Oh, irony, you scamp. In a recent post we identified “irony” as being, by some measures, a New Yorker kind of word, but today brings evidence that Time Out New York is the really ironic one. In this week’s cover story, “The Hipster Must Die!”, the weekly guide performs a “hipster detox” on a misguided (their assumption, not mine) hipster on staff named Drew Toal.

The feature puts The New Yorker in an, ahem, interesting light. First, here The New Yorker is defined as a hipster journal. I beg to differ, but I can’t deny that its reach encompasses George Saunders as well as Seymour Hersh. So in the makeover, Toal (or should I say “Toal”? He may be a real person, but the makeover is clearly facetious) discards The New Yorker in favor of “a Star Wars novel and a copy of Maxim.” Ah, good to know what “regular” people read! So what does Toal think?

Truth be told, I found myself enjoying tales from a galaxy far, far away. Despite the fact that they were written on a third-grade level, the lack of existential conflict and postmodern window dressing was refreshing. And the lightsabers were cool too. Maxim, it should be noted, was less revelatory, although I did learn six important tips on how to make a successful sex tape. I will be going back to The New Yorker and Harper’s, but I’m also going to make time for nerding out in sci-fi land.

Is “hipster” so strongly coupled with “intelligent” that its opposite automatically denotes a “third-grade level”? I don’t think so, but let’s move on.
Clearly, this is a backhanded compliment to The New Yorker—it’s the opposite of third-grade fare. But wait! Doesn’t that make it also a backhanded compliment to hipsters, too? In a feature about the necessity to de-hipsterize Williamsburg? Color me confused.
And the confusion doesn’t end there. If we showed ten random local culture vultures a Star Wars novel and The New Yorker and asked them to pick the purer hipster artifact, how many of them would reflexively single out the one that frequently dedicates considerable space to poverty and genocide? Surely it’s the Star Wars novel that reeks of hipster slumming, no? Even Maxim can be read ironically, you know.
At this rate we’ll need Jesse Thorn, mastermind of the new sincerity, to sort it all out.
Note to TONY: Did you mean McSweeney’s? Or was that too obvious?
—Martin Schneider

Did you see the “100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know” that the makers of The American Heritage Dictionary are touting? It’s a pretty good list, actually, although such an enterprise is always going to be a bit random. I confess there are more than a few terms (mostly science-related, e.g. “gamete“) that I would not be able to define to my own satisfaction.
I decided to run the words through The Complete New Yorker to see if The New Yorker “knew” them all. Sure, you’re thinking, it’s everything since 1925! They’ll all come up dozens of times, silly! But ah, I could counter, it’s only abstracts and keywords and hastily typed summaries we’re talking about here.
Anyway, it turns out that the CNY balked on seven words. I find it very suspicious that two of the words it didn’t “know” were “suffragist” and “enfranchise.”
Which of these words do you think would produce the most interesting set of results? The comments section awaits your opinion.
Here are the results. The winner, with yards to spare, was a surprise to me, as was the margin.
irony 435
totalitarian 59
infrastructure 52
wrought 48
metamorphosis 47
epiphany 39
hubris 32
lexicon 30
equinox 28
filibuster 27
kinetic 27
paradigm 25
nomenclature 22
euro 20
hegemony 20
impeach 20
obsequious 19
nihilism 18
soliloquy 18
vortex 17
gauche 16
incognito 16
reciprocal 16
facetious 15
vehement 13
bellicose 12
diffident 12
homogeneous 12
incontrovertible 12
precipitous 12
acumen 11
chromosome 11
feckless 11
lugubrious 11
tempestuous 11
auspicious 10
chicanery 10
fatuous 10
omnipotent 10
sanguine 10
tectonic 10
vacuous 10
fiduciary 9
respiration 9
abstemious 8
loquacious 8
plasma 8
taxonomy 8
antebellum 7
circumnavigate 7
deleterious 7
gerrymander 7
unctuous 7
yeoman 7
evanescent 6
kowtow 6
oligarchy 6
plagiarize 6
polymer 6
quotidian 6
supercilious 6
usurp 6
photosynthesis 5
reparation 5
belie 4
churlish 4
nanotechnology 4
nonsectarian 4
orthography 4
winnow 4
abjure 3
deciduous 3
hemoglobin 3
hypotenuse 3
parameter 3
ziggurat 3
laissez faire 2
recapitulate 2
tautology 2
thermodynamics 2
abrogate 1
bowdlerize 1
circumlocution 1
enervate 1
gamete 1
inculcate 1
jejune 1
mitosis 1
oxidize 1
parabola 1
pecuniary 1
quasar 1
subjugate 1
enfranchise 0
expurgate 0
interpolate 0
moiety 0
notarize 0
suffragist 0
xenophobe 0
Notes:
* A friend observes: “Jejune” is the month after “Mimay.”
* I don’t really see why anyone needs to know the words “yeoman” and “moeity” in 2007. [I’d argue for “yeoman,” used sparingly, but what would George Orwell say about some of these slovenly Latinate clunkers? —Ed.]
* “Quasar” has one hit—in which it is mentioned as a difficult word that nobody knows. It’s a cartoon from the 8/21/1965 issue by Alan Dunn. Mother to inquisitive son: “If you want to know what a quasar is, I’d say you’ve come to the wrong person.”
* A story in the current issue (June 4, 2007) explicitly refers to “sanguine” as a difficult word, the kind of word someone would look up in a dictionary. In fact, Karl Rove looks it up in a dictionary.
* For me, the big shockeroo is the total for “wrought.”
—Martin Schneider

