Loose rei[g]ns

I've noticed typos here and there in The New Yorker over the past year or so. At first I brushed aside the conclusion that things are getting looser over there; perhaps I'm just getting better at this, I thought. (You don't turn off the error-detecting software when you're out of the office.) I try not to freak out too much about the impending Death of Print Journalism, for obvious sanity-preserving reasons. But then, in the December 13 issue, two mistakes in the same article! This is alarming. Are there any full-time copy editors and proofreaders left at Conde Nast?

The article, for those of you playing along at home, was John Lahr's profile of Elia Kazan, "Method Man." On page 91, third column, a missing close-quote:

it was Kazan, newly promoted from stage manager to actor, who shouted the play’s famous last lines—“Strike! Strike!! Strike!!!—which became the battle cry of the thirties.

And on page 93, first column, the true mark of a copy editor asleep at the switch: homophone confusion!

Kazan’s straight talk cajoled, provoked, cudgelled; it kept Williams on narrative track and reigned in his lyrical excess.

And I was able to copy and paste both of those from The New Yorker's website, where they still haven't been corrected. O tempora! O mores!

Meanwhile, the December 20 & 27 issue is one of those double issues I spend half as much time reading. It feels like half the staff is already on vacation and the other half wishes they were. First of all, Ian Frazier is peerless and wonderful, but these lame "Cursing Mommy" pieces -- does anybody find them funny? And we also get a bonus not-funny "humor" piece, "Santaleaks" -- really? Also, am I the only one who noticed that the cartoons on page 54 and page 68 are the same joke? In both, someone is about to be executed. Page 54 caption: "His highness is changing his relationship status." Page 68 caption: "I'm about to enter an area of poor reception." (Technological phrases in incongruous settings, am I right?!) At least put them in different issues.

However, you will doubtless be pleased to know that this same issue has a feature article by our old friend John Colapinto. It is a work of breathtaking and unquestionable genius. I haven't read it. So time-saving to know I needn't bother! (P.S. If you haven't seen that old post, or it's been a while, you really ought to check it out again. The entertainment value never wanes.)

P.S. Speaking of works of genius, you can read my review of Gary Shteyngart's novel Super Sad True Love Story in the latest Commonweal -- but only if you subscribe.

I'm not quite dead...

There's just one problem with Billy Collins's "What if St. Sebastian didn't die from his arrow wounds?" poem on page 88 of the October 8 New Yorker:

St. Sebastian didn't die from his arrow wounds.

The funny thing is, I don't usually read the poems. But my radar went off, I guess: another knowing reference to the trappings of religion that turns out to be not-so-knowing. And as you know, when it comes to The New Yorker, no nit is too small for me to pick! I indulged my pedantic side further at dotCommonweal.

P.S. This reminds me of the not-quite-right Christmas card illustration I noted a few years ago.

UPDATE, 10/25: Marissa Bidilla has discovered another problem with Collins's poem -- or at least an earlier version of exactly the same mistake. And this time it's Tom Stoppard whose cleverness has gotten ahead of his research.

Slightly imperfect

I've actually been keeping up with my New Yorker reading lately (the double issues always help me catch up, since they're twice as long but half as interesting as a normal issue, and then I get a week off). Skipping the stuff I know I'll hate is helping me pick up the pace, and not stopping to blog about that or anything else has been helpful as well. But this week I blogged not once but twice at dotCommonweal about various features of the August 2 issue. First, I recommended Atul Gawande's excellent article about death and health care. And today I picked on some aggressively secularist posturing in the "Briefly Noted" section, along with a less disdainful but similarly clueless Bible reference in an earlier issue.

I'm hoping I don't need to explain what's funny about that last one to the audience over at dotComm, but for those who haven't visited a religious bookstore lately, let me clarify: the NRSV Bible is a translation, not a specific print edition. (Wikipedia puts it this way: "The New Revised Standard Version...is a thorough revision of the Revised Standard Version.") It comes in all shapes and sizes, the way Bibles do. So describing something as "about the size of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible" (as Meghan O'Rourke does) sounds knowing and specific, but is actually very vague.

Nox, according to Amazon.com, is 9.1 x 6 x 2.6 inches. So there are some editions of the NRSV that are about the same size. Perhaps it was this imitation leather "award Bible" O'Rourke had in mind? Or, if you wanted to get really specific, you might say it's about the size of a New King James Version Precious Moments ® Small Hands Edition Bible, available "slightly imperfect" from ChristianBook.com. I did not know it was possible to purchase a "slightly imperfect" Bible. The very idea seems slightly blasphemous―and yet, I would say a Precious Moments ® Bible is "slightly imperfect" by definition. Score one for truth in advertising.

Go back to Galway

While we're catching up: I reviewed Martin McDonagh's new play, A Behanding in Spokane, for Commonweal last month. It took me this long to mention it here because (a) the review is subscribers-only online, and (b) the play was a big fat disappointment. Most of what I wrote is an introduction to McDonagh, whose Irish plays I love and admire. (Did you know online-only subscriptions to Commonweal are just $29?) Here's a sample of what I had to say about Behanding:

Gold stars

There are things in The New Yorker that I like, also! Just to prove it, here are two pullquotes from the February 1, 2010 issue.

