showgirls, and Saul Steinberg, who made surreal black-and-white rainbows, and William Steig, whose trembly pencil seemed never to want to leave the paper, and George Booth, master of quizzically frowning brindle-eyed dogs. There were storytellers, too—J. D. Salinger, John Cheever, Updike, William Trevor, Alice Munro, and John O’Hara, who in his prime could tell a tight, bitter tale of private woe in 1,800 words. A magazine that has been around for this long pulls its own history behind it like a battered Brio train. At the front is David Remnick, gently drawing it forward, helping it over the next little blond wooden hill, hoping that the shiny domelike magnets don’t detach.
I was in the New Yorker offices, on the twentieth glass-sheathed floor of the Condé Nast building in Times Square, one Friday in April. The week’s issue had just closed, and the place was quiet. People stared at their screens, catching up with all the things they had put off during the recent editorial flurry. Remnick was having his picture taken, so I said hello to Pam McCarthy, the magazine’s deputy editor, whose office is next to Remnick’s. What is he like to work with? I asked her.
“He’s easygoing, and he’s not,” said McCarthy. “He likes to keep his finger on every detail. He really pushes until it’s right. He’s a great floorwalker. He circles the floor several times a day and talks to people.”
Just then Remnick came in with Alexa Cassanos, the director of publicity, and the four of us talked about earphones and earplugs. “In Maine why would you need earplugs?”Remnick asked me. (I live in Maine.) “When I’m out of the city,” he continued, “I’m up till four in the morning because it’s so damned quiet. I think somebody’s going to jump in and strangle me. It’s not relaxing.”
We walked a few blocks to a seafood restaurant, Esca, on Forty-third Street, where Remnick goes once in a while. Mark Singer, one of the magazine’s best-known writers of profiles, wrote a piece on Esca’s owner, Dave Pasternack, who does his own fishing around Long Island and knows how to cut mahi-mahi into raw tidbits.
Pasternack himself came by the table soon after we’d sat down and told us that he’d opened up a new business—a seafood concession in center field of the Mets’ baseball stadium, where he sells crabcakes, fish sandwiches, lobster rolls, and chowders. Jeff Wilpon, the general manager of the Mets, lost a lot of money several years ago to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, but, according to Pasternack, Wilpon was upbeat about his life. “I was at a party the other day,” Pasternack said, “and I go, ‘How’re you doing?’ Wilpon goes, ‘I was rich and miserable and now I’m poor and happy.’ ”
“Are you sure about the latter?” asked Remnick.
Suddenly I had a strange and not unpleasant sensation. I’d entered the printed pages of The New Yorker; I was physically inhabiting a Mark Singer profile, as edited by David Remnick.
Pasternack said, of Wilpon, “This is a guy who came to me to ask if I wanted to do a concession. I said, ‘I’ll make a couple of things for you.’ I bring a lobster roll down—beautiful lobster roll, toasted bun, nice and buttery the way it’s supposed to be. He looks at me and he says, ‘I don’t like toast.’ All I could think about is: when you’re born they give you toast, and on your deathbed they give you toast. Who inthis world doesn’t like toast? When you’re sick they give you toast!”
“I get cartoons about toast every week,” said Remnick.
“Yeah?” said Pasternack.
“I got a cartoon,” said Remnick, “it was a toaster the size of the restaurant.” He turned to me. “Do you waste your time watching baseball?”
I said no, not really, I’m out of it.
Remnick said, “I’m sure that when I’m on my deathbed . . .”
“You’re going to have toast,” said Pasternack, with finality. Then he went away to fillet more fish.
I asked
I was in the New Yorker offices, on the twentieth glass-sheathed floor of the Condé Nast building in Times Square, one Friday in April. The week’s issue had just closed, and the place was quiet. People stared at their screens, catching up with all the things they had put off during the recent editorial flurry. Remnick was having his picture taken, so I said hello to Pam McCarthy, the magazine’s deputy editor, whose office is next to Remnick’s. What is he like to work with? I asked her.
“He’s easygoing, and he’s not,” said McCarthy. “He likes to keep his finger on every detail. He really pushes until it’s right. He’s a great floorwalker. He circles the floor several times a day and talks to people.”
Just then Remnick came in with Alexa Cassanos, the director of publicity, and the four of us talked about earphones and earplugs. “In Maine why would you need earplugs?”Remnick asked me. (I live in Maine.) “When I’m out of the city,” he continued, “I’m up till four in the morning because it’s so damned quiet. I think somebody’s going to jump in and strangle me. It’s not relaxing.”
We walked a few blocks to a seafood restaurant, Esca, on Forty-third Street, where Remnick goes once in a while. Mark Singer, one of the magazine’s best-known writers of profiles, wrote a piece on Esca’s owner, Dave Pasternack, who does his own fishing around Long Island and knows how to cut mahi-mahi into raw tidbits.
Pasternack himself came by the table soon after we’d sat down and told us that he’d opened up a new business—a seafood concession in center field of the Mets’ baseball stadium, where he sells crabcakes, fish sandwiches, lobster rolls, and chowders. Jeff Wilpon, the general manager of the Mets, lost a lot of money several years ago to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, but, according to Pasternack, Wilpon was upbeat about his life. “I was at a party the other day,” Pasternack said, “and I go, ‘How’re you doing?’ Wilpon goes, ‘I was rich and miserable and now I’m poor and happy.’ ”
“Are you sure about the latter?” asked Remnick.
Suddenly I had a strange and not unpleasant sensation. I’d entered the printed pages of The New Yorker; I was physically inhabiting a Mark Singer profile, as edited by David Remnick.
Pasternack said, of Wilpon, “This is a guy who came to me to ask if I wanted to do a concession. I said, ‘I’ll make a couple of things for you.’ I bring a lobster roll down—beautiful lobster roll, toasted bun, nice and buttery the way it’s supposed to be. He looks at me and he says, ‘I don’t like toast.’ All I could think about is: when you’re born they give you toast, and on your deathbed they give you toast. Who inthis world doesn’t like toast? When you’re sick they give you toast!”
“I get cartoons about toast every week,” said Remnick.
“Yeah?” said Pasternack.
“I got a cartoon,” said Remnick, “it was a toaster the size of the restaurant.” He turned to me. “Do you waste your time watching baseball?”
I said no, not really, I’m out of it.
Remnick said, “I’m sure that when I’m on my deathbed . . .”
“You’re going to have toast,” said Pasternack, with finality. Then he went away to fillet more fish.
I asked
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