New Yorker magazine alert thread

oh yeah haha i forgot about shouts and murmurs in my estimation of the nyers smugness, probably because i never, ever read it

basically i check to see if its jack handey and if its not i skip

I cannot face shouts & murmurs ever. I also never read the short fiction, cards on table.

What is the Rosenberg story everyone is talking abt? Starting to worry that I misplaced an issue...

It's in last week's issue and also online:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_grann

Oh cool, got that one already, been saving it.

George RR Martin profile in the current ish was hella depressing. Fans are not good people.

oh yeah shouts and murmurs blows obv

The short fiction is hit or miss, but I liked the Murakami story they re-ran in the Japan issue.

yeah i read the martin profile last night -- don't know anything about the guy, but yeeesh. his fans! definitely a good book or something to be written (if it hasn't been written already) about modern fandom, and how the internet has mucked everything up.

It's rly rly weird psychologically and the GRRM profile is far from the first time I have noticed it; basically, Fans with a capital F have this weird seething RAGE toward the creators of the narratives they want. Like this impotent rage. The creator(s) don't even have to be late on delivery of new work like GRRM has been, the Fans just are constantly teetering between deification and hatred of those who CONTROL "their" characters. There DOES need to be a new book abt it because the internet has exacerbated it severely.

i still read the fiction every week but it's kind of depressing how far its fallen off. i remember back in the early to mid 00's when they had authors like munro, edward jones, murakami, jhumpa lahiri, etc in constant rotation. there's still a quality story now and then but it's much less frequent. i do really like the fiction podcast from the website tho.

http://www.slate.com/id/2290801/

all aboard the grann wagon

groann

Started Lost City of Z and seriously, crack on paper.

Did anyone else notice one of the entrants to this week's caption contest?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/826480/Photo%20Apr%2019%2C%209%2057%2002%20PM.jpg

from the ipad edition, remnick's latest sounds like a must-read.

I feel like there are a few Franzen haters around here, but I'm surprised to find myself enjoying his article about the island, Robin Crusoe, and DFW.

read that malcolm x thing yesterday. it was aight.

its just a book review.

haha joe

xxxp yeah i liked it ok...i generally like franzens fiction but not really his non-fic; he def jazzed it up & had a legit point but i was v much groaning at his blackberry/Blackberry analogy

Did anyone else notice one of the entrants to this week's caption contest?
ha, yeah. gonna assume that it's THE roger ebert?
Franzen essay was excellent despite some of the cringiness.

Oh yeah, I cringed a couple of times, plus the whole conceit started out a little "oh, poor life of famous author on the road" (not at all to take away from losing a friend) for me, but it was still a good read.

only so many r eberts in chicago i'd imagine

ipad app dece?

it is him. he posted about it on his blog: he's been trying to get into the finals round for years and years

his caption wasn't that good iirc

no it wasn't.
cartoon was a pair of people standing in the middle of a wasteland under a mall parking lot sign with an "F" on it and Ebert has the woman saying "Guess which word I'm thinking of now."
har har
video games aren't art btw

ipad app dece?

― thetan is cheatin (cozen), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 10:36 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's ok, pricey, would be better if you got access with a subscription. i just loaded it up to check the price of each issue when i saw that "remnick on remnick" gaffe.

"That might play big in Chicago, but the New Yorker has a different set of standards."

xp

"we prefer film critics with senses of humor, ebert. you know, like david denby."

lol

tbf anthony lane used to be kind of funny

lane is kinda funny, but i don't think he's that great a film critic

he's very funny!

I haven't actually read a Lane review in a while but some of his takedowns of hollywood blockbusters are classic. It can feel a little cheap though.

whole travel issue was pretty enjoyable imo. the astana and chinese people touring europe articles in particular

didnt know that that dope 2-part travelogue about siberia from summer 09 had been expanded into a book:

http://www.amazon.com/Travels-Siberia-Ian-Frazier/dp/0374278725

I loved the Franzen/Robinson Crusoe thing.

Haven't read the cover story ("Middle East of the West?") but I can tell from the subhead that it's going to be one of those UuuuuuNnnnnnngggggghhhh stories to read.

just like the story they ran on energy efficiency recently (which suggested that there's no point to pursuing efficiency measures because lol Jevon's paradox, uuuuuuuuunnnnggghhhhh). <3 new yorker but their energy stories blow. elizabeth kolbert rulez, however.

^thus concludes my new yorker minute

whole travel issue was pretty enjoyable imo. the astana and chinese people touring europe articles in particular

Kazakhstan article indeed very entertaining, and all without making a single Borat joke.

wasn't the chinese people touring europe article done recently in another magazine? i feel like harper's ran an article on the same topic maybe 3 months ago.

yeah the atlantic did one too a few months ago...but the new yorker guy went UNDERCOVER, embedding himself with an actual chinese bus tour! he spoke chinese and everything!

i was really bracing myself for a borat reference the whole article too lol. The last sentence does describe men in small swimming trunks, but i guess that doesn't quite count

"We spoke in Chinese, but when he was surprised he’d say, “Oh, my Lady Gaga!,” an English expression he’d picked up at school."

There's a remote possibility that the harpers guy ended up interviewing the new yorker guy as part of his story without even realizing it! Journalists interviewing undercover journalists, the Journalistic Centipede, pt. II

yeah texas arson thing was awesome, looking forward to re-reading it when my copy of the book comes.

learning this was a little bit of a let-down tho: http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2009/10/willinghams-last-words.html

― gr8080, Tuesday, April 5, 2011 4:22 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just started working my way through the book and read this piece for the 2nd time since it first got published.

interesting to note that the passage that appears/appeared in the New Yorker:

Willingham had asked that his parents and family not be present in the gallery during this process, but as he looked out he could see Stacy watching. The warden pushed a remote control, and sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, was pumped into Willingham’s body.

appears in the book with an extended sentence:

Willingham had asked that his parents and family not be present in the gallery during this process, but as he looked out he could see Stacy watching; whatever calm he had obtained was lost, and with his last breaths he cursed her. The warden pushed a remote control, and sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, was pumped into Willingham’s body.

also the context being that though she divorced him she always defended him until towards the end when, having not seen the new evidence she suddenly changed it up and declared him a murderer.

well yeah i dunno after 14 years in prison for a crime i didn't commit i'd maybe lose my cool if i saw her on the other side of the glass too i guess.

the closing paragraph remains the same though.

Yeah and it is problematic, but I don't think it changes the strength of the piece which isn't really "look Willingham is really a great dude and therefore totally innocent" and more "the evidence that convicted Willingham is a joke and the state of Texas killed an innocent person because the safeguards that should exist to prevent that from occurring are also a joke."

What really drove me crazy about the Chinese tourists was that they didn't try the local cuisine and went out of their way to find Chinese restaurants/McDonald's (having also experienced the exact same thing when I went on a canned tour).

Has anyone tried commenting on the website before? Do comments get quarantined until a moderator approves them first?

Been reading the Eagleman brain timing article. Gets very ilx friendly when Brian Eno shows up. Also had to enjoy the reed krakoff article since I work for him.