enough to live in comfort the rest of her life. But she was ailing now, so she was appointed a guardian (I think by my friends' untrustworthy half-sister.) The guardian stole most of her money. They went to court, but weren't able to recover most if any of it.
My friends contacted the newspaper consumer advocate, who wrote an expose drawing attention to the problem, for what that was worth. I was living away for part of the time so wasn't aware of all the details. But just think, had I paid more attention I could have written about it and sold it to the New Yorker and now I'd be in Rachel Aviv's shoes. Not that it would have helped the mom, of course. :-\
I went to a little birthday party her sons held for her last year at her nursing home. She seemed a little out of it, but fairly alert. The nursing home isn't bad, as nursing homes go. She seemed cheerful, at last in the party setting. But she has led a hard life. :-\
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 06, 2017, 09:42:53 am ---I haven't read it yet, but I will. I have two friends, brothers around my age, whose mother was poor all their lives. On Welfare. Lived in an old house with all kinds of structural and other problems. (Eventually one of the sons, a successful construction contractor, built her a new one.)
Finally, long after the kids had left the house, she inherited some money. Quite a bit -- enough to live in comfort the rest of her life. But she was ailing now, so she was appointed a guardian (I think by my friends' untrustworthy half-sister.) The guardian stole most of her money. They went to court, but weren't able to recover most if any of it.
My friends contacted the newspaper consumer advocate, who wrote an expose drawing attention to the problem, for what that was worth. I was living away for part of the time so wasn't aware of all the details. But just think, had I paid more attention I could have written about it and sold it to the New Yorker and now I'd be in Rachel Aviv's shoes. Not that it would have helped the mom, of course. :-\
I went to a little birthday party her sons held for her last year at her nursing home. She seemed a little out of it, but fairly alert. The nursing home isn't bad, as nursing homes go. She seemed cheerful, at last in the party setting. But she has led a hard life. :-\
--- End quote ---
Um. ... I know this is going to spoil some of it, but that's pretty much the situation that Aviv's article is about. I won't go into any more details.
You could have sold that article to TNY!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version