A chat about kohl, mascara, and lipstick

All my life, I have loved explaining my beauty routine to men.

There’s something pure and exhilarating about it, like teaching a puppy to walk down stairs. I love hearing little questions they have squirreled away but don’t care quite enough to Google. Things like, “Does bronzer hurt?” and “What is a mask for?” Plus, there’s something satisfying in being the unequivocal expert on a given topic; having the whole floor conceded and stepping fully into your spotlight. I am comfortable with that power dynamic. It is my preferred conversational position.

So yesterday, when my Swole coworker brought an eyeshadow palette to the office in order to teach our editor Silvia Killingsworth how to do a smokey eye, I was pleased to watch the men in the office crane their necks in polite curiousity.

Our bossfather Alex Balk headed home just before the master class began, claiming working remotely would be better than feeling like he was in the way during the lesson. This is a fine strat, and I understand the impulse, but minutes later when he slid into the work Slack looking for updates on how the tutorial was going, my soul…….did this:

Balk wanted to learn! And, by default, I wanted to explain!

So I opened the floor and invited Balk and our coworker Mike Dang to ask us any beauty questions they were harboring deep in their lil hearts, and we did our best to give understandable answers. It’s honestly kind of a writing exercise. A word game. Think about it: how would you describe lotion to someone who’s never seen or felt it? Deodorant?

Anyway, here it is. Three women teaching two men about kohl, mascara, and lipstick:

_______

Alex Balk: Are you gals all smoke eyed yet

Mike Dang:

Kelly Conaboy: my favorite artist

Silvia Killingsworth: The Awl is finally a Home Base & Social Club for Women in New York

Balk: so are your eyes the right shape for smokeying

Christine Friar: honey with the right brushes and a little patience any eye can be a smokey eye

Balk: KELLY
http://www.fashionising.com/trends/b–kohl-rimmed-eyes-kohl-pencil-40327.html

Kelly: wow you were right: kohl eyes

Silvia: yeah!
wait this was a question?
i mean
kohl is a KIND of eyeliner

Balk: i wanted to know if that’s what smokey eye was
and kelly told me that i was a crazy person who was making up kohl because i was stupid and ugly and also nobody likes me
she was very mean

Kelly: I have to speak my truth and if that makes you uncomfortable then “I’m sorry”

Balk: hahaha
so is it like a “all kohl is smoked eye but not all smoked eye is kohl” thing?

Christine: yes!
kohl is like a type of eyeliner
so your kohl eye CAN be a smoky eye, but your smoky eye is not necessarily a kohl eye

Balk: okay so one more
what is mascara and how does it fit into this whole cosmology

Kelly: 🙂

Mike: Mascara is lashes?

Christine: yes!
mascara is wet like hmm….clay?
and it comes in a bottle with a brush
and you put it on your eyelashes
to change their color

Kelly: yeah to make them more visible
more dramatic

Christine: so when you put on mascara you brush your eyelashes 🙂
and they become dark and probably clumpy 🙂

Silvia: yah like a comb

Christine: and then all of the boys go “wow”
and you say “yeah i know”

Balk: hahahaha
i’m learning so much today

Christine: your question may have been a joke but i love 2 explain things

Balk: no i was being sincere

Christine: okay great
mascara’s also wild because so many of them are very bad?
and there’s no way to know but to just like, put it on your eyes

Silvia: YES

Christine: so often if you like
sweat
or breathe
or touch your face
your mascara will leave circles under yr eyes
and make you look very ancient and haunted
which is actually a great look

Silvia: yeah you like look shook after a workout
its rude

Balk: So would it be a crazy speculation to say that if you are someone who, say, has made a woman cry, it is her mascara that you are trying not to pay attention to because shit looks all melty under her eyes?

Christine: yes!!!!
a stunning hypothetical!!!

Balk: i’ve only read about it

Kelly: like lauren conrad

Christine:

Kelly: exactly

Silvia: WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU THINK IT WAS BALK

Balk: okay so
bear in mind
i am a cis etc

Mike: Did you think women just cried black tears

Kelly: lol

Balk: i just group them all as “eyeshadow”
i didn’t know there were so many component parts!

