Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Our Daily Comic: The Wavy Rule
Archive: Ask the Librarians
Send us a question!
Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into
Festival Spy Report: Where the Brits Were
Filed under: New Yorker Festival Tagged: movies, Steve Coogan, TV
This just in, a dispatch from a correspondent we shall call C.R.B.D. Special to Emdashes! With photos after the jump.
Anyone wondering where all the British guys in New York were Saturday night, wonder no more: All of them were at the Cedar Lake Dance studio basking in the reflected funniness of Steve Coogan (as interviewed by the equally smart and funny George Saunders). Saunders introduced Coogan sweetly, saying Coogan shares his feeling that “comedy is not just fun, but important” and, incidentally, that he and his wife had to turn off a Coogan DVD recently because they were “laughing so hard that we had stopped breathing.” Then Coogan himself was with us, and did impressions. “There’s a lot of people who think they can do Michael Caine,” he said, before doing Caine to a T. He said his French teacher used to order him up to the front of the class to imitate other teachers at the school; the guy would go sit at the back of the class with the students and yell out people for him to do.
Lots of clips followed—Alan Partridge, 24 Hour Party People, Tristram Shandy, and his latest show, Saxondale, about a former Jethro Tull roadie-turned-pest-controller. (If you haven’t seen any of these, please, Netflix them all immediately. Really, do it now. Don’t even read the rest of this!) Coogan had already perfected cringe-inducing character-based comedy when Ricky Gervais was still cleaning toilets, or whatever he did before The Office. And Coogan has this to say about the form: “You have to be careful, otherwise it’s partly creative sadism.”
The usual Q & A session followed, with the usual questions: “Do you think American comedy is doomed?” asked an American. The answer was sort of no, but Coogan did say it seemed like “the sofa in the middle of the living room and the wacky neighbor isn’t working anymore.” Also, apparently NBC is pumping him for ideas; expect more pond-hopper shows from them shortly. Meanwhile…are you still here? What did I tell you about the Netflixing? Go!
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.
You'd like to read more about us individually? That's so nice! Here you can learn a lot more about the Emdashes team, the mysterious-sounding names of our daily and non-daily columns, and our guest contributors.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments, and are always looking for ardent new contributors who care about letters (postal, typographical, admiring, literary, and tough-love). Here's how to contact us.
Occasionally, we host book giveaways, and review books here as often as we can. Publishers, please e-mail us and we'll send you an appropriate mailing address.
Tell me more
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)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- 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)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- 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)
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
T-shirts! The Emdashes Emporium at CafePress.