July 2008
78 posts
“Okay, so Cheney is Ozymandias. Does that make McCain the Comedian? Obama is...”
– Ana Marie Cox
“My goal, then, is to run a sandwich restaurant so exclusive, so shrouded in...”
– New Yorker
Profiles in Courage
FlyerTalk on Delta’s new frequent flier award mimimums: “No, this is not a “customer giveback”- it is an “ENHANCEMENT” without the benefit of lubricant.”
You’ll make it, fellas. Somehow, I suspect the earth will continue to rotate on its axis.
Let's start a meme!
alexbalk:
Category is “Songs That You Can No Longer Hear Without Somehow Imagining Them Playing During The Closing Moments Of An Episode Of The Wonder Years, Whether Or Not They Actually Were Played During The Closing Moments Of An Episode Of The Wonder Years—Because Although You Never Particularly Enjoyed The Wonder Years, You’ve Certainly Seen An A Few Episodes (Or, At Least, Enough Of One Or...
Watchkatiebakes:
nickdouglas:
Keith Gessen: Keith Gessen Movie Features Not Quite All The Happyish Young Blogging People
Don’t know much about Gawker and Keith Gessen? Then DO NOT WATCH.
Anyway, I kinda like it. Disclosure: After I finally finish a book by Clay Shirky as research, I’ll be writing a piece for n+1 that Gessen may or may not decide is fit to be published on his website. This of...
Now I Can Whine in Peace
I’m not the biggest Bill Simmons fan—as a New York sports fan, he’s tough to take sometimes—but if you work in an office with a lot of downtime and/or don’t have enough fiber in your diet, he’s an entertaining and prolific read. In the last year, though, I’ve wondered: what happened to his baseball coverage? It was quite thin for a dude who, you know,...
NYC Cares
Walking down Sixth Avenue today, I passed a blind panhandler receiving change from a pair of towheaded girls, about eight and ten years of age. “A human moment,” I thought to myself,” that cuts through that hard shell that locals can develop over time.” After spending the last month in Prague, my hard shell is encased in duck fat at present.
As I passed, I noticed that the...
"Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best... →
I Never Realized Estelle Getty Was An...
lowlife:
Obituaries of Estelle Getty from The Guardian, the Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung and the Jerusalem Post.
Neither is David Schwimmer—unless you count my fierce desire to ship him abroad—but lord knows both Friends and Golden Girls still maintain most of their entertaining qualities when they are dubbed.
brianvan:
When even Disney’s idea of mass-market nightlife gets gentrified out-of-existence, you have to think that we may have finally hit bottom in the culture wars. Not even the Adventurer’s Club is safe from the shopping masses!
Other concepts being developed include:
A design-your-own T-shirt store from Hanes.
T-Rex: A Prehistoric Family Adventure, a dinosaur-themed family restaurant.
...
Puzzling.
maura:
alexbalk:
Correction of the Day: “Because of a production error, some copies of Wednesday’s paper contain an outdated crossword puzzle and its solution. If you look here first, proceed with caution. If the answer in the solution to one across also appears in the puzzle above it, you have a paper with the wrong crossword. If the solution to one across matches Tuesday’s puzzle, you’re in...
Philadelphia Streets Unsafe for Manhole Covers
This was a problem in Albania when I was there, so it’s hardly a surprise that Philadelphia is having similar issues. Watch out for the storm drains next.
Of course, if that happens in New York, it might make the streets drain faster, but we’d lose a lot of yappy dogs in the process.
Bottom Feeders
No matter the publication, no matter how little space I have to say it, I will always take the opportunity to mention that carp tastes like dirt. I did it again today in a guidebook. Writing about carp was my very first clip, so I just feel obligated to spread the word that that this particualr fish tastes foul.
It’s not a complicated thing: they eat dirt; they live in ponds—unless...
John Edwards + Lovechild = Fun for the Gossip...
lowlife:
Time just ran a list of Barack Obama’s top VP picks. John Edwards (who, incidentally, my mom thinks will get the slot) was named as a likely VP option.
Too bad that the National Enquirer claims to have just caught Edwards visiting with his mistress and love child in a Los Angeles hotel. It’s already been confirmed that Edwards hid from Enquirer reporters in the bathroom for 15...
