Martin Schneider writes:
A. J. Liebling is one of those storied writers from The New Yorker‘s past whose work I keep meaning to read more of. Fortunately, on the occasion of the release of the Library of America’s A. J. Liebling: World War II Writings, the Columbia Journalism Review got Pete Hamill, who edited the book, to make the case, at typically vigorous length, that I should do that sooner rather than later.
Here’s an audio file of the event, which was held last Tuesday at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. (It’s a .mov file, but it is audio-only.) For the aspiring journalists out there, the discussion includes essential tips in the strategic use of bearded Norwegians in the fine art of finding a job. The presentation gets extra points for name-checking St. Clair McKelway.
Monthly Archives: March 2008
True Debating Wit in All Thy Sons Command
Martin Schneider writes:
In October, reporting on the first annual New Yorker Debate, I wrote:
If the Member from Gopnik and the Member from Gladwell (as the convention required they call each other) don’t collectively become a 100 percent Canadian staple of the Festival, then the world just doesn’t make sense. Attention, programmers! I want to see these two debate a year from now! Got it? Good.
Over at the Millions, I see that my appeal has apparently stirred the imagination of someone at Maclean’s, only Canada’s most prominent newsweekly magazine, because Gladwell and Gopnik are taking their act on the road—to Toronto!
The subject is “Canada: Nation or Notion?” The debate is taking place this Sunday, March 30, at 4 p.m. at Convocation Hall, University of Toronto, 31 King’s College Circle.
Tickets are still available! I’m supposed to use the ticket price of $30 Canadian ($15 for Maclean’s subscribers) as an excuse to make fun of Canada’s currency, but China will sell us to Canada before that joke becomes fashionable again. (Speaking of which, A.G., feel free to use M.G.’s suggestion that the United States purchase Canada against him in the debate—I’m sure the audience will have no problem with that idea!)
Unless I’m mistaken, Gladwell and Gopnik are rapidly gaining ground on such unforgettable duos as Stadler and Waldorf, The Captain & Tennille, and Sodom and Gomorrah.
A Little More Lepore; Or, Men, Women, and History
Salon’s Carol Lloyd considers the portion of Jill Lepore’s recent piece “Just the Facts, Ma’am” that addresses the often divergent reading tastes of women and men.
I once went on a date with a man who insisted, indignantly, that men did too read novels (of course, I didn’t claim that no men read novels—that would be absurd coming from someone whose father has a yearly Pride and Prejudice bacchanal—only that the men I know tend to prefer nonfiction), and called his best friend from the car (he had a car, which was strange in itself) to gather further irrefutable evidence of this truth. Anyway, he was vindicated, but I didn’t much like his pugilistic need (coincidentally, he was a lawyer) to be right on every point he brought up. So, that was the beginning and end of our romance, and that is more history than literature.
Glories of the Past Dept.: Michael J. Arlen on Losing the Novel Race
The latest installment of a new column on New Yorker fiction, past and present, by writer and editor Benjamin Chambers.
It occurred to me that it would be fun to do occasional posts on fiction that appeared in The New Yorker 50 years ago. To start off, I simply did a quick scan of The Complete New Yorker (CNY) for fiction published in 1958, and son of a gun, I came up with a winner right away: Michael J. Arlen’s delightful “Are We Losing the Novel Race?†from April 19, 1958. (This particular Arlen, by the way, is not to be confused with his father, the popular Armenian writer mentioned in one of the earliest issues of TNY, who later made the cover of Time.)
“Novel Race†deftly and briefly satirizes domestic fears, post-Sputnik, that America was falling behind the Soviets—in this case, in the length of its novels. And even though I wouldn’t classify the piece as fiction, really, its winning, jaunty tone and well-deserved jab at Ayn Rand make it worth digging up.
In case you’re curious, here are a few other notable writers published in TNY in 1958: John Cheever, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Frank O’Connor, S.J. Perelman, Penelope Mortimer, William Maxwell, Robert Graves, Nadine Gordimer, V.S. Pritchett, Peter Taylor, and Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one, the other one). Familiar names there, definitely.
Some folks I didn’t recognize (though perhaps they were well-known in literary households then): Dean Doner, Kim Yong Ik, Parke Cummings, and Florence Codman. I look forward to digging in and reporting back. In fact, I think I’ll do a similar scan of fiction from 25 years ago, too. Stay tuned.
