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
Found in the Chapter Menu: The President's Analyst
Filed under: X-Rea: Irvin Type Watch Tagged: Brendan Gill, David Denby, movies, Rea Irvin
The President's Analyst, written and directed by Theodore J. Flicker and starring James Coburn in the title role, was released in 1967—which fact is screamingly evident in virtually every frame. I saw a big chunk of it many years ago, and in my mind it's always remained a mashup of Dick and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! with a little bit of Skidoo thrown in. (We learned recently that David Denby is a big fan of Otto Preminger—I'd love to know what he makes of Skidoo.)
Let's be frank: The President's Analyst is kind of a mess. Its hallmark is the sort of hysterical puerility much better carried off some years later in The In-Laws. Watching the DVD (and enjoying the movie about as much as I had), Friend of Emdashes Jarrett noticed something odd: the people responsible for the DVD menu, rather than select some swirly go-go typeface, as seen in for instance the poster, went with a close approximation of Irvin. (In the poster, the title is set in the shape of an analyst's couch, which is one of those "good" ideas better off relegated to the dustbin. You can see this idea carried over in the words "Scene Selection.")
Jarrett kindly provided Emdashes with some screengrabs. Here they are:
It's not quite a perfect match, I don't think, but it's very close. Nice to see my distant relative Dwayne F. Schneider there in that final chapter. Oh, here's that silly couch lettering:
And here's a random still from the movie with Coburn jamming on some kind of gong:
"The President's Analyst" ... has a fine idea for a comedy, which it wantonly tosses away.... From the moment the analyst turns up in a fright wig at a folk-rock party, the movie loses control of itself and pitches headlong into greater and greater exaggeration.
Exactly.
—Martin Schneider
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.
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.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: 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)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
T-shirts! The Emdashes Emporium at CafePress.
Comments
Actually, I like the couch! I think it's groovy, and funny. I'm going to find out what the technical name for that kind of word shape is. It's like a typographic calligramme.
Maybe you're right! I was not familiar with the word calligramme. What about this? I seem to remember some of those Alan Fletcher books like A Smile of the Mind having a few good ones like that.
I asked a typography guru I know, who said: "Figured typography or figurative lettering would be the term. It is based on figurative poetry (also called concrete poetry or for Apollinaire, calligrammes)." So I was almost there, as were you!
Here's one of Apollinaire's, for a nice visual example, and "Easter Wings" by George Herbert, one of my favorite poets.
"The President's Analyst" is a product of its time. Maybe not a great movie but almost everything in it has come true. We use cell phones instead of phone pills. Gun control and surveillance paranoia are still hot topics, too. A movie like this would never be made today, unfortunately. For one, we have no James Coburn. Its a broad romp and a great comment about society's polarized value systems and politics. Its not highbrow but it works.