RM meets the New Yorker

In another interesting development, RM has discovered the New Yorker. He was listening to NPR on the way home one day when he heard about a great New Yorker article, so he asked me about it. Actually, he nearly sabotaged me, i.e. nearly sabotaged Operation-Catch-Up by grabbing the then-latest issue from the stack of reading material I'd compiled to take with me to Colorado. Thankfully, he actually told me that, allowing me to intervene, and sparing any bloodshed that would have resulted. I gave him the previous issue, which had the article he was interested in.

What makes this situation interesting is that New Yorker readership is not for the cumbaya-everything-is-fascinating crowd, i.e. my roommate. Practically everything in there is worth reading, but unless you never want to read anything else, you have to decide what you're not going to read. For example, I decided that I've had it with Malcolm Gladwell's sport analogies and had no interest in reading his article about how football is like dogfighting.

But RM is fascinated by the whole world, or at least likes to think he is. That's why he asks me inane questions about things he couldn't possibly care about, like what exactly I did when I got to work--did I turn on my computer first thing, or after I got my tea, for example. So he actually reads the "Goings on about Town" section of the New Yorker, which is what I skip through without a second thought, because I don't live in New York, nor do I have the budget for traveling there when there's a play or exhibit that piques my interest. But he actually decided to read every word.

I leave, take a few issues with me, mostly catch up on the flights to and from, and on the elliptical. The elliptical's (kind of) good for that, but it was really nice to bike outside on Sunday. Whole other experience. But I digress. Over a week after I find that issue for him, RM tells me he's almost done with one article. You see, he likes to think about every sentence. Read it, stop, think about it, come up with a counterargument, chew the whole thing over for a few minutes. Fair enough, but not a winning strategy with New Yorker, unless all you ever want to do (not just read, but do) is read the New Yorker. It's a full-service publication: if you give an article time, it will offer its own counterarguments for you. It comes with its own analysis. In fact, it even gives you more information as you go on, so you're better positioned to do more of your own analysis, if you so choose, once you've read the whole thing.

Of course, how RM chooses to process the New Yorker is his business, unless he takes to appropriating the issue I'm reading at any given time. I do find his approach inefficient, but that's none of my business. He said that he's very impressed with the magazine and understands why I read it, and he's implied that he gets why, with the volume of New Yorkers that arrive, I don't want to spend my free time talking to him. Of course, I wouldn't want to spend my free time talking to him anyway, but at this point that's not something I feel I need to explicitly state.