New Yorker magazine alert thread

matt damons gonna direct a movie based on that grann article abt the guatemalan assassination breaking

xpost The piece claims museum basements are filled with fake stuff.

they should make a museum out of it

BTW, the Japanese suicide monk was a beautiful piece. I loved the bit where a) he accepts and advertised low-level monk position and b) when after this hard-ass monastery ordeal, he gets a job flipping burgers and throws everyone off with his impossibly positive work attitude.

anybody read the Sanneh piece on MSNBC?

yes

ya i liked the (anti) suicide monk

ive heard similar stories abt major tibetan buddhist lamas getting menial jobs in exile and being really happy and cool with it, partially cause their level of responsibility had diminished so much, lol

matt damons gonna direct a movie based on that grann article abt the guatemalan assassination breaking

YES. I think I suggested Tony Gilroy should do it.

what did matt say?

so an article about sharks off the coast of massachusetts, called "cape fear"

The student, Fletcher Nightwine, quickly took out his earbuds.

which issue is suicide monk in?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/06/24/130624fa_fact_macfarquhar

I like picking up an old issue and finding an article I missed.

The March 4 issue had been sitting on my kitchen table since it first arrived and I just picked it up on my way out the door the other day. It has a really wonderful story about the local Newtown, CT, newspaper's response/coverage to the school shooting. Everyone in the story (and town, really) come off as decent, civic-minded, good people ("decent" here probably doesn't read as I'd intend, but I can't come up with a better word right now) who are doing their best to keep a sense of normalcy in what sound/reads like the prototypical New England American town.

I have to look up more of Rachel Aviv's stories, because she did a fantastic job of setting the scene, introducing everyone, describing the town, etc. Had me in tears by the end.

Unfortunately, it's subscriber only, but check it out if you can:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/04/130304fa_fact_aviv

civil forfeiture piece was crazy-- i expected it to be depressing but it was more enraging

yeah it's p insane

the way that one sherrif was so convinced he was doing the right thing that he didn't even attempt to cover his own ass in a court deposition

just the idea of scores of lawsuits that are (county w/e) vs. (some physical object) is so nuts to me, sounds like a bad joke

kelefeh on msnbc isnt really anything groundbreaking but its a good read

Jill Lepore's brief essay/review of the new Woodrow Wilson bio is a tentative (re)assessment of a progressive sumbitch.

Shark piece was good. I (like everyone) am so used to saying "great white shark" that it was jarring to read something that simply referred to them as "white sharks."

the panda article has to be the first use of "electro-ejaculation" in the nyer

theres also a good letter ref'ing the civil forfeiture article abt knowledge of the law against structuring cash bank deposits to avoid the $10k notification requirment & a client of his who lost $100K from proceeds she had kept in her basement for years and then put in various accts from her job @ subway??

Didn't Nicholson Baker use the phrase in his article on LCD screens?

hm u know it was prob in the paul haggis scientology article my bad

It's all over the place. They're gonna change it to "Electro-ejaculation of the Town" in the new year.

So: Claire Danes. Should I read this?

not sure she posts here haha

ask jim franco

Claire Danes thing was OK. Was expecting a mention of the whole Billy Crudup/Mary Louise Parker saga.

Stuff about her training as a dancer and how this impacts her acting was p interesting.

I'm not a fan in particular but thought it was pretty interesting.

want to start a thread about the article this week about the increase in the number of people who believe they are part of a truman show-esque reality tv show but it's a subscriber-only article

how long til they are available for cheapskates to read, usually?

that sounds cool

i think most stuff just stays subscriber-only forever, via the online archives

it's pretty interesting but one of those articles i wish was longer. the broader context is about how the time and area where psychotics live affects how their psychosis manifests itself.

I liked that article fine, but it felt overly familiar. Has the NYer been doing a lot of schizophrenia stuff or is that just me? They have definitely been hitting the "medical" theme pretty hard in the past couple of years.

yea i agree that article felt kinda bs/pedestrian idk

fuck you guys

j/k lol

how long til they are available for cheapskates to read, usually?

that sounds cool

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, September 9, 2013 5:31 PM (2 hours ago)

dude the NYer is like the biggest bargain in the world, what is it like less than 2 bucks an issue for some pretty consistently top-shelf writing

just launched today on zinio too, if ur 'over' paper (been on newsstand for a while i believe).

I just suspended my account till further notice. :-\ the back issues were becoming a physical hazard, or they still are because I am lazy.

if i haven't finished them after 2 months, i recycle them

my partner is still waiting for a "better deal" to renew. i'm like "better deal? it's almost free. just renew already."

or you could share...?

i haven't read the truman show article yet but it has been frustrating how abrupt the recent medical coverage has been. the one on the balkan kidney disease was kind of infuriating with how "talk of the town" it was, just blithe & condescending.

condescending?

they've been sending me 'renew now for only us$60!!!!1' emails, but i pay fifty bucks through itunes discounts, so

"condescending" might be putting it too strongly, it's an instance of the house style (and some pretty obvious editing iirc) not being equal to a condition that is some kind of deep legacy of underdevelopment, poverty & war.

I liked the Balkan kidney disease piece, but I'm generally a fan of Elif Batuman's work so maybe I'm biased. I didn't find it at all condescending. The personal connection through her father made it more emotionally resonant I thought. It was kind of inspiring to read about these researchers who keep plugging away for decades on some obscure disease, but also kind of melancholy in its acknowledgement of the lack of answers.