The local cell-phone networks were jammed throughout the day. Students couldn’t call each other, administrators couldn’t call faculty, parents couldn’t call kids. Even if the university had set up an emergency text-messaging system, it might not have been functional. Hasn’t the technology evolved at all since Sept. 11? How many years have they had to address this?
If you can stand the sadness of hearing some pretty beautiful singing by one of those people killed with a readily available gun (“He didn’t look fidgety,” explained the gun store owner about the killer), listen to some songs, like a wittily acoustic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” performed by one: the clearly talented Daniel O’Neil, a graduate student and songwriter.

I’m on vacation! You’ll have to spend a few more days with Newyorkette (Carolita Johnson, New Yorker cartoonist and pal), Blog About Town (everything you need to look at and remember, all in one place), I Hate The New Yorker (rumored to be moving closer to the apple that sleeps between about 2:30 and 5 a.m.—ZP, care to comment?), Silence of the City (rejected, terrific Talks of the Town), and New Yorker Comment (a young journalist to watch, there). Also, this is something you should know: The majestic New Yorker historian Ben Yagoda has a new book out. It’s When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse, and it’s got a killer cover design (who’s the designer? I’d like to know, please). That’s what I know about it so far, but we’re talking about the guy who wrote The Sound on the Page here. I’ll report again when I’ve read it. You’ll know the moment I have by the dramatic improvement in my points, coms, semis, parens, dols, quos, hyphs, quirks, and slams.

Sometimes one must rush. This is such a time. That in no way lessens my excitement about the following, which, to save time and make use of my expensive M.F.A., I will render in couplets (thus the “Personal” category, which is the only way this works in the two-column design) of uncertain scansion:
This Wednesday Jane Mayer is on a human-rights panel;
don’t forget Mead’s marriage talk at the NYPL.
There’s no one in the universe like Lynda Barry,
whose books, republished, define “extraordinary.”
Spiegelman fires (up) the canon at Columbia U.;
on the New Yorker cruise, oceans tumble ya too.
Having no vowels is a blessing and curse.
A George Plimpton statue? It could be worse.
Right now R. Crumb has a big, leggy show,
but it’s in San Fran, so we can’t go.
Patricia Marx (keep a-scrollin’) in her own zingy words;
Harley Lewin was a Badger. Go cheese curds!
Speaking of Marx, some more Texan fashion,
for which you may or may not have a bright turquoise passion.
Three cheers for Art Fag City‘s redesign!
Paddy wrote to The New Yorker—she’s not satisfied.
Radar has some fresh redesign views,
and Condé Nast’s greenness is in the green news.
If you think talking cartoons are the craziest thing,
I’d like you to meet Soglow’s alert Little King.
This concerned grammarian is touching my heart.
Remember Suck on Renata? Nostalgic, sweet, tart.
Thanks to you swell tipsters for some of these links!

I like these songs from The Bluegrass Tribute to the Shins, via FreeWilliamsburg via Underrated. The dexterous and pure-voiced bluegrass artists (who have also covered Modest Mouse), I now know, are Iron Horse.

Continue reading →

The other night at the Gopnik/Marx event, my friend Paddy Johnson at the upstanding Art Fag City told me that she’s now enjoying the help of an unpaid but much appreciated assistant, and if Art Fag City’s got one, by gum, so can we. (“We” because in its third year, Emdashes is no longer a one-man show, and hooray for that.) Sadly, the prospective candidate I had my eye on, Emily Gordon of the Cornell Daily Sun, is going to med school after she graduates (such a loss for journalism, and New Yorker blogging), but that doesn’t mean the other hordes of Emily Gordons, all of whom seem to be ace volleyball, soccer, or lacrosse players, aren’t more than welcome to apply. If your name isn’t Emily Gordon, Emdashes Inc.’s affirmative-action clause also encourages you to send your resume with a brief letter (demonstrating stellar spelling and punctuation skills) explaining your interest in the site, your degree of love for The New Yorker on a scale from one to a billion, your openness to HTML, how much time you have available, and your willingness to attend glittering events in my stead (All About Eve-style), when necessary.

(Filed under Personal because the line breaks look silly in columns.)
R.I.P., Milton Mazer, beloved head doctor,
Vineyard hero and fiction contributor.
A drink named for Addams is festive and wry;
tastes like “a cold cocktail of hot apple pie.”
Can it be that Pat Byrnes, the Renaissance man,
cartoons and writes musicals? You bet that it can!
Pamuk inspires a photo and essay;
British sex scandals are delightfully messy.
Let the next Mrs. Parker generation begin!
And more moving toasts to both of the Trillins.