First, from George Packer's article about the city of Dresden and its complicated relationship with its history:

Dresden is the Blanche DuBois of German cities -- violated, complicit in its violation, desperate to recover its innocence. It has the unstable character of a place with a romantic self-image and a past that it would rather not discuss.

A rhetorical gamble, but I think he pulled it off. The whole article is well worth reading, by the way, or at least worth skimming for the good parts.

Here are a couple of memorable sentences from Peter Schjeldahl's review of the Bronzino show at the Met:

Recall Bronzino's "The Allegory of Venus and Cupid," at the National Gallery in London: a confounding tour de force of over-the-top sensuality and cryptic symbolism, painted for France's racy, bookish Francis I. (Cupid lewdly embraces his naked mother while, among other things, Father Time presides, a butterball putto rejoices, a cute-faced and snake-tailed grotesque proffers a honeycomb, and a dove departs on foot like a stricken guest from a party that is way out of hand.)

To fully appreciate the delightfulness of that description, compare this lesser attempt, from a review of the same show in The Wall Street Journal:

Many of us cherish, too, Bronzino's "Allegory of Venus and Cupid," at the National Gallery in London, a kinky free-for-all in which a teenage Cupid gropes his nude mother amid characters symbolizing time, folly, jealousy, and some things I've forgotten.

And since I know you're as curious as I am, here's the picture being described. It was difficult to find at first, because Schjeldahl calls it "The Allegory of Venus and Cupid," Wikipedia calls it "Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time" (?), and the National Gallery (who should know!) calls it "An Allegory with Venus and Cupid." And now that I'm looking at it I'm not at all sure I agree that the dove is "departing on foot," rather than just hanging out in the bottom left corner (canoodling with another dove, if you ask me). But it's a great mental image just the same.

Their weaknesses are incidental

I know I already said New Yorker theatre critic Hilton Als was on my don't-bother-reading list. And I meant it! And the first line of his review of Young Jean Lee's Lear is a good reminder of why!

Young Jean Lee’s “Lear” (at the SoHo Rep) is a hot mess, but it’s the kind of misfire that any young artist is entitled to, especially if he or she aspires to greatness.

You stopped after "hot mess," right? Good for you! But I must confess I skimmed the rest of that review, despite my no-Als policy, because I was curious about how the play was being received in general. Which is how I found this:

Lee has a profound understanding of women—how they talk, how they describe one another: with a near-clinical objectivity and, often, with loathing.

Ooh, snap! Women are such bitches! Finally, a lady playwright with a profound understanding of her sex's awfulness!

I once jokingly suggested that perhaps Als is on his editor's don't-bother-reading list. Now I think that may actually be the best explanation. On the other hand, maybe Hilton Als just gets women more than I do. It does seem to be a theme with him lately! Here's the first line of his review of Venus in Furs in the February 8, 2010, issue:

The cruelty of women!

Hilton, honey, is... is something bothering you? Because, this could be my near-clinical objectivity and loathing talking, but: maybe you could work it out on your own time? And not so much with the overt misogyny in your theatre reviews? Just a suggestion!

Hits and misses

I've just finished reading Lauren Collins's sporadically entertaining, generally shapless profile of Justice Sotomayor in the Jan. 11 New Yorker. Yes, this time I had all the pages. And there were a lot of them, because this article was really long. You know that feeling when you're reading an article that you think has gone on long enough, and you turn to a new page, and you look in vain to the lower right corner for the little box that marks the end? And then, when you see it keeps going, you say, "Oh, come on, how long is this?" I did that three times while I was reading this story.

It had its high points. Here is a sentence I particularly liked:

Scalia, a few years earlier, had become embroiled in a conflict-of-interest drama after going on a duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney; Sotomayor once recused herself from a case because, she wrote, “I was a member of the BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc.”

An excellent comparison. Says a mouthful, with no need for elaboration. Unfortunately this economy of expression did not extend to the entire profile. In fact, here is an excerpt from the next paragraph that ticked me off:

Sotomayor’s mode of expression can be inelegant. Her writings are marked less by any special rhetorical force or philosophical clarity than by a prosaic approachability. In Farrell v. Burke (2006), she invoked Carrie Bradshaw: “The State’s definition of pornography as material depicting sexual conduct and ‘designed to cause sexual excitement,’ if applied, would cover not only materials such as Scum but also popular television shows such as ‘Sex and the City.’”

So by "invoked Carrie Bradshaw" you mean "displayed an awareness that Sex and the City is a popular show on television"? I know this is an attempt to be cute, but if Sotomayor's judicial opinions are really marked by "prosaic approchability," this isn't convincing evidence. More seriously, the mischaracterization of this quotation seems particularly irresponsible when you're talking about a woman who was smeared by political opponents as an intellectual lightweight. Because make no mistake: if a circuit court judge really did "invoke Carrie Bradshaw" in an opinion, say by quoting a braindead "insight" from that character's supposedly popular column ("It sometimes seems as if the pursuit of romantic commitment will end up having us all committed!"), then I would want someone to write an article for The New Republic about how said judge was too stupid for the SCOTUS. But that's not what happened here, thank God.

