h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Overview: a Guided Tour through ‘The New Yorker’ - A14529558
Author: Leo - U519437


This is the overview for the New Yorker project. Some bits missing which I'll fill in as I find them out, and the list of contributors needs to be copied from an Ask H2g2 thread, but otherwise.

Um, there's no section in it now. Does an entry need them? Not like it would be hard to put in, just wodering.

An entry doesn't need sections, but they sometimes help to break things up for a casual reader. However, in this case I found the writing style and subject matter interesting enough that I was motivated to keep reading the whole thing, instead of searching for specific information through section breaks - so on that score, great job! This is an excellent entry!

I have a couple points, though. The first is that I find the long list of contributors somewhat jarring - it ruins the flow of the narrative. In my opinion a list so long that you can't see the body paragraphs on either end of it is too long. Maybe you could say "famous names such as JD Salinger, John Updike and Art Spiegelman" or something, and leave it at that - though I daresay it'd be difficult to choose just a select few out of that cast of characters.

The other thing is, people may choose to read Uni projects all together, or just read individual entries when they are found using search or something like that. So this entry will have to function apart from all the others, and bits like your last sentence will therefore have to be modified.

BTW, if the position isn't already taken (and if I have time) I would love to sub this project.

I was going to tag on to the names some of what those people were famous for, too. Would that help? I originally started with a longer list which I ran past Ask h2g2, and these are *some* of the names people recongized. It's gonna be hard culling it. But I'll see what I can do.

And no, the subbing hasn't been taken. It's all yours. I think the project is more than half done, at this point. I'm bogged down because, while writing the bio for E B White, I've fallen head over heels with his writing and poetry. This is someone who never looked twice at a poem before.

Am still thinking about the ending.

Here's the uni project page, with all the links updated. (A13468197) I think everything there can be subbed except E B White and maybe Wolcott Gibbs, because one day, maybe, I'll look up an obituary of his for more material.

I guess we need to get you subbing rights through the subbie forum? I figure it's easier if you sub as I go along, so it's not a huge job. I just went through the first two history entries and James Thurber with a fine-tooth comb, so it should be an easier subbing.

If you could do a couple sentences on what each person's famous for, that would help immensely to make it more than just a list.

Having done a couple of these before, I'm supposed to wait until the project is entirely finished before getting subbing rights, as you don't get editing rights back once I have them and you want to make sure that you've made all the changes you want to make. I'd certainly wait until they're all out of the EGWW before asking for the subbing rights, and maybe till the school play I'm stage managing is over...

My mother knew David Remnick at one point. I've got an interesting fact or two about him should you have need...

Remnick is cool. I just read an article about him, and shall pose him as the saviour of the magazine. (Oh wait, that won't need much posing.)

All interesting facts welcome.

I'll work on this entry later this week, adding in the rogue's gallery facts. Just got real busy in RL.

Stage manager?! That is a *job*. The audience will thank you if they don't have to twiddle their too long between scenes. Good luck. Be bossy. Have fun.

The one thing I know off the top of my head is that Remnick took Russian through high school and college, so when he got a job at the Washington Post they sent him to the then-Soviet Union. It was thought to be a pretty basic job (no one apparently believed that the superpower was likely to break up anytime soon) and so it could be entrusted to a newbie journalist - but then the USSR did break up in 1989 and Remnick was there to cover it, and that's how he made his name as a journalist. So it was really utter coincidence, and that's why we should all take Russian in high school (well, they don't offer it at my school, but you know).

Well, he was on the Washington Post, which is nothing to sneeze about. But yeah, he's got the steepest trajectory I've ever seen.

*ticks off on fingers*
Princeton -> Washington Post (reporter) -> New Yorker (reporter) -> New Yorker (editor).

I heard a rumor that he got the editor job after he wrote Si Newhouse (owner of the mag) a several thousand word memo detailed what he'd do to fix The New Yorker up. At that point it was... well, nobody liked it. I'd love to be able to confirm that.

I was talking to my mom and she said it was certainly plausible (and also that it might have been a matter of procedure to ask prospective editors to submit their suggestions for improvement), though I can't confirm or deny it.

Good evenin'

Hm... cuz in one interview he made it sound like the job was 'thrust upon him', so to speak, but the same article passed him off as terribly modest. The memo rumor comes from Renata Adler who at that point was almost totally disassociated with the magazine and was penning its obituary.

I guess I could mention it as rumor if further digging doesn't bring up anything.

Thanks.

Was it "that" article? Cause I read one that put him in a terribly favourable light - apparently a little too favourable.

That? There's one linked from the ask h2g2 thread about the New Yorker writers. If that's the one you're referring to, typos and all, yes, it was rather awfully flattering. I don't intend to rely on it, though.

I think it very well might have been the same one.

I may just send him an email asking. dremnick at thenewyorker.com, or davidr at same place, or davidremnick at... One of them will go through. Getting an answer - now that may be less likely.



Oh, you don't by any chance have any info to add on some of the members of the rogue's gallery? Their famous works and stuff. Half of them are still info-less.

I'll see what I can do about that in the morning when I'm awake.

Jonthan Franzen didn't write 'Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them'. That was Al Franken, right? Or do you mean Al Franken?

Also, Truman Capote was famous for 'In Cold Blood', which I think was the first novel to be based on a real event. He also wrote the novella 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'.

In the part about the cartoons, the editor you mention from 'Seinfeld' was a man.

I notice you have a first-person remark towards the end.

I would break this down using Headers and perhaps subheaders.

Hi WB. Thanks. I'll get 'round to fixing those soon. The first person comment - was that "thank you for joining us" Or something to that tune? I'll fix it. It was meant to sound like a tour guide, but I guess it comes across as propriatary.