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Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: David Sedaris, fiction, in memoriam, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, memoir, podcasts, radio

Actually, I'm not writing about that (and I'm happy not to be), but I do like a good musical hed. This post is really about the David Sedaris plausibility debate, which, as far as I can tell, is a tempest in a Tinkerbell-sized thimble. Thoughts? The best outcome of this pointless peeping, for me, has been a link (in one of the comments on the New Republic piece that started it all) to Mark Twain's gloriously absurd anecdo-tale "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once." Let's all cook up more stories like this!

Speaking of brilliant story-spinners, there's a great Kurt Vonnegut recording from 1970—years before Breakfast of Champions was even a book—on the 92nd St. Y's blog. R.I.P., K.V.

1 comments

Comments

The long ride to work, the long ride home. Commuting in Wisconsin -- how my experience stacks up against that of the people Nick Paumgarten describes in his TNY story.

Madison GuyApril 13, 2007

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Emdashes, founded December 2004 by Emily Gordon, 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.
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A few clips

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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)

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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 our hearts.

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