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A rewatch of the original Ghostbusters prompted an urgent Google search, with these satisfying Metafilter results. The asker’s question (also my question):
Print is dead? I was watching Ghostbusters (1984) this weekend, and at one point the character Egon Spengler is asked a question, to which he responds: ‘Print is dead.” What is the earliest recorded use of this phrase?
Among the satisfying replies:
I found a reference in the Antioch Review (1967) that uses “print is dead” as the characterization for Marshall McLuhan’s scholarship, which make a lot of sense to me in this context. This previously is also pertinent.
And:
Someone else in that group also mentions that the “print is dead” line actually gained some popularity in the early 80s in tech circles as the personal computer gained prominence. It likely wasn’t the earliest recorded use, but Egon’s quote may have just been a result of the growing sentiment of the time.
Meanwhile, a recent post on Movies.com answers the question I somehow didn’t think to ask, which is what the various Ghostbusters would look like if they were cartoon ghosts. Now you know.


Best of all, I learned from the Metafilter thread above that Harold Ramis went to the high school three blocks from my new home in Chicago! This must be why I keep watching his movies. Anita O’Day went there, too, which gives me shivers. So did Shecky Greene and Sidney Sheldon, but not all at the same time.

Related: The Contested Number of Years That Bill Murray Is Stuck in “Groundhog Day” (continued)

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

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Emily Gordon writes:

Readdle’s free Shakespeare app include’s Shakespeare’s complete works, “including doubtful works,” and a searchable concordance. It also has this advisory:

Rated 12+ for the following:
Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity
Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence

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Jonathan Taylor writes:

[Update: Back Issues locates an even earlier use of the word "asshole" in The New Yorker, in 1975, among other corrections to Green's list.]

Bookforum corrects the assertion by Elon Green in The Awl that the word "asshole" was first used in The New Yorker in 1994 (as you would gather from the mag's own site search). In fact, the word "assholes" is believed to have debuted in a quote in an October 20-27, 1986, two-part Profile by everyone's favorite antijournalist, Janet Malcolm, "A Girl of the Zeitgeist."

The "Girl" in question was Ingrid Sischy, editor of Artforum. This portrait of the "art world" through Sischy--herself a curiously fleeting presence in her own profile--drew a response (also two-part) by the Village Voice's art critic at the time, Gary Indiana, subtitled "Breaking the Asshole Barrier." He wrote, "The maiden appearance of

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2008 Webby Awards Official Honoree
Inkleaf Studio illustration