Posts Tagged: Ouch
What a World
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Indonesian Government Using Huge, Swinging Balls To Deter Unsafe Train Travel

| January 17th, 2012

"I was really scared when I first heard about these balls. It sounds like it could be really dangerous. But I don't think it will last long. They have tried everything to keep us from riding… but in the end we always win." —Twenty-seven-year-old "train surfer" Mulyanto, who rides on the roof of the overcrowded train from Bogor to Jakarta every day for work, on the Indonesian government's installation of large metal balls that hang from chains just above train-level at stations and track crossings. The balls are meant to stop the practice, which led to eleven accidental deaths last year. But, damn, it seems like those balls [...]

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Mayor Mike

| January 5th, 2010

A pretty fabulous drawing that won't be appearing on the cover of the New York Observer tomorrow.

The Way We ____ Now
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"How can anything go bad when… there are so many funny things to tweet?"

| December 9th, 2011

Xeni Jardin's writing about her breast cancer diagnosis this week is rough going but very much worth reading. But don't dive in until you're ready.

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Joanna Smith Rakoff

| April 6th, 2009

The reviews are coming in for Joanna Smith Rakoff's new novel, "A Fortunate Age," which is not named 'Brooklyn': The novel ably captures the zeitgeist, with venture capitalists financing magazines headed by M.I.T. prodigies and young people worrying about the gentrification of their Brooklyn neighborhoods. But where [Mary] McCarthy's histrionic rich girls enabled her to skewer contemporary mores, Smith Rakoff's are almost indistinguishable in their blandness.

Culture and TV
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Some Words That Will Probably Not Make The Ads For "The Last Airbender," Presented In Poster Form

| July 1st, 2010

How allegedly bad is M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of the popular animated series The Last Airbender? Over at the movie-review clearinghouse Rotten Tomatoes, it currently stands at 7% "fresh," i.e., good in any way at all! For comparison's sake, let us note that even Marmaduke and Grown-Ups broke the double-digit mark on what the site refers to as the "Tomatometer." But what is it that makes this particular movie more unwatchable than the filmed adventures of a CGI'd Great Dane with the voice of Owen Wilson? I tried to find out via the magic of word clouds!