New Yorker magazine alert thread

Yeah, it's solid for sure

And I am TOTALLY buying that book

SAUNDERS SAUNDERS SAUNDERS

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2012/10/I-was-Ayn-rands-lover.html

"also we’d sometimes see my friends there, and, like clockwork, there’d be this big argument about global monetary policy and whether Foghat was even real music."

it's like he knows us

that sark article was so great, i cant believe its non-fiction

Thought the "Iron Curtain" book review was so good I don't need to read the book.

The ?uestlove profile was great, too. It contained one of the saddest commentaries on race I've ever read, subtle though it may have been. After ?uestlove finishes an album, he likes to "test drive" it, playing in his car stereo as he drives around Philly. Growing up, the only people he knew who drove nice cars and big SUVs were drug dealers, so ?uestlove apparently drives a Scion. So he's driving his Scion around one night, and he gets pulled over not once, not twice, but three times. After the last time he asks the officer, come on, why me? And the officer admits that seeing a large black man driving around at night in a Scion, he basically assumed he had stolen the car from some college kid.

Damned if you do ...

I thought that article was interesting b/c I think ?uestlove is interesting, but there were some cringey middle-aged white-guy-writing-about-rap bits in it.

wait til you guys read the kid rock profile this week

(it's pretty boring)

Eh, I thought it struck a fine balance. No "Mr. ?uestlove," 41, who makes a living performing with many notable rapper musicians between jobs disc jockeying and serving as the music director for Jimmy Fallon, a television program watched by young people" sort of stuff. I thought it did a nice job dancing around the issue of making music listened to largely through white ears, or played for white audiences, or for "Pitchfork and Slate," while at the same time underscoring that there is no escape from race, going back to the "damned if you do ..." situation.

xpost Is there really a Kid Rock profile?

yes

At least they captured him at the peak of his powers and popularity.

Kelefa wrote it! was wondering what he was up to

Off the NYer again, kind of burned out on it. Will probably re-subscribe in six months or so.

I probably don't need to ask, but is the Gopnik on geography article more of his Politics Gladwell shtick?

loved Menand's review of Applebaum's Iron Curtain (I put it in my library queue).

Just learned Alex Ross is queer.

oh man this grateful dead piece lol

its kind of amazing

Good/bad amazing?

idk its m/l just a guy rhapsodizing abt dead bootlegs for a v long time

he stops to mention periodically how much his wife and other people hate this pastime

i... sort of enjoyed it

screen names see print

I like the idea of some ponytailed writer pitching every day, for decades, a piece on his wife and him collecting Dead bootlegs until finally, bam, 2012 comes around and the mag relents.

Haha, I was just looking at the issue and somehow missed this

Loved the ?uestlove article, and loved the Kid Rock article. Kid Rock article was kind of funny. Like, it didn't make his music sound appealing or his politics or even personality but somehow he came across so humble and cool about things that you couldn't help but to kinda like the guy.

i've been in the "can't help but like" camp since Devil Without a Cause tbh

ha so sark, i mean wtf is up w/ this place right?

I've never actually heard his music except the werewolves of london one...and whatever thing he had on MTV during the first time around when he was the white rapper that wasn't Beastie Boys or 3rd Bass and before Vanilla Ice and House of Pain.

its the worst music

remember that profile of him before he became famous in grand royal

Yeah. I read that issue over and over again when I was 14 or 15 and just starting to get into music. In those woeful pre-internet days growing up in suburban Scotland, Grand Royal seemed was an impossibly exciting glimpse into a world I was only dimly aware of, and the Kid Rock profile made him sound like a brilliant iconoclast. I was really excited to hear his music.

Then, a few years later, I did hear his music. It was terrible :(

Y U BRAEK HART KID ROCK

Every person I know who grew up with, has hung with, or even casually knows Kid Rock - and there are a shocking number, all things considered - says he is a great guy who gives a lot back to Detroit and generally has your back. His music is indeed terrible, but maybe that is what keeps him humble.

I'm sure he is a nice guy - the New Yorker profile certainly made him seem decent. I guess I should probably let go of the disappointment over the quality of his musical offerings that has now plagued me for now more than half my life.

Yeah, moveon.org.

Who'd have guessed a thread on New Yorker articles could be so cathartic?

People who make terrible music often turn out to be really nice people. Unfortunately the opposite is also true :/

music who makes people terrible nice?

Just learned Alex Ross is queer.

Yeah, I didn't learn this until I started following him on Twitter and he was promoting his partner's film.

v. excited to read the Dead article

i knew people would complain about the dead article but i thought it was really good, aside from a couple of corny moments. did a nice job of explaining something i don't know much about to me, which is basically what i look for in a NYer article. this week's issue is solid, the article by the guy whose mom went to jail for shaking a baby and the profile of the controversial megachurch pastor were good too, and jill lepore on taxes had some interesting parts.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/after-gaza-a-single-state.html

Surprisingly concrete and radical position for something published in the NYer. A french tourist on the subway once saw my sister-in-law reading the new yorker and asked her "This magazine, what does it stand for? I cannot tell."

didn't kid rock beat eminem in some early rap competitions?

yeah he choked, he was so mad, but he wouldnt give up that easy

i feel like young kid rock and eminem struck a secret blood brothers bargain to set off to conquer rap using two different strategies, and who got which strategy depended on the toss of some D&D dice.

Record store clerk friend of mine said Kid Rock came into the shop (pre MTC hit) and he bought "every good record in the store." I still find that hard to believe, though.

MTV, even.

Surprisingly concrete and radical position for something published in the NYer. A french tourist on the subway once saw my sister-in-law reading the new yorker and asked her "This magazine, what does it stand for? I cannot tell."

― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Tuesday, November 20, 2012 11:41 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that reminds me of the italian journalist i sat next to at dinner once, who had covered war crimes trials in the hague and other important things, who said to me when i told her my beat was movies and food, "you only write about... pleassssure."

ironic nationality dialectic