Martin Schneider writes:
Talk about fortuitous timing—no sooner does a big Malcolm Gladwell article hit the newsstands than we receive word about an appearance he will be making in New York City this month, at the Moth Members’ Show at Symphony Space on May 21. Since a recent appearance at the Moth raised a few eyebrows, we’re glad to see that he’s diving in again.
Andy Borowitz, who appeared last week at the 92nd Street Y to celebrate/mock Obama’s 100th day in office, will host.
Here’s the press release:
Our Annual Moth Members’ Show
Thursday, May 21 at Symphony Space
Crack up: Stories about Comedies and Calamities
Storytellers include:
Malcolm Gladwell
Author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers: The Story of Success
Sarah Jones
Tony award-winning playwright, performer, author and poet
Steve Osborne
Former lieutenant in NYPD detective bureau, Manhattan Gang Squad
Peter Zilahy
Essayist, playwright, and author of dictionary-novel, The Last Window-Giraffe
Hosted by:
Andy Borowitz
Comedian, actor and writer, featured regularly in The New Yorker, The
New York Times, and at borowitzreport.com
Become a Moth Member and receive 2 FREE tickets
With a $100 donation you will receive two tickets to the Members’ Show
($70 value) as well as our brand new double CD, with stories by
Richard Price, Sam Shepard, Mike Birbiglia, A.J. Jacobs ($15 value,
available only with membership), among other benefits.
When you join at a higher level of membership you get even more
benefits and perks. For a complete list of member levels and benefits
and to join go to www.themoth.org/membership.
We Need Your Support
Moth members are hugely important in helping us present unique voices
at our Mainstage and StorySLAM series, as well as our community
outreach program, MothShop, which brings storytelling workshops free
of charge to underserved communities. Moth Members also help us
produce our free–and commercial-free–podcast each week. Take a moment
to read about the importance of the membership program and what our
members have helped us to accomplish this year.
In these turbulent times, everyone needs a place to tell their stories
and hear the tales of our time. The Moth is that place. Please help
us offer more storytelling opportunities by becoming a Moth member.
How to Join:
Join online.
Call The Moth office at 212-507-9833 with your credit card information.
Mail a check, payable to Storyville Center for the Spoken Word, and
mail it with your name, mailing and email addresses to:
The Moth
330 West 38th Street, Suite 1403
New York, NY 10018
Storyville Center for the Spoken Word, d/b/a The Moth, is a 501 (c)
(3) not-for-profit organization. All donations are 100% tax deductible
and all donors receive a receipt for tax purposes.
Thank you for your support!
The Moth Board & Staff
P.S. Don’t Forget to RSVP to The Members’ Show when you join!
(to David Mutton at 212-507-9833 or rsvp@themoth.org)
Don’t wait for your donor receipt, call or email to RSVP as soon as
you have processed your online membership or mailed your check.
Show Information:
Crack up: Stories about Comedies and Calamities
at Symphony Space
2537 Broadway (at 95th St)
6:30pm Doors open
7:30pm Stories begin
Member tickets need to be reserved by calling 212-507-9833 or emailing
rsvp@themoth.org, and can be collected on the evening of the show from
Symphony Space box office.
A limited number of tickets are on sale at $35 from Symphony Space.
Author Archives: Emdashes
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: Gilbert and Sullivan and Specter
Heartfelt thanks go to my dad for suggesting this one. Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
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What’s in This Week’s New Yorker: 05.11.09
Martin Schneider writes:
The “Innovators” issue of The New Yorker comes out tomorrow. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine’s press release:
Malcolm Gladwell looks at the ability of underdogs to triumph over their stronger adversaries. “David can beat Goliath by substituting effort for ability—and substituting effort for ability turns out to be a winning formula for underdogs in all walks of life,” Gladwell writes.
Adam Gopnik ruminates on what spurs invention: necessity, or superfluity? Observing the abundance of razors in his medicine cabinet, all of which are about equally useful, Gopnik notes “a strange but basic truth of life and marketing alike: that it is after a problem has already been solved that ever more varied and splendid solutions to it start to appear.”
