New Yorker magazine alert thread

mordy idk about you, but when i got candles and teddy things get plenty serious and intense

xp i think it's not surprising that a sick dude has maybe a weak grasp on reality but he did show talese the vents so at least some of it is true

For sure, I was just wondering at what point creativity may have taken over

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2016/04/gay_talese_s_unethical_new_yorker_article_on_gerald_foos.html

My gut feeling is that Foos's "journal" is largely a fabrication

idk how i feel about Nussbaum winning a pulitzer... don't hate her writing, but it's basically bloggy listicles dressed up as new yorker criticism? like why would you win a pulitzer prize for that

cuz she works for the new yorker

i generally like her writing tho

yeah she's pretty good

serious tv criticism still feels kinda dirty and av-club to me tho

I think the avclub TV writing is miles better than Nussbaum's, more perceptive, more invested. Every once in a while she makes a good observation, but much of her criticism seems very ... reactive? Like, maybe she'll wait a season or two in until she addresses something. Or several episodes, and tie it into a think-piece. Maybe that's a good thing, since TV shows in particular sometimes take a while to get going, but it seems kind of safe on her part. A lot easier to write about shows that have benefited from countless features and reviews down the line than to stick your neck out early. And yeah, I get the listicle thing, too. But I have a feeling she covers a subject this wide-ranging, constant and cumulative on the website. I dunno.

I think the avclub TV writing is miles better than Nussbaum's

ok lol

Laugh all you want, but even if you like her better, there is no way her writing is substantially better.

tv sux

av club write the way third-graders write book reports

tv journalism just seems kinda nasty to me in principle. not that it shouldn't exist or we shouldn't read it, but we shouldn't give em prestigious awards imo

the more "invested" tv criticism is in a show the worse it usually is

Nussbaum is the NYer's best critic

av club write the way third-graders write book reports

Maybe we are reading different reviews/pieces? Certainly the Todd Van Der Graaf or whomever guy was really good. A lot of their writers seem to be good. Better than 3rd graders, for sure. I'm not sure I've ever read a Nussbaum piece that made me want to tell a friend, wow, you should read this. And her writing can be plainly stupid, too. Like in her recent "Americans" piece, in which she implores of someone re: Matthew Rhys, "Put him on all the magazines! Give him the Jon Hamm treatment. Seriously, he deserves it." What does that even mean? Make him a star? Make him the subject of tabloids? That's he's foxy? I dunno, but it's a waste of words in service of being cute, nothing more, and I couldn't give a fuck if he gets the "Jon Hamm treatment" even if I think he's possibly the best actor on TV right now (which I never thought of Jon Hamm).

Since they've been letting her write for the site while the position remains semi-vacant, I'm really hoping they hire Amanda Petrusich as their music critic. She'd immediately go up to my fave, or at least second fave, after Alex Ross, maybe.

Todd Van Der werff? That dude has an uncanny knack for finding parallels to his own life story in every episode of tv in existence.

hate when writers do that shit

I'd be happy if they banned first person, but hey, that's what people seem to like.

Nussbaum is pretty good (especially about stuff she likes) but Pulitzer-good? She's probably just the best in a very bland, groupthink-y field. Also points off for the "last episode was Walter's hallucination" theory.

Generally I've wasted too much of my life reading recaps, I don't think there's a solid writer or thinker in the lot, but they're such easy procrastination material.

yeah i dunno if it's possible to be pulitzer-worthy writing about the arts. tho i dunno, is the pulitzer even respected? some crappy things have won pulitzers.

xpost pulitzer for ask a maester

I think the avclub TV writing is miles better than Nussbaum's, more perceptive, more invested. Every once in a while she makes a good observation, but much of her criticism seems very ... reactive? Like, maybe she'll wait a season or two in until she addresses something. Or several episodes, and tie it into a think-piece

this is what criticism is

yeah, i think you guys are overrating the pulitzers. I don't even mean that as a shot against nussbaum, just that the pulitzers for criticism and for commentary often go to stuff that's not that great.

i don't read nussbaum or any TV writing but there is more to criticism than insta-reactions. tying smaller things into a larger narrative is i would say the very fabric of the american essay

did you guys read dying clive james on game of thrones?

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/the-raw-appeal-of-game-of-thrones

Todd Van Der werff? That dude has an uncanny knack for finding parallels to his own life story in every episode of tv in existence.

