Why you are NOT reading THE NEW YORKER anymore

 Despite the offer of a tote bag (and the threat from the government to ban plastic bags...someday), you are NOT subscribing to The New Yorker. 

Since dentist and doctor offices tend to be scrubbed clean of anything that might have COVID on it, especially magazines, and most libraries are still closed, you probably haven't even seen The New Yorker anywhere for free. 

And really, most everyone has better things to download off the illegal torrents than a clueless magazine that can't figure out if it should keep pandering to rich people, or to try and nab Millennials and what used to be called BUPPIES (Black Urban Professionals) but now fall under the title of "people of color." (As opposed to colored people, of course. Let's play semantic games, which could be deadly if you say the WRONG THING.) 

A random recent issue of The New Yorker? Let's start with the gruesome off-putting cover. What the FUCK is going on here? Is this BLACKFACE or some well-meaning attempt to publish a bad collage that somebody did while social-distancing at a progressive day camp in the Hamptons? 

Did this cover immediately entice African immigrants? Members of the Maya Angelou Fan Club? Whoever is planning to update "The Golden Girls" into the "All Black WOMEN?" 

Continue to pander, there's a piece on the haplessly idiotic presidential campaign of Kanye West and his running mate. WHY care about this? What next, John Lahr on the literary merits of "Keeping up with the Kardashians?" A long, long profile on why the world will never recover from the death of Kobe Bryant?

Is there ANYWHERE that is safe from looking at Kanye West's moronic pouting face? What else are we supposed to take seriously? Oh, God no...the SHIT that is called RAP MUSIC? Sorry, I'm not even going to start a sentence with SORRY, on this. I'm NOT sorry that RAP MUSIC is SHIT. That's what it is, and the only good thing I can say about it, is that it's forced its practitioners to at least TRY to learn how to read and write. Even if the result is some of the most inept rhymes anyone can drawl, 'yall, because in the Fall when urban sprawl bites yo' ass and you pass and step on the gas, then you realize with yo' eyes that time flies and nobody has time to always rhyme something. Know wuttum sayin'? 

The New Yorker takes this shit seriously and expects people to spend $8.99 an issue? 

Well, pull off my Jimi Hendrix shirt and call it a doo rag. Who wouldn't want to read about some rapper jerk with one of those corny names everyone thinks is cool? A rapper named Sheff G....yes, let's read all about HISTORY, and remember what MATTERS these days. It sure ain't Dylan no more. (Excuse me, no MO') 

However in their oh-so-politically-correct insistence on showing us what MATTERS these days, The New Yorker does make a few mistakes. Like, how come the lax security guard at the art museum is BLACK? Are you implying a BLACK security guard is not going to do his job properly? Listen, one false move like THIS could get you protests, looting, and rioting. How terrible if The New Yorker offices that once welcomed S.J. Perelman, Thurber and Woody Allen, got reduced to burnt rubble because of an OFFENSIVE CARTOON that is RACIST, ya'll.

Ah, the cartoons. Always, the excuse with The New Yorker was that you could always count on getting a laugh or two. Chas Addams. Peter Arno. Robert Day. Frank Modell. Wm Steig. (Ok, Steig was often confusing more than funny). Guess what. They're all dead. Trying to keep up the standard, which usually includes arcane references, is pretty tough. Here's The New Yorker hoping its aging subscribers will snicker because they "GET" that this cartoon is referencing "WAITING FOR GODOT." Ah, ha ha, and what IS he waiting for? How relevant to ask that question some 60 or 70 years after the fucking play was considered daring and new? 

One of the complaints about The New Yorker in the 60's and 70's, was that some cartoons weren't "funny, ha ha" as much as laments or whimsies. Saul Steinberg baffled some people, but if his work wasn't a "traditional cartoon" at least it was art. 

NOW, New Yorker cartoons that aren't remotely funny, are also not remotely artistic. A 12 year-old could draw some of the "things" that have appeared in print, including this sample issue. How in the world did THIS get published:

What kind of house is that, junior? Why are your figures so stuff and primitive, junior? Do you understand that a house generally has windows, junior? 

Also in The New Yorker are the whimsical little doodles to take your mind off solid pages of dry-as-Margaret Chase Smith's-vagina prose. Even THAT has gone downhill, like a NYC bus trying to go uphill. 

Can you say that YOU or your gifted child couldn't draw shit like this? 

FUNNY. What happened to FUNNY? 

You won't find it in the drearily titled "Whispers and Murmers" page, where some witless hack who keeps failing to win the cartoon caption, branches out into a full page of tedium. The item for this issue is...uh...somebody imagining if people centuries ago were talking like today. Or something. This isn't exactly Lord Buckley or Robin Williams doing faux-Shakespeare. It sure ain't Monty Python and the Holy Grail, either:

You can click that image if you want to see it bigger, and are in need of something to bore you in order to get to sleep. It does beat counting sheep. 

What else did you like about The New Yorker? No, no, it was NEVER the poetry. The poetry in The New Yorker always seemed like transcript droning from somebody on the psychiatrist's couch.  

It's poetry because it's shaped like poetry. 

Since there aren't any movie theaters open, The New Yorker isn't TELLING YOU what FILMS (they do not call them MOVIES) you should see. They did offer a look at some art galleries, and of course, there are book reviews, which in today's warped and reverse-racist thinking, have to be DOMINATED by women, women of color, or women with odd ethnic names. Men may make up half the population, but they are now treated like a minority in the world of books. 10% of the reviews may be from male authors, but THAT IS ALL, and try to make them males "of color." 

Every issue will try to have one or two non-fiction pieces, to balance the awful fiction pieces. You can tell these, because these are the ones that are illustrated with photographs. Pictures of nasty, ugly rotten mean racist vicious POLICE OFFICERS is always good for some woeful piece on the urban problem of not letting people of color simply walk around with weapons and not risk being frisked. 

Since The New Yorker is a weakly...most important riot and looting news is stale by the time it gets into the dry hands of a writer for the magazine. So instead of relevancy, you can usually count on The New Yorker to flog some bit of past history that you better remember or it will repeat itself like the onion and kale tart you should NOT have bought from Whole Foods. Oh, Joe McCarthy. Sure...

One of the big reasons, in the PAST, to get The New Yorker was, aside from nodding (but not laughing out loud) at the cartoons, and checking gallery openings and what films were playing, was THE ADS. How the hell do you buy a flexible brim hat, suitable for hiking in wooded areas of Westhampton or upstate, without a mail order ad in The New Yorker? How can you snap your fingers and realize that a fur coat IS exactly what granny would want? What completely useless junk can fill up your shelves JUST in case you EVER get a visit from William F. Buckley Jr? 

That was the old days. These days, even the ads suck. Here's part of a full page ad for back-to-school look-like-a-ghoul fashion? The girl looks so miserable, you might mistake her for 13 year-old autistic Swedish lecturer on the plight of tuna in Japan. (PS, there is nothing ANYONE can do about the way Japan is fucking up tuna, whales, and just about everything that China isn't fucking up). 

She looks like she lives in Ibsin's Doll House for the Insane. Or the Glass-Faced Menagerie of the Dysfunctional. (On the latter, you can write a thousand word essay on whether I'm referencing Tennessee Williams, Salinger's Glass family or BOTH. But don't send it to ME. Send it in to The New Yorker. They'll publish just about anything, as long as it's boring.