Campaign to Link Print Publishing: February 2009 Vanity Fair

Whenever I read books or periodicals (in other words, stuff that isn't written on a glowing screen), I have a stack of those baby Post-Its next to me.  It started in graduate school when I'd never know if I'd have to write a paper about that particular book, and it got really bad when I started reviewing so many books for Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.  It's now extended to magazines, because I'm interested in current subjects to riff on over at BlogHer or even here.

My husband asked me once exactly for whom I was marking all those pages.  Initially it was for me, but it always pains me to pull the Post-Its out when I'm done with the review.  Usually I marked the best sentences, and I appreciate me a good sentence.

No more. I'm going to publish the best sentences I've seen here, for posterity.  I hope you enjoy them. And if you like what you see, go buy print.  I love online publishing -- it's changed my life -- but we should reward good print publishing by keeping it alive.  

This installment is from the February 2009 issue of Vanity Fair.  I'm not quite done yet (I read this magazine cover-to-cover every month, as it has some of the best writing I've ever seen in a magazine), but here's what I've seen so far.  Great sentences.  

From Michael Wolff's "The Ultimate Bubble?":

"When I was 11, my father, a businessman who, in his day, took a dubious risk or two, gave me a key lesson in finance and life which I knew was meaningful without understanding it.  'You're not bankrupt,' he said, 'until people know you're bankrupt.'"

From James Wolcott's (fangirl!) "The Good, the Bad, and Joe Lieberman":

"No group of winners enjoyed a more perverse windfall than gun-shop owners, whose showrooms were besieged by militiamen, survivalists, deerstalkers, rifle-range groupies, fans of the cult film Red Dawn, and other Second Amendment bitter-enders loading up on guns, scopes, and ammo as if ready to refight the Battle of the Alamo in the Home Depot parking lot."