After my own heart I: Font & Order, derived from author Grace Dobush’s admiration for and preoccupation with the Law & Order typeface, Friz Quadrata. Thanks to HOW, my home magazine’s sister magazine, for the tip.
If you like Law & Order, by the way, you might just like David Remnick; if you like typography, you might have a Rea Irvin-like font spotting to send me. The world is full of things to uncover, then share with like-minded souls. About those un-like-minded souls—why are you thinking about those people anyway? What good has that ever done you?
After my own heart II: This Week in Milford. To understand, read a few days’ worth of The Comics Curmudgeon. Not that it’s possible to read only a few days of that site, which is far and away my favorite thing on the internet.
After my own heart III, possibly, if I knew what it was: this mysterious magazine writing blog. The mysterious creator has
ingeniously combined Joan Didion and the Gideon Bible, which seems like as good an idea as any.
Let those who say I have a narrow-niche subject take note! Later: Then there’s Behind the Approval Matrix, which decodes the New York magazine feature for the curious. I sometimes wish I got fewer references like that, actually, but I’m always tickled by it. (Thanks to the indispensable Manhattan User’s Guide for that one.)
Category Archives: Looked Into
What’s a Dandy, Anyway?
As the Eustace Tilley contest continues (the deadline is January 24; hope you’re quick on the draw!), Mental Floss asks for a dandy definition. Commenters are happy to provide, and have good taste in icons, too. Take a deep breath before looking through some of the Flick images entered into the competition so far, including, for instance, this one, inspired by the “Bodies” exhibit. OK, I admit I kind of like it, though I was grossed out by idea of the exhibit itself. And this Simpsons Tilley is funny, too.
Also, I keep meaning to mention that there’s a very interesting-looking New Yorker discussion group in Washington, D.C., called TalkTNY. Here’s the club’s website, where you can learn more, including:
Based in the Washington, DC area, TalkTNY, the New Yorker magazine reading group, gathers at a cafe or coffee shop to talk about recent articles and cartoons in the magazine. We usually have between 4 to 8 articles chosen to be read in advance, along with discussion questions.
Meetings are held every other week, usually on Saturdays.
Doesn’t This Law & Order Guy Look a Little Like David Remnick?
I know how this sounds, but I was watching a few minutes of that dreadful but hypnotic Taxi TV the other day, and there was a Law & Order promo on; the faces of a bunch of actors flashed by, and I could have sworn one of them was the jazz-appreciating editor himself. Once you really look at the guy (it’s got to be Jeremy Sisto as Detective Cyrus Lupo), it’s a little less doppelganger-y, but there’s something to it.
OK, enough silliness for today! (Here’s Remnick calming down Elizabeth Kolbert after a particularly dire climate-change report.)
But Where’s “Missing a Piece of Your Pattern?”?
Because that’s my favorite New Yorker ad of all time. This ad-themed roundup on the L magazine blog (which I enjoy, and which should come up with a pithy new name that’s not so much like Blog About Town) is very entertaining, but it doesn’t take into account the very ungeriatric ads that have been popping up on the side margins in recent years. The Bubble Lounge, authors’ websites, CD warehouses, the Criterion Collection, TheaterMania, and what I think is a brand-new ad, one for the Scratch Lounge, a cat-scratch … lounge … that has an insanely (and I mean that in every possible way) cute cartoon—somewhat in the B. Kliban tradition—on it. Um, and I might buy one, actually.
Completely unrelated: I found these old letters to the editor of National Review (that’s the one and only William F. Buckley) pretty funny. It could just be lack of sleep, but I think you’ll agree.
Finally, here’s Ron “Galleycat” Hogan’s writeup of a recent event with Dave Eggers and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the 92nd St. Y. I think I’m going to read What Is the What. I have some friends who’ve been harassing me about it for months and it’s got to stop. Besides, when all is said and done, I approve of Eggers. That sounds awfully prim, doesn’t it? Still, I approve of Eggers, and I approved this message.
The Best of the Best American Shorts (Hail the Wale!)
I know Martin’s been covering the New Yorker‘s many appearances in the “Best American Short Stories/Essays/&c.” series in rich and potent detail, but thanks to Leif Peng’s wonderful advertising-and-illustration-history site, Today’s Inspiration, we now have the definitive example—one that almost certainly trumps all others. Not only are these shorts incredibly fetching and versatile (like Raymond Carver, they come in longer versions, too), they’re made of corduroy.
