The Times obituary. Every day, someone important to us will expire, and all those people will also be born, we know. But how can we be sure they’ll be capable of soothing that place made sore by so many losses? How can we prepare for the certainty of the names that will appear in tomorrow’s paper and in the paper (or flexible digital scroll) of our own old age, should we reach it in time?
Author Archives: Emdashes
Steinberg Appropriation Hunt! (Reader Participation Alert)
Our friend Jennie, owner of one terrific Saul Steinberg homage, writes,
Have you seen the Brooklyn version of the famous view? It’s more a view of than from, but it’s on display at Prints Charming in Park Slope, on 4th Street just east of 5th Avenue. It’s by Warren Linn, if I’m reading my notes correctly.
Since Park Slope is a little bit out of our way, we’ve decided to ask our enterprising readers to verify this bit of Steinberg-spotting.
So listen up: Anyone (not just the first person) who sends a gif or jpg file of this poster to martin at the above domain will receive a handsome selection of stickers featuring obscure players from the German Bundesliga.
If you do choose to visit Prints Charming, by all means be polite and maybe purchase a small item for their trouble. Not that we expect anything less from our readership. —Martin Schneider
How Were the Contest Cartoons Captioned Before the Winners Captioned Them?
As usual, Daniel Radosh is on the cutting edge of this question. For Radosh’s site, which provides (thanks to his admirably perverse readers) parallel-universe captions from the smutty to the surreal and everywhere in between, cartoonist and Rejection Collection editor Matt Diffee will be surveying his comrades-in-art and finding out what handwritten line of whimsy went with the original drawing submission that then, later, became a caption-contest challenge. I do know the original caption to Drew Dernavich’s lifeguard cartoon, but I’ll let Radosh do the honors. Speaking of the contest, I just discovered this site full of suggested captions and contest information (Michael Shaw, is this yours? I can’t figure it out!). Speaking of cartoonists, you’ll want to listen to Gahan Wilson and Bob Mankoff chatting about Wilson’s unmonstrous but excellent adventures in life and monster-drawing at the New Yorker website. Speaking of New Yorker cartoons in general, here’s a useful mini-collection of resources about the submission process. And speaking of wit writ large and small, I can’t believe the central Onion HQ is moving to Chicago; I read the paper faithfully in its fledgling years in Madison, my proud and good-humored hometown.
Revealed! Jonathan Lethem’s True Identity!
It turns out that Jonathan Lethem is actually Paul Schmelzer.
Or else, he was Paul Schmelzer when he wrote Amnesia Moon.
It is not out of the question that Jonathan Lethem has amnesia. —Martin Schneider
Roz Chast + Steve Martin = Good Scrabulous Words
Without even accounting for triple-word or double-letter scores, rozchast will earn you 22 points, and stevemartin 16. I officially declare them both sanctioned TWL words, and if anyone disputes this, they can answer to me.
Anyway, as I’m sure you know, Roz Chast and Steve Martin did an alphabet book together, and it’s damn funny. What you didn’t know was that there’s a video here at wsj.com in which Chast talks, winsomely and slightly mischievously as usual, about the book (as well as her supremely awesome collection The Party After You Left). I love the idea of these two cooking this up together. You can see Chast and Martin chatting chummily in a video from last year’s New Yorker Festival, and if you’re a genuine Chast completionist, you’ll check out a little chat I had with her not too long ago.
Very Nice-Looking Canadian Magazine Has Very Familiar Inspiration
A Toronto-based magazine called Taddle Creek, which accepts submissions only from people who live in Toronto, just wended its way into my office, because that’s the kind of thing that we get around here. This is the 2007 “Christmas number,” and while there are some McSweeney’s-esque notes here and there, the magazine’s guiding visual inspiration appears to be The New Yorker (although TC seems to print considerably more full-page comics). And I approve, of course. More evidence of this to come when I’m up to scanning, and if you’re lucky enough to live in Toronto, well then, you can submit—but read the guidelines first, or woe betide you! The staff is especially adamant about the outdated yet insidious habit of putting two spaces after periods. Thank you, Taddlers. And happy anniversary—I learn from your website that you are ten. Emdashes, being only three, salutes you.
Steve Martin, New Yorker May Help Family
From the Time piece, by Richard Corliss, about Steve Martin’s new memoir, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life (of which I really must get a copy):
In recalling the ’60s and ’70s, Martin writes revealingly of his sex life (busy) and his drug life (not so much). But the most poignant passages touch on his estrangement from his father and their reconciliation at the elder man’s deathbed. “When I published that part in the New Yorker,” Martin says, “I got a great letter from a woman. She said, ‘I read your article about your father, and I gave it to my husband, and he read it and didn’t say anything. And then he said to me, What’s our son’s phone number?'” For a moment over lunch, Martin clutches his chest–a dramatic display of emotion for this very inward man who may, at heart, be the kid who stayed all day at Disneyland rather than pedal home to spend time with his dad.
Martin reads from his book in an audio feature at newyorker.com, and he also talked with editor Susan Morrison at this year’s New Yorker Festival. He had a lariat, and he knew how to use it.
When You’re in the Market For Business Cartoons
You might want to take a look at cartoonist Mark Anderson’s comparison of various business cartoon collections, including The New Yorker‘s. As you might expect, even the non-New Yorker books contain quite a few New Yorker cartoonists. There just isn’t that much single-panel work out there anymore!
Also, while looking for something else, I came across this archive of pieces about James Thurber, and also quite a nice little collection of New Yorker-related photos and factlets, along with audio recordings of some of the writers mentioned.
There’s a Reason These Cartoons Weren’t in The New Yorker
Or is that multiple reasons? Sometimes it’s hilariously obvious; other times, it’s so ineffable and multilayered you could write a dissertation on it. Someone probably is, and I hope that chlorophyll-deprived Ph.D. student will send it to me as soon as he or she has handed it in and fainted away from lack of sleep and sustenance. Anyway, there were Gawker folks at last night’s extremely fun, if nonswimming, pool party for The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap (“More cartoons you’ve never seen, and never will see, in The New Yorker“), and they have nice digital cameras, so I don’t know how much point there is in boldface names. But it was warm (and not just in temperature terms, though it was that, too) and crowded and high-energy and, dare I say it, kind of hip. Nobody there looked a bit rejected.
I recommend both Rejection Collection books, which have—alongside those ineffably or effably rejected cartoons—photos of and highly whimsical, illustrated interviews with the cartoonists you know only from their cryptic signatures, and there’s also a chance to have your copy/ies signed this Wednesday, 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble on 6th Avenue. Whiz kid and pigeon enthusiast Matt Diffee will be there with cartoonist and moonlighting impresario David Sipress; they’re both funny and friendly guys. Swimsuits encouraged. Transgressions are the order of the day!