I am absolutely delighted that the New Yorker is putting its content online -- you have to be a subscriber, and I am, to read all of it but there are still gems to be found. Like this piece by Alec Wilkinson which just tickles me --
A man arrives in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria. He has been invited by the American Psychoanalytic Association to “Drinks with Shrinks,” a party to “meet and mingle—with a number of APsaA’s leading members,” who are in the city for their annual winter meeting, a week of discussions such as “Making Freud More Freudian” and “Shame Dynamics.” He notices that his feet make no sound on the carpet, as if he weren’t there at all, as if someone else could easily be inserted into the space he is so tentatively occupying. A man and a woman, sharing a drink, seem to break off their conversation as he passes. He smiles and nods slightly, like an actor, and they simply stare at him, their faces like masks, he thinks, those tribal masks in the Metropolitan Museum that are always a little disturbing to visit, because they suggest ceremonies and superstitions that are passionate and dangerous. He has always taken care to keep such thoughts from his waking life.
Click here to read the rest -- it is a charming piece.