The Baffler No. 22 by John Summers

The Baffler No. 22 Reviews

• 
  Stuart

  After years of reading bits and bobs of previous Baffler issues (as well as the two collections of "salvos", Commodify your Dissent and Boob Jubilee), I finally subscribed and this is the first issue I received.
  
  Like most journals or magazines, it's difficult to assign a specific rating. Thomas Frank and David Graeber write variations on their usual themes, which are easily worth three and a half stars, while Chris Bray produces an absolutely outstanding piece on General Petraeus, worth four if not four and a half stars.
  
  Heather Havrilesky's piece on Fifty Shades of Gray is something I hope to see in every issue of the Baffler--a work(wo)man-like skewering of the Hot New Thing from an anticapitalist (or at least deeply skeptical) standpoint. Not only an entertaining and illuminating critique of pop culture treends, but perfect ammunition for being a jerk at cocktail parties.
  
  Similarly, Anne Elizabeth Moore's piece on Nicholas Kristoff and Milton Friedman is informative, incisive, bitter, sad, funny and enraging all at once. Fuck Nicholas Kristoff. Fuck Milton Friedman. Fuck market potential.
  
  The Jimmy Savile piece provides a creepy look into the truly disturbing effects of class-deference in Britain (and elsewhere) and is a good read if you can stomach reading the quoted gloating of an actual human monster every other paragraph.
  
  The piece on Sade, pornography and America was enjoyable if overly academic. The piece should've focused more on modern pornography and less on Sade's relationship with titillation and authority.
  
  The Tim O'Reilly piece: Hilarious but holy shit did it drag. I made it through because I followed tech writing closely for a decade and did lots of internet related things and think Tim O'Reilly is some sort of creepy Neal Stephenson creation that nobody has noticed isn't real. Someone less traditionally-nerdy may not find the article navigable or endurable.
  
  The poetry is like poetry in all journals, meh.
  
  The less said about the yoga article the better. Mediocre-to-good point terribly made.
  
  The design and layout are about what you'd expect, thus fantastic.
  
  I'm incredibly jazzed that The Baffler started publishing again, my subscription will be the last thing to go in the face of ever-more-consuming student loans.
  
• 
  Steev Hise

  As usual, attacking favorite sacred cows, this issue of The Baffler doesn't disappoint. Highlights are the massive and detailed critique of Tim O'Reilly by Evegeny Morozov; "Fifty Shades of Capitalism", a scathing review of the megapopular softcore romance; and the article about the Marquis de Sade and how his work has been so influential and prescient for our modern culture.
  
  One thing I don't really get is why they always have so much poetry. For a journal that's so cynical and no-nonsense, it really surprises me that they've always found plenty of column-inches for poems. Some of them are certainly above-average compared to the common fare in most zines, but I'd rather read another article brutally ripping apart "the culture of business." I also couldn't really get into either piece of short fiction in this issue. But that might be just me. I always skip the fiction in Harper's or the New Yorker too, unless it's an author I know I like, so your mileage may vary.
  
  But overall, nice work once again, Baffler.
• 
  Crystal

  My favorite new journal. I highly recommend it.