The New Yorker

[StephanieL]

9 hours ago, bloviatrix said:

From the archives...I learned over the the weekend that in July, 1978 John McPhee wrote a piece about the greenmarket called Giving Good Weight. Haven't read it yet, but I printed out all 26 pages. Looking forward to reading it. They used really small type in those days.

And they ran 26-page articles.  By John McPhee.

[bloviatrix]

Have I ever mentioned how much I love John McPhee. The guy is a treasure.

[Sneakeater]

God yes.

[Wilfrid]

I highly recommend Jill Lepore’s story about the early use of predictive analytics by JFK’s 1960 campaign. All completely new to me, at least, and remarkably ahead of its time. It’s well told too, with a strong dash of Mad Men.

[bloviatrix]

Started the McPhee piece. Can you imagine paying $1 for 3 pounds of heirloom tomatoes? Or $.10 for an ear of corn? Those were the prices back in '77,

[Sneakeater]

You would not believe how great prices were in the late '70s.  For like everything.  (Despite how it sounds, that is not a thinly veiled drug reference.)

[joethefoodie]

To say nothing of the early '70s (which might actually be a thinly veiled drug reference).

[voyager]

On 8/8/2020 at 7:42 PM, bloviatrix said:

Started the McPhee piece. Can you imagine paying $1 for 3 pounds of heirloom tomatoes? Or $.10 for an ear of corn? Those were the prices back in '77,

In high season today, corn is like 8/$1 in California Central Valley.    LIke Lodi.   5/$1 in supermarkets.    I can't remember hearing the term heirloom tomato in the '70s tho I'm sure Alice Waters was touting old fashioned back yard tomatoes at that time.   

[Wilfrid]

On 8/8/2020 at 10:19 AM, Wilfrid said:

I highly recommend Jill Lepore’s story about the early use of predictive analytics by JFK’s 1960 campaign. All completely new to me, at least, and remarkably ahead of its time. It’s well told too, with a strong dash of Mad Men.

There is nothing about this in T.H. White's Making of the President 1960 -- in fact, he states on the first page that politics is not an exact science in the hands of "big, impersonal computers."

[bloviatrix]

3 hours ago, voyager said:

In high season today, corn is like 8/$1 in California Central Valley.    LIke Lodi.   5/$1 in supermarkets.    I can't remember hearing the term heirloom tomato in the '70s tho I'm sure Alice Waters was touting old fashioned back yard tomatoes at that time.   

I'm paying $.75/ear this year at the greenmarket.

[Wilfrid]

I suppose one should admire Judith Thurman's candor in admitting to "bewilderment" at Alice Oswald's book Nobody, but perhaps she should have given it to someone else to review. It's an admirable work, not particularly difficult, and certainly -- by the standards of much contemporary poetry -- not "extreme."

[Wilfrid]

I see Roger Angell just made the century. Quite a story of man and magazine. 

[hollywood]

It must be those year end poems that have kept him going so long.

[Wilfrid]

He passed the duty to Ian Frazier a few years ago, but his were the best.

[Sneakeater]

[mispost]