Finally caught up some at the beach.

May 3, 2004:

For those of you playing along at home, please refer to page 63 of the issue. See Samantha Appleton's photo accompanying this story. Why is Jimmy Fallon in al-Sadr's militia? An advertisement promotes Mr. Happy Crack.

May 10, 2004:

Nick Paumgarten reviews Fondue (303 E. 80th St.) for the front-of-the-book Tables for Two. He tells of "a recent Friday night" and teaches me a lesson: "At a nearby table, someone recalled the old rule that when you lose a chunk of bread in the cheese you must,if you're a woman, kiss the man next to you, or, if you're a man, buy another bottle of wine."Paumgarten continues: "The brie-and-basil-leaf fondue was especially viscous and was soon studded with orphaned bits of bread; it was agreed that the blame should be placed on the men. It turns out Pinot Grigio also goes with melted Belgian chocolate and melted caramel, if you drink enough of it."An advertisement sells Tee-PJs, the "most comfortable sleeper you've ever worn or your money back."

May 17, 2004:

The listings mention upcoming performances of My Renaissance Faire Lady. This promotional page also does the play justice.In Talk of the Town, Jane Jacobs talks to Adam Gopnik: "There's a joke that the father of an old friend use to tell, about a preacher who warns children, 'In Hell there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.' 'What if you don't have teeth?' one of the children asks. 'Then teeth will be provided,' he says sternly. That's it — the spirit of the designed city: Teeth Will Be Provided For You."Jacobs later says her favorite song is Shenandoah. Dylan's version?

An advertisement sells "European Beret $10." Visit the haberdasher's site.

May 24, 2004:

Anthony Lane reviews Van Helsing: "Then, there is Kate Beckinsale, whose unhappy purpose, here as in "Pearl Harbor," is to provide what I hesitate to call the love interest. She plays Anna Valerious, whose name would bring intense pleasure to a writer of limericks, and whose attitude toward lycanthropes resembles that of Brigitte Bardot toward stray dogs."James L. Coddington, chief conservator at the Museum of Modern Art, addresses Talk of the Town about restoring a Picasso. "Do we restore every little flaw?" Coddington says to Calvin Tomkins. "Not necessarily. Restoration is a balance between hubris and humility. Just the notion of touching this picture ought to make you stop."Jhumpa Lahiri's "Hell-Heaven" is the magazine's most powerful fiction piece in a while.

June 7, 2004:

Roger Angell contributes "Hard Lines." Angell writes about the long-ago death of a friend, as if to name and pass a ghost.He notes how people react to losses suffered by others: "Oh, no, we exclaim when such news reaches us, but these tales are part of a classic repertory we recognize as our own." And yet with the story he tells, I think he finds the shared suffering to be a blessing.One of the best poetry placements I've seen in the last year in the magazine comes with Angell's story. If you can find Jack Gilbert's "Resume" anywhere online (I can't), it's worth a read.

June 14 & 21, 2004:

The Summer Fiction Issue presents a trilogy of short stories from Alice Munro. The first, Chance, is my favorite. The story is the only one of the three posted online, but Munro discusses the stories in an online-only interview.

June 28, 2004:

Louis Menand eviscerates Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves. But then he relents.Also, the cover decides who should be on the $10 bill.

July 5, 2004:

In the front of the book, the Clubs compilers enjoy themselves. For the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill: "July 2: The sexy rapper Lil' Kim. July 5: Cannibal Corpse, as the name might suggest, is a death-metal ensemble."Then, for the Bowery Ballroom: "July 3: The British band Psychic TV reunite for the third time in their twenty-three year history. Formed from the rubble of seventies industrial-music pioneers Throbbing Gristle, the group has gone through dozens of lineup and stylistic changes. Psychic TV's one constant has then protean leader, Genesis P-Orridge (he recently got breast implants), whose main implants are the expatriate painter Brion Gysin and William Burroughs. This incarnation includes veterans of the local punk scene as well as Douglas Rushkoff, a journalist and 'Frontline' correspondent, on keyboards."Among the issue's longer pieces, unfortunately not linked online (that I can find), Caitlin Flanagan discusses her mother's self-liberation and her own girlhood.

Writes Flanagan: "When I think of what it was like to be a girl then, I remember an endless series of afternoons, each an ungraspable piece of time. I watched television, and hurtled perilously down our steep block on my Schwinn, and dressed the cats in baby clothes. Children didn't have 'passions' and 'talents'; we had hobbies and collections — glass animals and plastic horses for girls, baseball cards for boys, and stamps for geeks of both genders."

