Monocle (magazine)

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For the current international news and design magazine, see Monocle (2007 magazine).

Monocle was an American satirical magazine, published irregularly from the late 1950s until the mid-sixties. For at least the majority of its run, it was edited by Victor Navasky.[1]

Monocle was founded by a group of Yale Law School students as a "leisurely quarterly" (issued, in fact, twice a year).[1] After graduation they moved to New York City, where the magazine, in its editors' words, initially "operated more or less like the UN police force—we came out whenever there was an emergency." Later, it became a "leisurely monthly", with the intent of appearing about ten times a year.[2]

Navasky recounts in detail the history of his founding and direction of Monocle in his 2004 memoir, Matters of Opinion.

[edit] The Monocle Peep Show

The chapter headings of the anthology The Monocle Peep Show (1965) give a sense of both the magazine's subject matter and its politically irreverent tone. The book is divided into "Black and White Journalism" (on race in America), "Yellow Journalism" (on East Asia, including the Vietnam War), "Red Journalism" (on communism and the Cold War), "Off-color Journalism" (two pieces, one about a not-so-ex-Nazi rocket scientist and the other about someone campaigning for the papacy), and Red, White & Blue Journalism, on American electoral politics. The "Black and White Journalism" chapter includes, among other things, a piece by African American comedian Godfrey Cambridge called "My Taxi Problem and Ours"—the title alludes to Norman Podhoretz's then-recent essay "My Negro Problem—And Ours"—a superhero comic called "Captain Melanin", and a piece called "We're Not Prejudiced But…" containing a series of one-liners such as "Do Negro Catholic couples have an innate sense of rhythm?" and "Did Gov. George Wallace come within a backlash of winning the Wisconsin primary?"

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ a b Victor Navasky, introduction to the 1996 Free Press edition of The Report From Iron Mountain accessed online 18 December 2006.
  2. ^ Introduction to The Monocle Peep Show, signed by "The Editors".
  • The Monocle Peep Show, Bantam Books (1965 paperback)
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