New York City, May 14, 2013
★★★★ The sun cast shadows through clouds, then didn't cast shadows, then did again. It was cool again, the actually narrow window of temperature in which men can go out in sportcoats, and men were doing that proudly, even unto a pocket square. People were willing to sit on sidewalk benches with their coffee or a phone call. By evening rush hour, the sky was clear. In the apartment across the way, residents were taking to their balconies.
An American In Israel, Navigating Credit
My brother and I have been standing in line—we are the line—for 10 minutes while the man in front of us sets up his payments for four otter pops and one sucker.
He is paying with Tashlumim. Real old-fashioned credit. There are tons of little stores like this all over the country—single owner, providing a few blocks with 16-, 20- or 24-hour access to fundamental groceries: bread, hummus, milk, cottage cheese. And yes, otter pops and suckers. These stores are neighborhood institutions, neighbors helping neighbors. Hence the Tashlumim.
After it's been settled, with a "Shabbat shalom, hamud," we're up. we pay for our chocolate milk with cash, but we don't have to. READ MORE
"Current marijuana users had significantly smaller waist circumference than participants who had never used marijuana, even after adjusting for factors like age, sex, tobacco and alcohol use, and physical activity levels. They also had higher levels of HDL ('good cholesterol'). The most significant differences between those who smoked marijuana and those who never or no longer did was that current smokers' insulin levels were reduced by 16 percent and their insulin resistance (a condition in which the body has trouble absorbing glucose from the bloodstream) was reduced by 17 percent."
Mikal Cronin, "Change"
Solid power pop, nice build to the finish, and a happy ending? I'm there. [Via]
Listen, Frenchie, it's a tough town. If you can't keep up with the doughnut croissants, don't be surprised if we get a little free with the fingerwork.
Interview With A Person Who Thought She Was Reincarnated
Savannah is a 26-year-old woman who grew up believing that she was the reincarnation of her dead aunt Laura.
Hi Savannah! What are you doing right at this moment?
Hi! I'm lying in a hammock with my beagle.
What?? I am … very jealous. Let’s just get right into it. Do you remember ever not believing that you were your aunt Laura? Did anyone have to convince you, or did you always think it was true?
I always believed it. It was always, always a thing. It started when I was a newborn and my parents brought me to meet the family. When they handed me to my great-grandmother — who was over 100 and reportedly very bright and with it, but also, you know, she was over 100 — she looked at me, then looked up at the family and solemnly pronounced, “Isn’t it wonderful that God has given her back to us.”
And after that, that’s what everyone believed.
Wow. Where was this? Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a really small town about an hour out of Portland, where I live now. My area is sort of turning into wine country, but when I was a kid it was 800 people, a lot of farmers, definitely no fancy vineyards. READ MORE
And scene: "Britain's oldest pet dies as tortoise that survived two world wars passes away aged 130 after being bitten on the leg by a rat"
Today You Can Buy Queen Mary I's Secret Trump Card
At the age of 15, King Edward VI was dying. For his last act as king, he excluded both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession. (To get Mary out of the line, he had to ditch them both.) His Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, was named the Queen of England.
Two days after his death, Mary raised an army of nearly twenty thousand. It took just nine days for Mary—the only child born to Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon—to correct her half-brother’s final request. Coercion by force was an effective instrument, and it would come to define her reign.
At 37, Mary finally got that throne, and she intended to stay to there.
The Queen was indeed her father’s daughter, but she would avenge her mother’s unceremonious banishment, and restore the kingdom to the sovereign nation she was born into: England would once again be Catholic, Spain would be an ally, and threats to monarchy would be quelled immediately.
Marriage was the solution to every problem she had. It would produce an heir, ensuring that Elizabeth, her Protestant half-sister, would be once again removed from the immediate line of succession. Of course, that would come with a bit of satisfaction: Elizabeth was born to Anne Boleyn, not only the progenitor of Henry VIII and Catherine’s divorce, but also of England’s break with Rome.
