Harper's Editor To Blog
January 8, 2009 9:47 AM Subscribe
Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper's, is giving up his Harper's column to start a blog. There's a lot of other interesting stuff in this post. Like the fact that Lapham's Quarterly, a print literary journal Lapham founded after he left Harper's in 2006, has reached a circulation of nearly 25,000. Lapham warns the audience full of scholars against compromising their interests and simplifying their ideas for the sake of expanding readership.
I like Lapham's Quarterly very much. It's an epic feat of literary curation. With nice pictures.
posted by mert at 10:18 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by mert at 10:18 AM on January 8, 2009
I love reading Lewis Lapham, but I thought he gave up the Notebook column a few years ago (though I know he still makes guest appearances).
Looking quite forward to the blog!
posted by mrgrimm at 10:26 AM on January 8, 2009
Looking quite forward to the blog!
posted by mrgrimm at 10:26 AM on January 8, 2009
His Harper's editorials were just about the only thing that gave me a beacon of hope during the first 4 years of Bush the Younger. Unfortunately, I had to let my subscription lapse due to hard times. Didn't even know he was "former," until now. Damn. But I will bookmark his blog.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:28 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:28 AM on January 8, 2009
My understanding is Lapham still wrote the columns for Harper's, but less frequently (bimonthly?) -- and I too enjoy Lapham's Quarterly.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:32 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:32 AM on January 8, 2009
I've been a subscriber to Lapham's Quarterly since issue #1 and think it's the best thing ever. Issue #1 in particular is great (hard to find copies now), see my reviews on LibraryThing. Mr. Lapham even sent me a personal email thanking me for the review. Other than the Introduction by Lapham, most of the journal is created by young "best and brightest" types just out of the Ivy Leagues, some of whom will become well known authors eventually (one has already published a book). Each issue takes me 8-10 hours to read, it's basically a book and I treat it as such, a book on a topic (War or Love or Money etc..) by the greatest thinkers and writers.
posted by stbalbach at 10:35 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by stbalbach at 10:35 AM on January 8, 2009
By the way, in case anyone should scan these links and think, 25,000? Isn't that like 0.5 percent of People mag's circ? Well, yes, but the proper comparison, given the ultra-eggheaded and often downright esoteric nature of the content in Lapham's Quaterly, would be to an academic journal, and most of those count their circulation in hundreds.
I think this is a better vehicle for Lapham's energy than the Harper's Notebooks, which (*prepares to duck*) had kinda grown formulaic and one-note. I mean, he did a magnificent job of the whole Washington = Rome thing in his Reagan-era essays; by Bush the Younger's second term, it was like he did a find-and-replace on his lists of contemporary fall-of-empire references (change "gangsta rap" to "reality TV," exchange Ollie North for Sarah Palin) and then switched the Tacitus quote to something from Vergil and called it a day. Whereas I found the "Book of Nature" issue of the Quarterly repeatedly revelatory.
Just sayin'.
*ducks*
posted by gompa at 10:46 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
I think this is a better vehicle for Lapham's energy than the Harper's Notebooks, which (*prepares to duck*) had kinda grown formulaic and one-note. I mean, he did a magnificent job of the whole Washington = Rome thing in his Reagan-era essays; by Bush the Younger's second term, it was like he did a find-and-replace on his lists of contemporary fall-of-empire references (change "gangsta rap" to "reality TV," exchange Ollie North for Sarah Palin) and then switched the Tacitus quote to something from Vergil and called it a day. Whereas I found the "Book of Nature" issue of the Quarterly repeatedly revelatory.
Just sayin'.
*ducks*
posted by gompa at 10:46 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
He's writing a blog, presumably for pay, for the online edition of a weekly newspaper that brought the world "Sex and the City." He presumably got the job via connections from his past career as as the editor of one of America's oldest publications, Harper's, and/or a reputation earned through work done for said publication. He runs a small circulation literary journal that, someone above says, runs material presented by graduates of Northeastern elite institutions. How does this represent a big victory for new media, exactly, or the democratization of the tools of publishing? It's newish-media, at best--new media run by and produced by old media. Or something like that. All hail The Future.