Collins takes a few swings at contextualizing and interpreting the infamous "wise Latina" remark, but they're all misses, it seems to me. And then there's this:

In all the commotion over Ricci and “wise Latina,” the senators had missed what was perhaps a more inflammatory statement. In 2000, at the graduation ceremony of the Bronx Leadership Academy, Sotomayor had said, “It is so exciting to be at the door of a major change in one’s life. That’s why brides and bridegrooms smile so much at weddings and why so many tears of joy are shed when a wanted child arrives”—her unprompted use of the phrase “wanted child” acknowledging the possibility that an expectant parent could feel otherwise.

I see what you did there, trying to think like a Republican operative, but that's...embarrassing. First of all, if the word "wanted" has you confused, try subbing in "longed-for." Get it now? Second, I didn't think it was possible to underestimate the Karl-Rove types who pretended to believe Sotomayor was a "bigot." But even they are not dumb enough to think the mere suggestion that some pregnancies are not "wanted" is "inflammatory." Trust me: the people out to gin up conservative sentiment against Sotomayor didn't "miss" that statement. They just knew it would be difficult to find anyone who'd object, even in bad faith, to the image of new parents shedding tears of joy over the birth of their child. News flash: pro-life people know that not all pregnancies are "wanted." Hey, maybe your next 80,000 word article could focus on that!

Eustace Tilley's revenge?

I felt better after getting all my New Yorker-related gripes off my chest Saturday. When I came home tonight to find a brand-new issue waiting for me -- dated January 4, 2010 (!) -- I was ready to start fresh. But... I think there's something wrong with my New Yorker, you guys.


At first I thought this spread was supposed to look like this. Innovative design choice, I said to myself.

But the next spread was half blank too.


I saw this and felt a pang of insecurity... is this a test of some kind? Am I failing?


But no, I'm pretty sure they didn't intentionally blank out half of Tad Friend's article. The first page of "Shouts & Murmurs" is missing, too (which will spare me from trying to solve the "quiz," always a frustrating exercise, because the New Yorker refuses to modify its layout to make the "quiz" format functional).

On the plus side, I won't have to decide whether I'm in the mood to read the latest piece by Adam Gopnik! (That left column is supposed to have text in it, and several other pages are blanked out. How long was this article, anyway?)


The good news: no pages missing from the Uwem Akpan story. Guess I'll start there.

Who will buy?

As you know, when my subscription ran out at the end of 2007, The New Yorker and I took a break from our relationship for a while. We had grown apart. It was for the best. But I got a new subscription as a birthday gift, so we're back in touch, and I'm pleased to say I'm in a much healthier place now. I don't feel pressured to read every page. It's not scripture, for heaven's sake, it's a magazine. So I've learned to skip the things I know I won't like, and spend my precious magazine-reading subway time on the articles I'll find satisfying. Nowadays that means I spend most of my time on the feature articles, and of course the Hertzberg (or Packer) editorials at the front of "Talk of the Town." Otherwise the "Talk of the Town" shtick has gotten a little stale for me, so I tend to breeze through those quickly. If "Shouts & Murmurs" is half-baked or underwritten, as it so often is, I move along rather than brooding over the lost opportunity. I try to read the "financial page" -- I usually learn something -- and there is almost always at least one feature article to savor. (The most recent issue was an exception, for me, but I expect to be bored by the "theme" issues.)

And then there's the critical reviews, which used to be my favorite part. Alas, I'm afraid the thrill is pretty much gone. You already know about my disenchantment with The New Yorker's theatre coverage: I learned some time ago that one shouldn't read John Lahr before seeing the show he's reviewing, because he writes as though his readers will never see the show under discussion -- he repeats all the best jokes and always spoils the ending. But since his West Side Story rave he's been downgraded from "Don't read till after I see the show" to "Don't bother reading at all." And as you know, Hilton Als was already in my "Don't bother" column. When it comes to movies, I had more patience with David Denby than some, but I lost it when he published Snark. That just leaves Anthony Lane, and I still read (or at least skim) his stuff, but it's not the scintillating experience it once was. The guy needs a long vacation.

Alex Ross and Sasha Frere-Jones are still a good read (provided I care enough about whatever music they're covering). I used to admire Nancy Franklin's offhand style, but it's been a long time since I thought she actually delivered the goods in her TV column. And the last issue of The New Yorker reminded me of one more source of dissatisfaction: Joan Acocella.

Based on a novel by a man named Lear

Over at Hey Dullblog -- the occasionally updated group blog for Fab Four fans and obsessives -- you will find my thoughts on the twin Beatle-bio reviews in this week's New York Times Book Review. Nellie McKay decided to make her contribution, a review of the latest Lennon bio, interesting by writing a la In His Own Write. Do you think she pulled it off?

Suzanne Vega took on the new McCartney bio, which sounds pretty lousy. I quoted a few lines from her, too, in my Dullblog post, but I wanted to bring this bit over here, given Restricted View's history with disappointing Macca-related journalism.

One line about McCartney, which reads like a comment from a rejected suitor, reveals the possible source of this disappointment: “He grants interviews to bloggers and alternative weeklies, even as he turns away some major magazines (and biographers).” Perhaps the author made a bid for his subject’s cooperation but was turned down.

