Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
Ask the Librarians archive
About Emdashes | Email us
Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
The Contested Number of Years That Bill Murray Is Stuck in Groundhog Day
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Bill Murray, Danny Rubin, film, Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis, math, movies, Punxsutawney Phil
Harold Ramis says ten. (The screenwriter, Danny Rubin, invites you to pony up to find out what he thinks.) These folks say eight years, eight months, and sixteen days. My favorite estimate comes from this brilliant breakdown, which gives it as 12,403 days of Sonny and Cher and sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist, or almost 34 years. Poor Phil. He really earned that happy ending.
—Emily Gordon
(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)
Steve Martin and Deborah Solomon Bring Down the House, Sort Of
Filed under: On the Spot Tagged: 92Y, Deborah Solomon, Joseph Beuys, Steve Martin
Martin Schneider writes:
It was a curious scene Monday night at 92Y. Steve Martin and Deborah Solomon, who is responsible for the "Questions For" feature in The New York Times Magazine, were slated to entertain a mostly filled Kaufmann Concert Hall (and, via simulcast, many other viewers at synagogues around the country) with an hour or so of lively chat.
It took only a few minutes for Solomon to alienate the audience thoroughly.
Solomon's strategy was to treat the event like a book report, covering, almost chapter by chapter, Martin's new novel about the art world, An Object of Beauty. As Martin pointed out, it was wise to assume that the
(continued)
Even When It's Bold Italic: Typefaces to Love and Serenade
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: American Theater Company, Cab Calloway, Caleb Crain, cartoons, David Mamet, DD40, design, DesignScout, Elmer Simms Campbell, fonts, Jason Kinney, Jessica Hische, Jonathan Lethem, Lady Gaga, Lance Baker, maps, Mark Searcy, music, Neutra Face, Nicholson Baker, plays, Richard Posner, Speed-the-Plow, theater, typography, Wired, YouTube
“Obsessing about fonts is a form of procrastination, so of course I have indulged in it ever since I graduated from a TRS-80 Model III to a Macintosh.” —Caleb Crain
“The main thing, though, is to use some nonproportional typewriter-style font—you need the sentences to look their worst until the dress rehearsal of the galleys, when all the serifs come out dancing.”
—Nicholson Baker
Emily Gordon writes:
My Chicago actor pal Lance Baker, taking a break from rehearsing Speed-the-Plow, just pointed out this 2007 gem from Slate: “My Favorite Font: Anne Fadiman, Jonathan Lethem, Richard Posner, and others reveal what font they compose in and why.” I wonder if they’ve all changed their minds by now? Caleb, how about you?
That thought sent me searching for this hilarious Jessica Hische post from earlier this year, a mini-autobiography of a typophile called “My Evolution of Type Taste from Grade School to Present”—click to enlarge and read her arch asides on questionable font attractions. Meanwhile, ambling along the googleway, I landed on this post about various other designers’ favorite faces.
All this brought me, musically and giddily, back to the song that is in my head 1) every time I see my sunscreen, which is called Sport Face, and 2) every time I hear Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” Yes, it’s DD40’s (Jason Kinney and Mark Searcy) Gaga-meets-typographer beards spectacular, “Neutra Face.” Here’s what Michael Conroy at the Wired U.K. blog wrote about it:I’ve seen this video several dozen times since it first rocked the world of fonty montys everywhere, and I still think it’s incredibly funny. And (as the YouTube commenters well know) damn sexy, too!In a video that smacks of “it’s Friday afternoon, why not?” four guys have remixed Lady GaGa’s Poker Face into an homage to Neutraface, the light and airy modern font that I’m sure you’re all very familiar with…or perhaps not.
Either way, the sight of four hirsute men reimagining the Poker Face clip to perfection (“You’ll read my, you can read my Neutraface…even if it’s bold italic”) is sure to make you smile, not least their brilliantly choreographed moves portraying “bold” and “italic”, which should be licensed for use on dance floors everywhere.
Check out this and other songs DD40 have released - on cassette tape, no less - at their website.
Speaking of design and Art, and Speed-the-Plow, aren’t these handsome posters for the American Theater Company’s new season? Images after the jump.
(continued)
Who Will Win the Punctuation Popularity Contest?
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Ben Greenman, contests, etymology, grammar, injustice, punctuation, typography
Emily Gordon writes:
A few stars—and we don’t mean asterisks—are emerging in our punctuation-addressing contest to win Ben Greenman’s new book, What He’s Poised to Do. Here are the rankings of letter recipients so far, out of 82 entries and counting. What does this say about these marks, or about us as a society? We don’t know. All we know is, some of these little symbols are coming home with an armful of valentines (and a little hate mail), and some are Charlie Brown, weeping into their sandwiches. If you’re for the underdog, as we generally are, take a moment to send a note to, say, the solitary slash, or, for that matter, the ubiquitous but apparently invisible backslash. Send a salami to your manicule in the army! Keep those cards and letters coming.
The current rankings (to be updated frequently for those placing bets):
Ellipsis: 10
Semicolon (which has withstood some harsh attacks in the past): 8
Apostrophe: 7
Exclamation Point: 7
At sign: 3
Ampersand: 3
Asterisk: 3
Colon: 3
Parentheses: 3
Period: 5
em dash: 2
Grawlix: 2
Interrobang: 2
Manicule: 2
Question Mark: 2
Tilde: 2
Tied with one piece of fan (or unfan) mail each: acute accent, air quote, at-the-price-of, bracket, bullet, comma, curly quote, diaeresis, dollar sign en dash, exclaquestion mark, hyphen, interpunct, interroverti (formerly the inverted question mark), macron, percent sign, pilcrow, pound sign, quotation mark, smart quote, underline, Oxford comma.
No postcards, no wedding invitations, no junk mail, no J. Crew catalogue, no nuthin’: backslash, bullet, caret, copyright symbol, dagger, dash ditto mark, degree, ditto mark, double hyphen, inverted exclamation point, guillemets, lozenge, number sign (number sign! that’s the hashtag you use so shamelessly!), the “therefore” and “because” signs, slash, solidus, and tie.
Here are some stark and potentially upsetting images of those characters who have received no mail. Can you look into their fragile strokes and deny them the notice they crave?
\ • © ^ ° † ‡ « » ＝ 〃 ⁀ ◊ ∴ ∵ ¡ # / ⁄
Note: We realize that some of these marks are really less punctuation than they are typographical elements. But since they’re getting letters, or we think they should, we’re including them.
(continued)
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.
Our favorite things | Compliments and press
Looking for The New Yorker magazine? Kudos on your classy taste. Here's how to contact The New Yorker.
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
- Befriend us on Facebook
- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.