Author Archives: Emdashes

Festival: The Sluggish Shall Inherit the Held-Back Tix

Sara Nelson over at Publishers Weekly has some juicy Festival information in her essential industry column:

So, what to make of the news that the New Yorker Festival, coming in October, has become so popular with “regular folk” that its organizers have decided not to make all the tickets available to readers of the magazine in advance; for the first time, the festival will hold back 10 percent of the seats to all events so that visitors can buy them on the fly on October 5, the day the festival begins. And this for a program that is literary by anybody’s lights: Norman Mailer, Martin Amis, Miranda July, and Orhan Pamuk are among the participants. So is Steve Martin, whose memoir, Born Standing Up, will appear later in the fall. And, yes, in a nod to so-called popular culture, there will also be an appearance by David Byrne; a panel on graphic superheroes (featuring fan Jonathan Lethem); and a screening of The Kite Runner, based on the Riverhead blockbuster. [Boldface and link mine, obviously.]

Ten percent! So even if that event you simply have to see is all sold out, you may still be able to get in if you are willing to get there early and wait. But please, no trampling! OK, if you insist on trampling, we hear the place to do it will be the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). Zap that data into your iPhone—apparently, it’s good with maps.

Whee, the fall events are finally heating up! We at Emdashes love the cultural thrills that only September and October can offer. In fact, we love them so much that we’ve been working overtime to populate our brand-new Google Calendar for events we think Emdashes readers would like to know about. It is seriously chock-full of fantastic readings. It’s our hope that you will rely on it to track Calvin Trillin’s movements more assiduously, but not in a stalkery way, of course. We would not advocate that.

If you’re hosting an event here in New York or elsewhere, or if your local bookstore or library is sponsoring a reading by a New Yorker contributor or other relevant writer in the near future, by all means email us! To join the calendar, just click below. —Martin Schneider

View of the World From the Stephansdom

It was the evening of August 13, my only night in Vienna. I had just consumed a tasty slice of chocolate cake (not too sweet, in the Viennese style) at the Salzamt, in the city’s cobblestoned Bermuda Dreieck district. It was late, and the shops were all closed. I walked by one named Galerie Image, selling paintings and prints. Something oddly familiar caught my eye:

P1100230b.JPG

I don’t know who the artist is, but the drawing’s not bad. It’s a little difficult to read the text from my photo, but I’m pretty sure it goes like this, from top (that is, most incomprehensibly remote) to bottom:
ANTARKTIK
INDISCHER OZEAN ATLANTIK
Capetown
SIMBABWE
St. Helena
UHURU
Djibouti Timbuktu
MITTEL MEER
WIENER BERG WIENER WALD
GÜRTEL
RING
STEPHANSPLATZ
—Martin Schneider

The Questions People Ask

What’s James Wood going to be like as a New Yorker critic?
Are film bloggers Stepford Critics?
How is New Orleans doing, and does medication help?
Is L.A. really a shallow wasteland, or does it just look that way?
Whose “deadpan sensibility and plump line drawings” does Liesl Schillinger praise in the Times?
What does newyorkette think of the latest issue?
Is the board game based on the Cartoon Caption Contest any fun to play?
Love is the answer—I wonder what the question is? (Printed on the yellow plastic Ziggy comb I found on the soccer field in elementary school)
If you have answers, please send them to letters@emdashes.com.

More Festival Announcements: Diplo, Fiona Apple, Sigur Ros, Roseanne Cash…

Thanks to Brian for the tip! The newest news from Brooklyn Vegan (could anyone in New York in 1925, or 1950, or 1975, even comprehend that something so named would become an essential read for everyone who cares about contemporary music?), as well as from ArtistDirect. The names to remember, besides the ones above: Yo La Tengo, Sasha Frere-Jones (who’s having another dance party), Peter Sellars, Alex Ross, John Seabrook, David Byrne, Hendrik Hertzberg, Ben Greenman, Dick Dale, Billy Gibbons, Vernon Reid, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Nick Paumgarten.
Check the Vegan post for the dates, and get your clicking fingers nimble for when tickets go on sale Sept. 15; channel yourself at 15 trying to be the 89th caller to the local radio station, and be that quick and persistent.
Also, unrelated: I love this. A detailed, critical look back at Oscar-winning films from —just read it.

And They Were Never Heard From Again

One of the pleasures of the Complete New Yorker is stumbling on a figure mentioned in one context who would later become much better known in a completely different context. Two intriguing examples from the early 1980s follow.
In a September 21, 1981, look at Hope, Arkansas (how prescient!), writer Berton Roueche, curious about the town’s (county’s? state’s?) continued reliance on laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, solicited the views of a local realtor. “I’m a Presbyterian,” the man said. “I believe in taking a drink…. But I don’t have to go all the way down to Texarkana unless I happen to feel like taking a drive. All I got to do is pick up that phone over there and dial a certain number. And I’m not talking about moonshine.”
The name of that realtor? Vincent W. Foster.
A November 24, 1980, TOTT by Elizabeth Hawes (in a strategy that would anticipate Harper’s) is almost entirely a reproduction of a very long list compiled by a Connecticut woman charged with catering a “light buffet supper” at the Fall Antiques Show. The list includes such entries as:
20 pounds butter
1,200 chive biscuits
42 white sailor hats
2 bushels decorative gourds
9 bales hay
…and so on. The list really must be seen in its entirety.
The name of that caterer? Martha Stewart.
—Martin Schneider

Put It In Your Pocket, and a Chorus for Dorothy P.