Douglas McGray writes about Green Dot Public Schools, a charter-school group that is California’s largest, by enrollment, and one of its most successful, sending nearly eighty percent of their kids to college.
Rebecca Mead observes the work of Christian Scheidemann, who “is among just a handful of private conservators who specialize in contemporary art,” and who “has become particularly admired for his skill in working with organic substances.”
John Colapinto profiles the behavioral neurologist V.S. Ramachandran, “one of a dozen or so scientists and doctors who, in the past thirty years, have revolutionized the ï¬eld of neurology by overturning a paradigm that dates back more than a hundred years: that of the brain as an organ with discrete modules (for vision, touch, pain, language, memory, etc.) that are ï¬xed early in life and immutable.”
Evan Osnos explores the life and career of Jia Zhangke, the Chinese filmmaker behind the award-winning film Still Life, about the social and physical demolition wrought by China’s Three Gorges Dam, and, more recently, 24 City, about a factory closing.
In Comment, Philip Gourevitch asks who should be held accountable for the torture memos.
In the Talk of the Town, Alma Guillermoprieto reports from Mexico City, under siege by swine flu.
In the Talk of the Town, Lauren Collins looks at the linguistic implications of the disease’s porcine name
In the Financial Page, James Surowiecki explains why the financial industry needs to shrink.
In Shouts & Murmurs, Amy Ozols makes friends on an airplane.
There is a comic strip by Chris Ware.
Judith Thurman writes Helen Gurley Brown and the Cosmo Girl.
Adam Kirsch explores the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Hilton Als reviews Desire Under the Elms.
Sasha Frere-Jones listens to Grizzly Bear’s new album.
David Denby reviews X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fighting, and Tyson.
There is a story by the recently departed writer J. G. Ballard.
Sempé Fi (On Covers): In the Dog-House
_Pollux writes_:
Stories and news reports about Bo, the First Dog, had for a time that whiff of newness and now-ness, like the snatches of a Susan Boyle song. But the whiff of newness has now been replaced by that regular doggy smell, and taking care of Bo has been added to Obama’s long, long list of concerns, worries, and responsibilities. _The New Yorker_ “once depicted”:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2008/12/08/toc_20081201 Obama carefully interviewing potential candidates for the First Pet position.
“Bob Staake’s”:http://www.bobstaake.com cover for the April 27, 2009, issue of _The New Yorker_ now gives us Bo and gives us Bo’s new, immense domain: the White House Lawn. The lawn looks lush, welcoming, velvety, and verdant—and lonely. Have we forgotten Bo?
“The mob is fickle, brother,” Lucilla says to her brother, the Emperor Commodus, in a scene from _Gladiator_. “He’ll be forgotten in a month.” Commodus, as played by Joaquin Phoenix, gives her a sickly grin. “No, much sooner than that,” he replied. “It’s been arranged.”
Whoever arranges the sequence of news stories at Fox and CNN (I imagine the culprits are the same Ringwraiths who pursued Frodo and friends in the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy) has arranged for the Bo Story to slip from the public consciousness. We are interested in newer things now—did you know that they’re coming out with “an Octomom musical?”:http://www.tmz.com/2009/04/25/now-casting-octomom-the-musical/
Perhaps no one cares about Bo anymore; the months of anticipation leading up to it may be responsible for that. We’ve burned ourselves out, like a child sitting in a pile of destroyed wrapping paper on Christmas Day.
If the general public has forgotten Bo, _The New Yorker_ certainly has not, nor has Staake, who is finding a publisher for his new book, _The First Pup: The Unofficial Story Of How Sasha and Malia’s Dad Got the Presidency—And How They Got a Dog_.
“You put any dog on the cover and everyone goes crazy,” Staake “has remarked.”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/04/bob-staake-and-the-first-dog.html “This cover is good at being cute, but it also works as a metaphor for Obama. The best _New Yorker_ covers are the ones where the reader looks and brings their own interpretation, which brings the image to a new dimension.”
