In which Martin, who’s now abroad and provoking envy among his colleagues here at Emdashes, combines his fondness for newsbreaks—those witty clippings at the end of the occasional New Yorker column—his voracity for research and documentation, and his nimble fingers with the Complete New Yorker DVDs (from which, as Martin points out, newsbreaks are absent). A math student of whom it was once said “She has somehow arrived at the correct solutions, yet does not appear to know how to graph the trigonometric functions we studied this term,” I’m still somewhat fuzzy about what all the figures mean (though I know at least one of them is a fiscal quarter), but I know that you, sage readers, actually made it to Calculus and won’t have any trouble. —EG
ANTICLIMAX DEPARTMENT 11/28 55, 12/5 208
BLOCK THAT METAPHOR! 10/17 49, 10/24 157, 11/21 138, 11/28 147, 12/5 152
BRAVE NEW WORLD DEPARTMENT 10/24 103, 11/28 190
CLEAR DAYS ON THE EDUCATIONAL SCENE 12/5 177
CONSTABULARY NOTES FROM ALL OVER 11/14 168, 12/19 131
DEPARTMENT OF DELICACY 11/21 49
DEPT. OF HIGHER EDUCATION 12/12 167
DEPT. OF UTTER CONFUSION 10/17 167
DON’T GIVE IT A SECOND THOUGHT DEPARTMENT 12/19 127
FAMOUS “WHAT IF”S OF HISTORY 11/21 213
FULLER EXPLANATION DEPT. 12/26 53
HIGHER MATHEMATICS DEPT. 10/17 192
HOW’S THAT AGAIN? DEPARTMENT 10/10 123, 10/17 56, 10/31 133, 11/14 187, 11/21 164, 11/28 104, 12/19 142
IT’S ABOUT TIME DEPARTMENT 12/26 68
LIFE IN CALIFORNIA 11/28 51, 12/19 47
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE 12/26 39
LIFE IN TORONTO 10/17 92
LYRICAL PROSE DEPARTMENT 12/19 121
NEATEST TRICK OF THE WEEK 10/24 48, 10/31 139, 11/14 209, 11/28 167, 12/5 183
NO COMMENT DEPARTMENT 11/7 152, 12/12 188
PERISH THE THOUGHT DEPT. 10/10 153
RAISED EYEBROWS DEPARTMENT 11/7 112, 12/12 148
SENTENCES WE HATED TO COME TO THE END OF 11/28 177
SOCIAL NOTES FROM ALL OVER 10/3 103, 10/10 161, 10/31 144, 11/21 219, 12/12 154, 12/26 43
THAT’S TOO BAD DEPARTMENT 10/17 177
THE MYSTERIOUS EAST 12/19 123
THE OMNIPOTENT WHOM 11/7 47
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND 10/3 132, 12/12 159, 12/26 57
THESE CHANGING TIMES 10/24 53
UH-HUH DEPARTMENT 10/31 125
WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT DEPARTMENT 10/3 108
WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE DEPT. 11/14 139, 11/28 168, 12/12 74
* Fascinating, sprawling Robert Penn Warren poem in 11/14 issue. I dare someone to tackle it.
* Brilliant Al Ross cartoon about literary snobbery in 11/21 issue.
* Engrossing profile on five brothers who are all New York City building superintendents, in 10/24 issue. No other magazine does this sort of thing so well.
* Janet Malcolm on Jeffrey Masson pops up in this quarter. Uh-oh.
* George Steiner on George Orwell looks interesting, 12/12 issue.