Forget what Emerson said—consistency is one of the only things that can keep us from madness in this fallen world. I mean that. And so, in keeping with his other statements on the magazine's recent Target-sponsored issue, the Chicago Sun-Times' Lewis Lazare is still mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. (As it happens, I'm watching Network right now, and Peter Finch actually bellows "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" That doesn't sound as good shouted out the window as the misquoted version, though.) He writes:

That issue, featuring a slew of Target "ads" masquerading as illustrations done up in the style of the New Yorker's famous drawings and cartoons, marked the first time in the magazine's storied history that it had published an edition with just one advertiser.

He goes on to report the actual news development, which is that the American Society of Magazine Editors is meeting on Tuesday to discuss (or, as Lazare writes ominously, "deal with") the Targety issue. I think this is all going to blow over, but I understand what it's like to get a bee in your bonnet about something. (I once co-wrote a column in the free paper The Resident called Gotham Gadabouts, and didn't we have a whole hive of bees nipping at our scalps about everything from the Sunday Times to the superstores? And good for us, I say still.)

I'd still like to point out, once again, that those ads—and I spent a lot of time with them—really were not "done up in the style of the New Yorker's famous drawings and cartoons." They weren't, Lewis. They looked like big, garish splotches of gussied-up Targetness in the middle of The New Yorker. They looked like well-wrought, graphic-designy ads, and they weren't about anything in particular besides "Hey look! Buildings and stuff!" They were even a little crass, in a self-conscious way. But they were fun, colorful (New Yorker cartoons these days, except the ones that take up a full page and are by Roz Chast or Sempé, are not in color), and momentary. I suggest that the next time the magazine has a one-sponsor issue (assuming it isn't at the bottom of the Hudson with concrete blocks on its feet after the ASME deals with it), the ads be a little more toned down. But I enjoyed them anyway, because it was as though the New Yorker giant was sleeping and the tiny Target elves got in for a night and planted silly temporary tattoos all over it. Please note the words "tiny" and "temporary." The New Yorker brand (if we're going to speak in these terms) is a hell of a lot stronger than the logo of even a graphically gifted superstore. And I know an ad from an illo. I know Lazare does too, but for consistency's sake, I'll allow him his point.