The Best Of The New York Times’ Pug Journalism

by Ali Pechman

Meet the best fodder for New York Times style pieces for a hundred years plus: the pug.

10. “Cyrano the Pug Has Gout: It is the Result of High Living, as in the Human Family, Says the Doctor– Canine Tooth Filling” (June 18, 1899)

9. Story From Romney’s Past Prompts Protest at Dog Show” (Feb. 14, 2012)

8. “Raw Food for Dogs: A Risk or a Cure-All?” (Feb. 15, 2012)

7. “Mr. Morgan’s Pug Found” (Oct. 26, 1884)

6. “Pug-ness, Tiger-ness, Whatever” (Oct. 10, 2003)

5. “Joint Replacements Keep Dogs in the Running” (Jan. 16, 2011)

4. “On This Walk, the Pug Is Top Dog” (Nov. 13, 2005)

3. “From Royalty’s Best Friend to Collectors’ Favorite” (Feb, 8, 1998)

2. “Banned by Many Airlines, These Bulldogs Fly Private” (Oct. 6, 2011)

1. “While the Pugs Eat the Caviar, Owners Bond” (June 1, 1997)

Ali Pechman lives in Manhattan and is on the editorial staff at ARTnews. She writes about art here and tweets here. Photo by Jon Clegg.

“You’re going to pee purple, you’re going to poo purple.”

“A man who pretended to be blind to get people to pity him was found dead in a flooded ditch after he apparently failed to see the hazard, an inquest heard today.”

An Incomplete Survey of Newspapers, Magazines, Periodicals, and Books Being Read by Potential Jurors on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse Jury Duty Waiting Room

• And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

• What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

• Something on a Kindle

• The Baltimore Sun (5 instances)

• New York Post

• Baltimore City Paper

• Chicken Soup for The Soul® Word — Finds™

• Legends: Stories By The Masters of Modern Fantasy: Robert Silverberg (Editor), Stephen King (Contributor), Robert Jordan (Contributor),Orson Scott Card (Contributor), Terry Goodkind (Contributor), Anne McCaffrey(Contributor)

• Iodine: Why You Need It Why You Can’t Live Without It by David Brownstein

• Something by Laura Resnick

• Something by Candace Dempsey

• Ascension: A Dark Breed Novel by Sable Grace

• The Success Principles by Jack Canfield

• Baltimore Magazine

• The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child by Amos N. Wilson

• Redbook July 2012

• Unidentified word-search puzzle book

• Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

• Around the Way Girls 3: Double Trouble by Pat Tucker, Alisha Yvonne, Thomas Long

• TV Guide Word-Find Puzzles

• The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes by Scott Wallace

• I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Joe MacLeod was “respectfully challenged” by counsel for the Defense, and, with a payment of $15 cash, was excused from service.

For me, the most depressing religious philosophy concerning the condition of existence is the concept of samsara, where you are continually reincarnated until you get it right. For those of us who feel as if the brutal burden of being alive is perhaps the cruelest joke, the idea that, when you’ve finally discharged your obligations in that regard, you get sent back to the start, as if you were playing some sadistic game of Chutes and Ladders, is almost too painful to consider. Once around will be more than enough, thanks. Still, every time you are tempted to wallow in the mire of despair over the sheer strain of subsistence — and the chance, however remote, that it’s going to happen all over again — try to remind yourself that things like this incident out of Orlando occur in the world all the time, if only to allow the absurdity to alleviate your agony in some small way. It doesn’t usually work, but how much worse would it be if you didn’t even try?

Man, I thought bigotry was as easy as “ready, set, hate,” but apparently you’ve got to figure out a whole system of codes and stuff. It hardly seems worth the effort. I mean, yeah, when you think about it, there’s not a whole lot in life that does seem worth the effort, but it especially feels like a waste of time to put in all that toil just to be prejudiced.

When I think back to my early twenties — the intensity of emotion, the clarity of conviction, the insupportable arrogance — I am filled with a mixture of revulsion and self-pity. Seriously, can you really bear to reflect on the period of your life when you fervently believed that all those things that didn’t really matter actually made a difference? Perhaps the greatest gift of coming to the realization that your time here is finite and ludicrously unremarkable is the comfort in not having to really invest any of your energy caring about who said what about whom or how you feel about this and that. The sheer joy of deciding that you’re not going to do something because you don’t want to and you no longer care what that says about you almost makes the whole trade-off worthwhile. (Almost. It’s still a bad deal.) So anyway, maybe we should be a little more compassionate toward the twentysomethings. It’s not their fault that they don’t know how stupid they sound. And besides, life is going to teach them all about it soon enough.

[No stars] Unpleasant, out of order, and with a false promise of novelty tacked on at the end. A quickly darkening morning dumped rain on everyone; the rain steamed off into thick, intensifying heat. Disgusting and backwards — but, oh, not in vain, the forecast said. A derecho was brewing, the forecast said. The ferocious straight-line variety of storm that had ravaged Washington D.C. in June would be making its New York debut. Derecho! Toward dusk, dark gray clouds piled in, with pink still showing in the east. Widely spaced, heavy drops of rain hit the windshield of the black Escalade. Pedestrians caught out on Madison hunched and scurried along, clinging to the cover of awnings. Over the 65th Street Transverse, crossing the Park, the sky had a green tinge. Or was that the window tint? Then a full downpour, making a cheap, tinny sound on the Escalade’s roof. People on cross streets huddled in entryways and under scaffolds, helpless before the might of the derecho. And then? The storm spilled all its force in that one splash, rolled over, and went slumbering off to sea, with snores of fading thunder. The city lay there in a puddle: awake, bemused, and a little irate. A hurricane at least supplies the anticipation, the days of studying the projected and re-projected storm track, the distraction of trying to judge its intentions. The derecho, gusting along in its own hype, skipped straight to the disappointment.

Weather ratings range from zero to five stars.

Godless liberal communist agitator/TV producer Norman Lear, who, in his heyday, was probably one of the most influential people in the country, turns 90 today.

A woman draped in a sheet climbed into an NY1 news van and allegedly attacked Vivian Lee as the veteran reporter covered a story in Cobble Hill Friday morning. The woman, who wore the white sheet over a T-shirt, sweatpants and green flip-flops, went inside the truck about 7 a.m. and began using Lee’s makeup and snacking on food, Lee and a witness said. When Lee told her to leave, the woman allegedly punched the reporter in the neck.

— This happens to Roger Clark like every day though. (Relatedly, the story she was covering, of the church lightning strike killing a fellow at Kane and Clinton, is TERRIBLE and upsetting.)