_The Phoenix_ “has suggested”:http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/dontquoteme/archive/2009/04/21/the-new-yorker-s-obama-cover-addiction.aspx that the cover is symptomatic of a general fixation with Bo, and Obama in general, that exists at _The New Yorker_ offices. “We’re now reaching the point where it’ll be a surprise,” Adam Reilly of _The Phoenix_ writes, “when the New Yorker _doesn’t_ feature an Obama-related image on its cover—and the problem actually seems to be intensifying. Two Obama-pooch covers in short succession? What were they thinking?!?”
But I believe that Staake’s cover isn’t so much emblematic of a fixation with Bo as much as it comments on the fact that, now that the excitement over the selection of the First Pet has receded, we are now left only with all that we see on this cover: a dog, a lawn, and a house. And that’s a general artistic comment that isn’t necessarily based on a burning social issue of our time, but it is one that is effectively made nonetheless.
Staake’s covers, composed of digitally constructed shapes and soft PhotoShop brushes, are effective in their simplicity: the vast green square that fills the New Yorker cover has almost swallowed Bo up. This dog is one Magic Eraser click away from being digitally eradicated.
Obama’s dog doesn’t have a normal life anymore. Neither does Obama. Staake’s White House is beautiful, imposing, and lifeless. There isn’t a living soul on this cover besides Bo himself, who presumably has the run of the house. Maybe the house has the run of the dog.
The “website”:http://www.pwdca.org/breed/FAQs.html for the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America, which I imagine saw a lot of traffic in recent weeks, recommends that “Porties” not be “left alone for long periods of time.”
It’s lonely at the top—for Portuguese Water Dogs as well as for humans.
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: Switch Stance
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Happy Day! The New Yorker and Print Take Home Ellies!
Martin Schneider writes:
Last night, at the American Society of Magazine Editors awards ceremony (our coverage of the nomination announcement is here and here), The New Yorker took home awards for fiction by E. Annie Proulx and Aleksander Hemon, photography by Platon, and criticism by James Wood. Congratulations to all!
Judging from the reaction on Twitter, the victory of Field and Stream over The New Yorker and Vogue in the 1,000,000+ circulation category was a bit of a shocker.
Meanwhile, Print won the award for general excellence, under 100,000 circulation. Congratulations to Emily and everyone at that outstanding publication for the well-deserved recognition!
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: “Musicoldiness”
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President Obama Throws Googly, Is Reading Joseph O’Neill’s “Netherland”
Martin Schneider writes:
At least according to David Leonhardt in the New York Times. A few quick reactions.
1. I’m reading it too! I’m almost done (bet that overachiever Obama beats me to the end, though—I’m savoring). I’m fairly certain it’s the first time that the president and I are reading the same novel at the same time. Did Clinton read Kurt Andersen’s Turn of the Century? I didn’t read any Zane Grey during the Bush years….
2. I admire Obama’s taste. I’ve run into a few people on Twitter and elsewhere calling Netherland overrated, but surely it’s a quality piece of work, even if one feels that it’s been overpraised. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, but then again, I’m not done yet. Leaning towards thumbs-up, though. What did you make of it?
3. I wonder how much Obama knows about cricket. I know next to nothing.
New Yorker Blog Roundup: 04.30.09
(This content is taken directly from the left nav bar on the magazine’s website.)
Steve Coll wonders if the Times could really be nonprofit.
James Surowiecki loved Obama’s Georgetown speech, even if it wasn’t Churchillian.
Sasha Frere-Jones celebrates Graffiti Kings.
Hendrik Hertzberg on the electoral college and a Fox News stake out.
George Packer discusses George Orwell with the Book Club.
News Desk: What is it with the hundred-days business?
The Front Row: Who still thinks pornography is enlightening?
The Book Bench: Honoring E. L. Doctorow at the PEN Literary Gala.
Evan Osnos provides more details on China’s green-tech space race.
The Cartoon Lounge: Footage from the swing flu of 2006.
Goings On: A Jonas Brothers drug reference?
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Pollux: High School Abusical
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