In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I have to admit I'm reading and enjoying the article about the Dubai princesses (May 8 ). That is, their story is horrifying, but I'm enjoying reading it.

[serious crayons]

Aaauuuggghhh! On your recommendation I started the article last night. I going to continue reading it and hope to be able to finish it. I'm usually open to horrifying stories of misogyny but this one is particularly brutal. Whenever I hear about stuff like this I'm chilled thinking not of just the main narrative but of all the many thousands of years and millions or maybe billions of women enduring horrible treatment, and although nowadays it's more common in Middle Eastern cultures, it has certainly historically been an element, and still is to some extent, of Western societies as well.

P.S. Curious about my "millions or maybe billions" above, I guess it should have been obvious, but I asked Google how many humans had ever lived on the earth. Google said 117 billion, so somewhere around 58.5 billion women. Not all brutalized, of course, and it's probably impossible to get even a rough count based on modern tendencies. But "billions" was obviously correct.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I hope I'll have some time later today to write some more about what I consider TNY's curious use of capitalization with direct quotations, with examples from the Dubai princesses article. 

There is so much more in that issue that I want to read, such as the articles about Paul Schrader, Jackie Kennedy, and Waco.

[Front-Ranger]

Today I read for the second time Rebecca Mead's review of "Spare" by Prince Harry and J. R. Moehringer, the ghostwriter. She was struck by the many parallels to the play Hamlet in the book and has admiration for Moehringer.

Speak of the devil. There is an article "The Ghostwriter" by Moehringer in the latest issue that arrived today. 

[serious crayons]

Speak of the devil. There is an article "The Ghostwriter" by Moehringer in the latest issue that arrived today.

Can't wait to read it! Most of the articles in the ToC looked worth checking into.

Meanwhile, I was going through old TNYs and came across a funny Shouts & Murmurs. I'd read it before, but it was worth rereading: it's in the voice of a kid in school writing a profile of his great-grandfather, back in his youth on earth, before the earth was destroyed by the Climate Apocalypse (and some humans escaped to a different planet). It's genuinely funny and also makes a good point, and not the scoldy one about climate change you might imagine. Writer was Simon Rich who, according to TNY's bio, is a comedian, an author and has written a handful of other things for TNY, including that S&M in which God talked like a regular parent. (But not, as I was hoping, the one about the guy planning to leave MAGAland; wish I could remember enough about that one to google it.)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/05/when-i-was-a-boy-back-before-earth-got-too-hot-to-live-on

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/and-the-lord-said-youve-got-a-time-out-mister

[Jeff Wrangler]

From the review of Beef. I need to look up the meanings of woo-woo and bougie. 

Forgot to do that.

I hope I'll have some time later today to write some more about what I consider TNY's curious use of capitalization with direct quotations, with examples from the Dubai princesses article. 

Forgot to do that.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Re: "Shouts and Murmurs":

I need to remember to go through my desk. Decades ago, there was something that I'm sure must have been in "Shouts and Murmurs," and I'm sure it must have been by Rudnick, about "the gay mafia." Some fool made a crack about there being a "gay mafia," and Rudnick ran with it for a whole page. It was very funny--again, at least to a gay man. I'm sure I saved it.

[serious crayons]

Re: "Shouts and Murmurs":

I need to remember to go through my desk. Decades ago, there was something that I'm sure must have been in "Shouts and Murmurs," and I'm sure it must have been by Rudnick, about "the gay mafia." Some fool made a crack about there being a "gay mafia," and Rudnick ran with it for a whole page. It was very funny--again, at least to a gay man. I'm sure I saved it.

That's probably the way I've been amused by things that make fun of liberals. One time a crazy radio personality tried to spread a rumor that progressives were going to march in downtown New York the next day. The responses on Twitter were hilarious. Stuff like, "Could we reroute it so it goes past the Midtown Starbucks? I've got a meeting there at noon." "I'll join you right after my yoga class." But the funniest was "Until that check from Soros hits my mailbox, I don't go anywhere."

[Jeff Wrangler]

That's probably the way I've been amused by things that make fun of liberals. One time a crazy radio personality tried to spread a rumor that progressives were going to march in downtown New York the next day. The responses on Twitter were hilarious. Stuff like, "Could we reroute it so it goes past the Midtown Starbucks? I've got a meeting there at noon." "I'll join you right after my yoga class." But the funniest was "Until that check from Soros hits my mailbox, I don't go anywhere."

 

[Front-Ranger]

That reminds me of the time I listened to a funny satire of a woman buzzing around town in her Prius listening to NPR, on NPR while I was driving in my Prius.

The ghostwriter article was good but it was missing information about who came up with the Hamlet references, Harry or Moehringer. But based on the other literary references in it, I would guess it was the ghostwriter.