A couple of years ago, I caved in to getting a subscription to The New Yorker magazine. This is a weekly. Ed and I needed our New York fix and thought this was a way to get it. It has esoteric cartoons, some of which are hilarious, many of which are so fey that it is hard to get the point. But I page through each issue looking for the gem.

They have ground-breaking serious articles that I do not read but I am aware of because some of their authors are interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR and I listen to her all the time on my iPod. The New Yorker prides itself on its whimsy. Also on fiction that is so devoid of hope that one wonders if, perhaps, its acquiring editor should be in therapy.

I let myself read a piece of fiction this morning. The main character, a woman, one guesses 30ish, having lost her teaching job at a university, drifts into homelessness, drifts into quasi relationships with other homeless people. “Years later,” has a child (the story never leads into how she got pregnant, just wants you to know that it happened) and dies on the birthing table. But only the obliquely written description (the medical examiner is cutting her open to save the baby) informs the reader that she has died. Meanwhile, her spacial consciousness drifts into the ether, happy at last? End of story. Oh, joy and warm chuckles. What a great read.

I am planning to write them about their dour outlook. My armchair analysis of their fiction choices is that, from their editors’ comfortable lives on New York’s upper West Side or upper East Side, or Greenwich from which they commute, leads them to think they have to inform their (they are assuming) equally esoteric readers of the dark side of humanity. They believe, I think, that they are performing a valuable public service or else none of the disadvantaged would gain any advocates because no one with means would be reading about them and, perhaps, want to help or at least understand what it is to lead a life without hope or any redeeming features.

The other caveat I have with their fiction is that all their stories are a slice of life, beautifully written and ending without a point, except that life is hard, then you die. Over and over, each week, years on end.

The New Yorker is a visually attractive publication. I stockpile the issues on the lower end of a lovely table in our entry foyer. Ed wants me to toss them already as they are spilling onto the floor, their glossy covers encouraging slippage. I thought I’d blank out the subscription label and take them to doctor’s offices to offset the ghastly offerings available there – Ladies’ Home Journals, Good Housekeeping, baby magazines, everything to support the interests of women submerged in bland lives devoid of thinking and needing a glimpse of sophistication laced with stories of desperation. And for the men, sports magazines on end, or the doctor’s personal subscription to “Yachting”. Articles on weight loss next to articles for gooey desserts needing only 24 ingredients, the main ones being sugar and sour cream. Your guests will love you for this one.

But I always forget, or delay bundling up the mags to take to my next doctor’s appointment. The imaging center, for instance, got rid of most of their general interest offerings in favor of religious tracts from The Watchtower and the like. And their waiting room TV is always on Fox News. I saw a bumper sticker that said “Fox News: The more you watch, the less you know.” I wanted to stop that car and kiss the driver.

Okay, end of fulmination.

xx, Teal