― JoeStork, Monday, April 18, 2016 10:46 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

never forget

At one of the lowest points in my marriage, my wife and I got into a massive, horrific argument in the very early hours of the morning. It was the kind of argument that breaks marriages, that wakes neighbors, that reveals things that should have been left unsaid, and at one point, I remember her cowering in our bathroom over some revelation or another meant to hurt me, and I remember planting my arms in the bathroom door so I blocked it like a giant oak tree, branches not permitting her exit. She stood up, begged me to move. I said no. She shoved me, trying to jar me, so she could leave the apartment and the argument far behind. It was no use. I don’t remember what it was that she said to so set me off, nor do I remember most of the beats of the argument. But I remember standing in that doorway and feeling gigantic, like she was no match for me, a mouse against an elephant. I remember what it was to feel that terrifying power surge through me. And I remember how much I wanted to hit her but did not. It took a long while of her crying herself hoarse, but I stepped away, and she left. We both did and said things we regret that night, but I have regretted none so much as meeting a person inside of me wild and uncontrolled enough to do something like that to the woman he loved.

LOL

Youch. Maybe I was thinking of someone else? Anyway, all writers suck, sometimes.

I thought that GoT piece was pretty good, actually.

xpost Sure. But I don't think she writes about shows down the line any differently than she might write about a new show. She doesn't, imo, bring anything new, given the benefit of time spent vs. rushing out a review based on a pilot or the first few eps, and rather than advancing a stance or theory many of her pieces are still basically on the level of recap/description/comparing shows to other shows. (Though she seems to be doing less of the last, thankfully).

Anyway, re: AVclub, whoever is doing their Better Call Saul writing these days has been great.

Heh: http://www.avclub.com/article/emily-nussbaum-just-won-pulitzer-tv-criticism-here-235495

Nussbaum is the best because she:

- brings attention to overlooked and underhyped woman-led shows
- is super Jewish
- has made fun of Phillip Roth
- likes things to be fun

I agree on the first, for sure! That's part and parcel with being a populist, I suppose. Write about the shows people are actually watching rather than patronizingly write about shows people should be watching because blah blah.

jesus christ - what was the writer quoted above reviewing when he included that crazy part?

i thought the clive james got piece was only okay to be honest. the bits about tyrion were good but the rest was a bit of a disjointed scrawl. and much of it was like hearing about a tv show i'd already seen through the medium of the videogame manual: "and then there is sansa. the wily daughter of ned stark, she has adventures with the conniving littlefinger, who knows what is next in store for them?"

"cersei is the queen of the realm, between religion and incest, her hands are certainly full! but is there more than meets the eye?"

it's from a Louie recap

lmao that avclub quote

Silby OTM re: fun, women shows, Jewishness

The Melania Trump article this week seems weird. There was interesting stuff in there but it was so vicious and nasty that it seemed tonally off from the New Yorker style. And I don't know that "Trump hates immigrants, but his wife is an immigrant" really works as a Trump gotcha at this point.

Can't believe nobody mentioned this one from the first week of March - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-problem-in-professional-bridge

In 2014, two German physicians, who had won a World Pairs Championship, were banned for ten years by the World Bridge Federation for using an auditory signalling system. (They’re now known as the Coughing Doctors.)

Of interest, one of the (non-cheating) players mentioned in the article, Bob Hamman, is played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie about Lance Armstrong's doping career, The Program (recommended), because apparently his day job is assessing black swan risks for insurers, like for example the possibility that a seven-time winner of the Tour might be cheating.

I couldn't care less about bridge but I love stories about catching cheaters and this one has, like a dozen of those rolled into one

Thought the Nazi treasure hunter article was a big tease. There are these people in Poland searching for Nazi treasure hidden in long forgotten tunnels! Or maybe they're looking for a money train! Or maybe a UFO! And there are all these undiscovered and unexplored tunnels! And if there was anything to find, the Russians probably got it! The End!

surprised the communal living 1 wasn't discussed

"Kennedy was unfamiliar with the city's neighborhoods, but he'd seen HBO's "Girls", and, he said, "I pretty much knew I was going to be in Brooklyn."

his day job is assessing black swan risks for insurers, like for example the possibility that a seven-time winner of the Tour might be cheating.

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, May 17, 2016

it's cycling! sport is a history of increasingly advanced cheating! figuring out how a champion is cheating this year is a whole other thing but there is no whiter swan.

new kathryn schulz is an instant classic

i liked the oberlin article

This is amazing. An entire spoof-edition of the New Yorker: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52a74ecde4b01bb79a769329/t/575d922e7da24f2981092db0/1465750080617/Neu+Jorker%2C+Singles%2C+Lo-res.pdf (PDF)