Catching Up On The New Yorker -- Nothing About The Bakken -- February 27, 2018

After decades of subscribing to The New Yorker, I finally bailed. Just too much TDS. But I do try to look at it on a weekly basis. Because of winter weather, I did not bike to the library, 3.8 miles away by car, probably about 4.0 miles by bike. It's been a long time since I've been to the library but I was eager to catch on what I had missed. Or had not missed. 

From The New Yorker.

January 1, 2018

• Letter From France: "The Home Front: Leila Slimani's dark exploration of our most intimate taboos, "Lauren Collins, p. 34.
• Slimani just won the Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize, which counts among its laureates Proust and Malroux.
• The Goncourt has, more often than not, gone to a middle-aged white man and so the committee had also broken from history in consecrating Slimani as the face of French literature. At thirty-five, she was the second Moroccan and the twelfth woman to receive the award (and the first to do so four months pregnant). 
• Chanson Douce, her second novel, sold six hundred thousand copies in its first year of publication, making Slimani, who lives in Paris, the most-read author in France in 2016.

• A Reporter At Large: "The Glut Economy: will the booms and busts of the energy industry always dominate Texas? Lawrence Wright, p. 42.

January 8, 2018

• A Reporter At Large: "Making China Great Again: how Beijing learned to use Trump to its advantage," Evan Osnos, p. 36.

• Looks like a nice update of China. Discusses China's "Belt and Road Initiative."

• Portfolio: "A New Silk Road: China is investing billions in building pathways to Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East," photographs by Davide Monteleone, p.46. 

• The photographs were uninspiring; a real let-down. To say the least.

• A Critic At Large: "Been There: the presidential election in 1968," Louis Menand, p. 69.

• Might be an interesting read. 
• Unfortunately the book reviewed is one by Lawrence O'Donnell who is on my list of most "fake" journalists.

January 15, 2018

• The cover features Kaepernick -- one more reason why I won't re-subscribe to the magazine.
• Nothing of interest. Amazing to the degree to which the editor is afflicted with TDS.

 January 22, 2018

•  The cover was a blank and so were the contents. $8.99 at the newstand.

January 29, 2018

• An article glorifying prisoners. $8.99 at the newstand.

February 5, 2018

• Nothing. Still $8.99 at the newstand. But if you are affected by TDS, you will still love the magazine. It's your weekly fix.

February 12 & 19, 2018 (two issues); hope there's something in this issue. We've suffered through three consecutive issues in which only the cartoons justified the price. Sort of.

• A long, long article on polar explorers. Might be interesting. 
• The Critics, Life and Letters: "It's Still Alive: two hundred years of "Frankenstein." 
• Finally, something of interest.

February 26, 2018

• Annals Of War: "Escaping ISIS: how a small group of immigrants helped save their people back home. 
• ISIS intended to wipe out the Yazidi religion in Iraq. Yazidis in America had a plan, so they started driving to Washington.
• Wow, it never quits, TDS. Now a long article on beauty pageants and, of course, Trump. By Jeffrey Toobin, a regular. I guess if you are a regular for the magazine and write anything negative on Trump it will get published. Tedious.

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Tulip Season

They are outdoors during the day, if the weather is fine, but they come in at night, when they are watered, and fed, and read a story about the Bakken.