Seems pretty likely. And yet, is the author's description of Sir Paul's media policy accurate in a general sense? Not unless The New Yorker is an alternative weekly. He gave their writer a lot of access, you may recall. Based on the rest of Vega's review, I don't think he turned down the chance to participate in the making of this book just because he was feeling anti-mainstream.

Don't criticize what you can't understand

I never really had strong feelings about New Yorker film critic David Denby, as some subscribers do. He was less entertaining than Anthony Lane, but not unreadable; and yes, he was occasionally out of his depth, but aren't they all? If he'd been writing about theatre perhaps I'd have been more sensitive to his shortcomings, but his movie reviews never really rubbed me the wrong way.

I recently saw his new book Snark in an advance-copies-for-review pile and I rolled my eyes: another writer tries to stretch half of an idea into a book-length Comment on Modern Culture. No thanks. The "pseudo-scholarly take on a pop-culture 'trend'" angle was especially unappetizing. I don't want to hear that particular lecture from anybody, but especially not from Denby. Although, as I said, I never had a strong reaction to his work in general, I had a dim memory that he was a writer whose insightfulness diminished as his subject broadened. That is, writing about one particular film, he did okay; writing long articles about the Meaning and History and Future of Film in Our Culture, as I remember him doing once or twice, he seemed sloppy with his "argument" and generally out of touch. (I think I hated this one, but I don't want to bother rereading it to recall the specifics.) Certain paragraphs and sentences still had the ring of truth within them, but the way they were strung together seemed false and tin-eared, inclined to generalize in unsupportable ways.

So I guessed from all that that Snark would be an unsatisfying, probably irritating read. But this Wonkette post -- about his attempt to take on Wonkette -- is really pretty horrifying. I'm actually embarrassed for David Denby.

I know it's not for everyone's tastes, but I love Wonkette, which I discovered belatedly toward the end of this election season. It got me through those last couple months, and it continues to help me cope with knowing that, for example, Peggy Noonan and Maureen Dowd and Bill Kristol and Richard Cohen and other such columnists are out there, and other people take them seriously. (That Noonan takedown makes me laugh every time I think about it. On the other hand, the very fact that Denby apparently describes Dowd as "the most gifted writer of snark in the country" is conclusive evidence that he has no clue what he's talking about.) Wonkette is the only place I can stand to read about the Blagojevich Affair. And the reader comments actually add value, which is a rare and impressive achievement. The funny thing is, Denby isn't off-base when he describes the site as "proudly idiotic." That captures something central to what they're doing over there. He just doesn't get how that approach is functioning -- how it manages to be crude and smart at the same time. The crudeness of the approach points out how crass the level of "serious" and "mainstream" political coverage and discourse actually is. When provoked enough, the Wonkette editors will explain that (much better than I just did), and it's impressive to me how thoroughly they understand what they're doing.

I wouldn't have expected the nuances of "snark" as employed at Wonkette to be apparent or appealing to Denby -- if we were friends, I wouldn't be sending him links to my favorite posts. And his not getting it would be fine, except that he's apparently so certain he does. And that's embarrassing. Normally Wonkette's post titles are (proudly!) hyperbolic, but in this case, "The 'Wonkette Part' of David Denby's Book Really Just A Bunch of Major, If Not Libelous, Errors" is accurate. Quite an achievement.

I'm not convinced that "snark" and its effect on "our conversation" is analyzable, or worth analyzing. But if you want to read more on the topic, read Adam Sternbergh's review of Denby's book in New York magazine. It's the only review I'd bother to read, because Sternbergh -- of the late, lamented Fametracker team, part of TWoP's extended family -- knows whereof he speaks. He's convinced me "snark" might be worth analyzing after all, if it's done by someone who knows what it is and how it works. "Snark is not a honk of blasé detachment; it’s a clarion call of frustrated outrage." Couldn't have said it better myself -- but then, I keep forgetting! I'm a blogger and not a writer.

Easy listening made easier!

In a hospital waiting room on Monday, I heard a Muzak version of the John Denver song "Perhaps Love." Now, I love John Denver and I don't care who knows it. But if there was ever a song that didn't need softening, it's "Perhaps Love." And honestly, when you arrange a really simple acoustic-guitar song with classical instrumentation and no vocals, it just sounds like a very underwritten classical piece. Nobody wins.

I was in said waiting room playing name-that-mangled-tune because I was due for another post-treatment CT scan, just to make sure my old friend Hodgkin's hasn't come back. So, good news: I'm still cancer-free! Plus, the guy who started my IV and, later, the guy who took a blood sample managed to find a cooperative vein without too much poking around, so I was extra happy about that. Go do something to celebrate! The next update's in December.

While I was waiting (and drinking my delicious Crystal-Light-and-iodine cocktail), I flipped through some recent copies of The New Yorker to see what I'd been missing. I started reading a Talk of the Town "Comment" by Hendrik Hertzberg from the August 4 issue, but stopped when I got to this sentence:

(Let us note, in the currently fashionable spirit of joke-explaining, that the baseball allusion is to a long-defunct Class B circuit made up of teams from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa.)

