Tag Archives: the new yorker

Lazy Sunday: 10 August 2014

Y’all, I had a rough. week. I’m treating myself to some day drinks, a new dress, and an afternoon at the Gibbes. Enjoy these reads!

  • Let’s start with a buzzkill: Practice good password hygiene. (via Pableaux Johnson)
  • Casey Cep tries to quantify her soul with some ungodly Fitbit for mindfulness.
  • Fun fact: I will take your throat out with my teeth if you tell me to “smile” on the street. I guess there’s a solution now! The Smile Bitch Training Camp!
  • There is nothing, nothing, I love better than a charming man. Is there anything better than being dazzled? But what is charm? Benjamin Schwartz talks the rise and fall of charming men over at the Atlantic.
  • I have never watched a single episode of Seinfeld, and Chuck Klosterman is making me feel better about that.
  • If watching this compilation of dogs fighting boots doesn’t cheer you up, it’s over for you.
  • You probably heard that the New Yorker’s archives are free for the summer, but they’ve been around awhile and just thinking about all the stuff you want to read is dizzying. Here’s a great roundup from The Awl of some do-not-miss pieces.
  • The mysterious case of the Sherlock pilgrims, a group of people who travel to Switzerland and dress in costume to recreate the last hours of the detective’s life.
  • You’re bad at multitasking.
  • “Would you say she is your BFF?” “For your purposes, yes.” This is a great interview and I’m not sure who either of these actresses are. Solid work, Eric Spitznagel!

Lazy Sunday, 5 January 2014

It’s our first lazy Sunday of 2014! I really did it up by sleeping 17 hours. Enjoy these links!

  • Watch this urban skiing video set in Detroit, but do it on mute.
  • Anything that says my workplace could be muppetier is a thing I’m going to take very seriously. Viva la Fraggle! Viva Henson!
  • Once, my sister threw a magazine at my head and accused me of ruining her life, but never did she assault me for eating too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so we’re ahead of someone, at least.
  • Bummer and Lazarus. I’ll say no more.
  • Found this awesome, fourteen-year-old profile of Martha Stewart in the New Yorker, written by none other than Joan Didion herself. Say what you will about how much you’d like to have a beer with Martha, but she gets. stuff. done. and knows how to do seemingly everything.
  • Life lesson: If you’re ever an extra on a movie and they tell you they’ll pay you double to pretend to be a couple making out in a crowded pool scene, DO IT!
  • “God is just as invisible.” I like how a high-ranking official of the state will neither confirm nor deny his own certainty about the existence of hidden people.
  • Why is Spinoza the sexed-up philosopher? By which I mean, when will this be available in English?
  • I will miss no opportunity to tell people that Rob Sheffield, David Berman, Steve Malkmus, and I all worked at the same community radio station at different times, and are all distinguished alums of Mr. Jefferson’s School. Here, they chat about UVA in Rolling Stone.
  • In 2014, I’m going to let someone bully me into going to karaoke, but I’m going to do it on my terms, which is to say, I will come armed with lots of facts about karaoke history and tell them to you loudly.

Lazy Sunday: 17 November 2013

It’s been an up-and-down couple weeks, huh? Glad Mercury is no longer in retrograde or whatever. Enjoy! Let’s hang out here tomorrow, okay?

  • First things first: I talked to my friend Larry, who is an aid worker in the Philippines, about what might be the best tack to take to help the typhoon victims. He said these guys are the real deal, and are doing permanent, important good. If everyone who read my blog gave PHP500 (about the cost of a fancy cocktail at a nice bar), we’d be able to give meaningful help to people who really need it.
  • Another charitable thing to consider as the season of plenty is upon us: What’s it like to feed your family from a food bank?
  • There is no scenario in which I want to hear anyone say “make love” so this Woody Allen supercut is the worst thing ever. I made it through about 30 seconds before I had to make it stop.
  • I was pretty irritated about the new BuzzFeed Books policy of “only nice reviews” and I guess the New Yorker was, too.
  • Charleston City Paper is pushing back against the homogenized “aw-shucks pansouthernism” that is creeping in.
  • Do you know this about me? I’m casually obsessed with televangelism and performative religious cultures (SURPRISE.).
  • This is just a weird Wikipedia page.
  • Usually, I don’t go in for fondant icing, but I could make an exception for this beaut.
  • Edgar Allan Poe was a true freak, and that’s a fact.
  • As an inveterate, unrepentant, unreconstructed set list stealer, this speaks to my heart.

