Just now, I linked to a piece in The New Yorker. I found it because it was cited by a commenter in the earlier post about the Pamuk trial. But the current issue of The New Yorker has been sitting on the table in front of me for days. I subscribe to The New Yorker, but lately I haven't even been opening it. I have a stack of unread issues here. You'd think, with all the cartoons, I'd at least flip through. Why did I care enough to subscribe, only to shun it so now.
One problem is the covers. What? Aren't the covers beautifully done? They are nicely drawn, but lately, nearly every one is anti-Bush commentary. This week's cover especially annoys me. We see an American solder, sitting on a cot, next to a concrete wall. He's got an exaggeratedly sad look on his face as he reads a card. The card has a picture of a Christmas tree. On the soldier's wall is the shape of a Christmas tree composed of hundreds of hatch marks made with a green Crayola crayon. That is, this soldier, a man who volunteered and is fighting for what he has every reason to believe is a noble cause, sits around looking monumentally depressed because he is not home for Christmas and has time to be sentimental enough about Christmas that he has been spending the whole year making the image of a Christmas tree on the wall. In the world of The New Yorker, the war is just a big, sorry mistake, and our soldiers have nothing but regret.
Let's see, do I feel like reading what the folks who chose that cover decided to put inside?
December 17, 2005
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22 comments:
"for what he has every reason to believe is a noble cause"
Every reason? Talk about propoganda. Get a grip! There are plenty of reasons to think that those "volunteers" are miserable and that they are sick and tired of being the target of the people who were supposed to welcome them as heroes.
I'd love to see your picture of what it's like over there, Ann. The happy and the proud, I suppose.
No wonder you aren't inclined to read The New Yorker.
So you see them as a bunch of sad sack losers who didn't know what the hell they were signing up for? These are real men and women who deserve honor and respect for what they are doing!
And of course, anti-sheck, their misery explains why they keep re-enlisting--that's right, I said re-enlisting--at record numbers, right? They can't possibly believe in what they're doing or think there is anything worthwhile about it, now can they?
By the way, I've been told to "get a grip" by more second-rate commenters and bloggers than I care to remember. Argue substance if you want any weight with me. And no, I don't think everything is pretty. Not at all. Never said it was. But I don't think soldiers sit around moping and making hatch mark Christmas trees. I referred to the "cause" not the conditions or the things they need to do. I didn't say things were "happy." Try reading the actual words written before you attack.
It's lonely in an army barracks in the United States on Christmas Day, too. Not everyone gets to go home.
The cover, as you describe it (I haven't seen it) probably would have worked during WW II as well, though. I'd be a little lonely without being home at Christmas.
The trick with the New Yorker is to tear off the cover and all the pages until you get past Talk of The Town (and, if there is one, the anit-Bush article that follows Talk of The Town). Then you have a pretty good read.
It's like the NY Times--just throw away the first section and you have a pretty good paper.
Magazines to which I've subscribed in the past have suffered similar inattention from me.
Recently though, I began subscribing to 'The Week' and amazingly, I read almost every article in it!
I think that it's because 'The Week' rapidly and painlessly relieves some of my guilt about not being aware of whatever is in the news at the moment. The magazine's short articles give an overview of each story plus a sampling of what domestic and foreign pundits and editorialists of various stripes are saying about it.
Of course, you won't find the great writing or all the funny cartoons you find in 'The New Yorker' in 'The Week.' But as time passes, I feel increasingly like Billy Joel in his song, 'Just the Way You Are':
I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are.
Maybe you've graduated from "clever conversation" in what you deem the pretentious, aren't I clever way of sophisticates and wannabes.
Some can read 'The New Yorker' and retain their humanity---my son, for example.
Others read it and become snobs.
Still others look at the cover and ask, "Where'd I leave my copy of 'The Week'?"
Have a good weekend.
PS: I'm not on the payroll of 'The Week.'
I find I read the New Yorker less too.
You see my dentist hired another assistant, and now you get right in the chair...where you wait, sans New Yorker, for the dentist with a bib around your neck and a view of what must be very expensive lighting that has a little chip out of the reflector on the lower left hand corner...
Ken Body on the truth on troop morale:
Wingo's report concluded that the protests in the U.S. were not demoralizing troops. What was affecting morale, he found, was uncertainty about what the U.S. had accomplished with its investment of 39,000 lives. "I don't even know what I'm fighting for," said Marine Pfc. Sam Benson.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051202/OPINION/512020375/1002
All of the Pfc. Bensons are why the New Yorker would run the cover that Ann dislikes so much that she cannot open the magazine. I guess he's misinformed, huh? Or do you honor his dignity?
