Goldfrapp, "Annabel"
Tales of Us is out next week and you should totally get it I’m not even kidding it’s so good etc.
Dogs, Urine, Nazi Bombs... They Are All Mentioned In This Story
“Story of brave dog that extinguished Nazi incendiary bomb during Blitz by urinating on it is uncovered after bravery medal awarded to the animal is discovered,” is a sentence that appeared in a newspaper today.
Now I Can't Wait To Vote For Bill de Blasio!
Looking for that final push to get on the Bill de Blasio team? Here, mm hmm, here are a ton of billionaires complaining about paying slightly greater taxes so as to fund all-day pre-K for New York City’s children! I just climbed entirely off that fence and am about to go to de Blasio campaign headquarters and become one of those crazies who doorknocks and whatnot.
“Anybody who proposes raising taxes in the city of New York is barking up the wrong tree,” is the money quote from Peter Solomon — former Lehman Brothers vice-chair. Oh do tell us more about how finance should work, Mr. Lehman Brothers.
New York City’s taxes suck, quite unbelievably, yes, and are really pretty terrible for small business owners and middle class people! But you know what’s not a hardship? “For the 27,300 city taxpayers earning $500,000 to $1 million, the average increase would be $973 a year.” LOL. Maybe just don’t buy that set of sheets and go to bed happy that you’ve changed a child’s life. Whatever. Pony up, dog! Hooray, only six more days until I can vote for Bill de Blasio!
Google Is 15
On this day in 1998, Stanford University Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google, currently the world’s greatest Internet company and what will eventually be the world’s greatest company for whatever Google eventually decides to become. How great is Google? Google could not be greater! And I am not just saying that because they have so much of my personal information that just doing a quick mental inventory of the things they know about me — things I probably don’t even know, or want to admit, about myself — provokes an astounding degree of anxiety and regret and recriminations of the “how could you be so stupid, giving up that much privacy just so you could have a convenient way to access email? Idiot! Death would be to easy and good for you.” variety. No, Google would be amazing no matter how many of my secrets and lies they could access and share with the world at any moment, which I’m sure they won’t do just because they are so super super super great. Super. Happy birthday, Google! Please keep that thing you have the pictures of quiet. You know what I’m talking about.
Women Be Eating
You know, if you start letting women have lunch together, who knows what they’ll get up to next? Reading? Voting? MENSTRUATING? Hmm, okay, I guess that last one is fine, but the rest of it sets some very disturbing precedents.
Roger Federer Will Be Avenged Tonight!
OR WILL HE. Tennis, politics and weather! Plus a few things to do.
"Sit On My Face"
He ordered. 1
He implored, barely audible. 2
Nina’s expression doesn’t change. 3
Would that turn you on, boob momma? 4
Because I am one horny motherfucker! 5
For another couple of minutes. 6
If you pay me enough. 7
And tell me that you love me. 8
For a bit. 9
Perfectly, he said. 10
Yeah. 11
By accident. 12
Stevie Nicks! 13
“HELL NO!” 14
“Man.” 15
Chorused a third. 16
ANY TIME. 17
Anytime. 18
1. Letters To Penthouse XXVII: The First Time Is the Hottest [source]
2. Pleasures of the Flesh, John Patrick [source]
3. The Way the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie Macdonald [source]
4. Such a Pretty Face, Cathy Lamb [source]
5. The Green Mile [source]
6. The Best American Erotica 2007, Susie Bright, editor [source]
(7) I and Claudius: Travels with My Cat, Clare De Vries [source]
(8) “Sit On My Face” [source]
(9) The Daily Beast, “I Got a $180 Bird-Poop Facial” [source]
(10) The New York Times, “Working With a Classic Frame of Reference” [source]
(11) It’s Good To Be The King… Sometimes, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler [source]
(12) Shadow University, Terry Cunningham [source]
(13) Spin, “Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks!” [source]
(14) I Have a Nightmare: What American Dream?, Wolf Larsen [source]
(15) The New Yorker, “Nachman From Los Angeles” [source]
(16) Temporary Insanity, Leslie Carroll [source]
(17) The Sound of No Hands Clapping, Toby Young [source]
(18) Dispatches, Michael Herr [source]
There’s a special place in hell…
What we talk about when we talk about…
It is a truth universally acknowledged…
Elon Green is a contributing editor to Longform. Photo by Chris Christian.
New York City, September 2, 2013
[No stars] The fog on the river was not a dramatic fog, just a thinnish and mediocre one. Nevertheless it was clinging. The children took a lap or two around the building deck and went into the playroom. On the other side of the glass door, in the gym, people were spending the early middle of the holiday pounding away on the treadmills. Outside, the humid air and the stillness of the streets created a thick hush, like water in the ear canals. Old puddles, left from who knows when, lined the curb by the Gray’s Papaya. The sweat that rose might as well have been sweated into plastic wrap. Eventually, there would be an undramatic rain shower. Eventually, there would be a little sun, even — insultingly little, and too late to do any good.
New York City, September 1, 2013
★ The newly opened sunscreen — the wrong one, from Rite-Aid’s mismatched and depleted inventory — reeked of cosmetic fumes. It was almost unnecessary, probably; the light outside was attenuated and discolored, like the glow of a failing fluorescent. Wet, foul air lay under brown clouds, forbidding but irresolutely so. Even the swarm of taxis coming up the avenue looked dull-colored.