Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
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Features & Columns:
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Attention! New Punctuation Marks for You.
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: #tnyquestion, Ben Greenman, punctuation, Questioningly, The New Yorker, upside-down question marks
Once upon a time, from 2004 to about 2010, Emdashes was a New Yorker fan blog. But now that The New Yorker has so many blogs of its own for people to follow and be-fan, we’ve slowly started morphing back into what we intended to be in the first place: a punctuation blog.
Fortunately, sometimes our first love, The New Yorker, venntersects with our second love, punctuation. Today marks one such occasion. You probably already know that the magazine sponsors a weekly Twitter contest, Questioningly, in which people tweet entries (along with the hashtag #tnyquestion) in response to editor Ben Greenman’s inspired and loopy challenges. Greenman just posted the results of the most recent contest: Invent a new punctuation mark. Some of the winners: (continued)
What Not to Wear, Ogg
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: cavemen, Emily Gordon, fashion, Neanderthals, Ogg, Susan Sarandon
Ancient bones suggest cavemen wore boots
Neanderthal Shell Discovery Shows Cavemen Wore Makeup
Cavemen wore jewelry 19,000 years before Earth was created
How To Make a Caveman or Cavewoman Costume (“To top the costume off, make sure to make your hair frizzy and messy much like how cavemen wore it back in the day. Finally, you can opt to carry a wooden club or crude stone axe. Don’t forget to act like a caveman by walking funny and by speaking gibberish.”)
“It is possible, the article opined, that cavemen wore mullets out of sheer practicality.”
Sexy Neanderthals Wore Feathers
Susan Sarandon Wears Teeth Bracelet!
—Emily Gordon
(continued)
Eustace Tilley Squared -- If You Know Where to Look
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: Adam Kempa, Ben Bass, Eustace Tilley, Francoise Mouly, Pollux
Martin Schneider writes:
As Pollux noted recently—and our friend Ben Bass posted too—there is a mind-blowing trick in the special four-Eustace 85th anniversary cover of last month. If you place the four covers in the proper two-by-two configuration, the outlines of the original classic Eustace cover can be discerned.
Now we have Adam Kempa's excellent slider application, which allows you to find it without spreading (multiple copies of) the issue all over your living room floor.
I am endlessly impressed by such cleverness! Françoise Mouly, hats off to you! (A top hat, of course.)
(continued)
Martin Schneider writes:
User @alexbarkett (for that is the convention) tweets: "For everyone who was wondering, the audio prelude to all New Yorker podcasts is a song by Isolée called Schrapnell." I checked it out: it does sound right! (Compare.) A back and forth with Mr. Barkett confirmed that he knows the full song and that it only applies to the "Out Loud" podcasts.
Note that when I tried to confirm this fact on Google, I came up bupkes.
(continued)
The Twittersphere Reacts to This Week's Issue
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: Anthony Lane, D.T. Max, David Foster Wallace, Twitter
About us
Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker fan blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
Want to know more about the people who contribute to Emdashes, and the secret meanings behind our column titles? All about us.
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive contributors. Click here to email us.
We host occasional book giveaways. Publishers, please email us for our postal address.
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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
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- 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
- The Beautiful Sentence
- 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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