Breaking the unwritten law...

...of all Newsbreaks all the time, but occasionally something must be said. I plan to break this rule a couple more times in the next few weeks, as the relentless tides of my obsessions have thrown up an gnarled, weed-strewn essay or two.

Friend and fellow Record alum Mollie Wilson is in the midst of an iKerfuffle (sorry Apple) over The New Yorker's recent profile of Paul McCartney. The backstory can be read here at HuffPo.

Was the commenter "John" on Mollie's blog truly the author of the piece? If so, didn't anybody tell him never to drink-and-comment? Jon Schwarz thoughtfully addresses the psychological fissures of the old-media writer here, but I don't care about that. I'm not interested in feeling anybody's pain over being disrespected by the peons. True talent forbears and wannabes complain; we all do it once in a while to dull some sting, but hiding behind a credential is a always a punk move.

As a Beatle head (bona fides here), you might expect that I'd have an opinion about the article itself. But I haven't read it, and probably won't. This is what made me stop reading The New Yorker: whenever I'd read an article that touched on something I knew about, I would come away from the experience frothing with rage. Semi-informed at best, the articles were invariably smug, trite, and managed to leave the object of their subtly malign attention a dull and lifeless thing.

But I could live with that--after all, this is magazine journalism we're talking about, just filler between Cartier ads. What pushed me over the edge was how every author in The New Yorker radiated self-satisfaction. You could tell they thought they'd reached the mountaintop, and insisted you agree. Particularly on cultural issues, this imbued the writing with an arm's-length ex cathedra that is actively opposed to appreciation, and perhaps even understanding. In other words, precisely the snotty mindset shown by the poster on Mollie's blog. So if he's not writing for The New Yorker, he should be. That's quite a gift for parody.

My wife likes the fiction, and the cartoons are always good for a wan laugh, but I'm done with it--poor Kate has to steal the occasional issue from the "who wants it" basket down the hall. The New Yorker is like The New York Yankees. They assume they are synonymous with the sport. When they're good, they assume everyone agrees that all is once again right with the world; when they're bad, they get petulant and defensive. Spoiled, entitled, coasting on the past, generally unworthy of the attention that they get, both are a collection of high-priced names assembled by an impossibly rich jerk. Both are trying to dominate a dying sport, and confuse snapping up more of less with authentic excellence. Bonds will break Hank Aaron's record--The New Yorker will still launch stars--but it will never matter, not like it once did. And that's okay, because the alternative is stagnation and death. But then, those have always been a New Yorker specialty: cue "Tiny Mummies."

Whatever The New Yorker was, it's not that anymore, and hasn't been for decades. What it did under Ross and Shawn--the pieces we all read in high school--has nothing to do with what it is now. The New Yorker's relentless branding of itself as some way to commune with The American Century is as ersatz and self-serving as any other piece of marketing. Accept the fantasy if it pleases you, make money off it, even, if you're a writer. But don't confuse it with reality. Warts and all, the web is the greatest explosion of written communication in the history of homo sapiens. Asserting the primacy of any one collection of talent, especially one assembled by the corrupt and intellectually hamstrung mag biz, seems absurd. I don't need The New Yorker or John Colapinto to tell me what to think about Paul McCartney, and that magazine's wrongness about stuff I know about makes me skeptical about everything else.

Understand: I, too, grew up with the idea that The New Yorker was Valhalla on 43rd Street. And, after lots of struggle, reached the mountaintop. But I remember exactly when I realized that the mountain was a lot shorter than it used to be. It was the day that Jon's and my editor there told me she was leaving for a job at WWD. Or was it W? My point is, it didn't matter.

[UPDATE: The New Yorker has confirmed that the poster "John" is indeed the author of the piece. Wow. I mean, we all Google ourselves when something comes out, but...wow.]