Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1921076 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2210 on: October 24, 2019, 08:47:38 pm »
I concur about the Adam Driver article. Did you get far enough to figure out why they call him "the original man"?

No, and I figured if you're going to lure people with a phrase like that you'd better reveal the meaning in far less than three pages. To me, Adam Driver seems like kind of a pleasant, mildly interesting man. If he asked me out to dinner, I'd go. But original? Um, Okaayyy, how so? ...  I liked him a lot in BlackKKlansman, but that was just a good movie overall.

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IMO, the best thing about the article is the portrait of him. Such an interesting face!

Yes, kind of. I think that's one reason he's become a star. He's not exactly cute like the Chrises or Ryan Gosling or whoever, but he has an interesting and not unappealing face. Did you watch Girls? His character evolved from being kind of a distancing weirdo at first, as the article implies, but then gradually became a sympathetic (albeit less weird) figure.

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I liked "The avocado Whisperer" so far. The Shouts & Murmurs piece was, as usual, too nuanced for my taste.

I haven't gotten to either of those yet, but I'm looking forward to the Jerome Groopman piece on habits.



Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2211 on: October 24, 2019, 09:25:12 pm »
I haven't gotten to either of those yet, but I'm looking forward to the Jerome Groopman piece on habits.
Unfortunately, I found it disappointing.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2212 on: October 24, 2019, 09:25:42 pm »
I need to read "The Florida Shuffle" before I call Oct. 21 complete. I never read the "Shouts and Murmurs."
"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 #2213 on: October 24, 2019, 10:24:30 pm »
I never read the "Shouts and Murmurs."

I usually check it out. I find that if it's one of their usual writers who writes them all the time, they're inevitably boring. But the ones by first-time or lesser known writers are often clever or even funny. I shout and murmur about them.  ::)



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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2214 on: October 29, 2019, 11:51:09 am »
Since the latest issue was disappointing, I'm going back to earlier issues that I didn't finish. The July 8 & 15, 2019, issue has a couple of good articles: "Uncle Jim Called" by David Rabe is the best fiction I've read in a few years. It captures the mind of a writer, who oftentimes stands on the outside observing.

Also I read "Kipling in America" about the author's time in Brattleboro, Vermont, where his new wife was from. It reviews the new book If: The Untold Story of Kipling's American Years by Christopher Benfey. He sidesteps Kipling's questionable politics and beliefs and concentrates on his personal life, and the close relationship he had with Wolcott Balestier. They were so close that when Balestier died suddenly at age 29, Kipling married his sister. 
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2215 on: October 31, 2019, 02:00:07 pm »
I enjoyed the astrology article (Oct. 28), but it reminded me of a question I've had about astrology for some time. You need your birth time to calculate a chart, but what exactly is your birth time for astrological purposes?

If you are born in the U.S. while (most of) the nation is on Daylight Saving Time, is your birth time the clock time, or do you subtract an hour for the time on Standard Time? Is your birth time the time on Greenwich Mean Time? Have birth times been affected by the adoption of world-wide time zones?

The almanac I buy every year always has a page devoted to listing personal characteristics according to signs of the Zodiac. I certainly seem to be a classic Taurus.
"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 #2216 on: October 31, 2019, 05:48:43 pm »
Since the latest issue was disappointing, I'm going back to earlier issues that I didn't finish. The July 8 & 15, 2019, issue has a couple of good articles: "Uncle Jim Called" by David Rabe is the best fiction I've read in a few years. It captures the mind of a writer, who oftentimes stands on the outside observing.

I've been reading the Emmanuel Macron profile from July 1. It's slightly "duty," but Macron is a pretty interesting person -- much more than Adam Driver, that's for sure. And he's even attractive, like all world leaders except ours.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2217 on: November 01, 2019, 09:01:46 am »
I admire how the two of you can save your issues for months and then go back and read them. If I don't read one as soon as it arrives, it won't get read, because there is always something else to read.
"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 #2218 on: November 01, 2019, 09:11:22 am »
I admire how the two of you can save your issues for months and then go back and read them. If I don't read one as soon as it arrives, it won't get read, because there is always something else to read.

It's not so much "save" as "don't get around to throwing out because I keep thinking I'm going to read them and by the time I've read one or two pieces a new one arrives.

I almost never get through all the possible readable articles (not including ones I wouldn't read anyway) but until I do I don't throw them out. So they pile up. When I'm looking for something to read, I grab a random one out of the pile, which is how I got on the Macron profile.

When the pile gets too high, I go through and try to throw out as many as possible, or at least rip out an interesting article or two and throw the rest out. If thre are multiple interesting articles, I put those in a pile along with the ripped-out articles. Then I never get around to reading those!

I used to keep a few of the ripped-out articles in my purse at all times in case I got stuck waiting somewhere and needing to pass the time. But since I've had a smart phone, that tends to take priority and the articles sit in my purse until they get too wrinkled and worn to read.




 

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2219 on: November 02, 2019, 10:41:37 am »
To make matters even more nonlinear, I read forward this morning to the article about Jeremy Renner and the take-down of his app. There was a link to a piece on "Sad Affleck" from March of 2018. I read that too. A strange world we live in where people obsess about figures in popular culture.
"chewing gum and duct tape"