April 22nd, 2009 / 1:24 pm
I Like __ A Lot

I like Harper’s a lot

harpers_jan_2007_duckHarper’s is my favorite magazine, primarily because of their ‘index,’ ‘findings,’ and ‘readings’ sections. The editing is rather conceptual — in the way ‘objective’ journalistic facts are asserted rhetorically (even humorously) through their juxtaposition. It’s a weird mash of heady inquiry and stuffy sarcasm, and I often find myself laughing out loud.

In ‘findings,’ always the last page, new discoveries are presented and written with an aesthetic glint for the absurd evocative of the best surrealism. For example:

A Viennese chemist concluded that bellybutton fluff is a combination of clothing fibers, sweat, dust, and fat wicked into the navel by body hairs […]; Placentas were appearing in the sewers of Illinois […]; In Hawaii, a woman found a $5 bill inside a coconut […]; Americans were losing their religion.

I kind of screwed that up by picking out my favorite lines — which inadvertently implicates my point that the editing is awesome. If non-fiction is the launching pad for fiction, this is where it’s at.

The ‘readings’ section contains notable excerpts from journals, novels, essays, memoirs, speeches, etc. Even better are their transcripts of 911 calls, court hearings, phone taps of government officials and other mis-doers. There’s also press releases, angry letters, and newly found posthumous stuff from our best loved authors. Often there’s material culled from the internet (think crazy), not intended by their often less-than-stable authors to be published in Harper’s, so again, there’s this keen editorial sense to supply readers with unlikely yet fascinating text. Formally speaking, it’s fertile ground for ideas for writers — a potpourri of language’s great variance and life’s great comic-tragedies. Imagine a DF Wallace-ish piece he didn’t write.

harpers_index_hed

Lastly, the ‘index,’ a collection of statistical facts, often juxtaposed hilariously (though usually with political left-ish sentiment). Oh, why am I talking? Just see for yourself; to get you started, I’ve cued in some searches.

Index on ‘cheney’

Index on ‘iraq’

Index on ‘gay’

Index on ‘literature’

Index on ‘water’

aaaaaYou’ll quickly see from their roll-over (under?) hyperlinks how comprehensive Harper’s is. Oh yes, and there’s also the articles, fiction, and book reviews. The New Yorker is nice, but there’s no sense of ‘home base,’ like I don’t know if there’s a point. In journals like the self-enlightened Utne and Adbusters, home base is too close, like I always know what’s coming and it’s boring. With Harper’s (especially the ‘notebook’ Op-Ed-ish section) I’m always surprised by their take on things. For them, politics is not a voice in the left or right ear; it’s in the middle, where the head is.

Will it take $16.97 to prove I’m right?

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17 Comments

  1. Adam Robinson

      I like Harpers a lot too, but I was never able to keep up with all their heady articles. I just read the Index and the readings, then let it lapse. The New Yorker I can whiz through in two baths.

  2. Adam Robinson

      I like Harpers a lot too, but I was never able to keep up with all their heady articles. I just read the Index and the readings, then let it lapse. The New Yorker I can whiz through in two baths.

  3. Jimmy Chen

      with two knee-islands like zooey glass i presume

  4. Jimmy Chen

      with two knee-islands like zooey glass i presume

  5. Drew

      Mag rules. Ag Reader’s Joshua Cohen in this month, too.

  6. Drew

      Mag rules. Ag Reader’s Joshua Cohen in this month, too.

  7. pr

      I like Harpers. Lewis Lapham is a windbag though. Once, they had this really great thing in the readings section about a cannibal in India, some American dude who moved to India so he could fish dead bodies out of the Ganges and eat them.

  8. davidpeak

      Maybe it’s just me but I feel like the New Yorker has been declining in quality over the past couple years: reviewing uninteresting books and movies, writing fluff profiles. Their war coverage has always been top-flight and anytime Hendrik Hertzberg opens up “Talk of the Town” I get a little hard.

      Harpers is solid from beginning to end, though–the only magazine I subscribe too (I’d subscribe to WIRE if it weren’t so expensive).

      I don’t know. Any thoughts?

  9. davidpeak

      Maybe it’s just me but I feel like the New Yorker has been declining in quality over the past couple years: reviewing uninteresting books and movies, writing fluff profiles. Their war coverage has always been top-flight and anytime Hendrik Hertzberg opens up “Talk of the Town” I get a little hard.

      Harpers is solid from beginning to end, though–the only magazine I subscribe too (I’d subscribe to WIRE if it weren’t so expensive).

      I don’t know. Any thoughts?

  10. Drew

      Yes 100% re: New Yorker.

  11. Drew

      Yes 100% re: New Yorker.

  12. Shya

      Another thing that seems to be happening under Harper’s fiction editor Ben Metcalf, is a trend toward ever more experimental fiction. It’s always been left of NYer, of course, but over the last few years the readings section has included a bunch of great small press and/or innovative texts, and this ethos has been trickling up into the main fiction slot, too. Diane Williams a couple months ago, for instance. I’m honestly not sure whether Metcalf is solely responsible, per se, but given that he made a splash with that outrageous and quite hilarious meta-editorial Notebook piece about killing W with his bare hands (wasn’t that around the time he assumed the editorial post?), I’d say his allegiances are clear.

  13. Shya

      Another thing that seems to be happening under Harper’s fiction editor Ben Metcalf, is a trend toward ever more experimental fiction. It’s always been left of NYer, of course, but over the last few years the readings section has included a bunch of great small press and/or innovative texts, and this ethos has been trickling up into the main fiction slot, too. Diane Williams a couple months ago, for instance. I’m honestly not sure whether Metcalf is solely responsible, per se, but given that he made a splash with that outrageous and quite hilarious meta-editorial Notebook piece about killing W with his bare hands (wasn’t that around the time he assumed the editorial post?), I’d say his allegiances are clear.

  14. Matthew Simmons

      Christine Schutt this month. And Calvino.

      My favorite thing about the Harper’s subscription is that it gives you access to everything they’ve ever published online. I printed out a really nice short piece by Tom Drury yesterday.

  15. Matthew Simmons

      Christine Schutt this month. And Calvino.

      My favorite thing about the Harper’s subscription is that it gives you access to everything they’ve ever published online. I printed out a really nice short piece by Tom Drury yesterday.

  16. Shya

      Schutt’s Pulitzer runner-up for All Souls, coupled with her NBA nom for Florida, make her a seriously hot commodity.

      I read that Drury piece. Not his greatest, but not bad. Strangely perhaps, in light of this thread, a good third of his first Novel, The End of Vandalism, was published in the New Yorker.

  17. Shya

      Schutt’s Pulitzer runner-up for All Souls, coupled with her NBA nom for Florida, make her a seriously hot commodity.

      I read that Drury piece. Not his greatest, but not bad. Strangely perhaps, in light of this thread, a good third of his first Novel, The End of Vandalism, was published in the New Yorker.