Please get in touch! As you recall, you won Cartoon Caption Contest #2, the Leo Cullum drawing, with “This is my stop. Phil, you’ll be C.E.O. till Sixty-third Street.” We’re sad that we hadn’t yet started doing detailed interviews with caption winners, and we’d (specifically, a writer we just persuaded to do an interview, and who picked you specifically as an interview subject) love to talk to you in a friendly and nonthreatening manner. Alternately, if you work at the Cartoon Bank and have Lewis Gatlin’s email address, or if you’re Leo Cullum and you’d like to chat with us as well, we’d love that, too!
Author Archives: Emdashes
Whale Watch: Japan to Do a Little Less Damage (For Now)
Anyone who enjoyed Raffi Khatchadourian’s story on wild whaling crusader Paul Watson—read it online if you missed it, it’s worth it—will be interested in this story in the Times today. It begins:
Japan is dropping its plan to kill humpback whales in the seas off Antarctica, the country’s top government spokesman said Friday.
Japan decided to suspend humpback hunts at the request of the United States, which is currently chair of the International Whaling Commission, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.
”The government has decided to suspend hunts of humpback whales while talks to normalize IWC is taking place,” Machimura said. ”But there will no changes to our stance on our research whaling itself.”
In other news, here’s an intriguing post on the illustration and cartooning blog Drawn!:
This is not a new project, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. Richard Rutter is adapting principles in the classic design book, The Elements of Typographic Style to the web. The site is an ongoing project; Rutter is adding to the site in the order presented in Bringhurst’s book, “one principle at a time.”
Read on, and thanks to Carolita for the tip. Speaking of cartoonists, today’s Google Alerts led me to this mini-archive of stories about cartoon editor Bob Mankoff; here’s our coverage so far of the man behind “Is never good for you?”
Everyone Knows Your Caption’s a Clip-On: Behind the Scenes of the Contest
As promised, today Daniel Radosh presents the results of Matt “Rejection Collection” Diffee’s caption-contest investigation: What were the original captions before they were stripped to make way for America’s merry endeavors? Drew Dernavich (who chatted with the contest winner about the “Everyone knows your parrot’s a clip-on” drawing for Emdashes) contributes two, and Tom Cheney and Frank Cotham have one each. I especially like the amusing juxtaposition of the winning, Radosh Anti-Caption Contest, and original captions.
Also in humor today, the latest edition of thoroughly lovable comedian Mike Birbiglia’s “My Secret Public Journal” has a sharp election-season observation:
Rudy Giuliani kind of scares me. I kind of feel like Rudy thinks 9/11 is his birthday. He gets that excited look on his face and buys himself a cake and lights two candles and watches them burn down. And then he looks around and says, “What do I get?†And his advisors are like “$15 million in speaking fees!†and he’s like, “That’s even better than last 9/11!â€
And in the Wall St. Journal, there’s a review of William F. Buckley’s book Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription that parades some New Yorker cliches so sleepy they’re unfit to operate heavy machinery. If you say only three things about the magazine, say these three! It’s a surefire crowd-pleaser.
New Yorker Presents Sharp (If Not Quite Sharpie) Political Commentary
Don’t look now, but The New Yorker is figuring out this Internet thing. The blogs are not only multiplying but also nicely finding their groove, the podcasts are rapidly becoming the bona fide aural equivalent of the magazine (which is really saying something), and the website has just uncorked a major treat for political junkies. It’s called “The Naked Campaign,” a series of brief videos in which cartoonist Steve Brodner muses—with pen in hand—about the 2008 presidential candidates.
I am so poor at drawing that any decent display of draughtsmanship (you don’t seriously want me to put an F in that, do you?) renders me slackjawed. I could watch Brodner doodle, erase, adjust on his whiteboard at 4x speed all the livelong day, consumed with awe. I love it.
As befits the “sketch” nature of the concept, the videos are hit or miss, but that’s part of the fun, really, and there’s way more “hit” than “miss” here. Brodner’s a sharp cookie, so even when the visuals are mostly found footage of Rudy Giuliani wandering around a garden-supply store, Brodner manages to make you see something about Rudy you had never noticed.
And hey, where else are you going to see Hillary Clinton depicted as John Lennon, Mike Huckabee as the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Barack Obama as Woody Allen? —Martin Schneider
Is Calvin Trillin Behind the Green Cart Program?
