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Looked Into
Justin, my former Newsday colleague and a Pulitzer genius sort of person, has really outdone himself with this week's story (not online, but this accompanying video is) on the art and science and dance of classical music conducting. As I read it I was suddenly itching to listen to some Mahler, and then realized what I wanted really badly was to conduct some Mahler.
One of my sundry uncredited blurbs on the backs of paperbacks goes (this is for Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven, which I reviewed for Salon), "[Smiley] makes us care about horses the way E.B. White made us care about pigs in Charlotte's Web, and makes us understand them the way Walter Tevis made us understand chess in The Queen's Gambit." I feel the same way about this piece: Justin is going to make thousands of people who hardly ever listen to classical music suddenly dream about batons and the waiting faces, poised bows, and expectant embouchures of orchestras, like that great scene in The Phantom Tollbooth where Milo gets to conduct the sunset. Incidentally, I think this one story may contain more juicily expressive adjectives than even the most ardent of New Yorker issues in their entirety. The editing is also palpably excellent (I felt the same way about the Sarah Silverman Profile I was just rereading). Well done!
Related:
Some Newsday stories by Justin Davidson
Justin as guest writer on Alex Ross's blog
About us
Hello! We are media enthusiasts and culture addicts—not to mention classically trained (as we like to say) professional journalists. This is our collection of generally civilized conversations about magazines, movies, politics, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are 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: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: 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)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (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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Comments
Do like my Dad does. Buy yourself a conductor's baton, and some fantastic speakers (he has giant, big, medium, and some really little ones I think are called "tweekers"), turn up the music, and start conducting! Nobody need know....
The New York Times wants to know:Do you keep any books in the bathroom? Which ones?