In the latest New Yorker Out Loud podcast, Matt Dellinger talks to Atul Gawande about “The Itch,” an investigation into (eek) uncontrollable itching:
Dellinger: Did you itch a lot while writing the piece?
Gawande: Constantly. At various points I would imagine there was a bug on my flank or in my hair, and I’d just have to get up and walk away. At one point I literally did ask my wife to just look and make sure that I didn’t have a bug in my hair!
Monthly Archives: June 2008
Introducing “The Wavy Rule,” a New Emdashes Comic by Paul Morris
We’re delighted to announce that Emdashes will be publishing a daily comic by friend and fellow New Yorker admirer Paul Morris, on themes typographical, historical, and technological, on personalities of all kinds, and, of course, on the magazine past and present. It’s called “The Wavy Rule” in honor of Rea Irvin‘s signature squiggly line.
Born in Beverley, England, Paul has a B.A. in History from UCLA and a Master’s in History from Brown University. Since 2006, he’s written and drawn a webcomic called “Arnjuice.” You can see more of his work on his Flickr page, and he has collections for sale at Lulu. He’s currently studying graphic design at the Art Institute of California, Los Angeles.
We’re so pleased to have him drawing for us–we think he’s a perfect addition to the crew. If there’s a New Yorker-related or other idea you’d like see Paul draw, please email us and we’ll pass it along for his consideration. After the jump, the first installment of “The Wavy Rule,” inspired by Paul Goldberger’s recent story “The Forbidden City,” about the makeover of Beijing.
Event: Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris on June 30 in New York
From today’s Manhattan User’s Guide (links are mine):
One of the most memorable books we’ve ever read is Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, a heartbreaking account of the unspeakable genocide there. In Mr. Gourevitch’s new book, Standard Operating Procedure, written with documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, we get the full horrors of Abu Ghraib. The authors will be at Barnes & Noble on W. 82nd this Monday night, 7pm.
You There! Contributing Tidal Restlessness, Solidity and Continuity, or Passion?
At City Room, Jennifer 8. Lee has a thoughtful riff on E. B. White’s searing, searching essay “This Is New York”—an excerpt from which is running on the subway as part of the “Train of Thought” series—and White’s description of the “roughly three New Yorks”:
There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter–the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.
Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last–the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements.
As Lee writes, “The selection, which is supposed to represent a slice of history, seems particularly meaningful on the subway.”
Thurber’s Airedale and Other Dogs
Benjamin Chambers writes:
Bet you’ve always wanted to see a snapshot of the (James) Thurber family Airedale. Or cartoonist Charles Addams’ dog. Now you can, thanks to aterrier, a delightfully obsessive blog that tracks famous terriers. Don’t miss the entries on Tintin’s dog, Snowy, or news of a diary by Dorothy’s own Toto.
They’re Talkin’ Buckminster Fuller
on Slashdot—a lively discussion of Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent piece.
Speaking of Pigeons
…as I often do, here are some “Secrets of Feral Pigeons,” thanks to a winsome comic called Wild Toronto that puts Mark Trail to shame.
But if you prefer fish to fowl, perhaps you’d like to witness this year’s Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, at which I will be shaking my tailfeathers (or gilding the gills) in a Dixieland-tastic swing routine that will lead off the parade tomorrow afternoon.
It’s always a great occasion; come say hello (or just make appreciative dolphin sounds and wave) if you’re there!
New Yorker Fiction and the Text-Image Relationship
Martin Schneider writes:
On his blog Lined & Unlined, designer and writer Rob Giampietro provides an occasion to reflect on the evocative illustrations that accompany New Yorker short stories in these post–Tina Brown times.
His Flickr set of New Yorker fiction openers is a terrific resource as well.
Cyd Charisse, 1921-2008
She had more famous roles, of course, but I love to think of her in the 1946 movie The Harvey Girls, starring a fiesty Judy Garland and a particularly fetching Ray Bolger. Charisse is one of the trainful (that’s the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe, to be exact) of gals who’ve come to civilize the west with starched shirtfronts and tender cuisine.
Charisse, in her first speaking role on film (according to a few web sources, anyway—feel free to correct me), plays Deborah, who back home was a dancer (of course), and here in rowdy Sandrock is a tall, dreamy, exceptionally graceful waitress who falls for the piano player at the local bordello (madam in chief: the proud, resplendently decked out, and lovelorn Angela Lansbury).
Anyway, there’s quite a bit of silliness involving steaks, snakes, horseshoes, and yokels unaccustomed to the pleasures of the waltz, but just try to resist Charisse singing (in the voice of Marion Doenges) “It’s a Great Big World” and dancing in the saloon for her sweetie. This one’s not about The Legs—they’re tucked under yards of fabric in the tidy Harvey uniforms (“Black shirtwaist, cuffs neat and trim/The apron must be spotless from the collar to the hem”)—but about her gentle voice, shy smile, and searching, wistful eyes. R.I.P., dancing lady.
Richard Yates: Getting His Due at Last
Richard Yates, the toughest and least sentimental of American realists, has been getting a lot of good press lately, as his work is reissued, and it’s high time. After all, he died in 1992, too late to benefit from the attention. (This new appreciation for his work has already become absurd, though, almost before it’s begun. His excruciatingly depressing novel Revolutionary Road has just been made into a movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, that will be in theaters later this year.)
I’m a huge fan of Yates, mostly because I admire the heck out of Liars in Love, a story collection I recommend as the best introduction to his work. Reading those stories, it’s mystifying that Roger Angell should ever have written, as Richard Rayner reported in the L.A. Times, “It seems clearer and clearer to me that his kind of fiction is not what we’re looking for.”
Nine years after Yates’s death in 1992, though, his story “The Canal” was published in The New Yorker. I wonder if Angell liked it better than Yates’s previous work, or underwent a change of heart.
For a detailed summary of Yates’s sad, angry life and the great fiction it yielded, one can do no better than to read Stewart O’Nan’s passionate essay in The Boston Review. Don’t have time for it? Then I recommend Nick Fraser’s shorter overview, in The Guardian.
If those guys don’t make you want to read Yates, nothing will.