Author Archives: Martin

Liebling: Embraced by The Smart Set

Martin Schneider writes:
A few months ago I was a little hard on an A.J. Liebling article about Chicago. Fortunately, Michael Gorra’s generous and lengthy assessment of the new Liebling volumes from the Library of America provides an occasion for me to reconsider. It’s in The Smart Set, courtesy of Drexel University, and it’s well worth a look. One reason I like The Smart Set is that their visual aesthetic is a bit like ours!

Omit Needless Controversy: Fifty Years of Strunk and White

Martin Schneider writes:
The fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style was last Thursday. I’m a copyeditor by trade, so one might say professionally implicated. My love of accuracy compels me not to pretend that the book is universally admired by all those who love words; far from it. (So much strong feeling!) For my part, I’ll just say it communicated certain things I needed to know at certain times in my life, and for that I am grateful.
A less contentious issue is E.B. White, who is always worth celebrating. Levi Stahl of I’ve Been Reading Lately has been lately reading his letters (you know, in a book, not in his desk drawer or anything), which sound delightful.
Oh yes, I almost forgot: subscribers can read the original 1957 article that sparked the publication of the book.

What’s in This Week’s New Yorker: 04.27.09

Martin Schneider writes:
A new issue of The New Yorker comes out tomorrow. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine’s press release:
Margaret Talbot examines the increasing off-label use of drugs such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Provigil as “neuroenhancers”—to stimulate focus, concentration, or memory—and looks at the ethical implications of their use for our society.
Peter J. Boyer explores the crisis in the Detroit auto industry, noting that the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford—are “mired in arrangements” with workers and unions “made long ago,” which have “ultimately rendered their businesses untenable.”
Elizabeth Kolbert writes about on Obama’s Earth Day climate initiatives.
Ben McGrath visits the new Yankee Stadium on Opening Day.
Dana Goodyear talks to Bret Easton Ellis about a new film based on his stories, his upcoming book, and Twitter.
Elif Batuman writes about the return to Russia’s Danilov Monastery of eighteen church bells that had hung in Harvard’s Lowell House since the nineteen-thirties.
In Shouts & Murmurs, Paul Rudnick relates the story of a clergyman sympathetic to the plight of Ted Haggard.
Roz Chast chronicles the pitfalls of spring cleaning.
Sasha Frere-Jones discusses the pop-music phenomenon Lady Gaga.
Jill Lepore explains how Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was informed by his poverty.
John Lahr looks at how August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Schiller’s Mary Stuart explore ideas of self and state.
David Denby reviews The Soloist and State of Play.
There is a short story by Guillermo Martínez.

Reminder: Enter our Olivia Gentile Giveaway — Two Days Left!

Martin Schneider writes:
If you happened to miss Tuesday’s announcement of our giveaway of Olivia Gentile’s new book, you have two days to go! We’ve gotten an impressive response to our first post, which pleases us no end, but you shouldn’t let that dissuade you from entering—you gotta be in it to win it, some great bard once sang.
Send us an email, subject line “BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER,” and include your name and full mailing address. We won’t accept anything after 8:00 pm EST on Sunday, April 19, so don’t dilly-dally (we also advise you not to shilly-shally).
Good luck!

Introducing the Jeff Spicoli Amendment: Our Unserious Media

Martin Schneider writes:
This week was dominated by two news stories that our national commentators apparently could not cover without breaking into a gale of snickers: I refer to the problem of maritime raiders interfering with the merchant vessels of various nations (“pirates”) and the nationwide grassroots protests over the unfairness of the Obama administration’s tax policy and recent financial bailouts (“teabagging”).
Now we see how any political organization, be it the White House, Congress, the Republicans, the Democrats, can avoid scrutiny over a touchy subject that it wants to introduce into the public discourse: link it to some amusing word that reduces every commentator to a twelve-year-old. We’ll have the Cheech and Chong Estate Tax Legislation and the Pauly Shore Pollution Amplification Program (Pollux, there might be a cartoon in this theme for you).
Meanwhile, the G20 economic summit reminded me of another pet peeve. Our newscasters have given up the pretense that other countries, cultures, and particularly languages exist. How many times did CNN and its competitors refer to a president of France named sar-KOZE-ee? As far as I know there is no such person, his name is sar-ko-ZEE. Did anyone even try to suggest, in the prounciation of his name, that he wasn’t raised in Bayonne? I may have missed it. It wasn’t so much the butchering of his name that bothered me as the lack of awareness that it was happening.
It reminded me of circa 2006, when hardly a day would pass without some TV commentator pronouncing the name of the prominent Iranian anti-Semite thus: “Ach-men-whatever his name is.” Like my quasi-countryman Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ahmedinejad’s name (not difficult to master if you spend more than 15 seconds in the attempt) became the butt of the joke. Only this time it wasn’t the moviegoer in the street who was proudly claiming the mantle of ignorant provincialism; it was the very people who claim to bring us the world. And that’s a damn disgrace.