Book Club: Going Clear

So this week, I read Going Clear as part of a my In Real Life book club. This is my first real meeting as a member of said klatch, and you know how things are kinda awkward while you’re figuring out what people in your book club are like? Well, turns out mine are smart and like to read interesting things. Apparently, no one told them that I love conspiracy theories and cults in advance, so that’s allegedly a happy accident. Allegedly.

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Truly, there is no good way to take a picture of a book with that library clear plastic on it.

My weird obsession with Scientology began in 2009 when I was briefly bedridden and had tons of time to think about reptilians, Elvis, and staged moon landings. I find the church pretty terrifying, but also believe that everyone’s religious beliefs (including my own) sound kind of weird when overly reduced. Really, Xenu and thetans and whatever aren’t weirder than the prophesy of a zombie carpenter or the contents of stone tablets from the sky or the notion that we were possibly all grains of rice back in the day, so we should just live and let live. Well, you know, Lawrence Wright disagrees and makes a solid case for why.

I first came across Lawrence Wright’s stories about Scientology in The New Yorker a few years ago. I was comletely glued to it; his writing style is at once dense and accessible, smart, but not smart alec-y. If you haven’t read that article, I recommend you start there. It’s a long study of Paul Haggis‘ public split with the Church in 2009 and will give you a pretty workable framework for what this book is going to be like.

Continue reading

Hotel Great Barrington

It’s weird to think that Wes Anderson has always exactly like one of his characters. Whenever I watch one of his movies, I feel like I’m kind of watching an idealized version of what he himself is like. It’s kind of nice to have it confirmed. In this 1999 article NYT archives, our hero goes to the country to fetch an aging New Yorker writer, beg her to watch Rushmore. She is very ill and frail, doesn’t drive. She takes a couple sly shots at Bottle Rocket and tells him to change his name. He is at once exhilarated, hopeful, turned on, disgusted, and slightly disappointed. She gives him a book. She dies not long after.

No, but seriously, that’s a Wes Anderson movie.

Your Love of Gardening Will Soon Come in Handy

Behold, the humble fortune cookie.

ImageI’ve always loved these- not too sweet, a tool of augury, a completely invented tradition. What’s not to love? Once, I got no fortune in my cookie and got nervous I was about to die. The next time, I got THREE fortunes. What does that mean?

Well, it means Donald Lau is asleep on the job. That everyone at these joints is asleep on the job. I always thought being a fortune cookie writer (much like a lipstick namer) would be a fun job, but it turns out that job doesn’t exist. So much for job security. Color me totally heartbroken.

Lazy Sunday: 24 March

I’m on vacation still, so I’m leaving you these things to read in my absence:

  • When I’m hideously rich, all my presents will come from here, so begin currying favor with me right now.
  • I disagree with the fatshaming they’re doing with these ads, I DO agree that soda is really, really bad for you, and not all of them are like that. Your thoughts?
  • North Korea hates Hillary Clinton.
  • I’m not surprised by this, but also unnerved that Google knows all kinds of stuff about me.
  • Kate Moss is reads (kinda NSFW).
  • BEFORE THEY WERE STARS: JD SALINGER AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE.
  • Kids from around the world have neatly organized their favorite things. Please look.
  • How to spot the ax murderer in your book club.
  • If you don’t read Anne Helen Petersen‘s Scandals of Classic Hollywood, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
  • The romantic comic book anthropologist’s blog is back!

So, what are you reading this weekend?