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INBREEDING AT THE NEW YORKER SPAWNS TWELVE-FINGERED WRITERS NEW YORK. At first, it was just a rumor. The New Yorker, the most prestigious general circulation magazine in America, was said to have developed a race of super-human writers capable of producing boring multi-issue articles on topics ranging from the role of the paper clip in the development of Western civilization to the history of the garlic press. 
The New Yorker
What New York Department of Welfare officials found when they raided the Times Square offices of the highbrow publication was more gruesome; mutant scribes with twelve fingers, six on each hand or in rare cases, seven on one and five on the other. The cause? 
Deliverance "Inbreeding, just like you saw with that kid in 'Deliverance' who played the banjo," says Assistant Commissioner Paul Wade. "This place is a cesspool of incest, if I may say so without getting my poetic license yanked for 'purple prose'," he said as he looked around expectantly, hoping an editor had heard him. 
White: "Not 'That like totally sucks.' Which like totally sucks."
The New Yorker has long been known as a place where it didn't hurt to have family connections in order to get ahead. Roger Angell, who has written for the magazine for sixty-two years, is the son of Katharine Angell White, a New Yorker editor for many years, and the stepson of E.B. White, frequent contributor to the "Talk of the Town" feature and author of "The Elements of Style", a book used to browbeat English majors for decades. 
Ross: "Who's this little old lady from Dubuque who keeps writing in to complain?"
"We found it went back further than that," says the Department of Welfare's Wade. "The first editor, Harold Ross, had a wife who was related to him by marriage--it was disgusting." 
Mehta: "But enough about me. Let me tell you about my family."
With extra fingers, New Yorker writers such as Ian Frazier could produce articles on grains that ran for several months without even getting around to soybeans. Ved Mehta, an Indian contributor, was capable of generating stories of his family life as a boy in India that would outlive young children born after the first installment appeared. 
Remnick: "That's unfunny, but it's not that unfunny."
David Remnick, the magazine's editor, said he would look into the matter, but did not want to tinker with a long-standing formula for success. "I suspect this comes from someone whose cartoon submissions have been rejected as not unfunny enough."
Copyright 2006, Con Chapman
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You may or may not be familiar with the following, which has been circulating around the Internet labeled as being from a 1950's home economics textbook intended for high school girls, teaching them how to prepare for married life. In case you haven’t read it, here’s the link: http://www.mistupid.com/people/goodwife.htm <>Because I thought it was in need of an update, I’ve rewritten it to reflect the realities of married life in 2006.Here’s the 21st Century version: The Good Husband’s Guide: <>
1. Have dinner reservations made. Plan ahead, even months before, to have the best table reserved at the hottest new restaurant. This is a way of letting her know that you have been thinking about her and are concerned about her needs. Most women are hungry when they come home from work and the prospect of having to cook a good meal while you’ve been sitting in front of ESPN all day is enough to make her want to vomit. <>
2. Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to stretch your legs from being immobile on the La-Z-Boy all day, so you’ll look like you’ve been doing something productive when she arrives. Put on a new T-shirt without grease stains, wipe off any excess sweat, run a few fingers through what remains of your hair, and try to be fresh-looking. She has just been with a lot of shiny-faced young executive types, and they’re beginning to look real good. <>
3. Be a little gay and a little more interested in sharing your emotions, discussing the latest fashions, and exploring new ways of handling PMS. Her stressful day may need a lift and one of your duties is to listen to her whining and kiss her ass. <>
4. Clear away the clutter. Empty forties, cigarette butts, potato chip bags – all should be stashed at the bottom of your unused gym bag where she’s unlikely to look. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your wife arrives to make sure your other unemployed buddies haven’t left any trace evidence. <>
5. Gather up the kids’ unopened schoolbooks, toys, headsets, video games, dirty clothes, shoes, cell phones, iPods, Game Boys, cleats, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, bats, baseballs, helmets, bicycles, roller blades, laptops, CDs, GPS devices, backpacks, car keys, cordless phones, makeup, drug paraphernalia, porn magazines, etc. and throw them into the trunk of your old beat-up vehicle that she won’t be caught dead driving. Then run a dust cloth (that T-shirt you changed out of in Step 2 will do) over the table. <>
6. During the cooler months of the year, you should prepare and light a fire for her to unwind by.1 Your wife will feel she has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a better chance of getting some that night. After all, catering to her comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction – and might even earn you a blow job. <>
7. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to get the glop off the children’s hands and faces, comb their hair and get it back to a semblance of its natural color, remove any offensive piercings, cover up new tattoos, and, if necessary, change their clothes and dress them in something that doesn’t cry out “Whore!” or “Ghetto Trash!” They are little treasures, and she would like to see that they have successfully survived your care for another day. <>
8. Minimize all noise. At the time of her arrival, turn off the television, radio, boom box, motorcycle engine, and all combat games. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. She will be so relieved to discover that the eerie silence does not indicate that she has arrived on the scene of a mass murder that her spirits will immediately lift. <>
9. Be happy to see her. Really. Try hard. No, harder than that. <>
10. Greet her with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please her. 2 You can do this. Grit your teeth if you must. <>
11. Listen to her. You may have a dozen seemingly important things to tell her, but the moment of her arrival is not the time. Nor is during dinner, after dinner, while watching television, when she is reading a book, while she is responding to her email, during her phone calls to girlfriends, or right before bedtime. And tomorrow doesn’t look so good either. So forget it. Let her talk first – remember, her topics of conversation are more important than yours because she makes more money than you do. <>
12. Make the evening hers. Never complain if she comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand her world of strain and pressure, and her very real need to hire a pool boy even though you do not have a pool. <>
13. Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your wife can renew herself in body and spirit. 3 <>
14. Don’t greet her with complaints and problems. If she wanted those, she could get her own wife.4 <>
15. Don’t complain if she’s late for dinner or if she stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what mischief you can get into while she’s gone. <>
16. Make her comfortable. Have her lean back in a soft chair or have her lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for her. 5 <>
17. Arrange her pillow and offer to take off her shoes. You shouldn’t be wearing her shoes anyway. (See Step 3 re: being a little gay. Key word is LITTLE.) Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice, free of profanity and sexist language, even if this severely limits your working vocabulary. <>
