11 Comments
Jul 20Liked by Daniel Oppenheimer

"if we just had better material conditions and a classic social democracy, people would be less crazy..." ... I'm afraid this one might make more sense inverted, people would probably be less crazy if we had worse material conditions and not so much free time (btw I volunteer to be token straight columnist in the gay magazine, if Blake ever gets funding)

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I will grant the plausibility of your point. On your other thing, I already have claimed the spot as in-house straight columnist for Blake's hypothetical magazine. Sorry.

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Jul 7Liked by Daniel Oppenheimer

I made it as far as your brother. Had to listen to the entire thing the day it dropped. So much great stuff packed in there. Some of it hard to make out.

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Yeah the audio wasn't all I hoped it would be. Bummer. But glad you liked what you could make out!

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Jul 7Liked by Daniel Oppenheimer

What did you have in mind as the publications doing what Wieseltier originally hoped Liberties would do?

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Jul 7·edited Jul 7Author

Well at this point it seems like there are a fair number of contrarian magazines like the Free Press, Unherd, the Bulwark, etc., though they have more of a center right bent than I'd prefer. Maybe Persuasion is the closest to what I'm thinking, though they're more of a beefed up newsletter than a magazine proper. The old N+1, before it got boring and woke. Tablet, before it got super weird and right wing.

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Jul 9Liked by Daniel Oppenheimer

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I haven't gotten into Persuasion even though it is probably closest to me. And it's a shame about Tablet, though when they still publish great stuff, it's good. I have been trying to think of any magazine that could ever have satisfied me on every front, short of Partisan Review itself (and even then). It used to be a hypothetical pub with the politics of New Politics and the aesthetics of, I don't know, the Village Voice, but that's no longer even true of me, politically, though I'd probably read it if it existed. Having never been fully satisfied with NYRB or Harpers or anything else, I guess I'm used to cobbling stuff together.

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Jul 6Liked by Daniel Oppenheimer

Jam packed with provocative ideas… makes me understand my Jewishness and my queerness ( oops, sorry, gay maleness) differently

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My primary mission is really to complicate your queerness, Gary. #weareallqueernow

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Haven't listened yet but hello from your target audience.

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you're welcome

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