Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
6.11.07 & 6.18.07 Issue: Happy "Four," Miranda July!
Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Adrian Tomine, ads, books, covers, D.T. Max, design, fiction, GOAT, J.D. Salinger, Miranda July, photography
What to read in last week’s issue before you let the recycling algore-ithm turn it to colorful pulp? Every Monday, we at Emdashes—archive maven Martin Schneider, intrepid intern John Bucher, and I—review the issue’s high points.
GOAT has a fine Bruce Davidson sixties-era photograph of a sinuous black man leaning on a Chevrolet, his son clutching his leg—a captivating contrast of masculine and feminine.
My prurient thanks, also, to Adrian Tomine for his world-be-damned cover girl on a double-decker New York sightseeing bus, her nose in what can only be (given the paperback’s telltale stripes on a clean white field) the classic Little, Brown edition of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Sigh. —JB
This has come up in the comments, but I really liked D. T. Max’s piece on the Ransom Archive. If it whetted your appetite, check out Ted Bishop’s Riding with Rilke, a travel book by a motorcycling literary scholar in which it serves as the destination—just don’t go in expecting a lot of Rilke. I also enjoyed Miranda July’s cunning tale “Roy Spivey.” I notice that the New Yorker lists “armpits” as one of the few (seven) keywords associated with the piece—possibly a New Yorker first! —MCS
I think I knocked the wind out of myself with my panicky post about finishing the double summer fiction issue a week too soon. I’ve got a few more picks to round out my rant, but in the meantime, I’ll quote an ad from the issue in question, to set the mood for this week: “Nothing relaxes like cocktail piano…nothing!” —EG
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker fan blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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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)
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- World of Pollux
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- Carolita Johnson
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Comments
John, I’m thinking the beautiful-anomie bus girl could even be reading Nine Stories, given the one line of type. Based on what you know about her personality so far, which do you think it is?
“Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”
I just googled that—I haven’t the slightest idea. Which one is giving you a buzz, Emily?