(less)fluff(y): Newsweek magazine in general. Looks like the magazine is aspiring to be more like The Atlantic, if not in the way it leans than at least in the way it looks. However, just because it looks smarter, doesn't mean it is. Case in point: Fareed Zakaria's "The Capitalist Manifesto" in the June 22 issue. Sooooo close.
smut: the one too many employment ads I read this past week written by presumable managing editors who were "loking" for freelance writers and paying a stipend "commisirate" with experience trumps anything I saw on the tabloid rack while waiting in the checkout line. Grrrrr...
relevant: Maggie McGuane's "Reality Check" in the July Vogue. McGuane's unsentimental account of how she got over herself when her husband left her to raise her two young children and she couldn't get a line of credit above $500 by (gasp!) buying less stuff. Elitist magazine's first brush with reality without the usual smugness.
Do You Speak American? by Robert MacNeil and William Cran, those clever (if nerdy) coauthors of the The Story of English. Even if you don't closet a fetish for linguistics, you'll appreciate your new, cursory understanding of why when you say "black" you are referring to the color, but when your college roommate from Chicago says "black" she is referring to the block of houses along her street.
random: and finally, for anyone who is not pissed off enough about the state of the world, pick up Geraldine's Brooks' Nine Part of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and boom! You're ready to explode. Very incendiary. Very insightful. And, might I add, very timely, even 15 years later.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment