New Yorker magazine alert thread

story on confidential informants was pretty fucked up

ariel levy on naomi wolf's new book was pretty awesome

i liked the levy review too tho the 50 shades connection seemed forced

curious about jets and satanic verses

My last three issues have said WARNING LAST ISSUE on the front, and yesterday they accidentally mailed me an issue from 2-3 weeks ago.

WARNING WERE DRUNK

jets article has some solid LOLs, rushdie article is half fascinating and half weird (lots of self-aggrandizing and written in second person for some reason)

the 50 shades connection seemed forced

tru. tho tbh 50 shades sounded kind of ok in comparison to vagina: a new biography

i'll wait for the oral history

LOVED the Levy review. Much more elegantly devastating than the straight-up axe-grinding of, say, Katie Roiphe's Slate review.

have to check it out, seeing all these headlines re her new book i realized i couldnt remember what i disliked abt naomi wolf

Going way back to the Rachel Carson/DDT/mosquito debate:

When the recently created Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT for most domestic uses in 1972, this ruling had no force in other parts of the world and the insecticide remained part of the international anti-malaria arsenal. The United States continued to manufacture and export DDT until the mid-1980s, and it has always been available from pesticide makers in other countries.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/silent_spring_turns_50_biographer_william_souder_clears_up_myths_about_rachel_carson_.2.html

FYI, Ware has been sneaking himself into his past several covers, Where's Waldo? style. That's him on the bike in the lower left of the Sept. 17 issue.

Catching up after being on vacation. Confidential informants article is seriously making my blood boil with fury. This is basically the death penalty for possession of weed.

yeah it took me several days to actually finish the youth ci piece. i'd read a page and have to put it down, so disturbing and enraging.

It is damning, yes

jets article has some solid LOLs, rushdie article is half fascinating and half weird (lots of self-aggrandizing and written in second person for some reason)

I glanced at the Rushdie piece, and isn't it in third person?

Anyway, looking forward to that and the Elizabeth Warren profile once I finish the interminable article on the Danish architect.

sorry, third person, you're right. mixed up my terminology.

Second person would be weird - like a choose your own adventure book but with a fatwa.

you are not the kind of guy who would be the target of a fatwa at a place like this at this time of the morning

Your wife, who is falling out of love with you, calls you to say that 200 journalists are outside of your home. Do you:

a) Go home and fight through the mob of journalists to your home.
b) Ask your wife to meet you at your agent's office.
c) Say, "200? Exactly 200? It's very easy to make inaccurate estimates with a crowd that large, are you sure? I bet it's only 100."

You have written Haroun and The Sea of Stories.

Do you want to be a children's author? Go to page 43.
Do you want to divorce your model wife? Go to page 230.

My English degree finally proves useful.

Also, GO TO PAGE 43 TO THE MAX.

lol lol lol

Thought the Rushdie piece was excellent, and I understand the impulse to write it in the 3rd person: both as a process, in order to step out from under that kind of shadow and describe it with any kind of objectivity; and as a kind of compensatory measure — he justifiably wants to sever the "I" from this story, to be regarded more for his work than his face/notoriety.

Also thought it was a good narrative strategy that dovetailed neatly w/ the historical sections....

ugh i couldn't read the gladwell thing about pedophiles, not even because of ugh gladwell, but it was just too disturbing and gross, it basically read like "how to be a pedophile"

good pieces this week: surprisingly touching profile of joe girardi, interesting piece about the first political consulting firm

really wish the contents flap on the front of the magazine read MALCOLM GLADWELL how to be a paedophile

yeah that article was really disturbing. could possibly do some good, though (or lead to more witchhunts).

My first fear was that Gladwell would have some sort of gimmick insight to offer on the subject. Which he didn't. But there were paragraphs in there that made my whole body cringe (b/c of the details).

i look forward to him including that article in his next book of mind-blowing essays for business-types

mind-blowing essays for child-molesters

mindful essays for child-blo[REDACTED]

from the author of BLINK and OUTLIERS: CREEPY GIGGLE

http://deadspin.com/5944033/malcolm-gladwell-turns-jerry-sandusky-into-a-parable-by-leaving-out-some-facts?post=52780804

confidential informants article, so sad. the details about the parents' new routines.

Just getting around to Kolbert's article on Neanderthals, really good. This was a startling detail, though:

While I was in Leipzig, I watched a graduate student cut the heads off some of the altered mice and then slice up their brains, like radishes.

yeah i love that article. the part about the desire to raft into uncharted territory separating neanderthal from man.

you are v far behind w/your stack of nyers, though.

this is now my favorite new yorker cartoon of all time:

http://i45.tinypic.com/1q4jdu.jpg

i liked the one with the political candidate kissing a baby while it was breastfeeding. i chortled a little at that one.

it was good anyway (i love that he's brought his stick into the room. it adds another layer to the whole ridiculous situation, which is that he's still playing childish games while his wife is moving on to having sex with...uh...humans), but the fact that the man's arm resembles a deer leg takes it to a new level.

the stick is such a nice touch

this is now my favorite new yorker cartoon of all time:

http://i45.tinypic.com/1q4jdu.jpg

― Thanks WEBSITE!! (Z S), Friday, September 21, 2012 5:39 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg

What issue was the Kolbert neanderthal thing in? I feel like I missed that.

it was approx one zillion new yorker years ago

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_kolbert

i also like that neither the poodle or the deer-man look ashamed or startled at all. they're just like "fuck yeah we're having sex now, go play with your stick and get lost!"

prelude to a threesome

damn, this gonorrhea article is really dispiriting. I hate to think we are approaching a time where condoms for oral sex are gonna need to be the way of the world.

compelling reasons to skip articles

(not really)