New Yorker magazine alert thread

horseshoe you are arguing with someone who is well known to have the worst sense of humor on this board

Truly, my lack of respect for a writer on that effervescent gem that is the post carrell office speaks volumes to my deeply flawed humo(u)r

nov. 14 issue has two really good long articles (planned parenthood + murder/DNA/court martial stories) but the sasha frere-jones piece on the fall was annoyingly simplified/condescending. i know he has to write to his audience but he keeps talking about how mark e. smith writes nonsense lyrics - even if i don't know what he's singing about, i'd never assume it's intended to be nonsense.

I'm always impressed when people decipher them. It's all got meaning, even if I'm not smart enough to parse it.

And the Mindy piece was very funny.

food issue!

No wai I read something really funny in shouts n murmurs a while ago, don't recall what it was

The Mike Bloomberg snowstorm diary was pretty funny:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/01/17/110117sh_shouts_kenney?currentPage=all

food issue not looking terribly appetizing (...) - i really want to read last week's issue once (1) my mail situation is sorted out and (2) my tests are over

i'm not done with the food issue yet but so far the article about apples was kinda interesting and i'm a sucker for calvin trillin pieces, even when they're totally unfocused. the ones about trying to recreate medieval meals and foraging were pretty dumb.

The review of the George Kennan bio is terrific.

i get my issues so late and then take an additional 4 - 8 weeks to get to them that i wish ppl would post "the one with the picture of ____ on the cover" when talking about issues :-[

food issue also has a decent shouts and murmurs from eric idle (can't tell if it's really "funny" or if it just caught my attention by at least varying from the typical S&M style) and a short story by sam lipsyte (which i haven't finished but i'm actually reading it, unlike most NYer short stories).

that bloomberg diary is awesome -- reads a bit like a more pointed barthelme.

oh hey, new-ish george saunders story?

I thought the Planned Parenthood and DNA/double jeopardy articles were good, but both sort of buried the lead. Like, the PP one was a solid history that concluded with a rushed bit on how abortion became the prime Republican boogeyman; I would have preferred a whole article on this. Same thing with the very entertaining/interesting DNA/murder story, which is detective fiction-fascinating, but only closes with the historic import of the double (triple?) jeopardy nature of the case. Both pieces were good, really well written - made me want to donate immediately to PP - but their stories curiously composed.

I really liked Jon Lee Anderson's Libya piece. It made me wish we could bring Qaddafi back to life just to have someone kill him in cold blood all over again. It's a shame these dictators design their rule so that the only way to take them down is in essence to destroy the country with them.

how was the menand essay a couple weeks ago?

The one about Kennan? Excellent. I put the bio on reserve at the library.

I thought the Planned Parenthood and DNA/double jeopardy articles were good, but both sort of buried the lead. Like, the PP one was a solid history that concluded with a rushed bit on how abortion became the prime Republican boogeyman; I would have preferred a whole article on this

Agreed.

that libya piece is fascinating.

lipsyte story is really good if you're into lipsyte btw

"the PP one was a solid history that concluded with a rushed bit on how abortion became the prime Republican boogeyman"

I feel like this part of the history is really well know though, whereas the how we got to 1972 is kind lost a lot.

I dunno about that. I learned a lot from that little bit, not least that until relatively recently Republicans were often more or at least as pro choice as democrats. Also interested in how abortion, for a while, has suited various political agendas, and rarely aligned along the strict divide we find today. Considering the implicit theme of the piece was the reinvigorated assault on reproductive rights, it just follows that that should have been the focus.

"I learned a lot from that little bit, not least that until relatively recently Republicans were often more or at least as pro choice as democrats."

Uh this might be one of those age things so nevermind.

I feel like the theme of the piece was sort of how Planned Parenthood got from there to now. It covered that pretty well.

Reading the PP story and the Hugo Black bio I finished yesterday shed light on even the most liberal justices rolled their eyes at William O. Douglas' penumbras and emanations used to carve a right to privacy.

i am literally paralyzed over whether i should re-up my print subscription or just go ipad-only

print for train/bus commute and toilet; ipad for social situations
how much more expensive is dual?

"social situations"?

responsive new yorker prayer services

haha ya what do you mean by that?

ugh, i hate food issues

would rather read The Doily Issue tbh

you know, social situations where a diverse yet vibrant group of friends gathers around an ipad to read patricia maxwell's latest piece on shopping for hats in manhattan

hahah

food issues are the best iirc

http://markslutsky.com/post/937117589/the-food-issue

i'm kinda done with "food" as an "issue"

that's YOUR issue

true

okay, lol at me i guess
social situations like you're at a place where there's no light to read: bar, pre-concert, solar eclipse, etc

i would never take my ipad to a concert, i'd worry about it getting stolen or wrecked

dunno if htat counts as being 'social'

ya that too

i will cop to having weird definitions of what qualifies as social.
i kinda messenger bag everywhere these days, mostly so i got a pocket for my pad so the umbilicus never has to come unsocketed.

i want to be friends with jon huntsman's daughters after reading last weeks "talk of the town"

"friends"

i have an ipad new yorker subscription and it crashes all the time, it's very annoying.

I have the ipad subscription and it's been smooth, although they did promise me a free travel supplement that was not available free. I asked them twice what was going on and they didn't answer me. Yesterday they emailed me to ask whether I enjoyed my free travel supplement. I, don't, even.

i read the coffee article

Is the coffee article good? I am waiting for this ish to hit InfoTrac to read it.

it was alright

Just started the PP article, but re: wishing that it tracked the politicization of abortion, isn't Jill Lepore writing a book on that atm?

rare shouts & murmurs appearance in the nyer alert thread, i liked this

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2012/01/09/120109sh_shouts_rich?currentPage=all