Monthly Archives: July 2008

Emdashes Summer Interns: Warm Greetings to the S.A.T.s

This summer, three interns–Sarah Arkebauer, Taylor House, and Adam Shoemaker (whose smarts and first initials have led me to think of them, collectively, as S.A.T.)–will be contributing to Emdashes in many ways, some of which you’ll see as soon as this Friday. I’m delighted and honored to welcome them to the project. Without further ado, I’ll let them introduce themselves. On Friday, we’ll publish their first reports. They’ll be involved all summer long, and it’s going to be wonderful getting to know them. Note two themes so far: cartoons and the law.
Sarah Arkebauer: I’m a student at the University of Pennsylvania, from Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m tentatively majoring in History, but might switch to English. I enjoy reading (both books and blogs), using retro slang, and StumbleUpon. I also play the violin.
I spent my childhood reading Roz Chast‘s New Yorker cartoons, which helped foster my love of the magazine. Now, I flip to the table of contents and look for any articles by David Sedaris or (perhaps in vain) Jonathan Franzen. I also really enjoy Haruki Murakami’s fiction pieces, and I always check out the cinema reviews and John Updike’s book reviews. I cut out the best articles, pictures, and cartoons and paste them into my commonplace book. Its size is becoming quite unwieldy. I still read all the cartoons.
Taylor House: I recently graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in creative writing. I’m currently in the process of moving to L.A. and becoming “hep” like those hoodlums out in Silverlake. I write, bike, and nap daily. Will one day go to law school and become important. I read The New Yorker on the web or in the bathroom, a page at a time. I like the cartoons, though usually at least one per issue is over my head. I’m working on it.
Adam Shoemaker: I graduated from Harvard Law School in June, where I focused on Legal History and writing about Medieval Iceland. Before that, I studied History and Art at Williams College, with a particular fondness for trumeaus and misericords. I am excited to have the chance to become Emdashes’ first Icelandic corespondent in September, when I head to Reykjavik on a Fulbright. My summer reading includes a biography of Jane Goodall, the novels of Marilynne Robinson and Halldór Laxness, and a box of dog-eared New Yorkers.

It’s Peter J. Boyer Day: Whither Brian Williams?

How extraordinary that Emily chose this evening to post about Peter J. Boyer. I, too, listened to that podcast today, and I, too, enjoyed it.
I found one aspect of the interview puzzling. The subject of the article is the phenomenon of Keith Olbermann as an outlet for liberal rage, and what that phenomenon is doing to MSNBC and, by extension, NBC News. In no way do I mean it as a criticism of Boyer or The New Yorker to wonder how it was that the name “Brian Williams” wasn’t mentioned once in the podcast.
I like Williams–I think he’s my “favorite” anchor–but, as a category, that has about as much meaning these days as a preference for Ann Landers over Dear Abby. But it’s a curious testimony to … the newfound irrelevance of anchors? the ineffectual tenure of Williams himself? I’m not sure.
I went back and looked at the article. Sure enough, there’s plenty of stuff about Brokaw, the “hall monitor” of the sprawl—the entire story is structured as the battle between Olbermann and Brokaw for the very soul of NBC News—but just a few bland references to Williams.
I guess Williams has a tough job; he’s angling for attention smack in the middle of a gaggle of on-air personalities that, on all of those recent primary election nights anyway, included Brokaw, Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Chuck Todd, and who knows who else. I admire Williams’s stated commitment to making NBC News more “transparent”; perhaps, in the rush for Keith’s ratings, that directive has not gotten the attention it ought; such, anyway, appears to be Boyer’s thesis. Or maybe for all of Williams’s persuasive suavity, he’s not so good at being the center of attention—odd trait, for an anchorman.
Agree? Disagree? Post a comment!

Peter J. Boyer Has an Extraordinarily Soothing Voice

I’m listening to the New Yorker Out Loud podcast in which Matt Dellinger (who has a calming, pleasant voice himself) interviews Boyer about the latter’s recent story about newsman Keith Olbermann, and am struck by how resonant the latter’s speaking voice is. It is a mellow, searchingly thoughtful voice, with a note of the South (Texas, I’m guessing), and the sound of the two of them together makes for a sort of duet for cello and bassoon. It’s a good interview, too.
Matt, bring back Mr. Boyer for another discussion soon, won’t you? In the meantime, he could read a short story for the fiction podcast, perhaps something by John Graves. This makes me think: Paul Muldoon‘s similarly unboastful, shapely voice. A poetry podcast to complement the rest, complete with songs (Muldoon would choose them well), and it would be as lively as can be–something like the Favorite Poem Project, but with a New Yorker-specific tilt. Let’s hope that this is in the works.

Choice Styron Coming Your Way

Tired of new writers? Hungering for more from some of the established greats? Then I’ve got good news for you: William Styron’s got a posthumous “collection of fiction”:http://www.observer.com/2008/media/posthumous-fiction-collection-william-styron-be-published-random-house coming out, which will include a chapter from an unfinished novel. Styron, who died in 2006, is best-known, of course, for “Sophie’s Choice”:http://tinyurl.com/6buy3f and “The Confessions of Nat Turner”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Confessions_of_Nat_Turner_%281967%29 (both controversial when they were published), as well as “Darkness Visible”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Visible:_A_Memoir_of_Madness, his well-known memoir about his first struggle with major depression.
If you’re a fan, or interested in learning more, check out “his daughter’s memoir”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_styron from the December 10, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, Styron’s own New Yorker “essay “:http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/09/18/1995_09_18_062_TNY_CARDS_000372118about about being misdiagnosed with syphillis when he was 19, “audio interviews”:http://wiredforbooks.org/williamstyron/ with the author from 1981 and 1982, or this hour-long “video appreciation”:http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2006/11/03/2/an-appreciation-of-author-william-styron of the author and his work that appeared on Charlie Rose.

