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The New Yorker's Guide to the Eliot Spitzer Situation
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Brendan Gill, fiction, humor, Nick Paumgarten, politics, Woody Allen
Looking at the blogosphere, I’ve seen three pieces of writing mentioned in connection with Eliot Spitzer’s stunning predicament; two of them appeared in The New Yorker.
To start, Garth Risk Hallberg at the Millions returns to Nick Paumgarten’s fine profile of the governor from last December, presciently titled “The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer” (little did he know!). Hallberg approvingly quotes Paumgarten’s description of Spitzer’s impulsiveness, which now reads like a masterpiece of understatement.
Second, the scandal reminds The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber of Portnoy’s Complaint, which did not, alas, first appear in The New Yorker, which fact should not prevent us from admiring Brendan Gill’s astonishing description of the novel as “a single, hysterical howl of excrementitious anguish.”
And finally, the Emperors Club that got Spitzer into so much trouble seems to have been more than a little bit pretentious, touting the “individual education, sophistication … erudition and educational standing/accomplishments” of its “models,” prompting the New York Times blog Laugh Lines to quote several lines from Woody Allen’s classic story “The Whore of Mensa.”
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)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
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