Zinc

When I lived in New York I never read the New Yorker, I just didn't get it. I'd leaf through it if I found it, looking at the cartoons but that was about it. It seemed interesting but at the same time dull - I read once someone complaining that it was full of things like a 16-page article about zinc. Beautifully-written, worthy, but very boring.

The most recent issue (or at the least the most recent I have, mine arrive on a steamship) has an 11-page article about scrap metal. And it's fabulous. So there!

Many years ago, during the Reagan Administration, I was in a bar on Broadway and about 113th (the West End, if anyone remembers it. Crack dealers and Columbia students)and I got talking to a girl who worked for the New Yorker. I was extremely drunk and I think I managed to impress her with the fact that not only had I never read the NYer, I had no desire to do so (my recollection of our talk is very vague, as you can imagine). She then stalked me a bit, in a very low-key way. Slightly spooky, but flattering. Are you out there, Holly? I'm free now.