Barry Blitt’s “Deluged” cover (Sept. 19, 2005) won best cover of the year, and Mark Ulriksen’s Brokeback Cheney (Feb. 27, 2006) best news cover, in the new annual contest run by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America. (Seth got second place in the fashion category for “The Skinny on Fashion,” March 20, 2006). I saw and cheered the news yesterday, but balked at the thought of finding and formatting the images in the middle of my own mag’s close, so hooray for the Times (typing that despite my rage at last Sunday’s book review), since they have a nice collage with two of the New Yorker covers and an article and so forth.

Why is this under “Seal Barks,” by the way? This category is for everything related to artwork in the magazine—spots, cartoons, covers, and other illustrations. If you click on the category names on the green bar above, you can trawl the archives for other items about artwork, or about the magazine’s editors-in-chief so far (“Eds.”). My and other contributors’ reviews of things related to but outside the magazine itself go under “Looked Into,” and for a veritable Katz’s Deli of links in further pursuit of the details in a New Yorker story go to “Eustace Google” (I love that illustration). I play favorites from the previous week’s magazine in “Pick of the Issue.”
 
“Ask the Librarians,” of course, is the deep research and sharp insight of the New Yorker librarians Jon Michaud and Erin Overbey, who answer the best questions sent in by Emdashes readers (here’s the email address to use) about the components (big and small) and personalities (famous and forgotten) of the magazine (past and present). “Headline Shooter,” which is also the name of a movie in which Robert Benchley played a radio announcer in 1933, is a quickie without commentary. In “On the Spot” either I or a trusted delegate (applications welcome) go to something New Yorker-related, like a reading, a talk, a gallery opening, a musical event, a play, &c., and report back. I also use “On the Spot” for announcing events I can’t go to, because they’re in Alaska or something. At parties I tend not to feel like taking notes, so you’ll have to rely on others for that sort of scuttlebutt.

The “Jonathans Are Illuminated” category concerns all Jonathans of letters, the ones you know well and the ones who have yet to leap into Bright Young Jonathanness; “X-Rea” tracks sightings (mine and yours!) of and inquiries into the famous typeface and the other work of original New Yorker team member Rea Irvin, whose name, as you can deduce from the category title, is pronounced Ray as in Sugar, not Ree as in readerly. In “Letters and Challenges” I provide challenges (with prizes!) and print your letters, but only the ones you’ve explicitly given me permission to print, since I don’t use mail without permission. I’m happy to print things anonymously, and often do, since many writers and critics who otherwise dream of being ubiquitously and inescapably in print would rather not be named on a blog, even if their letter concerns nothing scandalous or bridge-burning. And that’s OK with me. Finally, “Hit Parade” collects the posts that, for whatever reason, got people all whirled up like soft-serve ice cream.

Later, almost forgot: Here’s all my coverage (still ongoing, can you believe it?) of this year’s New Yorker Festival, and in Personal, you can read my Innermost Thoughts, or at least the ones I choose to share with The World. It’s where I get to be a blogeuse.