Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1924661 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #100 on: June 28, 2009, 02:20:39 pm »

Well, almost elegant.  In French you don't be an age, you have an age.  So it would be "J'ai cinquante-et-un ans."

Whether I have it or I am it, I don't really want it! But that's just an arbitrary place on the wheel of life, sigh.
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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #101 on: June 30, 2009, 08:27:55 am »




Just in case you missed this in the June 22 issue:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/06/22/090622sh_shouts_rudnick?currentPage=all


Shouts & Murmurs
True Story
by Paul Rudnick

June 22, 2009

My name is Mike Henkle, and I’m a devout Mormon from Provo, Utah. I know that some of my convictions may upset more liberal people, but I’m only asking you to keep an open mind. Because just this past week something happened to my family and me, and it’s something that all of us, on each side of the political divide, need to think about.

Beth and I have been married for almost eighteen years, and we’ve got three great kids, which, in Mormon terms, means we’re barren. But give us time. Last week, for a sort of second honeymoon, we loaded the whole family into our Jeep Wagoneer and headed East, to Massachusetts, to visit my brother Steve and his beautiful wife, Jen. I didn’t realize at the time that Massachusetts is a state where gay marriage is now legal.

So we’re driving through upstate New York, and getting closer to Massachusetts, and we’re all singing one of our favorite travel hymns, “Jesus Is Under the Hood.” And, as we’re singing, my kids are also trying to spot license plates from different states, and seven-year-old Ethan shouts, “I see a new one! Look, Daddy, on that license plate it says ‘Massachusetts—The Anal Sex State’!”

“Mike?” my wife said.

“I see it, too!” four-year-old Ruth cried, and then she asked, “Daddy, what’s anal sex?”

“Is it something the Pilgrims brought over from England?” Ethan asked.

I don’t like to lie to my children, so I replied, “Yes, it is.”

“Like scurvy,” Beth said.

As we crossed the border into Massachusetts, everything looked just beautiful, with all the quaintness of picture-postcard New England. We passed a small town square, and I noticed that a work crew was removing a life-size bronze statue of Paul Revere, which a plaque said had been erected in 1820. The workmen were replacing Paul Revere with a more contemporary statue, a tall figure in a simple black suit, who I thought was Abraham Lincoln.

“Look at that, kids,” I said, pointing to the statue. “There’s Lincoln, one of our greatest Presidents.”

“That’s not Lincoln,” Beth said, as we drove closer to the statue. “It’s Rachel Maddow.”

I was beginning to feel apprehensive. We stopped at a roadside stand to buy some cider and apples as a gift for my brother and his family. Amid the colorful bins of dried corn and shelves full of maple syrup was a hand-lettered sign reading “50% Gay Discount.” When I went to pay for our bushel basket of wholesome fare, I asked the cashier if I’d really pay only half price if I were gay.

“Of course,” she replied. “It’s the law.”

My wife looked at me. “Pay for it, Sharon,” she told me.

“Sharon?” I said.

“We’ve been together for eighteen years now,” Beth told the cashier, “although some people think we look more like sisters.”

“Why did you do that?” I asked Beth, as we loaded the produce into our trunk.

“It’s a big discount.”

“But I don’t look like a woman,” I protested. “Do I?”

“Should we get some more beets?” Beth asked.

Now I was really confused. As we pulled into Steve and Jen’s driveway, I saw that their mailbox was painted with rainbow stripes. “Steve, what’s that all about?” I asked, as we shook hands.

“If I didn’t do that, we’d never get any mail,” he explained. “The mail carrier would just throw it into the street.”

As I admired Steve’s new carport, many happy-looking same-sex couples walked by, some of them holding hands.

“Don’t say anything,” Steve whispered. “Just smile and wave.”

“What would happen if I didn’t?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “there’s this perfectly nice couple who live next door to us, Ted and Eric. But last week I mistakenly asked Ted about his partner, and Ted got a little chilly and said, ‘He’s not my partner; he’s my husband.’ And that night our house got egged.”

“Oh, my Lord,” I said.

