Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2000 09:38:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org>
Subject: The Baffler (fwd)


I have been collecting this magazine since I first discovered it.  It's
really cool.

 - Jamal

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000 09:20:17 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
To: marxism-AT-lists.panix.com,
    "pen-l-AT-galaxy.csuchico.edu" <pen-l-AT-galaxy.csuchico.edu>
Cc: wedelbe-AT-gsbalum.uchicago.edu
Subject: The Baffler

"The Baffler" magazine started a few years back with an interesting but
somewhat limited perspective. It was dedicated to exposing the way in which
the "avant-garde" had been co-opted by Madison Avenue and Corporate America
in general. While it is amusing to point out the irony of William S.
Burroughs doing a Gap commercial, by the fourth or fifth iteration it grows
tiresome.

Apparently "The Baffler" has restyled itself as a general interest magazine
with a radical perspective. By the evidence of the Winter 1999, it has made
the "turn" in an extremely successful manner. There are well-written
articles on culture, economics, politics and the labor movement, including
the following:

--Daniel Lazare's skewering of Hilton Kramer's neoconservative "The New
Criterion" magazine. "For him (Kramer), modernism is an object of worship,
not a tool of experimentation; a weapon to employ against those would
probe, analyze, or otherwise demystify power."

--Dan Raeburn's study of the late Al Capp's, mutation into a right-winger
during the Vietnam war. Best known for creating the comic strip Lil' Abner,
he seemed like an unlikely cold warrior. Raeburn has some interesting
insights, however. He points out that Al Caplin (a Jew who changed his last
name) "hit on the idea of making fun of poor people" during the "very pit
of the Great Depression."

--Christian Parenti's well-researched article on the militancy of the labor
movement of the 60s and 70s, titled "Atlas Finally Shrugged."

--Marxism list lurker Paul Buhle's reminiscences of Madison, Wisconsin's
radical movement in the 1960s.

Subscription information is at http://www.thebaffler.com. Highly recommended.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/