November 23, 2016

Oh, New Yorker....

In the sidebar at The New Yorker at a link I opened yesterday:



Maybe this sort of thing is getting you a lot of clicks, but have some self respect and show a little depth for those of us who are not eating up junk food like this.

From the article at that link, "THE MOON JUICE GOSPEL OF SELF":
“There is a cosmic calling and powerful movement here to push us forward as a race. . . . That’s what Moon Juice really is—not just a product or a place but rather a healing force, an etheric potion, and a cosmic beacon for the evolutionary movement of seeking beauty, happiness, and longevity.”

Not long after I read that passage, it became clear that Donald Trump would win the Presidency. Coastal élites went to bed, resigned. I kept reading: about the restorative powers of mesquite and reishi, and the benefits of coconut fat. I have never felt so radiantly out of touch with America... What place would Green Shakes, “moon-dusted” with cordyceps, have in the new America?...

I think with shame of myself a few weeks back, biking home from yoga, eleven-dollar juice in the basket, willfully editing out the Trump sign on my neighbor’s lawn. As the election has taught us, personal bliss does not trickle down; it’s a pool we gaze into till we drown.
What place do New Yorker readers have "in the new America"? If only the election had gone the other way, you could have kept searching for your own personal bliss in the lightweight nonsense of food sprinkles? You could have still kept smug over ripping out other people's lawn signs? At least you admit you have a problem, and thank Trump for that.

ADDED: The author of the quoted New Yorker article is Dana Goodyear, but the author of the quote within the quote, the owner of Moon Juice, is Amanda Chantal Bacon. I'm amused that the line "a cosmic beacon for the evolutionary movement of seeking beauty, happiness, and longevity" was written by someone named Bacon. From Bacon to beacon, and maybe we need to get back from beacon to bacon.

57 comments:

Will Cate said...

#5 on that list is so dumb it makes my hair hurt.

Darrell said...

Why won't the New Yorker go out of business?

Quaestor said...

The beacon to bacon I perceive with my nose.

Michael K said...

This leftist nonsense makes me think of Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death."

The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade.


Yes, the Hillary campaign was certainly a voluptuous scene.

Owen said...

"it’s a pool we gaze into till we drown."

This reads like a direct quote from Narcissus himself, overlaid with a sloppy theft from T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" ("till human voices wake us, and we drown."

So, completely characteristic of the New Yorker.

mezzrow said...

Wherever there is bacon, there am I.

Quaestor said...

I'm loving this new sage green font color. Very tranquil. Maybe the new color will help the "Not My President" butt-hurts will un-trigger their tantrums, realize the binkie is gone for at least the foreseeable, and STFU.

Quaestor said...

LOL! The Red Death. The Red Death will crash your party sooner or later.

buwaya said...

Coconut fat, or the whole coconut really, is quite a useful thing. Much maligned these days. So not entirely silly. Granted, if you want some coconut oil in your diet, or to apply to your body otherwise, there are much cheaper ways to get it. There are whole industries devoted to getting it to you in mass quantities, not in little expensive boutiques.

Speaking as a descendant of coconut plantation owners, long since land-reformed, and others variously involved in coconut processing and copra trading.

Brando said...

They should be thrilled, all this hysteria is likely to mean more page counts and stuff. The Bush years made MSNBC and DailyKos, I'm sure the Trump years will make stars out of plenty of leftists we haven't heard of yet.

Wince said...

"The author of the quoted New Yorker article is Dana Goodyear..."

It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.

Goodyear?

No, the worst
.

mikee said...

The owner of Moon Juice just got some really nice advertising on your blog, and in the New Yorker Magazine. Product placement in collusion with the writer, or just stupidity on the writer's part in so nicely placing a product in the article without realizing it?

The New Yorker: Now with more advertisements, inside the articles!

mikee said...

The owner of Moon Juice just got some really nice advertising on your blog, and in the New Yorker Magazine. Product placement in collusion with the writer, or just stupidity on the writer's part in so nicely placing a product in the article without realizing it?

The New Yorker: Now with more advertisements, inside the articles!

California Snow said...

I am a little confused by the use of the tag Mormons on the article for such a passing reference to the Fundamentalist church of Warren Jeffs not the mainstream church.

As one who is married to a woman who only insists on organic everything with all sorts of odd grains and eating gluten free I can attest eating this way is EXPENSIVE.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I'm full of dumb, too.

