Monthly Archives: September 2009

Congratulations to the Hanging Noodles Giveaway Winner!

moon_bite_Julia Suits.jpg
(illustration by Julia Suits)
_Pollux writes_:
I’m pleased to announce that the winner of our “giveaway”:http://emdashes.com/2009/09/book-giveaway-jag-bhallas-im-n.php for I’m _Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears_ by Jag Bhalla is **Michael May** of Dubuque, Iowa!
That city holds a special place in the hearts of _New Yorker_ devotees, and what’s even better is that Michael May writes all about the mystique of Dubuque on his blog “The Dubuquer.”:http://dubuquer.wordpress.com/
Congrats, Michael!
Michael wrote:
My favorite idiom is “bleed my lizard.”
In West Texas, if I say I need to “bleed my lizard,” I mean I need to urinate.
Thanks to the many people who entered, and better luck next time to all!

Song for a Punctuation Mark Dear to Our Heart

Martin Schneider writes:
Via her mailing list, Mignon Fogerty, Macmillan’s “Grammar Girl,” passes along this “Ode to the Em Dash,” written by punctuation enthusiast Sandra Ridpath:

“Ode to Em—”

As you dash about, I admire how
Straight, crisp and lean you look;
And whether before, after, or between
Your words, phrases, and clauses—
You create bold—almost brash—pauses.
Your sharp, double-sided sword either
Interrupts, explains, or provides a crisp refrain—

Your more subdued and delicate cousin Comma,
More delicately shapes her conversational stance.
With a classic hook, an almost unstated elegance,
She crooks her tiny tea cup drinking finger and smiles,
While you slash and grin like a pirate defending his men.
On all matters of meaning, movement, and patterns.

I’m not lean, bold, or brash, but I accept the vicarious compliment nonetheless. Nice job!

Essential Link: Interview with New Yorker Copyeditor Mary Norris

Martin Schneider writes:
Andy Ross at Red Room comes up with maybe the most informative article about the nuts and bolts of working at The New Yorker I can recall linking to. It’s an interview with Mary Norris, New Yorker copyeditor. If you like The New Yorker, copyediting, or amusing women (I like all of those things), you’ll find lots to enjoy here.
Norris is appearing at the copyediting master class at the New Yorker Festival, which I really hope I get to attend.
Now I’m worried that she’ll read this post and find errors in it. Oh, boy….

What’s in This Week’s New Yorker: 10.05.09

Martin Schneider writes:
(We neglected to execute this feature the last couple of weeks, but now we’re back on the stick.)
A new issue of The New Yorker comes out tomorrow. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine’s press release:
In “Gangland,” Jon Lee Anderson goes inside Morro do Dendê, one of the more dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro, to explore the rarely seen world within the shantytown slums and to meet with Fernandinho, the favela’s head gangster, who runs the drug trade and dispenses justice through an armed posse.
In “Rational Irrationality,” John Cassidy provides a new reading of the economic crisis and discusses its implications for the regulatory overhaul that President Obama has suggested.
“When I think of the people I know who are active in Iran’s pro-democracy movement,” a correspondent writes from Tehran, in “Veiled Threat,” “I think first of the women.” Looking back on the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and this summer’s demonstrations over the contested Presidential election, the writer says, “I’m struck by the absence of women in the first, the paucity of women in the second, and the triumphant presence of women in the third.”
In Comment, Elizabeth Kolbert looks ahead to December’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and describes the steps the U.S. must take to become a true leader in climate-change legislation.
In Shouts & Murmurs, Zev Borow compares his spouse to home electronics.
Robert Polidori photographs the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations.
Anthony Lane profiles the filmmaker Michael Haneke.
Nancy Franklin watches The Jay Leno Show.
James Wood considers the latest work in the author Robert Powers’s science-fiction oeuvre.
Alex Ross describes the shortcomings of the current Tosca at the Met.
Anthony Lane takes in Peter Sellars’s Othello, starring John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
David Denby reviews the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man and Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.
There is a short story by George Saunders.

Sempé Fi (On Covers): Rosy-Fingered Dawn

9-21-09 Jorge Colombo Finger Painting-New Day.jpg
_Pollux writes_:
When the rosy-fingered, golden-armed, saffron-robed Goddess of the Dawn, the child of Morning, appears, she illuminates the earth, bringing a sense of freshness and newness to whatever is to come.
“Jorge Colombo”:http://www.jorgecolombo.com conjures up this goddess for his September 21, 2009 cover for _The New Yorker_, called “Finger Painting: New Day.”
He does so on an iPhone, and uses only a finger to create a city skyline still mostly enshrouded in the shadow of night. The city awakens.
You can see how Colombo creates his piece in a 29-second “video”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2009/09/finger-painting-new-day.html at _The New Yorker_ website. Unfortunately, the video does not include a spoken commentary, and it would have been interesting to hear the story behind the cover or Colombo’s thought-process as he created this latest piece.
Colombo starts with the sky and all of its complex tones. Because the art tool he is using is a phone, Colombo can work undercover discovering the hidden beauties of the city.
But the cover’s value lies not so much in the fact that it was done on an iPhone or on how well Colombo depicts a city skyline on this appliance.
The cover’s worth lies with how well he creates an interesting cover with that indefinable quality that all good art pieces possess, whether they’re done in celadon-glazed clay or on a computer screen. That quality can best be described as soul-stirring or thought-provoking, or at the very least, artistically attractive.
There is grace in the cover. Instead of being created with fingers the size of umbrella handles that violently jab at a little screen, there exist instead soft and subtle tones summoned by an improvised but effective brush.
The city becomes beautiful in the soft light of dawn, a city sometimes made ugly with a rash of scrawled graffiti. It is a city pockmarked here and there with little imperfections and defects.
It is a city from which emerge the uneven teeth of water towers, ventilators, and rickety wooden stairs. Colombo beautifies them all as creates the subtle tones of dawn. There is a plane on its way to some international destination, and an office building slowly lighting up from the inside. We imagine inhabitants of this metropolis slowly rubbing the sleep from their eyes and hoping that the new day will be a good one.
For me, such images are what make Colombo’s cover a good cover, and it would be so even if it were created on canvas or paper.
Colombo is a serious artist and his iPhone art has crossed the line that separates the gimmicky and the innovative.
I appreciate the fact that _The New Yorker_ website features his work and how he creates it. I would appreciate even more if we could see on The New Yorker website how all the cover artists create their pieces, whether it’s Blitt and his pen, McCall and his brushes, or Staake and his digital creations.
In the meantime, we enjoy what we have, as we look forward to each new day.