(I say this as one who has subscribed to Harper's off and on over the past decade and a half.)
posted by raysmj at 10:59 AM on January 8, 2009
(I say this as one who has subscribed to Harper's off and on over the past decade and a half.)
posted by raysmj at 10:59 AM on January 8, 2009
I fucking love Harpers. That is all.
posted by chunking express at 11:02 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by chunking express at 11:02 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
I'm giving up my blog to write a column about Lewis Lapham's blog.
posted by MarshallPoe at 11:35 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by MarshallPoe at 11:35 AM on January 8, 2009
I just subscribed to Lapham's Quarterly because it is Lapham. My Harper's subscription has been spotty for several years, so obviously I'm not up to date on his current activities, but as Devil's Rancher says above, his editorials were shining moments of clear thinking during the pre- and early Bush years.
posted by Shepherd at 11:54 AM on January 8, 2009
posted by Shepherd at 11:54 AM on January 8, 2009
What with his being able to time travel and all, it should be interesting.
raysmj, where do you see that the blog will be for the Observer? I think they may just be reporting on it.
Which, by the way, is the start of proof that the New York media hasn't ignored his new magazine, as Lapham claims. It's been covered in the Observer and Bloomberg of course, and also the The New York Times, The New York Post, the Sun, the New Criterion, Mediaweek, National Review, Advertising Age, Gawker, New York Magazine, Portfolio, Radar, MediaBistro's Fishbowl NYC and is linked to by Commentary. There are probably others I can't dig up as easily. If that's being ignored, I want the name of his publicist.
posted by Jahaza at 2:57 PM on January 8, 2009
raysmj, where do you see that the blog will be for the Observer? I think they may just be reporting on it.
Which, by the way, is the start of proof that the New York media hasn't ignored his new magazine, as Lapham claims. It's been covered in the Observer and Bloomberg of course, and also the The New York Times, The New York Post, the Sun, the New Criterion, Mediaweek, National Review, Advertising Age, Gawker, New York Magazine, Portfolio, Radar, MediaBistro's Fishbowl NYC and is linked to by Commentary. There are probably others I can't dig up as easily. If that's being ignored, I want the name of his publicist.
posted by Jahaza at 2:57 PM on January 8, 2009
He runs a small circulation literary journal that, someone above says, runs material presented by graduates of Northeastern elite institutions. How does this represent a big victory for new media, exactly, or the democratization of the tools of publishing?
I think you misunderstood. There is a difference between elite and elitism. One is a fact, the other is a pejorative. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having editors from Harvard and Princeton and Yale. In fact, I prefer it, they are generally pretty smart, these are among the best schools in the world. It's a compliment to the journal to have these "best and brightest" editors. If you read the journal you'll see how far out of the mainstream it is, how different and new, and why it's "new media" (whatever that means, at least, not "Old Media").
posted by stbalbach at 5:19 PM on January 8, 2009
I think you misunderstood. There is a difference between elite and elitism. One is a fact, the other is a pejorative. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having editors from Harvard and Princeton and Yale. In fact, I prefer it, they are generally pretty smart, these are among the best schools in the world. It's a compliment to the journal to have these "best and brightest" editors. If you read the journal you'll see how far out of the mainstream it is, how different and new, and why it's "new media" (whatever that means, at least, not "Old Media").
posted by stbalbach at 5:19 PM on January 8, 2009
Okay, he's fun, interesting, and the world is better off for his quarterly.
But don't you think he might, you know, well - overwrite? Maybe just a little bit?
