Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Ramneck.

Listen, I am not one for anniversary journalism or even birthdays. You reach a certain age,

and it's hard to remember what all the fuss is about. But when you reach 100, well, at 100, you get to make a fuss.

And the debut issue of The New Yorker magazine appeared on newsstands dated February 21st, 1925.

Throughout this year, we're going to be celebrating the Centennial in many ways.

And one of them is to highlight a few of the gems from the New Yorkers archive.

And we've asked some of our writers to pick a piece that means something special to them.

And so we'll start off today with Gia Tolentino, who's the author of the best-selling book,

Trick Mirror, and Gia picked a story by one of the great genius observers of American life, the late

Joan Didion.

Joan Didion, Joan Didian.

One thinks of the stingray, the Mohair throw, and the typewriter,

Bloodshed and Laurel Canyon, the decaying summer of love.

It's always a surprise to remember that the neurosthenic empress of American nonfiction once turned

the terrifying gimlet of her attention to Y2K-era fan blogs and Kmart

caketoppers for a defense of Martha Stewart.

The dreams and the fears into which Martha Stewart taps are not of feminine domesticity, but

of female power, of the woman who sits down at the table with the men and still in her apron

walks away with the chips.

Joan Didion's essay on Martha Stewart read for us by an actor, and I'm here with staff writer,

Gia Tolentino.

...