Silvia: oh my god

Kelly: “And what do tampons do?”

Christine: i love this!!!!
do you have more questions

Silvia: keep em coming

Balk: i read about tampons on the hairpin, i feel like i’m up to speed on that
what is the difference between lip gloss and lipstick

Mike: One is made from bubblegum and the other is made from whales

Balk: hahaha

Kelly: lol

Christine: ooh!
okay
gloss is often a liquid in a tube with a little spongey wand

Silvia: it’s sticky and gloopy

Kelly: gloss is for shiny mouth

Christine: and color is optional for gloss, it is mostly about shine

Silvia: water mouth
wet mouth

Kelly: yeah to make your mouth look wet
even though it’s actually just sticky

Christine:

what would you say the consistency’s like?
white out?
like
tacky
and wet at the same time
and bad

Kelly: yeah gloss is bad
it’s for children
mostly

Christine: AND THEN lipstick is color
and can look so many different ways
hoo boy
talkin tubes, talkin pencils
lipstick:

BUT
also lipstick:

Balk: slow down i’m still absorbing
BUT seems like there is some advanced level teaching happening now

Christine: yes sorry i’m going fast

Balk: Wait, PENCIL LIPSTICK
what
is that … legal?

Kelly: pencil is good
there’s also lip liner which is also pencil

Christine: the pencil is a relatively new moment for lipstick
lipstick was like “hey, it’s the new millennium”
and we were like “hell yeah”

Balk: so wait
lip liner is a pencil that you draw a line around your lipstick or gloss with, but lipstick can now also be a pencil

Kelly: yes

Balk: this is like the holy trinity

Christine: the liner pencil is hard and bad
like…..a soft crayon
but then the lipstick pencil
is v smooth and easy to apply like reg lipstick
it just happens to be inside of a pencil
a fat pencil

Balk: is it… wet?

Christine: hm

Balk: like i imagine lipstick as “wet” and pencil stuff as “dry”

Christine: have you ever used cray pas?
in art class?

Balk: yes!

Christine: that is what lipstick is like!
it’s like malleable
but not wet
peanut butter
lipstick is as easy 2 spread as peanut butter
but not sticky like that
just equally wet

Kelly: 🙂

Christine: 🙂

Balk: I have never been more thankful to be a cis etc man
just learning this shit alone seems exhausting, nevermind doing it

Christine: imagine if you will
having peanut butter that you have applied in the exact shape of your lips
and then
eating
or talking
or kissing
without messing it up
it is……quite an ask

Balk: If I were as stupid as Kelly thinks I am I would say “Well just don’t wear makeup”

Kelly: well my assessment of you has been validated

Silvia: you’re mostly right but it’s way too late makeup has been long reclaimed by women to torture each other and MOSTLY themselves

Christine: also it is fun!!!
like
if u are coming from a space of “THIS IS TIGHT” and not “I AM A HAG WHO MUST BE HIDDEN”

Kelly: Yeah it’s fun and guys get to grow a beard on their face to change it so

Christine: yeah you get to contour with sideburns
and hide doub chins with beards

Balk: wait so making peanut butter lips is like a good time for you

Christine: it’s not a wholly unpleasant feeling
peanut butter is not a perfect comparison bc once the lipsticks on youre less aware of its physical presence
but lipstick is AS WET AS peanut butter
if that makes sense
but yeah no it’s dumb to do all that work and then have to exist in space with weather and sweat and hands
BUT much in the way it is fun to paint or make a pot it is fun to take your face and make it another face

Kelly: hahaha
“lipstick is AS WET AS peanut butter”
lol

Balk: I feel like I have peeked behind a curtain and seen things my kind is never supposed to see
I guess the next time I am going to complain about waiting so long for a woman to get ready I will remember this conversation and be a little more understanding.
Thanks for the valuable lesson!

Christine: truly
anytime

Sometimes lyrics are just meaningless phonemes

A lot of people are passing around an article on the internet today about the Backstreet Boys and how the mystery surrounding the lyrics to one of their songs has been REVEALED!!!

