Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
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Headline Shooter
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Looked Into
Robin Cembalest reviews a recent event in which Alex Melamid (of the elephant paintings and Art Poll, on which I worked in a lowly capacity many years ago), Art Spiegelman, et al. talked about Neosincerity, the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest, Tom and Jerry, etc.:
Later, at home, I wondered if the panelists were right. "Is irony over?" Typing it into my computer, I felt like Carrie Bradshaw. I continued. "Is it possible to develop antibodies? And if we are finally resistant to irony, is Neosincerity the new zeitgeist?" I thought about the success of Jon Stewart, who has become hugely popular by making a comic show the most honest news broadcast on TV—and even managed to make a Munich joke at the Oscars. Maybe we're on the cusp of a new age of shtick.
Who we?
Emdashes, founded December 2004, 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.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments about The New Yorker past and present, plus related events, links, typeface sightings, &c. To contact the magazine or send a submission, click here.
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This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.
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)
Tell me more
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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Edited by Martin Schneider, designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
The Rossosphere
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Comments
Kierkegaard said that no genuinely human life is possible without irony, and I'm sure I read somewhere something else he wrote along the lines of "irony is envious of earnestness." Anyone know this line? I can't find it to reference it for you, and would love to be reunited with it myself.(Sorry to be such an odd combo of airhead and egghead. Wait, that would make me an omelette, wouldn't it?)Anyway, it looks to me more like earnestness is the new irony.
Would that all our eggheads could be efficiently cracked for maxiumum heated fluffy deliciousness. My kingdom for a nonstick pan!