It's just that it's a different kind of dumb.

Laslo Spatula said...

"...the restorative powers of mesquite and reishi, and the benefits of coconut fat..."

New Yorker people: when I can't tell if they are talking about items to be used as a food or as an enema...

I am Laslo.

buwaya said...

There used to be a certain attraction of exoticism to commodities like coconut oil, a romance. This was used sometimes in early advertising by the likes of Lever Brothers. You know, the paradisiacal South Seas and palm trees and dusky native maidens with gorgeous hair.

All true actually, more or less, the reality really isnt that far from the romantic fantasy.

So I cant blame the huckster-lady too much, she sells the sizzle as best she can. The real problem is the sort of sizzle deemed effective. I have seen paradise, of a sort; the stuff she sells isnt it.

Fernandinande said...

It contains more than 25 grams of plant protein, thanks to vanilla mushroom protein...

Mushrooms are not plants.

Brando said...

"It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.

Goodyear?

No, the worst."

What I like about that exchange is that hearing about someone dying in a tragic blimp accident, the listener's one question--not how did it happen, or did they suffer, was "which company's blimp was it?" Sort of like hearing someone's wife died in a car accident and asking "oh my, was it a Chevy?"

Unknown said...

Damn, I bet Sketchy Guy Who Works in the Adult Bookstore can point you to a special alcove devoted to "Moon Juice Drinking".

buwaya said...

The US is the Saudi Arabia of plant protein, soybeans.
You grow and sell ridiculous amounts.
And then some people sell it back to you, sometimes at ridiculous prices.
Tofu for instance.

Ann Althouse said...

"Product placement in collusion with the writer, or just stupidity on the writer's part in so nicely placing a product in the article without realizing it?"

It's some kind of Google algorithm. But I'm not getting a Moon Juice ad. I'm getting "Planned Parenthood Needs You Now." I'd like to see the Moon Juice ad. I'm sure it's pretty.

Ann Althouse said...

"I am a little confused by the use of the tag Mormons on the article for such a passing reference to the Fundamentalist church of Warren Jeffs not the mainstream church."

Oh, there was something in the quote that I took out. Where the ellipsis is in the second sentence, there was this, which you actually might want to talk about:

" All of a sudden, the book began to seem like an artifact from an obscure sect—on par with the spiral-bound Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints book of recipes (refrigerator ice cream, quick pinto-bean fudge) that I once bought while driving through Colorado City, another document of a people bypassed by history."

Wilbur said...

Moo Juice? I remember that from the sixties, some powder you mixed with milk to produce an instant milk shake.

It was about as crappy as Funny Face.

Big Mike said...

I am still enjoying the way Toni Morrison equates "Making America Great Again" with "Making America White Again." In her universe whiteness == greatness. And she should know.

Brando said...

"I am still enjoying the way Toni Morrison equates "Making America Great Again" with "Making America White Again." In her universe whiteness == greatness. And she should know."

Wasn't she the one who said Bill Clinton was our first black president? If so I don't think we can give much weight to her thoughts on race. Maybe the "white" in "making America white again" means about as much as the "black" in "first black president Clinton".

PB said...

Self-respect? You are asking them to reject their religion.

Big Mike said...

BTW, could someone tell me what a "Sandy Hook denier" is so that I don't have to read the stinking article* to find out? Thx.

____________________

* Must be stinking if its in the New Yorker

buwaya said...

I will be convinced your culture is recovering and your country is on the mend when Toni Morrison is forgotten and her works removed from school curriculums. That is my metric.

That eventuality doesnt seem likely, at all.

Roger Sweeny said...

willfully editing out the Trump sign on my neighbor’s lawn.

I don't think she was talking about "ripping out other people's lawn signs." I think she was saying that she was pretending that it wasn't there, that she was "willfully" denying reality, choosing to think that no people around her could actually prefer Trump.

Which could be a good thing if she is now willing to face reality. Or a bad thing if she still doesn't want those kind of people living near her--or marrying her sister.

CWJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
CWJ said...

Brando,

Perhaps she effectively means "white" more as a mindset rather than a color or race - as in "acting white." For her it may be a pejoritave. For many others it probably means, yeah we could use a bit more of that these days.

RMc said...

