This is pretty great:
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Amazon is terrible for the book business, but so great for buying cheap cases of paper towels with Prime.
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I would genuinely love to talk about Rupert Murdoch, Wendi Deng, and Tony Blair at this time. GIRL, you know what Rupert is like, why are you writing yourself NOTES about your LOVER? Also, man, wouldn’t it be great to say “I’m off to the Carmel ranch for the weekend with my collection of powerful female friends”?
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Mallory’s sister (an accomplished human in her own right) presents movies for Valentine’s Day truthers:
We all know St. Valentine was killed in 1648 when, after signing the Peace of Westphalia, Ferdinand III drowned him in a sea of red roses. His soul, aka “Cupid,” rose like a phoenix from the rose petals and came in a dream to young John G. Hallmark of Brooklyn, NY, some years later.
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Wikipedia lists of women, ranked.
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This piece by Roger Angell is paywalled (subscribe!) but if you can read it, please please do. He is one of the most beautiful writers we have. Here’s his New Yorker archive, many of which are free, and they are not all about sports, I promise.
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Women: we know how to be friends!
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Here are book recommendations for Pitch Perfect characters, and also an opportunity to talk about Pitch Perfect 2. I may have read the non-fiction book the movie was “based on” (worth it), and then watched a BUUUUUUNCH of YouTube videos, including this one where the BYU women’s group sings in the middle of Ice Planet Hoth (on a clear day.) Ugh, I love this shit. They are almost certainly pretending they are singing to Jesus, but I love it.
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Speaking of sequels we’re anticipating: Magic Mike 2.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I have emailed companies with the “if you had this in size X, I would have spent $Y” and let me just say, they have the MOST BULSHITTY responses. Varying from like, “WOW, thanks for letting us know!!!!!!!” to “We don’t have enough room in our warehouse!!!!!!!” to “We have no plans to expand our sizing.” It’s depressing.
If you’re dealing with a big chain, how much control does an individual store have over what number/percentage of each size they stock? I’m guessing that’s controlled at a higher level, but I don’t know.
Not saying that consumers shouldn’t be able to have input (I know it annoys the heck out of me when there’s nothing but extra-smalls left on the rack) but a store manager might not have the authority to help, even if they want to.
ETA: It sounds like you were emailing the companies’ customer service departments, in which case their responses are really disappointing, but the original article says to hand the cards to the store manager.
Yeah, having worked retail I know stores dont have control over what they get sent. I emailed and called customer service representatives from large online retailers like jcrew (which has a limited plus size selection) and title nine (which doesnt stock any plus sizes, but carries brands that offer plus sizes) because in both cases it seemed like it would be possible, however remotely, that they COULD carry more sizes.
I get that there are sound business reasons to add more sizes or not add more sizes, although most of the reasons in the “don’t add” column really only apply to brick-and-mortar stores.
BUT (1) of course, there’s no reason to be a condescending butt about it, and (2) what is up with companies reducing the number of sizes? I’ve never felt more insulted by a clothing company’s policies in my life than the time I walked into a store I had shopped for years only to find they had stopped making XL.
It’s INCREDIBLY depressing. And while I love the idea of those cards, I don’t love giving them to some minimum-wage retail employee who then has one more thing to throw out.
(BUT SERIOUSLY. Manufacturers, I would give you so much money in exchange for cute clothes in size fat.)
Yeah, the idea is cool, but I don’t like the idea of handing them to a minimum wage employee who’s going to think that I blame them personally, when they have no control over it. And even if they do pass it to their manager, their manager probably can’t fix it either. So mostly the idea is cool but the execution is “making more garbage for the employees.”
AND it conflates the issue of “this store doesn’t stock above size 16” or whatever, and the issue of “They never have any size 8s because everyone in town wears a size 8 and they never have my size.” Which are two different issues.
Yeah, as a has-been minimum-wage employee that was subject to many gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) critiques of the overall business from well-meaning customers, it’s just not worth your time. Get in touch with customer service.
Yep. They can’t help you. Been there, done my time in retail, still fail to understand why people critique the business to the clerk who has absolutely nothing to do with it.
And even if the clerk passes the message on to management/customer service, management is just going to think that the person with the grievance doesn’t care enough to actually contact the proper people. Managers are more likely to pay attention when people contact them directly than when they’re hearing something from the bottom ranks.
