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Filed under: On the Spot Tagged: Anthony Lane, David Owen, design, fellow travelers, James Thurber, movies, Personal History, Susan Orlean
It's funny what can cheer you up. I hadn't done this feature in a long time—I had the notion to record the moments when I noticed people on a means of transportation reading The New Yorker—but this morning on the L train to Manhattan, there was a perfect triangle—or, give the cherries shiny red apples on this issue's back cover, a winning slot-machine combination—of three of us reading the magazine (me and the guy next to me reading Susan Orlean's nimble story on the umbrella inventor—in which she quotes my esteemed umbrella-critiquing colleague Julie Lasky!—and a cute blonde chick, if you like that sort of thing, reading Anthony Lane and the Critic's Notebook), all of us standing coat-to-coat, since it was rush hour.
Then I looked down the car and saw a tall guy reading the David Owen Personal History on nicknames and grinning like crazy, then laughing outright. When I changed to the 6 at Union Square, I noticed three more readers in quick succession, then four. All were under 40 and had iPods in their ears (except me—my Shuffle's busted). It made me smile. Maybe, just maybe, print culture's going to survive in style and life will be halfway livable, even if they don't throw paper like they used to.
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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)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- 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)
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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Comments
Yes, the print version won't die. But I think the future holds print version subscribers with a password for free access to the online version, as well as online by subscription only kids.
With trial periods and teasers, of course.
At least until they get those darned Kindles et al perfected and cost effective. Maybe they can come up with a version that has the option of a back that shows what you're reading, like a book cover. (For those that like to be asked, "how's that book?" and other such sociable questions between readers.)
I'll never give in (although I could deal with holograms of great novels hovering in the air, in beautiful type, for the bathtub and reading in the dark, and when one is lost in the woods). Just because it's inevitable doesn't mean I have to like it!