Shouts & Murmurs

If you have ever read The New Yorker, you are familiar with the Shouts & Murmurs section, where a writer makes every effort to be clever and, oh so witty, when talking about, seemingly, everyday occurrences, while putting a slightly skewed twist on, say, mixing a Gimlet (see this month's edition). Well, lately, Shouts & Murmurs has been a little too cute for my taste and even less clever. It's almost as if the writers are in a constant state of frenzy, worrying that what they are writing is not clever enough for the sophisticated palette of the average reader of The New Yorker (or the editor, suppose). It has not been witty or sophisticate, recently. I can see why some might find the witty urbanite insufferable; if you have been reading Shouts & Murmurs, of late, I would have to agree.