Backstreet Boys Finally Confirm The Most Famous Legend About Them

This article continuously refers to a “legend,” as though there were some mystical tale or anything legendarily unauthenticated about the nonsensical lyrics. The only thing no one had really done was talk to the band members about it (as if band members know anything about lyrics, lol). The Huffington Post caught up with the bandmates “during a promotional interview for their new commercial with Chex-Mix.” Yes, the snack mix. These days you do promotions for commercials, and that’s how reporters have to get their other, actual information.

The band members were essentially, like, yeah the JIVE Records executives wanted to change the lyrics to make sense, so we hired people who did just that, and then opted for the original version. That’s it. That’s the whole story! And you know what, it doesn’t really matter that there is no drama to this story because the only reason anyone clicked this link is to listen to the alternate version of the song, which makes better sense, but sounds worse. Why? Because we got used to a version that had been ingeniously written by a Swede, essentially backwards. In this 2015 post for The New Yorker (promoting his then-new book) John Seabrook wrote about Martin’s tactic of writing lyrics to fit the melody:

But, while knowing English is clearly an advantage to songwriters and producers seeking success in the U.S. and the U.K., a lack of facility with the finer points of the language is equally important. Swedish writers are not partial to wit, metaphor, or double entendre, songwriting staples from Tin Pan Alley through the Brill Building era. They are more inclined to fit the syllables to the sounds — a working method that Martin calls “melodic math” — and not worry too much about whether the resulting lines make sense. (The verses in “I Want It That Way,” for example, completely contradict the meaning of the chorus lines.) Fans of Cole Porter may see this development in roughly in the same spirit that “Downton Abbey” fans might view “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” — with horror — but one can argue that this very freedom from having to make sense lyrically has allowed the Swedes to soar to such melodic heights.

This makes perfect sense to me. First off, the Swedes are actual pop geniuses because their ears and hearts are free from the narrow constrictions of restrictive English grammar. (Though every Swedish person knows how to speak English, I would wager that songwriting English is a higher level of fluency, much like “business Spanish” or “sex-club German.”) Have you guys ever heard of a band called Alphabeat? Their song “Fascination” is A+ makes-you-wanna-kick-off-your-shoes-and-pony bubble-gum pop:

Perfect, right? The lyrics make no sense whatsoever. Here they are in full:

Easy living,
Killed the young dudes,
In the high boots
Teenage,
In the pace age,
That’s when love burns,
Now it’s your turn.

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel.

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel. (yeah)

We love this exaltation (whoa oh, o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (whoa oh, o-o-oh)
We live on fascination.

Passion,
Is our passion,
In the moonlight,
On a joyride
Easy living,
Killed the young dudes,
In the high boots. (oh yeah)

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel (come on).

We love this exaltation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We live on fascination.

Fashion is our passion
In the moonlight on a joy ride
He said , let them
Killed the young dudes,
In the high boots
Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel (come on)

We love this exaltation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We live on fascination.

The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
The word is on your lips, say the word
Fas-ci-na-tion!

We love this exaltation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (whoa oh, o-o-o-oh)
We live on fascination (o-oh).

Say the word now (fa-sci-nation)
Say the word
Come on say the word now (fa-sci-nation)
Come on (fa-sci-nation)

High boots! Amazing job, Anders Bonlokke. You know what else this reminds me of? Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” a gibberish song that is in neither Italian nor English (except for the expletive, “all right!”), but some gibberishly in-between “ecstatic nonsense,” which, if you sort of let your mind wander, sounds as though the words are there but you just can’t discern them. The fault is yours, because this song sounds so confident, so you just let go and let it wash over you, and it is perfectly good:

Conceptually, it’s also like this snippet of text that made the rounds on the internet in the early aughts:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

The human mind does not hear every word of a lyric by itself, but the song as a whole. This is why when you listen to Fiona Apple you’re like “HOLY SHIT!!!!!” and your mind is blown. Her lyrics have lyrics.

