Each week, the Emdashes staff puts the blue ribbons on the aspects of the last issue that most reminded us of Wilbur, the good-hearted, unprejudiced pig radiantly bathed in buttermilk.
I’d like to reassure anyone alarmed by Calvin Trillin’s tale of drugs, arson, and violence in Nova Scotia that we Canadians are a peaceable people, with universal health care, level roads, and excellent hockey players. Trillin is ascending my list of favorite writers. I often flash back to moments from his tales of Alice, his late wife; and “swayve dogs,” from his Letter about Frenchy’s, a Maritime secondhand clothier, makes me smile weekly.
J.D. Salinger poked his head into my last last POTI entry, and I can’t look at those photos of soaring trestles in David Owen’s “The Anti-Gravity Men” without thinking of Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters. Check out that welder! —JB
Speaking of Trillin, I’d like to thank Laura Buckley for introducing the phrase “asshole issues” to my vocabulary. It was one of those lacunae one only recognizes in the act of filling it. It will get a lot of use. —MCS
I’ve already noted my pleasure in Lou Romano’s far from hacklike romantic taxi cover, Nancy Franklin’s incisive column (a Sopranos-mad friend says it’s the best thing she’s read on the show closer), and the excellent writing on architecture and engineering by the underappreciated Owen.
Like John, I admired Trillin’s taut, beautifully told story of island strife, and the review of Tina Brown’s Princess Diana book by John Lanchester was notably sensible; I also appreciated its dignified lack of tittle-tattle about both Brown (which was the clear choice under the circumstances) and Diana (which was admirable; I’m tired of hearing her defined by her taste in couture). John Lahr always makes my list. He is a giant. —EG
Monthly Archives: June 2007
Jeffrey Goldberg Crosses (to) The Atlantic
From Women’s Wear Daily (when did they start being such a major source of media news, I wonder?):
MOVING ON: Not many correspondents leave the hallowed halls of The New Yorker, but the Condé Nast weekly has just lost a big one: Jeffrey Goldberg, its Washington correspondent, who’s leaving to join the cerebral literati’s other favorite mag, The Atlantic, as a national correspondent. The last departure at this level of The New Yorker was two years ago. Goldberg will assume his new position later this summer and will be based in The Atlantic’s Washington office. He’d been with The New Yorker since 2000, covering foreign policy and the conflict in the Middle East. His work earned him several journalism honors, including a National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2003 for his writings on Islamic terrorism. “[New Yorker editor] David Remnick is terrific — everybody there is terrific — but The Atlantic made me a very attractive offer,” Goldberg told WWD. “[Atlantic editor] James Bennet is a good friend of mine and The Atlantic is early in the process of reimagining themselves. That’s interesting to me.” Goldberg added that he likely would travel back to the Middle East more so than in recent years at The New Yorker.
In addition to his seven years at The New Yorker, Goldberg is author of the memoir “Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide,” and covered the Middle East for The New York Times Magazine, where he and Bennet worked together, and the Mafia for New York magazine. He also has written for Slate, The Jerusalem Post and The Washington Post. And his departure at The New Yorker will no doubt set off a scramble among every journalist in the nation’s capital to nab the spot. — Stephanie D. Smith
TNY on Trib’s List, a Cartoon Breakdown, and Those Tricky Invasive Weeds
My first daily newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, calls The New Yorker one of its 50 favorite magazines:
Katherine Boo’s story on the closing of one of the worst high schools in Colorado wasn’t just challenging and moving, it was absolutely riveting – and a reminder that, if other magazines have more bells and whistles, the New Yorker has, pound for pound, more quality writing and reporting than anyone around.
Someone I met at a party recently was saying that Boo deserves a big prize. I agree.
But the most exciting thing in meta-New Yorkerland this week is the grand analysis of all 100 caption-contest cartoons in the magazine thus far, by (it shouldn’t surprise you) the tireless David Marc Fischer at Blog About Town. He’s broken down the cartoons by subject, gender (of “protagonist” and cartoonist), scenario, geographical location, and everything else you can imagine. It’s a truly awesome achievement, and I can’t wait to read part two.
Meanwhile, did you know that cartoonist Mick Stevens has a blog? In his thoughtful posts, he provides a welcome and sober look at the cartoon-making process, which doesn’t always end triumphantly.
Finally, wunderkind big-band leader and jazz pianist Solomon Douglas, who unexpectedly swung through town this week, just turned me on to Language Log, a linguistics blog, and what’s the first thing I noticed? A second look at that recent newsbreak about invasive weeds. You remember:
NO COMMENT DEPARTMENT
From the San Francisco Chronicle.
With California Invasive Weeds Awareness Week just around the corner (July 17-23), there are two words every Californian should know: yellow star thistle.