This past Wednesday, realizing I didn’t have The New Yorker or anything else to read at lunchtime (even a speedy closing-week lunch is grim without reading material), I took an L magazine out of its traffic-cone-orange box on the street, and consumed it without looking up once. And marveled, as I’ve done before: This almost makes me want to stop reflexively hating twentysomethings. Here their smartass, heartless culture seems smart and heartfelt! It’s designed to be read easily and pleasurably; it’s well edited; the features are witty and relevant (check out this week’s “myface.com” profiles, which match, for instance, stoners, ardent Marxists, and proto-masters of the universe with career-rejuvenating, actual courses at local colleges to restore their washed-up dreams ten years on). There are all the venue-grouped music ads you used to pick up the Voice to tear out and save, just quite a bit smaller. (The whole magazine is hiply wee, hence its tagline, “Put it in your pocket.”) The writing is knowing, but not annoying. I’m giving this micro-generation another big chance.
That night, after work, I stopped by the Dorothy Parker birthday celebration at the Algonquin, hosted by the indefatigable Kevin Fitzpatrick, whose countless efforts in toasting and promoting her are surely making Mrs. Parker blush and grin from somewhere—finding herself, at least temporarily, without a barb to sling. (She’d recover, though.)
As Kevin reports, there was a spirited, natty crowd there, drinking expensive but excellent martinis (I would really rather not capitalize “martinis”) and, as the cake was served, singing a tuneful “Happy Birthday,” which brought appreciative smiles from the other patrons. Among them, the crowd I mean, were Jessica Weil and Brian Diedrick, with whom I started chatting about this fall’s Parkerfest. It turns out that Diedrick is a regular L contributor, oddly enough, and one of the writers who does the taxicab interviews (which list not only cabbies’ opinions on the week’s given subject—in this issue, “What Was Your Favorite Subject in School?”—but the previous profession of each) that are one of the magazine’s standout features. Further evidence, perhaps, that we are not completely doomed. Now all we need to do is solve nuclear proliferation, &c. (Incidentally, I notice there’s a critique of the recent New Yorker story “Nawabdin Electrician” by Daniyal Meenuddin on the L magazine blog; I haven’t read either yet.)
And R.I.P., Grace Paley. About ten years ago, I was taking a poetry class at the 92nd St. Y; our classroom was in the library. We were all reading something to ourselves when suddenly our concentrated silence was broken by the sound of Paley’s voice over the loudspeaker—she was reading a story in the auditorium below. Of course, we all turned one ear toward the ethereally elevated but unwavering sound, and listened till she was done.

8.20.07 Issue: The Crumple Factor

In which various Emdashers review the issue you may just be getting to.
For me, this issue felt a bit like August scraps tied in an unwieldy bundle. David Owen (“The Dark Side,” about the disappearing night sky) is always terrific, but the truffle in this issue was Burkhard Bilger’s vivid, manly-in-a-good way “The Mushroom Hunters.” Alex Ross’s Mostly Mozart meditation was top-notch, and should be considered seriously as an award submission. I also want to single out Adam Gopnik’s review-essay about Philip K. Dick, which may be the best book review of Gopnik’s I’ve seen. It had a touch of melancholy about it, too; hope everything’s OK. And speaking of melancholy, “Driving Home” has it and much more. So there were a lot of good things in the issue. I take it back. —Emily Gordon
A little boy, a band of nature enthusiasts, a shark—so many things coming into fatal contact with an unyielding surface!
I really liked Michael Schulman’s dizzy TOTT on the tween adulation directed at Zac Efron. It’s a wonderful example of how Talks can take you anywhere in the city.
It’s wonderful to see Paul Simms’s recurring byline in the magazine—for my money, sitcoms come no finer than NewsRadio, and Conchords isn’t far behind (high praise). I expect nothing less than brilliance from Simms, and “My Near-Death Experience” was just that. I love the idea of “incidents of air rage.”
I didn’t quite buy Peter Boyer’s thesis, to wit, that Rudy Giuliani’s character flaws make him a formidable candidate in the general election—but I thoroughly enjoyed his fine, serious Political Scene entry nonetheless. One of the rewards of election years is the certainty of precisely such Lemann-esque articles, and “Mayberry Man” is an honorable addition to that canon. I can’t get enough of them.
T Cooper’s powerful story about Cambodia, “Swimming,” worked for me on a number of levels. There was a nice economy in the way Cooper earned the various emotional payoffs in the story. Good fiction, that.
I’ve recently become a twitcher, so I was particularly taken with Filip Pagowski‘s evocative, near-ambiguous, smeary spot illustrations in this issue. —Martin Schneider