The McCain on the Bus Goes ‘Round and ‘Round
In the Times (which may be the paper of record but, as I was intoning to some of the lively and charming guests at last night’s party for Daniel Radosh‘s new book, Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, should still not be referred to as “the paper”), Neal Gabler reflects on the curious camaraderie of John McCain’s populous tour bus.
In the piece, Gabler muses that McCain “may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency,” and makes note of Ryan Lizza’s lucid story on the subject, which was, for me, the clearest window into McCain’s brain (not to be confused with Reagan’s brain) yet.
I read somewhere that Lizza said the bus is a germ parade—perhaps it should be nicknamed the Stray Bug Express—and everyone on it is constantly ailing. Hope he, and they, are feeling better! Yes, even the Republicans.
San Francisco Event: Liza Donnelly at the Cartoon Art Museum
This Thursday, March 27, cartoonist Liza Donnelly will be appearing at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum to talk about her brand-new book, Sex and Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love…in 200 Cartoons. Who are the ten women? I’m glad to say that they’re Donnelly, Roz Chast, Carolita Johnson, Marisa Acocella Marchetto, Victoria Roberts, Barbara Smaller, Julia Suits, Ann Telnaes, Kim Warp, and Signe Wilkinson, all of whose drawings will also be featured at the museum through June 8. I’ll be in S.F. this weekend and am definitely planning to go. If you’re a reader in the Bay Area, email me and we’ll go together!
New Yorker Tops List of Ellie Nominations
With an even dozen, including one for newyorker.com for “general excellence online.” (Can’t you hear Bill & Ted saying that?) And a little magazine called PRINT, where I work, got one too! It’s a good day.
“How Much Are Construction Deaths Worth?”
That’s the sober question asked by Lost City in a clear-eyed, affecting editorial about the East Side construction-crane disaster that caused seven deaths a few days ago. (I was introduced to the site today by the indispensable Manhattan User’s Guide.) Brooks ends the post:
In a column in the New York Post, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer compared the accident to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a bellwether of the last century the brought on sweeping changes in corrupt citywide labor laws. He invoked the disaster as a way of indicating that vast changes at the DOB are called for in the wake of the crane accident. Will such changes occur? Sadly, tragically, criminally, another crane accident is probably more likely.
Murakami Previews the Cubs’ 2008 Season
Benjamin Chambers writes:
It’s only a parody, but I fell for it at first. Who wouldn’t? Haruki Murakami is the one person in the world who could make me believe the Chicago Cubs were finally going to take it all the way. Fortunately, he only uses his powers for good, even when he’s being parodied.
The best part of the “season preview”?
On the way to the elevator, I walk past a man wearing a shabby sheep costume. At first, it seems like this guy I knew in Kyoto once upon a time, a guy who wasn’t really alive. Then I realize that this other guy is just an insane Cubs fan wearing a shabby sheep costume. Apparently this happens all the time.
Unmixed Grillo, and Looking Up
Beppe Grillo’s website is #9 (not to be confused with Client 9) on Reddoc’s list of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs. If you haven’t read Tom Mueller’s profile of Grillo (which was my Pick of the Issue that week), go read it!
Also, The New Yorker is not the “MSM.” That’s a label I dislike almost as much as “blogger,” by the way, though I reluctantly refer to other writers on the web as bloggers, for lack of a better alternative. I’ve noticed that the phrase “online columnist” is gaining currency, and I like it, especially for people who are online columnists.
Like “radio host” or “airplane skywriter,” the term “blogger” refers only to a medium of communication, a method of delivery. The first two descriptions might indicate something about a person’s source of income; they say a little more about his or her temperament and skills (the ability to get to a radio studio, win the slot, speak into a microphone, and work the dials, at minimum; the agility and daring to fly a plane in signifying loops).
But “blogger,” like “caller from Schenectady” or “chronicler of skywriting,” reveals next to nothing about that person’s training, philosophy, background, intelligence, education, politics, reporting or research skills, social life, ethics, age, poise, lucidity, conventionality, effectiveness, impulsiveness, discretion, or relationship to (or experience in) traditional media, whether “mainstream” or not. Only watching what the skywriter spells, and listening to what Schenectady has to say, will begin to make them known.
In any case, writers who pride themselves on their sensitivity to language should avoid lumping their fellows into mass categories of either variety, don’t you think?