15. The word “phenomena” is plural. One phenomenon, two phenomena, red phenomenon, blue phenomenon. A fishy school of phenomena.
16. The word “criteria” is, too. One criterion, two criteria, one Criterion Collection, several (I think) Criterion Cinemas. That’s the one in New Haven, which is a good one.
17. “Are we still on?” An understandably common phrase in the city of plan-canceling (aided by generally handy cell phones), but as I wrote earlier this year, echoing a great Times editorial by Bob Morris at about this time last year, we’ve really got to stop doing that.
18. What is “advanced notice”? It’s “advance notice.” “Advanced notice” makes no sense. Also, “advanced tickets”?
Visit banned words and phrases 12-14, 7-11, 4-6, and 1-3, and by all means, send in your own!

And we plan to be terribly enthusiastic. Except when we’re irked, as, sometimes, regrettably, we are. I say “we” because the 2007 Emdashes is not the 2006 Emdashes, or the 2005 Emdashes (which, inexplicably, had a lower-case “e”) either. It is—emphatically!—plural, it has categories, and it contains no unsightly grammar or offensive punctuation, or your money back. (Exceptions include colloquial episodes and the quotation of other news and opinion sources, not all of which offer this guarantee.) Clichés, meanwhile, require judgment on at least one end. If you think a cliché has occurred on Emdashes, please report it to me and, if I think you’re right, I will publish a couplet containing your name and either the cliché in question or a quotation from my favorite novel. Scansion probable; I have a degree. Puns sí! Clichés no!
Meanwhile, here are some of my favorite books of 2006. This week, look forward to the fourth edition of Ask the Librarians, the endlessly illuminating column by New Yorker librarians Jon Michaud and Erin Overbey, plus a festive presentation of virtual gifts for the new year to The New Yorker from some of Emdashes’s star readers. In case you were wondering, my New Year’s resolution is to be the Josh Fruhlinger of New Yorker appreciator-critics. Who needs tired speculations about the Olsen twins when you can inspire YouTube tributes to Mary Worth‘s tragically departed Aldo? If some kind of Y2K+7 blunder stripped down the entire internet to just the Comics Curmudgeon, Google, and greatestfilms.org (whose only flaw is that it needs to move past the popups), it would still be a delicious existence. Since the web seems to be in fine fettle for now, though, did you know that newyorker.com has a slide-show gallery of every single cover from 2006? Yes! It does. But what’s the difference between “Next” and “Continue”? Who cares—it’s fantastic!

Ryan: Whatever, you’re in love with her and so you’re trying to sabotage me.
Xander: In love? What are you, a Shakespeare play? People from now say “you wanna hit that.”
—The Burg (which seems to be better written and plotted suddenly; I’ve missed a bunch of episodes because sometimes, or even often, I find this show unwatchable, since I suspect it is to a number of Williamsburg residents what Rent was to a number of East Village residents, but I always seem to come back anyway. That’s how the soaps getcha! Suddenly, though, I’m liking these people more. Something’s up.)

Actually, just one today, and it’s not really a word or a phrase. It’s this: all lowercase everything all the time. You’re off the hook, E.L., a writer I know—I just decide to forgive him, because his plea for understanding of the lowercasing is a signature to all his emails, which indicates forethought and genuine regret. PK, you too can breathe easy as far as I’m concerned, since you had a well-researched esoteric-typographer rationale (remind me what/who it was so I can link to it). IMs—they call for lowercase; speed is paramount, so spare your precious bodily shift key. The occasional quickie email. Of course! Of course, me too. But real emails, which are, after all, letters, deserve real capitalization. Especially proper names. It’s all we have in the end, after all. You don’t want your headstone all lowercase, do you? I thought not.
 
I know this is a sensitive subject, and I expect abuse. Nevertheless, I think if you’re going to observe the conventions of sentence-writing at all, you should also use the proper capitalization that those poor elementary-school teachers ground into you till they were themselves ground down to little bits of chalk and Cheetoh dust. And if it’s a business email or an email to anyone you like even remotely, and might even want to bowl over, and you’re over the age of 17, for the love of Fowler please use apostrophes where they’re needed. You’re probably not a whimsical Modernist poet or a pioneer black feminist or so self-effacingly humble you can’t even cap “I” or a Rodeo Drive blonde on a Sidekick who doesn’t know any better (ground-down educators notwithstanding). So…enough lowercasing everything. Especially names. Just do that much for me.