Donald's Blog

  This old house was only a few blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. All the neighborhood cats lived in the basement during the winter. The house has long since been torn down, but in 1972 there were AR2ax speakers in the front room, and a lot of good music was heard there.

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In the 21st century I am just as opinionated as ever, and I now have an outlet. I shall pontificate here about anything that catches my fancy; I hope I will not make too great a fool of myself. You may comment yea or nay about anything on the site; I may quote you here, or I may not. Send brickbats etc. to: dmclarke78@icloud.com.

 

January 20, 2015

The New Republic

On my recent move across the USA, part of my reading matter was the 100th Anniversary Issue of The New Republic, the magazine which printed my first published work back around 1970. It was a weekly "Journal of Politics and the Arts" for most of its history, and I had been a subscriber for decades. It had been founded by people like Edmund Wilson and Walter Lippmann, names which are being forgotten by the masses surfing the Net. A few years ago it became a fortnightly. It never made any money, but that wasn't the point of The New Republic; it was always owned by people who believed in it and who could keep it going one way or another. Lately the best thing about it had been Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor and columnist, who had been there for 32 years.

The anniversary issue was full of reminiscence and fun stuff about the magazine's history, as well as some of the usual commentary. There was a very good read by David Thompson about the classic Alain Resnais movie Hiroshima Mon Amour (1953), relating its subject matter and its critical history to the history of the magazine, and ending this way:

And so we have an unforgettable film and a momentous event, but soon enough they will be unremembered. Even a hundred-year-old magazine, proud and illustrious, eloquent and earnest, right and wrong, may turn into vapor. We are more fragile than we think.

The anniversary issue was dated "November 24 & December 8, 2014". A centennial gala in November was attended by President Clinton and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who gave the toast. Meanwhile the paper had been purchased in 2012 by Chris Hughes, a rich kid from Facebook who had no idea what he was doing. Suddenly he and his team announced that they were moving the magazine from Washington DC to New York and that it would henceforth become a vertically-oriented digital media company; then they hired a new editor (who had never edited a magazine) without telling the editor, Franklin Foer, who had spent 14 years with The New Republic. While the 100th Anniversary Issue was on the stands, Foer and Wieseltier, 21 senior editors and staff writers and 36 out of 38 contributing editors all resigned. The next issue of the magazine was set in galleys and almost finished, but the writers began to withdraw their work, and The New Republic missed an issue for the first time in its history.

The next issue isn't due until February. No one can imagine what it will look like.