The new issue of the London Review of Books is, as always, excellent-check out Elif Batuman's piece on creative writing programs-but I was particularly delighted by this bit from the letter section.
Gimme what ya got, Science! "Women are slower than men at understanding jokes – but enjoy them more when they do. Research shows that women use their brains more than men to process quips and have less expectation that they will be funny. But if the joke does hit the right note, they derive more pleasure from it." Also: Ladies tend to appreciate clever construction, while dudes go in for someone getting whacked in the nuts with a hammer. I would make an absolutely hysterical joke here about taking the extra time to enjoy a deep and penetrating experience for an amazing payoff, but I know it'd take [...]
So The Onion apologized today for one of their many, many Oscars jokes last night. Which one? The one that was nooooottttt good or okay. Nooo, the other one.
Quentin Tarantino has been heavily criticized for his frequent use of the word "nigger" during tonight's red carpet interviews #Oscars2013
Q. Let’s talk about the personnel change that many say redefined the X-men. The entire team left, except for you! A. Yes. I wanted them to stay, but they ignored me. Q. You had to rebuild the team from scratch. A. It was the hardest time for me as a leader. There was no one to lead. Q. What was your role in the recruitment of the new cast of international heroes? A. I mostly had to be patient while the Professor recruited them. It was very difficult.
The annual road-crossing migration of hundreds of toads from their normal habitats to the ponds where they breed in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Roxborough came early this year, and the off schedule resulted in quite a bit of toad carnage — the area's Toad Detour that is set up annually had yet to be erected. A sad story — but one with a happy ending that came this week: "Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evenings saw an average of 2,000 toadlets crossing Port Royal towards the woods at the Schuylkill Center. Most crossed between Hagy's Mill and Eva Street," according to the official blog set up to [...]
This has been bothering me for four years. And, since, in the lead-up to tonight's presidential debate, it's being talked about lot right now, I will talk about it a little more. I think lots of people are wrong: Barack Obama was not being "icy" or "condescending" or "arrogant" or "scornful" when he made the joke about Hillary Clinton being "likeable enough" in the 2008 democratic primary debate in New Hampshire. He was being funny in a nice, playful way. I thought it was great.