But back to the Backstreet Boys song. Now that you’ve listened to the regular version of “I Want It That Way” for so many years—screamed it at karaoke and found yourself humming quietly “tell my why-EE” in grocery aisles—this alternate version (stupidly titled “No Goodbyes”) just sounds wrong:

Your brain has imprinted upon the old version and that is the only one that feels right, even though it doesn’t make sense. That’s because it’s written in what Anthony Lane dubbed “Eurovision English:”

an exquisite tongue, spoken nowhere else, which raises the poetry of heartfelt but absolute nonsense to a level of which Lewis Carroll could only have dreamed. The Swedes are predictably fluent in this (“Your breasts are like swallows a-nesting,” they sang in 1973), and the Finns, too, should be hailed as early masters, with their faintly troubling back-to-back efforts from the mid-seventies, “Old Man Fiddle” and “Pump-pump,” but the habit continued to flourish even during those periods when the home-language ruling was in place, as cunning lyricists broke the embargo by smuggling random expostulations into their titles and choruses. Hence such gems as Austria’s “Boom Boom Boomerang,” from 1977 (not to be confused with Denmark’s “Boom Boom,” of the following year), Portugal’s “Bem-bom,” from 1982, and Sweden’s “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley,” which won in 1984. The next year’s contenders, spurred by such bravado, responded with “Magic, Oh Magic” (Italy) and “Piano Piano” (Switzerland). Not that the host nation relinquished the crown without a fight, as anyone who watched Kikki Danielsson can attest. Her song was called “Bra Vibrationer.” It was, regrettably, in Swedish.

Ain’t nothing but a mistake. And I want it that way.

Here’s why you don’t hate yourself as much when you’re drinking.

If you think you like drinking because it makes you happy, you are correct.

In a study published in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that alcohol produces the same neural and molecular changes as drugs that have proven to be rapidly effective antidepressants. “Because of the high comorbidity between major depressive disorder and alcoholism there is the widely recognized self-medication hypothesis, suggesting that depressed individuals may turn to drinking as a means to treat their depression,” said the study’s principal investigator, Kimberly Raab-Graham, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “We now have biochemical and behavioral data to support that hypothesis.”

Naturally, there are the usual disclaimers about not trying to treat your depression with alcohol, in spite of the fact that they’ve just told you it totally works and everything you personally have learned about having a few drinks up until now indicates that it’s a hell of a lot more fun than taking a pill and waiting a few weeks for it to kick in and make you bloated, vacant and unfuckable, but I guess Science thinks being sad for a little while longer is the better part of valor even though there is nothing better than drinking and now you have proof that it stops you wishing you were dead because you suck so bad. I have to believe when Science discovers that alcohol also makes everyone around you more interesting, keeps you from wanting to be alone all the time and allows you to, even for a few hours, say things without your brain screaming, “Shut up you stupid idiot, why would anyone ever care what you think about anything?” it will caution against enjoying those effects for the same reason. The reason is Science hates you and doesn’t want you to be happy. You and Science have a lot in common, if you think about it.

Celebrating a full trip around the Milky Way galaxy

Once every two hundred and twenty-five or so million years, the earth travels around the galactic center of the Milky Way. Because you can do basically anything you want with numbers and slice them up however you like to make them meaningful to you, one David Sneider of California found a way to track the earth’s progress as it completes this journey. He calls one hundredth of a second of this arc a “galactic tick,” and it happens every 633.7 days, or 1.7361 years. For those that care, a “centisecond” of arc (centiarcsecond) is 1/6,000 of an arcminute, or 1/360,000 of a degree, or 1/129,600,000 of a circle.”

Today marks the 235th Galactic Tick Day, because the first was somewhat arbitrarily designated as the day the German/Dutch astronomer Hans Lippershey “spectacle-maker” (that means glasses-maker not scene-maker) widely credited for inventing the telescope filed the patent for the thing in 1608. Sneider wrote enthusiastically back in August, “From the perspective of the center of the galaxy, we are moving at 143 miles per second. More people should know that and educate each other!” Here’s hoping you learned something today. You can read a little, but not a lot more here, on Galactic Tick Day’s (which I refused to abbreviate as GTD because that is the sole spiritual property of David Allen) of website.