Funny, right? Language Log’s Arnold Zwicky thought there might be more to this thorny issue, and he did some sound sleuthing into how an unthinking copy edit may have led to the horticultural (and orthographical) gaffe. Read on.
Why We Film Our Tacky Plays
Although it’s a rare Talk I don’t enjoy, I could do with fewer “society” pieces like this week’s report, by Lauren Collins, on the making of a saucy short film (to promote the novel The Manny) by a gaggle of fun-loving wealthy types, who hired actors and comedians to play various parts in the book. I last had this mildly uncomfortable feeling when I read Rebecca Mead’s dishy Talk about a party hosted by Cindy Adams. TOTT, as most readers know, began as a frothy, cheerful sort of section, which didn’t take itself too seriously and often made references only a handful of amused insiders would get. It’s grown up a bit since then, and it’s a treat to read precisely because of pieces like—off the top of my head—Michael Schulman on a cooper from Colonial Williamsburg on a visit to hipster-colonized Williamsburg, Mead on Workman’s workingman naps, my friend Tom Bartlett on cardboard box haiku, or Ben McGrath on pretty much anything (with a smattering of borderline cases).
Of course, there’s a place in the magazine for reporting on exclusive parties and functions, awards dinners, benefits, and so on, especially when there’s something notable, funny, or quirky about them. But anecdotes about things like the Manny shoot, which seems more TMZ than Metropolitan in any event, make me slightly itchy; don’t we read about Tinsley Mortimer enough in Gawker as it is, and isn’t that fact enough to prevent her appearance in TOTT? Filmmakers who consider the addition of a dwarf to their cast instant hilarity should probably not be dignified with mentions, either.
There are plenty of ways to be local, timely, and urbane, and The New Yorker has already mastered them—I’ll read Collins’s exemplary and impishly detailed reporting about subjects like the furrier to the hip-hop celebrity world anytime—but events like this seem at once too prepackaged and too slight for coverage in a section (or even, as Harold Ross first imagined it, almost a magazine within a magazine) that thrives on telling jewels of stories, so nearly overlooked, sparklingly well.
O Caption! My Caption! Winner #99 Speaks
As the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest creeps inexorably toward #100, intrepid Canadian intern John Bucher continues the renewed tradition of interviewing the clever and astonishingly elite contest winners.
David Wilkner, trolling for the next Big One
Congratulations to David Wilkner (above), of limerick-worthy Pawtucket, Rhode Island, for taking the prize in Cartoon Caption Contest #99—a Leo Cullum illustration of a doctor advising a glum and projectile-pierced cowboy—with the line, “I’d like to get your arrow count down.†Although this contest number has special resonance for Canadians—it’s Wayne Gretzky’s sweater number—David and I discussed things even more vital than hockey. Fishing, for one. —JB
One thing I always wonder about contest winners is whether the caption comes to them quickly or slowly. Which was it in your case?
My “arrow count down†caption was the first one I thought of that Monday morning while online, and it took three to five minutes to compose. I normally come up with a couple of captions that I like the first day, but by the end of the week I will have added ones I think are much better. I hardly ever submit an early one, but I knew this one fit the New Yorker mold of a professional person using his “professionspeak†in an absurd situation. I go to my doctor once a year for a physical, and, of course, he always wants to “get my weight down,†my “cholesterol down,†my “drinking down,†etc.
What process is the devising of a funny caption most like?
Fishing. You’re sitting in the boat waiting for something to bite inside your head. There are days when you catch nothing, or fish so small you throw them back, while searching and waiting for the “big one†you hope is lurking just below the surface.
I really study the cartoon and its makeup, and then follow my thought trail, which may draw from personal experiences or lead to something dealing with irony or an abstract idea. If I’m not getting anywhere I’ll even consider hackneyed phrases. I try to let the cartoon take me down its path to its “rightful†caption rather than forcing one on it.
What kind of relationship do you have with a) The New Yorker and b) its cartoons? How far back does the connection go?
I’ve been hooked on New Yorker cartoons for most of my adult life. As a long-time subscriber, I’ll cut out the cartoons that make me laugh the hardest and tape them on top of each other at my place of work so that people can flip through them. My mother compiled many scrapbooks of her favorites. She passed away five years ago, and would have been ecstatic to know that I won one of these contests.
Of the ones you cut out and post at work, can you winnow out three favorites? What, specifically, do you find funny about them?
1. The classic “I’m sorry, Sir, but Dostoevsky is not considered summer reading. I’ll have to ask you to come with me†cartoon of the beach patrol officer accosting the bewildered tourist; it’s by Peter Steiner. I read a lot of Dostoevsky in my twenties, and like the hilarity of the officer extending his authority into the realm of seasonal reading.
