Monthly Archives: December 2008

Link Roundup: Imagine Soglow’s Little King in a Skybox on This Page

Time Magazine calls The New Yorker‘s post-election cover, by Bob Staake, the best magazine cover of the year. “Simply spectacular,” they say. Curiously, NBC’s Domenico Montanaro points out that Barack Obama appeared on 48 percent of Time‘s covers in 2008, albeit sometimes in the “skybox,” that cute folded-down corner that previews a secondary story in the issue—I didn’t know that’s what it’s called!
Call for entries: As the Irvin-mad Emily noticed the other day, the 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest is under way! Send in your depiction of Eustace Tilley by January 15, 2009. Françoise Mouly will curate a slide show with the top entries.
The Aurora Theater Company of Berkeley, California, is putting on George Packer’s Betrayed in January. I’ve seen it, and it comes recommended. The play is about the failure of the American authorities in Iraq to support those courageous Iraqis who risked their lives by collaborating with the occupying forces. Here’s the original article from The New Yorker. Now that Iraq is a bit out of the headlines, I’m curious whether the play feels dated in any way—a perhaps inevitable fate for material as “newsy” as this.
Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter blog reviews Booth, a 1999 book about legendary New Yorker cartoonist George Booth. Hey—we’re fans.
The New York Public Library has a fairly random picture of William Shawn, which kind of thing always cheers me up.
Oh, and here’s a 2003 article by me about the connections between A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. I think it’s good. Merry Christmas!

Best of the 12.22-29.08 Issue: It’s Funny Because It’s Fact

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 “comedy.” Humor can be mistaken for undemanding bonhomie (what’s more depressing than the Humor section of a bookstore?), but the latter connote the concrete, intellectual and absurd aspects of the comic that thrive on the edge of the abyss. Such was the sensibility expounded with dour glee by Smith’s father, Harvey; and she doesn’t just recall it, she shows us what life looks like seen through it. (Must look for that “Fawlty Towers” DVD-extra interview of Prunella Scales.)

Pigeon Protection: Change We Can Believe In

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_Pollux writes:_ Yes, we are “pro-pigeon”:http://emdashes.com/2006/02/i-salute-fellow-propigeon-new.php here at Emdashes, and we believe that these feathered friends of ours are not only beautiful icons of “New York and _New Yorker_ culture”:http://emdashes.com/2007/03/the-pigeon-files-part-the-firs.php but also need to be protected across America. That’s why we’ve given our support to “the proposal”:http://www.change.org/ideas/view/protect_pigeons_under_the_migratory_bird_treaty_act to change the legal status of the feral pigeon, first submitted by “The New York Bird Club”:http://www.manhattanbirdclub.com/ as one of the Ideas for Change in America.

Stamp of Good Greeting: Trebay Hails the Snail

Jonathan writes:
Since I first moved to the vanished city where I picked up–nay, purchased–a Village Voice each week to read his column, Times fashion hound and sometime Talk contributor Guy Trebay’s words have accompanied me along the borderlands between two New Yorks, the one I know and the one I don’t yet.
Still braced by Emily’s encyclical on the care that can add grace to regular communication at little cost, I was happy to see Trebay’s declaration of faith in physical Christmas cards, be they inspired divinely (from a holiday fair at Brick Church on the Upper East Side), or Divinely (by John Waters). Trebay is one of six writers in the Times identifying “The One Luxury I Won’t Do Without” this year (illustrated warmly by Greg Clarke, who has done at least one lovely New Yorker cover that I know of).

Best of the 12.15.08 Issue: Inefficient Gift-Delivery System

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, I turned first to Roger Rosenblatt’s restrained piece on moving in with his son-in-law after the unexpected death of his 38-year-old daughter—a meditation on life more than on death, particularly as seen by being more part of his grandchildren’s lives than he otherwise would have been.” O discriminating friend! Rosenblatt’s “Making Toast” is surely a minor masterpiece. If nothing else, it can claim a feat that few other works can: augmenting the oeuvre of James Joyce. (You’ll have to “read”:http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2008-12-15#folio=044 it to get that; subscription req’d.)
Jonathan liked the Zachary Kanin’s Grim Reaper cartoon on p. 68, which had no difficulty eliciting a chortle out of me.