Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines

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July022008

Art News: A Wall of Schjeldahl, and Niemann Wows Us (Again)

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We knew New Yorker art reviews were huge, but this huge? Via the Tomorrow Museum, news of an ersatz Peter Schjeldahl art review, "Canal Street Swoons," with classic New Yorker layout (more or less) and all, on a Brooklyn building. C-Monster, whose Flickr link this is, writes,
Proving that there’s never any shortage of excitement in the small and entertaining world of New York City street art, some super-meta conceptual type decided to paste a fake New Yorker critique about street art on the side of some building in Brooklyn. The prankster even attributed the “review” to the magazine’s art critic, Peter Schjeldahl.

I’m all for spoofing mainstream media, but, sadly, this piece doesn’t live up to its promise. For one, anybody who is gonna spoof the New Yorker better be able to deliver on the turn-of-phrase. This does not. (Sample sentence: “There is no sacrifice to putting this work on the street. That’s the street game, duh.”) On the content side, things don’t fare too well either. Someone risked arrest
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June292008

The New Yorker Earns a White Whine

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In a typically petulant, amusingly frivolous bleat, a White Whiner complains on the tongue-in-cheek Tumblr log that some New Yorker articles are online before the printed magazine arrives, making him feel "penalized." Another of the satirical squadron of the privileged carps about an address label right in the middle of some trenchant cover satire.

I found both through a simple yet vexing Google search. Why can't Tumblr have its own internal search function? Now there's a whine nearly worthy of the site.

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June142008

Praise Be: America Extols Summer Fiction Issue

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Martin Schneider writes:

I agree with the editors of America, the national Catholic weekly, that the most recent Fiction Issue may have represented a stealthy way of having a "Faith" issue in America's most prestigious secular magazine. They note that "the magazine's literary critic, James Wood, wrote a 4,000-word essay on the problem of theodicy, a term one does not often encounter in the pages of Eustace Tilley's journal."

America can cheer in recent hire Wood, then, because the guy has mentioned theodicy in five different articles so far! And, of course, the

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May112008

Pencil It In

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Michael Leddy at the site Orange Crate Art (clearly, someone I would enjoy talking to) wonders if the author of a 1953 Talk of the Town about pencil use at the Eagle Pencil Company might, by virtue of the story's eloquent phrasing ("We ducked as lead flew about us") and its attention to pencils, have been longtime editor William Shawn. In fact, according to the Complete New Yorker, it's by E. J. Kahn, Jr. Here's the abstract.

Leddy also notes the sad passing of Mona Hinton, the wife of Milt Hinton and a friend of Leddy's family, who died on May 3rd. He quotes the Hinton website:
The Hintons first met at Milt's grandmother's funeral in 1939 and were inseparable for the next 61 years. Mona traveled extensively with Milt throughout his career. She was the only spouse on the road with the Cab Calloway Orchestra in the 1940s, where, according to Milt, she was extremely helpful in finding rooms and meals for band members especially when the band worked in small towns during the Jim Crow era. During the '50s and '60s when Milt was working day and night in the New YorkWi studios, Mona kept the books and made often complicated transportation arrangements. And during the last two decades of his life, Milt and Mona got to travel to jazz festivals and clinics around the world — first class.
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May072008

Links of More Than Routine Interest: Benchley, Gawanke, Gladwell, &c.

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Martin Schneider writes:

S.L. Harrison at Editor & Publisher digs Robert Benchley's "The Wayward Press."

Software engineers find Atul Gawande's checklist useful.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the five most influential "business gurus" in America, per WSJ. (Related: Where are the women?)

Forbes appreciates Calvin "Bud" Trillin's London election

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April172008

I Am Hanging in the Balance of the Reality of Man

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March072008

Tilley on the MTA, Thurber's "Wood Duck," and Picks of the Issues

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February102008

A Little More Background on Crumb's "Elvis Tilley"

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February032008

Eustace Tilley Inspired By Famous Male Impersonator?

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August082007

Jeffrey Frank's Playlist, a Police Cloud, and Magazine Pests

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2008 Webby Awards Official Honoree
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Pretty!