In the days of James Thurber, I remember as a child paging through my parents’ New Yorker magazines, looking for the cartoons. When I did find them, I often couldn’t figure out what they were about or why they should be considered funny. I did like the Charles Adams ones, which probably says more about me as a child than I’d like to think about.
I had a similar sensation recently as
I worked my way through the September 22nd issue of fall style and
design. I’m out of step again, this time on the other end of the age spectrum.
With a yearly subscription, I do try
to get into as many as I can of the wildly diverse stories, but now I seem to have
hit the wall of irrelevancy. Just like those indecipherable cartoons, most of
the trendy references in this issue’s Shouts and Murmurs column were wasted on
me. I could almost hear the allusions to Jonathan Haidt, Zyn, and Hozier as
they whistled over my head.
On the other hand, it’s freeing not trying to keep up with what’s in vogue and being in ignorant bliss of what’s circling on Instagram.
For now, I’ll happily turn the physical page of my issue
to the umpteen-page report by D.T. Max about Barcelona’s massive Sagrada
Familia (which, ahem, by the way, I just saw last night on an episode of BBC’s “The
Diplomat”).
Sagrada Familia, the church which took forever to build and I'm not sure it is finished even now.
ReplyDeleteYou’re right. They’re still building, with probably decades to go..
ReplyDeleteI've never been one to jump aboard what's trendy but now I'm like Grandpa Simpson...I used to be with it but with it changed and now it's weird and scary.
ReplyDeleteI like cartoon prints in museums!! They're not in vogue!! 😁
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