Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Weekly: Pick of the Issue
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Submit a question for the next column.
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Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into
The Questions People Ask
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: books, Cartoon Caption Contest, cartoons, comics, Dan Baum, Emily Flake, James Wood, Liesl Schillinger, movies, New Orleans, newyorkette
What’s James Wood going to be like as a New Yorker critic?
Are film bloggers Stepford Critics?
How is New Orleans doing, and does medication help?
Is L.A. really a shallow wasteland, or does it just look that way?
Whose “deadpan sensibility and plump line drawings” does Liesl Schillinger praise in the Times?
What does newyorkette think of the latest issue?
Is the board game based on the Cartoon Caption Contest any fun to play?
Love is the answer—I wonder what the question is? (Printed on the yellow plastic Ziggy comb I found on the soccer field in elementary school)
If you have answers, please send them to letters@emdashes.com.
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The Effect of Tacos on Man-in-the-Moon Magazines
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Anthony Hiss, Barney Tobey, books, cartoons, Complete New Yorker, fiction, food, TOTT, Woody Allen
Soon the lawyer sat in the living room in his shirtsleeves at Jeanne’s insistence, his tie off, eating tacos from a tray. He needed a shave, and his hair was unkempt. Hawke noticed that the bristles on his face were reddish rather than blond. He looked more tired than Hawke had ever seen him, but the food and the beer brought him to quickly. “Why, these things are marvellous! What do you call them, Jeanne, tacos? I’ve never eaten anything like this. Delicious! Is there a restaurant in town where I can order these?” She said, pleased, “Well, if you can find a lowbrow enough Mexican joint they’ll probably have tacos, but I wouldn’t endorse the contents, Gus. Better ask me, when you feel like having them again. They’re easy to make.”Kevin, a Californian to the core, then asks: “Really? In New York City, circa 1952, tacos were so uncommon as to be practically (continued)
"That Was in The New Yorker?!"
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Annie Proulx, fiction, Irwin Shaw, J.D. Salinger, James Thurber, John Cheever, John O'Hara, John Updike, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Shirley Jackson, Vladimir Nabokov, Woody Allen
I propose a new category: works of fiction that originally appeared in The New Yorker that later took on a life of their own apart from the magazine. Criteria for inclusion in the group would include authentic fame, to the point that people uninterested in or unacquainted with the magazine would still have heard of it or might have some well-defined attitude towards it. Revelation that the item originally appeared in The New Yorker might come as a mild surprise.
A relevant anecdote: when I was in college (this was in about 1990), I was chatting with a friend of mine, a decidedly unliterary type, a poli-sci major who later went into finance. He was telling me about this great sci-fi story he had once read, about this contraption that could insert people into novels. About halfway through his account, my face took on a look of bemused recognition. Once he was done, I said, “You know who wrote that story?
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8.13.07 Issue: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Annals of Medicine, art, cartoons, Daniel Radosh, food, Guy Billout, Jane Mayer, medicine, Michael Maslin, Oliver Sacks, politics, Richard Preston, Shouts & Murmurs, sports, Tom Mueller, Yoni Barrett
In which various Emdashes contributors note what we liked in last week’s issue.
What a world! This issue was chock full of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Who knew that Oliver Sacks was a ferner? (No, I don’t mean someone born abroad, although he is that too.) I forwarded Yoni Brenner’s chortle-worthy Shouts & Murmurs “Aesop in the City” to every NBA fan I know. Aesop knew his hoops.
Tom Mueller’s engaging Letter from Italy exposes the thriving fake olive oil syndicates. My mother is an avid consumer of extra-virgin olive oil, and I’m contemplating burning the issue
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Book Notes for the Weekend
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: books, Brendan Gill, Gardner Botsford, Joe Gould, Joseph Mitchell, memoir, Michael Gates Gill, Starbucks
I had no idea about this memoir by Michael Gates Gill, Brendan Gill’s son and a celebrator of Starbucks, but I’m very keen to read it. Looks like it’s Gotham Books, September. I must get hold of one! I like how the subtitle can be read as a subtle nod to one of the best books I read last year.
And on Mediabistro, Neal Ungerleider posts an appreciation of a post by Sewell Chan on the City Room blog, all about Joseph Mitchell and Joe Gould. My hat’s off (and I just inherited two large hatboxes full of hats) to both Joes. Read Chan’s tribute. Gould, too, had had a life of privilege, mostly. I respectfully disagree with Ungerleider and with Stephen Holden that Joe Gould’s Secret, the movie, is second-rate. One can’t have expectations like that for adaptations; it’s a beautiful movie, a West Village poem, unto itself.
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Who she?
I'm Emily Gordon, reachable at emily@emdashes.com.
I'm an editor at PRINT magazine in New York City. I've worked at The Nation, Newsday, PEN America, and Legal Affairs. I've written for the NY Times Book Review, Salon, The Washington Post, The Village Voice... continued
I 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.
A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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.
Written and edited by Emily Gordon (plus various guest contributors), designed by 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
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- Chiasmus in The New Yorker