Friday, January 16, 2009
New Yorker, New Yorker
I recently got a subscription to the New Yorker. I've always enjoyed reading their criticism -- oddly enough because I find it to be more analytical than strictly critical, which I find rather refreshing -- but I tended just to dip into it online on those rare occasions when I was bored at work. Now that I have it, though, I have to say I really enjoy it. It makes me feel smart. I was able to start a conversation with my parents the other day about the Japanese literary genre of cell phone novels (I am not making this up), and yesterday when someone at work started talking about Malcolm Gladwell, I actually knew who that was (and that I'm not his biggest fan). Although some of the longer articles are bit much for me (I didn't really ever need to know that much about the kosher food industry in China) and they allocate more space to Joyce Carol Oates than one would deem strictly necessary, most of it is just the perfect amount of information for one sitting. Perhaps that's why it does so well in dentists' offices.
Of course, each issue has so much content in it that I've immediately fallen a couple of weeks behind. I'm embarrassed to take them on the train with me because I'm convinced people will notice that I have a month-old New Yorker in my hands. It's just like in high school when I missed a week of school for the choir trip to Orlando and had to read all of The Rainbow in one sitting. Well, not exactly like that. The Rainbow had lesbians.
I recently got a subscription to the New Yorker. I've always enjoyed reading their criticism -- oddly enough because I find it to be more analytical than strictly critical, which I find rather refreshing -- but I tended just to dip into it online on those rare occasions when I was bored at work. Now that I have it, though, I have to say I really enjoy it. It makes me feel smart. I was able to start a conversation with my parents the other day about the Japanese literary genre of cell phone novels (I am not making this up), and yesterday when someone at work started talking about Malcolm Gladwell, I actually knew who that was (and that I'm not his biggest fan). Although some of the longer articles are bit much for me (I didn't really ever need to know that much about the kosher food industry in China) and they allocate more space to Joyce Carol Oates than one would deem strictly necessary, most of it is just the perfect amount of information for one sitting. Perhaps that's why it does so well in dentists' offices.
Of course, each issue has so much content in it that I've immediately fallen a couple of weeks behind. I'm embarrassed to take them on the train with me because I'm convinced people will notice that I have a month-old New Yorker in my hands. It's just like in high school when I missed a week of school for the choir trip to Orlando and had to read all of The Rainbow in one sitting. Well, not exactly like that. The Rainbow had lesbians.
