The Fun of It

Informationen zum Autor Edited by Lillian Ross Klappentext William Shawn once called The Talk of the Town the soul of the magazine. The section began in the first issue! in 1925. But it wasn't until a couple of years later! when E. B. White and James Thurber arrived! that the Talk of the Town story became what it is today: a precise piece of journalism that always gets the story and has a little fun along the way. The Fun of It is the first anthology of Talk pieces that spans the magazine's life. Edited by Lillian Ross! the longtime Talk reporter and New Yorker staff writer! the book brings together pieces by the section's most original writers. Only in a collection of Talk stories will you find E. B. White visiting a potter's field; James Thurber following Gertrude Stein at Brentano's; Geoffrey Hellman with Cole Porter at the Waldorf Towers; A. J. Liebling on a book tour with Albert Camus; Maeve Brennan ventriloquizing the long-winded lady; John Updike navigating the passageways of midtown; Calvin Trillin marching on Washington in 1963; Jacqueline Onassis chatting with Cornell Capa; Ian Frazier at the Monster Truck and Mud Bog Fall Nationals; John McPhee in virgin forest; Mark Singer with sixth-graders adopting Hudson River striped bass; Adam Gopnik in Flatbush visiting the ìgrandest theatre devoted exclusively to the movies; Hendrik Hertzberg pinning down a Sulzberger on how the Times got colorized; George Plimpton on the tennis court with Boris Yeltsin; and Lillian Ross reporting good little stories for more than forty-five years. They and dozens of other Talk contributors provide an entertaining tour of the most famous section of the most famous magazine in the world. Leseprobe Chapter 1 ROBERT BENCHLEY "UP THE DARK STAIRS-" Among the major menaces to American journalism today (and there are so many that it hardly seems worth while even beginning this little article) is the O. Henry-Irvin Cobb tradition. According to this pretty belief, every reporter is potentially master of the short-story, and because of it we find Human Interest raising its ugly head in seven out of every eight news columns and a Human Document being turned out every time Henry H. Mackle of 1356 Grand Boulevard finds a robin or Mrs. Rasher Feiman of 425 West Forty-ninth Street attacks the scissors grinder. Copy readers in the old days used to insist that all the facts in the story be bunched together in the opening paragraph. This never made for a very moving chronicle, but at least you got the idea of what was going on. Under the new system, where every reporter has his eye on George Horace Lorimer, you first establish your atmosphere, then shake a pair of doves out of the handkerchief, round off your lead with a couple of bars from a Chopin étude, and finally, in the next to last paragraph, divulge the names and addresses and what it was that happened. A story which, under the old canons of journalism, would have read as follows: "Mary J. Markezan, of 1278 Ocean Parkway, was found early this morning by Officer Charles Norbey of the Third Precinct in a fainting condition from lack of gin, etc." now appeals to our hearts and literary sensibilities as follows: "Up the dark stairs in a shabby house on Ocean Parkway plodded a bent, weary figure. An aroma of cooking cabbage filled the hall. Somebody's mother was coming home. Somebody's mother was bringing in an arm-full of wood for the meagre fire at 1857 Ocean Parkway. Soon the tired form would be at the top of the shadowy stairs. But Fate, in the person of Officer Norbey, was present, etc." A fine bit of imaginative writing, satisfying everybody except the reader who wants to know what happened at 1857 Ocean Parkway. Most of the trouble began about ten years ago when the Columbia School of Journalism began unloading its graduates on wh...

Autorentext
Edited by Lillian Ross

Klappentext
William Shawn once called The Talk of the Town the soul of the magazine. The section began in the first issue, in 1925. But it wasn't until a couple of years later, when E. B. White and James Thurber arrived, that the Talk of the Town story became what it is today: a precise piece of journalism that always gets the story and has a little fun along the way.

The Fun of It is the first anthology of Talk pieces that spans the magazine's life. Edited by Lillian Ross, the longtime Talk reporter and New Yorker staff writer, the book brings together pieces by the section's most original writers. Only in a collection of Talk stories will you find E. B. White visiting a potter's field; James Thurber following Gertrude Stein at Brentano's; Geoffrey Hellman with Cole Porter at the Waldorf Towers; A. J. Liebling on a book tour with Albert Camus; Maeve Brennan ventriloquizing the long-winded lady; John Updike navigating the passageways of midtown; Calvin Trillin marching on Washington in 1963; Jacqueline Onassis chatting with Cornell Capa; Ian Frazier at the Monster Truck and Mud Bog Fall Nationals; John McPhee in virgin forest; Mark Singer with sixth-graders adopting Hudson River striped bass; Adam Gopnik in Flatbush visiting the ìgrandest theatre devoted exclusively to the movies; Hendrik Hertzberg pinning down a Sulzberger on how the Times got colorized; George Plimpton on the tennis court with Boris Yeltsin; and Lillian Ross reporting good little stories for more than forty-five years. They and dozens of other Talk contributors provide an entertaining tour of the most famous section of the most famous magazine in the world.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

ROBERT BENCHLEY

"UP THE DARK STAIRS-"

Among the major menaces to American journalism today (and there are so many that it hardly seems worth while even beginning this little article) is the O. Henry-Irvin Cobb tradition. According to this pretty belief, every reporter is potentially master of the short-story, and because of it we find Human Interest raising its ugly head in seven out of every eight news columns and a Human Document being turned out every time Henry H. Mackle of 1356 Grand Boulevard finds a robin or Mrs. Rasher Feiman of 425 West Forty-ninth Street attacks the scissors grinder.

Copy readers in the old days used to insist that all the facts in the story be bunched together in the opening paragraph. This never made for a very moving chronicle, but at least you got the idea of what was going on. Under the new system, where every reporter has his eye on George Horace Lorimer, you first establish your atmosphere, then shake a pair of doves out of the handkerchief, round off your lead with a couple of bars from a Chopin étude, and finally, in the next to last paragraph, divulge the names and addresses and what it was that happened.

A story which, under the old canons of journalism, would have read as follows:

"Mary J. Markezan, of 1278 Ocean Parkway, was found early this morning by Officer Charles Norbey of the Third Precinct in a fainting condition from lack of gin, etc."

now appeals to our hearts and literary sensibilities as follows:

"Up the dark stairs in a shabby house on Ocean Parkway plodded a bent, weary figure. An aroma of cooking cabbage filled the hall. Somebody's mother was coming home. Somebody's mother was bringing in an arm-full of wood for the meagre fire at 1857 Ocean Parkway. Soon the tired form would be at the top of the shadowy stairs. But Fate, in the person of Officer Norbey, was present, etc."

A fine bit of imaginative writing, satisfying everybody except the reader who wants to know what happened at 1857 Ocean Parkway.

Most of the trouble began about ten years ago when the Columbia School of Journalism began unloading its graduates on what was then the N. Y. Tribune (retaining the best features of neither). Every one of the boys had the O. Hen…

#	Onlineshop	Preis CHF	Versand CHF	Total CHF
1	Seller	0.00	0.00	0.00