Blog Archives

Back in the Stacks: 1992

Posted by Periodicals/Reference Librarian

Since it feels like summer was decades ago, we took a look at summer decades ago; a sampling of our periodicals. It was hot. Once upon a time.

Open the The New Yorker, what’s the first thing you see? The New Yorker, June 1992.

Rappers in recovery. Alan Light, “L.A. Rappers Speak Out.” Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.

Still maybe an issue. Mad, June 1992.

Walter De Maria and El Greco in Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, from “All Fives, Sevens, and Nines,” by Lars Nittve. Artforum, Summer 1992.

Mad, June 1992.

Danny Tisdale, Lynching 1930. From “Engendered Species,” by Kobena Mercer. Artforum, Summer 1992

“On the Road to Kassel,” Artforum, Summer 1992.

The hits. Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.

Novum, June 1992.

More car ads featuring cops. Vanity Fair, June 1992.

Before mixology. Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.

From an interview with George Condo, by Anney Bonney. Bomb, Summer 1992.

Vogue, June 1992.

Be thankful for lasers. Vogue, June 1992.

Checking up on the crooks. Annie Leibovitz, “Watergate.” Vanity Fair, June 1992.

Before Bill did it. Julia Reed, “Clinton on the Brink.” Vogue, June 1992.

“Documenting Documenta.” Interview, June 1992.

Fashion fish. Vogue, June 1992.

It doesn’t stop. Interview, June 1992.

And no one is pretending. Interview, June 1992.

Religion. Vanity Fair, June 1992.

From John Ashbery’s “Baked Alaska.” The New Yorker, June 29, 1992.

Posted in Periodicals

Wig Wag

Dec 12

Posted by Periodicals/Reference Librarian

Wig Wag
Summer 1988 – December 1989; June 1990 – February 1991

In an archive almost everything carries the aroma of obituary. A book’s cover resembles a mausoleum door, newspapers evoke autumn leaves, a magazine’s tint becomes a mortician’s makeup. Bylines are empty chairs. In our digital realm, which seems so lively, everything passes before we’ve finished, is made to fade into the next, which is why it all gets saved.

Wig Wag is not online. The magazine lived for three years between the minor New Yorker exodus that staffed it and the first Iraq war’s recession that killed it. Founding editor Alexander Kaplen aimed gently at “A Picture of American Life,” a little literary and not too heartlandish. Wig Wag‘s “Letters From Home” could be set against The New Yorker‘s “Talk of the Town.” Terry McMillan, William Maxwell, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Rush, Sven Birkerts, Sousa Jamba, Luc Sante you’ve maybe heard of; many more you certainly haven’t. But the effort to turn from city-centrism seems more significant for its failure.

A notable tool in Wig Wag‘s kit was their “Indignites: Our monthly listing of who’s beating up on whom.” Critical briefs that don’t always read as anachronistic as we might like.

Wig wag, it was pointed out to us by poet and SVA professor Ray DiPalma, is that thing you do with flags on a runway when you’re trying to keep airplanes from crashing.

indignity