Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
Ask the Librarians archive
About Emdashes | Email us
Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
It's the Countdown to Emdashes' Second-Anniversary Hurrah
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Alice Quinn, Anthony Lane, Bob Mankoff, cartoons, E.B. White, Lillian Ross, Matthew Diffee, Pauline Kael
…on December 31, which will feature an overflowing bag of virtual presents for people and things New Yorker for the coming year, from a special band of guest contributors. Just a few more days and it’ll be up! Soon after that, I’m happy to report, there’ll be a brand-new Ask the Librarians column, which is always a thrill. Two years—who’da thunk it? For now, my strength and stamina are limited to these little snippets, presented in disjointed-paragraph form:
Lillian Ross appeared on NPR; clever Jason Kottke concocted a witty Nintendo game for New Yorker nuts (via G’ker). Unrelated: A reader crowed at knowing a thing or two (or at least a thing) more than the magazine. I’ve neglected to link to the very engaging Huffington Post blog by Matt Diffee, especially his three-part interview with Bob Mankoff, but it’s really worth reading for a look inside the cartoon department’s selection process; the Washington Post also features Diffee and Mankoff in its own take on this always welcome if now becoming-slightly-repetitive story. Another reader ponders the “palettes” of modern movie critics, including Pauline Kael and Anthony Lane. What would E.B. White have thought of the new Charlotte’s Web movie, asks Ty Burr of The Boston Globe? Today, it turns out, is a notable day in New Yorker and Beatles history. I just happened to land on this New York Times Public Lives profile of Alice Quinn from 2001. Finally, if you’re buying a new subscription to The New Yorker—and why wouldn’t you be?—Consumerist counsels us all to shun the charlatans at magsforless.com. Happy holidays, everybody, and see you at the end of the month for the big birthday party that happens in your head, and mine.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
Want to know more about the people who contribute to Emdashes, and the secret meanings behind our column titles? All about us.
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive contributors. Click here to email us.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: 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)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
- Follow us on Twitter
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- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
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Comments
Hey, there’s always a party going on in my head, kiddo. Unfortunately I’m always the last fool to leave.
Hope you are enjoying the Holidays!
The Washington Post article really is good. The best I’ve seen in a while on the cartoon creation/cartoon selection processes. Fresh content and good writing by someone whose name escapes me.
The whole cartoon “selection process” is rather mythicised, by no less than we cartoonists and the selectors themselves — none of our stories match up, we all gild the lily, or stomp on it, according to our moods and who we want to impress or inspire pity in. In fact, nobody will ever give you the really true story. We just like to add to the facets of the myth… There’s an inner sanctum that will never ever be penetrated. But do read on, do! Heheheheheheh.