2. The Henry Martin cartoon of the explosion with the title: “Tim, a walking time bomb, met Ed, an accident waiting to happen.†This may be my favorite of all time, because it has no characters or quotations. It’s merely two volatile clichés in a head-on collision.
3. An illustration by Michael Crawford of a Swiss Army knife, but with fourteen corkscrews and no other options—the “French Army knife.†It’s so much fun to make fun of the French!
If you could have one thing in your home autographed by its creator, what would it be?
That’s easy! The print of the Leo Cullum cartoon I won in last week’s contest. It hasn’t arrived in the mail yet. Beyond the home, I’d have to say a Degas pastel of a ballerina in motion that I saw at the Providence Museum of Fine Arts last year. It was so perfect!
What, to the best of your knowledge, were you doing at 11 a.m. on February 17, 1986?
Skiing down the slopes of Killington with my two young daughters and wife.
Other Emdashes caption-contest interviews:
- Robert Gray, winner #106 (“Have you considered writing this story in the third monkey rather than the first monkey?”)
- David Kempler, winner #100 (“Don’t tell Noah about the vasectomy.â€)
- Richard Hine, winner #98 (“When you’re finished here, Spencer, we’ll need you on the bridge-to-nowhere project.â€)
- Carl Gable, winner #40 (“Hmm. What rhymes with layoffs?â€)
- T.C. Boyle, winner #29 (“And in this section it appears that you have not only alienated voters but actually infected them, too.”)
- Adam Szymkowicz (“Shut up, Bob, everyone knows your parrot’s a clip-on”), winner #27, and cartoonist Drew Dernavich interview each other in three parts: One, Clip-On Parrots and Doppelgangers; Two, Adam and Drew, Pt. Two; Three, Clip-On Parrots’ Revenge
- Evan Butterfield, winner #15 (“Well, it’s a lovely gesture, but I still think we should start seeing other people.”)
- Jan Richardson, winner #8 (“He’s the cutest little thing, and when you get tired of him you just flush him down the toilet.”)
- Roy Futterman, winner #1 (“More important, however, is what I learned about myself.”)
Hersh, Not Squirrels: Remnick at ASME Was “the Conscience of the Conference”
An editor friend writes:
“How many of you got into journalism because you wanted to be an editor at The New Yorker?” David Remnick asked as he began a talk entitled “The Importance of Great Reporting” at an ASME conference for about 50 junior editors earlier this week. Two hands went up. Things didn’t get much better during the Q. and A., when one of the attendees asked Remnick if he ever worried about reader exhaustion. The implication being, You know, these loooong stories about the water shortage, global warming, war war war—whew, I’m tired!
Remnick’s response: “I don’t.” (And now I’m paraphrasing.) “Because if I start worrying about cutting our 10,000-word Seymour Hersh article on Abu Ghraib down to 5,000, then it’s 3,000, and then before you know it, we’re doing feature articles on squirrels.”
He was essentially the conscience of the conference. Later on the in session, he remarked, “Sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away” to ensure your journalistic credibility. He also mentioned two words, one German, one Yiddish, I believe. The translation boiled down to: The key to great reporting is “the ability to sit on your ass.”
J.B. Handelsman, 1922-2007
I was sad to learn that longtime cartoonist and cover artist John Bernard (Bud) Handelsman, whose style will be instantly recognizable to readers of the magazine, died earlier this week. You can see some of his work on the Cartoon Bank and in his Comiclopedia bio. On his blog, cartoonist Mike Lynch has a tribute and more biographical information about the New Yorker, Playboy, and Punch artist.
Update: There’s now a slide show of his cartoons and a reminiscence by Nancy Franklin on newyorker.com. The Associated Press also has an obituary, which includes this quote: “‘Bud Handelsman found a way to combine the traditions of the New Yorker cartoon and editorial cartooning and make of it something totally his own,’ David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, said in an e-mail. ‘At its best, his work had political bite and, at the same time, a real humanity and wit. Everyone at the magazine—editors, writers, artists, and readers—will miss him and will miss his unique voice.'”
Dept. of Comings and Goings
The breeze is blowing through 4 Times Square, as elevators go up and down and doors open and close. For instance, George Packer’s new blog on newyorker.com, “Interesting Times,” has launched, and its title promises news good and bad, alarming and amusing. And in first person, no less! You know whose blog I’d like to read? Michael Specter. He has an incredible range of interests and approaches to his subjects, has scintillating anecdotes he can toss off as lightly as a pair of bedroom slippers, and travels like a fiend. How about it? It could be called (drawing from pieces past) “Search and Deploy,” “The Long Ride” (written en route to and from assignments), or perhaps simply “I Am Specter.” If this is in fact in the works, fear no moles, royal denizens; I thought of it my own self.
