February 14 & 21, 2011: Confessions of a Juggler by Tina Fey

“How do you juggle it all?” people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. “You’re screwing it all up, aren’t you?” their eyes say.

Tina Fey’s reflections on juggling motherhood and career are surprisingly warm, and (not surprisingly) funny. If that whole “30 Rock” gig falls through, I hope she starts writing the “Shouts & Murmurs” column.

I was looking forward to Mary Gaitskill’s story in this issue, “The Other Place.” And though it was perfectly written, as you would expect, and the story of the would-be-killer on whom the tables are painfully turned was interesting, in the end it felt more than a little gratuitous. I would expect that if a New Yorker story takes on a chestnut like “even a mild-mannered father who teaches his son to fly fish in the back yard could be a serial killer at heart,” it would be done in a way that pushes the envelope or adds a new spark to the cold embers of the trope. Alas, “The Other Place” does neither.