Happy birthday, Martin!
ANSWERS TO HARD QUESTIONS 1/21 71; 2/18 91
ANTICLIMAX DEPARTMENT 2/4/46
CLEAR DAYS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 3/4 94
CLEAR DAYS IN SACRAMENTO 1/14 94
DEPT. OF UNDERSTATEMENT 2/11 68
DEPT. OF UTTER CONFUSION 3/11 130
FULLER EXPLANATION DEPT. 2/25 108
HOW’S THAT AGAIN? DEPARTMENT 3/11 111
MOST FASCINATING NEWS STORY OF THE WEEK, WITH JUST A TOUCH OF PATHOS 3/25 132
OUR OWN BUSINESS DIRECTORY 2/25 99; 3/18 138
REMARKS WE DOUBT EVER GOT FIZZED, EXPLODED, GRUMPED, CROAKED, OR SPAT 3/4 70
SECRECY IN AMERICA 2/25 116
SOCIAL NOTES FROM ALL OVER 1/21 60; 3/11 105
THE BUREAUCRATIC MIND AT WORK 2/4 106
THE CLOUDED CRYSTAL BALL 3/4 79
THE GOOD OLD DAYS 1/7 62, 3/25 124
THE MYSTERIOUS MIDDLE WEST 1/7 51
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND 3/4 66
UH HUH DEPARTMENT 1/14 66
WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE DEPT. 3/11 124; 3/25 76
Notes:
* Calvin Trillin article on Garrison, NY; my brother used to live there!
* Penelope Gilliatt profile of Woody Allen; definitely one of those “even more interesting in hindsight” pieces, wincha think?
* Roger Angell article about Super Bowl VIII presented in a sardonic way that would not be possible today; accompanied by a drab Steinberg of a football player with Mickey Mouse for a head; nice.
* Elizabeth Drew two-part report on Watergate actual diary entries rather than regular reporting; these were among her first dispatches; swell.
* Ellen Willis pops up a few times doing rock reviews; love that!
—Martin Schneider

I’m making my way through the highly alluring videos from the inaugural New Yorker Conference a couple of weeks ago. In his lecture on “Genius: 2012,” Malcolm Gladwell discusses Fermat’s Last Theorem, which (according to Wikipedia) states that

if an integer n is greater than 2, then the equation aⁿ bⁿ = cⁿ has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c.

After realizing this, Fermat famously wrote, “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.” Which Gladwell explains, more or less, and then says this:

It leads to one of the greatest, ah, graffiti in the history of the New York subway system. I think it’s still there, on Washington Square. Someone has scribbled Fermat’s Theorem on the wall, and then below it they say, “I have the solution, but my train is coming.”