Yeah, “sold out” is a really different thing than “don’t carry, ever.”
I have definitely walked into boutique-type stores and before looking at anything, asked the person working if they had anything that would fit me, been told no, and turned back around. NB: I wear 12/14.
Guys, I just go online, that’s where all the cute clothes in size fat are.
Going online is rarely a “just” for me. When I go into a brick and mortar store and can actually see the clothing up close and have a better idea of how it will fit me, I still end up liking maybe 1/5th of what I try on. Ordering online is an even bigger crapshoot, and returns can be a pain in the ass. You do what you have to do, but I hate being stuck buying online because the stores near me don’t have fat girl clothes.
Yes this exactly. Not that there are any brick and mortar stores within a 1-hr trip of me that carry clothes in my size (RIP Lane Bryant at Pentagon City, apparently) but the rest of it, yeah.
Yup. I DO buy all my clothes online, but I hate that I HAVE to.
Right? This feels like the liberal equivalent of those cards libertarians hand out in lieu of tipping servers because of Obamacare, or whatever. It’s rude and it doesn’t actually do anything.
Right. It seems to me that these cards would only work for a small, independent business. I used to work for a shop where the customers could often talk to the owner of the store if they were looking for something in particular. But sadly, that kind of interaction seems to be rare these days, so the chance of getting your voice heard is teeny.
Yuuuuup. When I staffed a locally owned boutique, I worked in-store 5-6 days weekly and consulted with the owner on buying. In that local business, these cards would have worked*, if we define working as “someone who makes buying decisions sees your feedback.”
This is another good reason to buy locally. The buy local movement isn’t only about keeping money invested in the local economy; it’s also about spending money with individual or small-scale businesses, where your individual, idiosyncratic needs might be heard and respected, where your patronage and input can actually shape how a business shapes its inventory and its market.
*But maybe that’s not saying much: we already stocked as wide a size range as our designers offered, requested that they expend that size range, and put our money where our mouths were by buying up every “specialty size” they offered.
This is interesting because I find the WORST stores are the small locally owned ones. I live in Chicago and have never found a store of that kind that stocked even XL, whereas I know if I go to Gap or whatever I can find that size. In every other area of my life, I try to buy local, but I’ve never been able to do it with clothes, and I’m just a size 14/XL which is not particularly out of the ordinary.
“McConaughey owes his recent run of critical success to his role as Dallas in Magic Mike, according to a really lazy theory that I have.”
I think this theory is quite plausible.
(Also, the comments on that article are brilliant. There are Raven references.)
Hey guys? Why didn’t I like Magic Mike as much as I expected I would? I watched it at home alone instead of in a movie theater full of rowdy people, but still… I thought it was just meh.
I am solidly on the fence about it, but thought McConaughey was delightful.
That’s true. Kevin Nash was also pretty amazing in it. I just thought the plot was sooooo boooooring.
I spent most of that movie thinking Kevin Nash was Mickey Rourke.
Same diff really
I agree! It was an extreme meh. Possibly it’s because the plot was super predictable? And because Channing Tatum has a headneck, which doesn’t do it for me? And Allison Williams was bland as Joyce Carol Oatemeal?
Allison Williams was in it?
Ok apparently the girl is named Cody Horn. I thought she was Allison Williams. I am confused. But whoever she is, she’s boring!!!
So boring she might as well be someone else altogether! Headneck! Oatesmeal! You guys are cracking me up today!
I was watching Step Up on TV this weekend and I realized that I find literally nothing about Channing Tatum attractive except his abs and the fact that he can dance. I don’t know why this was such a revelation, especially since I’ve never been a strong Tatum-ist before, but I guess that’s what dance movie marathons on MTV will do to you.
For me it’s all about the jaw-clench.
It was meh. The stripping scenes were great fun, especially in a theater full of rowdy people, but the actual plot was dull. And the love interest looked like she was constantly sucking on sour lemons.
Also, not enough Joe Maganiello.
Agreed on all counts!
I thought it was a decent romcom, though I did wish there was more focus on mostly-naked Matt Bomer.
I don’t know about you, but I was honestly hoping it’d just be Showgirls 2: Electric Wang-a-loo, so all the Soderberghian emotional talky stuff was wasted on me.