Oh, get over yourself. Joke-explaining isn't "fashionable." You know what's "fashionable"? Crafting and telling jokes that are funny. Jokes that work and do not need to be explained. That is always in fashion. Getting all defensive and condescending when you fall short of that goal, and then nursing the wound (he would have had to clarify this allusion under any circumstances), is definitely not in fashion. Anyone can make a mistake, but it takes a true child to wallow in it.

I've been pretty happy with my nonsubscriber status in 2008 (I've read books! Actual books!), but I always assumed the time would come when I'd want to sign back up. I'm not so sure anymore.

So funny I forgot to laugh

Like Mary Worth and Dr. Jeff Cory, The New Yorker and I have been on a break. We were happy together for a long time -- despite the occasional public tiff -- but the relationship was getting to be too much pressure. We needed time apart to pursue other interests; I wanted to try seeing other reading material. I wanted to stop having endless discussions about why the "Cartoon Caption Contest" results in such lousy cartoons. I wanted John Lahr to stop spoiling plots and punch lines for me. Oh, I've missed it now and then -- when I see someone reading on the subway, or when I wonder what Malcolm Gladwell is writing about these days. But just when I was thinking maybe I should resubscribe, this week's cover changed my mind. I'm not offended by its content. I don't question The New Yorker's right to make this joke. I'm just offended by its lameness. I'm surprised that The New Yorker couldn't make this joke more effectively. I'm disappointed, like I am when "Shouts & Murmurs" is a half-baked Bruce McCall piece that would have worked better as a cartoon, or when a profile of someone fascinating turns out to be a bore. I think, Isn't The New Yorker supposed to be better than this? And if they misfire, shouldn't they be able to admit it? Instead of "defending" his decision to lampoon Obama -- or are they lampooning people who criticize Obama? -- and flattering himself with comparisons to The Colbert Report, Remnick should be offering a simple mea culpa for greenlighting lousy "satire." Because, come on, do you watch The Colbert Report? "Is Barack Obama a secret Muslim?" makes me laugh every time, but this cover just made me roll my eyes. If you have to explain the joke, you told it wrong.

So I guess The New Yorker and I are going to stay separated for a bit longer -- I have several books in the works, anyway. But for more intelligent analysis of why and how this cover disappoints, please visit the blog of my pal Mike Gerber. He breaks down the reasons why this "satire" fails, thanks to Blitt's "slight, watery, wan style," much better than I or anyone else could. I would only add that the inaptness of this style to this joke becomes pretty obvious when you take a look at Blitt's other recent political covers. Did he depict Bush and his advisers in danger of drowning, back in 2005, in order to send up the absurd notion that they are in deep metaphorical water? Did he draw Bush and Cheney as housewife (or maid?) and insensitive, boorish husband to lampoon the ridiculous idea that Cheney dominates the executive office? And if not, why should he, or Remnick, expect the Obama cover to read any differently?

ETA: Mike's take is also posted at A Tiny Revolution, and there's more from him in the comments.

Today's office irony

During the workday, many interoffice emails arrive in my inbox with this message at the bottom: "Please consider the environment before choosing to print this email." There must have been a company-wide campaign at some point before I arrived; I don't have the banner, but it seems like most people do. And bless them for it. Of course, I've never had a printer of my own -- in college I had to go to the computer cluster to print anything at all, and although, in theory, I now have access to the husband's, in reality we can't get my laptop to make friends with it -- so it really never occurs to me to print out an email. That means, in my case, the banner has the opposite effect; instead of considering the environment, I find myself elated by the idea that I could easily create a paper copy of this particular message if I so desired.

But that's not the irony I want to share with you. You see, this consciousness-raising banner doesn't just appear onscreen; it shows up at the bottom of the page if you decide to go ahead and hit "print." I suppose that increases its effectiveness -- every hard copy is stamped with a reminder that you chose to prioritize its contents, and your convenience, over the welfare of Mother Earth. But sometimes, that little inch-high banner is enough to push the printout onto a second (or third, or fifth) page. And so, right now, on my desk, I have a piece of paper -- the final page of an email I chose to print -- that is completely blank, except for the "consider the environment" warning against wastefulness. I believe this is what the folks at FAIL Blog might call an "Environmentalism Fail."

And now for a message from our sponsors: If you enjoy workplace irony, please drop everything you have planned for the day and go buy Personal Days, the wondrously funny and unsettling new novel by friend-of-Restricted View Ed Park. I thought The New Yorker's writeup described it particularly well, and that will have to do for the moment, as I am going to be late for my own job if I don't leave now.

In other office-culture news: Aren't you glad you don't work with the author of this note? She wants you to think she has a sense of humor, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't enjoy Personal Days at all.

Please address all correspondence to "One Mollie Lane"

This week's New Yorker has an amusing "Talk of the Town" item by Ben McGrath about "vanity addresses" -- you know, when a building's entrance is on a cross-street, but the address misleadingly places it on the avenue around the corner. (Although in certain neighborhoods, like my future home of Hell's Kitchen -- aka midtown west, or "Clinton," while we're on the subject of vanity labels -- it's apparently more desirable to be on the cross-street. The Hearst Tower, for example, claims to be at 300 W. 57th, although the main entrance is on Eighth.) Or when an office building has a made-up address that gives you no information about where exactly it's located. Vanity addresses are just one of Manhattan's little irritations, and everybody seems to want one!

