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New Year's New Yorker Short Story Resolution: Installment II
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Daniel Fuchs, George Milburn, J.F. Powers, Jerome Weidman, Kay Boyle
More dispatches from my short story resolution:
Kay Boyle, “Kroy Wen,” July 25, 1931
Plot: Movie mogul harrasses poor Italians on a cruise.
Noah Webster alert: “repine” means both to complain and to pine.
George Milburn, “The Apostate,” June 4, 1932
Plot: Rotarian learns there’s more to life than the club.
Just wait forty years: “longhairs”
Excellent term of endearment: “you mangy old son of a hoss thief”
Excellent term of abuse: “sourbelly”
Jerome Weidman, “Chutzbah,” February 29, 1936
Plot: Charming boy from the old neighborhood is a bit of a shyster.
Inscrutable reference: Anyone know what “Leevio” means?
Good question: Is this story anti-Semitic?
J.F. Powers, “Death of a Favourite,” July 1, 1950
Plot: Parish priests in Minnesota perform an exorcism on a very unlikely subject.
Worthy of note: Title is likely a Thomas Gray reference.
Hot quotation: “Then they were gone, and after a bit, when they did not return, I supposed they were out killing poultry on the open road.”
Daniel Fuchs, “The Golden West,” July 10, 1954
Plot: Hollywood people suffer during a garden party.
Censorious Shawn alert: “whatsis” used to denote female posterior.
Hot quotation: “Mrs. Ashton was an intensely serious person, and as she lunged and flung herself about, she clearly had no idea of the violent effect the game was having on her bosom.”
A crank would say: The Osterman Weekend without the machine guns. Or possibly L’Avventura on Benzedrine.
Best story: “Death of a Favourite”
—Martin Schneider
Previously: Installment I
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.
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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
- 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)
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- Carolita Johnson
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Comments
Even better.
I agree—heady stuff, MS! More, please!
Delightful, Martin. (You’re quite effectively distracting me from my essay-reading project.)
I went back to the Feb. 29, 1936 issue to see the context for the word “Leevio” in “Chutzbah,” learned it was a type of game, and then Googled “Leevio” and “game.” Came up with lots of nostalgic references to a game called “ring-a-leevio,” which sounds a lot like tag.
Oooh, well done! Thank you!