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September272005

Letter From Yokahama

Filed under: Letters & Challenges   Tagged: ,

Faithful reader Tom Gally, who reads us, I mean me, from Yokohama, Japan, writes:


The new owner of a set of The New Yorker's DVD archive faces the problem of where to begin. The book of highlights that accompanies the DVD offers one point of entry, as do the software's various search and browse features.

I began in the late 1930s. By that point, the magazine had matured beyond its slapdash beginnings, but it still had a youthful lightness and irreverence that would be lost with the coming of the Second World War, the atomic age, and the Cold War.

For a taste, here is the first item under "Notes and Comment" in the issue of January 9, 1937:

"The fortnight has been a busy one. There were hasty conferences to make air travel safe for statisticians. There was a clash of pituitary experts, baring their teeth over a hormone. 'Alice in Wonderland' was discredited by a psychiatrist. Women were proved to be fertile for only a few hours each month, during which time they could be made to ring a bell. Sport reached a new pinnacle when an American Negro ran a foot race with a chestnut gelding. A lady in Princeton discovered osmium, thulium, and iridium in the sun. Skiing took its final Americanization vows when a snow train full of skiers was met in Intervale, N.H., by a brass band. And a scientist, taking the words right out of our mouth, pointed out that Man is about to follow in the footsteps of the lemmings, the little animals that run down to the sea and die."

I think (back to me now) that the weekly satirical email Harper's sends out is reaching for this very kind of tone and sprightly listmaking, which may not work as well for the dreariest of currrent events. Is this piece credited? I'll check later on. One of the best things about the archive is that at long last, we know who the heck wrote all those Talks. Here's Lillian Ross on the early days of Talks and that famous first-person plural.

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