The e-mail ad arrived Friday: "Special new offer to The New Yorker readers." The message then began: "Introducing… CARGO, the new buyers' guide for men."

Warren St. John of the New York Times looks at the younger breed of cartoonists arriving on the pages of the New Yorker these days. As linked here previously, you can sign up for the magazine's Cartoon of the Week e-mail on this Web site.

Related link:

-Seinfeld script: The Cartoon

Related past entries:

-March 8, 2004: No more New Yorker cartoon highlights

-Dec. 16, 2003: New Yorker cartoon highlights

-Nov. 30, 2003: New Yorker cartoon highlights

-Nov. 25, 2003: New Yorker cartoon highlights

-Nov. 10, 2003: New Yorker cartoon highlights

According to Talk of the Town in the New Yorker, a couple weeks ago when the Caps were trading everybody for your grandmother:

Hockey dials the number of a girl it used to know and get her machine. "Candace, if you're there, pick up," Hockey says. "It's Hockey." Candace waits for Hockey to finish, then erases the message.

From the listings in the New Yorker's March 8 issue:

Ludacris

The Atlanta radio d.j. turned savvy superstar rapper rolls into town with tracks from his latest album, "Chicken N Beer." His St. Louis protege Chingy will be "Right Thurr" with him.

Our continuing series of analysis-free descriptions has come to an end. Yes, Seinfeld's Mr. Elinoff said, "Cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn't dissect gossamer." But it's important to remember Elinoff was a TV character and, as such, didn't have to keep up with each issue.

Me, I'm falling behind. I love the magazine, but the weekly nature of the beast is devouring me faster than I am it. Either the reading or the describing has to go, so I'm tossing the cart and keeping the horse.

For bookmarking and future reference, you can always find cartoons from the current New Yorker issue on a page at Cartoonbank.com. You can also receive the magazine's Cartoon of the Week e-mail by signing up here. I'm a fan of the latter.

December 1, 2003, issue. Another in a continuing series of analysis-free descriptions. Inspired by Seinfeld's Mr. Elinoff: "Cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn't dissect gossamer."

1. Page 6. A massive man with flowing white hair and craggy features sits in a chair on a cloud. The planet Earth can be seen in the distance. This man looks over his shoulder to the back of a chair, where there sits a smaller man who has a wings and a halo. As the smaller man is writing with a feather on a scroll, the old man says, "And this time"“no ark!"

2. Page 71. Two men sit at a bar. On the inside of the bar, there are various taps, bottles and drawers. Framed pictures line the walls, and a long window — where a letter "B" can be seen before the page cuts off — has a curtain strung across the bottom part. On the the other wall, there's a door of the push variety.

The only people seen inside are two men. They both sit at the bar, on either sides of a corner. The first man wears a dark coat and a thin-brimmed hat down low on his head. He's got some stubble, and he brushes his right hand against a half-empty glass on the bar in front of him.

This first man has his head in the direction of the second. The second man has a sprawling beard, a torn cloak and a pointy hat pulled down, but not enough to hide his eyes and the circles directly underneath. Hunched over, the man has his dirty hands placed to either side of his glass. "I miss the security of a walled city," he says.

3. Page 90. In a stone-blocked hallway, a man stands still with a badge, a walkie-talkie and an arm patch on his button-down shirt. Barred doors line the hallway. A banner is strung across the top of the hallway and printed with large lettering: "WELCOME BACK RECIDIVISTS!"

November 24, 2003, issue. Another in a continuing series of analysis-free descriptions. Inspired by Seinfeld's Mr. Elinoff: "Cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn't dissect gossamer."

1. Page 63. A older man in a tuxedo stands at the entrance to a room and gazes inside. At his side, laying a hand on at an elbow of his, a woman of his age wears a short, coiffured harido and a sleeveless dress. Inside the room is a group of people, apparently ranging in ages. On the near side of the room, two young women raise their hands, one with her mouth open and a hand extended, the other with her mouth pinched shut and with boths hands curled.

Further away, a man tosses back a drink, and the mixed company behind him engages in conversation. One man opens his mouth and points while another man laughs and a woman does not react. While he carries a tray of glasses, a shorter man in an apron passes through the crowd.

At the doorway, the woman says to the man, as he turns in the direction of the door, "Try not to get irrepressible."

