The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
Sort of like eating an Oreo, everyone has their own way of reading The New Yorker. I like to read in bed but I often read at the bathroom counter while drying my hair in the morning. Sometimes I put the latest issue in my computer bag, but I can't recall ever having the time to read it while I'm about during the day.
I start at the beginning and go straight through. I skip all of the political articles and some of the Middle East fiasco articles. If an issue seems particularly uninteresting, which is rare, I just start looking at the cartoons. I often skip over the fiction and come back to it later. I try to discipline myself to read the poems which are usually quite good.
Then, when the new issue comes, I drop the old one by my bed and start the new one. Otherwise, I'm not up on the latest news and happenings, which would be a disaster!! ::) The half read issues pile up until I lose my job or get sick. Right now, there are only two issues by my bed! I feel very efficient!!
I take old issues over to my mom's retirement home, where the residents look at them like they are made out of some poisonous material.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on February 21, 2012, 05:39:59 pm ---Me too, sort of. I start with the back page (if I remember to), then go to the "Shouts and Murmurs" and "Current Cinema," then to anyone whose byline is an immediate must-read -- Sedaris, Gladwell, Levy, Gawande, Lepore, etc. -- then I turn to to either the shortest or the most accessible piece (like, some light thing about American culture would come before reportage about fighting in Afghanistan -- what can I say? I'm a typical American airhead). If nothing jumps out, it goes onto The Stack.
--- End quote ---
That's actually pretty close to the way I read the magazine. Usually the movie-TV-theater-books stuff first, then the "by-lines." Actually, I usually skip "Shouts and Murmurs" and the back page. If nothing jumps out, I give it to my co-worker. ;D
serious crayons:
Mine is almost the opposite of how I grew up reading it. As a child, I read only the cartoons (and usually didn't get them -- sometimes I would ask my dad to "get them to me."). As a 20-somethng, I focused on the fiction (which I didn't always get, either -- still don't, to be frank) and the movie reviews, which were great -- say what you like, Pauline Kael and Penelope Giliatt were plenty accessible and interestingly analytical.
Now I rarely read either the fiction or the cartoons. I read the reviews only if they're not so hopldessly art housy that they would never make their way to Minneapolis of that, if they even did, I'd never have a chance of seeing them
Jeff Wrangler:
Wow. ... Your folks got The New Yorker when you were a kid? :o
Anyway, the Feb. 27 issue was in my mailbox when I got home today. Very uncharacteristically, I went right for the Thomas McGuane short story and read it. The reason really was the photograph accompanying the story. I can notice no indication where the picture was taken, but it so reminded me of Riverton that I read the story over my dinner (I'm sure the picture isn't actually of Riverton, but I don't know where it is).
The story has one very Brokeback line in it, which I won't spoil by revealing. ;D
This McGuane story makes me think of Annie Proulx with more standard punctuation. ;D
serious crayons:
I highly recommend Calvin Trillin's "Three Scenes Inspired by the Gingrich Campaign" in the Feb. 27 New Yorker. HI-larious, and pointed.
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