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Looked Into
Martin Schneider writes:
I took hardly any notes for the second and third chapters. Chapter 2 is a pitch-perfect depiction of (as yet unnamed) Erdedy's agitated hours-long wait for pot, and chapter 3 returns to Hal and introduces us to an eccentric and key relation of his. For some reason, neither one offers much for the fan of odd vocabulary (aside from Kindle problems with italics text).
The juxtaposition of these two chapters is a reminder that what most marks Infinite Jest is its combination of sections featuring unfussy, devastating, psychologically plausible character sketches and sections featuring hyperbolic, absurd comedy. The first (continued)
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: Desert Island Jokes
Filed under: The Catbird Seat: Friends & Guests Tagged: comics, islands, Pollux, The Wavy Rule
When did the trope of a comic or cartoon set on a desert island begin? I would love to find the first ever desert island cartoon.
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
Read "The Wavy Rule" archive, and order your Wavy Rule 2008 Anthology today! (continued)
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: "Kofferhass"
Filed under: The Catbird Seat: Friends & Guests Tagged: comics, neologisms, Pollux, travel
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
Read "The Wavy Rule" archive, and order your Wavy Rule 2008 Anthology today! (continued)
Emdashes Milestone: 1,001 Followers on Twitter!
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: contests, Twitter
Sometime between the hours when yachts participating in the Volvo Ocean Race were inching their way across the last leg to St. Petersburg, and the minute when the TerreStar-1 satellite was launched from a space base in French Guiana, a great thing happened: the number of followers on Emdashes hit 1,001!
We were pleased and appreciate the support of all of our Twitter followers --even you, Twitter Follower #666.
But time and Twitter stand still for no one. We're not going to rest on our digital laurels here at Emdashes: as such, we will be rewarding the 1500th follower with a Squib Report T-shirt, featuring the Typing Owl! Available in adult sizes, and, as proven by the very cute photo above, in child sizes as well. (continued)
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: Design Facilities
Filed under: The Catbird Seat: Friends & Guests Tagged: comics, graphic design, Pollux, Silvio Berlusconi
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
Read "The Wavy Rule" archive, and order your Wavy Rule 2008 Anthology today! (continued)
Infinite Summer: Location 868
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: David Foster Wallace, Infinite Summer, Kevin Drum
Martin Schneider writes:
That number, 868, sounds impressive, but Kindle users will recognize it as a shamefully low number (all of Infinite Jest has 25,756 locations). Anyway, this isn't an update on my reading (coming soon!), it's a report of an interesting link.
One of my favorite bloggers, Kevin Drum (with whom we've interacted fruitfully before), currently of Mother Jones, formerly of The Washington Monthly, weighed in on Infinite Summer from the perspective of someone who devoured the book a decade ago, and won't be doing it again. Not that he didn't like the book, he really did, a lot.
He links to his original thoughts, written in 1997 and (continued)
Sempé Fi (On Covers): Voilà, la Mer!
Filed under: Sempé Fi Tagged: art, beach, covers, Denzel Washington, Jean-Jacques Sempé, John Travolta, Pollux, Sempé
Pollux writes:
He's jumped in. His socks, cap, shoes, glasses, shirt, pants, backpack, and bicycle lie strewn on the beach behind him. And now what? He's shivering in the cold water, the sun is concealed by rain-heavy clouds, and the beach is empty and forlorn.
Such is the vision presented in Jean-Jacques Sempé's cover, called "Jumping In," for the June 22, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. Sempé's human figures are always minuscule, but the little boy on this cover is smaller still, composed as he is of the thinnest strikes of the pen in the face of engulfing watercolor spills of green, white, and purple that comprise clouds, sea, and sky.
And now what? It's not the best day for going to the beach. Perhaps he would have been better off staying home and reading Tintin comic books or going to the movies to see some utterly mindless thriller starring a subway car, a subway train dispatcher played by Denzel Washington, and John Travolta in Swordfish-mode again.
But summer is about trying new things, even if it involves some discomfort in the form of a freezing Atlantic. Sempé's cover for the April 8, 2002 issue of The New Yorker offered a similar vision of a person wading into a wide ocean, but the figure on this 2002 cover is older and much more content to simply wade in. He's not going any farther. This was a five-minute expedition, only involving the removal of shoes and socks.
But Sempé's younger figure on this 2009 cover is much more daring, although a little uncertain. Such is youth, a mixture of daring and uncertainty.
The sea beckons. How far will you go? (continued)
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: The Shawshank Detention
Filed under: The Catbird Seat: Friends & Guests Tagged: Bernard Madoff, Bernie Madoff, Morgan Freeman, Pollux, The Wavy Rule
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
Read "The Wavy Rule" archive, and order your Wavy Rule 2008 Anthology today! (continued)
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: Precipitation of Golconde
Filed under: The Catbird Seat: Friends & Guests Tagged: comics, Pollux, René Magritte, The Wavy Rule
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
Read "The Wavy Rule" archive, and order your Wavy Rule 2008 Anthology today! (continued)
Martin Schneider writes:
I do not own an iPhone, but it doesn't take a genius to surmise that this might make an awful lot of people happy:
Here's the text:
About The New Yorker for iPhone(continued)
A weekly magazine with a signature mix of reporting on national and international politics and
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.
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
- 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.
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Founded and micromanaged 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.
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