“Smile and wave,” Steve said, as five more gay couples, all pushing strollers, moved along the sidewalk. “And when you look at their kids,” he cautioned me, “be careful, because sometimes they’re adopted, or from donor sperm. So don’t say, ‘Gee, your baby looks just like you.’ Instead, say, ‘My, what a wonderful nontraditional family, and what a real baby.’ ”

Once we were inside, Steve and Jen pulled all the curtains shut.

“Sometimes we get gawkers,” Jen said. “They don’t see many straight people around here.”

“This sweet couple at the mall, Amber and Jessalyn, they took our picture,” Steve said. “They said they were going to e-mail it to Amber’s mom in Brookline, because she collects pictures of straight people. Sometimes she puts them on mugs.”

I was growing seriously disturbed. “Come on,” I told everyone. “We’d better get to church.”

We all piled into Steve’s minivan, and as we rolled through town we passed a stately Federal-style brick building with a sign reading “Gaychovia.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Since the bailout,” Steve said, “most of the banks here went gay.”

“And look at the money,” Jen said, showing us the coins in her change purse. Barney Frank’s profile was on the quarter, and Neil Patrick Harris was on the dime.

“Hon, I’ll need some singles for the collection plate,” Jen told Steve.

“Here you go,” Steve said, as he passed Jen some bills. “I can give you five Ellens for a Milk.”

Once we were settled into the pews of the local Mormon church, I breathed a whole lot easier.

“See,” I said to my kids, “it’s just like home.”

“Please open your hymnals,” said the minister, a genial, ruddy-cheeked fellow, who was clearly filled with the Holy Spirit. “We’ll begin today’s service with selections from ‘Billy Elliot.’ ” ♦
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #102 on: July 27, 2009, 10:29:27 pm »
Kind of confusing.  To think I paid a couple of Ellens for my issue.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #103 on: August 08, 2009, 11:02:47 am »
A very interesting article about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane in this week's issue. I read it late last night even though I was exhausted after reading a long piece about travels in Siberia. Then, this morning, I was moving books so that my mother would have more room, and I found Home Over Saturday by Rose Wilder Lane, sent to me by a true friend.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #104 on: August 09, 2009, 02:26:12 am »
A very interesting article about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane in this week's issue. I read it late last night even though I was exhausted after reading a long piece about travels in Siberia. Then, this morning, I was moving books so that my mother would have more room, and I found Home Over Saturday by Rose Wilder Lane, sent to me by a true friend.


I've been reading that article today.  Mother and daughter sure were different.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #105 on: September 20, 2009, 08:40:14 pm »
Over my dinner last night, I was reading the article in the Sept. 21 issue about culture in the decade of the Great Depression, and I came across this statement: "Steinbeck reacted [to the human misery of the 1930s] by describing archetypal characters in a deliberately plain style, almost as if he were writing myth rather than literature."

Tell you what, that statement made me think immediately of Annie Proulx. Maybe I should read some Steinbeck. (Somehow I made it through high school and college without ever having to read The Grapes of Wrath.)
"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 Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #106 on: September 20, 2009, 09:44:37 pm »
The first paragraph of The Grapes of Wrath is really well written. I also enjoyed Of Mice and Men and To A God Unknown.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #107 on: September 21, 2009, 09:00:05 am »
The first paragraph of The Grapes of Wrath is really well written.

What about the rest of the book?  ;)  ;D
"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 Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #108 on: September 26, 2009, 01:25:31 am »
It was basically a repetition on the theme.

Did ennione read "The It Bird" by Susan Orlean? I am proud to be on the bleeding edge of fashion again, as I venture out to feed and be pecked by my new pets, Jose and Paco!!

I can't post a picture of them right now because it's dark, and they're in their henhouse.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #109 on: September 30, 2009, 01:51:25 pm »
Did ennione read "The It Bird" by Susan Orlean? I am proud to be on the bleeding edge of fashion again, as I venture out to feed and be pecked by my new pets, Jose and Paco!!

I just read that over lunch today.  ;D  I sure hope you're on the cutting edge, rather than the bleeding edge. ...  8)

The other piece in the Sept. 28 issue that I read over lunch today was Adam Gopnik's article on writings about the Dreyfus affair. I was hauled up short over my cider by the following:

"In any modernized country, the backward-looking party will always tend toward resentment and grievance. ... When the conservative party comes to see itself as unfairly marginalized, it becomes a party of pure reaction."

Sound 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.