Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
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Headline Shooter
On the Spot
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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
The tipping...two points!
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Ben Greenman, Ben McGrath, Malcolm Gladwell, Peter Hessler, sports, tipping point
You know Malcolm Gladwell has become fully tippy, or should I say pointy, when Sports Illustrated is tossing off references to him as if they were so many dodgeballs. In a piece about Shaquille O'Neal and how he's "single-handedly changed the culture of the franchise" (as a carrier, as it were, ha), Chris Ballad muses:
Call it the Shaq Effect, or, in honor of author and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, the Shaq-ing Point—that precise point in time at which a decent NBA player becomes a good one, perhaps identifiable as the first moment when O'Neal draws a double team that creates an eight-foot halo of wide open space for his teammates.
The Shaq Effect [Sports Illustrated]
Can You Buy an NBA Championship? [Gladwell, Slate]
Q. & A.: The Ming Dynasty [Ben Greenman and Peter Hessler on the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming, New Yorker]
Sports Dept.: The Floor Moved [Ben McGrath on Madison Squ. Garden moving to Radio City during the Republican Convention, New Yorker]
Women in sports: New Yorker cartoon sends wrong message [Stephanie Salter, ASNE]
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email us.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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