If you live in San Francisco, you can go to a party celebrating this holiday. If you don’t, or if you prefer to stay in, you can celebrate this meaningless occasion with this simple exercise: “[Breathe in] I am [Breathe out] a meaningless speck in a vast and uncaring universe.” Have a good day.

Because every day is a day to share what day it is.

There’s no question that social media wants you to know what day it is. Like the pub with seven giant posters advertising a special for each day of the week, the joint forces on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and ??? have given us Man Crush Monday, Woman Crush Wednesday, Throwback Thursday AND Flashback/Follow Friday, plus probably some kind of Tuesday thing, too. Every day is a day to create, like, and share #content based on a refillable theme unique to that particular day. But also, every day is a day to share what day it is, because every day is a day.

Next time you are scrolling through Facebook, no matter what day it is, head over to a page like Heart Touching, I Love My Bestfriends, or Days,Weeks and Months and you can see, well, what day it is. Unlike your friends and family’s #TBT posts which connect the concept of Thursday with, say, baby pictures — or, if your friends think they are funny, a “goof” “take” on baby pictures — these “Just for Fun” or “Community” pages share, amidst earnest memes, inspirational GIFs, and prayerful videos, image macros that will tell you what day of the week is, all without you having to ask. Usually they do so through several blocks of stylistically conflicting word art superimposed on an illustration of flowers, nature, animals, popular cartoon characters, coffee, and/or chocolate. It’s earnest, saccharine, and makes it feels sorta like Valentine’s Day every day, even if it’s just Wednesday.

Many of these day meme-sharing pages are very gently religious, quoting Bible verses but never hitting you over the head with them. They really never give you with that much information at all, besides what day it is and also maybe what time of that day it is (which, depending on what part of the world you live in, may or may not be accurate).

The “about” section of each page provides little information. Heart Touching just simply, accurately describes itself as, “Good Morning,Day,Night,Quotes,Pictures And Videos,” while I Love My Bestfriends, which often posts from Singapore, links to the personal profile of someone named Esay Bonghanoy in the Philippines, which links to another page called Inspiring Love of Friendship as well as a profile called Lady Sweet, which ends the circle with a link back to I Love My Bestfriends. A lot of the other links in these pages’ bios are broken. Without a working link in bio, meme browsers can lend all their attention to learning and/or reflecting on what day it is. It’s kind of zen.

Last year during a pay-what-you-wish yoga class, I was horrified to realize that I really bought into this mantra the instructor was saying. It went, “[Breathe in] I am [Breathe out] okay.” Hauntingly comforted by it, I began repeating the phrase ad nauseam in my head, under my breath, and occasionally loud enough that a friend asked me to stop because I was being so corny. It’s embarrassing but grounding to remember that I am okay, in any particular moment, even when everything else isn’t. When I first started finding the day memes online, which started with intentional searches of “It’s [day of the week” on Google image search (search tools > type > animated), I would scroll through endless GIFs, my mind strangely at ease thanks to whatever complete stranger is putting the effort into these images. The Internet is wild and so much of it is bad. For me, looking at a rose that tells me to have a nice Thursday is a brief but welcome respite.

By now, every time I log into Facebook, my habits have made it so the site’s algorithms populate the “Suggested Pages” homepage sidebar almost exclusively with recommendations like Good Day To All, and Good Morning, Day, Night and Evening Quotes and Pictures. I never have to ask anyone what day it is because I already know. I haven’t been to yoga in months. Can I Get An Amen And Share.

Jenny Nelson lives and writes in Brooklyn.

Did you ever hear the story of the week that wouldn’t end?

It seems like seven years ago we started on this week, and there’s a good reason for that: It was seven years ago. Scientists can’t quite explain why, but some shift in the space-time continuum — quite possibly related to the Presidential election, although conclusive evidence is as yet undiscovered — has resulted in each day now lasting 19 months. It is technically early in 2021 right now. By the time we meet back here again tomorrow it will be autumn, 2022. But at the very least it will be Friday. That’s right, people, if we can make it through another three years we will get to the weekend, at which point time will no doubt speed up to ensure that each day only lasts three hours. It’s a no-win situation.

