Author Archives: Emdashes

Those Illustrated Ads in the Current Issue: Jill Calder Explains It All to You

If you’re anything like me (and you are—at least a little, little bit), you’re wondering what’s going on with that series of ads for Mass Mutual Financial Group in this week’s New Yorker, the ones in which a red-headed woman is overwhelmed by insurance. From iSpot‘s blog:

Jill Calder’s whimsical artwork takes over the April 16, 2007 issue of the New Yorker magazine with a narrative series of ads for Mass Mutual Financial Group. The New Yorker selected about 40 illustrators for Mass Mutual and their ad agency, Mullen, to choose from, which eventually whittled down to Jill; her job was to bring their concept to life.
…
[Jill Calder:] I started by creating a character, whom I named Stella (rather than “the Mass Mutual woman”!) – female, 30’s, capable, confident and busy, but sometimes too busy to tend to her insurance needs. I also created a colour palette which would keep the look of the ads consistent but give me flexibility and a generous range, as I love colour. The Mass Mutual corporate blue was one of the colours, which gave the ads a strong, if subliminal, branding…. I had to show Stella in all manner of situations, some quite surreal and others quite lifelike, that were basically “barriers” preventing Stella from getting her financial needs sorted out. The first full page image was of Stella surrounded by an extreme amount of paperwork, teetering piles of it, which described her misconception that applying for insurance would be complicated and involve too much paperwork. In the next image, Stella decides she has no spare time to deal with insurance – this again is illustrated in a dreamlike fashion: she appears in an hourglass, trapped but still moving forward. Cont’d.

Imus Getting Fired in the Morning

Actually, I’m not writing about that (and I’m happy not to be), but I do like a good musical hed. This post is really about the David Sedaris plausibility debate, which, as far as I can tell, is a tempest in a Tinkerbell-sized thimble. Thoughts? The best outcome of this pointless peeping, for me, has been a link (in one of the comments on the New Republic piece that started it all) to Mark Twain’s gloriously absurd anecdo-tale “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once.” Let’s all cook up more stories like this!
Speaking of brilliant story-spinners, there’s a great Kurt Vonnegut recording from 1970—years before Breakfast of Champions was even a book—on the 92nd St. Y’s blog. R.I.P., K.V.

NYC: Art Spiegelman Event at Columbia, Monday 4/9

I spent a late night recently rereading the two books of Maus, drawn in by Spiegelman’s painstaking work and narrative craft, revolted by the cruelty represented and evoked there, and humbled by his parents’ resourcefulness and luck in their survival of the war. The books are part, but not all, of his histories and points of view, and you’ll want to make sure you get to this:

Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman is in residence at the Heyman Center for the Humanities for the Spring 2007 Semester. He will speak about “Comics–Marching into the Canon” on Monday, April 9 at 7pm.
This event, which is free and open to the general public, will take place in the Rotunda of Low Memorial Library. (Click here for a map.) [Columbia University, Broadway at 116th St. on the 1 train.)

Maus and other factual accounts of the Holocaust seem almost the only response to stories like that of Binjamin Wilkomirski, a faker whose compelling/appalling story is recounted by Blake Eskin in his eloquent examination of the tale (and tales) of Wilkomirski, who, for a while, appeared to be Eskin’s family’s long-lost relative. The book is called A Life in Pieces, and it stays with you; it’s another facet of the last century’s particular madness as well as another testament to the necessity and heroism of setting the record straight.

In Case You Were Wondering

I’m on vacation! You’ll have to spend a few more days with Newyorkette (Carolita Johnson, New Yorker cartoonist and pal), Blog About Town (everything you need to look at and remember, all in one place), I Hate The New Yorker (rumored to be moving closer to the apple that sleeps between about 2:30 and 5 a.m.—ZP, care to comment?), Silence of the City (rejected, terrific Talks of the Town), and New Yorker Comment (a young journalist to watch, there). Also, this is something you should know: The majestic New Yorker historian Ben Yagoda has a new book out. It’s When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse, and it’s got a killer cover design (who’s the designer? I’d like to know, please). That’s what I know about it so far, but we’re talking about the guy who wrote The Sound on the Page here. I’ll report again when I’ve read it. You’ll know the moment I have by the dramatic improvement in my points, coms, semis, parens, dols, quos, hyphs, quirks, and slams.

You Might As Well Sue: Dorothy Parker Collections, Legal Infractions

Via Dear Author, this Dorothy Parker news:

Starting July 17, 2007, Penguin will be in court to defend itself from allegations of copyright infringement by Stuart Silverstein. For anyone not familiar with how slowly the wheels of justice churn, Silverstein’s case is illlustrative. The story begins in 1994 when Silverstein shopped around a compilation of 122 Dorothy Parker poems, many of which had never been included in book form.