Question: Anyone seen this graffito? Where is it exactly?

Later on, Gladwell talks about the “10,000 hours rule” (fascinating!), which he identifies as a signal finding of the “expertise literature.”
My new favorite term is “expertise literature.”
—Martin Schneider

Squib Report bureau chief Martin Schneider continues his investigation into the worthy subject of pigeons in The New Yorker.
My new favorite New Yorker cover artist is Harry Bliss, and I have a feeling I’m not alone—Emily has already noted that his lovely, witty April 30 cover has drawn kudos from as far afield as New Zealand, since which time Jason Kottke has pointed out an interesting reaction to the cover, even leading to the discovery of a likely Norman Rockwell connection. Oh, that messy Jackson Pollock does attract satirists, does he not? (If I hadn’t temporarily misplaced my Complete New Yorker Disk 5, I could direct readers to Dana Fradon’s November 5, 1960, cartoon referencing Pollock in the full knowledge of its contents.)
That Bliss is poking fun at the YouTube generation does not seem in doubt. The interesting question is whether the young lady depicted partakes in the same technophilia as her companion or is, instead, nonplussed. The relevant data here seems to be the distance between the two, along with the subtle curvature of her shoulder away from him. Dissenters might point out that the gap is simply necessary for the reader to see the digicam.
Has Bliss weighed in? Or is he letting the picture speak for itself (without the help of digicams)? And while I’m asking questions, does anyone know the name of the Pollock painting in the image? Is it at MoMA?
All this is preamble to a Bliss-related pigeon item. Turns out my concern about the lack of pigeons in recent New Yorker covers was utterly unfounded, as this typically fanciful Bliss cover of June 3, 2002, demonstrates. It’s just as witty as the Pollock/digicam one.

As many New Yorkers and tourists are aware, the famous lions are known as Patience and Fortitude—they were once known as Lady Astor and Lord Lenox!—with Patience occupying the left-hand slot. So that makes it Patience depicted in the cover. Waiting more than ninety years to munch on some primo Columba livia (Latin for “lives near Columbia University,” as you know)—now that is patience, to be sure.
—Martin Schneider

You know things are getting interesting when top Department of Justice officials plead the Fifth, as Monica Goodling did Monday. It doesn’t seem clear at all that she actually can do this, since “avoiding perjury charges” is not a valid justification for using the Fifth.
My, this stuff is complicated. If only there were some magazine around that could do an exhaustive three-part article on the Fifth Amendment!
Naturally, Richard Harris (not, I expect, the actor) did precisely that for The New Yorker in April of 1976. You can tell that it’s written in a different era, though, because at that time, the FBI’s most pressing task was infiltrating nests of lesbians.
No, I’m not kidding.
—Martin Schneider

Martin Schneider writes:
I was on chat with a friend when suddenly he typed at me,
SquibFriend [not his real handle]: I love Nutella
Sigh. Yet another subject where my best information is New Yorker-derived:
Squib [not my real handle]: LOL. in italy it’s a very big deal
SquibFriend: I should move there
SquibFriend: it’s brilliant!
Squib: they have like nutella political parties and stuff
One-minute pause.
Squib: did you just have some?
SquibFriend: in the process
SquibFriend: spooning it, baby
Squib: spooning it!
Squib: how naughty!
SquibFriend: don’t need no fucking bread
SquibFriend: just gimme the jar and the spoon!
SquibFriend: yargh!
According to The New Yorker, Nutella “is made to be spread on bread but more often ends up being eaten in hasty spoonfuls, straight from the jar.” So true, so true!
Squib: please don’t tell me you will consume a whole jar tonight
SquibFriend: 13 oz.
SquibFriend: is that bad?
Squib: mmmm, not recommended
SquibFriend: uh, then no…
SquibFriend: no I, uh, won’t
Squib: LOL
Squib: excellent liar
Five-minute pause.
SquibFriend: how’s 1/2 a jar?
My friend, fiend for hazelnut goo, would no doubt have been shocked to learn that in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi’s political party sponsored an “Il Primo Nutella Party,” where guests spread Nutella “over their partners and licked it off”! It’s difficult to imagine our political elite engaging publicly in such activities (except maybe at Bohemian Grove).
In 1993, a writer for Italy’s La Stampa got out the purple pen, calling Nutella’s more engaging properties “a devouring passion. Uncontrollable. It has struck heads of state, bewitched artists, seduced poets. The love for Nutella is inexplicable, it just is…. More than a food, it is a category of spirit, a state of superior perception.” (The charms of peanut butter are decidedly more mundane.)
All Nutella facts and quotations in this post are derived from a delightful and informative 3/6/95 TOTT (by Andrea Lee, who is, I now learn, the author of the 2006 novel Lost Hearts in Italy, which may or may not feature a diverting Nutella-related subplot).

