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Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: alcohol, Berton Roueche, Complete New Yorker, Elizabeth Hawes, food, Martha Stewart, politics, Prohibition, TOTT, Vincent Foster
One of the pleasures of the Complete New Yorker is stumbling on a figure mentioned in one context who would later become much better known in a completely different context. Two intriguing examples from the early 1980s follow.
In a September 21, 1981, look at Hope, Arkansas (how prescient!), writer Berton Roueche, curious about the town's (county's? state's?) continued reliance on laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, solicited the views of a local realtor. "I'm a Presbyterian," the man said. "I believe in taking a drink.... But I don't have to go all the way down to Texarkana unless I happen to feel like taking a drive. All I got to do is pick up that phone over there and dial a certain number. And I'm not talking about moonshine."
The name of that realtor? Vincent W. Foster.
A November 24, 1980, TOTT by Elizabeth Hawes (in a strategy that would anticipate Harper's) is almost entirely a reproduction of a very long list compiled by a Connecticut woman charged with catering a "light buffet supper" at the Fall Antiques Show. The list includes such entries as:
20 pounds butter
1,200 chive biscuits
42 white sailor hats
2 bushels decorative gourds
9 bales hay
...and so on. The list really must be seen in its entirety.
The name of that caterer? Martha Stewart.
—Martin Schneider
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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)
- Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
- 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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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 my heart.
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Comments
I'm delighted to see Berton Rouche's name appear here. He's a great writer. His "First Boat to King Island" is one of my all-time favorite New Yorker articles.