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9.24.07 Issue: Too Sexy for My Shoe

Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Francine du Plessix Gray, Henry Alford, Marcel Proust, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Nancy Franklin

In which the staff of Emdashes reviews the high points and discusses the particulars of the previous week’s issue (or, occasionally, another edition).

Did anybody else notice the astronomical Proust quotient in this year’s Style Issue? (Why the Style Issue for so much Proust, anyway?) I sure as hell noticed the ribald Proust reference in Francine du Plessix Gray’s Onward and Upward about Marie-Laure de Noailles, boy howdy! (For the record, ladies, I’ve never read Proust.)

Henry Alford’s Annal of Technology about the solar-powered jacket amused me very much. I do confess to being puzzled (nay, alarmed) by his unabashed use of the veddy British word “whinging,” though.

Finally, I hereby nominate Nancy Franklin for Parenthetical of the Year. Here it is, from her fine negative review of Ken Burns’s PBS documentary The War: “(There will also be, in some places, no swearing; local stations worried about F.C.C. fines for offensive language are being offered a version of the series which removes the four instances of tangy language that unaccountably made their way into a documentary about what it’s like to kill, to see your friends be killed, and to spend endless days and nights in unrelieved fear of being killed yourself.)” Thank you for that. —Martin Schneider

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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.

Want to know more about the people who contribute to Emdashes, and the secret meanings behind our column titles? All about us.

We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive contributors. Click here to email us.

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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)