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Looked Into
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
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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.
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A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- 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)
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- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
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Edited by Martin Schneider, designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
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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!