Golden Anniversary in Whichy Thicket

THE NEW YORKER is probably the only magazine in America that does not publish a masthead, the theory being that readers are supposed to know who's who on the staff. So, of course, when the magazine reached its 50th birthday with last week's issue, it did not actually announce the occasion on its cover, or anywhere else in the magazine. That sort of self-promotion is for other magazines: for The New Republic, whose cover logotype recently sported a superimposed "60th Year" in colored ink; for People, whose publisher spends a full page in the current issue celebrating the magazine's first birthday. The New Yorker does not go in for that sort of self-congratulation. It would be pretentious, and The New Yorker has always tried, solemnly if pretentiously, to avoid the appearance of pretension.

No masthead, no birthday announcement. But The New Yorker is probably right about that, readers do know what's going on. The magazine quickly sold out at all three Harvard Square newsstands last week, proof that sophisticated aesthetes saw the February 24 issue for what it was: a silent collector's item. It was fat with the work of such New Yorker deities as E.B. White, S.J. Perelman, Brendan Gill, John Updike and Pauline Kael--some of them dragged from retirement for this circumspect celebration. That was a clue, of course all of those whimsical hot shots, together in one issue, meant something special was up. There were other clues: the cover was the annual portrait of Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's elegant, top-hatted, curly-locked, nose-in-the-air, monacieclutching mascot. That told readers the magazine was celebrating some anniversary. And on page 134 there was the best clue of all, a four-line filler reeking of esoterica and tradition. It read:

THE OPTIMIST

POP A man who thinks he can make it in per.

JOHNNY: What is an optimist, Pop?

The New Yorker ran those lines in its first issue, and again on its 25th birthday. To the aesthete who reached page 134, then, it was a simple Q.E.D: this was the 50th anniversary issue.

Of course, the 50th anniversary issue didn't exactly take readers by surprise. For weeks there had been rumblings that it was coming, that this was the big year. In early February, veteran New Yorker writer Brendan Gill published a thick volume called Here at The New Yorker, a sort of semi-official biography of the magazine. Every review carefully noted that it was a 50th birthday, ode to The New Yorker, and in the reviews, the magazine enjoyed an almost embarrassing free ride. Critics tripped over each other to salute The New Yorker's prestige, to rhapsodize about its cerebral humor and genteel good taste. No doubt about it, they said. The New Yorker is it, America's most literary, most intellectual magazine. And on the same Sunday that its book review section waxed eloquent about this remarkable magazine. The New York Times's business section examined The New Yorkers's Ledgers and found--how remarkable can one magazine be?--that the magazine is not only event but rich, that it turns away advertisers for lack of space! Amazing.

But nowhere in this avalanche of praise, and nowhere in Gill's book, is there mention of an unpleasant reality, something that those lucky enough to buy the 50th anniversary issue discovered as they turned its elegant, ad-riddled pages. The New Yorker has become--maybe it's always been-boring. The "Talk of the Town" section with its plural-voiced inanities, the epic profiles of dull people, the humor pieces heavier with syrup than satire--this is what fills The New Yorker. Get rid of the cartoons--the work of Lorenz, Geo. Price, Charles Addams--and there is not much left. An occasional piece by Woody Allen. Richard Goodwin's political writing. Pauline Kael. What else?

Boring and pretentious. Where is Tom Wolfe now that we need him? Ten years ago, as The New Yorker ever so quietly celebrated its 40th birthday. Wolfe uncorked a two-part profile of the magazine that sent its editors and friends off muttering about hatchet jobs and "parajournalism." Wolfe's article ran in New York magazine, then the Sunday supplement of The New York Herald-Tribune. His first installment was headlined "Tiny Mummies! The True Story of The Ruler of 43rd Street's Land of The Walking Dead!" It was a great piece, nasty and accurate. "The Ruler of 43rd Street" was William Shawn. The New Yorker's editor, whom Wolfe called "the museum curator, the mummifier, the preserver-in-amber, the smiling embalmer" of the magazine. Wolfe later explained that he wrote the piece as outrageously as he could, trying to be as sensational as The New Yorker was staid. A sort of reverse parody. Shawn wouldn't grant an interview, or let his picture be taken (both are matters of policy with him), so Wolfe spent much of his first installment talking about the obsessive secrecy at The New Yorker's 43rd Street offices. His piece began:

Omerta! Sealed lips! Sealed lips, ladies and gentlemen! Our Thing! We are editing The New Yorker magazine...

He had great fun with all that snobbery, and in the second installment "Lost in the Whichy Thicket," he talked about The New Yorker writing style:

...piles of whichy whuh words--which, when, where, who, whether, whuggheeee, the living whichy thickets...

Terrific stuff, and The New Yorker brass reacted with the moaning outrage of water buffalos stabbed from behind. They called Wolfe an idiot. He was a lightweight, they were the venerable custodians of an institution. They wouldn't tinker with their magazine, regardless of such attacks, and in the ten years since his piece, the stodgy complacency has remained unchanged. It is splashed all over the anniversary issue. So happy 50th, New Yorker. R.I.P.