Mallory is in the wilds of Yosemite, so I am holding it down solo for a while this morning (puts feet on desk, flexes fingers behind head) but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let any of you take an inch.
Super, super fascinating read on the New York City Ballet’s trip to Moscow in 1962:
New York City Ballet brought 61 dancers, ranging from 16-year-olds fresh out of the School of American Ballet, to established principal dancers in their late 20s and 30s. They were accompanied by Balanchine, Kirstein, Betty Cage, and a company doctor; four conductors and pianists, who had the task of rehearsing the Soviet orchestra that would travel with them on tour; their stage manager and a small crew; four wardrobe personnel; and chaperones for the dancers under age 18. They would be met by interpreters provided by Goskontsert and attachés from the U.S. Embassy.
On the books given away by publishers during WWII:
“Dog-eared and moldy and limp from the humidity those books go up the line,”wrote a war reporter from the southwest Pacific. “Because they are what they are, because they can be packed in a hip pocket or snuck into a shoulder pack, men are reading where men have never read before.” A lieutenant in the Marshall Islands wrote of seeing men devour books “by a dim flashlight under a shelter half, even after the air-raid siren has already blown and they should be in a foxhole.” Another soldier reported that “the books are read until they fall apart.”
Cool interview with the woman who created that gorgeous credit sequence for Captain America 2:
What’s your favorite part of the sequence?
My favorites of the actor vignettes are Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan. They are just so simple and well executed. It’s not easy to refine something into its simplest form and still have it look right. Especially in silhouette, where the slightest thing being off will make the person look unrecognizable. We literally talked about Chris’s eyelashes for days.
My favorite transition is when we are in the red world and Captain America tosses the shield and it cracks the screen. We then reveal a star and turn to show Chris Evans’ card. It’s the perfect combination of editorial and seamless transitions.
AHP on Tinder!
A reader discovered this very, very Toast-appropriate “Nantucket Girl’s Song” in Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea:
I will read ANYTHING on The Knowledge, but this is also objectively great.
Some WORKED. UP. crossworders over here. Oh, man.
On preventing domestic violence, and what the NFL could look to for suggestions.
Because I am a cruel editor, I wish once more to draw your attention to L Bear’s very upsetting short story “Pink and White,” which I think is just an incredible piece of writing.
SCREW YOU. Americans, man.
The below video is about this nonsense here:
