About Last Night

From artblog.net:

This weekend a friend of mine told me that he was showing his work

If you’ve wondered how the Atlantic Monthly is recovering, seven months on, from the tragic death of its editor Michael Kelly in Iraq last spring, Dan Kennedy at the Boston Phoenix has a report you will want to read. It’s an absorbing look at the magazine’s past, present, and especially its future. According to Kennedy, although the Atlantic is now thriving under the interim editorial stewardship of former Managing Editor Cullen Murphy (whose surprising second job is revealed in the story), questions remain about personnel, direction, and even the magazine’s continued residence in Boston:

The question now is, where does the Atlantic go from here? Under Kelly and Murphy, the magazine has carved out a handful of areas of expertise–politics, foreign affairs, explanatory journalism, and books. (Literary editor Benjamin Schwartz is highly respected, if intimidating in his judgment–such as his recent pronouncement regarding the King James Bible that “no one who hasn’t read it thoroughly should be considered well educated.”) Indeed, one of the few differences Murphy admits to having with [former editor William] Whitworth is that he, like Kelly, believes the magazine should be more focused and less eclectic–although a long piece by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last January, arguing that his cousin Michael Skakel is innocent of murder, was as eclectic a piece as one can imagine.

The Atlantic is currently in the midst of an unusual project–downsizing its circulation by charging more and eliminating cut-rate subscriptions, a move that its executives hope will reduce costs and eventually allow the magazine to break even. According to an account in the New York Times, the magazine will guarantee advertisers a paid circulation of 325,000–down from the current guarantee of 450,000, and considerably below the actual circulation of more than 500,000. The magazine has also cut back over the past few years from 12 issues per year to 10.

Kennedy’s well reported piece happens to come just when the future of The Paris Review after Plimpton is a front burner subject (link via Maud Newton). If all of the parties interviewed by Kennedy are not on exactly the same page about the magazine’s future, they do seem to be well intentioned. Let’s hope this is so, and hope these intentions continue to be realized.

Once upon a time I read the book proposal for The Last of the Duchess, and felt the frisson generated by Lady Caroline Blackwood’s worldly, aggressive wit right down to my parochial midwestern bones. The book tells her story of trying to complete a newspaper assignment to interview the Duchess of Windsor but being blocked at every turn by Simpson’s perversely, intrepidly protective 80-something lawyer–sort of

I love the tech guys. They fixed my iBook with the greatest of ease yesterday (which may just mean I’m a ninny) and sent me home with a lollipop. Okay, not really, but it does strike me that whenever they see me I’m in the state of elevated panic you’d expect from a hypochondriac in a doctor’s office. The hushed tones, the urgent appeals, the excessive display of gratitude and relief when they make everything better… did I say “love”? I meant “worship the ground they tread.”

I see Terry’s been no slouch while I’ve been gone. In case you missed it and aren’t feeling inclined to scroll, this post on the ubiquity of Kind of Blue was a highlight.

Thanks to those who have sent me email. It has been trickling in this week from Terry. I’ll answer it over the next few days, whether in email or right here. And now for some blogging.

Terry posted here yesterday about Kevin Pollak’s silent impression of Robert DeNiro. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass without mentioning another great wordless impersonation, the comedian-actor Richard Belzer’s shambling full-body rendition of Ronald Reagan.

I only wish I had a link; but if you ever catch Belzer on a late-night talk show, he’s likely to be pressed by the host into doing it. (His Mick Jagger employs the same m.o., but isn’t half as uncanny.)

A reader writes with further observations on the Observer 100:

I’m no expert on the contents but I would note the language barrier protecting this list: Of the 100 “greatest novels of all time,” I believe that 15 were not written in English. There are but two in Russian–meaning that On the Road, which did make the list, is “greater” than all the other output of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and the rest. Note also that there is apparently only one Spanish author as good as Kerouac (Cervantes), and none who’s ever written in any Asian language. Point would be not that anyone should attempt a list of “the world’s greatest,” since that would be nearly impossible for a number of reasons. Rather, couldn’t the editors of the Observer have come up with a slightly less grandiose header for their efforts?

Indeed. The Observer has now published reader reaction, including some comments from readers of note. They have also added the 50 books shaken in their faces must huffily by irate readers. This may be more interesting than the original list.

Meanwhile, Roger L. Simon’s list of his 20 greatest movies–er, make that 23–is more satisfying. It sure is easy to tell the difference between a list compiled by committee and one put together by a single, discerning organizing intelligence. I also like the way his commenters goaded him into adding Jean Vigo’s madly exuberant Zero for Conduct, which in an ideal world would be a hell of a lot easier to see. Maybe one of Chicago’s many fine art movie houses could be persuaded to show it sometime soon.

In case you haven’t heard, Book Magazine, for which I used to write regularly and with pleasure, is closing down.

Sure, Book had its problems, and its relationship with Barnes & Noble was inevitably tricky, but the bottom line is this: Yet another publication devoted to books and authors has bitten the dust.

All of which strongly suggests (once again, and at least to me) that the future of high-culture journalism is on the Web.

“The question of capital punishment arising in connection with In Cold Blood, he says, ‘At least in England they don’t keep them waiting about for five or ten years.’ I point out that in the Christie case they should have and ask whether he thinks the death sentence is ever justifiable. ‘Well, there have been people on whom I can picture it being carried out. [Bertolt] Brecht, for one. In fact I can imagine doing it to him myself. It might even have been rather enjoyable, when the time came, to have been able to say to him, “Now let’s step outside.” I’d have given him a good last meal, of course. Still, you must admire the logic of a man who lives in a Communist country, takes out Austrian citizenship, does his banking in Switzerland, and, like a gambler hedging his bets, sends for the pastor at the end in case there could be something in that, too.'”

W.H. Auden, in conversation with Robert Craft (quoted in Craft’s Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship)