What would Remnick do?

As you can tell by the previous post, New Yorker-philes, I'm reading Gigi Mahon's "The Last Days of The New Yorker." I need something while I'm jonesing: I left the latest issue of the magazine in Waterhouse's car on the way out to PoCo and I'm three days from a new one in the mail.

The book, as you'd expect, refers to the magazine frequently. There's a quirk of capitalization, however: Mahon capitalizes the "the" only when citing the name of the magazine by itself.

At The New Yorker there was mixed reaction to the news.
They discussed the New Yorker's business prospects.
He presided over a New Yorker annual meeting.
He was leaving The New Yorker to take a job at Hearst.

I have to admit, I'd never thought about the article this way. I'd always assumed it was ponce and chauvinism that compelled The New York Times or The Economist to uppercase the "the." Of course, I'd never seen nine permutations of a journal title on the same page of text before.

Is this the way you wield the article, or is it just a thing between Mahon and her editor?

(JJB Photo: "Sinkmaster.")

Describing: William Shawn

Shawn was a small, dignified man with a balding head, large ears, and rosy cheeks who spoke in a high-pitched, wavering voice. He took great care to select the correct words when he spoke, and his speech was filled with painful pauses, especially when he was in front of a group. He was unfailingly polite, courtly, gracious, and formal in manner. He dressed in dark suits and ties, which he neither shed nor loosened during working hours.

Everything about him was unobtrusive. His shoulders slouched some and his chin seemed to tuck toward his chest. He gave the appearance of a man who would prefer to be invisible.

—Gigi Mahon, in "The Last Days of The New Yorker" (1988)

William Shawn, who died in 1992, edited The New Yorker from 1952 to 1987.

Describing: Paul Wolfowitz

"Wolfowitz, who is sixty-three, has jug ears, hazel eyes, a furrowed brow, and thinning gray hair that he combs to the right. He is a rumpled but unflappable traveller, seemingly oblivious of bad weather, uncomfortable transportation, and lack of sleep, as well as of the antiwar protesters who tend to appear wherever he goes."

—John Cassidy, in The Next Crusade (Apr. 9)

Paul Wolfowitz, now president of the World Bank, was a primary architect of the American war in Iraq.

My last six Google searches

A modern Rorschach test, yes. Make of it what you will.

• Haber Bosch
• "best-connected"
• "most well-connected"
• "blood sweat and tears"
• "blood sweat and tears" nhl
• "infant hats" "knife play"

And yours? (Waggle your cursor over the 'entry' field.)

Can an editor dazzle?

You judge. Is this Coldcut mash-up full of sharp cuts or just cheap hacks and misquotes?

You don't need to be an anarchist to find it cool, but it doesn't hurt.

This end of term is like a long car accident. I'll be back soon.

Cast your vote

Yes or no on the new look?

Vows and covenants II

I now understand my grammarian streak as something I abhor in my father, namely, his desire always to know where his hammer and screwdriver are, and to have his electrical cord, the one that attaches to the Weed Wacker, rewound perfectly after each use and returned to its home behind the extension ladder.

His lust is for the placement of objects; mine is for punctuation. Until recently, I didn't realize they are essentially the same thing. It was an unhappy discovery.

But, hey, if the giddy nihilism of your twenties isn't followed by sad realizations, then you're not really dying, which means that you weren't really alive.

Caring about grammar and keeping a tidy workbench are both moral, of course—something goes here, not there, for no reason other than that it should, and the pursuit is driven by a fear that the world would unhinge if people didn't care about these things.

All of this, gentle reader, is preamble to my point. I went to a lecture last night with Trois Heures. We heard a woman speak about Iran. Interesting talk, blah blah blah, then thoughtful questions and one denunciation from an intense bearded man.

All night the speaker—Deborah Campbell, a writer and UBC prof of literary nonfiction—used "media" as a singular noun. The media is growing in influence. The media is censored.

To my ear, it's ugly in the same way as "There's three chairs over there"—forgivably, avoidably, uglily. Then there's the question What does 'media' actually mean?

Here's what the experts say:

American Heritage: Maybe "media" refers just to the press and broadcasters...
Dictionary.com: The singular use is now common in mass communications and advertising.
OED: "Media" is the plural of "medium."

In this fractured and fizzing information landscape, can we really get away with thinking of the media as a monolith?

Next, we tackle he, she, they, ze, and, gulp, hir—unassigned singulars. Let's wait till we're drinking wine.

By the way, have you seen the Phillips-head? It should be in the cupboard in the garage.

(Illustration: The shield of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Is that a pen?)

What is language? (II)

Nothing to do with the New Yorker, but this deserves noting. In Canada you can now be sued for using the words "friend," "top," and "winter," among many others, in an advertisement. Unless, that is, you are a sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Bill Cooper, the commercial-rights director of the 2010 Organizing Committee, says that the organizers aren't trying trying to stifle debate.

"We owe it to Canadian athletes and the Canadian public to police the brand, and we take that very seriously," he says.

I'm glad my 'you'd better police the brand' letters to VANOC aren't falling on deaf ears. Oddly, though, my application to a communications position did.

Other words that will fetch you a phone call from a lawyer:

• See You in Vancouver
• See You in Whistler
• See You in Beijing
• Let the Dreams Begin
• Sea To Sky
• 2010
• '10
• We're Next
• Road to Beijing
• Driven by Nature
• Road to Vancouver
• Driven by Dreams
• Celebrate the Impossible
• Vancouver '10
• Gold Medal
• Game Plan
• 2000
• 2002
• '00
• '02
• It's Our Time To Shine
• For The Fire Within

As Michael Geist reasons, even a balanced implementation of this law still represents an extreme example of special interest legislation. Myself, I'm just looking forward to having a Coca-Cola, shutting up, and watching some luge.

Classmate Emily is keeping an eye on the run-up to the Games: check her out.

(Alf, please skip.)

"He was always surrounded by paper"

Got halfway through "In the Now" on the bus yesterday—John Colapinto's snarky profile of Karl Lagerfeld. The most enjoyable article I've read in a while.

Click the portrait to see the award-winning commercial for Lagerfeld's clothing lines at the British discount chain H & M.

What is language?

The last minute and a bit is brilliant.