Scott McLemee gently corrects a blogger’s misconception of “-30-,” the apt title of the final episode of The Wire.
McLemee also mentions “TK” and links to the Wikipedia page, called “To Come.” I don’t work in the magazine world, but I did briefly some years ago. Nowadays there’s so little virgin territory left in Wikipedia, I was honestly shocked that an essential and presumably beloved piece of journalism minutiae like “TK” has such an underdeveloped Wikipedia page.
As of yesterday morning, the entirety of the page consisted of two declarative sentences defining the term followed by a long, rather boring quotation from the Chicago Manual of Style in full-on schoolmarm mode disparaging the use. It looked like this:

“To Come” is a printing and journalism reference abbreviated “TK.” It is used to signify additional material will be added at a later date.

The Chicago Style Q&A on manuscript preparation describes it as imprecise, stating, “It’s best to be more straightforward and specific. For example, use bullets or boldface zeros (••• or 000) to stand in for page numbers that cannot be determined until a manuscript is paginated as a book (but see paragraph 2.37 in CMOS). For items like missing figures, describe exactly what’s missing. In electronic environments, you have recourse to comment features—like the syntax of SGML, which allows for descriptive instructions that will not interfere with the final version of a document. Make sure that whatever you do stops the project in its tracks at some point before publication.”

Well! Consider yourself tut-tutted, magazine and newspaper people! And by book people, no less! (I do love the CMS, but their strictures have only questionable utility to magazines, I’d imagine.)
That didn’t sit right with me. I haven’t even seen a “TK” in a professional capacity for several years, but I went and added a reference to the Breeders’ 2002 album Title TK and a paragraph (almost surely to be judged insufficiently NPOV) explaining why “TK” makes a lot more sense at Condé Nast than it does at Random House, where CMS holds sway. It makes sense to me, but it’s just a guess.
There must be a healthy number of magazine and newspaper employees reading this. Surely that Wikipedia page can benefit from your experience and judgment, no?
So by all means emulate Nicholson Baker (a.k.a. “wageless”) and add some information to that entry! “TK” must have an intriguing history! There must be amusing anecdotes! (Most, probably, involving “TK” making its way to the newsstand.) When did it start? Who invented it? Do style guides acknowledge it, or is it more informal? How did “to come” get abbreviated to “TK,” anyway? Is there a procedural justification for doing that? Has anyone ever gotten a “TK” tattoo?
And just think: all the answers are entirely TK.

Looking at the blogosphere, I’ve seen three pieces of writing mentioned in connection with Eliot Spitzer’s stunning predicament; two of them appeared in The New Yorker.
To start, Garth Risk Hallberg at the Millions returns to Nick Paumgarten’s fine profile of the governor from last December, presciently titled “The Humbling of Eliot Spitzer” (little did he know!). Hallberg approvingly quotes Paumgarten’s description of Spitzer’s impulsiveness, which now reads like a masterpiece of understatement.
Second, the scandal reminds The New Republic‘s Noam Scheiber of Portnoy’s Complaint, which did not, alas, first appear in The New Yorker, which fact should not prevent us from admiring Brendan Gill’s astonishing description of the novel as “a single, hysterical howl of excrementitious anguish.”
And finally, the Emperors Club that got Spitzer into so much trouble seems to have been more than a little bit pretentious, touting the “individual education, sophistication … erudition and educational standing/accomplishments” of its “models,” prompting the New York Times blog Laugh Lines to quote several lines from Woody Allen’s classic story “The Whore of Mensa.”

Levi Fox, Gretchen Sund, and Caroline Altman, three enterprising undergraduates from the American Studies Program at the University of Virginia, have put up a stimulating suite investigating the unique status of The New Yorker as a “local” magazine with a decidedly “national” profile.
According to the editor’s introduction, the suite “examines the people who defined New Yorker humor in its early days and drove the magazine’s success” and takes a look at its formerly “elitist advertising policy.” They look at some of the analogues of The New Yorker, both at home (Vanity Fair, Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s) and abroad (Germany’s Simplicissimus, London’s Punch) . They also take a peek at a few memorable wartime covers.
Good work! I hope that all three of them become passionate Emdashes readers—if they aren’t already!
Note: Thanks for The Millions for including a link to this in his most recent “Curiosities” post. Emily kindly reminds me that it’s been sitting in the Rossosphere for ages! I thought it looked familiar.

Jack Handey has a book coming out! I just learned this, and it made me happy. Pub date is April 8! The title story, “What I’d Say to the Martians,” might be the funniest thing I’ve read in the past five years; you can read it here. How much “Shouts & Murmurs” stuff has made it to book form? I reckon Woody Allen and Steve Martin have pulled it off. Anyone else?
I love the cover, too:

New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade has been hosting a series of highly entertaining reading events to promote Ben Karlin’s new anthology, Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me. I went to the one last Thursday, and fellow “Shouts and Murmurs” alum Paul Simms read part of his very funny chapter.

At one point Brooke Shields showed up and told a great story about dating the not-yet-outed frontman for a very popular 1980s singing duo that must, alas, remain nameless.

Fun fact: Brooke Shields has never written a “Shouts & Murmurs” item!