The House of Commons formally requested Mary take an English husband, with an eye towards Edward Courtenay. Whereas they saw a handsome nobleman, Mary saw a poor politician. READ MORE
"We had an old Soviet Union poster from the ’70s; the goats had pulled it down and eaten it. They ate my son’s Greek gods and goddesses poster; he was real upset about that. They knocked my wife’s hand-thrown coffee mug off the table. They smashed our jars of homemade pickles and hot sauce. They broke a bunch of light bulbs we use for our starter plants."
—GOATS!
Finally, A 'Downton Abbey' I Would Watch
They have been live for one day and already the people at Previously.tv are making this a better world.
"New research suggest an aesthetic experience that reflects a person’s mood can help calm emotional turmoil. Thus, sad music or books may help someone get through heartbreak." That is good news, because if you're feeling down, this will probably do the trick.
The 47 Greatest, Most Hilarious Moments in 'The Office'
In 2003, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's original and groundbreaking The Office concluded, ready to be duplicated by other countries, ready for all discerning snobs and television critics to denounce as inferior and as affronts to humanity. Two years later, we met Michael and Jim and Pam and Dwight and Ryan for a six-episode season. The American Office with the inexplicably good reviews got a renewal. Steve Carell was in 40 Year Old Virgin over the summer. We then met Phyllis and Stanley and Creed and Kelly and Darryl and Toby and heard that this show shoots way more material than they can ever fit to air. We watched as they were tasked to air twenty eight episodes a season. We saw them become the last anchor of the legendary NBC Thursday Night Comedy Lineup. We complained after Steve Carell left us, after some of us grew tired of him. We stuck around for its final, creatively ambitious, manic final year. We watched as the show's universe collapsed on itself and are pleased that they just might come out of the rubble alive and still be funny, 201 episodes later, with one more to go.
Which leads us to this question: What happens when you put two Office fans together to create a combined list of their favorite moments from the show? You get a list of over one hundred scenes, debates about when Andy went from annoyingly cute to downright grating, and a bitter dispute over whether the Michael Scarn dance in season 7 is more memorable than Mose running alongside Jim and Pam's car in season 4. In the spirit of The Office's series finale episode this Thursday, we forced ourselves to choose the 47 funniest, most heartbreaking, and/or most cringeworthy moments from all nine seasons, from the earliest to most recent. READ MORE
"Now the study is being done in public, using what the researchers say is a harmless chemical, already present in the city’s bouquet of gases."
—Spoiler: the gas they're pushing out in the subway as a "terror test" is in the "perfluorocarbon family" but apparently that's all they'll tell us? Don't worry, your sterilization by "bouquet" will be painless. (By which I mean, your government-enforced sterility. Bloomberg's final revenge against the poors!)
"What about my female employees? They’re awesome! We all bond and hang out after work. But I’m their boss. Is it hug or shake when we run into each other at Whole Foods? The more I think about it, the more I spiral counter-clockwise down the toilet of anxiety. It all adds up to only a few seconds of awkwardness per day—and maybe I read into things more than others would—but I hate the thought that I may be inflicting awkwardness on the women in my work life by greeting them like a deer greets headlights."
—Finally someone dares speak about the tyranny of affection under which we all cower.
An App That Goes Down Smooth
This post is sponsored by The Glenlivet. Download The Cask from iTunes and register to become a Guardian of The Glenlivet.
The Cask by The Glenlivet is a new iPad app that is the perfect pairing for lovers of Single Malt Scotch Whisky. The free app, which is exclusive to those who register to become Guardians of The Glenlivet, offers custom content on all of the important things in a refined man’s life, from travel to tech, style to food.
If you’re fan of good Single Malt Scotch, you’ll enjoy the collection of interesting reads on a variety of topics that The Glenlivet put together. Some recent coverage includes how to buy a vintage watch, culinary trends in Buenos Aires, and setting up the perfect home bar. As The Glenlivet says, “a man’s life should be as carefully curated as his whisky collection.” The Cask is the tool to help you do just that.
