The Paddle writes with approval:

I can’t help it. The Shouts & Murmurs pages of the New Yorker is standing on the pinnacle of sly humor these days. After last issue’s take on crushes (all of which I’ve experienced), and this issue’s review of another aspect of my life, there is no way to make it any better in the next issue. This particular section of the magazine has always been hit-and-miss with me – I’m often into it for just one paragraph before moving on – but they’ve now laid purchase to at least three solid, future months of my reading time. Genius.

Beattie’s Book Blog loves this Harry Bliss cover. How’s your thumb, Harry?

Speaking of cartoonists, I’m extremely glad to report that three cartoonists from The New Yorker are nominated for the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award for Gag Cartoons: Drew Dernavich, Mick Stevens, and P.C. Vey. I might have my preference, but whichever way this one goes, it’s pretty much in the bag for the magazine. Winners will be announced May 26, so place your bets, you crazy gamblers.

Also, I’m pleased that someone has assembled this bunch of video clips from the ’20s, which will help set the mood for the next party with the Dorothy Parker Society, which is coming up on June 4 and will be fizzy fun. Go! Here are the details, direct from Parker Society impresario Kevin Fitzpatrick:

The 40th anniversary of Dorothy Parker’s death is June 7. On June 4 the DPS is having an event to mark the anniversary is true Parker style: with a party at a Communist bookstore. It is Monday, June 4, at Revolution Books, 9 West 19th St, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. …. There will be talks, readings, and of course, drinking. It is FREE and open to the public. Why a Communist bookstore? Just listen when I read from Mrs. Parker’s FBI file!

So Adam Moss is many things, but the new David Remnick? What does that even mean? New York is like Spy’s beautifully designed new website along with some Vanity Fair, New York Observer, and various beloved periodicals of New York’s past stirred into a bright smoothie, and it’s loads of fun. I read and use it often, if not faithfully. But would anyone want a DVD of the entire contents of the present-day New York, to cherish, cite, and reread? That’s not what it’s for, and that’s all well and good. But it’s an absurd comparison and I won’t countenance it. Thank you, but the current David Remnick suits us very well.

Speaking of much-missed publications, won’t someone please bring back those weekly single-page photocopied listings of movies and poetry readings that you used to be able to buy at newsstands for something like a quarter and pick up at good bookstores, respectively? The web and the barely tolerable Moviefone and Fandango still can’t satisfy the city’s critical need for both. When you’re walking down the street, you don’t want to press buttons through endless menus—you just want to know what’s playing kinda near here pretty soon, or who’s reading this week. Perhaps the newsletters could be digital holograms for the 21st century, hovering at will till you dismiss them and head for your cinematic or poetical fix.