18. Don’t ask her questions about her actions or question her judgment or integrity.
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Did you ever find yourself trying to argue logic with an idiot? Or have you been in situations where you try to complain about someone and the person you are speaking to is more interested in making you the villain? Background: I am currently the managing editor of a not-very-popular newsletter that goes to executives in the business to business publishing world (known as B2B in the jargon). For the issue of August 21, the associate editor, a guy named J, turned in a rather weak edition – very little news or fascinating information. (Yes, the associate editor is running the publication. We don’t have an editor – the low man on the totem pole is numero uno and the managing editor is sort of a guardian angel to make sure he does the right thing. Go figure.) I have problems dealing with J – he is a nice guy, but his work is erratic and his professional attitude is a bother. More on that in a moment. The publisher of this newsletter is named D. She complained to me via e-mail about the quality of this particular edition. Diane gets to read the first draft on a Thursday, which is important here. After working with J for four months and seeing no progress in his work or behavior, I needed to alert D (my boss) of the situation. However, didn't want to hear about my complaints -- in her view, I was goofing up. The first e-mail in this chain is my response to her initial complaint. The rest is verbatim (only a few irrelevant references were cut out). Absolutely nothing was added to make me look funnier or D to look dumber. Hold on to your hernia belts with this one: #1
D:
Honestly, the issue is extremely sedate -- mostly charts, little in the way of news. J told me: "Nothing happened this week" (he said it, not me).
Phil #2 Phil -- please spend more time with J on story development. You noted to me that there's no news in the issue but you should know what's going into the issue, right? Can you work with him on this? I sent an email a month ago about new coverage: more marketing, coverage of custom publishing, of PR strategies, of M&A, etc. I'm not seeing it. We need to make the newsletter a must-read. Let me know on Tuesday (next week) what Jeremy is planning for that week’s issue. Thanks
D #3 D: Go back and re-read my initial email. I said that J said there was no news this week, hence the sedate edition. J was out of the office on Monday and Tuesday on vacation. I was not told about this until Monday, when a co-worker told me that morning. I get the feeling J didn't bother putting this edition together until Wednesday, which may explain a lot of why it looks the way it does. J, quite frankly, is not the easiest person to deal with. While I like J as an individual and I think he has good instinct as a journalist, his attitude leaves a lot to be desired. I followed your instructions regarding a variety of stories (as you noted below) and I told J that we should create an editorial calendar so we can be on track with specific features for each issue. He literally brushed the idea off, saying he would get to that within the next two weeks. It still has not happened. J clearly enjoys chasing juicy stories and he also enjoys putting himself front and center with the B2B power players (to the point that he inserts himself into some articles, which I've immediately edited out before you saw that). But he shows miniscule interest in the nuts and bolts stories that appeal to the die-hard B2B executives (such as the topics you want to see more about). I've attempted in the past to start discussions on subjects such as trade show marketing, e-marketing and scouting out new partnerships with vendors. I might as well have talked about Icelandic feminist poetry, since the subjects literally bored him. To use a show biz analogy, he likes to be the star but he's not willing to move the scenery. Thanks
phil
#4
Phil: J and I have spoken about the new features and he's told me he plans to incorporate them into the issues. I've told him to work with you directly and you need to find a way to break the wall between the two of you. This is your job, more now than ever, so I expect that you will have Monday meetings with him and develop a story list for that issue with him, that includes the new coverage areas. I can only intervene so much: you are there with him and need to win his trust and respect which you haven't done yet. I know you have a lot of good ideas, but you need to lead your team to those ideas not force them on your team. Lastly, to circle back to your first paragraph below. Are you just going to accept, as Managing Editor, that there is no news this week? D #5 D, J is telling you one thing and showing a very different face here. I don't know what conversations you are having with J, but I know from here that all I see is somehow who turns off his hearing when it suits him and seems more interested in juicy C-suite news and self-promotion rather than giving full coverage of the B2B industry. And to repeat myself: J took off for Monday and Tuesday without telling me and came back Wednesday to create something that looks slapped together. His excuse of "no news" is patently ridiculous -- but it is J's job to write the news for B2B and it is his responsibility to tell people he is out for several days. phil #6 Phil: He told us he'd be out Monday and Tuesday for vacation; not sure if you missed the email? But since you're just a few cubicles away, I venture that you should spend more time interfacing and less via email). This will build some bridges. It is your job to work with him, Phil, and help implement changes that will make the pub better. I agree about "no news" and I will say it's YOUR JOB TOO to give our readers what they need. D #7
D:
Obviously I am not "us" -- he told me when we were putting together last week's edition that he was taking Friday off. He said nothing about Monday and Tuesday. Perhaps you may wish to check the CC list on his email to verify who received the message? If my name is there, then I have to tell the IT Department I am missing e-mails. If my name is not there, I am vindicated. FYI -- I only work face to face with him (I never communicate with him via email). phil #8 Phil: J should have told. The interesting question is why he wouldn't.
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