I quote at random from his current issue: "It not always being understood that one is expected to look but not touch, to give way to one’s passion not in the automobile but in the automobile showroom, the packaging of Eros as both a liquid and a powder (freeze-dried and chocolate-flavored, as a Valentine’s Day card and a pedophile website) has been good for business but apparently not so good for the emotional health and happiness of the dream-buying public."
posted by IndigoJones at 5:32 PM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
But don't you think he might, you know, well - overwrite? Maybe just a little bit?
I quote at random from his current issue: "It not always being understood that one is expected to look but not touch, to give way to one’s passion not in the automobile but in the automobile showroom, the packaging of Eros as both a liquid and a powder (freeze-dried and chocolate-flavored, as a Valentine’s Day card and a pedophile website) has been good for business but apparently not so good for the emotional health and happiness of the dream-buying public."
posted by IndigoJones at 5:32 PM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
It's kind of almost too bad Lapham has to shoot his mouth off like that.
As an aside, Lapham's fans and critics alike may enjoy this column that rain in The Onion a while back (even if there is a typo in the headline). Be advised that it contains language that some would find offensive.
posted by timing at 5:45 PM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
As an aside, Lapham's fans and critics alike may enjoy this column that rain in The Onion a while back (even if there is a typo in the headline). Be advised that it contains language that some would find offensive.
posted by timing at 5:45 PM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
I think you misunderstood. There is a difference between elite and elitism. One is a fact, the other is a pejorative. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having editors from Harvard and Princeton and Yale.
Huh? I was responding to the idea that this was a great victory for democratization of media to those formerly without much in the way of access to a larger audience. It's not. Not that anything wrong's with it not being as much, and I never said anything to that effect regardless. It's just more ridiculous ranting about blogs, the triumph of supposedly new, highly democratized media and how change is all around us. Maybe so, but this isn't an example of the sort being trumpeted, nor is a print magazine published by the former editor of Harper's and produced by what someone called the best-and-brightest types (a term taken from the title of a book that didn't use it in a complimentary fashion, exactly, but that's another topic for another day--incidentally, the title was taken from an article Halberstam wrote for Harper's during the tenure of the late Willie Morris; Lapham followed Morris as editor) an example of the new, the blog aside. This is old, old school stuff in a new wrapping as far as the blog is concerned, and nothing remotely New Media in the case of the literary journal.
posted by raysmj at 11:53 PM on January 8, 2009
Huh? I was responding to the idea that this was a great victory for democratization of media to those formerly without much in the way of access to a larger audience. It's not. Not that anything wrong's with it not being as much, and I never said anything to that effect regardless. It's just more ridiculous ranting about blogs, the triumph of supposedly new, highly democratized media and how change is all around us. Maybe so, but this isn't an example of the sort being trumpeted, nor is a print magazine published by the former editor of Harper's and produced by what someone called the best-and-brightest types (a term taken from the title of a book that didn't use it in a complimentary fashion, exactly, but that's another topic for another day--incidentally, the title was taken from an article Halberstam wrote for Harper's during the tenure of the late Willie Morris; Lapham followed Morris as editor) an example of the new, the blog aside. This is old, old school stuff in a new wrapping as far as the blog is concerned, and nothing remotely New Media in the case of the literary journal.
posted by raysmj at 11:53 PM on January 8, 2009
His current column in Harper's says that America has no way out of its current woes by reembracing its old-fashioned work ethic because America's virtuous history is largely imaginary and that we have always been a nation of pirates.
His thought that America's victory in the Revolutionary War depended as much on 4,000+ American privateers stealing and stopping British commerce than on its armies' guerilla tactics was quite surprising to me. I don't recall that being featured in my history textbooks but it certainly makes a lot of sense.
posted by notmtwain at 8:58 AM on January 9, 2009
His thought that America's victory in the Revolutionary War depended as much on 4,000+ American privateers stealing and stopping British commerce than on its armies' guerilla tactics was quite surprising to me. I don't recall that being featured in my history textbooks but it certainly makes a lot of sense.
posted by notmtwain at 8:58 AM on January 9, 2009
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