Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Weekly: Pick of the Issue
Bimonthly: Ask the Librarians
Submit a question for the next column.
Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
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)
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)
Infinite Summer: Location 494
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: David Foster Wallace, Infinite Summer
Martin Schneider writes:
I'll be weighing in with some thoughts as the summer progresses, but most of my comments will be vocabulary-related. The Kindle lets you add notes to the text (it's fun to add footnotes to Infinite Jest, like bringing coal to Newcastle). I'll be noting typos in the Kindle edition and other words that caught my eye, struck my fancy, or needed looking up.
Basically it's a promenade of my ignorance and admiration.
location 54: Kindle typo: eitherlor
location 212: Kekuléan
location 226: aviarian: "of or pertaining to an aviary"? Hmm.
location 244: lapidary
location 264: "myriad scrutiny," genius.
location 270: nice work getting "Academy" right, Kindle.
location 318: Brewster's-Angle
location 361: creātus
location 380: Nunn Bush
location 396: pases
location 479: hypophalangial
location 481: Kindle typo: What aBurger (caused by page break in original manuscript)
The Infinite Summer of David Foster Wallace
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: David Foster Wallace, Infinite Summer
Martin Schneider writes:
Summer began yesterday, and with it began Infinite Summer, a massive book club project (sort of) in which the only book is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and readers have until the autumn (September 21) to finish it. The pace is 75 pages a week (not including the associated endnotes), which isn't very hard, and readers are rewarded with all sorts of commentary and opportunities to discuss! (Here's the schedule.)
I'm using the Kindle version, which should make it doubly fun (and also make navigating the endnotes a breeze). I read about 300 pages of it when it first came out, and then stopped, and then developed a block about cracking the book ever again. Until now!
I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!
Martin Schneider writes:
Has anyone entertained the notion that perhaps "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is not a valid English sentence?
If you are not aware of what I'm talking about, by all means head over to Wikipedia and catch up, it's a marvel.
(Very quickly, because these things get complicated, if you imagine a (purely optional) comma after the fifth "buffalo," you might glimpse a valid sentence that means something like, "Those NY-state bison that NY-state bison often bully, they also bully NY-state bison.")
As far as I know, I believe that anyone who is able to follow the grammar of the sentence
(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.
Primary sources
The New Yorker
Events listed by the magazine
Web resources: New Yorker writers and artists
Books, Organizations, &c.
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.
The Rossosphere
- Resistance Is Fertile
- Mick Stevens: I Really Should Be Drawing
- Cartoonist Michael Maslin's homepage
- Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
- Sasha Frere-Jones
- Matthew Diffee's HuffPo blog
- The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
- The essential Jane Grant
- Paul Noth's Pale Force
- The New York Public Library records
- New Yorker Comment
- Chiasmus in The New Yorker
- Wikipedia: The New Yorker
- New Yorker database
- The New Orcer
- Silence of the City
- Between the Squibs
- Blog About Town
- Newyorkette
- New Yorker Anti-Caption Contest
- The New Yorker Forums
- I Hate the New Yorker
- Ben Yagoda's homepage
- Access My Library
- New Yorker haiku
- Modern Spectator
- Map: Caption Contest Winners
- Technorati: New Yorker
- Link to suggest? Email it!