Few things in life are certain, but there is one area of human behavior I fancy myself something of an expert -- in fact, I rate my own judgment in this area so highly that I can confidently claim to predict the response of every conscious being with 100% accuracy, should you find yourself in a wagering mood. This is a social experiment that will require a little effort on your part, but I guarantee…
1. Instead of dreaming to someday win the Silver Skates in the great December ice-skating race, Andy Brinker hopes to earn 200 dollars a week by joining Team X-Bladz. 2. While Hans' father Raff is ill and unable to work due to a head injury sustained from working on the canals of Amsterdam, Andy gets suspended from high school for rollerblading on school grounds. 3. In Hans Brinker, Hans lends his skate to his friend Peter,…
"The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor." - Kohlberg's stages of moral development "Shells sink, dreams float. Life's good on our boat." - Jimmy Buffett 1. No VOP: only self and the norm are recognized (blind egoism) Nibblin' on sponge cake, watchin' the sun bake All of those tourists covered with oil Strummin' my six string On my…
It is impossible for any character to make it through an entire Decemberists song without drowning; heaven help us if anyone ever relates the tale of Atlantis to Colin Meloy, who will immediately begin to shake and bleed and spew out song lyrics about sailors walled up in catacombs and ancient queens' abortions if he ever learns that there is an entire drowned city in the annals of folklore. If someone is not drowning, they are…
Instead of taking the stairs, visualize yourself on the floor you want. Your self-confidence will get you there. Try to make sure you get up every hour or so at work and quit. Make this the year you stop drinking water. It's a crutch, and you don't need it. It actually doesn't matter how much sleep you get in a night -- all that's important is that you regularly lay motionless in the dark for…
I do not remember offhand what I was doing for the entirety of 2004; playing a bit of indifferent tennis on the William Fremd frosh/soph high school team, to be sure; carefully nursing a hallway crush that necessitated careful class-navigation strategizing; rollerblading to Subway with my friend Emily a lot, because we both really enjoyed Subway. I think I worked at Portillo's that summer, but I can't be entirely certain. What I most assuredly was not…
Previously: The Rise and Fall of Fox Civilization in Disney Films. Generally it is possible to establish a sort of makeshift sliding scale of animal morality and sentience in most Disney films by sorting them into a carniverous/anthropomorphic matrix: animals that eat other animals are likeliest (though not always) to be villains, animals with the most human-like characteristics are likeliest to be heroes. And yet there is a maddening inconsistency to this sorting mechanism:…
Don't be alarmed. Please -- sit down. It's very important that no matter what happens during our conversation, you move as little as possible. No, don't get up. Please. You've got to listen to me. There's a book inside of you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We've suspected it for some time, as you know. There was a time we believed that almost everyone had a book inside of them, but fortunately that's turned out…
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. I think a little vanity can be healthy, especially when you work so hard to take care of your appearance. Just don't overdo it! (But I know you won't.) What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? You've been working really hard, and you deserve how…
Hi. I'm Ani DiFranco. You may remember me from such things as singing like a wizard trapped inside an aged toad is trapped inside of my throat and being allergic to capital letters. I'm here to talk to you about something that's very close to my heart today: writing songs on old slavery plantations.
Previously in Literary Trysts It Gives Me Great Joy To Think About: Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman totally did it. There are precious few things in life worth knowing; the fact that celebrated American novelist Alice Walker and legendary folk singer Tracy Chapman had a romantic relationship in the middle of the 1990s is one of them. What. Yes. Hi. What. No. Yes. In a way, somehow I think I have always known. For a…
"Stop in the name of the law!" "Not tonight, baby."
-Poison Ivy, "Harley and Ivy"
I'm going to try very hard to make sure this doesn't just turn into a bullet-point list of reasons you should watch (or rewatch) Batman: The Animated Series, so I will confine my remarks about the series as a whole to this opening paragraph: it was the greatest animated series in the entire 1990s, a decade bursting…
When I saw the little red notification this morning, my heart both sank and hissed in delight within me. How he has sunk, I thought to myself, and I was not at all wrong. You abject, you pathetic, you craven child, to come crawling to me, begging me to approve of whatever vile little endeavor you have cobbled together to convince yourself that you exist. How like you, at this late point, to suggest to me…
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. She said it -- as she said it every day -- to an empty room, just a little after nine o'clock in the morning, and appeared satisfied with the answer. She spent a moment arranging herself. Shoes had become more difficult since the war -- which war she wasn't quite sure of at the moment, for some reason -- so she finally gave up on putting…
In the course of my daily work, I sometimes find occasion to visit coffee shops, where I am often witness to introductory job interviews. I could not put my finger on what exactly about these interviews bothered me -- other than the inherent degradation -- until this morning, when I heard yet another interviewee respond to the question "Can I get you anything?" with "I'm fine, thanks." This is then followed by no more than…
