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n+1 Issue 34: Head Case
Spring 2019, Head Rewriters, runners, and gamblers. Citational vanity and really quite serious mindfucking. Thomas de Monchaux looks at background buildings; Alyssa Battistoni organizes; the editors start a podcast. Andrea Long Chu gets a pussy.
214 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 11, 2020
20 people want to read
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n+1
63 books134 followersn+1 is a print journal of politics, literature, and culture, published originally twice a year and now three times a year.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 31, 2019
I admit to being somewhat at a loss as to what n+1 is trying to accomplish. When I began reading it, thirty or so issues ago, it was a sort of literary magazine for thinking people. Now it seems to be part of the progressive echo chamber. n+1 has a serious monoculture problem, and has found itself preaching to the choir rather than taking risks, questioning assumptions, and all that other individualist nonsense that made it so interesting to begin with.
Ah well. Here we go.
The Intellectual Situation: Friends of the Pod: "We like the internet. And really, we'd be online all the time if it weren't for our eyes, those sensitive organs." Stop including me in this, you smartphone-addicted ass. Podcasts are as dumb as webinars and TED talks; I have no idea why otherwise intelligent people waste their time with them. No clues to this mystery were provided by the article.
The Intellectual Situation: Coalition of the Willing: You mean that Bush-era line about "a War on Terror is not about killing Muslims" was a lie? Who knew?!? I mean the guy only used the word Crusade about a hundred and fifty times.
Politics: The Pink: Perhaps the most vapid, product-driven treatment of feminism I have come across. Why is this in Politics? Leaves the impression that the guy never even bothered speaking to a woman before deciding to become one (how's that for objectification, eh?), and lumps the gender identity question in with other instances of the twenty-teens (2010-2019, for those thinking this is an ageist slam) hunger for special treament like opinion-driven diets, allergies, learning disabilities, religious beliefs. Unfortunate.
Politics: Spadework: Yeah, political activism is a tough row to hoe. To its credit, it is clear why this one is in the Politics section.
Politics: Good Night, Boa Vista: "He ordered a Heineken and drank it facing away from the bar, scanning the low-ceilinged room and the stage where a womain in a tight blue dress was crooning Nina Simone--me." This is where I stopped reading. I thought we were talking about Boa Vista, what are you doing here? Why is this in Politics? OK, here, somebody has to say it because the kids no longer read Tyler Durden: nobody gives a damn about you, or what you have to say, or what your background is. Not until they have been given a compelling reason to, at any rate.
Special Journey to Our Bottom Line: Much better than its predecessor, to which my reaction was yes, only an idiot or a scumbag or somebody with no chance of success on their own merits would join a fraternity, and they're awful people, and the only real mystery about frats is why membership in one isn't an immediate disqualification for any job that requires responsibility or personal integrity. Nice work on the origins of hazing, and its use in non-fraternity environments. Slight missed opportunity with professional hazing, most notable in health care where resident doctors work long sleep-deprived shifts, despite massive evidence documenting the poor decisions and such made by tired or sleep-deprived workers, simply because "well, I had to do it when I started, so you have to do it too." OSHA on line one! Anyways, maybe an idea for a followup, if the fraternity thing isn't simply a fixation.
The Amphibians: We're still doing that thing where we don't use quotation marks? Sigh. Not much else to say: guy from the South returns to the South after being in the North. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Sexism in the Academy: I dunno, this one had me up until it exposes the shocker that in the sciences, rational and abstract approaches are valued (considered "hard science" and "gendered male" according to the author) more than approaches using feminist-critique and constructivism (considered "soft science" and "gendered female"). Kind of comparing apples to oranges there, buddy - if the men are developing a theory of why quantum waveforms collapse under observation, and women are developing a feminist criticism of the history of physics, they're not working on the same thing. Not remotely. I think it's pretty clear that sexism is rampant in academia, but the author keeps watering down his point with examples like this and statistics that show the problem is actually not that bad (e.g., the acceptance ratio for male to female grants being 15:14, or a difference of 7%).
Jackpot: Insufferable East Coast girl goes to Nevada. Not badly written or anything, I just didn't care, and I found the jumping back and forth between memories and the present at the beginning to be a failed attempt to build interest by adding apparent (but not actual) narrative complexity.
