Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Weekly: Pick of the Issue
Bimonthly: Ask the Librarians
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Looked Into
Best of the 12.22-29.08 Issue: It's Funny Because It's Fact
Filed under: fiction, nonfiction, Personal History, Roberto Bolano, The New Yorker, Zadie Smith
Jonathan writes:
I believe Benjamin Chambers will be here soon with an authoritative Katharine Wheel survey of the year-end Fiction Issue. (I'd say, if you haven't yet managed to read any Roberto Bolaño, his "Meeting With Enrique Lihn" is online; as they say, the first one's free.)
My other personal pick is Zadie Smith's nimble Personal History piece, "Dead Man Laughing." I think it means something that the word "humor" appears much less frequently than "funny," "joke," or
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Best of the 12.15.08 Issue: Inefficient Gift-Delivery System
Filed under: art, Bob Staake, cartoons, covers, James Joyce, Marcellus Hall, Peter Arno, Roger Rosenblatt, Zachary Kanin
At least, that's what the cover says to me! Jonathan Taylor praised the "delightfully Arno-esque cover," adding that "the whip makes it extra saucy!" He's got a point there; I had not contemplated this aspect.
The artist, Marcellus Hall, was also the musical force behind Railroad Jerk, whose "Sweet Librarian" made it onto many of my mixes during those years when Napster was big. I saw Hall play a ditty at a book event held at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater last February.
Jonathan and I also agreed about the issue's pick: Quoth JT: "On a friend's advice,
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Best of the 12.08.08 Issue: Disaster Capitalism and Its Discount Garments
Filed under: Barack Obama, Barry Blitt, Elizabeth Kolbert, Graeme Wood, Larissa MacFarquhar, Naomi Klein, Patricia Marx
This is the issue with Barry Blitt's cover image of Barack Obama interviewing the dogs, a flight of fancy that manages to capture something essential about the serious, careful president-elect, I thought. I found the juxtaposition of Larissa MacFarquhar's Profile of Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, and Patricia Marx's look at recessionary fashion most intriguing.
In transit from West Coast to East, Benjamin Chambers was able to register his impressions via iPhone (I really must acquire one of those things):
"Some things I've liked this week:
"P. 19, brief review of a show of artifacts from 12 cultures circa the Bronze age. Quote: 'Battalions of pitilessly educational wall texts and labels beseige about three hundred and
Best of the 12.01.08 Issue: Banana-Fana Fo Fernanke
Filed under: cartoons, economy, John Cassidy, Peter Mueller, recession
In the pragmatic, can-do spirit of the incoming Obama administration, Emdashes has made a collective decision to put aside "the failed policies of the past"...and revive the useful "Pick of the Issue" feature instead!
Our goal is utilitarian. Consider: You are being pursued by a highly funktastic lizard and thus cannot follow through on your oath to read with care every page of this week's issue. You've only got about thirty minutes to dedicate to the issue. To which feature should you allot your circumscribed time?
This week, districts reporting so far (Jonathan Taylor and I) thought John Cassidy's Reporter at Large story about Ben Bernanke and the reaction to our still-unfolding economic crisis, "Anatomy of a Meltdown"
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All I Want for Christmas is a Hand-Forged Kramer Chef's Knife
Filed under: Digital Edition, newyorker.com, Todd Oppenheimer
Benjamin Chambers writes:
I don't tend to like theme issues; I find the uniformity of subject matter makes me less interested in reading. But in the The New Yorker's November 24, 2008 "food" issue, one piece jumped out at me: Todd Oppenheimer's profile of Bob Kramer (Digital Edition link here), who is one of the only 122 people in the world certified as a Master Bladesmith.
To be certified, Kramer had to hand-forge six knives.
One of those was a roughly finished, fifteen-inch bowie knife, which Kramer had to use to accomplish four tasks, in this order: cut through an inch-thick piece of Manila rope in a single swipe; chop through a two-by-four, twice; place the blade on his forearm and, with the belly of the blade that had done all the chopping, shave a swath of arm hair; and, finally, lock the knife in a vise and permanently bend it ninety degrees.
If I used that bent knife to carve the Thanksgiving Day turkey, it would
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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.
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A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
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