Mar, 9, 2009 Issue

To start with, I am already behind in my reading. I have one more story I want to read in the March 9 issue and the new one will be in the mail when I get home. Not stressing, because it’s not a race, but I had hopes of keeping a schedule here. I recently discussed my new subscription and blog with a real writer I know (Goldie), a journalist much smarter than myself, who without any preamble on my part offered that she gives herself permission to not read all of every issue. Which is why, she explained, there are so many subscribers with piles of partially read New Yorkers around the house.

On the differences between reading a magazine and reading a book.

There are physical differences between reading a magazine and a book that aren’t much of an issue (sorry) until you chose the magazine as your prime reading source. They are all related to the flimsiness of the paper and the cover and the size of the pages. In bed, the stiffness of a book makes it easier to hold. The magazine wants to flop this way and that. The only good way to control it is to fold or roll the magazine, revealing only one column at a time. Which relates to the other way books are easier to read in bed, once again their relative stiffness and the single, broad column of print makes it easier for the eyes to follow the text across the page. And don’t get me started on walking and reading on a windy day! Regardless of how you fold or roll the magazine, unless you keep a killer grip on it the wind will catch a corner of the page an flap it in your face whilst you try vainly to read that same corner.

The inside pages

The first item I note is the Cartoon Caption contest. I can tell by the listed finalists that my sharp witty caption didn’t make it. Of course, that minor disappointment is overcome by the laugh I get from the winner’s quote.

I began this issue with a Talk of The Town piece naming President Obama’s Joint Address to Congress as the moment he first took ownership of his presidency. This opinion column didn’t so much re-tread the speech as noted what the act of giving it, and Obama following it with his ambitious budget, said about the man and his taking of the presidential reins. A few fair and accurately dismissive words were written about Gov. Jindal’s sad rebuttal. It may very well reflect the state of the Republican party today, shallow, stiff, and lacking direction.

With a nod to my sister dearest and her penchant for celebrity rags, I dove right into an article about singer Lilly Allen. My daughter introduced me to Ms. Allen’s jaunty tunes a year ago. I enjoyed this outing with the young pop star as she tooled around the big apple for a day. Sasha Frere-Jones’ mix of solid background - the usual "bad girl" antics - and a light touch reporting of her time with Lilly gave me the impression of experiencing a real person, with warts intact.

As a creature of my movie reviewing reading habit, and contrary to my previous decision to not read the New Yorker reviews, I couldn’t resist Anthony Lane’s swipe at the Watchmen movie. I’ve read the graphic novel, wondering how it could be the most acclaimed graphic novel of all times and I, nor several people I’ve questioned, hadn’t heard of it before a year ago? While Lane’s review was cutting, direct, and well-written, it lacked a certain joie de vivre that I’ve found in other reviewers negative reviews (of other movies). I’ve found that a truly disappointed or pissed-off reviewer will often wax poetic in their vilification of the movie at hand. Their turns of phrase and over-all command of demeaning words becomes it’s own entertainment. This feeling was present in Lane’s review. Oh, well.

Patricia Marx’s Memo from the CEO was mildly entertaining. I kept having the feeling that I’d read it before. With changes to a few technology references, it could have come out of the layoffs craze of the 1980s. For any who haven’t lived through this before, it may strike a deeper chord.

If I hadn’t been interested in the story of David Foster Wallace, D.T Max’s “The Unfinished, David Foster Wallace’s project” could have seemed interminable. But it is a compelling story and I was an interested reader. Max paints a very full portrait of the artist as a young and middle-aged man. While simultaneously including all the pertinent details needed to understand each phase of Wallace’s life and career and resisting the (possible) urge to mimic Wallace’s obsession with the minutiae of his character’s lives and thoughts, Max succeeds in bringing Wallace and his struggles to life. Of the incongruous character traits that stuck out for me, one was Wallace’s enjoyment of the writing for it’s own sake and his later qualms over how long “the project” could become before then needing to be cut by 90%. The prospect of how much writing he would need to do daunted him when earlier his approach seemed to be write-first-ask-questions-later. This was probably the most tactile, the most immediate clue to me that the problem wasn’t the writing but the writer. And, as a person who’s known a couple bi-polars in my life, I knew very well the frustration of the chemical guessing game modern psycho-pharmacology remains. We may all share the same DNA, but when it comes to affecting our psyches each of us is an island unto our own. The chance of your doctor nailing the drug, or the combination of drugs, that sets you right on the first or sometimes second try is a crap shoot. Then, once you’ve hit on the magic combo, you can’t rely on it forever…your body changes as you age and the chemicals that work for you now will likely change also. Square one again!

The impetus for this mini-bio of David Foster Wallace is the expected release of the portion of what would have been his next novel had he not killed himself. And this issue includes an excerpt. As of this writing, I haven’t read it yet, so expect a post-script.

And now for another kvetch. My self-imposed restriction to only reading the New Yorker is at odds with my natural desire to go back and try (again) to read Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Along with Chabon’s Kavelier and Klay (another aborted read) and several other novels that have crossed my path again recently. But I will demure for the time being as they will be there waiting when I get to them. And, I foresee either a random ebb and flow in the number of pieces I will read in each coming issue (most likely scenario) or a need to restrict how many articles I choose each week. I decline to decide for now.

David Foster Wallace book excerpt.

If I remember correctly, The Wiggle Room was one of the earlier pieces Wallace sent to his editor as a teaser. It features a character named Lane Dean Jr. who works in an IRS tax return review facility. The facility itself, described early and in a few words, is a modern Dickensian sweat shop of accountants and calculators. The in box is continually re-filled by “cart boys”, one of whom pushes a cart with the quintessential squeaky wheel. Our “hero”, in this excerpt, hits the wall of boredom at his job. It is a boredom that threatens to drown him. Wallace writes in a swiftly moving stream of thought style that feels as if he invented it. All the better to feel the buffeting of Lane’s psyche as he struggles against boredom with a depth of description that must come from Wallace’s personal relationship with mental turmoil. I’m not sure I have the stamina to experience an entire novel of the same, but intend to try when I return to reading novels.

Ps – I made it. I read The Wiggle Room at lunch, beating the mailbox and my next awaiting issue with hours to spare.