Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
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Features & Columns:
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On the Spot
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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Best of the 01.19.09 Issue: The United States of Tara and a Poem Called "Eh?"
Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Barack Obama, Guy Billout, Judith Thurman, Samantha Power, Tad Friend
Martin Schneider writes:
This issue had Guy Billout's cover with Obama (or an Obama-esque figure) parting the political seas of red and blue. Candidates include Tad Friend on marketing movies, Judith Thurman on Scrabble, and Samantha Power on Gary Haugen. Our crack team will be weighing in shortly!
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.
You'd like to know more about the writers and artists and what our column titles mean? We live to serve!
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email 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)
- Follow us on Twitter
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- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
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Comments
I think this week it’s a toss-up between Thurman and Friend. Friend’s piece is full of great quotes and is very funny. I e-mailed it to a couple marketing friends of mine, and to our middle son, who really enjoyed Friend’s “cable guy” article a couple of years ago. But … when all is said and done and the tiles are toted up, POTI this week has to go to Thurman’s “Spreading The Word,” does it not? I mean, if the test of a great piece is whether it catches your attention and holds it, in spite of the subject matter, well, as Pauline Kael would say, that’s not nothing! I cannot abide Scrabble. Nevertheless, I loved Thurman’s piece for the writing, which combines words, quotes, and ideas in heretofore unheard of and beautiful combos, e.g., “At lexulous.com, you can choose a practice game against the computer, although, compared with Maven or Quackle, the Agarwallas’ digital mastermind is a nitwit who leaves the triple-word scores undefended, offers lame hints, misses bingos, and squanders the blanks, and whom I beat at least half the time.” The surreal reality of a sentence like that trumps whole essays by Jill Lepore!