Or at least not every day. I've been busy catching up on last week's New Yorker—I'm particularly enjoying Ian Frazier's piece on the marauder Hulagu (is there anything Frazier can't write?) and reeling from Lillian Ross' ecstatic litany of spiffy names (Solondz, Revlon, Perelman, East Sixties, Byrne, Deco, Christian Louboutin, JAR diamond, Warhol, Mao, Yorkie, Maltese, Wheaten, King Charles, Scruffy—just in the first graf) in the style of Bret Easton Ellis, under the auspices of a profile of "squinty" Ellen Barkin. Ross (I mean "a visitor"; they must let her do that as a nod to the old unsigned guard) doesn't make it clear how a bookshelf can be "piled high with yarmulkes"—where books would normally be? on top? Hard to picture.

And yet she does, as always, provide answers to questions we didn't know we had, like: Does Barkin, who must have heard some unkind remarks about her last name in the past, like her dogs? And: Who makes the brisket? And: What do cosmetics billionaries wear to work? Barkin, a Twizzler eater, is also remarkably frank on the record about the personality tics of her adolescent children, considering adolescents' tendency to strike back in deeply unpleasant ways. But on to this week's contents, courtesy of the sprightly Post writer/s (don't see a byline):

Criminy, was there any news happening around the world? Lemme see what The New Yorker has. A second installment of Elizabeth Kolbert's dive into the global warming pool, a David Remnick piece on Tony Blair and an opus on how dummies are helping doctors get better at doctoring. Nope, nothing here. Kolbert says scientists are trying to project future climate-changes by looking back at fallen civilizations. This is what teams of scientists studying for climates for years have determined: that the climate changes which doomed past civilizations "were caused by forces that, at this point, can only be guessed at." Thanks for that. Remnick finds Blair in a tough race because of his pro-Iraq war stance. Sounds like a replay to most American readers, no?

Incidentally, from Frazier's Hulagu piece: "Anyone who does research knows you have to stay focussed on your topic and not go down every interesting avenue you pass, or you will end up wandering aimlessly in attention-deficit limbo." His story, of course, cleverly contradicts this. When, I wonder, will the sensible Remnick—known for resisting temptations to make the magazine into a mausoleum of past glories and styles—put his foot down about British spellings? Half-Canadian and U.K.-mad, I'm hardly one to complain about an extra U here and there in most circumstances, but really, "focussed"? It makes a magazine that's making strong efforts to move closer to the heart of things American seem sorta precious and elite. That won't do!

On the other hand, I do like—after initial suspicion—the Charles Addams ripoff/homage on p. 92 by Jason Patterson. It's a good joke, and a clever drawing (it takes a few seconds to see how disastrous things are, as in the best Addams cartoons), and I say, except for some of Lillian Ross' product placements and the crumpety spelling, looking back—like wandering aimlessly—is often to be recommended.

On the Newsstand: Celeb Mag Overload [NY Post]