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Haunted Pencils at the Old New Yorker Office

Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: books, Tina Brown, Ved Mehta, William Shawn

I just remembered today that I had a few dozen unpublished posts on the old Blogspot site, which I all but abandoned when I moved over here. I think I'm just going to put them up this week, without comment. So if you notice that a few of my news items seem to have a little dust on them, good! Time hooks are overrated, I've always thought. Here's the first one.

From the Amazon reader comments for Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker, the Ved Mehta memoir:

I never subscribed to the New Yorker during William Shawn's time as editor. But, a few years ago I snuck into the old offices on 43rd Street. The writers cubicles were gone but, there outlines were still on the floor. There were odd pieces here and there of the writers who once filled the spaces were scattered about. A pencil here, an old wooden easel there, an old office chair, notes and drawings scribbled on a wall. Mehta fills in the space and one can almost here the clacking of typewriters and muffled conversations as writers work in a unique environment of a unique magazine.

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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.

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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.

No fear: Everything you say or send is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.

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)

More clips.

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.

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