When nostalgia sufferers start on the topic of How Much Better Things Used To Be, I am most likely to smile and nod blandly while scanning the room for an avenue of escape, possibly an open window that my body might easily pass through. Though I admit that, yes, occasionally I feel we are headed for the New Dark Ages—dark, that is, except for the faint blue glow of a billion smartphones. And I do sometimes pine for the days of Harold Ross' New Yorker, which came out once a week, full of surprise and delight, featuring the greatest writers who ever wrote in American English.
I have at hand a rather battered copy of The New Yorker for March 4, 1944. Credited writers include S.J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker, Shirley Jackson, Wolcott Gibbs, and Edmund Wilson. (Presumably E.B. White and James Thurber were in the office on West 43rd St., contributing uncredited “Talk” pieces.) It's almost impossible for me to fathom all that shimmering literary brilliance in one place at the same time. What wouldn't I give to spend half an hour chatting with any of those giants?
I have to shake myself out of my anachronalgic stupor. (Anachronalgic, adj.: Characterized by a wistful longing for a past one could not possibly have experienced.) Yes, Ross and his crew managed to publish weekly masterpieces with no help but H.W. Fowler's Modern English Usage and a linotype machine. But they appear to tow
