Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines

Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Our Daily Comic: The Wavy Rule
Archive: Ask the Librarians

Send us a question!

Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into

The Squib Report
X-Rea: Irvin Type Watch
Letters & Challenges
On the Spot
Personal

Face in the Crowd

Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Bernard Taper, Bobby Fischer, David Remnick, Martha Stewart, TOTT

Two months ago, I alerted readers to the amusing fact that both Martha Stewart and Vince Foster managed to garner mention in The New Yorker a great many years before they achieved broader fame.

I've found another one.

Bobby Fischer became one of the most breathlessly discussed people in the world in 1972, when he beat Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, to win the World Chess Championship in what someone recently called "a Cold War epic (of a particularly neurotic type)."

But if you want to know what people thought of him fifteen years before that, The New Yorker has the goods.

In the September 7, 1957, issue there appears a lengthy TOTT by Bernard Taper about the precocious titleholder of the U.S. Open Chess Championship, which a few weeks earlier Fischer had become the youngest person to secure. Titled simply "Prodigy," Taper's piece is very good, delving into Fischer's mediocre academic record at Erasmus Hall High School and introducing readers to the extreme contrast between conventional chess and speed chess (here called "blitz").

It's a little like coming across an ancient copy of Sports Illustrated at an antiques store and finding someone like Terry Bradshaw in that great "Faces in the Crowd" feature.

Which reminds me. Sports Illustrated actually beat The New Yorker to the punch on Fischer, who was listed as a "Face in the Crowd" in 1956. —Martin Schneider

0 comments

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, it may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Thanks for waiting.)

Your name

Your email address

Your website address

Remember personal info?

Your comments

About us

Hello! We are media enthusiasts and culture addicts—not to mention classically trained (as we like to say) professional journalists. This is our collection of generally civilized conversations about magazines, movies, politics, punctuation, and other things that stir us.

You'd like to read more about us individually? That's so nice! Here you can learn a lot more about the Emdashes team, the mysterious-sounding names of our daily and non-daily columns, and our guest contributors.

We welcome tips, questions, and comments, and are always looking for ardent new contributors who care about letters (postal, typographical, admiring, literary, and tough-love). Here's how to contact us.

Occasionally, we host book giveaways, and review books here as often as we can. Publishers, please e-mail us and we'll send you an appropriate mailing address.

Our favorite things | Compliments and press

Tell me more

They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.

Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)

The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.