What does win is this song, which Gorilla vs. Bear describes as “dreamy and hypnotic.” Gorilla vs. Bear is right! Please do enjoy. See you next year!

★★★ The rain had come on in the night and was moving away by morning, the sky going to a thinned blue. By midday the warmth of the sun and the lingering dampness had overshot fall and landed somewhere in April. The light was lovely but fugitive, now screened again by clouds, now clear but sinking fast. By day’s end it was just cool enough to remember the light jacket that had been forgotten on the back of the office chair, and to double back and get it.

A review of a new book that tells you how to pronounce words

Nobody likes being corrected but that never seems to stop us from doing it to each other. I am a huge offender of this pretty annoying habit, particularly when it comes to spelling. And yet somehow people call me a “grammar queen” or “grammar nerd” or some other sweetly derisive term for a fucking pedant. What annoys me about this is that grammar chiefly refers to the structural ways that words are put together in sentences, not which order the letters go in and which ones are used. But it’s too late for that distinction—most people today use the word “grammar” as an umbrella term to mean “stuff that’s wrong in the writing.” “Can you take a quick look at this for grammar mistakes etc.?” Yes, yes I can. I can take a look or give it a look, whichever you prefer.

So I understand the impetus for this project by Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras, the brother–sister team behind a new book, You’re Saying it Wrong: A Pronunciation Guide to the 150 Most Commonly Mispronounced Words and Their Tangled Histories of Misuse. In the introduction, they report, that 47 percent of Americans are “irritated” by mispronunciations and correct people (millennials are the worst offenders, at 63 percent). In Britain, they say, “a whopping 41 percent go on the attack and stop a conversation to correct someone else. Thus this book.” Setting aside cultural differences, that is essentially a non sequitur. It’s not clear what they mean by “thus”—is this book a weapon for those forty-some percent to wield, or is it a prophylactic for further embarrassment and shame?

There is a distinct reaction—almost a tactile feeling—people have when being corrected in public, of wanting to shrug you off or flick you away, as though you were a gnat or some sort of persistent moth. It’s unpleasant, and though they know you’re harmless and not setting out to hurt them, they’d just like you to please go away and let them do the wrong thing in peace. You’d think that discomfort would be enough to stop monsters like me, but we feed off of that escalation, and we come right back.

In practice, the book is largely an exercise in this same kind of tension, but drawn out and in slow motion. And just as you feel frustrated with a person who wants to correct you, you might find petty reasons to feel frustrated with this book. First of all, what even constitutes a mispronunciation? They’ve included misusages, mishearings, and malapropisms. For many words that have two dueling pronunciations, they give you both (neesh and nitch), There are foreign words that have been bastardized into English—how do we decide where the French stops and the English begins (OO-vruh vs. əv-ruh for oeuvre)? What about words that so many people pronounce wrong that the “wrong” sound has won out over “right” (comptroller vs. controller)? The Petrases acknowledge these inconsistencies, calling English a “growing language,” as though it were an eight-year-old boy finishing off a whole pack of pudding.

In this morass, see the need for guidelines, or lines of some sort. “Some dictionaries are very, shall we say, exuberant,” they write, in including so many possible pronunciations. They’re here to streamline, and “present the preferred pronunciations,” the ones most linguists and dictionaries and Americans agree with. While the Petrases are not linguists, they did consult a lot of dictionaries and other sources, and their book is by no means comprehensive. It’s an alphabetical, arbitrary selection of only a hundred and fifty words that they curated, with a lot of the ones you’d expect, and some that feel like they were chosen because they were Ross’s favorite. How often do you see, much less speak, the word sidereal (sye-DEER-ee-uhl)? And is it OFF-ten or OFF-in?

