Emdashes exclusive: A dispatch by our friend Ben Bass from the recent Chicago Humanities Festival--in particular, an event in which New Yorker cartoonists told fascinating stories and Bob Mankoff made cogent observations about modern youth (and encouraged more people to submit). Bass is a theater critic, culture watcher, devoted attendee of the New Yorker Festival, puzzler, and writer (not to mention tool maker, stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation's freight handler in the city of the big shoulders) who would have to be considerably windier before we tired of reading him. Here's his engaging report.

Chicagoans who make an annual pilgrimage to the New Yorker Festival are getting a local cherry on top of their recent Manhattan sundae. Now underway within Windy City limits is the Chicago Humanities Festival, a yearly cultureklatsch that recently retained New Yorker staff writer Lawrence "Ren" Weschler as its spiritual leader. As a result, this year's CHF has more representation than ever on the Eustace Tilley front.

Simon Schama, for example, joined Weschler onstage to tell Jewish jokes to a capacity crowd at the Spertus Museum of Judaica. The fast-talking two-man vaudeville show was punctuated by sound effects from beatbox artist Yuri Lane. Artist Chris Ware, whose ghostly Halloween cover and four-page cartoon spread graced last week's issue, appeared with Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Jules Feiffer, and Michael Miner for a discussion on the dire state of alternative comics.

And Saturday morning, a panel of New Yorker cartoonists assembled at Thorne Auditorium in the Northwestern University School of Law. The popular Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan introduced them; I imagine she's no stranger to making appearances at elite law schools, but even more relevantly for this purpose, she's married to the New Yorker cartoonist Pat Byrnes. The other panelists: Roz Chast, Ed Koren, and moderator Robert "Bob" Mankoff.

Mankoff, the magazine's cartoon editor, kicked things off with a joke: "We're running late, so please hold your laughter until the end." Before turning things over to Koren, he discussed the recent history of humor and The New Yorker's cartoon selection process. The audience got a delightful peek at the latter during a screening of the short film Being Bob, in which Mankoff roundly rejects everything from piles of cartoons

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The Emdashes team is looking for bright, New Yorker-phile, syntax-and-punctuation-consumed, creative, and cheerful interns for the fall season. The internship will span from mid-September through December and will be supervised by various members of the staff, all of whom have been interns and will be friendly and supportive mentors in literary-media-political-illustration-design-niche blogging.

It will involve whatever you are best at doing from this list: editing, writing, idea-generating, organizing, tagging, coding, linking, doing multimedia tasks to be determined, reporting local events (not just in New York but wherever you happen to be), reading, reviewing, collecting, scanning, sleuthing, event planning, and/or obsessing. Actually, obsessing is the only absolute requirement. Attention to detail and horror at factual, typographical, and orthographical errors are key.

Benefits include free stuff (books, tickets to events, and the like), plenty of positive reinforcement and honest advice from professional editors and writers, web publication experience, writing clips, and a ticket to the hottest party in town: the Emdashes 5th Anniversary Extravaganza, near New Year's of this year.

Please send a short email explaining why you are the perfect Emdashes intern to emily at emdashes dot com, and attach your CV and a writing sample or two. We're looking forward to meeting you!

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Emily Gordon writes:

So, my dad sent me this very funny--funny for nerds, which is us--link to the corrections to Sarah Palin's speech by the Vanity Fair literary editor and the magazine's copy and research departments. (Martin's already noted it, because he's quick on the draw that way.)

I sent it on to my dear friends and former employers at The Nation's copy department, as I am wont to do, and my fleet former boss, Roane Carey, now the magazine's managing editor, wrote back with this quotable observation, which, with his permission, I quoth:

I can't wait to read this, but I also thought parts of Hertzberg's leader in the latest New Yorker were hilarious--comparing, in sober, reflective language, Palin's resignation speech with that of the Founders: "And, indeed, her speech had echoes of the document signed in Philadelphia two hundred and thirty-three years and one day earlier." Hertzberg cites Jefferson on political change, then quotes Palin (unintelligible, of course) on same. More fun than a barrel of monkeys.

I agree. And while I'm sure Hertzberg is as big a Dylanophile as anyone, I wonder if the Talk's inspired epigraph originated with his boss, since I've heard he's a low-key, Sunday sort of fan o' Bob. (continued)