March 2011
23 posts
4 tags
1 tag
What is the word for this
When you google the name of someone who used to exist at the periphery of your awareness and who led (what seemed like) a mysterious and possibly dark life, only to find that s/he is (of course!) on Twitter, misspelling opinions about popular reality TV shows.
5 tags
“It was raining. A forty-four-year-old man named Joseph Knowles gingerly entered...”
– In case you missed Survivor: 1913, here’s the recap, complete with theatrical contrivances and showboating and a blurred line between entertainment and reality.
Further reading.
4 tags
“Ms. Obeidy said she was a native of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi who had...”
– Okay, yeah, $15/month sounds reasonable.
1 tag
tetw asked: Tetw - a Tumblr dedicated to classic journalism and narrative non-fiction - would like to know: What is you favourite article, feature or essay of all time?
4 tags
1 tag
On death cookies
From Dana Goodyear’s piece on Hollywood therapists:
Stutz had no patients, and so he cold-called established therapists to ask for referrals. Every day, he’d force himself to approach the scariest person on his list, an undertaking that he described as eating “a death cookie.” Most rejected him, but he found the process generative. “The risk you take has a feedback effect on the ...
7 tags
4 tags
On things making sense
St. Patrick’s Day was always a significant holiday in my house, which I never understood, because you could trace my ancestors to the Paleolithic Era and not one of them would’ve been on Irish soil. I assumed the family celebration had something to do with the fact that my parents spent a few years in Boston, and my mom likes the Clancy Brothers, and everybody likes soda bread. Today...
1 tag
4 tags
“The Internet has co-opted the word “browse” for its own purposes, but it’s worth...”
– Nicole Krauss, “The End of Bookstores”
I will never, ever stop going to bookstores. For the above reasons and many, many more (including new book smell, which is quite possibly the best smell in the history of the world.) I just hope there are enough people out there like me, and that somehow, by...
3 tags
Inbox hits of yesterday and today
I like that the author is very cutting, but speaking through such a delightful character that, oh, the knife just slips right in. I’d send you to the publisher’s site, but they use frames(!) and I can’t get behind that. Discover how you can bring history alive in your backyard! Basically I am one of the only researchers in the world who thinks that cybersex is communicative....
5 tags
This is not going to become a biking blog, I...
I have signed up for a 100k ride in June (caution: clicking that link will take you to a page in which there is a photograph of me looking enthusiastic while wearing spandex). Maine is still icy and dreary, so I’ve been training at the gym on a stationary bike. Can you think of anything more boring than a stationary bike at a cheap chain gym? Mile after mile, the stupid red LED display...
4 tags
Chemo thread →
This “what should I eat during chemo” thread at Serious Eats will restore your faith in the goodness of the internet.
4 tags
On boycotts
Fox News entertainment section, June 17, 2009:
First grafs: “As a group of boycotters staged a protest outside of the theater where “The Late Show” with David Letterman is filmed, the funnyman continued to mock demands to take him off the air after he made series of crude jokes about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and her teen daughters.”
Fox News LiveShots blog, September 20,...
3 tags
8 tags
Alsatian apple cake
Devoured before it could be photographed. That’s all right, it wasn’t the prettiest cake on the block, but it was delicious—and the sort of thing that’s easy to justify having for breakfast (apples!).
Also: gluten-free, dairy-free.
I used this recipe, with the following changes:
1/2 cup almond meal for half the Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose GF flour (which can be...
2 tags
4 tags
Important moose update
I’ve received a fantastic photograph of the moose mentioned here and here. Naturally, my second thought was, “I should put this on my Tumblr!” (My first thought was, “Where can I hang this?”)
Then I thought further and decided that since there’s blood involved, I would refrain from putting it on my Tumblr. I personally have no qualms about looking at a picture...
4 tags
VLH: did you know Wisconsin has a state microbe?
VLH: I just learned that this week
MPS: The other day someone tried to be clever by asking me what Maine's state herb is
MPS: I was like "did you really think I wouldn't know it's wintergreen?"
VLH: hahahah
VLH: nice
MPS: triflin bitches be triflin