Probably not, but the proposed New York initiative to sell fresh fruits and veggies through vending carts in poorer neighborhoods does sound like a step toward the ideal Trillin imagined at the end of his not-online rhapsody on Singaporean street food: a movable market full of delicious, unmysterious (except in the good way) eats for all New Yorkers. But let’s not put the cart before the hors d’oeuvres. On a more serious note, will the carts take food stamps?
WARNING: FAMILY MEMBERS, PLEASE STOP READING HERE. SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT. ALSO RESTAURATEUR [YES, THAT WORD IS SPELLED CORRECTLY] FRIENDS. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
This seems like a swell place to mention that the new anthology Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink, edited by David Remnick (with help from young man of books Leo Carey) and just out from Random House, is a pip, exceeding even my expectations, and you know that’s saying something, right?
In fact, with sheepish apologies to A. J. Liebling, I can report that the book is in fact better than food. Come on, have some excerpts. Then go back for seconds—the book will last months and months and people will steal it from your house when they stay over. Although it’s pretty heavy and it might make their luggage suspiciously bulky.
Fun fact: The anthology’s working title was I Say the Hell With It. I objected to the change when I learned of it, but now I think the final title is properly celebratory of culinary pleasures familiar and foreign; our young leafy-green-loathing friend has a dismissive attitude less fitting for such a world-embracing, gleefully descriptive cornucopia. More New Yorker-themed book gift suggestions to follow; add your own in the comments!
A Reader Writes: Why No Byline on the Raymond Carver Intro?
So asks Emdashes reader Bill Amstutz; Dean Olsher noticed it, too. Ah, but what is “authorship,” really, anyway? As Olsher speculates:
The decision to write anonymously here seems especially freighted, less a mere throwback to the Shawn years and having something more to do with the nature of Lish’s initially invisible and essential influence.
On the other hand, maybe everyone was just anxious to get out the door for the holiday, and the crucial line was dropped. As if that would ever happen. Here’s the piece in question, and don’t forget the nifty slide show and a very illuminating demonstration of the lishian pen, not to mention the strikethrough tag (or “strike-through,” in the New Yorker stylebook), which is finally put to good use here.
I wonder if Art Winslow, who is what I think about when I think about Lish (well, also those poems that Lish failed to accept for the Quarterly when I was an undergraduate, but I bear him no ill will; they were utterly [there’s a joke for you Columbians] wrong for the magazine), will be weighing in on the latest Carver carve-up at the Huffington Post. Art?
Benjamin Chambers on the “Best American” Essays, Pt. 1
Benjamin Chambers, of the splendid literary website The King’s English, has thus far proven to be the ideal reader of the Squib Report if not this entire blog. After I posted exhaustive lists of the Best American essays and short stories according to Houghton Mifflin (in which there are still gaps—by all means submit missing years if you have them!), he not only provided us with the data for two years in the essay list but also decided that he would read all of the listed essays. Benjamin: I admire your dedication! Judging from your industriousness, you’ll have no trouble finishing off the list.
Here is his first update on his reading progress. We look forward to the next installments!
The reading’s going well. Slowly, but well…. I was fascinated to learn the story behind Joe Bob Briggs (Trillin), enjoyed Berton Roueche’s “Marble Stories,” and Pfaff’s “Dimensions of Terror,” but nearly foundered on Anthony Bailey’s “Good Little Vessel.” (One of those “interminable” ones for which the NYer gets such a bad rap.) I had just completed Frances FitzGerald’s “Memoirs of the Reagan Era,” which was an interesting adjunct to Joan Didion’s collection, Political Fictions, when—as often happens with these NYer reading expeditions—I got sidetracked to something not on the list: FitzGerald’s two-parter on the Rajneeshee, who built one of the stranger latter-day communes here in Oregon, where I live. Of them all so far, the one I found most deeply compelling was Vicki Hearne’s essay on language, though I admit it’s sometimes a little hard to follow….
Thanks again for posting this list—it’s really inspired me to go back to the Complete NYer and make use of it. Of course it’s difficult to poke around in it for long without finding something of interest, but having a definite reading plan makes it seem more purposeful.
