by John Shankman

Over the next few weeks for a sponsored project on behalf of Byliner, The Billfold’s Mike Dang and our publisher John Shankman will be selecting stories from the Byliner platform and chatting about them.

John: hey miiiike
whats going on

Mike: Hey John!

John: how are you doing?
big weekend?

Mike: Things are great! Yeah, I just got back from a weekend away in the Poconos where I spent a lot of time hiking and grilling steaks. And reading! Want to talk about what we read this week?

John: definitely
I AM READY

Mike: Haha, what did you read this time around?

John: Tribeca Tale by Karl Taro Greenfield

Mike: Is this about TriBeCa in downtown Manhattan?

John: indeed
its a fictional story that reads like something that should be made into a short film

Mike: Oooh. Sounds like a winner! What cinematic aspects did you read in it?

John: hm that question actually may be above my pay grade
but in general the story followed an alpha male character who hustled his way through some sort of organized crime to be able to now live with his family on three floors in tribeca and rubbing elbows with the type of people who live in tribeca- doctors, lawyers, music producers

the story is pretty interesting in that while it details who this man is and alludes to some of his more nefarious history, the main story line is how he navigates dealing with his 8 year old daughter getting bullied at private school

Mike: Can you tell us how he handles it, or would that give too much of the story away?

John: hm, yah kinda
that navigation of that is sort of the story
or at least the closing note

Mike: My parents were the kind who told me to fight, instead of telling an adult

John: that is a big part of the story: can adults handle who handle “business” also handle their children’s business

Interested in reading more? Byliner has thousands of great fiction and nonfiction stories. Check it out here.

Photo credit: Photo by Flickr user by specialoperations

Oh man, Mike Leigh’s Naked is somehow 20 years old. If you have never seen it don’t do anything else but figure out a way to see it as close to immediately as is possible for you. Everyone else can read these little interviews with Leigh and actor Greg Crutwell and this longer, earlier piece with David Thewlis.

“A music review on Friday about ‘Era la Notte,’ a dramatic staging of four 17th-century Italian vocal works at the Rose Theater in Manhattan, referred incorrectly to the narrative part in one piece, ‘Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda’ by Monteverdi. The lines are delivered by an unnamed narrator — not by a character named Testo, which is the Italian word for text.”

Further updates from our losing the war against trees:

Already this season, slippery rail conditions caused by leaves have delayed Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains more than 700 times.

On the subway, the B and Q trains have been held up regularly as they go aboveground through Brooklyn’s leafier precincts.

How can fluttering foliage bring down a mighty rail network?

The culprit is pectin, the same stuff that causes jelly to jell.

It’s in leaves.

When trains run over wet leaves, “it actually creates a slurry,” said John Pesich, a vice president at Metro-North.

Are we even a society at this point? Or are we just animals.

by Stacey Woods

The Miranda Kerr Waistline Fiasco — in which the Victoria’s Secret model instagramed a photo misrepresentative of her body’s true dimensions — shouldn’t have inspired yet another meditation about the prevarications of Photoshop. We all know about Photoshop — how it’s used and what it’s capable of. We’ve all got Photoshop’s number. What The Miranda Kerr Waistline Fiasco should, and with any luck will, turn out to be is a watershed event about our culture’s new and exciting interpretation of the word “support.”

To recap: last week, Victoria’s Secret had a fashion show. Unable to participate, Kerr stealthily instagrammed a photo of herself from last year’s show and included the caption: ‘Sending love and best wishes to the #vsangels from Japan xxx.’ (I would’ve chosen the blunter, “Um, in case you guys forgot, I’m a Victoria’s Secret Angel too. I’m just not there tonight, okay?” but she spun it differently and I guess that’s okay.) Then, a small but vocal faction of her 2.6 million followers, recalling the original photo from their backlog of (we might suspect) masturbation inventory, noted that Kerr’s waist looked suspiciously over-hewn and swiftly supplied evidence to support that the photo had been altered.