Download The Cask from iTunes. From there, you can register to become a Guardian of The Glenlivet if you’re not already a member.
"Trouble erupted at the family event between costumed characters dressed as their cyber heroes when visiting Doctor Who fans clashed with Star Wars fans at a special fair in Norwich at the weekend."
Interns: Definitely Just Be Yourself In The Office, Including "Edgy" And/Or "Nude"
Hey, young ladies! Do you regularly exhibit your nipples and/or pudenda on the streets? Young millennial fellas: are you a balls-out kinda guy in general? Good news! While some uptight fools will tell you not to dress like a slanch for your internship, we believe you are more likely to Find Your Unique Path and also to Make It In New York City in general if you just "be yourself." An office is an extension of your lifestyle, after all, and if your lifestyle is nipple-centric or "neo-burlesque" or "embodying James Deen gifs," that is fine, and don't let anyone tell you different. You're only young and pretty once!
Adult-sized diapers and day-glo werewolf-hair arm-gloves are also cool.
BE YOURSELF. It's the only way that we can figure out who you really are, and separate you from the weirdos and losers with their slacks and briefcases and preparedness.
Helpful illustration by Lorena Cupcake.
Brian Eno Is 65
"He's a founder of Roxy Music, an architect of the Talking Heads' polyrhythmic funk and half of the production team responsible for turning U2's earnest Christian balladry into tolerable, sometimes adventurous stadium rock. In pop terms, his legacy is unassailable. As if that weren't enough, he practically invented ambient music; he's the Bill Monroe of the genre." That's how the New York Times described Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno nearly a decade ago; since then he has gone on to do a whole bunch of other stuff, probably with lasers or whatever. Anyway, he's 65 today. A few favorites follow. READ MORE
Faun Fables Really Is The Best Band Ever
Dave Bry (at noon on Leonard Lopate and tonight at the Park Slope Community Bookstore), Faun Fables at the Knitting Factory, Har Mar Superstar at Le Poisson Rouge, plus James Salter and more! Tonight, so amazing.
"Mrs. Dalloway" At 88
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway was published on this day in 1925. Set on a single day in London, in June of 1923, it tells the parallel stories of Clarissa Dalloway, who is throwing a party, and Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked World War One veteran. A perfect high modernist work, here are some of the reasons why the book still matters.
Woolf makes us care about a fancy middle-aged lady throwing a party.
From the opening line of the book—"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."—we know we are with a married woman who is rich enough to have people around her to do errands for her. If most of us need flowers, there is no one to tell; Mrs. Dalloway has maids. Some people confuse Virginia Woolf with Mrs. Dalloway, but it’s more accurate to say that Mrs. Dalloway represents the world that Woolf’s mother (who died when Woolf was just thirteen) imagined for her, a conservative, social world that Woolf left behind for art, feminism, and Bloomsbury. In asking us to empathize with Clarissa even while she shows us that Clarissa is a shallow, silly woman who has little to show for her fifty-two years, Woolf returns to all she rejected and finds the possibility that even the people she most rebelled against have souls, have regrets, and have ways of living with courage in spite of it all.
The characters have great names that have interesting histories.
Clarissa shares her name with both the heroine of Samuel Richardson’s 1747-8 novel and the character who, in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1711-14) provides the scissors to cut off (thus, “rape”) the lock of Belinda’s hair. In early 1925, just after finishing Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf wrote an essay on The Rape of the Lock, in which she compared Pope to Chekhov. Thus, Clarissa Dalloway, whom we see with her sewing scissors and who seems virginal in spite of marriage and motherhood, is associated with both the accessory to a satiric “rape” and the most famous rape victim in the history of the novel. Septimus’s name seems weirder to us now than it once did. In large Victorian families, the parents of seventh-born children occasionally threw up their hands and began numbering their offspring. Woolf’s brother’s nanny in the early 1920’s was a seventh-born child, Daisy Selwood, nicknamed Septima. And, in the large blended family of Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth Stephen, Woolf herself was the seventh-born child. READ MORE
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