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
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 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)
- 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)
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.
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.