In fact, that’s my main criticism of this book, which is that it’s done by enthusiasts, but not professionals. Their pronunciation guide spellings, though non-technical and intended to be accessible, can be confusing. One way the Petrases could have improved this book vastly would have been to introduce their readers to “the dreaded schwa”—the upside-down e that basically means “any weird ‘ehh’ or ‘uhh’ sound”: ə. It’s the spelling bee contestant’s worst nightmare and trickster of many a Francophobe. You don’t have to go full International Phonetic Alphabet, but you can assume some level of dorky interest on the part of your reader if you’re going to give them a booklet full of actuallies.

The book is a hundred and eighty or so pages, with one word per page, and a few interstitial lists of largely proper nouns (art-world names, brand names, philosophers) that are commonly mispronounced. Philip Gourevitch is included on a list of “Great Minds” with Max Weber and Simone Weil, but Ed Ruscha somehow didn’t make a list of art-world luminaries along with Diane Arbus and Paul Klee. They want you to pronounce “buoy” like boy and restore the first ‘r’ sound in prerogative, because Latin.

The inclusion of true landmines like GIF and oeuvre are at once obvious and maddening—you have to include these words but no one wants to talk about them anymore. They’ve got the full sentence “I could care less” [eye cood care less], and the non-word “irregardless” [ri-GARD-lis]. For some reason the state of Oregon is included, but not Nevada. WHO MISPRONOUNCES OREGON? (Ed note: I’ve actually heard this a lot on the west coast). They tell us to pronounce liqueur as [li-KERR], which is of no help, because no one knows how to say Miranda Kerr’s last name—I just asked three people and I got three different answers: cuhr, car, care.

The best way to consume this book is in a room full of people who are from different parts of the country and have good senses of humor. Ask them how they pronounce each word that doesn’t seem obvious. Let the frustration and laughter and discussion ensue.

Right into your feed

I don’t know what your Instagram feed’s like, but for mine, the launch of stories hasn’t been the barrage of piping hot content I was promised. To be fair, my feed is largely full of civilians like me—relatives, people I was friends with growing up, internet buddies—and it turns out none of us are up to enough riveting shit to warrant the amount of updating a story provides.

Are there funny ones in there? Sure. But not so many that I’m revved up on the regular. As it stands, checking stories is an in-a-waiting-room-with-nothing-better-to-check-level social media practice, not a first-thing-in-the-morning-let’s-see-what-I-missed one.

There is, however, one exception. One story consistently cranking out stuff that’s not only fun, but worth looking at too. It’s the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, and I love it so much.

All of the posts are from a farm in Saugerties, New York, and you can tell that whoever’s running it is just having the best time. There’s plenty of coverage of the animals— you’ve got your video of a chicken poking around in some hay, your goat escaping his fenced-in enclosure—but the star as far as I’m concerned is a large pink pig named Sister Mary Frances. According to her bio, she’s a potbelly pig who came to live on the sanctuary after her family lost their home and could no longer care for her.

Look how beautiful:

Part of her charm is definitely her name. Why is she a nun? Is it my place as a human oppressor to try and apply my understanding of religion to her narrative?

But I also love that the other animals are usually up to something and Sister Mary Frances is, always, not.

In the mess of stories of people at bars, spotting funny signs, and taking indulgent selfies, here is a social media presence dedicated wholly and unabashedly to not being up to shit. Sister Mary Frances is not busy. Sister Mary Frances does not know or care that you are looking. She’s not a viral pet with disability or your coworker’s labradoodle with a custom hashtag, she’s just a normal, happy pig who happens to be near someone with a phone.

She will wake up today not thinking once about your gaze the same way she has every day of her muddy, pink life, and isn’t that lovely?

Give it a look and tell me I’m wrong.

For some reason this happened.

Look, the world in which we live stopped making sense to me a long time ago, so don’t expect answers or explanations about what follows.

If you are someone who prefers words to video, here you go. (After you read it please spend a second feeling sorry for the sad sonofabitch whose legacy this idiot post will be. Mere language cannot convey the depths of his shame.) Now let’s try to get on with our lives without mentioning it again. Thanks.