New?

Is there really something afoot, or is it just me imagining it? For some reason, every item in the current issue of The New Yorker seems to be unusually relevant to me. It starts with the cover itself. I used to save every cover beginning as a pre-teen, framing some in my bedroom in fact in the early 1970s. But they might as well be brown wrappers these days. Something about this current issue took me back to my favorite issues of my early teens, always most fond of wintery images of the city with a twist of humor. Then the articles themselves all seemed to have a common thread in my life, from the pieces about composer Toru Takemistu and Ennio Morricone to contemporary cultural concerns ranging from Google to Sarah Silverman. Is the magazine actually changing or is it me? I've subscribed since 1969 at the age of 12, through ups and downs. It's one of those things like utilities that I don't even think about, I just pay the bill. But suddenly it seems unusually relevant again. Maybe it's just the pleasure of holding paper instead of a screen that grabs my attention.