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Looked Into
Mad Men, Season 4: The Futility of Resisting Bodily "Sin"
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Doris Day, George Orwell, Mad Men, Martin Schneider, Matthew Weiner, Woodstock
Martin Schneider writes:
It's interesting how positive a reaction the Honda shenanigans got from all the pro bloggers documenting every detail of the Draper Saga. During one commercial break while watching the most recent episode, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword," I commented to my co-watchers, "What is this, Three's Company?" It reminded me of the Ham Scam from s04e01, after which Don scolded Peggy, but good. Nobody I read pointed out the parallel. The Honda sequence was as rich and enjoyable as everything that happens in Mad Men, but I didn't enjoy it more than anything else on the show.
I was more taken by the plight of Sally Draper, whose predicament is getting more gut-wrenchingly alarming by the scene. I think what skewers our hearts so damnably about Sally is that nothing is really under her control. Her supposedly "rebellious" act of cutting her own hair seemed just beyond (continued)
Daily Comic: Coywolves
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: cartoons, comics, coywolf, coywolves, Pollux
Daily Comic: NetPuppets
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: cartoons, comics, Netflix, Pollux, puppet, puppets
Daily Comic: The Semicolon versus Lady Asterism: II
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: asterism, comics, Lady Asterism, Pollux, superhero, superheroes, The Semicolon
When last we saw The Semicolon, he had been shackled and blinded by Lady Asterism. We continue his adventures…
(continued)
Daily Comic: Katie and Her 7 Evil Exes
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: comics, love, Pollux, romance, Scott Pilgrim
Daily Comic: Typeface Beauty Pageants
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: beauty pageant, cartoons, comics, parenting, Pollux, typeface, typography
For When You're Looking for Emily Fox Gordon But Find Emily Gordon Instead
Filed under: Little Words Tagged: Emily Fox Gordon, Emily Gordon, Emily Gordons
The world of Emily Gordons is an honorable guild of creative workers, with only a few exceptions—and those exceptions get a free pass because they’re undergraduates and, lord knows, we would have made awful fools of ourselves if we had been online then. (By “we,” I mean “me.”) Notable Emily Gordons include the polymathically brilliant Emily Gordon, writer of Gynomite! and, among many other things, a licensed therapist who gives me platinum advice for free. And for more than a decade, I’ve been following the writing career of Emily Fox Gordon, whose beautifully crafted essays, fiction, and book-length nonfiction are a pleasure to read. Now she’s working on a new novel, and, speaking for all Emily Gordons, we are very excited to read it. —Emily Gordon (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)
Daily Comic: Forgotten Greek Myths
Filed under: The Wavy Rule Tagged: comics, hand-dryer, mythology, Pollux
¡Time's Up! Put Down Your Pencils; Punctuation Will Now Answer Your Letters.
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Ben Greenman, books, contests, fiction, letters, punctuation, What He's Poised to Do
That’s our fervent hope, anyway. In the meantime, we’re sifting the nearly 150 entries into our write a letter to a punctuation mark contest. Mail call brought gladness to the ampersand, the grawlix, the Oxford comma, the underline, and everything (everyone? the marks have all been so brilliantly personified that we can no longer think of them as mere shapes on a page) in between. We’ll pick five top finalists this week and list them here, and we’ll want to hear what you think about it. Got a favorite entry? Have a beef to hoist? Tell us here!
As you know, the final finalist will get a signed and hand-punctuated copy of Ben Greenman’s new collection of stories, What He’s Poised to Do. Mr. Greenman will choose the top letter himself. May the best mark win! —Emily Gordon (continued)
About us
Hello! We are media enthusiasts and culture addicts—not to mention classically trained (as we like to say) professional journalists. This is our collection of generally civilized conversations about magazines, movies, politics, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to read more about us individually? That's so nice! Here you can learn a lot more about the Emdashes team, the mysterious-sounding names of our daily and non-daily columns, and our guest contributors.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments, and are always looking for ardent new contributors who care about letters (postal, typographical, admiring, literary, and tough-love). Here's how to contact us.
Occasionally, we host book giveaways, and review books here as often as we can. Publishers, please e-mail us and we'll send you an appropriate mailing address.
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: 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)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- 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)
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