Author Archives: Martin

What Is the British Equivalent of The New Yorker?

Martin Schneider writes:
Happened to stumble upon Andrew Orlowski’s paean to Wired, in which he writes in passing, “In Britain we’ve never had the equivalent of a Harper’s or a New Yorker—something with a cracking 15,000-word article that you can read in the bath.” Is that true? What’s the closest periodical—glossy or otherwise—that can deliver such an Anglo-aquatic reading experience? The London Review of Books, perhaps? Any others?

New Yorker Blog Roundup: 04.03.09

Martin Schneider writes:
(This content is taken directly from the left nav bar on the magazine’s website.)
Evan Osnos says China is feeling superpowerful.
Steve Coll learns Pakistan has two Jon Stewart imitators.
James Surowiecki looks at the new unemployment numbers.
Hendrik Hertzberg says Israel’s election system can’t be blamed on proportional representation.
George Packer finds out that Ulysses S. Grant enjoyed spanking.
The Front Row: Did Roberto Saviano plagiarize parts of his book?
News Desk: The Queen can take it.
The Book Bench: What poetry does to the brain.
The Cartoon Lounge: Protect your home with string.
Sasha Frere-Jones talks with the remix artist Kutiman.
Goings On: The health risks of the rock-and-roll life.

Brace Yourself for Bruno, the New Yorker Way

Martin Schneider writes:
Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie Bruno (or Brüno), featuring his “flamboyantly gay” Austrian fashion scenester character, is due out this summer. The recently released trailer starts with a barrage of pullquotes, one of the first of which is “Lavatorial!” and is credited to “Anthony Lane, The New Yorker” (it’s perfectly accurate).
Like any good fashionista, the trailer jokes that Borat is “so 2006.” But sadism-tinged guerrilla culture-war humor (no matter how brilliant) really does seem incredibly 2006, no? It’ll be interesting to see if squirming squares will play as well in the age of Obama, now that those squares are worried about their jobs, mortgages, retirement plans. Is it homophobia or parody of same? Ah, who can tell. If you missed it the first time around, George Saunders’s take on Borat was one of the sharpest.
I’m writing this from Austria, Bruno’s supposed homeland, where Joseph Fritzl pleaded guilty a couple of weeks ago. Bruno’s definitely a step up, PR-wise.

Six More Days for the New Yorker/Worth 1000 Cartoon Mashup Contest!

Martin Schneider writes:
This is really neat. The New Yorker is teaming up with well-known Photoshop humor website Worth 1000 (lovingly known as W1K) to present the “Dogs at the Bar” Contest. And it’s even being hosted at the New Yorker website; so odd to see all of that rampant scurrilousness underneath the familiar august sedate navbar (there is no such thing as an august navbar).
The way it works is, you have to create the cartoon in Aviary, and all the visual elements you will need to do it are supplied. The only constraint? It’s got to be about dogs in bars! Surely a comedic goldmine. (I gently propose a ban on “hair of the dog”-related wit.)
Wow. If only I had a graphical sensibility, a proficiency in Photoshop/Aviary, or a sense of humor, I’d be all over this.

New Yorker Blog Roundup: 03.31.09

Martin Schneider writes:
(This content is taken directly from the left nav bar on the magazine’s website.)
Evan Osnos wonders about China’s new Tibetan holiday.
George Packer finds out that Ulysses S. Grant enjoyed spanking.
James Surowiecki thinks it makes sense to treat automakers differently than banks.
Steve Coll and the stimulus go back to nature.
Hendrik Hertzberg says the Denver Post suffers from state chauvinism.
The Front Row: “Katyn” and the Holocaust.
News Desk: Guns lead to no good.
Sasha Frere-Jones hosts a roundtable about Haitian music.
The Book Bench: Anne Carson in Iceland.
The Cartoon Lounge: The supremacy of string.
Goings On: The Vaselines reunite. So what?

What’s in This Week’s New Yorker: 04.06.09

Martin Schneider writes:
A new issue of The New Yorker comes out tomorrow. Here is a description of its contents.
In “Syria Calling,” Seymour M. Hersh reports on the prospects for peace talks between Syria and Israel, and the opportunity that now exists for the Obama Administration to mediate them—”a role that could offer Barack Obama his first—and perhaps best—chance for engagement in the Middle East peace process.”
In “Cash for Keys,” Tad Friend looks at the housing crisis in Southern California and follows Leo Nordine, one of L.A.’s leading brokers specializing in selling foreclosed homes, who “has a knack for pricing houses aggressively, so they sell fast, a valuable skill in a county where values are declining two to three per cent a month.”
In “Message in a Bottle,” John Colapinto chronicles the development of Plastiki, a sixty-foot “bottle boat” which David de Rothschild, the environmentalist better known for his family’s banking fortune, and a crew hope to sail across the Pacific Ocean.
Nicholas Lemann comments on populist rage and the Geithner plan.
In Shouts & Murmurs, Bruce McCall launches a company to help executives escape their bad behavior.
Rebecca Mead profiles Matthew and Michael Dickman, twin brothers and poets.
There is a poem by A. S. Byatt.
Anthony Gottlieb explores the miserable history of the Wittgenstein family.
Peter Schjeldahl views paintings by European masters from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection.
Hilton Als reviews Exit the King, People Without History, and Rambo Solo.
Sasha Frere-Jones listens to U2’s new album.
Anthony Lane reviews Monsters vs. Aliens and Shall We Kiss?
There is a short story by Brad Watson.

Donnelly and Maslin: Story of a Marriage–And a Book

Martin Schneider writes:
I just saw this on The Daily Beast and wanted to post something about it as soon as I could. (It was posted to coincide with Valentine’s Day, but I missed it at the time.)
Liza Donnelly and Michael Maslin are both New Yorker cartoonists, and they are also married to each other. They have a new book out called Cartoon Marriage: Adventures in Love and Matrimony by The New Yorker’s Cartooning Couple, which I haven’t seen yet, but everything that I have seen and heard about it suggests that it will be full of wit, sensitivity, and insight.
This multi-panel cartoon, by Donnelly and Maslin both, is the story of how they met and fell in love. Not only does it succeed on its own terms, as story, as graphic art; it’s also great fun for anyone interested in The New Yorker, as it references several of Donnelly and Maslin’s cartoonist colleagues as well as the many New Yorker anniversary parties that served as occasions for their initial meets. Never has the title of this category been more apropos, since James Thurber played a major role in their intertwining.
The cartoon reminds me a little of the R. Crumb/Aline Kominsky joints that sometimes appear in The New Yorker, but without the internal stylistic clash that those always featured. Maybe the cartoon stylistically reflects their compatibility!
Here’s a brief feature that CBS Sunday Morning did on Donnelly and Maslin:

“How Much Can They Laugh? They’re Laughed Out.”

Martin Schneider writes:
Our friend Toby Gardner makes an astute observation: Having David Sedaris and Woody Allen in the same issue of The New Yorker is the precise magazine reenactment of the scene in Annie Hall in which Alvy Singer complains about having to follow a standup comedian at an Adlai Stevenson rally. And they even put Woody’s piece right after Sedaris’s.
It’s practically an homage.