Monthly Archives: September 2010

American Psycho or NYT? (No, Not Thomas Friedman)

Jonathan Taylor writes:
In the tradition of “Lesbian or German Lady?” comes “American Psycho or New York Times?” For example:

“Standing at the island in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a slice Japanese apple-pear (they cost four dollars each at Gristede’s) out of aluminum storage boxes that were designed in West Germany. I take a bran muffin, a decaffeinated herbal tea bag and a box of oat-bran cereal from one of the large glass-front cabinets that make up most of an entire wall in the kitchen.”

2010 New Yorker Festival Schedule!

The entire staff of Emdashes is excited to bring this year’s New Yorker Festival schedule. It looks like another terrific year, and we hope to see you there! There are more details on all of the events here.
Tickets for The New Yorker Festival will go on sale at 12 noon E.T. on Friday, September 10th. Click here for details.
Friday, October 1
6 p.m.
“The Social Network” (Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Aaron Sorkin)
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
7 p.m.
James Taylor
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($35)
Alec Baldwin
SVA Theatre 1 ($35)
“Living History” (Peter Carey, E. L. Doctorow, Annie Proulx)
SVA Theatre 2 ($25)
Lorrie Moore
(Le) Poisson Rouge ($25)
9:30 p.m.
Possessed (Jonathan Safran Foer, Orhan Pamuk)
Directors Guild Theatre ($25)
Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($25)
Giving Voice (Uwem Akpan, Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers)
SVA Theatre 1 ($25)
The Parent Trap (Mary Karr, Tobias Wolff)
SVA Theatre 2 ($25)
Sex and Violence (Junot Díaz, Joyce Carol Oates, Wells Tower)
(Le) Poisson Rouge ($25)
Saturday, October 2
10 a.m.
The Tea Party (Dick Armey, Jill Lepore, Rick Santelli, Anthony Weiner)
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
Paul Krugman
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($30)
Atul Gawande
SVA Theatre 1 ($30)
Ken Auletta
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)
1 p.m.
Bill Simmons
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
The Vampire Revival (Noël Carroll, Stephen King, Matt Reeves, Melissa Rosenberg)
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($30)
Fashion Forward (Maria Cornejo, Naeem Khan, Phillip Lim, David Neville, Marcus Wainwright)
SVA Theatre 1 ($30)
James Surowiecki
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)
4 p.m.
Natural Disasters (Susan Hough, Charles Mandeville, Joshua Wurman, Don Yeomans)
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
David Simon
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($30)
The Case for Gay Marriage (David Boies and other panelists, to be announced)
SVA Theatre 1 ($30)
Paul Goldberger
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)
6:30 p.m.
Tales Out of School 2 (David Grann, Jane Mayer, Susan Orlean, Jeffrey Toobin, Calvin Trillin)
(Le) Poisson Rouge ($50)
7 p.m.
Werner Herzog
Directors Guild Theatre ($35)
Yo-Yo Ma
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($35)
Paul Reubens
SVA Theatre 1 ($35)
Patricia Clarkson
SVA Theatre 2 ($35)
8 p.m.
“The Human Scale” (Lawrence Wright)
3LD Art & Technology Center ($35)
10 p.m.
“Sympathy for Delicious” (Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Thornton)
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
Regina Spektor
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($35)
Andrew Bujalski, Greta Gerwig, and Joe Swanberg
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)
Sunday, October 3
10 a.m.
Morning at the Frick (Peter Schjeldahl)
The Frick Collection ($60)
Tugboat Manhattan (Burkhard Bilger)
South Street Seaport Museum ($120)
11 a.m.
Come Hungry (Calvin Trillin)
Ticket buyers will be contacted concerning the location. ($120)
Steve Carell
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($30)
12 noon
Inside the Artist’s Studio (Platon)
Ticket buyers will be contacted concerning the location. ($60)
A Visit to the Glass House (Paul Goldberger)
The Philip Johnson Glass House ($150)
1 p.m.
Neil Gaiman
Directors Guild Theatre ($30)
The Cartoon Caption Game (Robert Mankoff, Matthew Diffee, Carolita Johnson, Barbara Smaller)
Condé Nast Executive Dining Room ($35)
Malcolm Gladwell
SVA Theatre 1 ($30)
Ian Frazier
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)
4 p.m.
Verses (John Ashbery, Anne Carson, Cynthia Cruz, Jorie Graham, Tracy K. Smith, Paul Muldoon)
Directors Guild Theatre ($20)
Live from New York (Seth Meyers and others)
Acura at SIR Stage37 ($30)
Your Brain on the Internet (Nicholson Baker, Elizabeth Phelps, Jonah Lehrer, Jaron Lanier)
SVA Theatre 1 ($30)
Alex Ross
SVA Theatre 2 ($30)

