The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
I really enjoyed Zach Helfand's article on fact checking at TNY in the Sept. 1 and 8 issue.
Who knew? Ben McGrath and Jay McInerney were once fact checkers.
And I was particularly interested by this:
"I once took part in a closing meeting during which we debated, for ten minutes, whether Michael Schulman's use of the phrase 'assless chaps' was redundant and meaningless; technically speaking, all chaps are assless."
I just wish he had said what the final decision was.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 02, 2025, 08:19:52 pm ---Who knew? Ben McGrath and Jay McInerney were once fact checkers.
--- End quote ---
[*raises hand*] I didn't know that about Ben McGrath and in fact didn't know who he was. But I definitely knew that about Jay McInerny. I believe he mentions it in Bright Lights, Big City.
serious crayons:
I of course went immediately to the Minnesota State Fair foods article in the most recent issue. It was only OK -- seems like a lot more could have been said about the various foods available, their history or popularity or strangeness or whatever -- and a lot less said about the woman behind Sweet Martha's Cookies, which are very popular so of course did deserve a mention but not much more than that.
For example, they often come out with a new ice cream flavor; sweet corn was a hit about 10 years ago and is now available in some ice-cream shops. This year's was beer-flavored soft serve -- not sure that did as well. ::) The writer mentioned the "all the milk you can drink" booth now charges $3 -- I remember when it was all the milk you could drink for 25 cents (conveniently located near Sweet Martha's Cookies). A simple turkey sandwich provided by a turkey farmers association is apparently extremely delicious, though I've never tried it.
I used to have to write a cover feature every year for our paper's State Fair visitor's guide -- and the catch was, it had to be something I could write before the fair had actually opened. So one year it was most popular fair items (the turkey sandwich was one of them).Another year I wrote a history of pronto pups when they opened a big pronto-pup factory with windows all around it so you can watch them get made.
According to Google's AI, the Minnesota State Fair offers nearly 300 different food concessions providing over 1,600 menu items (some may be duplicates).
Jeff Wrangler:
I went directly to Patricia Marx's article. She's a pretty good read.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on September 15, 2025, 04:46:50 pm ---I of course went immediately to the Minnesota State Fair foods article in the most recent issue. It was only OK -- seems like a lot more could have been said about the various foods available, their history or popularity or strangeness or whatever -- and a lot less said about the woman behind Sweet Martha's Cookies, which are very popular so of course did deserve a mention but not much more than that.
--- End quote ---
What a waste of time and ink that article was! There was nothing to tell me how the MN state fair is different than any other state fair, foodwise. Even the author admitted that the chocolate chip cookies were unremarkable, the only thing noteworthy about them was the way they were packaged so that they overflowed their bucket. If it were me covering Minnesota food, I would have hunted down Sean Sherman and Winona LaDuke to see what unique indigenous foods they had come up with.
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