The Hidden Fortress: Does a book on Japanese culture oppress other cultures by excluding them? A pretty dumb question, but having said that, this was a nice take on academic hand-wringing and second guessing. I liked it.
Ogresse: I had to flip through this one again while writing this because I couldn't recall anything about it. Oh right! It's just a string of references to other works, with nothing of its own to say.
The Promise: When I got to this point in the issue, and read "Something extraordinary happened at the Rewriters' Workshop", I dropped the thing in exasperation. "The last three stories have been about academics, or artists engaged to academics, and now this next one is about MFAs!", I fumed. Once I started reading though, I greatly enjoyed this jab at writing programs and the rather self-absorbed people who attend them ("Of course I didn't think he was serious. Nobody wanted to read somebody else's book."). Very funny, and perhaps the most enjoyable piece of fiction I have read in an n+1.
Reviews: On Oscar Movies: I've only seen one of these films. Generally, an Oscar nomination is a mark of a movie being overly sentimental, or politically in-the-moment - basically anything other than being enjoyable. Enjoyed the reviews, though.
Reviews: On Vernacular Modernism: I kept putting this down, with its salesman phrases like "blends public and private space" and "bring the look of the streetscape inside, and a touch of dignity of the indoors to the street". Ugh. I see that sort of thing and I'm onto the next listing, as it generally means the property is over-valued. Ultimately, this seems to be a defense of the design of that awful former-Duane-Reade across from the Waverly Restaurant. Skimming the rest, there seems to be an occasional good point about contractor-driven-design and the idiocy that was brutalism, but there is just too much horse manure to wade through.
Reviews: On Paul Volcker: Makes a good case for Paul Volcker being the unwitting, or perhaps repentant, architect of modern economic disparity and the absolute power of financiers over the entire economy. Silly me, I was blaming Greenspan for his "new economy! the old rules don't apply!" and "we'll replace the bubble with a bubble!" codswallop that somehow made both home ownership and apartment rental prices go though the roof, never to come back down to affordability.
So, OK, a couple of gems in this one, amidst all the time-wasting garbage. Maybe I'll give n+1 another year, see if they snap out of it.
Ah well. Here we go.
The Intellectual Situation: Friends of the Pod: "We like the internet. And really, we'd be online all the time if it weren't for our eyes, those sensitive organs." Stop including me in this, you smartphone-addicted ass. Podcasts are as dumb as webinars and TED talks; I have no idea why otherwise intelligent people waste their time with them. No clues to this mystery were provided by the article.
The Intellectual Situation: Coalition of the Willing: You mean that Bush-era line about "a War on Terror is not about killing Muslims" was a lie? Who knew?!? I mean the guy only used the word Crusade about a hundred and fifty times.
Politics: The Pink: Perhaps the most vapid, product-driven treatment of feminism I have come across. Why is this in Politics? Leaves the impression that the guy never even bothered speaking to a woman before deciding to become one (how's that for objectification, eh?), and lumps the gender identity question in with other instances of the twenty-teens (2010-2019, for those thinking this is an ageist slam) hunger for special treament like opinion-driven diets, allergies, learning disabilities, religious beliefs. Unfortunate.
Politics: Spadework: Yeah, political activism is a tough row to hoe. To its credit, it is clear why this one is in the Politics section.
Politics: Good Night, Boa Vista: "He ordered a Heineken and drank it facing away from the bar, scanning the low-ceilinged room and the stage where a womain in a tight blue dress was crooning Nina Simone--me." This is where I stopped reading. I thought we were talking about Boa Vista, what are you doing here? Why is this in Politics? OK, here, somebody has to say it because the kids no longer read Tyler Durden: nobody gives a damn about you, or what you have to say, or what your background is. Not until they have been given a compelling reason to, at any rate.
