In the New Yorker...

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An interesting comment, to me, anyway. But one that will never appear in The New Yorker! Perhaps we should submit something and widen their horizons!

Sorry ... I guess I did go into a little more detail about my lawnmower journey than most people needed, especially since many of us don't have lawns.   

After finishing the fiction issue, I'm struck by how the different articles and works of fiction seem to tie in, balance, and riff off each other. It seems like this issue was given a lot of thought.

I've read one or two of the short takes and am midway through Emma Cline's Harvey Weinstein story. You wonder how a novelist would be able to accurately depict his life from his own perspective, but so far it seems to work. So now I'm more interested in reading her novel, The Girls, which is fiction from the perspective of women in the Manson family.

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Next issue's cover:

[serious crayons]

I've read one or two of the short takes and am midway through Emma Cline's Harvey Weinstein story. You wonder how a novelist would be able to accurately depict his life from his own perspective, but so far it seems to work. So now I'm more interested in reading her novel, The Girls, which is fiction from the perspective of women in the Manson family.

I finally finished the Harvey story -- really liked it. I'm going to download a free sample of The Girls on my Kindle and then possibly read the whole book. I hardly ever read novels, but lately I've been in the mood for one. Maybe because no nonfiction seems to apply to reality anymore. 

I'm maybe midway through Hemingway's contribution. Not liking it so far, but I've never been a big Hemingway fan, except for Hills Like White Elephants. I might have liked a couple of his short stories in college, but I don't remember them.

I think of Hemingway and Fitzgerald as being like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and I'm a much bigger Fitzgerald fan. (Although in that analogy, Fitgerald is probably the Beatles, and I prefer the Stones.)

[Front-Ranger]

I'm a little surprised you don't like Hemingway because he was a journalist.

But his stories and novels are mostly about himself and that can get tiresome, plus he had some sexist notions that wouldn't fly today.

I found his novel Across the River and Into the Trees instrumental in helping me understand my father and others of his generation.

[serious crayons]

I'm a little surprised you don't like Hemingway because he was a journalist.

There are plenty of journalists I don't like! 

No, I probably should read one of his novels to say for sure. I've only read his short stories. I also didn't like that he dissed F. Scott, whose writing I loved before I read his. I can see that his unadorned style was probably novel and influential in his time. I do like Raymond Carver's version of that style.

I lived in Sun Valley, ID, for a couple of summers in college. Hemingway had lived there for a while and his family still did. They included Margaux Hemingway, who also killed herself, and Mariel Hemingway, who starred as Woody Allen's underage girlfriend in Manhattan. Not long ago, I saw that somebody had made a film about how Mariel leads this ultra-healthy lifestyle in an attempt to avoid her family's tragic suicidal legacy. I looked unsuccessfully for the video.

[Jeff Wrangler]

When I was a kid my mother gave me a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. I didn't get it. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Next issue's cover:

That one arrived in my mailbox today.

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That one arrived in my mailbox today.

I still don't have it but I think lately they typically come on Fridays or Saturdays (used to be Tuesdays).

[serious crayons]

Well, I just saw the postal carrier walk right past my house, so I won't be getting my New Yorker or any of the usual exciting bills and real estate agents' pitches and cards with home-repair coupons. Or even that weekly packet of something -- I guess it's ads and coupons but I can't say for sure because I never so much as glance at it before throwing it in the recycling.

Meanwhile, however, I found this, which identifies all the people pictured and says what happened to them. It was interesting although I thought some of the descriptions of their deaths were too brief.
 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm feeling uneasy about my job right now, so this was probably not the best time to have read Nathan Heller on homelessness and Ariel Levy on the novelist Lionel Shriver (in particular, the first three paragraphs). (June 1 issue)