New Yorker magazine alert thread

this thread has an appetite for the nyer introducing sardonic winking smilies & maybe in the digital edition deploying rolleyes.gif just to make it super clear though. i guess the guy is allowing an optimistic reading of where we're at & the attitudes that are guiding these people but in concert with how goofy everyone looks i think it's okay to let the reader draw their own conclusions? there doesn't have to be some slash & burn denouement, it puts forward a pretty explicit argument that this stuff kinda stratifies society somewhat

yeah, the article makes these people seem gross and out-of-touch and terrible, it is not doing any of them any favors unless you already think people like this are cool

n/a, true but wtf with the repeated references to "old Chinese lady," jesus H.

Telling parents back east "Here's what your kids are up to."

yeah, the article makes these people seem gross and out-of-touch and terrible, it is not doing any of them any favors unless you already think people like this are cool
--Lamp

Don't think this is what Nathan Heller thinks at all.

otm, the whole thing is written with this wide-eyed reverence that's just as terrible and out-of-touch as the article's subjects.

totally different from the bustle.com piece

Rewinding a couple of weeks, I loved Josh Eells' Vegas EDM piece. Nice deadpan black comedy. Love the details like the girl falling off the stage and the man employed to clear a path for the promoter. And the main players seem somewhat aware that this is an absurd and depressing bubble even as they rake in the $$$.

the Heller piece felt like it should be in the Atlantic with a title like "How the new San Fran techno-aristocracy is changing the way we think and making our lives better and saving the world"

this is sub req, how is it?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/10/14/131014fa_fact_seabrook

first sentence is not good

the whole thing is written with this wide-eyed reverence that's just as terrible and out-of-touch as the article's subjects

well heller obv thinks people like this are cool but the piece is still presented in such a way that it undermines that i guess, or at least doesn't obscure how lame the people hes writing about are? maybe thats just completely unintentional idk

Rewinding a couple of weeks, I loved Josh Eells' Vegas EDM piece. Nice deadpan black comedy. Love the details like the girl falling off the stage and the man employed to clear a path for the promoter. And the main players seem somewhat aware that this is an absurd and depressing bubble even as they rake in the $$$.

― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:46 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the killer quote being the one where someone tells afrojack that track intros are usually timed by bars not seconds and hes like whats a bar

hah yes i respect that so deeply

iirc he says 'whats bars?' lmao

i mean it could be a translation thing as english isnt his first language i think, but still

Lamp I think if you are pre-disposed to think subjects are douches there is no article about them where you won't find plenty of evidence to affirm that belief. I don't think that is evidence that the article is critical of them.

Reflecting on that SF article, I have to continuously remind myself that these douches are, like, 25 years old. Were we not all douches at 25? I certainly was.

It is easy for me to forget their true ages when their resumes already have three/four different "started a company, sold it" entries. Starting a company and selling it used to take a lot longer, which is part of the articles point.

Still, barf.

goole i bet you will love the vegas/afrojack piece-- can YSI a pdf if you want me to

yeah totally! plz do :)

idk anything abt afrojack but i find it almost impossible to believe that anyone working with music software even as a clueless amateur doesn't know what 'bars' are. that's how the visual mapping of everything is delimited. calling them 'measures' is more classical/euro, maybe?

oh whoops you linked to the dr luke thing then i started talking abt the vegas/ afrojack thing.

send me whatever man, i'm not choosy

sent via ilxmail

cool man. can't d/l at work but i'll check that soon.

Deadpan profiles of douchebags seems to be the New Yorker's new speciality.

Hasn't John Seabrook already written that piece btw?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/26/120326fa_fact_seabrook

also

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/08/121008fa_fact_seabrook

yeah seabrook has apparently made a specialty out of writing about the machinery of pop music, amusingly he apparently is a) a huge eagles fan b) doesnt really like pop music

i loved the ester dean piece, like even tho he was condescending i found her creative process totally charming and inspiring

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/10/new-private-club-in-san-francisco.html

LOL now this lady on the other hand really does not like these douchebags:

"The seagull population in San Francisco has risen, from twenty-four birds in 1980 to more than fifty-three thousand in 2013. The gulls threaten endangered native species, interfere with landings and takeoffs at local airports, and even upset Giants fans by eating their snacks and defecating on them during games. They are opportunistic scavengers who adapt easily and can unhinge their jaws to consume what looks like more than their fair share; they may have started out as a small group of not-so-charming birds, but now they’re running the show."

clubs that select their own members are, by definition, not diverse

This is incorrect?

Gottwald's cell phone rang.

"Hey, man," he said. It was Katy Perry's manager, Bradford Cobb. "What's up? Talk to me."

The NY law firm article was bonkers in a vicarious John Grisham kinda way

Henry Wallace article showed him bonkers in a hilarious way.

I started the law firm article...it's like a Louis Auchincloss story.

https://twitter.com/davepell/status/388722039705460736/photo/1

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWUEoq2CUAAQWr1.png

This is great: Michael Shannon gets rejected by the NYer

I love articles about collapsing law firms, looking for a novel version.

Is Edward Snowden coming back to fix http://healthcare.gov ? @BorowitzReport http://nyr.kr/1daZQ1c

fp borowitz is the worst

the austerity of his formula is getting kinda seductive to me. it is ... so base.

if you like reading about collapsing law firms here's another good article: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113941/

The air was warm and moist and pungent with the scent of soured milk, like the cleavage of a nursing mother on a warm day

did anyone else lol at "The number of homeless people in New York has gone through the roof they don't have."

shameless coldblooded homeless zing. in like the first paragraph. bam!

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik reminds me of a smart kid who has to stick his hand up in class every single time in case we forget he's smart.

Is Jill Lepore's thing on Doctor Who worth resuming my subscription for?

main weird ultra new yorkish new yorker thing in the homelessness piece is the author offering up itineraries of his every subway transfer as evidence of his dogged journalistic skills. it's like janet malcolm including her expenses receipts, just really strange.

the doctor who thing is pretty good, but the thing about the anti-semitic hungarian politician who discovers he's jewish is even better imo