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
The Questions People Ask
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: books, Cartoon Caption Contest, cartoons, comics, Dan Baum, Emily Flake, James Wood, Liesl Schillinger, movies, New Orleans, newyorkette
What’s James Wood going to be like as a New Yorker critic?
Are film bloggers Stepford Critics?
How is New Orleans doing, and does medication help?
Is L.A. really a shallow wasteland, or does it just look that way?
Whose “deadpan sensibility and plump line drawings” does Liesl Schillinger praise in the Times?
What does newyorkette think of the latest issue?
Is the board game based on the Cartoon Caption Contest any fun to play?
Love is the answer—I wonder what the question is? (Printed on the yellow plastic Ziggy comb I found on the soccer field in elementary school)
If you have answers, please send them to letters@emdashes.com.
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
Bill James (baseball smartie) years ago reported the following chain of graffiti:
1. “Jesus is the answer.”
2. “What is the question?”
3. “Who was Matty and Felipe’s brother?”
One thing about the cartoon caption game: I’m finding it very difficult to plan to play it!
Boy, that Los Angeles piece was dreadful. And oh so unique…
I didn’t like those quotes in the Washington Post article. Was the article trying to be sensationalistic, or is that supposed to be acceptable public comment?
Evan, I can ‘t agree! I thought the L.A. piece was hilariously written. Most of the funny/sad details, aside from stuff like the Juicy Couture plastic-surgery victims, could have been observed from in any crappy apartment in any city.
James Wood is going to be brilliant. The only reservation I have arises from the change he made to the name of his great Tolstoy review, which appeared in the February 5, 2001, issue of The New Yorker under the lovely title, “At Home In The World.” Inexplicably, when Wood included the review in his collection, “The Irresponsible Self,” he changed the title to “Anna Karenina and Characterization.” The magazine’s editors are going to have to keep a sharp watch on Wood to make sure he doesn’t go academic on us.