Well, David Remnick is cashing some nice paychecks, so there's that.

Chuck said...

Dear Professor Atlhouse;

There is a technical explanation for what you see, in addition to the obvious explanation, which is that The New Yorker is the most virulently anti-Trump publication in the entire first tier of U.S. print media.

The first post-election edition of the magazine featured about a dozen short musings by some of the magazine's leading staff writers, plus a couple of luminaries like Toni Morrison. They were all highly readable based on length, and in fact they were presented in the print edition as all part of the same heading. It was a bit of a natural, for them to go to the top of the "most read" list at NewYorker.com

I can't say that I dispute any particular point you may be making; I just think that it seems to be a rather obvious one.

tcrosse said...

Why won't the New Yorker go out of business?

Maybe because Althouse reads it. I read it for the cartoons, in the same way I used to read Playboy for the articles.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

The New Yorker has been a great magazine - particularly needed at the time when magazines are dying off - but Remnick has gone full reactionary liberal and he's taking it in a direction that will lead to its death. The fawning interview with Obama - thrown sniffing to use an ugly metaphor - was really embarrassing.

That'll be a loss because it used to be a pretty sensible liberal/left of center publication. Long form journalism is still needed.

Joanne Jacobs said...

Sandy Hook deniers believe the massacre of first graders never occurred. Instead, it was a conspiracy to promote gun control. They accuse the grieving parents of being hired actors pretending to mourn children who never existed. In short, they are deeply, profoundly nuts.

Michael K said...

"Sandy Hook deniers believe the massacre of first graders never occurred. "

Thanks. I've never heard of that group, if it exists. Is there evidence of such a group or is it another imagination run rampant?

Steve M. Galbraith said...

"In short, they are deeply, profoundly nuts. "

That's an understatement.

I really wonder whether these people believe this nonsense - the Alex Jones stuff; or whether they just get some sort of enjoyment by saying outrageous things? Sort of "epater la bourgeoisie"?



damikesc said...

"Why won't Trump denounce Sandy Hook deniers"?

Is there evidence he knows they exist? I didn't. And is it his job to denounce every whackjob group in the world? Why was no other President expected to denounce groups he wasn't a part of, that were so small that few know they exist, and that have no apparent ties to him whatsoever?

damikesc said...

"It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.

Goodyear?

No, the worst."

What I like about that exchange is that hearing about someone dying in a tragic blimp accident, the listener's one question--not how did it happen, or did they suffer, was "which company's blimp was it?" Sort of like hearing someone's wife died in a car accident and asking "oh my, was it a Chevy?"


The Naked Gun might be my favorite movie series of all time --- and ironically had half as many movies as aired TV episodes. But your comment made me chuckle as I never even thought of that. Just thought it was a goofy line.

damikesc said...

Maybe because Althouse reads it. I read it for the cartoons, in the same way I used to read Playboy for the articles.

The New Yorker has spectacular but fake tits?

I may need to read it now...

Brando said...

"Perhaps she effectively means "white" more as a mindset rather than a color or race - as in "acting white." For her it may be a pejoritave. For many others it probably means, yeah we could use a bit more of that these days."

I think that's it--by the same token Bill Clinton was "black" (which, considering her criteria--single mother, fried food, poor background--is trucking in negative stereotypes) she must mean "white" as in "people who think and act white are going to love this new era". Which I would take as a positive, if "white" is defined culturally and not racially. Who wouldn't?

"The Naked Gun might be my favorite movie series of all time --- and ironically had half as many movies as aired TV episodes. But your comment made me chuckle as I never even thought of that. Just thought it was a goofy line."

The freeze frames at the end of Police Squad (where someone was always moving behind the frozen actors) always got me. That, and "we'd have been here sooner, but your husband wasn't dead then."

Achilles said...

Right now the big thing going around in the globalist circles is "Fake News." Are they talking about CNN, New Yorker, NYT etc? Or Yahoo? No. She is talking about "populist" bot driven little guys.

Go to the comments on that article too. The worm has turned. This is going to be a glorious year.

And Zuckerberg just sold Facebook out to the Chicoms agreeing to censor everything they want after he went after "fake news sites" that are undermining his agenda. Facebook will suffer in the medium term for turning fascist. The left is going to wither and die until it turns from this path.

