New Yorker magazine alert thread

from Adam Gopnick's sharp review of Chernow's U.S. Grant bio:

A student of American prose could hold up Adams’s Grant-bashing memoir against Grant’s own memoir to define the two furthest points of American recollection: one discursive, mordant, allusive, and hyperbolic—exaggeration of affect is the key to Adams’s “education”—the other pointed, reduced, and understated. (Lincoln’s speeches, Grant’s memoirs, and Stephen Crane’s stories are the triple pillars of American stoical prose to this day.) What the two old enemies have in common, significantly, is a natural taste for irony: Grant’s understatements, like Adams’s self-mortifications, are meant to make the narrator seem modest while showing that he sees through everything. Grant underplays savage battles to escape the pretensions of heroic rhetoric; Adams overdramatizes his internal “lessons” to mock the earnest pretensions of intellect to master the commercial world. Grant’s battles have no heroism; they just happen. Adams’s education keeps sending him back to Go.

Whenever I’m intimidated about how smart Gopnik is, I just have to remember the number of problems he’s solved.

This line of thinking might deserve its own thread.

Man I don’t know I almost always skip gopnick he is hella annoying

^

often annoying, but he's not always wrong (except about hockey)

this was otm

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump

I find that there are very few New Yorker writers distinctive enough to be especially irritating. I've probably read dozens of Adam Gopnik pieces and I couldn't tell you a single thing about his writing.

heroic detachment ftw

Adam Gopkin said 9/11 Manhattan smelled like Mozarella cheese. That's what I remember about him.

That is inaccurate btw

France, the 70s, young man older woman, just making my way through it now.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/06/26/immortal-gatito?mbid=social_twitter

^^ I've seen the film, but will def make time to read that tonight, thanks

Just stepped on that by accident and this is something else (certainly by New Yorker standards). Mavis Gallant is looking at every action and utterance from about five different angles.

https://twitter.com/MenCatPerson

is it supposed to be good or funny that someone is spending their time finding idiotic tweets by morons or perhaps bigots or actual deep misogynists and sharing them?

what do we learn from this?

Someone saw these tweets, was maddened enough to start one as you can do it for free.

When idiocy and bogotry are read aloud its great because you don't actually need to argue anything, just read it back to the person doing it - that's the effect that account has.

yeah no doubt the men who posted are following it and changing their ways

i don't even think it has to be anything other than funny but many of them aren't even funny, just the stupid, badly expressed opinions of dullards.

i suppose some people doubt that these dullards exist or something, but again, i doubt they are following this.

When idiocy and bogotry are read aloud its great because you don't actually need to argue anything, just read it back to the person doing it - that's the effect that account has.

i think this is seriously one of the most naive things i've ever read on ilx

They will never get to see it, but it might stop some ppl.

Ultimately its not meant to teach ppl anything, that was someone maddened by online. And who could blame them?

xp - its not about changing hearts and minds btw. Its war!

hearts and minds are not changed on twitter

One aspect of modern fandom is to publicize the worst examples of humanity who don't like what you are a fan of, in order to shame others out of criticizing it. (Cat Person was a competently written story and went viral due to its being relatable to people I am lucky enough not to be one of.)

sometimes it takes a long ass time to figure out why some tweet is posted in a particular thread

One aspect of modern fandom liberalism is to publicize the worst examples of humanity

fixed it for you

ITT: men react to men reacting to Cat Person

Those tweets should be added to the story.

someone on twitter had a very good thread yesterday reiterating that Cat Person is a SHORT STORY not a memoir or essay or thinkpiece, and should be assessed accordingly. relating to characters and their experiences is of course fine, but judging the merit of the story on the rightness or wrongness of the characters' actions is really really dumb. ftr I don't think the New Yorker really did itself or the author much of a favor by publishing an accompanying interview with her about it. not that the author should have to relinquish all authority but maybe let the work speak for itself for at least a little while first.

re: that reaction twitter. It seems more like cathartic mockery of the idea that sjws are the only ones who get "triggered" to me. I don't think anyone expects it to change minds.

ITT: men react to men reacting to Cat Person

men react to men reacting to men reacting to cat person.

http://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/4/14/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane01/sub-buzz-21442-1470337110-6.jpg

I hate cats, and I hate hot takes or hot takes about other fucking people's hot takes. So I'm going to remain blissfully ignorant about whatever the fuck Cat Person is, and not feel like I'm missing out on some enlightenment or fun.

it's mostly about putting out fires with gasoline, iirc

It's actually a very good short story!

it's almost insane to which the speed that Twitter chews things up and spits them out, waves of backlash and backlash to the backlash and backlash to the backlash to the backlash and memeifying the whole thing in 24 hours after it's published

like how could anything even exist as a piece of writing or art anymore?

30 years ago you could kick a piece of art down the street

Most fiction writing is safely ignored. It's pretty rare that a piece of short fiction goes viral like this; actually, I can't recall the last time this happened.

lol marcos

love too laugh at people online

The story was surprisingly graphic. I didn't realize the NYer published fiction that explicit.

For what it's worth, I found the story truthful and interesting. Reminded me of Dan Clowes.

the edge of indie miserabilia was the worst part that's true

The NYer almost always publishes an interview online with their short fiction writer of the week, so this was not unusual. People just usually don't care.

the china selfie meitu app article in this weeks is m/l terrifying

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/my-fathers-body-at-rest-and-in-motion

Enjoyed this piece quite a bit. Something about the calm tone that makes it a warm bath to ease into, despite the subject matter.

tw suicide

good piece

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers

That Mukherjee piece is great. Thanks. xp

The Osnos piece on China.

enjoyed that — my first attempt at an audio article!

The article on the brain-dead girl is grim and unsettling, but in an engrossing way.

yeah I have that bookmarked, looking forward to reading

New Grann alert

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-darkness