Just in time for the Iowa caucuses, which will happen mere hours from now and may well decide the presidency, newyorker.com unveils another of their delightful “Naked Campaign” videos featuring Steve Brodner, this one on possibly our next president (I doubt it) Mitt Romney. You all remember how much I cottoned to Brodner and his whiteboard. In this one he sketches Romney’s stack of hair half a dozen times, and I find it a hoot every single time.
So: Iowa! For the political junkies out there, I present McLaughlin-esque questions and predictions:
Will Romney win the Iowa GOP caucus? No!
Will Huckabee win it? Yes!
Is Giuliani toast? Thankfully!
Is McCain alive? And how!
Will Clinton win the Democratic caucus? Negatory!
How about Edwards? Maybe!
So… Obama, then? I think so!
Will it be cold? Brrrr!
Will the media overreact? Heaven forfend!
—Martin Schneider

Leopard-quick (is anyone really “lightning-fast”?) Jason Kottke alerts the entire Internet to this swell profile of Benazir Bhutto by Mary Anne Weaver that appeared in The New Yorker in 1993.
If only Emdashes had someone tasked with pointing out gems from The New Yorker‘s past … ah well, we can dream.
Praise be to newyorker.com staff for (presumably) taking this out from behind the archive wall with such alacrity, despite it being the holidays and all.
I’m blaming the holidays! —Martin Schneider

Don’t look now, but The New Yorker is figuring out this Internet thing. The blogs are not only multiplying but also nicely finding their groove, the podcasts are rapidly becoming the bona fide aural equivalent of the magazine (which is really saying something), and the website has just uncorked a major treat for political junkies. It’s called “The Naked Campaign,” a series of brief videos in which cartoonist Steve Brodner muses—with pen in hand—about the 2008 presidential candidates.
I am so poor at drawing that any decent display of draughtsmanship (you don’t seriously want me to put an F in that, do you?) renders me slackjawed. I could watch Brodner doodle, erase, adjust on his whiteboard at 4x speed all the livelong day, consumed with awe. I love it.
As befits the “sketch” nature of the concept, the videos are hit or miss, but that’s part of the fun, really, and there’s way more “hit” than “miss” here. Brodner’s a sharp cookie, so even when the visuals are mostly found footage of Rudy Giuliani wandering around a garden-supply store, Brodner manages to make you see something about Rudy you had never noticed.
And hey, where else are you going to see Hillary Clinton depicted as John Lennon, Mike Huckabee as the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Barack Obama as Woody Allen? —Martin Schneider

O December, time of year-end lists. I suppose it’s fashionable to bemoan the listiness of this season. I don’t partake in the derision. The lists fold so well into the resolutions of December 31; I’ve got to read this and this and this book; pick up that CD by that one group; get myself to see that one play before it closes! For anyone aspiring to cultural mavenhood (I aspire, at least), it’s a time of promise.
Relatedly, you know what I like? I like LibraryThing’s Bookshelf feature. You’re supposed to use it for books you’ve read, but LibraryThing has recently limited its nonpaying (i.e., freeloading) users to 100 titles, which puts a crimp in the whole “here’s what I’ve read” concept. So I’ve repurposed my list to display titles I would like to own but do not. Here’s mine, by all means, have a peek.
Reading aspirations are complicated. A list like this one is a great way to show off how erudite you are, or want to be; protestations that I would certainly end up reading the merest fraction of the listed titles (which I make, I make!) end up being ineffectual.
I prefer the Bookshelf to that blog perennal, the linked Amazon wishlist, which I often find a mildly aggravating passive-aggressive move. With the Bookshelf (when used as I have), the implied demand for reader gifting is put at several removes. So if, dear reader, you desperately want to buy me any of these books, hey, go nuts. But I’m not going to supply the link that turns it into a subtle expectation on my part.
I wish I could find an easy way to convert the list of titles into .txt format so I could pop it into my iPod. But I haven’t, yet. Whenever I’m in bookstores, I can never remember which darned books I so ardently desire.
The true secret reason I like LibraryThing’s Bookshelf is, Look! Pretty covers! —Martin Schneider

Know that The Paris Review is auctioning off some very intriguing items through mid-December. A couple of the items are New Yorker-related, so I thought I’d pass them on here. For all intents and purposes, the prices for most of the lots rule out anyone unable to summon one’s accountant to one’s home or office at a moment’s notice, but they are interesting anyway.
The winner of one newly added auction (runs through early January) will be invited to spend a day on the set of Blink, about to be directed by Stephen Gaghan with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. Is it common knowledge that the filming of Blink is nigh? I did not know that Gaghan is attached; might bode well. Filming a work of intellectual speculation of this type may well be unprecedented; I can’t think of any precursors, anyway. Gaghan isn’t exactly my favorite talent out there, but Syriana does suggest that he might be a very good choice for a project this odd, elusive, resonant.
Memo to Philip Gourevitch: You can use the Algonquin Hotel for your tête-à-tête auction prize, but, you know, hands off otherwise. —Martin Schneider

Does anyone remember Minnie Minoso? I do, barely. Minoso was a supremely talented outfielder who started in the Negro Leagues, moved on to the major leagues in 1949 after Jackie Robinson broke the color line, and played his last game in 1980. He was the first player to play in five different decades (1940s-1980s), even though his career was “only” 31 years long. (He played two token games in 1980 to qualify for the distinction.)
Elizabeth Hardwick was kind of like that with The New Yorker. Or at least The Complete New Yorker. See, the DVDs in the set are divided up by years. Her first piece in the magazine was a short story called “A Season’s Romance,” in the March 10, 1956 issue. Her last piece was a TOTT in the December 21, 1998 issue. 1956 is the last year of Disc 6, and 1998 is the first year of Disc 1 (the set is numbered in reverse order), so her time spent as a contributor to The New Yorker spans six discs. (I won’t tell, if you won’t, that she doesn’t appear on Disc 4 at all.)
Over nearly the entire Shawn tenure (Shawn took over as editor in 1951), she wrote only fiction in The New Yorker, six stories over twenty-five years. After Tina Brown arrived, Hardwick started off with a short story and then moved to nonfiction—a review of an Edmund Wilson biography, a teeny thing on grits soufflé, and that last TOTT, on Christmas records, for David Remnick.
Hilton Als wrote a very entertaining article about her in the July 13, 1998 issue. Definitely worth a read. There’s a very nice photo of her in the original piece, by Max Vadukul, but it’s quite distorted in the CNY. Best to seek out the print version for that.
By the bye, I will send anyone who can produce a photograph of this “Elizabeth Hardwick Loves Me” T-shirt at Amazon a free copy of any book on this list.
Let’s end on this observation by Als:

Until someone has the temerity to write a biography of Elizabeth Hardwick, we will have to rely on her work for its powerful evocation of the life of the mind, and on hearsay from friends and acquaintances for the details of the life itself. And until someone has the wit to compile an “Elizabeth Hardwick Reader,” we will have to rely on past issues of magazines and periodicals and the largesse of secondhand bookstores.

No “Reader” yet, although New York Review Books has at least put two of her books back into print since Als wrote that. Thank goodness for that. —Martin Schneider
Update: Don’t miss this lovely reminiscence on Als’s New Yorker blog. —MCS