New Yorker Whiteboy Watch: March 2008 April 10, 2008

Hello lovelies,

Call your local forager - ramps are almost here! My forager contact says he should have some within two weeks! It’s all so exciting.

While we’re waiting for ramps, let’s talk about The New Yorker

I already wrote about March 3, so here we go with the rest of March:

NYerWbW: March 3, 2008: history has been made! March 15, 2008

And we didn’t even need Hillary!

For the first time in my recollection, The Talk of the Town section in The New Yorker is overwhelmingly written by women! 4:1 overwhelmingly! I was just thinking to myself that the first, most prominent and most important Talk of the Town (the one that’s about real issues, not puff pieces on publishing houses moving a few blocks away or “Taser parties”) was never, never by a woman, but here we go with Alma Guillermoprieto talking about Cuba, unsettling all my prejudices in the best way possible.

In my late-night handwriting I wrote “I hate everything she’s ever written” next to Lizzie Widdicombe’s annoyingly amused-instead-of-irritated bit about Taser parties (yes, just like Tupperware). I don’t think this is really true though. I certainly dislike her Upper East Sidey name and the fact that her TotT pieces are in every goddamn issue and are rarely of any interest to me, but those are not really grounds for true hatred. I’m sorry, Lizzie, it was just my late night low tolerance for seeing the humor in a society that reduces women to holding Taser parties. If you would change your byline to something just a bit less babyish, I promise not to scrawl all over your articles any more.

The main section wasn’t bad either:  9:4 - a very respectable ratio. (You know who was the 9 and who was the 4 - it’s still The New Yorker, after all.)
(The NYerWbW is a regular feature whereby my mother and I keep track of the male/female breakdown in The New Yorker magazine.)

NYerWbW: February 25, 2008: take off all your preppie clothes March 12, 2008

Three comments on this issue, then the stats:

1) The cover made me very sad, in that special Adrian Tomine/existential/”after enlightenment, the laundry” kind of way.

2) Speaking of sadnesses: I really wish Denby had said “hooded sweatshirt” instead of “hoodie” on page 76 (read the whole thing, you’ll find it). Yes, every single person in my house (all two if us) is currently wearing hoodies that we call hoodies. But we do not live inside The New Yorker.

3) A few years ago I was in The Salv (non-regulars might call it The Salvation Army) which is, of course, notorious for the horrible mainstream radio continually blasting. To my utter shock, some whiny girl singing a cover of a Death Cab for Cutie song suddenly filled the room from the tiny boom box in the corner of the store. I looked up an amazement to see several non-hipster girls singing along. I knew Death Cab had become pretty popular lately, but what was this about? When I got home and told my sweetheart the story and sang him a verse, he just stared at me.

“When did you hear Death Cab singing this song?”

“Well, not Death Cab - it’s a Ben Gibbard song, he sings it on that solo show you gave me, it’s on my iTunes.”

“Ah. That is a song called ‘Complicated,’ by a very famous singer named Avril Lavigne, and you, as usual, are insane. You never knew it was a cover?”

“Hmm…actually, some remarks about no one taking him seriously when he sings this song make a lot more sense now.”

“Umm hmm.”*

The Gibbard version of “Complicated” (yes, that entire long-ass story only existed to explain why I know the lyrics to an Avril Lavigne song) came into my head while reading Michael Specter’s fascinating article complicating our understanding of the localvore movement and the environmental movement generally.

Just when we were all settling into our 100-mile-diet smugness, what a wrench he has thrown! As usual, how to be a good environmentalist is a lot more complex than we’d like to believe, but also a lot more interesting. For a while I was really pushing all my local farmer contacts to construct gigantic greenhouses to grow eggplants and tomatoes in the winter, and now I understand why they just stared at me and shook their heads at my stupidity.

(And now maybe all the 100-mile-diet people I know know why I just stared at them when they refused to use peppercorns all summer. Actually, that was a little different - trading 100% p.c. localvore cred for the joys of fairly-traded, organically-produced treasures from around the world always seemed a little isolationist and extreme and sad to me. We can save the environment without giving up pepper, I firmly believe this. I have to - if I can’t have pink peppercorns I don’t want to be part of your revolution!)

Anyway - I know the idea of trading permission to pollute and all that seems horrific to some, but I don’t see the problem as long as it is coupled with many, many other strategies.

As for the larger question Specter raises - do I believe technology can save us from problems created by technology? I’m not quite convinced.

