Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 2358280 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2730 on: April 16, 2021, 07:53:13 pm »
I went ahead to that article. So poignant, especially the drawing. Some of the skeletons reached out to each other. I'm definitely going to get the book. Thank you for pointing that out.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2731 on: April 16, 2021, 09:21:36 pm »
I went ahead to that article. So poignant, especially the drawing. Some of the skeletons reached out to each other. I'm definitely going to get the book. Thank you for pointing that out.

It really got to me that some of the skeletons were holding hands.

It's a really good book. I hope you enjoy it. I hadn't read it in 30 years or more, so reading it again was like reading it for the first time. I've ordered a hardback copy from Betterworld Books to replace my old paperback copy.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2732 on: April 17, 2021, 12:32:30 am »
Just checking in on my phone so I have more to say about this topic (not especially informed, just interested) but right now I wanted to note that I finally finished the Midnight Cowboy piece and noticed a weird thing. They made a common word — pretty sure it was underway but I don’t have it front of me — into two words. One of TNY’s weird quirks, or faulty editing? The line break came between them with no hyphen.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2733 on: April 22, 2021, 01:42:47 pm »
I finished the John McPhee (April 19) over lunch. He must have published something about his experiences aboard the ship Stella Lykes in TNY, because the ship's name sounds familiar.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2734 on: April 23, 2021, 09:17:37 pm »
I am enjoying Lauren Collins on French le tacos (looks plural but actually singular) (April 19).

I'm getting the feeling that The New Yorker  has a history of making the French look a little silly. I think we've seen this in other writers, and I think it goes all the way back to James Thurber. The collection My World--and Welcome To It contains an entire section of pieces that Thurber wrote in France in 1937 and 1938. The Acknowledgments at the beginning of the book notes that most of the stories were first published in TNY.

What has TNY got against France?   ???
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2735 on: April 25, 2021, 08:25:09 pm »
How odd is this?  ???  There is almost nothing in the April 26 & May 3 issue that interests me. I do, however, recommend Margaret Talbot on home ec. I found that article entertaining.  :)  I will be reading the fiction piece because it's Margaret Atwood.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2736 on: April 26, 2021, 10:59:40 am »
How odd is this?  ???  There is almost nothing in the April 26 & May 3 issue that interests me. I do, however, recommend Margaret Talbot on home ec. I found that article entertaining.  :)  I will be reading the fiction piece because it's Margaret Atwood.

I see a handful that might be OK, so I'll give them a chance but possibly not finish them. Same here on the Atwoord story.

Here's some news, if you haven't already heard: The reason Louis Menand has published a couple of 1960s-related things lately ("Midnight Cowboy" and an article about '60s radicals, e.g. Tom Hayden) is that he has a new book out covering those kinds of topics. Sounds like the book covers the Cold War years but is about cultural changes (rather than just geopolitics). I might read that!


[A coupled of minutes later] Uh-oh -- it's 700 pages! I haven't read the reviews thoroughly. If it sounds like something one could skip around in I'd be more likely to read it than a book that has to be read straight through from beginning to end. The arts and culture portions would interest me more than geopolitics of the Cold War itself. ...  Or maybe not, you never know.

Apparently he goes by "Luke," so I'll start calling him that, as if 30 years ago I had actually called him and we met for coffee and have been friends ever since.

I did actually call and talk to Pete Hamill while I was in NYC -- friend of a friend -- he was very nice and gave me some advice for freelancing there. When I called him, he happened to be on the cover of that month's issue of Poets & Writers,. But we didn't get coffee and I haven't talked to him since.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2737 on: April 26, 2021, 11:26:57 am »
Here's some news, if you haven't already heard: The reason Louis Menand has published a couple of 1960s-related things lately ("Midnight Cowboy" and an article about '60s radicals, e.g. Tom Hayden) is that he has a new book out covering those kinds of topics. Sounds like the book covers the Cold War years but is about cultural changes (rather than just geopolitics). I might read that!

Reminds me that I've noticed over the years that lots of articles in TNY are drawn from books written by the article's author. Lately I've been playing a game with myself, trying to spot the articles that I think will be a part of somebody's book.  ;D

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[A coupled of minutes later] Uh-oh -- it's 700 pages!

Another reminder of an experience I once had with a book when I was still pretty young--high school age maybe, I'm not sure anymore. Terrible that right now I can't remember the title or the author, but it was a history of the U.S. in the 20th century--or so much of it that had passed by at least the early 1960s. The book was enormous in hardback, something like two inches or more thick. I remember it as well written, and I enjoyed it, and then I got to the Kennedy years, and I stopped stock-still. Somehow I could not get myself push on any further to read the Kennedy portion. I never finished the book.

If I were named Louis, I'd want to go by Luke, too.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2021, 09:50:06 pm by Jeff Wrangler »
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2738 on: April 26, 2021, 08:56:55 pm »
Reminds me that I've noticed over the years that lots of articles in TNY are drawn from books written by the article's author. Lately I've been playing a game with myself, trying to spot the articles that I think will be a part of somebody's book.  ;D

Yeah, I actually suspected it about the Menand articles. Why, out of the blue, write about Midnight Cowboy unless it was connected to something larger?


Quote
Another reminder of an experience I once had with a book when I was still pretty young--high school age maybe, I'm not sure anymore. Terrible that right now I can't remember the title or the author, but it was a history of the U.S. in the 20th century--or so much of it that had passed by at least the early 1960s. The book was enormous in hardback, something like two inches or more thick. I remember it as well written, and I enjoyed it, and then I got to the Kennedy years, and I stopped stock-still. Somehow I could not get myself push on any further to read the Kennedy portion. I never finished the book.

If I were named Louis, I'd want to by by Luke, too.

Why couldn't you go through the Kennedy portion? Too depressing because you can remember it?

As for Louis, I would prefer Luke, too. With Louis, I never know how you're supposed to pronounce it. Like, why is Louis prounced Loo-ee when it's Louis CK or Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but then it's Robert Loo-is Stevenson?

 

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2739 on: April 26, 2021, 10:08:05 pm »
Why couldn't you go through the Kennedy portion? Too depressing because you can remember it?

To this day I have no idea. I just couldn't go any further in the book. I wish I could remember the title and the author. It was a good book.

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As for Louis, I would prefer Luke, too. With Louis, I never know how you're supposed to pronounce it. Like, why is Louis prounced Loo-ee when it's Louis CK or Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but then it's Robert Loo-is Stevenson?

I have in my library an old, old, edition of The History of England from the Accession of James II (it's five volumes!), by Thomas Babington Macaulay, who was an important English historian in the 19th century; he's probably mostly forgotten today, maybe even in England. James II became king in 1685. The contemporaneous king of France was Louis XIV. Macaulay calls him "Lewis."
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.