He brought the collection to Penguin and was offered $2,000 for an advance. Silverstein declined and eventually published the collection, NOT MUCH FUN: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker through Scribner. In 1999, Penguin released, Dorothy Parker: Complete Poems in 1999, which was essentially a “comma by comma” copy of Silverstein’s work. The Penguin editor admitted that she copied Silverstein’s book and cut and pasted the poems into Complete Poems.

…

Silverstein filed suit and it has gone round and round (all the way to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal) and is now set for trial. The basis of the dispute is whether the compilation by Silverstein contains enough creativity to deserve a copyright.

When I’m less sleepy, I will see what Kevin Fitzpatrick at the Dorothy Parker Society has to say about this. (Their site’s looking really nice these days. If you live in or are visiting New York and haven’t taken Fitzpatrick’s Algonquin Round Table walking tour—do!) Anyone else know more?

April Fool? For Poetry, a Slightly Pouty Times Correction

In today’s Times:

An essay on March 11 about poetry in The New Yorker magazine referred imprecisely to the poet W. S. Merwin. While he was indeed a special Bicentennial consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress for 1999-2000, a position some consider tantamount to that of a poet laureate, he has not been United States poet laureate.

The essay also misspelled the surname of another poet at one point. He is J. D. McClatchy, not McLatchy. (Go to Article)

Aside to Regret the Error: “at one point”? And “The essay … misspelled”? As Charlton Heston likes to say, essays don’t misspell people, people misspell people. Is this the paper o’ record or a high school Hamlet paper?

People of Cover

Martin Schneider writes:
I wanted to address reader Bruce’s comment to the last “Squib Report” post. Here’s what he wrote:

What is so interesting about the current cover is that this is the second time in the magazine’s history that they have shown people of colour in the drawing. Otherwise it is not a great cover.

When I first read this, I immediately thought of Tina Brown’s second-ever cover, which celebrated Malcolm X (and was timed to coincide with Spike Lee’s movie), and Art Spiegelman’s “controversial” 1993 Valentine’s Day cover.
A few minutes with The Complete New Yorker produced this list:
January 19, 1929
January 10, 1931
November 21, 1936
March 9, 1940
February 7, 1942
January 9, 1971
December 28, 1992
September 13, 1993
October 17, 1994
January 16, 1995
January 30, 1995 (sort of)
December 4, 1995
March 11, 1996
April 28, 1997
July 26, 1999
January 17, 2000
February 14, 2000
April 2, 2001
October 27, 2003
June 28, 2004
September 12, 2005
I am sure there are many other examples—and this list only counts Africans or African-Americans. If we broadened it to include Asians, Inuits, Native Americans, and so on, the list would be considerably longer.
I’m sure we can all take issue with The New Yorker‘s blind spots or paternalism over the years—it’s been a tumultuous eight decades!—and The New Yorker has certainly never been easily confused with Ebony. Still, Bruce—you’re going to have to make your case in some other way!

April Fool’s Reading: Di Piero, Svoboda, Simon, and You in the Audience

Please join Speakeasy Poetry Series for an April Fool’s Day reading with:
W. S. Di Piero, Terese Svoboda, and Rachel Simon
Sunday, April 1 @ 5:00 PM
The Bitter End, NYC
147 Bleecker Street (btw. Thompson & LaGuardia)
W.S. Di Piero’s most recent books of poetry are Shadows Burning, Skirts and Slacks, Brother Fire, and Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems (2007). He is the author of three collections of essays on literature, art, and personal experience: Shooting the Works: On Poetry and Pictures, Out of Eden: Essays on Modern Art, and Memory and Enthusiasm. He lives in San Francisco.
Terese Svoboda’s books of poetry include Mere Mortals, Laughing Africa, All Aberration, and Treason.
Rachel Simon’s first book of poetry, Theory of Orange, won the 2005
Transcontinental Poetry Award from Pavement Saw Press.
For more information: www.speakeasynyc.com

Richard Harris: Pleading the Fifth

You know things are getting interesting when top Department of Justice officials plead the Fifth, as Monica Goodling did Monday. It doesn’t seem clear at all that she actually can do this, since “avoiding perjury charges” is not a valid justification for using the Fifth.
My, this stuff is complicated. If only there were some magazine around that could do an exhaustive three-part article on the Fifth Amendment!
Naturally, Richard Harris (not, I expect, the actor) did precisely that for The New Yorker in April of 1976. You can tell that it’s written in a different era, though, because at that time, the FBI’s most pressing task was infiltrating nests of lesbians.
No, I’m not kidding.
—Martin Schneider

Good Newsbreak Candidate in Story of Stripper-Pursuing Chess Master

Goodness, what would Beth Harmon make of this? (My sister Kate knows: “She’d be right there with him, with a Scotch in her hand.”)
Here’s what made me think of newsbreaks (you know, the wryly quoted little news items tucked at the end of a column of text):
He formed a relationship with a single Brazilian mother, Adriane Oliveira, 29, dubbed the “Bella Brasileira” by the Peruvian media, with whom he soon fell in love.