Achilles said...

buwaya puti said...
I will be convinced your culture is recovering and your country is on the mend when Toni Morrison is forgotten and her works removed from school curriculums. That is my metric.

That eventuality doesnt seem likely, at all.


Soon parents will choose how their kids are educated. The internet will take over ducation one way or another. It is too cheap and effective not to.

Just like the "fake news" sites are killing the statist media now the internet will kill our fascist education system.

Ann is retiring just in time. Those pensions you have racked up wont be good for more than a decade.

Qwinn said...

Try to imagine the media asking Obama to denounce Bill Ayers, someone he actually had significant direct ties to rather than just (supposedly) being in the same half of the political spectrum.

Yeah, I can't either.

Will Cate said...

tcrosse said

"I read it for the cartoons"

I've long thought that's what keeps them in business.

robother said...

Remnick is bidding fair to do more damage to The New Yorker than TIna Brown.

Brando said...

"Try to imagine the media asking Obama to denounce Bill Ayers, someone he actually had significant direct ties to rather than just (supposedly) being in the same half of the political spectrum."

I like the "look who he hasn't denounced today!" running series. Was he specifically asked about them, and he refused to call them out?

I'd have liked to hear Al Sharpton denounced, but that guy actually got invited to the White House.

Clyde said...

He's going to be living in their heads rent-free for the next four years. Maybe eight, although I think at his age, four years might be all that he'll want. That job ages people in dog-years, and he's already 70.

Real American said...

I thought Sandy Hook deniers were those that believed more gun control would have stopped the shooting.

Brando said...

"I thought Sandy Hook deniers were those that believed more gun control would have stopped the shooting."

Of course it would have! Imagine if that crazy guy who took his mom's rifle that she bought legally after passing background checks knew that the U.S. had just closed the gun show loophole. It would have convinced him not to go crazy and shoot up a bunch of kids. Because gun show loophole. Do I have to draw you a map?

When I stop and think of all those lives that would have been saved if we closed the gun show loophole....

Michael K said...

"Try to imagine the media asking Obama to denounce Bill Ayers, "

It's interesting that the really dangerous terrorist in that couple is Bernardine Dohrn, the wife. Read Fred Siegel's book, The Revolt Against the Masses, which is a history of the leftist terrorism in the 60s. Dohrn was far more powerful than he was. He was just a rich kid who played at terrorism. He's a believer but Dorhn ruled a lot of those groups by who she was fucking.

She was beautiful but as cold as ice, similar to Hillary. If Hillary had not found Bill, she might have ended up with the The Symbionese Liberation Army, although that was a west coast bunch.

Hillary had more connection with the FALN and those terrorists.

By 1999, the grim total of the FALN and Machetero attacks stood at 13 dead and dozens wounded. When Bill Clinton offered the pardons to Ojeda-Rios and Gerena's compatriots that same year, he was forced by Justice Department rules to add one condition. The 16 terrorists would have to renounce violence before they could be set free. All 16 refused to do so.

Hillary Clinton, in the middle of her race for the Senate, at first publicly supported the pardons. But after more than three weeks of the terrorists refusing to renounce violence, the public outcry forced Hillary to change her position. The families and survivors of the FALN's attacks, plus numerous law enforcement officials and the Congress joined in the outrage.


They eventually faked it and Bill pardoned them to help Hillary's campaign for the Senate. That was a more likely group for her to join if she had not met Bill.

Jupiter said...

What place do New Yorker readers have "in the new America"?

We're constructing camps for them right now!

Chuck said...

robother said...
Remnick is bidding fair to do more damage to The New Yorker than TIna Brown.


Oh, Mission Accomplished. Tina Brown is looking good, compared to Remnick's partisan harping.

SukieTawdry said...

I never heard of "Sandy Hook deniers" so I looked it up. Imagine my surprise to see the name Orly Taitz pop up: Was Adam Lanza drugged and hypnotised by his handlers to make him into a killing machine as an excuse as the regime is itching to take all means of self defense from the populace before the economic collapse?

Why would The New Yorker even take notice of a fringe group of kooks much less demand that Donald Trump (or anyone one else for that matter) denounce them? What are they putting in the water cooler over there?? And to think I was once a subscriber.

SukieTawdry said...

Moo Juice? I remember that from the sixties, some powder you mixed with milk to produce an instant milk shake.

Oh, I remember that. It was awful.