In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

You have more patience than I did. What did you find sad about it? The fact that she wrote about people who were down and out and/or had addictions and/or other problems?

Yes.

It was interesting, but I found it sad. All those sad people.

[Jeff Wrangler]

If you skipped Elizabeth Kolbert's "Life Hacks" (Jan. 18), I recommend going back and reading it. I'm finding a lot more fun than the title and subtitle suggest. She got to bioengineer a strain of E. coli in her kitchen! ("The E. coli went into the fridge, next to the butter.") (I question the advisability of bioengineering a new strain of E. coli, but it's kind of fun to think you could do it in your kitchen.)

[Front-Ranger]

Last night I read the weekly Jill LePore article in TNY's latest issue. It was all about cyberhacking, and it was terrifying!

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm reading Luke Mogelson's article now.

[serious crayons]

I read Nathan Heller's Shouts & Murmurs last night. At first it was LOL-level hilarious. Which was interesting because I think of Nathan Heller as a light-toned but fairly serious writer (even now I'm still slogging my way through his Joan Didion piece). It was original and really funny.

But then about midway through it devolved, like most S&Ms, into such over-the-top absurdity it wasn't funny anymore. Maybe he felt he had to go that way because it's a sensitive topic (based on the politician who made headlines for praising Hitler in a speech) to show it was really, really not meant to be taken seriously. But a) I think anyone who reads the New Yorker would get it and b) that pattern, kind of subtly funny at first but steadily ratcheting up until it's ridiculous and less funny, is so typical of S&Ms.

I've never understood why a humor column in the New Yorker, which you'd think could access the funniest writers in the business, is so often less funny than your standard SNL sketch.




 

[Front-Ranger]

(I question the advisability of bioengineering a new strain of E. coli, but it's kind of fun to think you could do it in your kitchen.)

Yes, isn't it usually done in the bathroom?

[Front-Ranger]

... about midway through it devolved, like most S&Ms, into such over-the-top absurdity it wasn't funny anymore.

yes, that seems to be their formula.

I've never understood why a humor column in the New Yorker, which you'd think could access the funniest writers in the business, is so often less funny than your standard SNL sketch.

I actually have an idea for a S&M column that I'd like to run by everyone to see if y'all think it's worth developing.

[serious crayons]

I actually have an idea for a S&M column that I'd like to run by everyone to see if y'all think it's worth developing.

Let's hear (see) it!

I recently had an idea and actually did write it and submitted it to S&M. No response. Too subtle, maybe. 

I tried a couple of other humor publications -- McSweeney's and The Rumpus, heard nothing, and gave up.



 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Let's hear (see) it!

I recently had an idea and actually did write it and submitted it to S&M. No response. Too subtle, maybe. 

I tried a couple of other humor publications -- McSweeney's and The Rumpus, heard nothing, and gave up.

I guess I've told this story before. More than 40 years ago, now, I sent in something for those little column fillers. It was accepted, and I got, I think, ten dollars for it. My entry was a headline from the local hometown newspaper:

"Pot is the heart of winter cookery"

[serious crayons]

I guess I've told this story before. More than 40 years ago, now, I sent in something for those little column fillers. It was accepted, and I got, I think, ten dollars for it. My entry was a headline from the local hometown newspaper:

"Pot is the heart of winter cookery"

 

No, I don't remember you telling us that before! You could, with just a tiny stretch, put the New Yorker on your list of publications on your resume!