On to stats:

NYerWbW: February 11 & 18, 2008 March 11, 2008

First of all: of all the things to work for and care about in this totally fucked-up world, lets please not work against OR for the impeachment of fucking Spitz. YES, IT’S NOT FAIR that he might impeached when others have done equally or even more idiotic acts (like sending us to war for no reason). But he’s a fucking lying-ass sleazy douche and we must focus our energies on more important issues. Done. Moving on. Fucking lying-ass sleazy douches need not take up any more of our damn time. (If you want to read just a bit more, this blog, all of it, has a good take.)

New Yorker stats!

A typical meh week in the gender breakdown world.
Talk of the Town:

by men: 3

by women: 2 (Lizzie Widdicombe and Lauren Collins, always Lizzie Widdicombe and Lauren Collins, have you noticed? Did I say this last week? Yes, I did!)

rest of mag (including the cover, not including cartoons):

by men: 14

by women: 4

(The NYerWbW is a regular feature whereby my mother and I keep track of the male/female breakdown in The New Yorker magazine.)

NYerWbW: February 4, 2008, “Vaffanculo” indeed March 6, 2008

I know it’s a month and a half old, but how great was the piece on Beppe Grillo, the Italian rabble-rouser who organizes things like “V-day, an unofficial new national holiday, the ‘V’ signifying victory, vendetta, and, especially, ‘Vaffanculo’ (’Fuck off’)”? I must have been quite taken with the article because I marked every single page of it, for reasons I am no longer clear on except for the general awesomeness that appears to be Mr. Grillo.

Moving on, the stats:

Talk of the Town:

by men: 3

by women: 2 (Lizzie Widdicombe and Lauren Collins, always Lizzie Widdicombe and Lauren Collins, have you noticed?)

rest of mag (including the cover, not including cartoons):

by men: 10

by women: 4

(The NYerWbW is a regular feature whereby my mother and I keep track of the male/female breakdown in The New Yorker magazine.)

NYerWbW, January 28 issue February 26, 2008

Courtesy of my mom:

Written by man - 11
Written by woman - 3

About man - 7
About woman - 4
About both/neither - 4

Oops, there’s a discrepancy. I won’t go back and go over it again. I’m
certain the Written By count is accurate.

Thanks Mom!

NYerWbW January 21 issue; Secret Ingredients; a picture of two chickens on a fence January 25, 2008

All in all, a pretty good issue! Diversity of ages, genders, and races pretty damn well represented! Disturbed kids setting fires, disturbed kids committing suicide, fascinating women artists being fascinating artists, no modifier necessary! Egyptian kids playing squash! Jane Austin! Othello (I guess it’s cheating to count Othello as representing diversity, though, being as he is kind of made up and all)! The Roz Chast on p. 32 made me blush!

Kind of gives one hope for 2008!

Or maybe it’s just 3 am and I am jet-lagged! Jet-lag-usta!

NYerWbW December 24/31 issue and January 7, 2008 issue January 12, 2008

December 24 and 31:

Because this actual issue is lost in the hodgepodge of my vacation abode, I have to rely on the online Table of Contents, which doesn’t list all the Talk of the Town contributors (neither does the one in the magazine).

Though none of the fiction grabbed neither my mother’s nor my hearts or minds, it was a decent issue in terms of gender breakdown:

14 dudes and (including the cover and counting both of Grace Paley’s stellar poems two times) 6 womens - an almost 2:1 ratio is actually a super sweet proportion for the NYer.

That Raymond Carver thing really taught me the value of a good editor - what a long-winded paper-waster the original story was! But I have never been able to sink my teeth into even well-edited Carver, so please take my haughty opinion with many grains of salt. And I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I could totes have written a better short story than “The Arbus Factor” - does anyone else get the feeling that they sometimes toss quirky stories like that in in a bid to placate whiny critics (like me) accusing them of only publishing stories like the Updike fiction in the 1/7/08 issue? But it’s not really fair to whine either way, so please excuse that last sentence.

And maybe right here is a good spot to say that the reason - in case anyone was wondering - that I criticize the NYer so much is because I have a profound love for the fucking magazie. I feel I should periodically toss that out there.

The January 7, 2008 issue is a fairly good example of why:

Nice advocacy journalism from Carol Elliott, fascinating piece by Burkhard Bilger (god, I worked as a secretary in the Art Department at Simon and Schuster when his book Noodling for Flatheads was coming out, and the strange string of words “Noodling for Flatheads by Burkhard Bilger,” together with the accompanying strange cover design, still pops into my head at random times, 7 years later.), a good hatin’ on Giuliani from our pal Elizabeth Kolbert, and though not exactly my cup of tea, admittedly flawless Updike fiction. I had a sneaking suspicion that “The Prophet” was pretty much pap and was glad to see my suspicions pretty much confirmed by Joan Acocella. And finally - though David Denby is, as he himself admits, not “a good enough person” (I’d agree) his movie-reviewin’ chops just keep getting tighter. Tight chops, that one.

