In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I gave up on the tech issue and passed it on to my usual coworker. Just too boring to me. Ben McGrath's article was at least one-third longer than it needed to be. I never went back to Groopman's article on 3-D printing.

Over lunch today I read the Dec. 1 article on fecal transplants. Didn't faze me a bit. From my work I was already familiar with the concept of using poo-poo transplants to treat Clostridium difficile infections.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Shame on Jill Lepore! Shame, shame, shame! And shame on The New Yorker's vaunted fact-checking!

Over lunch today I began to read Lepore's Dec. 1 article, "The Great Paper Caper," about the disappearance of the papers of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Near the end of the first page, I came to this statement:

The secrecy surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court derives from a policy set by the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, who wanted the Court to issue single, unanimous decisions and to conceal all evidence of disagreement.

John Marshall was not the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The first Chief Justice was John Jay, and as an American historian, Lepore should know that, and The New Yorker's fact checkers--if, indeed, the magazine still has any--should have caught that.

The mighty really have fallen. 

[serious crayons]

Over lunch today I read the Dec. 1 article on fecal transplants. Didn't faze me a bit. From my work I was already familiar with the concept of using poo-poo transplants to treat Clostridium difficile infections.

I was kind of kidding about that. I'm fascinated with fecal transplants and the possibilities of medical breakthroughs based on something that we know so little about that up until recent years our only response to bacteria in our bodies was to kill them.

About a year ago, I read that fat mice who received fecal transplants from skinny mice got skinny themselves. Now where can I find some skinny mice??

[Jeff Wrangler]

About a year ago, I read that fat mice who received fecal transplants from skinny mice got skinny themselves. Now where can I find some skinny mice??

Indeed! If you find any, let me know? 

Incidentally, I was so ... moved ... by that blooper in Jill Lepore's article that I actually e-mailed the magazine yesterday. Since I'm so far behind in my reading, I figured they'd already heard about it--probably multiple times--but I wrote anyway. Very promptly I got an e-mail back thanking me and letting me know that the error had already been corrected on the web site and in the archive.

But still. My God. ... 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I am way, WAY behind in my reading. It would not be accurate to say that I'm enjoying George Packer's Dec. 1 profile of Angela Merkel, but I am finding it interesting and informative. I mean, who is this leader of Germany with whom Dubya got overly familiar and thereby embarrassed the whole United States?

Still, I think Packer's article is at least twice as long as it need have been, if not even more than twice as long as it need have been. I guess The New Yorker no longer has anybody who knows how to edit.

[serious crayons]

Still, I think Packer's article is at least twice as long as it need have been, if not even more than twice as long as it need have been. I guess The New Yorker no longer has anybody who knows how to edit.

Right, because the New Yorker has never been known to run long boring overly detailed articles about topics that are, at most, mildly interesting.    [/sarcasm]

I swore off forcing myself through duty articles the time I found myself about halfway through what seemed to be about a 10,000 word behind-the-scenes piece about a supermarket. "On Thursday, the dairy suppliers drop off milk, butter, cheese, yogurt ..." (At that point, it's not even duty! Who needs to know that much about grocery stores?)

Controversial as Tina Brown's editorship was, one of the many improvements she made was to require articles to be shorter and/or on more intrinsically interesting topics. She may have gone a bit overboard at times -- probably erred on the side of too pop culture-y -- and I think David Remnick has turned the pendulum back a bit. But sloggish New Yorker articles are not a recent invention.

[Front-Ranger]

My thoughts exactly! javascript:void(0);

[Jeff Wrangler]

But sloggish New Yorker articles are not a recent invention.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought they were. Perhaps that didn't come out quite right because I had two other thoughts in my head as I was writing that. The first was the evident sorry state to which the magazine's much-vaunted fact checking has clearly fallen. The second was that when Mr. Shawn was the editor of The New Yorker, Mr. Shawn was the editor of The New Yorker. He wasn't pursuing his own writing while he was also the titular editor of the magazine.

And, yes, articles were shorter during the Tina Brown regime, and, where appropriate, that was a good thing--and the magazine could benefit from somebody who knows how to pare down an article like the Merkel profile. There doesn't seem to be anybody around right now who knows how to do that sort of thing--how to edit.

And, sarcasm or not, don't forget that what's only mildly interesting to you may be fascinating to someone else.    I do find the Merket profile, as I said, interesting and informative; it's just too long and repetitive.

[Jeff Wrangler]

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[serious crayons]

And, sarcasm or not, don't forget that what's only mildly interesting to you may be fascinating to someone else.    I do find the Merket profile, as I said, interesting and informative; it's just too long and repetitive.

Oh, I wouldn't criticize them for running a profile of a pioneering world leader. Or really any world leader.

But a supermarket? Believe me, the audience for that one was limited to people who work in supermarkets.