Nick Paumgarten, April 28, on New York Rangers player Sean Avery: “Not for Avery the typical prairie-boy self-effacement of the hockey man. He has said that he finds sports, and athletes, boring, and that he’d like to be an editor of a fashion magazine. (He’s planning to do a summer internship at Vogue.)” He started Monday. WWD: “Observers say he’s involved in all sections of the magazine, including features and accessories, and attends edit meetings.” (Via The Morning Newsfeed.) Keep an eye out in the cafeteria for Avery and Ben McGrath reliving the 1927-28 Rangers’ bedeviled but victorious away game against the Montreal Maroons.
Monthly Archives: May 2008
“Endings Are Elusive, Middles Are Nowhere to Be Found, But Worst of All Is to Begin, to Begin, to Begin”
On Slate, Jessica Winter meditates on Ralph Ellison, Truman Capote, and the difference between writer’s block and procrastination. Joan Acocella wrote about those awful blocks, too; not entirely tangentially, John Lahr wrote movingly about stage fright.
Donald Barthelme’s narrator in “The Dolt” saved me from the anxious swirl that might have prevented my writing this headline, or indeed this post at all. It’s true, even “bloggers” can have blocks! If they were only alphabet blocks, then we’d really be in business.
Children Needn’t Be Bored This Sunday
For those of you who, like Ishmael, are suffering from a damp, drizzly November in your soul and require a strong moral principle to prevent you from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off, I’ve got just the thing: this month’s fiction podcast from The New Yorker features a reading of Jean Stafford’s story “Children Are Bored on Sundays,” which appeared in the magazine in 1948.
I was surprised and pleased to see Stafford singled out. Although many of her stories have not dated well, she wrote some gems that have endured. I wouldn’t have chosen “Children,” but I can see why Als finds it emblematic of her work, as well as personally meaningful. Perhaps for the next podcast he’ll go with my own favorite, “In the Zoo.”
(By the way, I wonder why Als chose the story? I thought only fiction writers chose stories for the fiction podcast, but Als, a staff writer and theater critic for the magazine, isn’t a fiction writer, as far as I know. Maybe there’s a surprise in store for us.)
On the Internet, Everyone Knows You’re in Dogpatch
Just debuted—real-time snapshots of where in the world people are looking at New Yorker cartoons, and precisely which cartoons they’re looking at. At press minute in greater San Francisco, interest was running high in Frank Modell, Ed Koren, and Leo Cullum. In Dogpatch, a neighborhood where, about a month ago, I became one with an incredibly crowded, jolly, and soprasetta-crazed party for the magazine Meatpaper, it may be another story. You’ll have to keep a careful watch.
Spondees and Anapests Fly at Union Square Cafe, YouTube
Martin Schneider writes:
“Word Feast” was that toothsome Talk of the Town by Lauren Collins in the May 12 issue about the versifying waitstaff of Union Square Cafe. (Seneca got beat up a bit.) It’s turning a certain Matt Gould into the kind of star that only New York can produce. Collins writes:
The biggest hit of last year’s series was a catchy rap poem written by a waiter named Matt Gould, which the bosses eventually got him to turn into a video holiday card. “Things never change or change later than sooner / Like the calamari, Billecart, filet mignon, and tuna!†Gould sings, while his co-workers shimmy on top of tables. (The Peppermill could be a new dance.)
Next, the good people of New York magazine’s blog Grub Street stated their intention to find a copy of the elusive Matt Gould holiday card. It took a mere quarter hour for a commenter to post a link to the video! (“Embedding disabled by request.”) Maybe they could combine their talents with a succulent Mark Strand special.
Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008
Remnick’s Jazz List: Let the Omission-Counterlisting Begin!
Martin Schneider writes:
In theory, I oppose lists of cultural distinction; in practice, I devour them greedily.
In conjunction with his Profile of legendary WKCR DJ Phil Schaap, David Remnick (with the help of Richard Brody) has compiled a fine, judicious, respectful, I daresay typically Remnickian list of the 100 most essential jazz recordings for the newcomer to jazz.
I can’t even hear the words “Phil Schaap” without thinking of my father, let alone “Django” or “Teagarden.” I would reckon he owned about two-thirds of these albums—or owned the material in other configurations (hint: bargain-bin compilations). A few of them, I’m certain, he bought as 78s. He was a child of the Depression, and his tastes ran to Benny and Louis and on through Thelonious and Billie Holiday. (Our first cat was called Billie.)
The whole first half is simply a list of the musicians my father loved the most. But even after the advents of free jazz and fusion and confusing, dissonant Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus, none of which pleased him too much, he continued to find enough energy in contemporary jazz to visit the Village Vanguard with great gusto and regularity, even into this century.
I can say with complete confidence my dad would have approved of this list; that it emanates from the editor of The New Yorker, another lifelong passion of his, would have cheered him doubly.
New Yorker Conference Is Visual: Final Wrapup with Pictures
Martin Schneider writes:
The curious are invited to have a look at our Flickr set with photos from the New Yorker Conference:
I don’t have anything deep to say about the conference (although plenty of other people had deep thoughts to share). It was an exhilarating and exhausting experience, watching so much intelligent discourse in such a compressed manner. I salute the planners for enabling even a congenital wallflower such as myself to enter into the thrum of community over the two days.
I asked a fair number of people to assess this year’s event alongside its 2007 predecessor. There was some feeling that last year featured bigger names (Arianna Huffington, Barry Diller et al.) but that this year had more speakers. The duration allotted to each panelist decreased in the name of increasing the number of overall panelists. And, of course, the event was extended by a day. I definitely got the sense that the audience members were satisfied with the direction that The New Yorker had chosen to take the event. (Myself, I have no objection whatsoever to including speakers on the model of Paco Underhill or Jane McGonigal, highly esteemed experts in narrow, specialized fields.)
After the conference, I realized that the program exhorted participants not to take pictures. If anyone has a problem with these pictures being posted here, by all means write me and I will subject myself to the comfy pillow torture (and take the pictures down).
“Every Person in New York” Lad Also Fab New Yorker Cartoonist
Gawker and the Post are marveling at Jason Polan today; he wants to draw every person in New York. Who doesn’t? Anyway, it’s most important not to forget this about the energetic Polan: He drew one of what I believe is one of the Cartoon Bank’s best-selling New Yorker cartoons, to wit, “I usually do two hours of cardio and then four more of cardio and then two more of cardio.†It’s the sole cartoon of his that’s appeared in the magazine to date, but what a cartoon! I hope some pretty cash results from this new endeavor, and an extra-large fruit, nut, and vegetable stick, or whatever his whirling heart desires.
Tweetly Deedly Deet, Tweetly Deedly
I was in the middle of reading the following sentence early this morning — “The wire services piped the story straight to Dubuque” — when I got my first New Yorker Twitter text about David Remnick’s online list of 100 Essential Jazz Albums. (He wrote about Phil Schaap in this week’s issue, and I’m going to reward myself with the piece if/when I get through today. I once saw Schaap swing dancing, years before I started doing it myself, and I was impressed.)
It’s all happening so fast! Also, I will not be generating Twitters myself. I am, we are, posting to this blog, which is our “feed,” if not our daily bread. So just keep coming back to the tasty trough, Templetons and friends. (By the way, this is a truly rocking version of “Rockin’ Robin” by McFly. I am awake. )