OT: the New Yorker Eurostep
I thought this idea, though off-topic, might interest people here, because like MGoBlog, it combines sports and culture.
A blogger, David Roth of the Defector, has compared the Eurostep with a traditional writing structure, common in the New Yorker.
The way this structure works is that an essay or article starts with some current event as example of the point to be made, then after a section break, hops back to ancient history, and spends the rest of the piece linking that history back to the original example.
Here's the link, though it asks for your email address to access.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:05 PM ^
I would assume that David Roth should be writing about Jumping or Panama or what a dickhole he thinks Sammy Hagar is
December 11th, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
Boze de Boze de bop, ze de bop - shoulda won some kind of literary award.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:33 PM ^
I KNEW I should have distinguished this writer Roth from David Lee.
December 11th, 2021 at 6:40 PM ^
He's just a gigolo, and everywhere he goes, people know the part Dave's playing
December 11th, 2021 at 4:05 PM ^
Have no idea why he thinks that this trope originates with The New Yorker. Consider: You're in the now, you compare it with the before. Then you spend the next while linking that history to the now (i.e. showing how we got here). I mean, Aristotle approves; so, probably, does every human brain. Perhaps I am missing something--do we have many other options? How was this made? What is this? How did this get here? What object or issue or phenomenon that one cares to contemplate does not require a look at its constituents? Aren't they all historical in character?
I think what he might really mean is that you dramatize that event, thing, show why it's provocative, then start to take it apart. I could see that. But think it kinda predates the New Yorker. C/w beginning a story in medias res. . .
December 11th, 2021 at 4:35 PM ^
You're absolutely right that it's an old idea.
However, the point he argues in the article is that New Yorker writers have honed and polished it so that that it's become a virtual house style.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:50 PM ^
Gotcha.
December 11th, 2021 at 5:11 PM ^
So sorta like "Vincent Gray at the Battle of Gaugamela" currently trending in Diaries of MGoBlog?
December 11th, 2021 at 6:24 PM ^
Yeah! That's part of what prompted me to post this: OUR writers keep using the technique. Little did they know they were doing a Eurostep, literarily speaking.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
Ill be honest. I thought this was going to be Julius Randle making a move to the bucket.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:44 PM ^
Appropriately, those Randall moves to the bucket seem only to be in print these days.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:23 PM ^
The best part of this article was its link to a separate piece about Lake Powell:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/16/the-lost-canyon-under-lake-powell
December 11th, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
Wow. There should be Sand People and Jawas in there somewhere.
December 11th, 2021 at 4:30 PM ^
That’s such a great article. Read it a few months ago. The documentary “Damnation” spends a good section of time talking about Glen Canyon before the dam flooded it. It seems like a pretty magical place. I’ve rafted the whole Grand Canyon and it’s just an indescribable experience - hopefully someday I’ll get to explore Glen Canyon as it once was.
December 11th, 2021 at 5:37 PM ^
I've read the OP, not the link/article, I've read the comments....
And I've not clue as to what this is about! "I'll take ways to feel like a moron for $800 Mayim"
December 11th, 2021 at 6:23 PM ^
Just like watching Seinfeld. It’s about nothing.
December 11th, 2021 at 6:35 PM ^
It's meta for nerds.