Last year, I let my long-term subscription to the New Yorker lapse. For final six months of my subscription all I read were the cartoons, in fact. Sad.
I renewed Vanity Fair, but it's on probation. Double secret probation.
I first subscribed to the New Yorker in high school (1948-52) and looked forward to its arrival every week. It just kept getting more and more political until about 15 years ago a particularly egregious "Letter from Washington" written by Elizabeth Drew made steam come out of my ears. Now even the cartoons annoy me.
Why read stuff about soldiers from partisans that create their own image of them and/or fish for quotes that suit their agenda when there's tons of blogs from soldiers themselves? Check out milblogging.com for links to some.
Ross, a cover of National Review depicting soldiers overseas at wartime wouldn't be infused with a sense of pathetic futility. A certain wistfulness, to be sure, but I'm betting whatever artist they chose would also manage to convey strength, determination, and nobility. Ann's description of the NY cover makes it seem as if that soldier's sacrifice was but grudgingly given, or even perhaps coerced out of him.
As a boy growing up in South Carolina in the 60's, it was treat to be visited by my aunt and uncle, childless sophisticates living in Manhattan, he the Marketing VP of Hanes at that time. I dreamed of growing up to live the "intellectual, New Yorker" life, and one of my favorite gifts from my New York aunt and uncle was "Cartoons of the New Yorker (The First 30 Years)". I still "get" the cartoons.
I thankfully did not become the elitist I aspired to be, but while living in California, where there are more New Yorker subscribers than in New York, I did subscribe for about a decade. I did not renew 2 years ago, due to the very reasons Ann mentioned: it's unreasonable insertion of everything "anti-Bush" and "anti-Israel" into even non-political articles and cartoons.
Everything still good about the magazine is available for free on it's web site. I still read David Denby's wicked movie reviews each week, only now without the annoying covers.
Only decision left: what to do with all those saved back issues . . .
Ann,
I do need to mention that Caitlin Flanagan's article in this issue on Mary Poppins is outstanding - numerous new facts about P.L. Travers and Walt Disney. (Caitlin is often in "The Atlantic") It's also free on the website, "newyorker.com"
I must be too easy-going, because all the New Yorker objections listed here sound reasonable, and from my own reading of the magazine, reliable.
But it doesn't bother me, and if it does, I simply move on to the next article.
I think it's because my natural personality is simply to absorb as much information as I can, and then do my own thinking -- internal writing, if you will. Bad writing bothers me much more than writing I disagree with. It's tough to explain.
Besides, every so often they do surprise you. Most often, it's when they vigorously defend New York City and that just happens to align with something not so liberal.
I wonder how the late Norman Rockwell would have drawn a soldier in Iraq at Christmas.
DEC: "I wonder how the late Norman Rockwell would have drawn a soldier in Iraq at Christmas."
I think Rockwell would have produced a facial expression that clearly combined the love of Christmas at home and the noble determination to fulfill the important wartime task the soldier had staunchly committed himself to. The viewer would feel urged toward greater appreciation of the simple, traditional joy of being safe at home for the holiday and the profound and courageous service the soldiers are giving. Rather than hatch marks on the wall, showing a soldier just marking the days until he can get out, I think Rockwell would have found a way to express the gift-giving theme of Christmas: the simple gift-giving of the home-style Christmas, the soldier's gift of his service at the risk of his life, and maybe even Christ's gift to humanity. The New Yorker's soldier on the gift theme? Damn, why did I ever think it waa worthwhile to offer myself? If jesus had run the analysis that way, there wouldn't be any Christmas.
Re: Ann on Rockwell
Perfect. You should be teaching art, too.
We don't live in a time in which Norman Rockwell type paintings would portray our more cynical natures. We, however, struggle with many of the same problems.
I don't believe that any soldier finds his duty in Iraq enjoyable especially when compounded with homesickness during Christmas. This type of art work has a history as long as our involvement in war. In a sense, as in most New Yorker covers, the artist creates a tension by combining the past and the present.
Ann, I might expect that despite your disagreement with the New Yorker's obvious point of view, you would at least honor their investigative reporting which has done much the heavy lifting for the MSP.
The reactions here are typical. The left sees nothing wrong whatsoever, the right (and increasingly) the middle gets quite worked up about it.
Here, one lefty even claims not to have realized this was a soldier in Iraq. (I wonder what meakes me me think of Iraq when showing a US soldier at war?)
The MSM left is so obtuse, dishonest, or clueless that they cannot see their bias at all. Because, of course, they're not biased, they're right.
The only good part is, I don't have to part with my money to support their dwindling venture.
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