Title | : | The Baffler No. 21 |
Author | : | |
Rating | : | |
ISBN | : | - |
Language | : | English |
Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
Number of Pages | : | - |
Publication | : | First published November 19, 2012 |
The issue delivers original writing on politics, culture, and media by Will Boisvert, Ana Marie Cox, Barbara Ehrenreich, Belén Fernández, Chris Lehmann, Jason Linkins, Josh MacPhee, Jim Newell, Alex Pareene, Dubravka Ugrešić, and Eugenia Williamson—plus stories, poems, and graphic art by some of the best writers, poets, and illustrators around. And finally, we bring you a previously unpublished waking dream by C. Wright Mills, “If I Were President.” Well, what would you do if you were president?
Contents:
Tower of Baffler
Only a Dream
John Summers
Salvos
To the Precinct Station: How theory met practice . . . and drove it absolutely crazy
Thomas Frank
The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism
Rick Perlstein
Can’t Stop Believing: Magic and politics
David Graeber
Come On, Feel the Buzz
Alex Pareene
High Church Hustle: CNBC’s televangelists
Jason Linkins
The Dollar Debauch
Oh, the Irony!
Chris Lehmann
Into the Infinite
The Missionary Position
Barbara Ehrenreich
Other People’s Problems
The Code
Dubravka Ugrešić
Cities of Night
Belén Fernández
Anything for the Libor Boys
Christian Lorentzen
Call of the Wild: Detroit on screen
Will Boisvert
The Rod of Correction
Who’s the Shop Steward on Your Kickstarter?
Josh MacPhee
Notes & Quotes
The Lying Game
Jim Newell
Face Value
Ana Marie Cox
Three Odd Words
Manohar Shetty
Story
Invasion of Grenada
George Singleton
Poems
Or Why the Assembly Disbanded as Before
Roberto Tejada
from California Tanka Diary
Harryette Mullen
Summit Meeting
Tony Hoagland
Equations
Kwame Davis
Song of Whiteout and Blackache
Ailish Hopper
Jeweler
Dante Micheaux
The Free World
Camille Rankine
Luke Cool Hand I’m Your Father
Fady Joudah
Trifling Bureaucracies
Credit
Carmen Giménez Smith
Obituary
The Alternative Press in Retrospect
Eugenia Williamson
Ancestors
If I Were President
C. Wright Mills
The Baffler No. 21 Reviews
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I've been reading the Baffler since the early 90s. It's quite simply one of the consistently very best periodicals for those with a tendency toward critical thinking and an intellectual but irreverent analysis of late capitalism, politics, consumerism, and the media. It's like Harper's times one hundred. It's wonderful.
That said, every time I read an issue, it angers and saddens me with almost every page, just like Harper's does but 100 times worse. There is of course the geeky enjoyment of seeing written in eloquent form the sentiments I feel every day about our screwed up system and society, but also there is a profound bitterness and despair which sometimes threaten to overwhelm me.
The last couple of issues have seen for me the latter feelings outweigh, more and more, the former. In fact for the first time I feel like maybe the Baffler is starting to go too far, in some cases. Or maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe I'm just tiring of continual, brutal attacks on not only everything that is obviously fucked up, but everything anyone holds dear or hopeful. I'm signed on for 3 more issues at least, so we'll see what happens. Perhaps I will stop reading absolutely everything in each (actually I've already started skipping most of the poetry.) Perhaps I just need The Baffler to include at least one thing per edition that's a hopeful proposal, a creation, rather than only knocking everything down. -
The usual great writing, great attitude. What a fun journal.