Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines

Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Our Daily Comic: The Wavy Rule
Archive: Ask the Librarians

Send us a question!

Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into

The Squib Report
X-Rea: Irvin Type Watch
Letters & Challenges
On the Spot
Eds. | Personal

Complaint: Damn You, New Yorker, for Being So Good!

Filed under: Letters & Challenges Tagged: Matthew Yglesias, subscriptions

Martin Schneider writes:

I don't think it's much of a secret that The New Yorker occupies some unusual cultural turf. The New Yorker is known for high quality and also, sometimes, disliked or resented for occupying its position so confidently or unapologetically. As a result you often run into people avowing their dislike for the magazine even as they acknowledge its high quality in the very same breath. One form this takes is disgust over the high piles of worthy issues that amass in the corners of subscribers' apartments and cause pangs of guilt—an odd reproach at best, and yet understandable.

Yesterday I noticed that one of our nation's finest political bloggers, native Manhattanite and current Washingtonian Matthew Yglesias, had twittered, "Going to give in and subscribe to The New Yorker." That piqued my interest, so I wrote him and inquired what constituted "giving in." Below is his reply—I think it captures a certain paradoxical love/hate attitude towards The New Yorker as well as anything I can think of.

I'm a hater by instinct, and everyone's great love for the New Yorker ("everyone" here meaning, of course, the kind of people I know) has left me sullen and resentful for years because, honestly, it's not as good as people say. But over these past few months of roommateless living when I haven't been able to ever, ever poach a glance at someone else's copy I've been finding something . . . missing from my life. Like really I like the magazine more than I care to admit. So I broke down and subscribed.

In this economic climate, it's cheering to hear of anyone initiating magazine subscriptions. We hope you enjoy it, Matt! And don't forget that subscription brings with it free access to every issue the magazine ever published, in the Digital Edition. (Sometimes the word doesn't get out to subscribers.)

0 comments

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, it may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Thanks for waiting.)

Your name

Your email address

Your website address

Remember personal info?

Your comments

See me speak at SXSW 2010 (http://sxsw.com)

Who we?

Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, 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.

Affinities | Blurbs

We welcome tips, questions, and comments about The New Yorker past and present, plus related events, links, typeface sightings, &c. To contact the magazine or send a submission, click here.

No fear: Everything you say or send is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.

This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.

Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

More clips.

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.

Primary sources

The New Yorker
Events listed by the magazine
Web resources: New Yorker writers and artists
Books, Organizations, &c.

Founded by Emily Gordon, edited by Martin Schneider, designed by House of Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.

The Rossosphere