The typical fury reverberated. How could a supermodel — a Victoria’s Secret Angel no less — be party to such inanity? The next day, Kerr retorted. She correctly ‘grammed the original image with the following explanation: “Hi guys, here is the original VS image! When I re-posted the photo this week to support the girls I screen grabbed it off the internet when I was working in Japan. I had no idea it was photoshopped.”

“To support the girls”?

Throughout the Miranda Kerr Waistline Fiasco, all the expected points about body image and the evils of fashion were raised and bandied, but at no point did anyone single out the one rotted kernel at its withered, dirty cob: the idea that this has anything to do with support.

Hi guys, here is the original VS image! When I re-posted the photo this week to support the girls I… http://t.co/ejtqqzKvjk

— Miranda Kerr (@MirandaKerr) November 15, 2013

Support has always been able to waffle between activity and passivity without much contention from anyone. You can support civil rights by getting crushed by a tank, or you can support your favorite team by sitting on your couch and eating potato chips. Both are accepted usage and I won’t argue with either — even when “support” comes in the form of a tepid Facebook wall condolence after a funeral or the wearing of a new shade of ribbon.

But, to my knowledge, the Miranda Kerr Waistline Fiasco marks the first and most public incident wherein the support itself was entirely an act of self-promotion.

Let’s imagine the following scenario: It’s moments before the big Victoria’s Secret fashion show. All the Angels are as nervous as can be. How are they going to pull this off? Will their wings stay on? Will they trip and fall? What if no one claps? So many things are running through their heads. Then, one of the girls checks her phone. “Look, everyone! It’s here!” she exclaims, and shows the other angels the photo of Miranda in lingerie. They all breathe huge sighs of relief. Now everything will be okay! And the show goes off without a hitch.

Support doesn’t have to be merely passive anymore. It can actually form the basis for all kinds of new bragging. This new support is unquestionably better for everyone, but if only had been invented sooner! Instead of leading the March on Washington, Martin Luther King could’ve just sent over a picture of himself marching around his house in a bikini. Instead of invading Normandy, General Montgomery could’ve just posted a shot of himself from some other battle. “Good luck, chaps! Miss you xoxo!” There’s no telling how many horrors could have been avoided, but thanks to Miranda Kerr, and other tireless self-serving supporters out there, we can start to turn things around. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go Snapchat the IRS.

Just finished my evening yoga routine…Namaste and God bless ❤

★ The sky was a white-gray blank, seemingly depthless and inert, defeating the eye that tried to find something to focus on. Then a heavy, fine rain began, restoring distance and perspective. The playroom filled up with children as the rain soaked the terrace and dripped from the railings. A toddler drove off in the kiddie car the older children were using as a soccer goalpost. An older child grew angry and defiant. A warm damp wind blew the door open and held it open. New Jersey and uptown were all but gone; the mist closed in on the top of a not-particularly-tall apartment building. The trees, at least, were still darkly colorful.

“Antibiotics aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do anymore. You know, kill infections. Since Alexander Fleming invented penicillin 75 years ago, nearly all bacteria have mutated into strains impervious to antibiotics. Those souped up bacteria now kill hundreds of thousands of people, at a minimum, each year. And according to a new issue of medical journal The Lancet focused on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, things could soon get a whole lot scarier.”

Forget everything I said before, let’s just all stay very quiet and hope the year ends earlier than usual.

The people who were young and fell in love and started out on their life’s journey when the Beatles began, who marked the tentative forays into adulthood to the music of the band and who saw each subsequent step soundtracked to their songs will all be dead soon and then this will just be the sonic residue of the past. Everything you listen to now will similarly someday be the music young people hear with an academic ear and the detachment brought about by distance. No matter how crucial what happens today might seem, come tomorrow none of it will count for anything. We’re all meaningless specks of dust being blown toward an oblivion that could care less whether or not we become a part of it. We return to the nothing whence we came having left little to mark our brief presence on the face of the earth. The Beatles’ On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2 is available now.