Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
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Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
For Lovers of Sassy, an Entire Issue
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Brendan Gill, James Laughlin, magazines, video
Fashionista.com has scanned in the entire November 1992 issue of Sassy. Sure, there were snaps of the hunks from Beverly Hills, 90210, but…a cheat sheet of "all the cool women running for congress"? A rundown of the 7 "most innovative colleges" in America? It was big stuff in 1992 — and a far cry from the current CosmoGIRL! fare ("Rate your prom date!" "Are you addicted to kissing?").
About us
Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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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
- 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)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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Comments
I wish I’d known about Sassy while I was becoming nauseated by the glossies instead! However, I can say the lowbrow idiot glossies made me what I am NOT today.
Um. Confession. I threw out all my old Sassys (they WERE cut to shreds) when I moved.
I have maybe half a dozen issues, and I’m keeping them forever! But if I’d had a whole set, it might have been a harder decision. I try not to have a Magazine Collection, though it’s hard to throw away the oldest ones and the ones with sentimental value. I’ve got a few classic Spys, some vintage and/or personally meaningful New Yorkers (but I’m trying to keep it under ten or twenty, tops) a ’60s Monocle, a very nice issue of Ezra Pound’s literary magazine The Exile, a few really excellent ’50s and ’60s movie magazines that unpack the whole Elizabeth Taylor/Debbie Reynolds/Eddie Fisher thing in extreme detail.
And…let’s see, some Mights, and a couple of the earliest issues McSweeney’s, though you don’t want to go too crazy saving that kind of thing. Hey, Dave Eggers, I know how you can raise money; put the first ten years on DVD! Really! I’d buy it. I bet he’s already doing that, too.