Word: mcphee
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...Delibes is truly distinguished as a dancer’s composer. His symphonic score faithfully highlights the ballet’s plotline while drawing upon national themes and adding whimsical sound effects to hold the attention of the audience. Though conducting for ballet is notoriously difficult, Maestro Jonathon McPhee skillfully led the Boston Ballet Orchestra while paying close attention to the dancers on the stage...
Compare the essays of “Silk Parachute” to those of McPhee’s “New Yorker” colleague, Malcolm Gladwell: although the writers share an interest in people, their processes are polar opposites. McPhee starts with a detailed discussion of a topic, be it “eccentric food” or Europe’s chalk country, and allows his topic to elucidate a truism about society with such finesse that it seems accidental. Rather than spend pages reveling in the significance of what he has found—like Gladwell?...
McPhee’s obsession with setting hints at the true significance of “Silk Parachute”: collected, these essays reveal not only a stunning attention to detail, but also the degree to which McPhee is steeped in the world in which he was raised—the intellectual scene of the American Northeast. When he writes that “Los Angeles might as well be Tokyo” in the East Coast-centered world of lacrosse, he could easily be talking about himself; his entire oeuvre could well be seen as an unsuccessful attempt...
...champagne-making, nature photography and the U.S. Open are not the most daring of topics, McPhee deserves credit for writing about what he understands, and his depth of knowledge is unassailable. Moreover, he manages to tell very detailed stories without sacrificing any stylistic verve...
...Checkpoints,” McPhee good-naturedly summarizes the unglamorous aspects of journalism: the deliberations about comma placement, the silly follow-up interviews, the tension between writer, editor, fact-checker and subject. It’s enough to deter many who, after the quiet delights of the preceding essays, might understandably wish to quit their day jobs and write for “The New Yorker.” But while it certainly obliterates any illusions that McPhee’s job is an easy one, it is also an affirmation of why his essays are worthwhile, both...