I was such a sophisticated child
twentysomethingtales:
The following, transcribed from my ‘97-‘98 diary (I believe that would make me 13). I was, I think, more cultured at 13 than I am now. No less snob, perhaps.
My Favorite Things When I Was 13
Author: Francesca Lia Block
Movie: Ever After
Song: You and Me song
Band: Beck (LE: I don’t think Beck qualifies as a band, but ok)
Singer: Bjork
Store: Agnès b
Color:...
“It was a menopausal bachelorette party, and here is my take on bachelorette...”
– Julie Klausner, in her review of Mamma Mia! (via toomuchawesome)
Plus, in New York anyway, they clog the First Avenue sidewalk in front of Lucky Cheng’s with giant inflatable penises. Not something I want to dodge coming home from work.
Hide and Seek
Looks like somebody wants into the EU! Seriously, we just FOUND this war criminal, walking around. What a crazy world we live in, right guys?
Oh, Serbia. On a semi-related note, there’s a section in the new book McMafia talking about the Balkan mob. A Bulgarian higher-up notes, almost as an aside that “Everyone knows the Serbs are the best hit men. If you want someone murdered clean,...
Ryanair, Please Come to JFK
Ryanair denied that it is paying the price for expanding too quickly today as it confirmed plans to ground 12 planes at Stansted airport this winter and close seven European bases.
Europe’s largest low-cost airline said it was cutting services on its busiest, least profitable routes at Stansted and was withdrawing planes from seven airports including Budapest and Valencia for a six-week...
Rats!
Today the building where I work had the giant inflatable rat perched outside. I felt honored—my first one ever, after eight years of living here.
It was gone by lunch though. Must’ve been double booked.
“I can only tell you that standard male dress in the Kingdom, the...”
– Tony Bourdain
Red and Green Envelope
Watching several people stuff Netflix envelopes into mailboxes today, I wondered: when Netflix goes all online/set-top format, won’t that have a net positive environmental effect? Eliminating the paper, the gas that the mail trucks need and processing facilities must outweigh the increased draw of electricity from servers and the boxes themselves.
In the meantime, start stocking up on those...
Hellboy Huh?
My Dad just recommended Hellboy 2 to me. “I really liked the first one, and this was even better,” quoth he.
I feel disoriented.
Sweet Tooth
I swear, I will cut every time a writer calls a building a “confection” (or any other food) unless it’s warranted.
Example: the Guggenheim Bilbao is clearly a bowl of spaghetti. Rusting, titanium spaghetti.
Here's another fun inclusion in an agent letter
katert0t:
“I have no doubt that [this submission] will become a highly $ucce$$ful book series.”
In case I wasn’t sure was sucessful meant, he appealed to me by using MONEY SIGNS. Cause I love MONEY. That is why I got into PUBLISHING.
To be fair, he also did sign off the letter with “Ca$h Rules Everything Around Me”.
How Are Things Like This Allowed to Happen?
Grand Sichuan ran out of string beans last night. Now, I’ve ordered a lot of Chinese food in my day—I went to NYU when it hit the top ten on the Princeton Review stoner school list, after all—but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced shortages in green beanery.
This is how it starts, I bet. First they’ll start fucking with our takeout orders, then...
YES
doree:
There is so much wonderful and good about Choire’s post on Radar about this latest kerfuffle that I am having trouble picking out my favorite part, but I do love his line about how “she thinks some crazy things, like that people can have their talent “stripped” from them (as if this were Dungeons & Dragons).”
Thank God everyone reached equilibrium on this one.
Sigh.
You know, I had a...
Burt's Bees
How is it that no one, I mean NO ONE is writing about the first season of Evening Shade of DVD? Sure, it was no Murphy Brown—really, it wasn’t even Desgining Women—but they sure are advertising the shit out of it. I can’t say I thought of the show since it went off, but the cast includes Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning, Ossie Davis AND Hal Holbrook. That’s like a Coen...
“If there’s a flaw in the burger, it’s that after all these years in the...”
– Alan Richman
Watchtoomuchawesome:
(via Gawker)
Sigh. On the plus side, cartoons remain important in society. Come back, Gary Larson!
