Editorial Notes from All Over
Jul. 30th, 2012 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogTwo bits from New Yorker-land to share- one pretty awesome, one just bizarre.
The current issue (available online since about this time last week) features this remarkable retrospective called Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two. Penned by the magazine's current editor David Remnick, it goes back to the early days, and for a time also parallels the Glory Days, Dave Marsh's biography of the Boss's 1980s career. I've begun reading the latter, as well, and they're fascinating; these tales go behind the music (oh God, did I just write that?) and the iconic personages of Miami Steve and C, and bring out far more of the influences on Bruce's world and of his on it. The book devotes a lot of attention to how Springsteen made the Vietnam Veterans of America his cause and singlehandedly saved them from early-80s oblivion from the indifference of the government and the established veterans' groups.
I thought about going to his show here earlier this year, the first tour without the Big Man on the sax. (His nephew Jake now tours with the band, having inherited his uncle's horn collection and his wardrobe.) Wrecking Ball has quickly receded to the Adele- and-Tony-Bennett impulse shelves of our local supermarkets, but as both of these pieces make clear, the gold and platinum counts were never what motivated this man or his band. It was, and always will be, the stories, and getting people to care about them, especially in person.
----
Editor Remnick had other duties after that article came out, which were far less pleasant: accepting the "resignation" of the magazine's science writer, Jonah Lehrer, for making up a bunch of quotes by Bob Dylan in his recent bestseller about him titled Imagine: How Creativity Works. I discovered the snafu in this piece in our local paper, but the New Yorker's own site is so far silent about the controversy, except for this back-assward acknowledgement of problems with the man, found by searching the term "Jonah Lehrer" on newyorker.com:
June 13, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Does All Wine Taste the Same?
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com. We regret the duplication of material. On May 24, 1976, the British wine merchant Steven...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 12, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Why Smart People Are Stupid
Editors’ Note: The introductory paragraphs of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal. We regret the duplication of material. Here’s a simple arithmetic...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 7, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Why We Don’t Believe In Science
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in a December, 2009, piece by Jonah Lehrer for Wired magazine. We regret the duplication of material. Last week, Gallup announced the results of their...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 5, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
The New Neuroscience of Choking
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2010, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal and in a July, 2009, article for the Guardian, which was an...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 5, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
The Virtues of Daydreaming
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com, in an August, 2008, column by Lehrer for the Boston Globe, and in his previously...
by Jonah Lehrer
So, yeah. EVERY blog piece he wrote for the magazine in June was self-plagiarised from things he'd previously written elsewhere without acknowledging it. While some would consider this a victimless crime (one riff on it likened it to "stealing food from your own refrigerator," and no, I can't cite to it because the site is down; it's linked to in the News blog piece, though).
Remnick was allegedly the leading voice in favor of retaining Lehrer's services after these acts of self-thievery were discovered, only to find out now that he made stuff up completely about Dylan. (My first thought was that he was outed because the Dylan quotes were coherent and audible, but these were reworks of published quotes from many years before.)
It is not clear whether he is related to the world's far more famous Lehrer, but if he was, it would be gruesomely ironic, given this song's place in the canon of Tom:
I'd better wrap this up. I'm on deadline for the August 6 issue, and need to draw a cartoon with a dog in a bare room with a lightbulb on a cord hanging from the ceiling.
The current issue (available online since about this time last week) features this remarkable retrospective called Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two. Penned by the magazine's current editor David Remnick, it goes back to the early days, and for a time also parallels the Glory Days, Dave Marsh's biography of the Boss's 1980s career. I've begun reading the latter, as well, and they're fascinating; these tales go behind the music (oh God, did I just write that?) and the iconic personages of Miami Steve and C, and bring out far more of the influences on Bruce's world and of his on it. The book devotes a lot of attention to how Springsteen made the Vietnam Veterans of America his cause and singlehandedly saved them from early-80s oblivion from the indifference of the government and the established veterans' groups.
I thought about going to his show here earlier this year, the first tour without the Big Man on the sax. (His nephew Jake now tours with the band, having inherited his uncle's horn collection and his wardrobe.) Wrecking Ball has quickly receded to the Adele- and-Tony-Bennett impulse shelves of our local supermarkets, but as both of these pieces make clear, the gold and platinum counts were never what motivated this man or his band. It was, and always will be, the stories, and getting people to care about them, especially in person.
----
Editor Remnick had other duties after that article came out, which were far less pleasant: accepting the "resignation" of the magazine's science writer, Jonah Lehrer, for making up a bunch of quotes by Bob Dylan in his recent bestseller about him titled Imagine: How Creativity Works. I discovered the snafu in this piece in our local paper, but the New Yorker's own site is so far silent about the controversy, except for this back-assward acknowledgement of problems with the man, found by searching the term "Jonah Lehrer" on newyorker.com:
June 13, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Does All Wine Taste the Same?
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com. We regret the duplication of material. On May 24, 1976, the British wine merchant Steven...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 12, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Why Smart People Are Stupid
Editors’ Note: The introductory paragraphs of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal. We regret the duplication of material. Here’s a simple arithmetic...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 7, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
Why We Don’t Believe In Science
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in a December, 2009, piece by Jonah Lehrer for Wired magazine. We regret the duplication of material. Last week, Gallup announced the results of their...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 5, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
The New Neuroscience of Choking
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2010, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal and in a July, 2009, article for the Guardian, which was an...
by Jonah Lehrer
June 5, 2012
Blog: Frontal Cortex
The Virtues of Daydreaming
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com, in an August, 2008, column by Lehrer for the Boston Globe, and in his previously...
by Jonah Lehrer
So, yeah. EVERY blog piece he wrote for the magazine in June was self-plagiarised from things he'd previously written elsewhere without acknowledging it. While some would consider this a victimless crime (one riff on it likened it to "stealing food from your own refrigerator," and no, I can't cite to it because the site is down; it's linked to in the News blog piece, though).
Remnick was allegedly the leading voice in favor of retaining Lehrer's services after these acts of self-thievery were discovered, only to find out now that he made stuff up completely about Dylan. (My first thought was that he was outed because the Dylan quotes were coherent and audible, but these were reworks of published quotes from many years before.)
It is not clear whether he is related to the world's far more famous Lehrer, but if he was, it would be gruesomely ironic, given this song's place in the canon of Tom:
I'd better wrap this up. I'm on deadline for the August 6 issue, and need to draw a cartoon with a dog in a bare room with a lightbulb on a cord hanging from the ceiling.
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Date: 2012-07-31 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-31 11:29 am (UTC)