The summer before my senior year of high school, I attended a program for English-lit geeks at Pace University. It was, among other things, a good crash course in finding my way around the city; by the end of the week I was getting around on the subway like a pro. (On the last day, a couple of friends and I strayed a bit too far and, thanks to unanticipated delays getting back downtown, were at least 20 minutes late for the program's closing ceremonies, but I realize now that had very little to do with our novice status, and everything to do with typically lousy weekend subway service downtown.) When I first arrived in the city, though, I had no idea where I needed to be, and I relied on my sister to point me in the right direction. "Where is Pace?" she asked me over the phone, and I looked at the paperwork they'd sent, telling us where to report on the first morning. "Um... It says here it's at 'One Pace Plaza,'" I replied. And this was in 1998, when colleges had lousy websites (if they had websites at all), and there was no Wikipedia, and you couldn't just look up the real address on Yahoo maps. (Also, try telling a cab driver you're going to "One Pace Plaza." Just try.) I got there eventually, thanks to Amy, but I was forever soured on vanity addresses.

That experience wasn't the first that came to mind when I started reading this story, however. No, I was thinking about my very first visit to Conde Nast headquarters, and I laughed out loud when I read this paragraph:

Borelli had a map of midtown on his desk, and noted that this magazine story was likely to be written and edited in a building whose address is 4 Times Square—an honorific that predates his taking office, two years ago. “You could say that it’s across the street from 1 Times Square or 6 Times Square in order to help your friends find you,” he said, and paused before continuing. “I’m being facetious, because where are those places?”

After I survived my week at Pace, went on to get my English degree, and moved to NYC with vague plans of putting it to use, I was invited to Conde Nast for what is known as an "informational interview." Exciting, right? So I scheduled the appointment over the phone, and the person I spoke to (someone in HR, I guess) ended by saying, "You know where we are, right?" Maybe it will give you an idea of my naivete when I say I had no clue where the Conde Nast offices were located. I didn't even know I was supposed to know. In all my years of reading and writing and editing and working to become a good, educated, well-rounded person, the location of the Conde Nast building had never once come up. But this woman's tone made me suddenly embarrassed to have to admit, No, actually, I don't know where you are. "We're at 4 Times Square," she said, and because I felt I'd already started things off on the wrong foot, I pretended that was a sufficient answer. Of course! 4 Times Square! Then I hung up and signed online (via dialup, no less) to try to translate that into actual, useful information.

Anyway, on the topic of pretentious addresses this piece stops just short of being self-aware, but it was a kick to read a "Talk of the Town" story whose shape and angle was directly influenced by the interviewee, for a change. And in case you're wondering, the Conde Nast building is actually on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway. I guess my having to ask was just another sign that I'd end up where I am now: a blogger, but not a writer.

You only send me your funny papers

The building where I live was once a hotel, and the lobby is set up accordingly, with tenants' mailboxes behind a glass partition. I have to ask whoever is at the front desk to get my mail for me. Yesterday, the doorman handed me this:I don't subscribe to any fashion-related periodicals. This is partly because I'm a snob, but mostly because I have no interest in or aptitude for fashion. For me, reading a fashion-related mag is like studying an instruction manual for an appliance I don't own. It's confusing, unsatisfying, a little intimidating; I might learn something new, but I will almost definitely be unable to apply said knowledge to my life. So I figured this plastic-wrapped mag labeled FASHION must have been placed in the wrong mailbox, and I started to hand it back to the doorman -- "This isn't for me." Then I looked at the address label and saw my name on it. I panicked a little. How could this happen? Had one of my copy-editing employers gifted me with a free subscription? Had I, in a self-destructive fugue state, subscribed to yet another magazine? Then, suddenly, I recalled a similar experience in my past, something I must have blocked from my memory. I flipped it over and saw this:Is this some kind of joke, New Yorker? Are you trying to destroy all my intellectual cred? Because if I wanted to read a magazine with J. Lo on the cover, I would have many to choose from at the newsstand. And if I wanted to read a magazine about fashion, I would buy a real one.

A peek at the masthead of Fashion Rocks reveals that its "editorial director" is one Anna Wintour. Is this some sort of crossover promotion? Fashion-forward friends: was your most recent copy of Vogue bundled with a faux cultural journal? And fellow New Yorker subscribers: what did you find most baffling about Fashion Rocks, assuming you didn't toss it directly into the recycling bin? I think it's the table of contents with no page numbers. I only noticed this because, when I first freed the mag from its plastic bag, it fell open to a spread of photos of Sean Lennon, who has what I consider to be the celebrity world's most interesting face. So I enjoyed flipping through that feature, and I was hoping to tell you where to find it, but the table of contents can only confirm that it exists. And I'm not motivated enough to flip through Fashion Rocks at random to find it again. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter, since the interior doesn't have page numbers, so I couldn't be any more helpful than the aforementioned table of contents.

The only fashion-related content I want from The New Yorker is the occasional shopping-trip field journal by Patty Marx. In the future, Conde Nast, I would appreciate your keeping your glossy and disorienting supplements to yourself. And you guys -- does anyone want a copy of Fashion Rocks?