Martin Schneider follows up on my mention earlier this week of a ’30s animation goody starring Otto Soglow’s Little King.
Vladimir Nabokov really liked the work of Otto Soglow. We know this because in the 1967 foreword to his memoir Speak, Memory, he draws attention to a little wordplay he made involving the cartoonist’s name.
Let’s look at the passage:

Reviewers read the first version more carelessly than they will this new edition: only one of them noticed my “vicious snap” at Freud in the first paragraph of Chapter Eight, section 2 and none discovered the name of a great cartoonist and a tribute to him in the last sentence of section 2, Chapter Eleven. It is most embarrassing for a writer to have to point out such things himself.

No kidding! Is it me or does Nabokov come off a touch vainglorious and snippy here? Still, I daresay we can find some empathy for a great author in his twilight years uncertain of his legacy.
A USC student named Chuck Kinbote—just kidding, his name is actually Alexander Zholkovsky (A. Zh.)—supplies some helpful glosses:

Reviewers read the first version more carelessly than they will this new edition: only one of them noticed my “vicious snap” at Freud in the first paragraph of Chapter Eight, section 2 [i.e. the “Sigismond Lejoyeux” bilingual pun, p. 156, —A. Zh.] and none discovered the name of a great cartoonist and a tribute to him in the last sentence of section 2, Chapter Eleven [219; according to commentators, the reference is to Otto Soglow, 1900-1975; the rather desperate pun is in the words ”so glowing” —A. Zh.]. It is most embarrassing for a writer to have to point out such things himself” (15).

So the “rather desperate” pun here is limited to so glowing—it’s fascinating to me that he expected his readers (reviewers) to “solve” this puzzle based on such a mundane combination of words. If he’d contrived it to read “a grotto so glowing”—a Nabokovian turn of phrase, potentially—I would better understand his dismay.
So far I haven’t used The Complete New Yorker at all. I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to see if Soglow’s cartoons ever appeared embedded in Nabokov’s prose?
It turns out that it happened exactly once.
Nabokov’s first ever New Yorker item appeared in the 4/11/42 issue, an odd semi-cannibalistic poem called “Literary Dinner.” It appears on page 18; a Soglow appears on page 20.
Close.
In the 6/23/45 issue appears a highly Nabokovian TOTT about a doppelganger. (He wouldn’t write another TOTT for nearly 31 years! A record, surely? Perhaps the good librarians can tell us at a later date.) It is not the kind of piece that would ever appear as a TOTT today; Nabokovians may find in the piece some echo of his novel Despair (also about a doppelganger).
Bingo: The piece covers six pages, on the second of which is a Soglow.
Just the one time. Did the name strike him as potentially punny already in 1945?

Boing Boing and Kottke, among others, have enthusiastically linked to Simon Rich’s marvelous expression of childish/childhood perception, “The Wisdom of Children.” It’s comforting to know that even though it’s not a humor magazine per se these days, from time to time The New Yorker can come up with a gem on the level of The Onion.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever read in The New Yorker? I nominate two very recent ones by Jack Handey, “This Is No Game” (1/9/06) and “What I’d Say to the Martians” (8/8/05).
—Martin Schneider