New Yorker magazine alert thread

like, if i want economist-lite i'll read newsweek

snark on that one for size

there is a cover story public sector unions in the economist this week. dunno why i'm bringing it up though because i haven't read it.

i'll be interested in reading that, in an "oppo research" kind of way.

i should probably just recuse myself from talking about surowiecki - everything about his steez rankles me and i'm finding it hard to put into words - the "primer" aspect is part of it, but there are people who write primer-type stuff who i love. i dunno!

yah i can see finding the article glib and too-neat "The Great Depression invigorated the modern American labor movement. The Great Recession has crippled it" both oversimplifies and maybe misses the point - i was just sort of baffled that you didnt seem to understand why an article like this gets written

i guess i still don't! the avg new yorker reader could have dictated this article in their sleep 15 years ago

so did anyone else read the all of the "20 under 40" pieces? thought it was pretty disappointing. vaguely remember liking one about a guy working on a boat in florida that catches on fire, but not much else.

t-pain?

The psychoanalysis in China article is kind of disappointing imo, mostly because it seems to say that it'll explain why a) psychoanalysis fell out of a favor in the US and most other Western nations, and b) why China then picked it up. The article gets at b) at a certain superficial level, but really doesn't go into a) (which I'm sure has been the subject of a lot of other articles, just would've liked discussion here). Anyway, one of my prof is mentioned in the article, easily the best part of it.

really tapping into the slang here

The teens were from a variety of backgrounds—public and private schools, Manhattan and the outer boroughs—and they wore jeans, collared shirts, and leather jackets. They seemed like normal teen-agers, although they all had the faintly glamorous, knowing aura of city kids. They were discussing slang expressions. “ ‘Calm your tits,’ ” Yasha, an eighteen-year-old from Crown Heights, said, citing an expression that means “Calm down.”

“ ‘Good looks,’ ” said Kyjah, a sixteen-year-old fencer from the Upper West Side, who was wearing lime-green nail polish.

“It means ‘Thanks for looking out,’ ” Alexandria, from Yonkers, said. “Somebody’s like, ‘Oh, you dropped money.’ ‘Oh, good looks.’ ”

“ ‘Gucci’ is the same as ‘Good money,’ ” Yasha said.

“You can say, ‘What’s Gucci?’ ” Kyjah said. “ ‘What’s up?’ ”

Matteo, a sixteen-year-old from Park Slope, said, “ ‘What’s poppin’?’ ”

The teens hesitated. “That’s, like, a retro saying.”

Yasha added, “It’s gang-related.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/01/10/110110ta_talk_widdicombe#ixzz1AgfxnnHS

Does a print subscription also give access to the full digital edition + archives? Their website is suspiciously vague about that.

Yes it does - my international one does anyway.

yes, you can look at literally every single page of every single issue going back to 1921 or something.

the applet viewer thing is kinda stupid, but functional

the david brooks article is so terrible i cant remember the last time i read something that managed to be so offensive w/o actually saying or meaning anything

Yes, that was ugh.

i am considering writing a disappointed email, is how disappointed i am, right now

I know right! I couldn't even get through it.

I did enjoy the unintentional irony of describing what would commonly be thought of as "people skills" or "intuition" or "emotional intelligence" in ridiculously labored and aspergerian terms.

The psychoanalysis in China article is kind of disappointing imo, mostly because it seems to say that it'll explain why a) psychoanalysis fell out of a favor in the US and most other Western nations, and b) why China then picked it up. The article gets at b) at a certain superficial level, but really doesn't go into a) (which I'm sure has been the subject of a lot of other articles, just would've liked discussion here). Anyway, one of my prof is mentioned in the article, easily the best part of it.

― nomar little (Leee), Monday, January 10, 2011 7:21 PM Bookmark

Agree with this. Started to raise some interesting implications about what psychoanalysis could mean for China as well, but then wastes way too much ink on here-and-now descriptions of various conferences and meetings, which new yorker writers love to bore us with.

freud/china piece nakh http://pastie.org/1460821

The David Brooks article was so poor that I kept double checking to see if it was in fact fiction and supposed to be ironic. Or, failing that, if it was nonfiction and supposed to be a parody.

I knew the Brooks article would settle the argument.

I had trouble just imagining people named Harold and Erica being the same age.

that article was not about people it was abt the Composure Class (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Empty Factoids)

omg that brooks article guys

unacceptable

i saw the name and sort of hoped it was a different david brooks and after about two sentences i was like DX

Page 1 of 6?

forget it

Reading Jon Lee Anderson's recent article about Sri Lanka. I'm so curious what his personality is like, as far as how he behaves in a room with dictators and drug lords and everyone else he commiserates with as a reporter. (His article on Rio gangs from last year is terrific, too.)

I'm sure he tries really hard not to say anything offensive.

JL Anderson is great.

That's the thing -- I'm just really curious about what his manners and body language are like when he's sitting with legitimately paranoid, genuine killers.

(His article on Rio gangs from last year is terrific, too.)

loved this^^. favorite thing I read last year aside from maybe the Sibera travelogue (or was that 09?)

International subscriber so always about a week behind. That Brooks piece was such a bore, and added up to nothing as far as I could tell. Seemed like the editors took the day off when that made it onto the page.

I would like to add my ire about the piece of shit that was that Brooks thing.

All the action's over on the Brooks thread, it seems. Cloudberry!

New Yorker evidently messed up the John Lurie article. Have a look at the blog:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/08/video-john-lurie-the-drawing-show.html

Well, clearly Lurie's close friends and supporters didn't like it!

I got one par into the David Brooks article before I flipped to the Sri Lanka one.

Anyway, Jill Lepore on constitutional "originalism" is must-read: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/01/17/110117crat_atlarge_lepore

just got her book, whites of their eyes.

Dan, have you read the Lepore book yet? What do you think?

Another great one:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_gawande

I've only read three of Atul Gawande's pieces, but they are all so uniformly excellent. Does he ever write anything not worth reading?

Haven't read it. Have a backlog of books I'll never read from the holidays.

The Gawande articles are getting so much attention. This last one is getting picked up on all the political/progressive blogs as well general interest blogs.

yeah atul's stuff is regularly great

if you are a(n american) sports fan, it's def worth reading ben mcgrath on concussions in football

gawande article on health care is so good, so inspiring in content and as journalism. wow

Definitely, that Gawande article was fantastic. I'm playing catch up on the last few issues and just read that one last night.

btw http://gawande.com/

he is awesome

if you are a(n american) sports fan, it's def worth reading ben mcgrath on concussions in football

― mookieproof, Sunday, January 30, 2011 12:21 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

this one from 2009 is a great read too: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell

finally got my copy of the Jan 10 issue (i run about 3 weeks behind cover dates, being in the middle of the ocean and all. i'll see them on the news stand before my mailbox)

the freud in china thing was awesome but the story about banana scientists and the story about the sadaam statue were even better. gr8 issue

i always run about a month and a half late on the mag.

I used to be great at keeping totally up to date, but lately I've been reading a bunch of random books I got over the holidays so I'm losing my place.