Some random New Yorker related bits, since I don't really have anything worth reviewing right now:

1. In the mail today, I got an Advance Reader Copy (kind of a fancy galley, but still not an official copy of the book) of What You Have Left by Will Allison. Sure, you could argue that I'm too excited about getting a book I'd never heard of before last week; or that I only received a copy because I'm one of 300 people who check their email obsessively enough to be the first to pounce on a "free book" email from the New Yorker. Whatever. It feels insider-y enough for me! I feel kinda bad for the publicist behind this, though. A copy probably should have gone to someone whose book blog reaches more than, oh, one person.

2. I don't like the new, animated versions of the New Yorker cartoons. It's not a notion of the artistic purity of the medium--that's kinda shot when you realize that the tag lines seem randomly assigned to a spare picture. Really, it's more of a sense that the humor just doesn't come across very well in this format. A vague chuckle works better when you can move right along to Sy Hersh's next Iraq bombshell, or a profile of some stage actor you've never heard of. Besides, this opens a dangerous door. What happens when Bil Keane decides that maybe "Family Circus" needs to move too? Haven't we suffered enough?

The Bruni Vendetta

By now, it's not much of a secret that I love a good literary slapfight. It's even better when the New Yorker gets involved, so I was pretty delighted to read a very entertaining "Talk of the Town Piece" by Lauren Collins in this week's issue. Kobe Beef

All these people who assume that the best way to get justice by writing a nasty editorial letter after a bad review, or calling someone out in the media, or taking out a $40,000 ad in the Times...has anyone ever gotten a satisfying measure of flesh that way? It just makes everyone look jerkier.

Anyway, besides being amusing, the article was interesting for a couple of other reasons. First, Lauren Collins is really growing on me. Her writing is always good, but for a while she was doing fluffy socialite-type pieces about shoes and museum parties. Not that this one is deep journalism, but it shows she can bring her style to different areas.

Second, I had no idea that Frank Rich and Alex Witchel are married. She mentions her husband occasionally in her columns, but I'd probably have paid more attention had I known that the cute, homey anecdotes were about one of the OpEd columnists. I wonder if things were ever muy scanduloso at the Times building.

I also think it's hilarious that the paper practically edited the ad for Jeffrey Chodorow. They had self-interest in the content, of course, but there's a kind of sublimity in the fact that they were haggling over language while being willing to sell the space directly opposite Frank Bruni's column.