In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

I don't know if this will make you feel less inadequate, but, according to this source, he is 26.

http://www.ideafestival.com/Dynamic/Speakers/Show_Bio.cfm?ID=21023

Oh, that's much better. That makes him well over half my age (by about six months).

[Front-Ranger]

This week's issue is outstanding IMO. There is a Gladwellesque article about the success of children who learn to put off gratification, a lovely short story by Salmon Rushdie, and an excellent but long article about the economic crisis. Does it seem to you like there have been more books and articles written about the economic collapse than about 9-11, even though we're still in the thick of it? Another article profiles Fred Franzia, an Archie Bunker type who has shaken up the Napa Valley with Two Buck Chuck.

I wrote about this on May 16...see above.

[serious crayons]

I wrote about this on May 16...see above.

Oh, right! Sorry, I forgot.

I probably didn't notice because back on May 16 I wasn't as aware as I am now of this Jonah Lehrer guy. More from his website: in addition to writing for the New Yorker and a handful of other high-end publications, including contributing editorships at Wired, Scientific American Mind and NPR, he writes a blog, "The Frontal Cortex," that he updates with essay-length posts almost every day. Sickening!

His writing style is very Gladwellian, though I kind of think that, unlike Gladwell, he has actual science credentials rather than just journalistic ones (we know how much those are worth these days). On the other hand, Gladwell is really good at synthesizing different, unrelated situations and concepts to support an idea of his own invention, which I haven't seen Lehrer do, as yet. Gladwell's ideas sometimes seem a bit shaky, scientifically, but they're usually interesting.

I still have that issue handy, so now I am going to check out the other articles you recommended. Thanks, FRiend!

[Ellemeno]

In other New Yorker news, I stumbled across an online reference to an article in the May 18 issue by Jonah Lehrer, the brilliant, seemingly 17-year-old writer and science expert who has been published in a lot of places recently. Somehow I had missed it the first time around, though it's on a subject I've always found interesting: those late-'60s experiments in which a researcher offered little kids one marshmallow, then told the kids he was leaving the room for a few minutes and that they could have a second marshmallow if they did not eat the first one until the researcher returned. Apparently the kids who waited were found, years later, to be much more successful in school, careers, and the rest of life.

Apparently an effort is now underway to contact those same people, now in their 40s, and do more testing.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

Thanks, K.  That is very interesting.  I wonder if they'll use larger marshmallows for the adults.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Reading the June 22 issue at lunch today, I learned a good tip, courtesy of Simon Doonan: Once you pass age 50, start aging in French. It sounds better.

Je suis cinquante-et-un.    See? Doesn't that sound elegant? 

[Front-Ranger]

Reading the June 22 issue at lunch today, I learned a good tip, courtesy of Simon Doonan: Once you pass age 50, start aging in French. It sounds better.

Je suis cinquante-et-un.    See? Doesn't that sound elegant? 

How about fifty-something...would that be cinquante-chose? I like that!

My June 22 issue has gone missing...I'll have to hunt under the bed.

[serious crayons]

Cinquante est le nouveau trente.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Cinquante est le nouveau trente.

  That's just what I was thinking!

My French is so bad; are you sure it isn't la nouvelle? 

[serious crayons]

That's just what I was thinking!

My French is so bad; are you sure it isn't la nouvelle? 

Not according to Babelfish (yes, I have to cheat sometimes!  )

Actually, Babelfish put it in plural, "les nouveaux," but that tent don't look right to me.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Not according to Babelfish (yes, I have to cheat sometimes!  )

Actually, Babelfish put it in plural, "les nouveaux," but that tent don't look right to me.

Les cinquantes sont les nouveaux trentes?