Monday, February 21, 2011

Happy anniversary ...

... The New Yorker's 85th.
See also: Whose Line Is It, Anyway? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

It will be human. Its general tenor will be one of gaiety, wit and satire, but it will be more than a jester. It will be not what is commonly called sophisticated, in that it will assume a reasonable degree of enlightenment on the part of its readers. It will hate bunk . . . .

So wrote Harold Ross, the New Yorker's first editor. Wonder what he would think of today's New Yorker.

Post bumped.

2 comments:

  1. "Hating bunk" is already a pose, which could only have led to more poses. The first step of the descent begins with not only "hating bunk," but to be seen as "hating bunk."

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  2. The sparkling lightness suggested by the phrase 'gaiety, wit and satire' is missing most of the time these days, I think - and yet I still subscribe (for the cartoons, the poems and short stories, if nothing else).

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