You’re welcome! Inspiring people to delve into the CNY is pretty much the only purpose of the Squib Report! Stay tuned for more reports from Benjamin. —Martin Schneider
Als Well That Blogs Well
If you hadn’t noticed, Hilton Als is now blogging at newyorker.com; the blog is cleverly called “Et Als.” (As the magazine adds more blogs, there will be many more naming opportunities, I’m jubilant to note. Our commenters came up with a few alternates for Hendrik Hertzberg’s blog title, I recall. One’s mind whirrs. “Splendor in the McGrath” … “A Drop of Mead” … “Angell in the Outfield” … “Penny Lane” … “Denby the Riverside” … “Lean and Orlean” … “In-Specter” … “Lead Singer” … “Auletta Man Have His Say” … “Go Pack Go” … “Master Bilger” … “Schamanism” … “Thurman Country” … “Surowieckipedia” … “Man’s Best Friend” [or “Menand’s Best Friend,” a collaboration] … “Chon Day & Gawande” [ditto, from beyond the grave] … “Collect McCall” … “YouToobin” … “Franklin, My Dear” … “Owen in the Wind” … “My, He’s Lahr” … “Focus Groopman” … “I Never Promised You a Paumgarten” … “Frazier” … well, you see how it goes, unfortunately.)
Als writes in his inaugural post:
Blogs are a matter of trust. The reader reads them hoping not just to pick up some form of retail inspiration—“This is the album I’m listening to; maybe you’d like to listen to it, too!â€â€”but also to learn something about the landscape of the writer’s mind, his way of being.
He recently posted a tender reminiscence about Elizabeth Hardwick, and his latest entry is about Julian Schnabel’s film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
I like this blog very much, but I am dismayed to see that Als uses the term “females” in place of “women” in his Schnabel post. I know he’s being complimentary here, but I can’t read or hear “females” without thinking of the study of animals in the wild (“The males are docile, but the females will tear off your eyebrows if you’re not careful”), or possibly a grisly police report (“The disfigured bodies of two females were discovered in the alley following the Gordon Lightfoot concert”).
It’s a common online-dating term, certainly, but I would hope that anyone seeking love would avoid any profile in which a man claims to be seeking a “female” of any description. Don’t you find it a somewhat clinical term? Or am I alone in this?
Paulettes, Start Your Engines
No time to describe this now, just know it’s about Pauline Kael and her influence on contemporary—and contemporary New Yorker—film criticism, and also that the writer uses “kaelled” as a verb in his headline. (Which seems to be a gaming term when spelled with one L; if you know more, write in.) As for me, I own almost every single Kael volume in first edition, and I don’t collect first editions! And one of ’em’s signed! Don’t burgle me!
Speaking of film critics, Juno, Knocked Up, and suchlike, here’s a sound critique of complaints by Time‘s Richard Corliss, who thinks critics are showing off with their lists of arty obscurities and ignoring “mainstream” movies. What can American movie audiences handle? Why don’t we try making and hyper-promoting fewer terrible movies and find out?
LibraryThing! Thou Benign Expresser of Aspiration!
O December, time of year-end lists. I suppose it’s fashionable to bemoan the listiness of this season. I don’t partake in the derision. The lists fold so well into the resolutions of December 31; I’ve got to read this and this and this book; pick up that CD by that one group; get myself to see that one play before it closes! For anyone aspiring to cultural mavenhood (I aspire, at least), it’s a time of promise.
Relatedly, you know what I like? I like LibraryThing’s Bookshelf feature. You’re supposed to use it for books you’ve read, but LibraryThing has recently limited its nonpaying (i.e., freeloading) users to 100 titles, which puts a crimp in the whole “here’s what I’ve read” concept. So I’ve repurposed my list to display titles I would like to own but do not. Here’s mine, by all means, have a peek.
Reading aspirations are complicated. A list like this one is a great way to show off how erudite you are, or want to be; protestations that I would certainly end up reading the merest fraction of the listed titles (which I make, I make!) end up being ineffectual.
I prefer the Bookshelf to that blog perennal, the linked Amazon wishlist, which I often find a mildly aggravating passive-aggressive move. With the Bookshelf (when used as I have), the implied demand for reader gifting is put at several removes. So if, dear reader, you desperately want to buy me any of these books, hey, go nuts. But I’m not going to supply the link that turns it into a subtle expectation on my part.
I wish I could find an easy way to convert the list of titles into .txt format so I could pop it into my iPod. But I haven’t, yet. Whenever I’m in bookstores, I can never remember which darned books I so ardently desire.
The true secret reason I like LibraryThing’s Bookshelf is, Look! Pretty covers! —Martin Schneider