Special Journey to Our Bottom Line: Much better than its predecessor, to which my reaction was yes, only an idiot or a scumbag or somebody with no chance of success on their own merits would join a fraternity, and they're awful people, and the only real mystery about frats is why membership in one isn't an immediate disqualification for any job that requires responsibility or personal integrity. Nice work on the origins of hazing, and its use in non-fraternity environments. Slight missed opportunity with professional hazing, most notable in health care where resident doctors work long sleep-deprived shifts, despite massive evidence documenting the poor decisions and such made by tired or sleep-deprived workers, simply because "well, I had to do it when I started, so you have to do it too." OSHA on line one! Anyways, maybe an idea for a followup, if the fraternity thing isn't simply a fixation.
The Amphibians: We're still doing that thing where we don't use quotation marks? Sigh. Not much else to say: guy from the South returns to the South after being in the North. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Sexism in the Academy: I dunno, this one had me up until it exposes the shocker that in the sciences, rational and abstract approaches are valued (considered "hard science" and "gendered male" according to the author) more than approaches using feminist-critique and constructivism (considered "soft science" and "gendered female"). Kind of comparing apples to oranges there, buddy - if the men are developing a theory of why quantum waveforms collapse under observation, and women are developing a feminist criticism of the history of physics, they're not working on the same thing. Not remotely. I think it's pretty clear that sexism is rampant in academia, but the author keeps watering down his point with examples like this and statistics that show the problem is actually not that bad (e.g., the acceptance ratio for male to female grants being 15:14, or a difference of 7%).
Jackpot: Insufferable East Coast girl goes to Nevada. Not badly written or anything, I just didn't care, and I found the jumping back and forth between memories and the present at the beginning to be a failed attempt to build interest by adding apparent (but not actual) narrative complexity.
The Hidden Fortress: Does a book on Japanese culture oppress other cultures by excluding them? A pretty dumb question, but having said that, this was a nice take on academic hand-wringing and second guessing. I liked it.
Ogresse: I had to flip through this one again while writing this because I couldn't recall anything about it. Oh right! It's just a string of references to other works, with nothing of its own to say.
The Promise: When I got to this point in the issue, and read "Something extraordinary happened at the Rewriters' Workshop", I dropped the thing in exasperation. "The last three stories have been about academics, or artists engaged to academics, and now this next one is about MFAs!", I fumed. Once I started reading though, I greatly enjoyed this jab at writing programs and the rather self-absorbed people who attend them ("Of course I didn't think he was serious. Nobody wanted to read somebody else's book."). Very funny, and perhaps the most enjoyable piece of fiction I have read in an n+1.
Reviews: On Oscar Movies: I've only seen one of these films. Generally, an Oscar nomination is a mark of a movie being overly sentimental, or politically in-the-moment - basically anything other than being enjoyable. Enjoyed the reviews, though.
Reviews: On Vernacular Modernism: I kept putting this down, with its salesman phrases like "blends public and private space" and "bring the look of the streetscape inside, and a touch of dignity of the indoors to the street". Ugh. I see that sort of thing and I'm onto the next listing, as it generally means the property is over-valued. Ultimately, this seems to be a defense of the design of that awful former-Duane-Reade across from the Waverly Restaurant. Skimming the rest, there seems to be an occasional good point about contractor-driven-design and the idiocy that was brutalism, but there is just too much horse manure to wade through.
Reviews: On Paul Volcker: Makes a good case for Paul Volcker being the unwitting, or perhaps repentant, architect of modern economic disparity and the absolute power of financiers over the entire economy. Silly me, I was blaming Greenspan for his "new economy! the old rules don't apply!" and "we'll replace the bubble with a bubble!" codswallop that somehow made both home ownership and apartment rental prices go though the roof, never to come back down to affordability.
So, OK, a couple of gems in this one, amidst all the time-wasting garbage. Maybe I'll give n+1 another year, see if they snap out of it.
October 3, 2019
As a big podcast fan the editorial was brutal but I can't say I disagree with any of the points argued. Notably stronger fiction than the previous issue, especially Elias Rodriques's piece. Andrea Long Chu, as wonderful as expected at this point (as with Hamrah, of course). Elizabeth Schambelan's piece on the history of hazing and the kind of men it makes was gripping and horrifying and fantastic. I didn't much care of Tim Barker's dry economic piece, though Thomas de Monchaux's piece on vernacular modernism was wonderful, despite my lack of knowledge on the topic.
June 17, 2019
great issue
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews