Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1921502 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1300 on: October 27, 2015, 05:36:34 pm »
So. Gloria Steinem was Christian Bale's stepmother (Oct. 19). I didn't know that.

Me neither! But then, I learned only a few months ago that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' dad is one of the world's richest people.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1301 on: October 27, 2015, 08:59:06 pm »
Me neither! But then, I learned only a few months ago that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' dad is one of the world's richest people.

I didn't know that!
"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 #1302 on: October 28, 2015, 01:04:27 pm »
Maybe because of all the "procedurals" that I watch on TV, I got a kick out of the cartoon on page 31 (Oct. 26) with the caption, "Maybe it's always the person you least suspect because you're not a good detective."  ;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 #1303 on: November 02, 2015, 12:15:12 pm »
Every once in a while, an issue comes along that has a lot of content I'm interested in. The Oct. 19 issue is one. Just finished "Bombshells" by Claudia Roth Pierpont, reviewing a book by Karin Wieland on Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. It's a long article but very interesting and worthwhile. Also, the profile of Gloria Steinem by Jane Kramer is long but good and Malcolm Gladwell's comments about school shootings are useful. I have yet to read "Pond Scum" about H. D. Thoreau. Movie and theater reviews for "Fool for Love", "Steve Jobs" and "Pan" are good but the Shepard play review focuses mostly on Sam and less on his play. Even then, it fails to explain why he has the impact that he does.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1304 on: November 02, 2015, 01:10:53 pm »
Every once in a while, an issue comes along that has a lot of content I'm interested in. The Oct. 19 issue is one. Just finished "Bombshells" by Claudia Roth Pierpont, reviewing a book by Karin Wieland on Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. It's a long article but very interesting and worthwhile. Also, the profile of Gloria Steinem by Jane Kramer is long but good and Malcolm Gladwell's comments about school shootings are useful. I have yet to read "Pond Scum" about H. D. Thoreau.

I agree with you about this issue. All those articles were very good reads, and so was the Thoreau article.

I didn't realize Dietrich did so much for the Allied troops during WW II.
"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 #1305 on: November 03, 2015, 11:54:16 am »
I was so busy reading this issue that I might have missed an aerial view of the Grand Canyon if traveling buddy hadn't bonked me on the head and told me to look out the window!

So, last night I finished up "Pond Scum" about H. D. Thoreau. I didn't quite buy the author, Kathryn Schultz's premise that Thoreau was a curmudgeonly unlikable scumbag. She overreached in trying to prove her point. Certainly he was eccentric and probably autistic but others liked him, notably R. W. Emerson, and some unnamed friends who invited him to their engagements. It was interesting that one of my ancestors, R. L. Stevenson, wrote that his "valetudinarian healthfulness. . .is more delicate than sickness itself." And he would know about health/sickness, growing up in Edinburgh, Scotland, with its punishing climate.

His oft-quoted comment that "most men live lives of quiet desperation" was interpreted as a judgement on others by the author, but I have always seen it as a plea for compassion and a prescient view of the human condition. A point which the author leads up to but doesn't quite make is that Walden should not be read so widely by high school students as a model for a life. I agree with that. There are other Transcendentalists who would be better to read. But, like it or not, Thoreau is deeply embedded in the national culture and he's not going to disappear beneath the pond scum anytime soon.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1306 on: November 04, 2015, 11:50:41 pm »
Jeez. So I've gone from being caught up on my magazines (thanks to vacation) to having three issues "on the go" at once.  :(  Do I really want to read that article about Jeb Bush (Oct. 26) or call that issue done?  ???  I guess I'd call the Bush article a duty article.  :(
"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 #1307 on: November 07, 2015, 04:17:50 pm »
Jeez. So I've gone from being caught up on my magazines (thanks to vacation) to having three issues "on the go" at once.  :(  Do I really want to read that article about Jeb Bush (Oct. 26) or call that issue done?  ???  I guess I'd call the Bush article a duty article.  :(

Set it aside for now. If he drops out of the race, don't read it. If he gets the nomination, read it then.



Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1308 on: November 07, 2015, 06:39:58 pm »
Set it aside for now. If he drops out of the race, don't read it. If he gets the nomination, read it then.

He and Ted Cruz have been demoted to the "kid's table" for the debates, so winning the nomination seems a long shot.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1309 on: November 07, 2015, 07:18:11 pm »
Set it aside for now. If he drops out of the race, don't read it. If he gets the nomination, read it then.

Too late. I read it so I could put paid to that issue. And while I'm no supporter, I think he comes off much better than the nut-cases running for the Republican nomination--and better than his brother, Bush 43.

But didn't I used to hear that Jeb was "the smart one" anyway?
"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.