New Yorker Blog Roundup: 04.17.09

(This content is taken directly from the left nav bar on the magazine’s website.)
James Surowiecki imagines the billboard of the future.
George Packer traces Irving Kristol’s intellectual decline.
Evan Osnos learns more about Gairsville.
Hendrik Hertzberg praises another state for embracing the National Popular Vote.
Sasha Frere-Jones produces another memo from the Prince archives.
Paul Goldberger explains why Peter Zumthor deserves the Pritzker.
Steve Coll gives a spoonful of medicine.
The Front Row: Michel Piccoli.
News Desk: Jeffrey Toobin goes through the newest round of “torture memos.”
The Book Bench: Deborah Digges.
The Cartoon Lounge: Forget sexbots, let’s get taxbots!
Goings On: What has Bob Dylan been reading?

Book Giveaway: Olivia Gentile’s “Life List”

Martin Schneider writes:
Emdashes is pleased to be hosting giving away three copies of Life List, a biography of Phoebe Snetsinger by Olivia Gentile that was released just a few days ago. The term “life list” signifies a list of the birds a person has seen in the wild, as all birders are aware. (Here is my life list, for instance.) The book is about a very unusual twitcher (birders’ term for a birdwatcher who is perhaps unduly concerned with adding new birds to his or her life list), and it sounds marvelous. I can’t wait to read it.
Here are favorable notices the book has received from two well-known people:

Except for one thing, this book would rate as a great adventure novel and fictional psychological portrait, about a woman’s obsession with bird-watching, its effect on her relationships with her husband and her four children, and the horrifying mishaps that she survived on each continent—until the last mishap. But the book isn’t that great novel, because instead it’s a great true story: the biography of Phoebe Snetsinger, who set the world record for bird species seen, after growing up in an era when American women weren’t supposed to be competitive or have careers. Whether or not you pretend that it’s a novel, you’ll enjoy this powerful, moving story.

—Jared Diamond

Gentile’s tale of a desperate but determined housewife with a passion for birds and adventure is engrossing, sharp, and affecting—a touching portrait and great read.

—Susan Orlean

If you have not seen the author’s entertaining and striking website, you should.
Here are the rules: Drop us an email, subject line “BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER,” and please include your name and full mailing address. We’ll take all entries until 8:00 pm EST on Sunday, April 19, and then the Random Number Generator will intervene with its trademark dispassion. Good luck to all entrants!

What’s in This Week’s New Yorker: 04.19.09

Martin Schneider writes:
A new issue of The New Yorker, the “Journeys” issue, comes out tomorrow. A preview of its contents:
Burkhard Bilger looks at the dangerous exotic animals that now make their home in Florida. Bilger writes that Florida’s “ecology is a kind of urban legend come true—the old alligator-flushed-down-the-toilet story repeated a thousand times with a thousand species.”
Lauren Collins profiles Alain Robert, the “French Spiderman,” who recently climbed the Lloyd’s Building during the G-20 Summit, and follows Robert on February 17, 2009, as he climbs the Cheung Kong Center, a sixty-two-story office tower in Hong Kong.
David Owen visits South Uist, a sparsely populated island in the Outer Hebrides, off Scotland’s northwest coast, as groups battle over the restored Askernish golf course, which is also used for grazing animals.
Dorothy Wickenden discovers a Western comedy of manners in the story of two young women—seeking adventure, intellectual stimulation, and real jobs—who left their sheltered lives in the East in 1916 for a year on the American frontier. Wickenden collected the letters, photograph albums, memoirs, and oral histories left by the protagonists of the story, interviewed many of the descendants, and went to the still remote mountains of Elkhead, Colorado, to re-create a single year that changed dozens of lives.
Steve Coll writes about President Obama’s disarmament strategy in the face of a heightened nuclear-arms race.
David Sedaris connects with fellow train travelers in the bar car.
In Shouts & Murmurs, Larry Doyle opens a new amusement park, Fun Times!
Sasha Frere-Jones writes about the hip-hop songwriting team of Terius (The-Dream) Nash and Christopher (Tricky) Stewart.
Hilton Als examines Katherine Anne Porter’s life and work.
James Wood explores the travel-inspired writing of Geoff Dyer.
John Lahr reviews Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them and The Toxic Avenger.
Peter Schjeldahl checks out the younger generation of artists in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” show.
Anthony Lane reviews Anvil! The Story of Anvil.
There is a short story by Chris Adrian.

New Yorker Blog Roundup: 04.09.09

(This content is taken directly from the left nav bar on the magazine’s website.)
Evan Osnos “gets”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/04/managing-expect.html advice on how to pick a pet in Shanghai.
George Packer “admires”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2009/04/books-worth-wai.html Wendell Steavenson’s book on Iraq.
Steve Coll “seeks”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/04/role-models.html a role model in the stimulus.
James Surowiecki “looks”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2009/04/the-curious-cas.html at the new unemployment numbers.
Hendrik Hertzberg “listens”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2009/04/freewheelin-bar.html to Bob Dylan on Barack Obama.
The Front Row: What to “screen”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2009/04/the-cinema-scho.html at Ghetto Film School.
Sasha Frere-Jones “shakes”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/04/postmisogyny-ap.html his head at Chris Brown.
News Desk: Iowa’s “turn”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/04/close-read-the-more-loving-ones.html on gay marriage.
The Book Bench: Wells Tower on his “stories”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/04/the-exchange-we.html and his name.
The Cartoon Lounge: “String,”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/04/serious-string.html “yarn”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/04/yarn.html, “rope”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/04/rope.html, “kinks”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/04/naughty-knots.html.
Goings On: Eminem is “back”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2009/04/guess-whos-back.html.