New Yorker magazine alert thread

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)

Indeed

Was it one of you that recommended John Vaillant's "The Tiger?" If so, thanks! If not, it's incredible. TotallyDavid Grann-tastic, and then some.

just came here to post that pdf thing (the source webpage: http://www.0s-1s.com/neujorker)

smdh shouts and murmurs is *never* the first article after talk of the town/surowiecki

Yeah no credibility.

seeing a lot of uproar on FB over this today:

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13510910_10153811737573869_6947878920656246645_n.jpg?oh=44ef963f5f5441c083ceebfa3f35c032&oe=57D85537

why

whole lotta monocles popping out and falling into teacups

What a monster

Emily flake is great

trenchant social commentary

sample comments:

"Yeah, this sucks ass. Maybe Emily Flake should work on fixing the economy that has made a living wage almost impossible to acquire for many Americans; or just churn out another cartoon that takes an easy and simple shot at the generation dealing with the mistakes of the previous four generations."

"Yeah, New Yorker lets put down everyone who tries to eat healthier by stereotyping and putting negative labels onto them."

"People who live with their parents just need to lower their standards, and quit being coddled. Move in with five friends and to make ends meet and stop using your parents to maintain your life. I moved out at 18 in the 80's and could not afford a phone for 2 years and had to use a pay phone (the days before smart phones) because I wanted to be an adult not an eternal adolescent."

"Unnecessarily shaming cartoon, considering how many adults are forced to live with their parents because of the lousy economy and ginormous student loans. The cartoonist should go after the economic and student loan crises instead."

blah, blah, blah.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClvpTBxWkAAU_k5.jpg

That's a good one. Did anyone else know that the May 16th issue had an enhanced reality cover? It was pretty cool.

o yeah what was the deal w that ?

i can't deal w how gd the nyer's online writing has got, it's fucked up

its too much right

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cover-story-2016-05-16

it is v much too much & i think it is also of a rly confusingly hi quality - somehow suddenly a better blog than any other news/personal essay hosting site, also kinda just roamingly curious & illuminating to a magazine standard. like i cd almost just swap a digest for talk of the town. they have so many great writers now; i hope they're the people who will be batumans + schulzs in the magazine in a couple years.

+ ty for the link josh !, i will try out

piece on syrian surgeons one of the most difficult things i've ever read, just unbearable

last week's Adrienne Rich piece actually sent me back to her mid '80s poetry, which is some achievement (the piece's result, not the poetry).

Gerald Foos didn't own the motel for 11 years of his journals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/author-gay-talese-disavows-his-latest-book-amid-credibility-questions/2016/06/30/1fede2b8-3e22-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/01/484321658/gay-talese-disavows-his-disavowal-of-his-new-book

i don't believe he made up his visit to the motel and that's really the most key bit -- all the other claims of the motel owner are left bracketed in uncertainty by talese

i missed that new parody. the 80's parody had the best kael impression. so hilarious.

http://product-images.highwire.com/8556895/17fde1f4-927b-4d28-8dc1-2e5d4ec10aa7.jpg

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

― Josefa, Sunday, April 10, 2016 1:04 AM (2 months ago)

This is looking more true now. Talese getting up into the crawlspace was a key bit, yeah, but it seems to me the journal is of major importance too, since it provides the structure on which the whole story is based

new yorker fact checkers what up