2. Page 78. Two boys stand in front of the steps of a brick building; other children are also on the walk, but they stand far out of reach of the boys' short arms. Wearing a baseball cap, the boy on the left opens his mouth and raises an arm a little ways toward the other boy, bespectacled and holding a thick book.

Says the first: "It's nice to finally be able to put a face to the humiliating nickname."

3. Page 90. A heavy-lidded man sits in a room at a simple table; he wears handcuffs and a T-shirt of some design. There is a wide window behind his head and a bulletin board hanging on the wall to his right. He looks to his right, in the direction of the doorway, where a man wearing a badge has one foot in front of the other.

This man wears checkered pants, a short-sleeve dress shirt, a thin tie and thick glasses. He extends a plate holding a burger and a clear cup filled with darker liquid and a straw. Behind him, in another sparsely decorated room, a man sits at a desk in a dark shirt and hat.

While holding the plate in the direction of the handcuffs, the man with the badge grasps a billy club in his other hand, dangled by his side. "Budget cuts"“" the man with the badge says, "I'm good cop and bad cop." (Emphasis is the artist's.)

November 17, 2003, issue. The second in a continuing series of analysis-free descriptions. Inspired by Seinfeld's Mr. Elinoff: "Cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn't dissect gossamer."

1. Cover by Gary Larson. On the second floor porch of the wooden saloon, two women open their mouths and raise their hands as they look into the dirt street below. They wear low-cut dresses and much rouge and eye shadow.

Below them, on the saloon sidewalk, men in vests and wide-brimmed hats point into the street and open their mouths widely. A graying woman with a cane covers her mouth. Another woman leans to cover a boy's eyes with her hand. At the saloon doors, one man stands still, holding a beer. An older man peers out from over the saloon doors.

In the dirt street, with plains and buttes in the background giving way to whispy clouds above, a dog is in mid-stride toward the saloon. A large woman lunges for a large and freckled baby and looks back at the scene over her shoulder.

Halfway between the wooden sidewalks, a man in a wide-brimmed hat sits on a small stool and applies a pencil to canvas on a easel. He sketches disproportionate eyes on the picture of a man whose nose is large, whose hat is wide-brimmed and whose tongue hangs lazily from a buck-toothed mouth.

This illustrator looks beyond the easel, down the street, at another man. This second man does not resemble the man in the sketch, aside from the wide-brimmed hat.

But the second man is positioned much like the first: behind an easel, sitting on a stool, with his free hand hanging at his side. Two men huddle behind him, pointing at the unseen canvas on his easel.

In the foreground, a wrinkled piece of paper is tacked to a beam on the near side of the street. Amid minor decoration, the text on the paper reads: "THE CARTOON ISSUE."

2. Page 130. A two-page spread of the ongoings at Shanahan's bar includes many characters speaking to each other. Typical bar phrases are juxtaposed with atypical situations, and vice versa. Outside the bar, a woman prepares to enter. Turning around as she reaches for the doorknob, she tells the children behind her, "Now, make sure you don't get separated from your drinking buddy." The children are holding hands in twos.

Also on the sidewalk, a dog with a vacant smile on his face is tied by his leash to a parking meter. In front of the dog, there are two bowls, one labeled "WATER" and the other "SCOTCH."

Propped against the side of the building, there lies a creature with his head stuck in a rounded jar and his arms drooped at his sides. Four other rounded jars, all toppled, surround him. The jars are labeled "HUNNY," and the creature appears to be bear-like in form.

3. Page 155. A young boy stares up at a swiveling rack of eyeglasses for sale. Each pair of glasses has a set of eyes in them, and they are all looking at him. The young boy looks upset.

The first in a continuing series of analysis-free descriptions. Inspired by Seinfeld's Mr. Elinoff: "Cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn't dissect gossamer."

1. Page 85. A racoon sits at a bar. The racoon is holding a martini. "Don't mind me, Richie"“" the racoon says to the bartender, "it's just the rabies talking."

2. Page 110. Two men stand, sweating, in the fires of hell. "It's not the heat"“" the first man says to the second, "it's the eternal damnation."

3. Page 92. A middle-aged woman stands at the door of her house, talking to two other middle-aged women and three cats on the front porch. A man is leaving, holding an opened umbrella in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He is wearing a top coat, a bow tie and a business-like felt hat.

"Once you get some breakfast in him and get him off to work," says the wife, "he does make a fair-to-middling breadwinner." (Emphasis is the cartoonist's.)