Harper's Magazine: C/D

i had a subscription to the economist one year but it made me feel so guilty because i never read it and it came like every day it seemed so the piles of it i had lying around unread were physical testament to the many, many things i didn't know.

― horseshoe, Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:04 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is precisely what happened. i let the subscription lapse, it was just too much to handle

and reading back issues of the economist is pretty much a non-starter

nyer is the best of these imo. totally OTM upthread about harper's seeming more & more like a leftist conspiracy mag. by contrast the political writing in the nyer is pretty good and usually a pretty reliable part of the magazine. the 'profiles' are also usually really good

i almost never read the fiction tho, and there are a lot of issues that i just don't have time to read. i wish they did more regular music crit, too, seems like only 1 or two issues a month has it.

i used to keep all of them too, but it got too crazy w/ all the back issues everywhere. i'd pick up an older issue and swear to myself that i had never seen that particular cover before. now i clean them out every month, so i only keep the 3 or 4 most recent issues. if there's an article i really like, i know that as a subscriber i can always access it online

but it's super cheap 4 realz - i pay like $40 a year for weekly issues, and it gets cheaper the longer you subscribe.

new york review of books!

i think they do music essays every issue--pop music reviews are more like every other issue

i am of the opinion that a lot of their critics are stupid and/or irritating

i have a visceral hatred for the economist because its a big signifier for "im a white douchebag poli-sci major who will describe himself as a 'moderate' and be totally dismissive of anyone to the left of joe lieberman despite having picked up all of my opinions from my advisor and this magazine" or at least it was in my school

― Bobby Wo (max), Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:15 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

;_; why you gotta cut to my core like that

(fwiw i like but do not subscribe to the economist, dislike lieberman, and i was a poli sci/econ double major, SO THERE)

i agree with mookieproof - it's the best by far of this bunch

"eat shit - 1,000,000 flies can't be wrong" -- the economist

i was a poli sci/econ double major

fwiw u are worse than a theater major

:C

i never understood what people see in the economist

― velko, Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:20 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

good writing on, imo, e. europe and africa that doesn't start with, "hey! there's a country called swaziland!" or whatever.

there's a lot worse than a theater major big max and I say this as an english/classical studies dude (no horse)

cosign w/Review of Books, or even Bookforum which isn't great & is often too cursory but on the other hand gets some good essayists now and then (Vollman a few months back with a straightup incredible review of some newer Holocaust books) & won't pile up unread like NYROBs almost surely will. OTOH William Gass is writing for Harper's pretty regularly, and he's one of the best stylists alive, if a total misanthrope, but imo his ability to tease cruelty out of even the simplest idea makes him worth the price of a subscription

yeah theres way worse shit than theater majors, such as kinesiology majors, or ECON POLI-SCI DOUBLE MAJORS

haaahaahaha

the school next to mine was basically all econ/polsci's and they all had ANNOY THE LIBERAL MEDIA: TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REAGAN-BUSH LEGACY posters in their dorm windows

not that guy

bunch of winners those dudes

luckily they are all in positions of unbelievable power making policy in washington LOL ;_;

if it makes u feel better, i am in a position of no power in not washington

i shouldnt be fronting, i was president of the young democrats one year

luckily they are all in positions of unbelievable power making policy in washington LOL ;_;

most of them went straight to wall street or the chicago board of trade and I am assuming a number of them moved back in with their parents last year

unlike my classmates who were smokin weed then and are doubtless smokin weed now

holla

if u have a commute on public transportation its great--never piles up for me cuz i read it on the subway/train

^^this

oh someone recommended the new york review of books the other day!

The intro essay for Harper's (formerly all Lapham, now revolving I think?) is usually amusingly indecipherable.

nyrb rules but its so giant and unruly i feel like a total bag reading it in public

i would read it on the bus while standing and feel like HM HELLO YES I LIVE THE LIFE OF THE MIND AND GARGLE TESTICLES

hoosbag

i haven't been reading any of these mags for a while now - i used to subscribe to them all and when i worked at the hospital i would just steal old ones - and i don't miss them at all.

there really needs to be some new magazines. or something. i would tell people to subscribe to a good science magazine. or smithsonian. or national geo. i find that stuff more entertaining these days than old guard handwringers and lethemite types.

reading the NYRB online feels really, really strange, but I do it

i had a subscription to the economist one year but it made me feel so guilty because i never read it and it came like every day it seemed so the piles of it i had lying around unread were physical testament to the many, many things i didn't know.

HA HA. Yeah, substitue the Economist for Scientific American, and I felt the same way. I stopped my subscription two years ago, and I still have some back issues to read.

I'm about 4 issues behind in my Harper's, but I read an article or two everyday at work, so I keep up the subscription.

I meant, "I read an article or two [from the online archives] at work everyday.

By "left conspiracy mag" do you really mean "left mag"? Because it is that, and the New Yorker isn't, much as I love it (and the Atlantic and the Economist really aren't).

Everything Ken Silverstein writes is worth checking out, but his going undercover as a representative of some horribly repressive country to hire a lobbyist was genius. Other faves from the stack of recent issues: "Jesus Killed Mohammed" (amazing report on right-wing evangelicalism in military), "The Sicario: A Juarez Hit Man Speaks" (also amazing), "Barack Hoover Obama," Wallace Shawn on sex, etc. etc...

I get both Harper's and the New Yorker. Both are great, but I prefer Harper's for the often absurd and amusing selections in the "Readings" section.

really miss the old atlantic.

I know nothing about magazines.

Is the NYer especially New York centric in its content? I don't live there & wiki says
"reviews and events listings often focus on cultural life of New York City"
I only really know the cliche about the cartoons being dry & whatnot. Also the dandy on the cover makes me think it's for bourgeois fops or something.

What about the NYRB as opposed to The Believer etc? Is NYRB for old people ?

oh wait the Believer is like 60 bucks

Some New Yorker articles and columns are on their website. Many American public libraries also carry copies of the magazine.

i know it's always pretty brutal, but this month's index is pretty brutal
(rest of the issue looks good also)

sooo
does anyone read harper's, here? I was thinking of butting in on the NYer alert thread to see if anyone who's more tuned in than i am wanted to rep for any articles, recently, I guess, but historically, too. I have a digital subscription I dip into, reading the index & some of the short pieces, but I seldom get into the essays, just because there's always something else to read.

it has a good eye for things like absurd & profound exchanges in court transcripts, cf this month's 'head trauma' piece.

I was just about to bump this thread last night!

bacevich's short essay on the "American century" was pretty good
really enjoyed the longer piece on monopolies and the perversion of open markets
most of the way through the piece on Phillip Larkin - probably inessential if you've already read about his letters and his racism, but good nonetheless

(talking about the feb 2012 issue btw)

yeah we get harper's.

it can be a tough slog month after month but there's always stuff worth reading.

ty kevin, gonna dip into the bacevich thing now. i've probably read a couple of pages into essays by people i recognise, over the past few years, i think i need nyer-thread style endorsements though. i was enjoying new books while zadie smith was doing it, i guess that's over now?

I like this and was reading this at a friend's house the other day, but I neva eva do. it sorta removes itself from internet-relevance by being 100% gated but I guess they're really into the 'not going out of business' thing.

yeah i'm not a fan of the new new books guy

i generally can't believe how cheap american magazine subscriptions are - noticed this in the spin thread, also - like i don't know how a new yorker sub covers even the mailing costs, but harper's is p cheap. i know that's not the point. but it's maybe part of the model that makes it more viable to them.

he is a cowboy