The news you need, fellow New Yorker obsessives, in one-sentence whitecaps. I’ve had some of these stored up for a bit, but you’re getting your news here a) about, often, things that happened fifty years ago, and b) from a person who once edited a magazine (Wabi) whose entire premise was non-timeliness. You’re welcome to order an issue (#1, unnumbered); it’s $1, and will arrive sometime. It comes with a free (green plastic, but sturdy) fork—a sweet deal, and utilitarian, too.

Zadie Smith’s New Yorker Festival lecture on “failing better” is now online in the Guardian, hooray! (Via The Stranger.)

Here’s a good Times (U.K.) piece about E.B. White and Charlotte’s Web: “The creator of Charlotte’s Web, the bestselling children’s book of all time, as well as an extraordinarily popular manual for writing American English, he was revered by colleagues such as John Updike, James Thurber and Art Buchwald as one of the true masters of American prose. In other words, he is so good that not even professional jealousy could keep writers from praising him.”

Seymour Hersh is speaking at Williams College on Feb. 13; Paul Auster and his musical daughter, Sophie, are performing tonight (that’s Feb. 6) at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in New York.
 
Meredith Goad (excellent name for a reporter) of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram quotes a Maine resident who’s offended by a New Yorker cartoon, which turns out to be this one by Lee Lorenz.
 
Many people who write about religion online have commented on Rebecca Mead’s Talk about the “Apocalypse Not” conference, and here are three of those posts, with more to come as I see them, if I think they’re interesting.

If you wondered about the puzzling appearance of the number 8 in the middle of a sentence in the last issue (in Jeffrey Toobin’s “Google’s Moon Shot”), so did the linguistics blog Languge Hat.

Once again, The Burg has managed to produce a funny episode. “North Williamsburg is the new regular Williamsburg!” Watch it. You’d be amazed how good this potentially ridiculous show can be.

As James Wolcott has posted, here’s James Marcus on Allen Shawn.

More about the late, great Whitney Balliett, and Lester Young, too (and here’s Nat Hentoff’s Wall St. Journal story, as always, annoyingly inaccessible); and more about the much-missed Molly Ivins in the Voice. Speaking of jazz, and major losses, Philly’s Five Spot has burned down. This is very sad news.

Read this Times story about swing dancing at a Christian college, but for the love of Frankie Manning, do not try any dips or (especially) aerials without months of training and supervision! Dips in dance are fun and romantic, sexy and satisfying. And they can be neck-snapping and partner-alienating if done wrong. Don’t risk it till you know what you’re doing. That said, dance, dance, dance.

At a party recently, I met a guy named Ezra Bookstein whose very interesting-sounding documentary (with Scott Feinstein) about the photographer Milton Rogovin, The Rich Have Their Own Photographers, has been impressing people at a bunch of film festivals, and is showing soon on PBS. If you know when, please let me know.

This writer will be blogging about every short story in the magazine this year.

“California Dreaming” was the anthem for all us draftees 1968-70. All us Cali guys in the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Ft Myer, Va. had C.D. either written inside our lockers or written somewhere on our helmets. Great song & fond memories. Rest easy Denny.