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Friends,

I'm a New Yorker subscriber. I got a sweet deal, something like 25 bucks for a year's worth, but that's no matter. This week's is worth buying.

First, there's this article by Malcolm Gladwell about the futility of predicting success in teachers, particularly the idea of high teacher standards. The article draws comparisons between knowing a good teacher and being able to pick which college quarterbacks will blossom into quality NFL quarterbacks (which, if you know anything about that stuff, it is just a crap shoot). That article is written how you wish every article could be. Remarkably lucid, charming, fun to read and interesting. Yeah, it's a topic I care about it, but it's just great. I understand why this Gladwell guy sells so many books now.

But, really, the real draw to this week's New Yorker is this article called "Making Toast" written by Roger Rosenblatt. It's best you seek this out without knowing too much about it, I don't want to lessen the impact, but I will say when Emily read this (I made her do it), she said "Awwww" about 4 times, laughed aloud a couple, cried once and was just weeping by the end. Maybe it's because Emily & I have case of baby fever (getting to be about that age), but this is a wonderful piece.

So those are the highlights, oh, and there's a good piece about about Richard Yates' "Revolutionary Road" from James Wood. I haven't even read the story yet (by William Trevor). It's the first story in 5 weeks that has appeared in there that I'm interested in (there's been a string of ethnic lit stories that I have a hard time getting interested in, and a Lethem epistlolary story that didn't interest me at all, something about spacemen or some shit).

Anyway, go out to buy this week's New Yorker. It's worth the five bucks.

viva el mustache