The New Yorker

[joethefoodie]

There’s a profile of Iggy Pop in the new issue. Filled with trepidation. Me, not the article.

Wasn't bad.

[Wilfrid]

I agree.  It wasn't bad.  She interviewed the right people.  But didn't you feel that this was someone who hadn't spent a lot of time listening to the music?

 

She's talking about his new album, which has some inappropriate lyrics, and she says - hey, don't be surprised, and starts telling the old stories about his stage show. I think anyone immersed in the music would have said, hey don't be surprised, look at "I Wanna Be Your Dog"

[small h]

I used to be young enough to wear this shirt. Looking forward to being old enough to wear it again.

 

[Wilfrid]

I enjoyed the Adam Driver profile, especially as I didn’t know much about him except that he keeps turning in great performances in movies I like. And I don’t even have a crush on him (see Oscar Isaac).

 

I can’t think of a better movie I’ve seen about poetry (poetry, not the life of a poet) than “Paterson,” and that was my introduction to his work.

[Wilfrid]

Just picked up the new issue and there’s a piece on Moondog, hurray.

 

But it’s written by Amanda Petrusich, boo.

 

I also see a long piece on William Gibson which is going to congratulate him on his intense engagement with developing technologies - exactly what makes his fiction date so quickly (unlike Burroughs who keeps his distance from the real).

 

First I judge, then I read.

[joethefoodie]

Well, the current issue has Schjeldahl's piece about a dying art critic. Sadly, it's autobiographical, and as is his writing about art, it's pretty brilliant.

[mongo_jones]

i had dinner with schjeldahl and his wife (and a couple of colleagues) a few years ago when he visited to give the commencement address at my college. i set up a dinner at piccolo, which they loved. his commencement address was short, unsentimental and completely moving. one of the best i've heard.

[Sneakeater]

That piece is great.  Unfortunately.

[Wilfrid]

I have been backing away from it, but I will get to it. Which reminds me I should post about Clive James.

[joethefoodie]

I thought I used to like Helen Rosner's writing, but this piece about the best things she's eaten this (past) decade annoys me with its prose. Sounds like a romance novel or something.

 

The Best Things

[Wilfrid]

To take my mind off things, I read Bill Buford’s piece about baking bread in Lyons in the current issue, and it’s charming, but turns out very sad anyway.

[small h]

Try the Fran Lebowitz interview. I was considerably cheered by that.

[hollywood]

Try the Fran Lebowitz interview. I was considerably cheered by that.

[Wilfrid]

Will do.

 

I liked that Remnick wrote the Comment and that he found a perfect quote from E.B. White. That sense of continuity is reassuring right now.

[Wilfrid]

It must be hard to fill a weekly magazine, usually stuffed with reporting and reviews, but there are things worth celebrating: Schjeldahl on “Las Meninas” —I disagree with some of it, but wow; and Maggie Nelson’s remarkable “The New Calm.” I don’t know her but I am looking up more of her writing.