The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
Good grief. The heartbreak I've been going through in permaculture is at The New Yorker too!
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/business/media/new-yorker-union.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210614&instance_id=32954&nl=the-morning®i_id=91026593&segment_id=60633&te=1&user_id=8b5ad6a133ffcce0b9fda3ccfb15b213
Front-Ranger:
I'm hearing that working people are up in arms and saying "I quit!" a lot. In the past I've been supportive but now the shoe is on the other foot.
In the latest issue (June 21) I was reading about Peter Hessler's time in China watching them get ready for the Winter Olympics. It started out diaristically (spell check, that's a word; I looked it up) with many anecdotes about his inexperience in sports, especially skiing, and his time in Colorado with his family. The piling on of inconsequential details started irritating me and I looked ahead to see that the article went on for three more pages! But then Hessler made an abrupt turn into political matters and the article grew more interesting. You never know what you're going to get. I wish an editor had cut most of the beginning.
"The Coast of New Zealand" interested me because of our friend brian. But the story takes place in New York and Stamford, CT. It was interesting nevertheless, and one of those fiction pieces about the amorphous dissatisfaction women feel. Elizabeth Kolbert's article on ocean floor life was very good.
Jeff Wrangler:
I thought Adam Gopnik's article on New York reopening was a little strange. It started off promising, but then it went a little flat for me (comedy clubs, cabarets--except for noting the performer who treats Phil Collins and Foreigner songs as if they were written by the Gershwins or Jerome Kern). but the whole thing was redeemed for me by the observation that a discarded mask resembles a dead rat. :laugh:
serious crayons:
I skipped that one because I don't really like "New York is the most wonderful special city in the country" fetishizing.
I mean, I can see how people could think it is. And, to be fair, as the biggest and densest city and epicenter of a bunch of industries -- publishing, finance, theater, etc. -- it is exceptional. If this ran in a local publication, even the NYT, I'm sure it would seem charming. But despite the title and entertainment notices, the New Yorker is a national magazine.
Many residents of lots of cities think they live in the most wonderful special city in the country. San Francisco, Seattle, Boston ... I know firsthand that many residents feel that way about Minneapolis, Chicago and New Orleans. Especially New Orleans. I'm sure they do in Denver and Philadelphia. But if you don't live in those places, gets tiresome.
I'm sure there are people who think Omaha is the most wonderful special city in the country (well, maybe!).
Gopnik's article reminded me of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon.
Front-Ranger:
I have that framed and hanging on my wall!
TNY is an international magazine, but really, we have to expect a lot of articles about New York in a magazine called The New Yorker, don't we?
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