Enjoyed the Louis Menand piece on Dwight MacDonald and middlebrow. He's such a sleek, wry writer - he doesn't bulldoze MacDonald with his own opinions.
― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Wednesday, September 7, 2011 5:49 AM (1 week ago)
^^yeah this is excellent!
― stalk me shithead (from the makers of tickle me elmo) (k3vin k.), Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:19 (twelve years ago) link
wait you like louis menand, kevin? this does ... does not sync with what i know about you.
― remy bean, Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:23 (twelve years ago) link
this sentence seems posed to give you hives:
But judging from my recent conversations with a handful of literary and intellectual types -- the heirs, you could say, to the Macdonald/Greenberg tradition -- we live, today, in a pleasingly hierarchy-free, almost utopian cultural world. Most people I know share my disparate taste, enjoying "South Park" alongside Franz Schubert, the crisply plotted novels of James M. Cain as well as the philosophically searching films of Antonioni.
― remy bean, Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:24 (twelve years ago) link
packer's 'state of the nation after 9/11' was suitably despairing (and a nice juxtaposition to gopnik's 'what me decline' piece) but managed to conveniently avoid a couple things:
a) despite congenially tearing walter russell mead a new one, did not mention that he himself supported the iraq war
b) no doubt beyond the article's scope, but maybe make a pass at why surry county, north carolina would continue to vote against its own economic interests
― mookieproof, Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:29 (twelve years ago) link
i never really cared for menand. macdonald was good though.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:30 (twelve years ago) link
The Metaphysical Club is as good as searching "popular" criticism gets.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:31 (twelve years ago) link
I quite liked Packer's essay though but then again I often do.
the menand piece that sticks in my mind is the one about orwell, which was headlined something like 'honest, decent, wrong.' it sticks in my mind mainly because menand never seemed to get around to explaining precisely how orwell was 'wrong,' other than the fact that the world today is not literally the world of '1984.'
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:34 (twelve years ago) link
The best Orwell essay I've read recently is James Wood's, also published in the NY, and in the 2010 Best series.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:45 (twelve years ago) link
i remember the menand orwell piece! we never got stuck with equal and opposed totalitarian empires, i think was the main point.
― anorange (abanana), Thursday, 15 September 2011 02:17 (twelve years ago) link
I just started Malcolm's Two Lives. I love her meta-biographies, especially the Chekhov one.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 17 September 2011 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
Couple from the vault that I read and liked this week: Ben McGrath on Tim WakefieldSusan Orlean on a lost doggy
― Leee, Lord of Wtfomgham (Leee), Saturday, 17 September 2011 19:20 (twelve years ago) link
menand follows up his macdonald piece with another good one on ts eliot
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 20 September 2011 22:57 (twelve years ago) link
btw remy i never figured out what i was supposed to dislike about that sentence you reprinted last week
Eliot is as much a part of my own formation as a writer and person as he was for his immediate successors -- I too experienced a thrilled shock unlike anything I've experienced before or since when in high school I played hooky from homework and read "The Waste Land" with Cliff Notes handy. It's hard to write something fresh about him. Menand's essay isn't fresh so much as a superb attempt to integrate what he's learned with the received wisdom.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 23:18 (twelve years ago) link
he also reminds us of how much the English curriculum is indebted to the New Critics; certainly when I was in college the Close Reading of the Text was still rather sacred.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 23:20 (twelve years ago) link
what is that in response to, alfred?
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 23:28 (twelve years ago) link
― k3vin k., Tuesday, September 20, 2011
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 23:55 (twelve years ago) link
I need to splunk down for a subscript
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Wednesday, 21 September 2011 00:15 (twelve years ago) link
newest issue is really arts-focused, with pieces touching on jean-paul gaultier, alexander mcqueen, steven sondheim and the gershwins, and some famous photographer, but the best article in the whole issue is the one about a pharmacist working in a remote area of colorado
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 21 September 2011 21:49 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.myabandonware.com/media/captures/F/freddy-pharkas-frontier-pharmacist/freddy-pharkas-frontier-pharmacist_2.gif
― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 September 2011 22:19 (twelve years ago) link
ha i'll read that one for sure then
― k3vin k., Thursday, 22 September 2011 00:09 (twelve years ago) link
yeah that article's great. was trying to remember if the last time, if ever, the nyer did a profile on a random guy like like that.
― Moreno, Thursday, 22 September 2011 01:45 (twelve years ago) link
but the best article in the whole issue is the one about a pharmacist working in a remote area of colorado
this was really fantastic
― sleep \lim: $\lim_(x\to\infty) over (Lamp), Thursday, 22 September 2011 05:20 (twelve years ago) link
god, that old guy w/ the unsent letters asking friends to introduce him to 'men who are like him' just killed me
― iatee, Friday, 23 September 2011 17:00 (twelve years ago) link
i want to go to nucla
― mizzell, Friday, 23 September 2011 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
lol @ this "dude court" cartoon
― k3vin k., Saturday, 24 September 2011 05:04 (twelve years ago) link
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lru4hg6riz1qav5oho1_500.png
― k3vin k., Saturday, 24 September 2011 05:07 (twelve years ago) link
that's pretty good
yet i hate to see such a promising young man ruined by appreciation of nyer cartoons at such an early age
― mookieproof, Saturday, 24 September 2011 05:14 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, most I thought about TOILETS since I was a lower classman.