How Rude(y)

The fiance and I spent a refreshing weekend at a retreat house, participating in a marriage-prep program, and now I'm easing slowly back into the cyberworld. I made it through the August 20 issue of the New Yorker during the train ride up and back -- just in time for the next issue to land in my mailbox -- and aside from the article I mentioned on Friday, this issue is notable for Peter J. Boyer's lengthy profile of Rudy Giuliani. It contains many little anecdotes to support my long-held suspicion that Giuliani is, more or less, a snake, but this one was my favorite:

When controversial police shootings stirred racial unrest, [Giuliani] seemed reflexively eager to leap to the defense of the cops. After an unarmed black security guard, Patrick Dorismond, was shot and killed by undercover narcotics officers, in March of 2000, Giuliani sanctioned the release of Dorismond’s juvenile arrest record and suggested that Dorismond wasn’t “an altar boy.” (Dorismond actually had been an altar boy, and had attended Giuliani’s old high school, Bishop Loughlin.)

Perhaps in the future we should amend the expression to: "He wasn't a Caucasian altar boy!" Just to be clear.

Tomorrow I am planning my first trip to Broadway, and to the theatre, in much too long! I'll let you know how that turns out.

Lost in the stars

Most magazines take a vacation at some point during the summer, sending out a "double issue" to tide readers over. There may be readers somewhere out there who find this disappointing, but I am deeply, profoundly grateful when these double issues arrive in my mailbox, with a note to let me know that "The next issue of [magazine title] will be dated [in the future]." I can taste freedom! Freedom from the pile of magazines that crouch next to my desk, demanding to be read! Sometime before that designated future date arrives, I may reach the bottom of that pile! I may even be able to -- dare I hope -- read a book!

Alas, the summertime reprieve is never quite long enough, and it's always followed by a renewed onslaught -- in late July/early August, brand-new issues of all the magazines I subscribe to, even the bimonthly college alumni magazine, land in my mailbox at the very same time, and I'm right back where I started, toiling under a pile of magazines-to-read. Most of this pressure comes from The New Yorker: nearly every issue is densely packed with articles that are well worth reading, and a new issue arrives every single week. Keeping up involves as much work as pleasure on my part, and in the process, all of my other relationships suffer (I finally had to break it off with Harper's; I still care about you, I told Lapham et al., but I'm giving so much to high-minded magazines that I don't have time for myself anymore). One of these days my attachment to the New Yorker may weaken enough that I'll be able to resist renewing my subscription -- "I think I should try seeing other magazines," I'll say, and when they try to sweet-talk me into coming back ("Become a member of WNYC and we'll give you a subscription for free!" Oh, I know all their tricks), I'll just focus on what a fabulous time I'm having flirting with The Atlantic Monthly and exploring the possibility of a long-term relationship with Evelyn Waugh. You would think the fact that my affair with The New Yorker recently turned abusive would be enough to send me packing, but for now I'm still trying to make it work.

At the moment I'm in that post-vacation spot where, after taking advantage of the chance to come up for air, let my mind wander on the subway, and bring a book with me on vacation (albeit one written by a New Yorker staffer), I have more reading to do than ever. So I'm slowly making my way through the pile. But I wanted to stop and call your attention to a terrific article in the August 20 issue of The New Yorker that I just finished reading this morning. It's a feature by David Owen entitled "The Dark Side" (and hampered with the dry subtitle "Making war on light pollution"). I am sorry to report that it is not available online, aside from this dull abstract, but it's worth seeking out -- especially if you already have this issue sitting in a pile in your home, awaiting your attention.

Owen begins by describing the work of Galileo Galilei, who made his observations based on the astonomical bodies visible to him in 1610, and the obstacles met by modern-day astronomers hoping to see what Galileo saw. "The stars have not become dimmer; rather, the Earth has become vastly brighter, so that celestial objects are harder to see." This is a simple yet astounding fact, and Owen spends the rest of the story laying out its causes and results. Reading the following excerpt will keep you awake at night (but that's okay, since the too-bright lights in your neighbor's yard and the glow of your alarm clock's digital display are probably disrupting your sleep anyway):

Civilization's assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder.

There's no hysteria here, just simple, frightening facts, in a piece that's a joy to read because it's so very well written. It moves forward at a steady pace, never lingering too long in any one place. Owen can be funny without calling attention to himself in the process (something the New Yorker's staff writers often have trouble with) -- I laughed out loud at his description of "an empty parking lot so bright that you could deliver babies in it." And he talks about himself and his experiences researching and battling light pollution in a natural way -- his presence and his personal perspective add to the story, rather than distracting from it. Most important, Owen combines technical clarity with provocative, even poetic insight, as when he points out that "pervasive artificial illumination has existed for such a brief period that not even the species that invented it has had time to adapt, biologically or otherwise." Or: "In a truly dark sky, shooting stars are too numerous to bother wishing on."

Even before I got to his description of newborn sea turtles being lured to their deaths by artificial light, the article had won me over. Though I've never been particularly interested in astronomy, or space exploration, or outdoorsy activity of any kind, as I read I found myself mourning the loss of darkness and wondering what the cost has been for all of us. By the end of the piece I was convinced that light pollution, and its ill effects, is an issue I should care about, and an area where I am obliged to take some action. But at no point along the way did I feel Owen pushing me in that direction. He wrote an elegant article about a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed reading it so much that, when I reached the end, I flipped to the "Contributors" page to see whether he'd written anything else I could seek out. Not that I need anything more to read right now, but I might have made some time... and then I read, "David Owen is the author of Sheetrock & Shellac: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement, which is out in paperback." You know, I think I'll wait for the movie.

