Last night I was in a hot bath reading the latest New Yorker (never mind that I have stacks of much older ones in a net bag on the floor next to me now), and was once again struck by how much in love I am with the writing of this man. I finished reading Tables for Two, thinking, that was an especially fine review, and was delighted to find his byline at the bottom. Then, in the same issue, in a piece on the new proliferation of pedicabs (bicycle taxis) in NY was this:

"The pedicab may merely suggest rather than entirely embody the new America of puller and pulled, but it is a sharp symbol of a new reality. It even evokes new metaphors. For instance, the thing about George W. Bush is not that he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. It is that he has been in a bicycle taxi all his life but has not yet bothered to to notice that someone else is pulling."

Yup. Adam Gopnik again.

He goes on to talk about how American society is becoming more feudal, "...a society run on the bargain of fear: in exchange for your labor and subservience, we will provide security." This depresses the hell out of me because it rings so true. And now I'm running late to go off and be subservient, but no, I don't buy into the belief that anyone has made me more secure.

Comments

[M]

You and I were doing the same thing last night, only I was reading that same article right next to the air conditioner, I was so hot. I wished I had gone to Elliott Bay Books when he read there, darn it!

[Karen]

I love Gopnick too. And Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande! The latter's daughter is in Pete's group at camp this summer.