This is the first paragraph of the letter the New Yorker sent to my house telling (not asking) me that they were renewing my subscription for another year at 120 dollars a pop: (note the punctuation) Dear Adrian McKinty:
Brilliant, eh? The letter is signed by "Michael Spencer, for the New Yorker". I looked up "Michael Spencer" on Google and I discovered that he is a billionaire British businessman born in Kuala Lumpur, the owner of a spread betting firm (not sure what that is) called City Index and the former chairman of the Conservative Party. This can't be the same man, I thought, until I read that he went to Corpus Christi College Oxford where apparently anybody including Ed and David Miliband can get in with piss poor A level results as long as they are connected. Maybe explains his strange choices of grammar? Or perhaps he could be the Michael Spencer who is a professional surfer from Australia. This Michael Spencer lists his favourite word as "bob" and his least favourite word also as "bob". Hmmm. That could be our man too.
...
The New Yorker letter goes on to explain that I will be charged for another year "shortly" unless I "call the Customer Service Department at any time." (My italics.) I immediately called the CSD and after being informed that my call was going to cost a fortune because it was only toll free if you called from the US, I was then informed that the Customer Service Centre was closed. I called again an hour later and got the same magilla. I guess I'll keep calling until I get through because there's no way on God's green Earth I will ever get the New Yorker again. Most months I got two issues and they would come on the same day. Once six weeks went by without an issue and then I got three together. And like a reversal of that old Woody Allen joke in Annie Hall: these portions were small and inconsistent and the filling was terrible. Oh my God those articles, even the rare good ones (on Scientology for example) were easily 5-10,000 words too long. And the bad ones...Christ: long, ponderous, pointless and a little bit bonkers. Reading them is like actually listening to that twitchy guy on the 13 hour plane flight who arrives late and is wearing adult retainers and a big University of Oklahoma ring and ALWAYS sits next to you.
...I appreciate that like Saturday Night Live, the New Yorker has never been as good as people remember it being, but has it been this bad? Special venom most go to the editor who still thinks that Woody Allen is a funny prose writer and accepts every piece he submits. Even Woody Allen hates the comedy in the New Yorker. This editor also publishes a lot of "humour" pieces by Nora Ephron and Steve Martin and sometimes by writers under the age of 60.
...
Malcolm Gladwell made his appearance in several issues over the year telling us the bleedin obvious. There were articles about "fashion icons" and actors and of course I mustn't forget the New Yorker's pop music critic Sasha Frere Jones with her insightful looks at PJ Harvey and Bjork and Radiohead and other up and coming acts from 1990.
If I can't get through to Michael Spencer I am going to write him a letter:
Thank you for your letter. hope the surfing/hedge fund business is going well. Chicken and chiquitas. Prisons and pensions. Non sequitors and legal executors.
Please cancel my subscription to the New Yorker. I can in fact imagine better "conversations," than the ones I had the honour to eavesdrop on in the New Yorker. Most people's imaginations will stretch that far, unless, I suppose, you are in duress in a doctor's waiting room, are an in-bred nincompoop from the Upper East Side or Gwyneth Paltrow.
Adrian McKinty
21 comments:
I got the very same letter. My wife brought me a years subscription for my birthday. As it was coming to the end of the run I called the number to cancel but just couldn't get through. So, I went to the web page and after searching for a while (they don't make it easy. Funny that...) I found a tiny section that allows you to cancel.
I too thought it was very hit and miss, but I did discovered writers like Tom McGuane and Sam Lipsyte.Which was a good thing. Some of the short stories were great, too.
I've never been the biggest fan of the New Yorker, though I read it at work now and then to pass the time.
What a schlocky letter though. How arrogant to just assume your continued interest.
However, I did like the last issue I read for the story from the ground in Libya, and the tactic for changing death penalty sentences to life in prison in, of all the unlikely places, Texas.
My experience of subscribing is that when you do, it's nothing but crap, but right after you end it, they start up with some interesting stuff.
It's kind of like cable that way.
The billing is like cable, too, Seana. It was big news in Canada a few years ago and led to legislation against negative option billing.
I have to say I am really kind of surprised that the New Yorker would stoop to it. But it does seem to be a trend here.
120 dollars seems like an awful lot for a magazine subscription anyway.
Re Tree Life of Life,
It just won the Palme D'Or.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/movies/cannes-gives-top-prize-to-the-tree-of-life.html
A tree to a tree.
Anon
Not sure if you'll be interested in this Adrian but if you live in Scotlans, as I do, we now know that the superinjunction was brought by Ryan Giggs against Imogen Thomas. They published his picture in the Sunday Herald.
Roymond
I didnt get any issues containing articles by Tom McGuane. They must have been among the 30% or so that never showed up. I would really appreciate a link to that cancel online thing if you've got the time.
Seana
Schlocky, badly edited, badly copyedited. It doesnt bode well for their standards.
John
It should be illegal. I got the New Yorker through an Amazon offer for I think 49 dollars which is reasonable but 120 is not.
Anon
That was great news about Tree of Life but I could see it coming from that jury. Anyway I'm glad it looks good and now I know it will be distributed in Melbourne.
I knew about Ryan Giggs already and Euan McGregor and Andrew Marr and Jeremy Clarkson (that one was false). The idea that the high court in London can impose a gagging order on the whole world is ludicrous.
For all of your super-injunction needs:
http://super-injunction.blogspot.com/
And I thought things were going south here...
Click on "Subscription Services" on their website - it's the first sub-section written in light grey under the main body of text. You'll have to enter your password or account code. From there you should be able to see the section where you can cancel. Hope that's helpful.
I didn't get all of my issues either...
Rob, Seana
They have to change the law on super injunctions, its completely absurd in this day and age.
Roymonde
I'm going to try that right now.
I was surprised when I read in an earlier post that you subscribed to the "New Yorker".
I've tried to read it a few times over the years and always came to the conclusion that it was mostly crap.
sjdevine
(sorry, I've lost my google password at this computer)
I have never even heard of a super injunction before yesterday.
Seana
Thats because the US has this little thing called the First Amendment and the UK doesnt.
So we could just say whatever over here and spread it around the world anyway.
Seana: libel laws in the UK mean that if you say something on the internet it is taken as being published in the UK (or at least available for people in the UK to read) so you can be sued in the British Courts for saying something anywhere in the world.
There is some movement against these laws, especially the Nightingale Collaboration. The
Simon Singh case is a terrific example that covers it
That letter from the New Yorker is outrageous. One is indentured to them if one ever buys a subscription.
Corporate arrogance obviously knows no bounds. This could happen with one's tv cable service or any subscription to anything.
I went through this for months trying to disconnect my elderly parent's cable service, practically had to get a court order to end it. Bills kept coming even though she hadn't turned on her tv for months.
And it would keep coming no matter what. No way to end it, until a concerted campaign for weeks finally got the service cancelled. It took a letter sent certified mail and several calls.
I hope you can get out from under the $120 ransom for a publication you don't even want.
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