May 2010
24 posts
The Perfect Soup Dumpling →
Watch
“When I worked at Chez Panisse way back when, the worst thing you could imagine...”
– David Lebovitz
“Until the American people and the media actually witness Obama physically...”
– from Daily Intel
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"Up and then Down" →
Great New Yorker piece from 2008, about elevators.
In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press...
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“Applicants themselves discovered the word by flipping over a single sheet of...”
– “Oxford Tradition Comes to This: ‘Death’ (Expound),” New York Times
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“During her interview for the school, Maya says, she told the admissions officer...”
– “M.I.A.’s Agitprop Pop,” New York Times
Made more interesting by the fact that M.I.A. tweeted Lynn Hirschberg’s phone number after the piece came out.
Great Literature Retitled To Boost Website... →
A McSweeney’s list.
My favorite:
5 Insane Ways London Could Become a Dystopia (And How It’s Not That Far From Reality)
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“Back in the day, we became writers through the laying on of hands. Some teacher...”
– “The End of an Era in Publishing,” International Herald Tribune
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“But now, Ms. Bickel said, young people in Munich, Bavaria’s capital, just grab a...”
– “Making Soft Pretzels the Old-Fashioned Way,” New York Times
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"Sexy Beast" in the Stranger →
“A giant Pacific octopus has sex only once, then loses its mind and dies. The sex itself is dull. Octopuses tire easily—their blood isn’t so good at carrying oxygen—so the athletics are minimal.”
A great 5,600-word piece by Brendan Kiley from 2009 about octopi. Octopuses. Octopodes!
* People used to think the word “octopus” came from Latin and its plural was...
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“Anything that gets invented between [when you’re born] and before you turn...”
– Douglas Adams, “How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet” (via themorningnews)
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Raising the Dead: The Incredible Story of Extreme... →
“Still, Shaw felt remarkably relaxed, sweeping his light left and right, reveling in the fact that he was the first human ever to lay line at this depth. Suddenly, he stopped. About 50 feet to his left, perfectly illuminated in the gin-clear water, was a human body. It was on its back, the arms reaching toward the surface. Shaw knew immediately who it was: Deon Dreyer, a 20-year-old...
