The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
Really enjoyed "London Calling" about the BBC, by Sam Knight in the April 18 issue. He tosses off pithy witticisms, one liners, and hilarities, sometimes all in the same sentence. Here is his take on Norman Tebbit, a minister in the Thatcher administration: "Norman Tebbit, her minister and loyal Rottweiler, once described it as that 'insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, na?ve, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the Sixties.'" Looking him up, I found that I've liked other articles by him as well.
In contrast, the preceding article by Elizabeth Kolbert about rights for trees, lakes, and places has such a plodding tone that it was hard to get through it. I know she has a lot of awards and accolades, but I need better writing. And the endangered natural features that she writes about need it too.
Jeff Wrangler:
I am reading Luke Mogelson on conditions in Ukraine (May 9). It's chilling, absolutely chilling. Russian atrocities are beyond belief.
And yet, reading part of the article this afternoon, I found myself thinking, Don't fool yourself that it can't happen here.
Front-Ranger:
Somehow I missed that one so I fished that issue out of the recycling and put it back on my reading table.
In the latest issue (May 16) the fiction "Face in the Mirror" is really good. Not Prouxian, but very chilling and spare.
Finished up the article "Stir Crazy" by Ian Frazier in the April 11 issue. He writes about his own cabin fever experience, historical and literary ones, and the possible Putin cabin fever that may have led to the aggression against Ukraine. Very interesting.
Jeff Wrangler:
Over lunch today I finished the article about Edna St. Vincent Millay (May 16). I'm not into poetry, so all I knew of her was the quatrain everyone knows: "My candle burns at both ends," etc. Apparently, however, she wrote some pretty racy stuff. In one poem she described a man as having a "body of flame and steel."
Wow!
Jeff Wrangler:
I am again two weeks behind in reading my magazines because for a week I was devoting my reading time to a gay Science Fiction novel.
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