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2005-02-04 - 1:17 p.m.
New Yorker
I've been reading the New Yorker. I made a donation to KQED and, as a gift, got a free subscription (!)
When the first issues began to arrive I was all a-quiver to align myself with the literary elite and start soaking in the glory of what is one of the most important intellectual publications of our time.
But it's crap. Really. Just awful.
Just checking, but isn't being jaded and bitter and maligned just a little too, oh, I don't know, 1987 for you?
Aren't witty repartee and "city sarcasm" a little too one dimensional? Sure you've got a great vocabulary and some solid reporting skills but, please darling, get over yourself.
Reading (and I imagine writing at) the New Yorker seems akin to getting an education at Yale or the London School of Economics -- the sense of pride at being a part of such a well-reputed institution eclipses the true purpose of being there:
To think outside the box, to push boundaries, to take a broad and complex world-view.
Cynicism is real (and relevant), but narrow.
I want to read things that promote progress, that break apart my ideas of cultural and social norms. I want to read something that appreciates and speaks to the wide spectrum of intelligences in the human race rather than something which attempts to define a singular intelligence.
What I want is to read something revolutionary which, I'm sorry to say, is not the New Yorker.