But I have to comment on these utterly strange Renaissance Hotel ads (click on “Stay Interesting”) - the one on page 3 of this issue literally made my stomach ache. Oh, the slight shame of reading a magazine that accepts ads that unapologetically advocate a lifestyle in which resort goers have latter day kinda fashionably dressed slaves (3 out of 4 of them white, I wonder how that compares to the actual make up of their staff) breathlessly waiting to wrap you in a luxurious color-coordinated robe and offer you fresh lemony water and out-of-season fruit off gorgeous Eva Zeizel platters. Also - do they literally have an ocean that terminates in a pool, and if so how did they get approval from the EPA or whoever for that, and what about the tides? I love, however, that the two dudes are staring at her breasts and the lady is staring at her like “I’ma cut you, ho.”

Moving along -

Talk of the Town:

by men: 4

by women: 1

rest of mag (including the cover, not including cartoons):

by men: 8

by women: 4

(The NYerWbW is a regular feature whereby my mother and I keep track of the male/female breakdown in The New Yorker magazine.)

NYerWbW: December 17 issue: you did it (almost)! January 11, 2008

Oh MAN. Congratulations, DUDES. You totes did it.

Well, almost totes - this week’s New Yorker is 98% by and about teh menz. I knew the day would come, and it pretty much has.

Without Nancy Franklin’s 99% menz-y report on the YouTube Debate, and Lizzie Widdicombe’s Talk of the Town tidbit on the rabbi who will do his rabbi thing door-to-door as long as the door opens to a rich white dude - total dudeosity would have been achieved.

Let me be clear about this:

-Not one feature article was by a woman.

-Only one Talk of the Town was by a woman (see above).

-Not one poem was by a woman.

-Only one piece in The Critics was by a woman (see above).

-Even the CARTOONS were a 100% dick festival this week. No Chast! Not even I-am-unable-to-draw-a-non-SATCish-woman Marisa Acocella Marchetto!

So what did the dudes want to talk about this week?

White men.

Je suis choqué.

Talk of the Town was 100% about men, but the feature articles were not.

There was a nice long article about a lady named Marion True who is wearing four different animals/animal byproducts in her stunned-looking portrait (leather jacket trimmed with fur, wool sweater, pearl earrings and necklace) and who may or may not be guilty of improperly procuring antiquities to the Getty Museum.
There was an even longer article about the aforementioned Malcolm Lowry, who may or may not have been murdered by his crazy-but-absolutely-less-crazy-than-him wife. In my opinion, the world is better off without both of them, and my life is undeniably less rich for having devoted an entire beach afternoon to reading about their pathetic little lives.

Immediately after the Lowry piece is…you know what? I’m not even going to comment on the fiction.

I’m done with my homework for this week.

Notes:

1. In truth I am off to read Secret Ingredients, which my mom gave me for Hanukkah!

2. The NYerWbW is a regular feature whereby my mother and I keep track of the male/female breakdown in The New Yorker magazine.

3. Please note that because I’m on vacation and am getting my mail forwarded, I am approximately one year behind everyone else in the world on New Yorkers.

The Queen January 4, 2008

Here’s a good reason to stay alive another 10 years or so: mangosteens.

One of my favorite articles from anywhere, about anything, is this piece about David Karp in the August 2002 issue of The New Yorker. It was the first-ever (and still best) New Yorker Food Issue. It contained the silly Bill Buford piece on Mario Batali that later turned into Heat, but much more importantly, John Seabrook profiled this crazy fruit-obsessed dude named David Karp. A former heroin addict who channeled his passion for addictive, all-encompassing substances into fruit? What’s not to love? I won’t describe the article, just go and read it.

A snippet:

“In mid-June, I flew out to Los Angeles and joined Karp for five days of fruit work. Before this trip, I imagined that David Karp was a man who had been redeemed by fruit–someone who had found in fruit a way of escaping his demons. What I came to realize over the course of our five days together–five very long days–was that Karp had not really banished his demons at all. He’d just found a way of channeling his particular needs and talents (the desire for esoteric knowledge, the pursuit of extreme pleasure, a sympathy for shady characters, and experience in dope dealing) into a career as a purveyor of amazing fruit–a career, it turns out, that serves those needs and talents very nicely…”*

David Karp led me to mangosteens, which he describes as “the queen of fruit.” Because they are illegal on the mainland US, I’d been trying to taste them for several years, and searches in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand had been unsuccessful. Happily, last year I found them at the farmer’s market I frequent in Hawai’i. Here is the story, ripped from the pages of my journal.