The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: Guzzlers

In honor of the ridiculous SUV that I was forced to drive this weekend, which I nicknamed the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man (big, fast, friendly, deadly), a Wavy Rule all about our alarming fuel situation and the ways in which our lives are destined to change, any minute now. Click to enlarge!
wavyrule_hybrids.png
Check out the “Wavy Rule” archive! More drawings by Paul Morris: his very funny webcomic “Arnjuice,” his motley Flickr page, and satisfying cartoon collections to download at Lulu.

Everybody Loves Rea Irvin

That’s the headline for a story by me in the hot-off-the-presses Print magazine, in a special issue on type. Ever wonder who was behind Eustace Tilley–and hundreds more iconic images and visual features (including the famed “Irvin type”)–in the first decades of The New Yorker? There’s so much more to say about this spectacular moment in graphic history, and particularly about what came before it, but this is a start. And it was incredibly fun to write. Since I had limited space to acknowledge the many people who provided documents and contacts for the story, I’ll give three grateful cheers here to cartoonist Liza Donnelly and to Dorothy Parker Society sagamore Kevin Fitzpatrick. They have both been incredibly generous with their resources and thoughts.
Very soon, we’ll run the contest I mentioned the other day. It’s a doozy! And I’ll tell you what our interns will be up to this summer, too. And if you haven’t heard about this, here’s some welcome news about two new Joseph Mitchell reissues, one of which has a new introduction by David Remnick. I can’t agree that Mitchell “is perhaps most remembered not for his writing, but for not writing,” but there’s never anything wrong with new readers for this peerless writer of New York’s proud populations, human, aqueous, and otherwise.

The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: Really, Tilley

Owls are such know-it-alls, aren’t they? This one has a certain familiar charm, however, and seems to be playing a fiesty Brooklyn to Eustace Tilley’s neurotic Manhattan. Click to enlarge!
wavyrule_tott.png
Check out the “Wavy Rule” archive! More drawings by Paul Morris: his very funny webcomic “Arnjuice,” a populous Flickr page, and cartoon collections to download at Lulu.

You Say “Potato,” and I Say “Victuals”

Benjamin Chambers writes:

Fans of The New Yorker (TNY) “fiction podcast”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction may not have noticed, but when author “Mary Gaitskill”:http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=mary+gaitskill&queryType=nonparsed&submitbtn.x=0&submitbtn.y=0&submitbtn=Submit recorded her otherwise-excellent “reading”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/06/09/080609on_audio_gaitskill of Vladimir Nabokov’s story, “Signs and Symbols” (or, as TNY’s first fiction editor, Katharine White, preferred for no very obvious reason, “Symbols and Signs”), Gaitskill mispronounced the word “victuals” by reading it as it’s spelled, rather than the correct way: vittles. I didn’t notice it myself, because I’ve always pronounced “victuals” the way Gaitskill does, thinking that “vittles” was just a hillbilly synonym, but otherwise unrelated. (Thanks to “Languagehat”:http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003174.php for setting me straight. When TNY asks me to read for their fiction podcast, I won’t make that gaffe!)

In a similar fashion, another corner of the blogosphere has been busy weighing the merits of “Jared Diamond’s piece “:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_diamond in the April 21st issue on the comparative value of exacting vengeance vs. the contemporary western justice system. The main post, by Rex (Alex Golub), is excellent, the following (lightly copyedited) segment in particular:

… Diamond fails to think anthropologically even if the people he discusses are stereotypically anthropological subjects. Anthropologists insist that culture is a force which has its own unique power to shape people’s lives and cannot be reduced to an effect of an underlying, deeper cause. So when Diamond remarks that pigs are valuable to highlanders because they (the highlanders) are “protein starved,” an anthropologist is not satisfied. This has probably been true of different places in different times in the highlands … and nutritional needs obviously affect human behavior, but so does culture.

Pigs are always valuable in culturally specific ways. When highlanders in PNG [Papua New Guinea] give pigs, do they exchange live pigs or pork? Who gets the piglets from the live pigs, and who gets the pork when it is eaten? These questions are deeply tied up in issues of nutrition, but they are also culturally structured. Equally, Diamond writes that in Nipa, fighters exhibit “unchecked” aggression, [but] then goes on to describe in detail the culturally specific ways in which they fight: rules regarding engagement (or non-engagement if you have relatives on the other side of the fight) and so forth. So in fact, while the human desire may be universal (and that’s a big ‘may’), so is the fact that it is always shaped and channeled in culturally specific forms. The more you know about people’s lives, the less easy it is to explain them wholly in terms of protein, geography, genetics and what have you.

Nicely put. Wade through the comments, too, if only to watch anthropology wonks in a dust-up. (Hope nobody ended up with a vendetta on their hands!)