New Yorker Lovers discussion
January 20 Issue--Obama Washington
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I was also taken with the short article on William Zantzinger, the subject of Bob Dylan's song, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." Apparently Dylan took some liberties when writing the song -- Zantzinger, for exampled, didn't beat Carroll to death; he merely hit her and yelled at her moments before she died. (See? He's not such a bad guy after all!) In any case, Zantzinger is dead now, too, so maybe Dylan will write a song about that.
Finally, there was some interesting chatter about "Smart Power" on page 24. The woman who coined the term is Suzanne Nossel, though Hilary Clinton's use of the term added some weight to it. After reading the article, I'm still not quite sure of what "smart power" is exactly, which made me suspect that Malcolm Gladwell wrote the piece. This suspicion, however, was proven wrong when I saw that Hendrick Hertzberg had written it.
The short story is also good (this is a jam-packed issue). The writer won the Booker prize, or something. Have you ever noticed that in certain weeks, you want to read every article, and in other weeks, you want to read none?
I haven't finished the article, The Dystopians yet, but I think I got enough kicks from the guys in it. The first sold all his belongings and is living on a boat, the other (Kustner?) walks around Saratoga Springs with an umbrella in case of rain. The things they do and say are both scary because I have a good imagination for all things that can go wrong, and funny because they're so quirky. The thing, I think, that saves them from off-ing themselves is the hope they will be the only ones who last through the apocalypse. And then I'm sure they wouldn't want to live anyway, because who would they have to brag to?