Paul Conrad, 1924-2010

_Pollux writes_:
One of the many books on my parents’ bookshelves was a volume of Paul Conrad’s collected work. Conrad’s book, which, to me, had always graced these shelves, stood amongst volumes on other artistic greats: Duchamp, Dalí, Kahlo, Picasso. Conrad belonged there.
Conrad’s sharp and funny cartoons were both an inspiration and an historical record of several decades of American history, unflinchingly showing us at our worst. His drawings for _The Los Angeles Times_ earned Conrad the enmity of Nixon and Nancy Reagan, as well as the Pulitzer Prize (three times). Conrad didn’t pull any punches.
With Conrad’s retirement in 1993, _The LA Times_ lost some of its power as a critical journalistic voice. Conrad’s mordant pen yanked the mask off Reagan’s grinning face. Conrad’s pen spared no one: it revealed the dark miasma of paranoia emanating from Nixon’s being; lampooned Ross Perot (a cartoonist’s dream); transformed the first George Bush into a weedier, crankier version of Reagan; shrunk Jimmy Carter into a well-meaning, sad-faced milquetoast; and refused to be charmed by Clinton’s grin.
Conrad will be missed. Some of his work can be seen “here.”:http://www.conradprojects.com/Contoon01.html

Two Quick Hits: Orlean and Wright

Martin Schneider writes:
Over the past three weeks or so, I encountered two New Yorker contributors in unexpected venues, and in both cases the takeaway was that the person might be the best at what they do. I thought I’d pass those on.
On August 11, the vastly entertaining mostly-political discussion website bloggingheads.tv posted a “diavlog” with Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and Susan Orlean (billed as “Julia Roberts” and “Meryl Streep,” har har). It’s the third dicussion for bloggingheads.tv Orlean has done—the first two were with Kurt Andersen and Walter Kirn (“George Clooney”)—and she has a tremendous knack for “casual” conversation that is in fact studded with wit and wisdom. She is really good at these things.
At the 2007 New Yorker Festival, I had the great luck to see Orlean and Mark Singer conduct a “master class” in the art of writing profiles; that session was transcendently wonderful, one of the best NYF events I’ve ever seen, particularly for a New Yorker junkie. Orlean is deceptive: At first blush, she gives off a mildly distracted, breezy impression, but the more you listen, the more you realize how incredibly high this woman’s signal-to-noise ratio is. Over and over again, one is struck by the sheer number of acute observations, proferred with grace and insight.

Last week, at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall posted a “bleg” in which he asked his readers for guidance in finding a good, non-polemiized narrative account of the events leading up to 9/11. The overwhelming winner (as a piece of journalism) was Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower. This was a revelation to me, on a few levels. First, I had not actually known that that was the subject of The Looming Tower. But more interestingly, according to TPM’s readers, The Looming Tower is pretty much the only thorough, journalistic treatment of the 9/11 attacks.
Also in 2007, Emily and I got to see Wright perform his one-man show, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, which was penetrating and fascinating and troubling. Good news, then, that Wright has a follow-up due to premiere at the New Yorker Festival and run in New York City through October.
So thank you. Orlean and Wright, for so consistently defining excellence.