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Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Ben Greenman, Ricky Gervais, Tad Friend
How great is that Tad Friend piece (not online—buy it) on high- and pretty-low-speed police chases in L.A.? Best thing in the issue, and last week's was a very good issue. Tad Friend also talked to Ben Greenman for the website. More of my issue highlights to come. I might do this every week, on Sundays. Or on other days, or every other week. Meanwhile, I have the new Ricky Gervais podcast to listen to. Here's an excerpt from an interview Gervais did with DVD Times about his standup-comedy release Politics.
[MD] Did you put the interview with him on the DVD [of Politics] just to prove [Karl Pilkington] was a real guy?
[RG] Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think people just won’t believe anyone thinks like that, and you can see that I just can’t believe what he’s saying and he surprises me constantly, every time I speak to him there’s something funny. Like, I saw Finding Nemo the other week, and I was on the phone to him and I said I’d just watched it and said “Brilliant innit” and it’s always good when you genuinely, without irony, see eye to eye with Karl it’s like a connection, like your child hasn’t spoken until now, you just want to nurture it. So I said it was great it was such a great story as well, and it’s beautiful how far animation has come, but it’s amazing how much it cost. And he said “Whatcha mean?” so I told him animation costs more than real films. “Rubbish. What’s the point of computers if it takes longer?” Well no Karl, it takes each animator one week to put 2 seconds on screen. And after raving about the film he said “fuck it, it’s not worth it, just a get a real fish and poke it with a stick.” [amazed] Just get a real fish and poke it with a stick?! It’s just incredible. The way he lives inside his head, it’s just a joy, so yeah I did put it on to let people know that I know the closest living thing to Homer Simpson.
Who we?
Emdashes, founded December 2004 BY Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.
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A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
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Comments
good quotes there. i didn't know which blog to respond on so i did on mine and now yours. how did you find mine? i already listened to the songs on yours one week ago. did an "i could eat a knob at night" search on google. good stuff. i like the goth-trance one and the one on the dutch site best.