After three weeks would go by and three New Yorkers had piled up and I hadn't read any of them, I used to feel guilty, so I stopped subscribing. If there were a way of receiving only every second issue, I would resubscribe. I unsubscribed some time in September, and after a few weeks, Stewart started claiming his life was 10% less good as a result. Not bad, just less good. Not that he has any time to read the New Yorker either. I used to wonder why previously pristine issues were suddenly all puckery and crinkly until I discovered Stewart multitasking by reading the magazine in the shower.

I did something I'd never done last week, which is buy a copy of the New Yorker. It was a so-so issue. But even the so-so issues are so much better than Harper's or The Atlantic, or any other comparable magazine. The New Yorker doesn't bludgeon you with its politics, which is something those two tend to do. And The New Yorker's legendarily high per-word payment schedule (I'm guessing around $2.00/word?) attracts the best writers of the 10 to 20,000-word article form.

The New Yorker makes me feel bad when I subscribe, and when I don't subscribe. Today I got home and there was a Last Chance discount subscription notice in the mail, and I started feeling bad about it again...

LINK | 7:03 PM | TB

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