In the New Yorker...

[Front-Ranger]

Sort of like eating an Oreo, everyone has their own way of reading The New Yorker. I like to read in bed but I often read at the bathroom counter while drying my hair in the morning. Sometimes I put the latest issue in my computer bag, but I can't recall ever having the time to read it while I'm about during the day.

I start at the beginning and go straight through. I skip all of the political articles and some of the Middle East fiasco articles. If an issue seems particularly uninteresting, which is rare, I just start looking at the cartoons. I often skip over the fiction and come back to it later. I try to discipline myself to read the poems which are usually quite good.

Then, when the new issue comes, I drop the old one by my bed and start the new one. Otherwise, I'm not up on the latest news and happenings, which would be a disaster!!  The half read issues pile up until I lose my job or get sick. Right now, there are only two issues by my bed! I feel very efficient!!

I take old issues over to my mom's retirement home, where the residents look at them like they are made out of some poisonous material.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Me too, sort of. I start with the back page (if I remember to), then go to the "Shouts and Murmurs" and "Current Cinema," then to anyone whose byline is an immediate must-read -- Sedaris, Gladwell, Levy, Gawande, Lepore, etc. -- then I turn to to either the shortest or the most accessible piece (like, some light thing about American culture would come before reportage about fighting in Afghanistan -- what can I say? I'm a typical American airhead). If nothing jumps out, it goes onto The Stack.

That's actually pretty close to the way I read the magazine. Usually the movie-TV-theater-books stuff first, then the "by-lines." Actually, I usually skip "Shouts and Murmurs" and the back page. If nothing jumps out, I give it to my co-worker. 

[serious crayons]

Mine is almost the opposite of  how I grew up reading it. As a child, I read only the cartoons (and usually didn't get them -- sometimes I would ask my dad to "get them to me."). As a 20-somethng, I focused on the fiction (which I didn't always get, either -- still don't, to be frank) and the movie reviews, which were great -- say what you like, Pauline Kael and Penelope Giliatt were plenty accessible and interestingly analytical.

Now I rarely read either the fiction or the cartoons. I read the reviews only if they're not so hopldessly art housy that they would never make their way to Minneapolis of that, if they even did, I'd never have a chance of seeing them

[Jeff Wrangler]

Wow. ... Your folks got The New Yorker when you were a kid? 

Anyway, the Feb. 27 issue was in my mailbox when I got home today. Very uncharacteristically, I went right for the Thomas McGuane short story and read it. The reason really was the photograph accompanying the story. I can notice no indication where the picture was taken, but it so reminded me of Riverton that I read the story over my dinner (I'm sure the picture isn't actually of Riverton, but I don't know where it is).

The story has one very Brokeback line in it, which I won't spoil by revealing. 

This McGuane story makes me think of Annie Proulx with more standard punctuation. 

[serious crayons]

I highly recommend Calvin Trillin's "Three Scenes Inspired by the Gingrich Campaign" in the Feb. 27 New Yorker. HI-larious, and pointed.

[Jeff Wrangler]

In the March 5 issue I went directly to Adam Gopnik's article on Elaine Pagels' new book on the Biblical book of Revelations.

Pagels' books on Scripture, canonical or otherwise, are books I know I'd enjoy reading and ought to read, but somehow I never get around to looking for them. 

[serious crayons]

In the March 5 issue I went directly to Adam Gopnik's article on Elaine Pagels' new book on the Biblical book of Revelations.

Pagels' books on Scripture, canonical or otherwise, are books I know I'd enjoy reading and ought to read, but somehow I never get around to looking for them. 

Yes, she seems really fascinating.

[Front-Ranger]

In the March 5 issue I went directly to Adam Gopnik's article on Elaine Pagels' new book on the Biblical book of Revelations.

Heard her on Fresh Air yesterday; it was really interesting. I liked the part about the monster with 7 heads named 666 referring to the Roman empire, and the theory that some of the writing was politically motivated.

In the same issue, I tried to read Nick Paumgarten's article about the World Economic Congress in Davos, Switzerland. I was disappointed that he didn't cover any of the subjects of the sessions. There are hundreds of sessions but he seemed to imply that attendees are too blase to actually pay attention to them. I was also disappointed that he didn't mention that the governor of my state, John Hickenlooper, was there. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

In the same issue, I tried to read Nick Paumgarten's article about the World Economic Congress in Davos, Switzerland. I was disappointed that he didn't cover any of the subjects of the sessions. There are hundreds of sessions but he seemed to imply that attendees are too blase to actually pay attention to them. I was also disappointed that he didn't mention that the governor of my state, John Hickenlooper, was there. 

I didn't get to that article yet. I have to admit that the subject doesn't exactly grab me. OTOH, the "next issue" (March 12?--I don't have it here in front of me) has arrived, and I went immediately to the article about the book about Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case that overturned the decision on the case from Georgia and effectively made anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional. I was pleased to note that in the Lawrence case, former Madam Justice O'Connor issued a Concurring Opinion based on the reasoning that I've said all along will eventually legalize same-gender marriage: equal protection under the law.

Now, which justice was it (Stevens, maybe?) who actually said to his gay clerk that he didn't think he knew any gay people? 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I rarely read the fiction in The New Yorker, but I always seem to read Alice Munro's stories (March 5). I rarely get the "punch line," however. I like her stories, though.

Her descriptions of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada puzzle me. Maybe things are different up North. In the U.S., "Church of the Hosannas" does not sound like a name for an Anglican/Episcopal church; it sounds more like a store-front church of some Baptist variety. And her description of members of the United Church feeling that you don't have to turn up every Sunday and can take a drink now and then sounds more like an Anglican attitude to me. When my grandparents, who were Methodists (yes, they really were  ) were touring western Canada in 1966, they went on Sundays to United Church services. Methodists, of course, do think that you should turn up every Sunday, and drinking is a sin. Or at least they used to think that way.