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Looked Into
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
Start Smiling: Not the New Yorker Map of the U.S. You Were Thinking Of
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Saul Steinberg, Stop Smiling, The Chicagoan
Jonathan Taylor writes:
We noted the new book about the new book about the short-lived, full-throated, New Yorker–inspired Chicago magazine of the 1920s, The Chicagoan. But any chance to see more brash images from the mag is welcome: Here's a slide show from Stop Smiling magazine (a stylish successor of sorts).
See especially the proto-Steinbergian "New Yorker's Map of the United States," and spot the tiny number of places that ≠ Dubuque. Reno, Nevada, didn't seem to loom as large for The New Yorker as the map would suggest....
(continued)
The New Yorker is Colbert's Bench (The Password is "Tea")
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Paul Muldoon, poetry, Simon Schama, Stephen Colbert, television
Martin Schneider writes:
More a "Looked At" than a "Looked Into," perhaps. Stephen Colbert sure does heart The New Yorker lately. This week Simon Schama was on, promoting his book The American Future, and last week Paul Muldoon made an appearance.
Colbert made fun of Schama's accent ("The Roh-mans?") and asked Muldoon if parents get cranky when they learn their progeny intend to major in the insufficiently remunerative discipline of poetry. He and Muldoon read Muldoon's poem "Tea" (from his book Madoc: A Mystery) together, and
(continued)
Martin Schneider writes:
Pauline Kael was born 90 years ago this Friday, June 19. Jason Bellamy of the Cooler, a website dedicated to "cinema ruminations," has chosen to dedicate the week to the one critic who probably influenced more movie bloggers than any other (and many other writers and critics too).
All week long, he'll be posting some of Kael's more noteworthy reviews and then open the floor to discussion.
The inaugural post features Kael's review of A Clockwork Orange, and focuses on
(continued)
'Imagine That Confronting You on a Newsstand!' Creative Editor Creatively Lampooned
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Flair, Fleur Cowles, S.J. Perelman
Jonathan Taylor writes:
The Daily Telegraph's obituary of the legendarily legendary editor of Flair magazine, Fleur Cowles, notes that she was the subject of a parodic piece in the New Yorker.
"The Hand That Cradles the Rock" (July 1, 1950), by S.J. Perelman, emits a chauvinistic condescension as it quotes at length an admittedly fawning portrait of Cowles ("'I'm just a generally creative person,' she says modestly"). But then follows a livelier speculative playlet, about an explosively innovative (and totally fictional) redactrix, Hyacinth Beddoes Laffoon, "queen-pin of the pulp oligarchy embracing 'Gory Story,' 'Sanguinary Love,' 'Popular Dissolution' and 'Spicy Mortician.'" The scene finds Laffoon, "chic in a chiffon dress for which she herself spun the silk this morning," in conference with the obseqious editorial assistants of her magazine, Shroud:
HYACINTH: First, these covers we've been running. They're namby-pamby, no more punch than a textbook. Look at this one—a naked girl tied to a bedpost and a chimpanzee brandishing a knout.
BUNCE: I see the structural weakness. It demands too much of the reader.
But wait, here's the beauty part—I mean,
(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
- 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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