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6.25.07 Issue: Diana, Wrinklers, and Dulse-Gatherers

Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Alice Trillin, Calvin Trillin, Canada, covers, David Owen, J.D. Salinger, John Lahr, John Lanchester, Lou Romano, Nancy Franklin, Princess Diana, theater, Tina Brown, TV

Each week, the Emdashes staff puts the blue ribbons on the aspects of the last issue that most reminded us of Wilbur, the good-hearted, unprejudiced pig radiantly bathed in buttermilk.

I'd like to reassure anyone alarmed by Calvin Trillin's tale of drugs, arson, and violence in Nova Scotia that we Canadians are a peaceable people, with universal health care, level roads, and excellent hockey players. Trillin is ascending my list of favorite writers. I often flash back to moments from his tales of Alice, his late wife; and "swayve dogs," from his Letter about Frenchy's, a Maritime secondhand clothier, makes me smile weekly.

J.D. Salinger poked his head into my last last POTI entry, and I can't look at those photos of soaring trestles in David Owen's "The Anti-Gravity Men" without thinking of Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters. Check out that welder! —JB

Speaking of Trillin, I'd like to thank Laura Buckley for introducing the phrase "asshole issues" to my vocabulary. It was one of those lacunae one only recognizes in the act of filling it. It will get a lot of use. —MCS

I've already noted my pleasure in Lou Romano's far from hacklike romantic taxi cover, Nancy Franklin's incisive column (a Sopranos-mad friend says it's the best thing she's read on the show closer), and the excellent writing on architecture and engineering by the underappreciated Owen.

Like John, I admired Trillin's taut, beautifully told story of island strife, and the review of Tina Brown's Princess Diana book by John Lanchester was notably sensible; I also appreciated its dignified lack of tittle-tattle about both Brown (which was the clear choice under the circumstances) and Diana (which was admirable; I'm tired of hearing her defined by her taste in couture). John Lahr always makes my list. He is a giant. —EG

1 comments

Comments

As it turned out, I was compelled by Canadians before I reached British Royalty.

zpJune 28, 2007

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Emdashes, founded in 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. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
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Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

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