What do you think of New Yorker editor Harold Ross’s calling Joseph Mitchell’s profiles: “highlife-lowlife” pieces?

Well according to Harold Ross he says that Mitchell “made an art out of detailing his subjects’ magical, wandering commentary.” That is the “highlife” Harold is saying. That being said, Joseph Gould over exemplifies the idea of wandering commentary. In the article Street Life by Joseph Mitchell, the whole first page is about how much Joseph Gould is just fascinated with walking around New York. In the article he specifically wrote, “What I really like to do is wander aimlessly in the city.”

While the “lowlife” pieces come from the profile he chooses. Joseph Gould though he came from a prestigious Ivy League University, he is stuck as a nomadic person. His love of traveling around New York, as readers we become sucked into Joseph’s life as well. A guy with not a care in life, “I never get tired of gazing from the back seats of buses at the stone eagles and the stone owls and the stone dolphins and the stone lions’ heads and the stone bulls’ heads and the stone rams’ head…”

Harold Ross hit the nail on the head when he said Mitchell’s a “highlife-lowlife” writer. Harold says “The only people he didn’t care to listen to; were society woman, industrial leaders, distinguished authors, ministers, explorers, moving picture actors, and any actress under the age of thirty-five.” So his highlife writing with lowlife profiling fits the bill.