Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Weekly: Pick of the Issue
Bimonthly: Ask the Librarians
Submit a question for the next column.
Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into
The subtly witty program announcer from the free podcasts. And as I mentioned last week, the changing gallery of ridiculous photos and descriptions that appeared on iTunes (or one's video iPod; I have a Shuffle and it's sweet, so I'm not ready to upgrade).
Other than that, I actually think they're trying harder now that the show isn't free and is getting an even bigger audience. In the newest show, Stephen describes the worst Carnivale vacation ever and actually gets to talk for more than five seconds. He even gets angry! I like that. I had a very happy fantasy recently in which Stephen and I were wed. I could try to reproduce the festive speeches by my friends and the Office types alike, the grudgingly/cheerfully granted slow dance to "Only You" by Lucy Davis and Martin Freeman, and the terrific London real estate preferable even to that represented in Match Point, as well as of course the general good times, but you probably had to be there.
Note: I consume quite a lot of other media besides these podcasts, but since they've created a tidal wave of traffic for my wee blog, I feel a special connectedness to them. Stephen's Carnivale reminiscence made me think once again about Black Orpheus, a favorite film of my mother's that I saw for the first time at Film Forum last week. It is magnificent.
Speaking of Gervais one more time (not likely), one of the now-famous Knob at Night DJs has just revamped his compulsively listenable—total cliché, but in this case it's true—mashup of David Brent's earnestly soulful "Free Love Freeway." Download it here and you'll see what I mean.
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.
Primary sources
The New Yorker
Events listed by the magazine
Web resources: New Yorker writers and artists
Books, Organizations, &c.
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
- Resistance Is Fertile
- Mick Stevens: I Really Should Be Drawing
- Cartoonist Michael Maslin's homepage
- Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
- Sasha Frere-Jones
- Matthew Diffee's HuffPo blog
- The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
- The essential Jane Grant
- Paul Noth's Pale Force
- The New York Public Library records
- New Yorker Comment
- Chiasmus in The New Yorker
- Wikipedia: The New Yorker
- New Yorker database
- The New Orcer
- Silence of the City
- Between the Squibs
- Blog About Town
- Newyorkette
- New Yorker Anti-Caption Contest
- The New Yorker Forums
- I Hate the New Yorker
- Ben Yagoda's homepage
- Access My Library
- New Yorker haiku
- Modern Spectator
- Map: Caption Contest Winners
- Technorati: New Yorker
- Link to suggest? Email it!
Comments
wow. i think i'm going to let you write my fantasies from now on. you're really good at it. i WAS there and green with envy, stephen is my favorite.
ps. where does this quote come from? "Unfashionably reverent rather than ironic," mainly.
Aren't you observant! I'm pleased you noticed it. It comes from somewhere in last week's Goings on About Town; see if you can spot it. I thought it made a nice new motto.
em, did you know about the many hours of Gervais/Merchant/Pilkington broadcasts archived here?http://www.xfm.co.uk/Article.asp?id=3673-Paul
Yes! There's a link in the now-notorious "Knob at Night" remix post. But I still haven't listened to them, and I can't wait. There's one about Stephen being voted Most Eligible Bachelor, so clearly I'm not the only one with amorous notions about the tall, modest mastermind.
I give up. I cannot find the origins of that quote in the feb 27th issue - that was "last week" wasn't it?
Here you go; it's by Anon.ANGELO FILOMENOThe peacock’s influence on art has waned considerably since the Middle Ages. Filomeno resurrects it with full, exquisitely gaudy grandeur. Wall hangings made of embroidered silk and gold lamé and tableaux fashioned from cascading crystals, mirrors, and stuffed birds look like School of Liberace interior-design projects; a carefully lit display of three silk knight’s helmets, festooned with feathers and hung from the ceiling, offers an object lesson in resurrected pageantry. The oddest thing is that Filomeno’s love of silk and baubles registers as surprisingly--and unfashionably--reverent rather than ironic. Through March 11. (Boesky, 535 W. 22nd St. 212-680-9889.)