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Looked Into
The Invisible Man: Finding Rea Irvin
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Chris Ware, covers, Pollux, Rea Irvin
Pollux writes:
What does Rea Irvin look like?
In this post on the New Yorker site, Chris Ware explores the difficulties of finding a photograph of the New Yorker's first art director.
(continued)
Hapworth 16, 1924: The Screenplay
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: cinema, Gustave Flaubert, Gāyatrī, Honoré de Balzac, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Schneider, Miguel Cervantes, Nicolas Cage, Pollux, The New Yorker Digital Reader, Woody Allen
Click on the image for a detailed view!
Pollux writes:
For many, J.D. Salinger's short story "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a story that one feels obliged to read, if only to see what all the fuss is about. It certainly makes easier reading than Joyce's Finnegans Wake, but for readers looking for structure and narrative, Hapworth may be a disappointment.
Nevertheless, Hapworth remains an object of wonder, due to the fact that it is the last piece of work that Salinger published. Its aura is increased by its inaccessibility in print, although if you have access to The New Yorker Digital Reader, you may read it in full in the June 19, 1965 issue. Just log in, turn the digital pages to page 33, and smile at the 1960s ads for booze, vacation spots, and Woody Allen's "laugh record" (Volume 2).
(continued)
When You Bend It, You Can't Mend It
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Hendrik Hertzberg, in memoriam, Jonathan Schwartz, Kate McGarrigle, music
Emily Gordon writes:
I should have known Hendrik Hertzberg would be a Kate McGarrigle fan, and here is his heartfelt, ardent tribute to her. I heard about her death on Jonathan Schwartz's timeless, dreamlike radio show last weekend and have had her songs caught in my head, even more than usual, since then. "And it's only love, and it's only love,/That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out."
Hertzberg wrote this (and more--read all of it) as a Carnegie Hall program note for a McGarrigle Christmas show, and I think it's just right:The songs and singing of the McGarrigles have turned out to be a font of consolation: a pool of sweetness, a well of sadness, a geyser of exaltation. They have music to suit every stage of love and life. And they are the muses and matriarchs of an extraordinary family circle--a raffish orchestra of parents, siblings, offspring, exes, friends, and collaborators. We, their fans, are part of this circle, too. There are enough of us to assure our uncompromising heroines of a livelihood, but not so many that we risk the loneliness of a crowd.Every stage of love and life--including this one, the unreal, suspended sadness of hearing one of your favorite voices on the radio and in your thoughts, and knowing the breath and mind behind that voice are gone. (continued)
Cartoonists A - Z: Michael Maslin's Directory of New Yorker Cartoonists
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: cartoonists, Michael Maslin, Pollux
Pollux writes:
It's a work in progress, but Michael Maslin's Directory of New Yorker Cartoonists serves as a very useful compendium of New Yorker cartoonists' names and biographies.
Maslin includes useful information, such as when a cartoonist's work began appearing in the magazine.
Maslin's New Yorker Cartoonists A - Z also includes some photos and self-portraits, as well as some interesting biographical details about the diverse pantheon of people who have contributed their immortal cartoons to the magazine. Enjoy!
(continued)
The U.S.'s Bygone Angostura Autarky
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Angostura Bitters, Jonathan Taylor, Talk of the Town
Jonathan Taylor writes:
Edge of the American West has helped us catch up with the Angostura Bitters shortage of 2009–10, since we've been taking a bit of a break from the cocktail-shaking scene.
If only Angostura, now a division of Bacardi, were still manufacturing its concentrate for U.S. distribution in Jersey City, as it was at the time of a 1934 Talk piece about the secret recipe, protected by the
(continued)
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
- Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
- Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
- Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
- Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
- Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
- Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
- Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
- Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
- Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)
More clips.
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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 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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