― Leee, Lord of Wtfomgham (Leee), Saturday, 24 September 2011 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
mailing in a sub renewal today after about five years off
― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Saturday, 24 September 2011 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
btw, have decided that Gopnik is the all-purpose Gladwell: glib, reductionist.
― Leee, Lord of Wtfomgham (Leee), Saturday, 24 September 2011 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
Like everyone else, I have a huge stack of back issues to complete, so I was thankful for the 9/11 issue, which I just couldn't read. Though of course, if anyone is allowed to put out a 9/11 issue, it might as well be the New Yorker. I want to say I did read the Gopnik piece, though, which I found very erudite and perceptive.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 24 September 2011 20:03 (twelve years ago) link
my 9/11 issue was delivered a week late, which was just as well
― k3vin k., Saturday, 24 September 2011 20:32 (twelve years ago) link
I want to say I did read the Gopnik piece, though, which I found very erudite and perceptive.
Actually, that's the article that's soured me on him; it felt very superficial.
― Leee, Lord of Wtfomgham (Leee), Saturday, 24 September 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
Hmm, I can see that criticism. I just think he juggled lots of ideas well, even if they were superficial ideas.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 24 September 2011 23:29 (twelve years ago) link
And, yeah, my 9/11 issue was a week late, too.
Were those late issues all about 7 WTC or what.
― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, 24 September 2011 23:52 (twelve years ago) link
― sleep \lim: $\lim_(x\to\infty) over (Lamp), Thursday, 22 September 2011 06:20 (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― iatee, Friday, 23 September 2011 18:00 (2 days ago) Bookmark
god this was wonderful. i started off reading it & thinking it'd just be great like trillin's shopsin's profile, but it was so stunning, picking up the rest of the town & the few repeat themes that the guy wouldn't necessarily unify. stuff like 'it is an hour and a half from the nearest traffic light' was excellent.
― 347.239.9791 stench hotline (schlump), Sunday, 25 September 2011 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i loved that article, and that guy, predictably
― k3vin k., Sunday, 25 September 2011 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
Story had this really pronounced gay subtext - his gay brother, his enthusiastic treatment of the 4 transgendered patients, the mysterious drifter at the end who also turns out to be gay. Not sure what to make of that, but it was a fascinating and beautifully written piece. Could be adapted into a TV show or movie.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 26 September 2011 00:53 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think there has to be anything made of that beyond 'sometimes people are gay, also in rural areas'
― iatee, Monday, 26 September 2011 00:54 (twelve years ago) link
that janet macolm thing on the photographer didnt seem v new yorkerish, the way she put herself in the article
― just sayin, Wednesday, 28 September 2011 09:12 (twelve years ago) link
i think it was more than this, because it was specifically exploring the fact that the people who are gay, in rural areas, are in some cases dealing with having to hide this from family or society or themselves, or whatever else. & the fact that this elicited the guy's compassion, & figured in the changing narrative of his life, having previously been cagey around his brother, made it a part of the portrait of him, too.
― mr. vertical (schlump), Wednesday, 28 September 2011 09:54 (twelve years ago) link
also it is one of the articles you can just read on the website in case anyone wants to send it around to friends, etc. it was really stunning.
half way through the malcolm/struth thing - narrator hasn't become intrusive yet, it is quite a 'bold', 'personal' profile of everyone involved though i think.
― mr. vertical (schlump), Wednesday, 28 September 2011 09:56 (twelve years ago) link
i wouldnt say she's necessarily intrusive, its just that usually they seem to sort of go out of their way to not personalise the profiles?
― just sayin, Wednesday, 28 September 2011 10:09 (twelve years ago) link
just hunted down the pharmacist article - it's here http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/26/110926fa_fact_hessler?currentPage=all and it's really beautiful
― civilisation and its discotheques (c sharp major), Wednesday, 28 September 2011 10:18 (twelve years ago) link
when i think of the platonic new yorker article i think of at least one paragraph where the writer describes driving through the small town, stopping at the local pharmacy/gas station/petting zoo and having an off-the-cuff conversation with the pharmacist/gas station attendant/goat wrangler about the topic of the article
― Mordy, Wednesday, 28 September 2011 12:35 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't read that pharmacist article yet, but its author just won a MacArthur "genius grant."
― jaymc, Wednesday, 28 September 2011 13:42 (twelve years ago) link
aye, & is about to move to egypt to cover it for the NYer for the next few years. going to read his 'personal history' about returning to the states from china, in the archives, as soon as i can squeeze it in between other articles.
― mr. vertical (schlump), Wednesday, 28 September 2011 13:46 (twelve years ago) link