New Yorker magazine alert thread

just a little thing but i thought it was weird that in the parks and rec piece this week, nussbaum says that "arrested development" used a faux-reality show/mockumentary format like "the office." i never felt like AD was supposed to be a documentary or reality show.

The characters in AD were aware of the camera, but I'm not sure it was ever spelled out that it was a reality show or something. Seemed more like a meta- thing than anything specific.

Idk isnt there that part in the court where they make the camera ppl leave?

Maybe so. But at the same time, the camera often knows/shows information that the characters don't know -- like when George is living in the attic -- so it felt more like an undefined, free-form thing. Played for laughs when useful, ignored other times.

huh yeah i guess so, good point (xpost). though i thought of that more as a weird meta joke than anything else. the narration is not very "reality show" and the characters don't seem particularly aware of the cameras to me.

wait, how were the characters in AD aware of the camera?

oh heh next post. just a one-time joke iirc

I have memories of Jason Batemen giving a knowing/pained look to the camera i.e. Jim from the Office at least a few times.

good issue so far-- the George Packer article about the Biden staffer was riveting, even though not much happened.

that one was tl;dr for me. characteristically my favorite article was the one about the battling contingents on sark, the weird feudal island in the english channel.

that sounds good, & i'm psyched for this issue, but how simultaneously good & long-term reorientingly depressing the last couple of big packer articles have been fills me w/dread

really enjoyed the last issue; lots of solid content top to bottom

I really don't like Nussbamum that much. I want to say this is the second or third piece she's written that just seems like a long list of shows she likes better than some show she mentioned at the beginning. Definitely the NYorker writer most likely to use the placeholder "like" in a piece, if, like, she hasn't already.

i am crazy behind on my new yorkers but omg that larissa macfarquhar profile of hilary mantel from a few issues back was amazing! it made me want to read everything mantel ever wrote.

if you haven't already, def read mantel. one of the few contemporary novelists i rate (obv wolf hall is gonna be the big one now, but i loved the one about the medium).

i am obsessed with her and want to write a novel about her now. (probably macfarguhar would do a better job of that.)

i want to read the one about the french revolution

i know i am very very late on mantel and i have no time to read gigantic novels but whatever

where is max

the best part about gigantic novels is that there's no time for them. You just start them and finish them 1-7 years later

Speaking of starting things and not finishing them, silby... :-D

What is Mantel's "thing" as a novelist?

she writes... mantelpieces!

the nyer piece was all u can't pin her down she doesn't have a style! idk I only read wolf hall and the sequel, masterpieces the both

wolf hall is not that long guys jeez. and it's a p quick read.

I think she was talking abt the French book

eh bien

in the nyer piece it said she wrote the French one first but it was never published then like 15 years later she went back and rewrote parts of it and then released it which is kinda interesting

also she believes in ghosts

Speaking of starting things and not finishing them, silby... :-D

― seandalai lama (Leee), Friday, October 26, 2012 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait what month is it

experiment in love is p good too

sooo macfarquhar kind of copped mantel's style for that profile, no? at least that's the effect i got, being not entirely familiar with each.

yes it read like she was taking the mantel approach to mantel. maybe that's gimmicky? i loved it.

i think because it made it seem like macfarquhar had really fallen under her spell or something?

this week's issue was the best in probably a few years

Good Jane Meyer piece tho I miss her writing on foreign policy.

Is seymour gone now?!?

He's probably under deep cover, disguised as a chair in the Oval Office to get the scoop.

Been wondering about him as well. Did a Democracy Now interview earlier in the summer. Still probably looking at Iran.

Lobbyist piece = was DAAAMN

Is the Lobbyist piece also the Biden piece? Which issue is that?

It's the issue with Romney getting his tats crossed out on the cover.

that article is amazing. What's also amazing is how strong the agenda for this issue is.

1. talk of town replaced with extensive editorial endorsing Obamma
2. Financial article on dangers of romneycare
3. Article about voter fraud fraud
4. sark article, I skipped
5. on the obama campaign
6. this pretty long article which is essentially an ad for this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Payoff-Wall-Street-Always/dp/1935212966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351569897&sr=8-1&keywords=the+payoff

that's where I am so far. I'm not complaining.

Yeah, it's solid for sure

And I am TOTALLY buying that book

SAUNDERS SAUNDERS SAUNDERS

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2012/10/I-was-Ayn-rands-lover.html

"also we’d sometimes see my friends there, and, like clockwork, there’d be this big argument about global monetary policy and whether Foghat was even real music."

it's like he knows us

that sark article was so great, i cant believe its non-fiction

Thought the "Iron Curtain" book review was so good I don't need to read the book.

The ?uestlove profile was great, too. It contained one of the saddest commentaries on race I've ever read, subtle though it may have been. After ?uestlove finishes an album, he likes to "test drive" it, playing in his car stereo as he drives around Philly. Growing up, the only people he knew who drove nice cars and big SUVs were drug dealers, so ?uestlove apparently drives a Scion. So he's driving his Scion around one night, and he gets pulled over not once, not twice, but three times. After the last time he asks the officer, come on, why me? And the officer admits that seeing a large black man driving around at night in a Scion, he basically assumed he had stolen the car from some college kid.

Damned if you do ...

I thought that article was interesting b/c I think ?uestlove is interesting, but there were some cringey middle-aged white-guy-writing-about-rap bits in it.

wait til you guys read the kid rock profile this week