By Jonathan Shipley
A review of the magazines on Shipley’s nightstand.
Save Your Receipts
One in 100 taxpayers gets audited, according to the March issue of Money. One in 60 taxpayers who make more than $100,000 gets audited. One in 16 taxpayers who make more than $1 million gets audited. One hundred percent of taxpayers who work for a living are pissed.
I Smell a Mole
How delightful you are, condylura cristata! That, for you unintelligent riffraff out there, is the star-nosed mole. Duh! What’s cool about this particular mole, according to the March issue of Smithsonian Magazine, is that it can smell underwater. They exhale air bubbles onto objects and then re-inhale the bubbles. The air carries odorants back through the nostrils whence they’re processed as smells. I, too, smell underwater. I smell like a very wet person.
Rip and Shred
Guitar Player looks at the 40 greatest guitar albums of 1967, in its April issue. Some of the entries include Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?, The Byrds’ Younger than Yesterday, The Doors self-titled album and Between the Buttons by the Rolling Stone. Looking ahead, the May issue will highlight the 438 best guitar picks manufactured in 1982.
Girl Next Door
The luminous and talented Kate Winslet discusses motherhood, marriage, and her “normal figure” in the March issue of Good Housekeeping. Like she keeps house.
New Yorker Lit
The March 5th New Yorker has an essay by Orhan Pamuk, a short story by Steven Millhauser and a poem by M.S. Merwin. What they don’t have is something written by me, which is totally lame. I wrote a cool story for them about a friend of mine who is an accomplished opera singer who just so happens to have a prosthetic neck. The editors at The New Yorker rejected my story immediately on the grounds that there is no such thing as a prosthetic neck.
Junk in Buddha’s Trunk
“The Dalai Lama once asked a doctor, Why am I so fat? I’m a strict vegetarian,” the April issue of Men’s Journal informs us. “Yeah, but your diet is 40 percent yak butter!” the doctor responded.
Denial and Resentment
The March 12th New Yorker has a compelling and distressing story about AIDS denialists and how their theory that HIV doesn’t cause the disease is playing out in Africa. Also, Louis Menand’s essay on Nixon’s strategic use of Mao is an eye-opener – and at times humorous, like when Nixon was asked for his thoughts after touring the Great Wall of China and could only respond “This is a great wall.” That’s our Dick!
Posted on March 9, 2007