A long absence between the end of this issue and the last
one – vacation ended, back-to-school happened, and only now am I starting to
feel like my time is my own to do with as I please. To draw out the interval
between issues even further, this was the Money Issue, which is tough to get
through in the best of times – I want to learn about money and success and read
as much as possible, but sometimes it can get awfully dry. Reading about
Keynes, for example, while interesting, reminded me of required reading in Econ
110 at Queen’s University and/or Grade 10 economics. Of course I enjoyed Calvin Trillin’s coverage of the
gold-buyer wars in Toronto, having lived there for much of my life. His writing
style is engaging and funny. I could imagine my 96-year old grandmother, who
had a bad fall this spring and a long, difficult summer of recovery, enjoying
this story along with me. Her love of the New Yorker furnished us all – my father,
his brothers, me – with the kind of sense of humour that appreciates the New
Yorker (except for the more mystifying cartoons), and this article is cast from
the classic New Yorker mold.
The article about the ascent of Taylor Swift was an
entertaining exposé into the making of a country star. While it is appealing to
think of a teenager being able to become a superstar just by singing about
things that all teenage girls are preoccupied with, there was clearly much more
to her success that just that. It was refreshing to think that a superstar
could come from what seems like a normal upper-middle class family without any
trauma or drama. Good for her and for her parents.
The short bits about stealing, meanwhile served as
deliciously naughty asides to the more earnest articles, refreshingly
surprising in their candidness about what the authors had done. Interesting how
many thieves ended up being authors. Wonder if Taylor Swift ever wrote a song
about shoplifting – surely that is still a fairly common teenage pastime these
days.
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