As you may remember from a signature Ben McGrath Talk from about two years ago, perhaps the most delightful organization in New York City is the Corduroy Appreciation Club, for which I’m honored to say I serve not only as a member in good standing but as poet laureate. (My most recent presentation is not yet online, though it is lines on lines.)
Anyway, after the jump, behold the best American shorts to date. The mystical (to CAC members) date of 1 | 11, however, may yet reveal still better ones. It remains to be seen. Or felt. Entirely your choice.
Click to see at original size!
How to Read The New Yorker: An Illustrated Guide
Check out this gorgeous and useful entry by Heather Powazek Champ at The Magazineer, featuring elegant shots of the New Yorker pages in question. She writes:
A subscription to any weekly magazine is a commitment. If you subscribe to more than one, it’s even more important to ensure you stay on top of your consumption. I’ve developed the following process to ensure a timely yet comprehensive digestion of the beauty and wonder that is The New Yorker. Here’s my 10-step approach to the 7 January 2008 issue. (Read on.)
While I read the complete contents every week, or close to it, I certainly can’t (and don’t!) fault other people for doing less. (OK, I carp from time to time, but that’s only when my patience is really being tested.) This is a magazine, after all! It should be an illuminating diversion, not a chore.
Champ’s advice is similar to what I tell people who ask how to manage the overwhelmingness, as did my friend Stephen the other day (he got a subscription for Christmas). Skim the listings if you see live events in New York and the short movie reviews if you see movies anywhere; read Talk, Shouts, the cartoons if you like cartoons, the reviews of whatever interests you, and a long feature or Profile. I got an email from him just this morning, though, with this update: “actually, i’ve been meaning to write you to tell you that i DEVOURED the latest issue. like, read every article (almost). i’m LOVING it more than i expected.” So as you can see, it’s doable, even for busy actors, waiters, and other professionals!
Also, as I told Stephen, there’s nothing like it for total absorption on the subway, at the post office, in the tub, and on the internet. (Then, after you’ve recycled, you still have the DVD archives if a missed piece is haunting you like the Telltale Heart.) As Champ writes: “If managed correctly, the above process of consumption should take about a week. In fact, that’s what you should aim for lest you become ‘that’ subscriber who’s hopelessly behind.”
Amen to that. Thanks to Steve Heller for the tip!
“Poetry’s a Little Swervier Now”: An Interview With Alice Quinn
There’s a short, good interview with Alice Quinn on the Poets & Writers website, in which she talks about her twenty years as The New Yorker‘s poetry editor, what she’ll do next, and her successor, Paul Muldoon. An excerpt (thanks to Ron Silliman for the link):
How did you feel about the appointment of Paul Muldoon as poetry editor?
It was really my dream to have him succeed me. David [Remnick] asked, “What would you think about Paul Muldoon?” and honestly, I almost did a jig. You lay a foundation and then you see that somebody you adore and admire is going to come and shore it up and further it, and that’s great.
Who do you perceive to be the audience for the New Yorker‘s poems?
I feel that New Yorker readers are people who were profoundly connected to poetry in childhood, adolescence, or college, who want to touch base with it and want to feel that they still can read poetry. The New Yorker gives poets access to an international audience of literarily eager people who are sampling poetry.
Also, R.I.P. Milt Dunnell, sports columnist for the Toronto Star, who won an A.J. Liebling Award from the Boxing Writers’ Association of America in 1997. He passed away last week at the age of 102. From the collegial and eloquent obituary in the Star:
The 1975 fight between Ali and Frazier in Manila – the Thrilla in Manila – was his all-time favourite sporting event. At the time, he began his column this way:
“Not since the big guns of nearby Corregidor, now rotting in the tropical sun, has there been such cannonading in this corner of the Pacific.”
It was the greatest fight he covered and Ali was the greatest athlete of the century in Dunnell’s view.
“In my opinion,” he once said, “Ali was one of the greatest salesmen and public relations personalities in the world.”
“After a training session, Ali would sit on the corner of the ring and talk for an hour. Most of it was b.s., but he would talk about world politics, fighting, about blacks in society … all those things … and he described himself as the world’s best-known citizen.”
But he didn’t know everything. If Dunnell was nearby and Ali didn’t have a stock answer for a technical or historical question, he would say, “I don’t know about that. Why don’t you ask Milt here?”