Anyway, you’ve no doubt read of Dan Baum‘s departure from the magazine, and the end of his and Margaret Knox’s New Orleans blog; the late blog is lauded here on The Wayward Episcopalian, within a long list of excellent resources on the city’s quick destruction and slow recovery.
But I’m burying the lede: I’m very glad to see that Nancy Franklin is back with a critical yet empathetic review of John From Cincinnati and a salute to The Sopranos. What’s more, one of my favorite New Yorkerites, David Owen—whose book about the evil Educational Testing Service, None of the Above (which is much meatier than the current cover design would have you believe) actually changed my life back in 1988—has a typically meticulous and engagingly written story in this issue about architecture and the structural engineer Cecil Balmond (sadly, not online). All that plus an especially fine Talk section and Calvin Trillin’s remarkable Canada Journal has me whistling this week. I don’t approve of whistling or humming for no good reason, but such circumstances provide an allowance.
Speaking of structural engineers, the life of William LeMessurier, whose obituary is in the Times today, has a New Yorker connection: the magazine was the first to do an extensive report (by Joe Morgenstern in the May 29, 1995 issue) on the bolstering of LeMessurier’s Citicorp building, which the engineer oversaw with heartening care. From the obituary: “He once told a class at Harvard: ‘You have a social obligation. In return for getting a license and being regarded with respect, you’re supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interests of yourself and your client to society as a whole. And the most wonderful part of my story is that when I did it, nothing bad happened.’ â€
Taxi! Lou Romano’s Animated Cover
Our smart friend in comics sends this link from the cheerful and visually pleasing Cartoon Brew; click on the post to see the current New Yorker cover in all its deep rainy blue and bright yellow glory. Amid Amidi (who recently provided me with a copy of the animated version of James Thurber’s great “The Unicorn in the Garden”) writes:
Congrats to Lou Romano who painted the cover for this week’s New Yorker. Various illustrators who work in animation, like Peter de Sève, have done New Yorker covers before, but could this be the first time a trained animation artist has done a cover in the mag’s eighty-plus year history? The New Yorker is also selling prints of Lou’s cover here.
I think the implicit message in Romano’s cover is, If you want to be happier than Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross at the end of The Graduate, skip the bus and hail a cab instead. The triumphant last scene in Valley Girl comes to mind, too. I like how the skyscrapers here seem like a small crowd of friendly elders seeing off the newlyweds with benevolent pride.
Ian McEwan Is Everywhere
Within a day of purchasing it, I scarfed down Ian McEwan’s newest novel (novella is possibly more apt), On Chesil Beach. I would explain that it’s about inexperienced British newlyweds thrusting and parrying on their 1962 wedding night, but then devoted New Yorker readers already know this. (Here’s a swell PDF version of the New Yorker excerpt; here’s hoping you have the required fonts.)
I’d quite forgotten that the first chapter of McEwan’s Enduring Love also appeared in The New Yorker, but the Complete New Yorker confirms (May 19, 1997). In his enthusiastic review of Chesil, Emdashes fave Jonathan Lethem proposes sending McEwan’s opening chapters, “like Albert Pujols’s bats,” to the literary equivalent of Cooperstown; I’d wager it’s Enduring Love he is thinking of first and foremost. Point being, The New Yorker has offered first-rate McEwan before. As for Chesil, I’d aver that you have to go back to his also-possibly-novella Black Dogs to find its gemlike equal in McEwan’s oeuvre.
McEwan also pops up in D.T. Max’s fine “Letter from Austin” about the Ransom Archive. Apparently TPTB in Texas slot working writers into various levels akin to blue-chip stocks: we’re told that McEwan is rated as a worthier investment than Martin Amis, David Foster Wallace, and—gasp—J.D. Salinger! (Surely Chesil shores that status up, but have these arbiters read Saturday?)
In any case, last Friday, I caught McNally Robinson‘s presentation of Doug Biro’s movie about On Chesil Beach (talk about innovative cross-promotion) at the Two Boots theater. The event started with a dramatic reading of a scene from the book by talented actors Darrell Glasgow and Jessica Grant, a rare treat. After the quite skillful movie, National Book Critics Circle president John Freeman led a rousing discussion about McEwan and Chesil Beach with director Biro and novelists Colum McCann and Kathryn Harrison (New Yorker contributors both).
If you missed that event, you can always go to the screening at Labyrinth Books on Wednesday, June 19. It should be good fun!
Note: For anyone eager for insights into On Chesil Beach, the June 3 edition of the New York Times Book Review podcast features a lively chat with McEwan, in which the author discusses the new book and his (very very) early fondness for the Rolling Stones.
—Martin Schneider