Maybe I'm amazed

We're in our third day of record-setting traffic here at Restricted View, and in case you haven't heard, the Huffington Post reported that Thursday's honored visitor was, in fact, award-winning journalist and New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto. The HuffPo received no response from Colapinto himself -- perhaps his AOL connection is still on the fritz? -- which makes me wonder what went down, exactly. Did The New Yorker's PR folks track him down to verify? Or did they just recognize the M.O.? ("Knee-jerk defensiveness... name-calling... condescending asides... Oh yeah, that's definitely him"?)

I probably don't need to tell you this is not what I expected when I wrote that post. It wasn't my intention to spark a debate about old vs. new media and their respective uses and limitations, or to challenge the distinction between "blogger" and "writer" (it hadn't occurred to me that I couldn't be both). I didn't set out to expose the allegedly entrenched institutional snobbery of The New Yorker. And I certainly wasn't looking to get into a fight over who's the "truest" Beatles fan, or whether this article's "unprecedented" scoops were, in fact, new. I just wanted to say, for whatever it's worth, that I found the article disappointingly dull. Being a Beatles fan, and having read much more interesting New Yorker profiles of much less interesting people, I expected to be fascinated, and instead I was bored. But the author says, actually, the article is fascinating, I just wasn't reading it correctly. And now that my opinion (and perhaps even my right to have an opinion) has been challenged, I am sorry the article isn't available online; I wish you could check it out and judge for yourself, instead of just taking my word for it. (Or Colapinto's word for it -- you decide who seems most trustworthy.) Still, a few of you have tracked it down (I had to pull it out of the recycling bin myself, just in case I need it for backup), and I'm grateful for your comments, because the discussion here and elsewhere has turned out to be much more entertaining and enlightening than the article in question. So thanks to my visitors old and new for being such careful readers and thoughtful writers. And please, keep it up!

You won't see me

After I posted my quick appreciation of Paul McCartney's new album title last week, I opened a brand-new issue of The New Yorker and found John Colapinto's article "When I'm Sixty-Four," a study of "Paul McCartney then and now."

A better subtitle would have been "How I spent a week wasting Paul McCartney's time." The story contains a few interesting revelations -- I didn't know Sir Paul's company, MPL Communications, owns the rights to Guys and Dolls, for instance. But for the most part it is dull, shapeless and devoid of insight. There's no real criticism of his music, either then or now, and certainly no attempt is made to synthesize his body of work. That would make a really interesting article, don't you think? I'll tell you what doesn't make a really interesting article: exhaustively cataloging every encounter Macca has with an autograph-seeking fan during your time together. If all that detail added up to something -- if Colapinto used it to make some point about Paul as public figure -- it might make sense, but no, it stands alone, as if the very fact that Paul gets recognized a lot were newsworthy. At one point a fan compliments him on Pipes of Peace, and I thought, Ooh, interesting choice. Maybe this will be the segue into a discussion of Paul's long and varied solo career. Or maybe the author will contrast this episode with the earlier one where Paul was asked to sign a copy of Beatles 1, to discuss the breadth of his fame and following. But none of that ever happened.

I first realized I might be wasting my time when I got to the "describing the subject's physical appearance" paragraph and it began, "McCartney's hair, which he admits to dyeing..."

Admits to dyeing? The man's hair was gray for more than a decade; it's not a matter of "admitting" to anything. This is like saying, "Starr's mustache, which he admits to having grown..." It might make for interesting reading if you discussed his decision to go back to brown, and whether or not it had anything to do with his decision to marry a wife several decades his junior. Or if you discussed the alleged plastic surgery he does not admit to having.

But Colapinto does not do any of that. Instead, he focused on asking dumb questions and then including them in the article. For example, Paul is approached by a fan brusquely seeking an autograph (the first of many), and as he walks away, Colapinto reports, "I remarked that the man could have been another Mark David Chapman." If I had the chance to chat with Paul McCartney, and I said something like that, I would buckle instantly under the weight of my humiliation. Like Chris Farley interviewing McCartney: "Stupid! Stupid!" I certainly wouldn't tell the world about it in The New Yorker. I would also be too embarrassed to write this sentence: "I suggested to McCartney that it's difficult to know whom to blame for Ono's presence at the [Let It Be] sessions -- Lennon, who brought her along, or Ono, who stayed when she was obviously unwelcome." Did you now. I am sure Paul thanked you for that insight.

The piece is full of the sort of details (nine pages' worth, not counting photos) you might find interesting if you haven't already heard the story about how "Yesterday" was originally, provisionally titled "Scrambled Eggs" -- in other words, if you're not at all interested in the Beatles. But if you're looking for analysis, look elsewhere.

The article's not available online, but if you feel like killing 6 minutes and 40 seconds, you can listen to an mp3 of Colapinto discussing "what it was like to interview Paul McCartney" at The New Yorker's website. I think I'll pass -- I've wasted enough time on this already.