Nobody Reads Books, Except for Oscar Wilde on the Q Train

So we’re told hardly anyone’s reading. Not so fast, according to a friend of Emdashes (and sometime reporter) who was riding the Q train the other day:

Here’s something to make you feel better: The other day I was on the subway, and noticed that the person standing next to me—a fairly conventional-looking 20-ish girl—was reading something by Oscar Wilde. Looked closer, and it was The Picture of Dorian Gray. Pretty standard, but heck, Wilde on the subway is still cool. Then I looked around the car and happened to see a guy a little ways away, also reading. And what was he reading? The Picture of freakin’ Dorian Gray! I’m tossing any possible explanations for this, and enjoying the craziness of the unlikelihood of such a thing ever happening.

The Effect of Tacos on Man-in-the-Moon Magazines

Kevin Drum poses a question of vital importance. To start with, he quotes the following passage from Herman Wouk’s 1950s novel Youngblood Hawke:

Soon the lawyer sat in the living room in his shirtsleeves at Jeanne’s insistence, his tie off, eating tacos from a tray. He needed a shave, and his hair was unkempt. Hawke noticed that the bristles on his face were reddish rather than blond. He looked more tired than Hawke had ever seen him, but the food and the beer brought him to quickly. “Why, these things are marvellous! What do you call them, Jeanne, tacos? I’ve never eaten anything like this. Delicious! Is there a restaurant in town where I can order these?”
She said, pleased, “Well, if you can find a lowbrow enough Mexican joint they’ll probably have tacos, but I wouldn’t endorse the contents, Gus. Better ask me, when you feel like having them again. They’re easy to make.”

Kevin, a Californian to the core, then asks: “Really? In New York City, circa 1952, tacos were so uncommon as to be practically unknown? Who knew?”

I’m far too young to have any real insights into this question, but I immediately thought of the Complete New Yorker. The results turned out to be pretty interesting. According to the CNY, the earliest mention of the word “taco” was in 1974. There are actually two hits from 1974. In the later of the two, a cartoon by Barney Tobey (July 15, 1974), the gag turns on the “exotic” nature of the taco, although the context implies that the term was at least somewhat known to New Yorker readers.

More interesting is the first hit, two months earlier (May 13, 1974). It’s a TOTT by Anthony Hiss about something called the “Taco Trolley.” The first paragraph supplies the telltale tone:

The taco is a tasty, crispy tortilla filled with beef, lettuce, shredded cheese, and special sauce. It is a wildly popular fast-food item in California and places like that. In fact, the taco is one of the reasons people visit California.

Ha! I love it—”places like that.” Difficult to see anyone getting away with that today. And that dryly dismissive third sentence seems a precursor to Woody Allen’s joke from Annie Hall that “the only cultural advantage” that Los Angeles can claim is that “you can make a right turn on a red light.”

I think it’s safe to assume that, July cartoon or no July cartoon, the New Yorker editors thought it wiser to explain exactly what a taco is and where it comes from. So it wasn’t exactly everyday lingo.

(The comment thread to Kevin’s post is fascinating, constituting a kind of thumbnail cultural history of the taco in the United States. It’s truly the blogosphere at its finest. My findings here merely confirm the observations of many of the commenters there.)
—Martin Schneider

The Latest Festival News: Parkouring With the Experts, Biking With David Byrne

From Rush & Molloy today:

Tickets to the 8th Annual New Yorker Festival – on sale Sept. 15 – should disappear in a flash. Look for head-butting between Martin Amis and Norman Mailer on the subject of “Monsters,”as well as conversations between A.M. Homes and Miranda July on “Deviants” and Salman Rushdie and Orhan Pahmuk on “Homeland.” French acrobat David Belle will show you how to do Parkour just like James Bond, and David Byrne will demonstrate “How New Yorkers Ride Bikes.” Check out http://festival.newyorker.com.

Keep checking back here for Festival news and, come October, reports!
Update: More on the David Byrne event from Masika Diary:

New Yorker Festival thanks to the news that David Byrne is organizing and hosting an evening of music and stories dedicated to atlernative transportation methods on October 6th at Town Hall. Byrne joins other popular New York City personalities as Brian Lehrer and Blonde Redhead’s Amedeo Pace as bicycle enthusiasts.

On his blog, he writes:

Had a very exciting meeting on Wednesday re: the Bike Forum project. The New Yorker will produce this event as part of their fall festival. It will be a forum, with entertainment, at Town Hall on Saturday October 6 on the subject of bikes in NYC. I’ve been trying to get this to happen for a while and now it’s picking up steam and momentum. As someone who has biked here as a means of transportation for many many years I sense a growing acceptance of the human-powered machine with two wheels. Some fears and hurdles to be dealt with for sure — but I sense a tipping point looming.

In related news, Gothamist reports that David Byrne’s bike was stolen the other day. Some douchebag took it while he was checking out a flick at the IFC Center.

The New Yorker Festival takes place on October 5th, 6th and 7th.