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
Register: Titled Newsbreaks, 4Q83
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Al Ross, George Orwell, George Steiner, Janet Malcolm, newsbreaks, Robert Penn Warren
In which Martin, who’s now abroad and provoking envy among his colleagues here at Emdashes, combines his fondness for newsbreaks—those witty clippings at the end of the occasional New Yorker column—his voracity for research and documentation, and his nimble fingers with the Complete New Yorker DVDs (from which, as Martin points out, newsbreaks are absent). A math student of whom it was once said “She has somehow arrived at the correct solutions, yet does not appear to know how to graph the trigonometric functions we studied this term,” I’m still somewhat fuzzy about what all the figures mean (though I know at least one of them is a fiscal quarter), but I know that you, sage readers, actually made it to Calculus and won’t have any trouble. —EG
ANTICLIMAX DEPARTMENT 11/28 55, 12/5 208
BLOCK THAT METAPHOR! 10/17 49, 10/24 157, 11/21 138, 11/28 147, 12/5 152
BRAVE NEW WORLD DEPARTMENT 10/24 103, 11/28 190
CLEAR DAYS ON THE EDUCATIONAL SCENE 12/5 177
CONSTABULARY NOTES FROM ALL OVER 11/14 168, 12/19 131
DEPARTMENT OF DELICACY 11/21 49
DEPT. OF HIGHER EDUCATION 12/12 167
DEPT. OF UTTER CONFUSION 10/17 167
DON’T GIVE IT A SECOND THOUGHT DEPARTMENT 12/19 127
FAMOUS “WHAT IF”S OF HISTORY 11/21 213
FULLER EXPLANATION DEPT. 12/26 53
HIGHER MATHEMATICS DEPT. 10/17 192
HOW’S THAT AGAIN? DEPARTMENT 10/10 123, 10/17 56, 10/31 133, 11/14 187, 11/21 164, 11/28 104, 12/19 142
IT’S ABOUT TIME DEPARTMENT 12/26 68
LIFE IN CALIFORNIA 11/28 51, 12/19 47
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE 12/26 39
LIFE IN TORONTO 10/17 92
LYRICAL PROSE DEPARTMENT 12/19 121
NEATEST TRICK OF THE WEEK 10/24 48, 10/31 139, 11/14 209, 11/28 167, 12/5 183
NO COMMENT DEPARTMENT 11/7 152, 12/12 188
PERISH THE THOUGHT DEPT. 10/10 153
RAISED EYEBROWS DEPARTMENT 11/7 112, 12/12 148
SENTENCES WE HATED TO COME TO THE END OF 11/28 177
SOCIAL NOTES FROM ALL OVER 10/3 103, 10/10 161, 10/31 144, 11/21 219, 12/12 154, 12/26 43
THAT’S TOO BAD DEPARTMENT 10/17 177
THE MYSTERIOUS EAST 12/19 123
THE OMNIPOTENT WHOM 11/7 47
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND 10/3 132, 12/12 159, 12/26 57
THESE CHANGING TIMES 10/24 53
UH-HUH DEPARTMENT 10/31 125
WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT DEPARTMENT 10/3 108
WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE DEPT. 11/14 139, 11/28 168, 12/12 74
- Fascinating, sprawling Robert Penn Warren poem in 11/14 issue. I dare someone to tackle it.
- Brilliant Al Ross cartoon about literary snobbery in 11/21 issue.
- Engrossing profile on five brothers who are all New York City building superintendents, in 10/24 issue. No other magazine does this sort of thing so well.
- Janet Malcolm on Jeffrey Masson pops up in this quarter. Uh-oh.
- George Steiner on George Orwell looks interesting, 12/12 issue.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to know more about the writers and artists and what our column titles mean? We live to serve!
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email us.
We host occasional book giveaways. Publishers, please email us for our postal address.
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
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- 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
- Befriend us on Facebook
- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
Comments
Can it be told why there have not been any updates to the Complete New Yorker so far this year?
Bruce: My memory is hazy, but I believe that the update featuring the updates through April 2006 was first offered in September 2006. So we have to wait until at least the autumn until we can fairly accuse The New Yorker of backsliding.
Are those page numbers after the dates? Or is this some kind of secret code meant to thwart the effects of my morning coffee? My head hurts! But then I’m just a simpleminded, short-attention-spanned cartoonist and latin-reading medieval anthropologist.
That said, I did fail trig, myself! So I take it back! I’m sure there has never been an issue of TNY that had 209 pages, so it can’t be the page numbers, right?
They are page numbers! I found this quite amazing, myself. 200-page issues were quite ordinary, once upon a time. William Shawn was a nut.
And no higher mathematics required!
Martin, if you find yourself in la ville lumiere let’s have a glass of veuve.
Anytime! I’m currently a couple countries away, tho (Austria). Hélas, my return itinerary takes me through London. Dommage!
Martin, break it down for me one more time…oh wait, I think I finally get it! This is the newsbreaks report for fiscal quarter four, 1983. So in that quarter, there were two “Anticlimax Department” newsbreaks (not “Dept.,” huh?), one on November 28 on p. 55, one on December 4, p. 208 (long issue for Xmas advertising). Right?? Did I finally figure it out after several months of fuzzy-headedness, or is that fuzzy math? And how’s the CNY working for you in Austria?
You got it! The titles are reproduced faithfully with respect to “Dept.” vs. “Department.”
It’s a three-month slice indicating the existence of various titled newsbreaks in that period. If your curiosity is piqued by the “UH HUH DEPARTMENT,” now you know where to find them for Oct-Nov-Dec 1983 period.
The CNY is working fine — trouble is, I am “working” quite hard as well, resulting in less chatter than usual from Squibby. That will change in a week or two.