the shrewdness of apes

I've never really been into the New Yorker. My grandfather in Florida used to read it and he thought it made him worldly and cultured. If you're going to read long ass articles, you might as well read Harper's. And I hate their movie reviewers.

However, this knuckleball piece was great and if you ever want to read old issues, Sujan just subscribed.

My Mom gives me a subscription for Christmas every year. It's one of those magazines where some weeks you read every article, and others you read none. Recently, it's been more of the former. Hersch's stuff has been fantastic, and this week's issue (that I just received today) has a pretty cool story about the hunt for giant squids.

I just got a subscription for my office. Everything's better when you don't have to pay for it!

the hunt for giant squid piece is fantastic!!! also, i didn't realize sasha frere-jones is the music critic and i enjoy his writings.

I'm biased by Tim Keown's article, which had a blurb titled, "When high-brow attempts middle-brow, hilarity ensues."

While it indeed may be a great article, I can't get past this sentence:

"To understand how a knuckleball works, it helps to have a basic familiarity with Bernoulli’s principle, the Magnus effect, and the Prandtl boundary-layer theory, for a start(!)."

Keown followed up with this:

"We have it on good authority that Wilbur Wood knew that Bernoulli thing inside and out."

Wilbur Wood over the New Yorker anyday.

i, too, am put off by the new yorker but allison recently purchased a collection of the humor pieces from the magazine and i have to say, it was hilarious. the first few articles in it were very stereotypically "new yorker": high brow cultural humor that went flying over my head, but then it all settled down and i warmed up to it. i could never get a subscription, the cartoons alone are reason enough, but i guess it's not all bad.

OK, Sy Hersh is pretty awesome.

Does the New Yorker humor collection include the "Zagat's Guide to Dating"? That was a riot.
The silver thief article in the most recent issue is pretty good, too. It takes me a long time to get through an issue, but the New Yorker has been on a roll lately.

Thought of TSOA last night and thought I would share. I was covering an event for the Folger, the final Penn/Faulkner Speaker of this year. The author was E.L. Doctorow. He was stalking me yesterday b/c we talked about him in my staff meeting, that the Hoffstra U Commencement speaker got booed for ragging on Bush & Co. We were talking about it b/c on the same day GW Law had their graduation and their speaker RIPPED on Bush and we were saying how the Hoffstra kids and guests sucked for booing--be repectful of your speaker. Anyway, I didn't know that Doctorow was the speaker until he talked about the event so it was weird to start and end my day with him. But he is fucking awesome and those dumb Hoffstra kids should've shut the fuck up and listened to a genius impart some wisdom. I'm glad I got to hear him :) Why am I tell you this? Because he just came out with a book of five short stories. The New Yorker published four but would not touch the fifth--it is a mystery story that takes place in the WH, nothing to do w/ Bush but there is some symbollism w/ all the BS going on in the world and it does deal w/ some terrorism issues. So I was disappointed to hear they wouldn't publish the fifth story, but he said a small publication in VA did. Matt, did you read any of the other four? I bought the book and will read it this week at the beach but anyone can borrow it after that, though you must return it b/c he signed it for me :) God, between my crush on Warren Buffet and now E.L. Doctorow, I guess I have a thing for cute, old men :)

Oh my God! Speaking of old men I'm in love with, and vice versa, Paul Anka just came out onto the stage on American Idol! Oh Paul! What's up with his fake bake, though?