What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.
I love Colombo’s work. It has the look of casual spontaneity, blending sketching, photography, and painting. Remember “Bar Tab”? The New Yorker discontinued it in 2018. It was one of my favorite columns. Each week it featured a bar review illustrated by a wonderful Colombo finger painting. Here’s one – from McKenna Stayner’s terrific “Bar Tab: Super Power” (February 27, 2017) – that I particularly admire:
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| Illustration by Jorge Colombo, from McKenna Stayner's "Bar Tab: Super Power" |
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