The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
He would probably be bewildered by that issue, but then he would be bewildered by how dark and strange our lives have become.
I went back to the August 31 issue, which came while I was in Europe so I never read it. Parts of "Wagner in Hollywood" by Alex Ross were good, and I really enjoyed a review of a feminist translation of Beowolf, by Ruth Franklin. The movie "Tesla" was reviewed (has anyone seen it?) and there was a long profile of Joe Biden by Evan Osnos. A very satisfying issue.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 16, 2021, 01:29:26 pm ---...the movie "Tesla" was reviewed (has anyone seen it?)
--- End quote ---
The reviews of "Tesla" say it's really terrible! I'm going to pass.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 14, 2021, 05:23:38 pm --- :o What would Mr. Shaw say?!
--- End quote ---
I just realized why this confused me: It's not Shaw. It's Shawn, William Shawn, who would no doubt be shaken, not stirred, over the magazine as it is today--and as the world is, too, for that matter.
(I was, like, Who's Mr. Shaw? ??? )
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 16, 2021, 09:42:25 pm ---I just realized why this confused me: It's not Shaw. It's Shawn, William Shawn, who would no doubt be shaken, not stirred, over the magazine as it is today--and as the world is, too, for that matter.
(I was, like, Who's Mr. Shaw? ??? )
--- End quote ---
Oops! You're a better New Yorkerologist than I am.
In the new issue with the half-mast flag, I started reading Rachel Kushner's memories of the eccentric characters she knew growing up in seedy neighborhoods of San Francisco. It starts out promising, but it's all brief descriptions of one person after another that, to me, got kind of boring.
And couldn't most of us tell similar stories about the eccentric people we've known? I grew up in a middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, not cool seedy San Francisco, so the New Yorker would not would be clamoring for my stories. But I could, for example, tell about my casual friend and coworker in a restaurant who got in a traffic altercation on his way to the Christmas party, stabbed a guy to death with a pocket knife (in self defense, he later said), attempted to bind the wounds with tape, called 911 and then continued on to the Christmas party as if nothing had happened.
See? I'm 1/20th of the way through an essay of the same kind. Could I find 19 more colorful characters to write about? Maybe not. But probably at least five or six.
So I quit that one and flipped to Jlil Lepore's piece about work. I've only just started it but so far it's excellent. I already knew about most of the work-related things she's said so far, but they don't get said enough. It's one of those book-review essays and one amazing aspect is how she manages to read that many books, plus write that much, plus teach history at Harvard.
Imagine having someone at a cocktail party ask what you do for a living and you could say, "Oh, I'm a history professor at Harvard and a staff writer at the New Yorker."
Front-Ranger:
Today TNY released a 12-minute video taken by Luke Mogelson of the January 6 insurrection. It's riveting!
He was incredibly brave, IMO. I could not have done that.
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