…
On one occasion, Stephen Brunt, a sports columnist for the Globe and Mail, recalled seeing Dunnell in action at a heavyweight fight between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks in 1986.
“The bout ended quickly, but still it was past midnight and in the confusion at ringside there was shoving and jostling as the spectators pushed toward the ring and as the reporters tried to push their way out to the post-fight press conference.
“And somewhere, in the middle of it all, was Dunnell (only about 80 then), climbing over a table, fighting his way through the mob, to get the quote, to get the story, to get it back to his readers, to make the event real the next morning over somebody’s breakfast in Scarborough.
“Athletes aren’t the only heroes in sport,” concluded Brunt.
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?
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?
Meghan O’Rourke on Katherine Heigl on Knocked Up: “Maybe There’s a Lot More to Women Than These Expectations”
Sometimes it takes a national event to bring a taboo conversation to the fore. Terry Schiavo’s sad story and the attendant shamelessness of political opportunists, for instance, did have a positive effect: a lot of people finally got a grip and made living wills. Judd Apatow’s movie Knocked Up sparked a lot of debate in the press and at parties about how to deal with unplanned pregnancy between two people who weren’t planning to be together for the long haul, and I bet in a lot of bedrooms and dorm rooms, too. (You may recall that we had an extensive debate about the movie when David Denby wrote an essay about love and lovable-ish losers in the movies for The New Yorker.) More than a spoonful of sugar helped the medicine go down in Knocked Up; the movie is compassionate and funny, and in many respects, startlingly real.
In Slate this week, Meghan O’Rourke considers Katherine Heigl’s mild yet apparently heretical recent remark to Vanity Fair that Knocked Up is “a little sexist.” O’Rourke expands the commentary into a thoughtful essay about cultural expectations of maturity, responsibility, and gender behavior, observing astutely, “A culture that assigns all that weight to what ‘men’ and ‘women’ want only makes it more difficult for couples to establish their own fruitful ratio of intimacy to privacy.”
That Heigl felt it necessary to recant to People at all (thanks to O’Rourke for that link) makes me glum, given that what she said to Vanity Fair was awfully tame. On the other hand, as some of the film-land folks who were at my friend Meg’s wedding this past weekend related, Apatow is so (unsurprisingly) golden in Hollywood these days he’s practically untouchable. There’s a phrase screenwriters use now when they want to make a screenplay or pilot warmer, hipper, more sellable: “Just Judd it up!” And let me say once again that I love this guy. Do you know what I’m doing even as I type? I’m listening to the director’s commentary for Disc 2 of Undeclared, Apatow’s ill-fated, little-known, and totally charming TV series. That’s how much I love this guy.
Also, Knocked Up is a little sexist, a truth Apatow pretty much acknowledged, in a self-aware and relaxed manner, in his recent New Yorker Festival interview with Denby and Seth Rogen. If you haven’t seen the video of the conversation, one of the high points of the festival and a humongous crowd-pleaser, watch it now. So Apatow can admit—as he does at the end of the interview—that he has a lot to learn about women and women characters; Heigl is supposed to pose and smile, and not say anything at all. Now, that seems a little sexist to me.
Meanwhile, Details laments the rise of the twenty- and thirty-something “tweenager” woman, who text-messages her friends “OMG!” and watches Gossip Girl. For some reason this seems to be more frightening to Details than, say, the rest of the TV-watching population, men included, watching Gossip Girl. Maybe it’s because of “the inconvenient truth that men are not as attracted to women over 30,” as a letter-writer in the same issue opines (if women are going to act like girls, they should be as lust-worthy as girls, right?), but there’s a point in there somewhere. Too bad there’s also a pair of twentysomething women wearing knee socks and rollerskates and sucking lollipops in the same issue. Don’t simper like a girl, don’t age like a person, don’t bitch and moan like a grown women—gosh, ya can’t win! (I love the use of “inconvenient truth” there, too. PowerPoint that sucker and you might convince me.)
Till the world is just, you might want to consider donating to the National Network of Abortion Funds, for the people who are, in fact, knocked up and need to make that choice. Apparently, in return for your donation, you’ll get a copy of my friend Katha Pollitt’s great book Learning to Drive, and who’da thunk it, it’s compassionate, funny, and startlingly real, too. (Katha’s written about Knocked Up, too.) But it’s not a competition. Judd Apatow is an honest, sensitive modern man who’s got the grace to say he’s still learning, and I love the guy. Have I mentioned that?