Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1922248 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2550 on: November 06, 2020, 12:57:10 pm »
Seriously, I can't believe I've fallen a month behind in my magazines. The political articles will all be moot in a day or two.

Meanwhile, I'm sure I found a typo  :o  in Adam Gopnik's short article on James Beard (Oct. 12). On page 69 there is a statement that Beard's cookbook American Cookery "'is a kind of secret record of twentieth-century gay migration to cities from across the county and beyond its shores.'"

If they just crossed the county, they didn't go very far.

Good thing he didn't make a typo in the word all journalists fear: public.

Pretty good, though, that when there is a typo it stands out because it almost never happens.


Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2551 on: November 13, 2020, 04:28:49 pm »
I read the George Saunders fiction "Ghoul" in the latest issue. Usually, I like his work but I'm not in the mood for dystopian apocalyptic fiction these days, thank you.

I finally read this and LOVED IT. It might be my favorite George Saunders story. It features a bizarre scenario -- set, as his stories so often are, in a strange future re-enactment attraction (the first story I ever read of his, decades ago, "CivilWarland in Bad Decline," was like that). There's a narrator who's sincere and naive and well meaning, who says offhand things he considers normal but are ironic because the reader can see them as horrifying. Narration and dialogue voices like modern slang on steroids.

But as the story unfolded, I gradually saw what he was doing and was really impressed. It's about a phenomenon I've only started to think about in fairly recent years. It's not particularly related to modern politics. Then comes a surprise ending that suddenly ties everything together in an enormous real-world analogy (again, nothing to do with Trump, etc.).

It's not cheery if you're really bummed out about current events, but at least it has nothing to do with current events.



 

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2552 on: November 14, 2020, 08:12:55 pm »
I'm glad you liked it. I kept thinking that might be us someday.

I would like to read Lincoln in the Bardo. Has anyone here read it? Is it as out there as his short fiction?
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2553 on: November 14, 2020, 09:14:48 pm »
I still can't fathom how I came to be five issues behind. Tonight I read the article on Dolly Parton in the October 19 issue.
"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 #2554 on: November 20, 2020, 10:26:50 am »
I still can't fathom how I came to be five issues behind. Tonight I read the article on Dolly Parton in the October 19 issue.

Now it's the article about Andrew Cuomo.
"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 #2555 on: November 20, 2020, 09:36:26 pm »
I love going through old issues and finding articles that are no longer relevant, so I can confidently toss the issue in recycling.

Nowadays that includes pretty much anything Trump ever did. Except whatever damage he does in the next two months that Biden will have to try to repair. Leave poop on the carpet in the Oval Room? At this point, nothing would surprise me.


Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2556 on: November 21, 2020, 11:19:43 am »
I was also going to say something similar. I'm tossing out pre-election issues. As far as I'm concerned, recycling is too good for them. I used to take past issues to retirement homes, but they stopped accepting them. Now, of course, they couldn't accept them for health/safety reasons. (There are no magazines in the doctors' offices or in-flight).

Apologies to the many excellent articles on other topics, but I can read those online.

Somebody should be keeping all this stuff for research reasons. I'm sure people will be writing about this strange period in our history for decades to come. I wish them luck in figuring it out. (If civilization continues, of course.)

Speaking of excellent writing, the Salman Rushdie fiction in the latest issue is a really good allegory. He still has the gift!
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2557 on: November 21, 2020, 02:35:44 pm »
(There are no magazines in the doctors' offices or in-flight).

The other day I accidentally arrived 20 minutes early for a doctor's appointment. Which wouldn't have been too ba, except I forgot my phone! In desperation, I asked at the counter if they had any, but as I expected they did not.

Just sitting there for 20 minutes sounded awful. They should at least have a TV set! (I can never understand people I see on planes just sitting there with no reading material, headphones or anything.)

Luckily, I got called in ahead of time.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #2558 on: November 21, 2020, 10:22:26 pm »
The other day I accidentally arrived 20 minutes early for a doctor's appointment. Which wouldn't have been too ba, except I forgot my phone! In desperation, I asked at the counter if they had any, but as I expected they did not.

Just sitting there for 20 minutes sounded awful. They should at least have a TV set! (I can never understand people I see on planes just sitting there with no reading material, headphones or anything.)

Luckily, I got called in ahead of time.

You mean you actually got to see a doctor? In person?  :o
"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 #2559 on: November 22, 2020, 11:16:59 am »
You mean you actually got to see a doctor? In person?  :o

Sure. Twice during the pandemic, in fact. This was a dermatologist, though, so maybe that's the difference. I went in for my regular skin cancer check, don't have any, whew, but the last time she froze some little pre-cancerous spots so I had to go back to make sure they're healing OK and don't need another freeze.

You have to wear a mask, come alone, only show up if you have no symptoms, sit in designated spaced chairs in the waiting room and get your temperature taken before you go back to the room. The doctor herself was wearing some kind of gas mask -- clear face shield with a tube for breathing. And when I pulled down my mask so she could examine my face I was allowed to breathe but not talk.