In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I don't read the theater reviews.

It's not as though I actually expect to get up to New York to see anything, but I always read them as part of my way of keeping "culturally current"--which, you could say, is one reason why I read The New Yorker in the first place.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The Feb. 3 article about abortion predator Steven Brigham is disturbing, alarming, and saddening.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Oooo, I imagine the Downton Abbey fans aren't going to like Emily Nussbaum's reference to their darling show in her Feb. 10 review of The Fosters: "Beneath the bright surfaces, it explores far more sophisticated themes than, say, 'Downton Abbey.'"

[Jeff Wrangler]

Over lunch today I finished Kelefa Sanneh article in the anniversary issue (Feb. 17 and 24) about a very interesting character named Carl Van Vechten. I'm sure I've come across Van Vechten's name once or twice before, but I knew nothing about him. Turns out he was quite involved, in more ways than one,    with figures of the Harlem Renaissance. I admit I also don't really know much in detail about the Harlem Renaissance, either, so it came as a surprise to me that Sanneh quotes no less a respected scholar than Henry Louis Gates that the Harlem Renaissance was "surely as gay as it was black."

Sanneh's article is accompanied by some amazing color photographs taken by Van Vechten of Billie Holiday, James Earl Jones (so young looking in 1961 that I would not have recognized him), James Baldwin, and Mahalia Jackson.

[Jeff Wrangler]

At lunch today I read the Feb. 17--24 article by Roger Angell, age 93. I rather wish I hadn't as I found it quite depressing.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The March 10 issue arrived today, and over supper tonight I plunged right into Nicholas Lemann's article about revising the common understanding of the Kittie Genovese murder, which occurred 50 years ago this year. Among other things, I've learned that Kittie Genovese was lesbian.

[serious crayons]

The March 10 issue arrived today, and over supper tonight I plunged right into Nicholas Lemann's article about revising the common understanding of the Kittie Genovese murder, which occurred 50 years ago this year. Among other things, I've learned that Kittie Genovese was lesbian.

I'm reading that one and haven't reached that part yet. I'm also looking forward to the Roz Chast thing.

Meanwhile, I started a duty article from the last issue, about a enormously ambitious energy project in France that involves most of the countries in the world, is unfathomably expensive, and has the goal of creating, essentially, a small sun -- a thing as hot as the center of the sun, inside a core as cold as deep space. Sounds very scary and the article is well written and fascinating to a point, but like so many duty articles gives way more detail than I feel I really need to have about this project.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm reading that one and haven't reached that part yet. I'm also looking forward to the Roz Chast thing.

Meanwhile, I started a duty article from the last issue, about a enormously ambitious energy project in France that involves most of the countries in the world, is unfathomably expensive, and has the goal of creating, essentially, a small sun -- a thing as hot as the center of the sun, inside a core as cold as deep space. Sounds very scary and the article is well written and fascinating to a point, but like so many duty articles gives way more detail than I feel I really need to have about this project.

I'm looking forward to the Roz Chast thing, too.

Meanwhile, thanks to the two-week anniversary issue, I'm actually way behind as usual. I'm guessing you're referring to "Star in a Bottle" in the March 3 issue? The only article I've finished in that issue is Anthony Lane's movie review; right now I'm in the midst of David Remnick's article on Vladimir Putin and the Sochi Olympics. Thanks to Remnick I now know more about Putin than I did before. I knew he was former KGB and was mayor of St. Petersburg, but that was about it.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Meanwhile, I started a duty article from the last issue, about a enormously ambitious energy project in France that involves most of the countries in the world, is unfathomably expensive, and has the goal of creating, essentially, a small sun -- a thing as hot as the center of the sun, inside a core as cold as deep space. Sounds very scary and the article is well written and fascinating to a point, but like so many duty articles gives way more detail than I feel I really need to have about this project.

I'm reading that article now (I haven't had a lot of lunchtime reading time lately). Like so many of its type in The New Yorker, it's way too long, but I'm not finding it a "duty." Rather, with the immediate introduction of exotic, made-up words like tokamak, I'm finding it more than a little like reading a syfy fiction story. I'm enjoying it. Maybe it's a guy thing, although I'm not much of a syfy reader.

[serious crayons]

Maybe it's a guy thing, although I'm not much of a syfy reader.

I can tell, because if you're talking about the short term for "science fiction," it's actually spelled sci fi.   

The sci fi stuff is interesting, but I could do with a lot less detail about all the international bureaucracy. Just tell me the thing has become a giant scary disastrous bureaucratic boondoggle; I don't need to know who sent what memo to whom seventeen years ago. Maybe it all gets cleared up later on -- I'm still struggling with it, about halfway through.

It could make a good movie, though!