Notes From All Over -- Including A Random Note On J.D. Salinger -- Nothing About The Bakken -- October 25, 2020

Al-qaeda's second-in-command: taken out. As in "killed."

Bookstores:

• NYC's iconic Strand bookstore warns it may close; link here: https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/famed-strand-bookstore-warns-it-may-close-due-to-covid-19.
• Powell's Books in Portland hanging on by a thread; link here; I've visited both Powell's and Amazon on-line looking for books. Powell's has a much, much better selection for true bibliophiles, but for the masses, Amazon's site is much easier to navigate;

ACB: vote tomorrow evening, 7:00 p.m. ET; Monday, October 26, 2020. 

Biden to form committee to study benefits / risks of "packing the court." He would need to appoint an even number of justices, two or four. Thirteen justices seems a bridge too far, but eleven justices seems about right; in line with the more common 12-member courts around the world.

Focus on Fracking should be posted later this evening. Link here.

Victor Davis Hanson on the last debate. No question Victor Davis Hanson is correct, but will it matter? Some may be asking: could Joe Biden literally implode in the last two weeks?

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The Literature Note

I've read this elsewhere from another source, but it's interesting to read it again, as told by an individual who probably knows as much about The New Yorker as anyone. 

Ben Yagoda: the author of About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, is/was the director of the University of Delaware's journalism department.

William Shawn: editor of the New Yorker, and J. D. Salinger's editor, loyal defender, and close friend. 

Roger Angell: a longtime New Yorker staff writer and editor.

Roger Angell: When he first came to the [New Yorker], Salinger worked with Gus Lobrano [and William Maxwell], but William Shawn took over [after Lobrano's death] ... When I came to the fiction department, none of the editors in the department dealt with Salinger -- only Shawn. 

Ben Yagoda: What elevated Shawn professionally was World War II. Shawn used the war to transform the magazine from a sophisticated humor magazine into a magazine that published serious journalism, culminating in the publication of John Hershey's "Hiroshima," which occupied one entire issue. It was shepherded by Shawn. He was the one who germinated the idea with Hershey, argued it should take up the entire issue, edited it, and brought it into print. That elevated Shawn in the halls of the New Yorker and in the literary world.

-- Salinger, David Shields and Shane Salerno, c. 2013, p. 338.