Showgirls 2: Electric Wang-a-loo
You just won the internet. SHUT IT DOWN
I didn’t see Magic Mike because I think maybe CHANNING TATUM IS GROSS, whew, feels good to get that out there. But, damn, do I find Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle character compelling in True Detective.
SO here for the list of women that lead a revolt or rebellion ♥_♥ Excuse me while I follow wikipedia links into the sunset.
Whoa Wendi was trippin on Tony Blair damn girl.
*looks at Wikipedia “List of suffragists and suffragettes”* *gazes at picture of Anna Howard Shaw* *makes mental note to tell all friends, family, and coworkers to have a happy Anna Howard Shaw day on Friday*
Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day to us all!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osSQPaA7wSg
If there’s to be a sequel to Magic Mike, does that mean I would be well-served to actually watch the first movie and not just fast-forward through it to the good (read: dancey) bits?
Oh, I think no matter what it is worth it. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it gave me a lot of feelings (sad ones! and also thoughts about masculinity which, oh, stop). Also, I think it is really well put together, and if you are in the eternal tundra that is most of the US right now, the warm setting will either make you daydream or weep.
“the warm setting will either make you daydream or weep”
It’s not just the Warm Setting that makes me daydream and weep IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
There is a youtube video of Channing Tatum “dancing” from his stripper days…and it was kinda disappointing after seeing Magic Mike. His “dancing” skills were not as strong back then.
I don’t find Channing Tatum very attractive so I was always sad during Magic Mike when the more dancey bits stopped and the stripping started.
There is a plot of sorts. It’s not entirely terrible.
I’m generally perturbed by the almost complete lack of bookstores IRL these days, and also just plain aggravated by capitalism most of the time… BUT (of course there’s a but) Amazon does make all books ever really accessible. Over the course of the last couple weeks I was recommended a book by my therapist, realized I lost a coveted copy of a somewhat obscure theologists, and then decided I really wanted to read this other academic-y book that keeps popping up, and I found all of these on Amazon immediately and for under $3 each. Used bookstores IRL serve a different purpose, they’re for browsing and discovering mostly, not dependable for grabbing something specific. The used book directory that Amazon facilitates really does seem to fill a gap in the market and open up, at least for me (a poor college grad, with academic/ literary interest, but no fantasies of grad school) a world of books that were previously inaccessible, too expensive ($13-$20 new) and hard to find both at local bookstores and libraries. I dunno…
I totally get what you’re saying. If I’m buying new books, I’ll go to my lovely local bookstore–if they don’t have it in stock, I’ll have them order it. But if I’m looking for a specific used book, or something that’s harder to find, that’s where I’ll go to Amazon.
I try to shop at local bookstores as much as I can, but the only ones near me, and I live in Chicago, are used bookstores. Now, they are awesome and amazing (I live within walking distance of Myopic, for which I thank the gods daily), but also not good for when a new book I want comes out. I really do miss the sensation of walking into a bookstore and seeing all the new books laid out.
OK, while I don’t necessariily agree with Amazon’s business practices, you can’t exactly say that publishers are not at all at fault is. The fact of the matter is, publishing, as a business model, MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. There is literally no other industry where the people who the stores buy their stock from BUY BACK ANYTHING THEY DIDN’T SELL. I didn’t know this until I went back to school to learn about the publishing biz, and pretty much everything I learned made me run away from the publishing biz (well, the book part, though maybe I should have run away from it all). Publishers are just as much at fault for being dinosaurs who pretty much still haven’t figured out how to change in order to make money.
Yeah, I looked at the map in Jaya’s YA post, immediately clicked the link for the book and downloaded it for my kindle so I can read it during my commute. I love my local bookstore, and I feel bad for not supporting them more, but I admit it’s pretty amazing that I can immediately have a book in my hands like that.
Lots of local bookstores are selling ebooks now through indiebound.com. The problem is the Kindle is basically a monopoly machine; you can’t really buy books from other sources to put on it. Same economic model as buying a razor for cheap and then having to buy that brand of razor blades forever.
Actually, if you already have a Kindle and don’t want to re-invest in another e-reader, as long as the file you’re buying from a local/indie seller doesn’t have DRM, Calibre (an e-book management software) can very easily convert the file to .mobi and upload it to your Kindle.
My Kindle Paperwhite is filled with books from all kinds of sources. I wish I had gone with a different e-reader, but since I didn’t, I’m trying to make the most of this one!
You can do both (support local bookstores and e-read). http://bookriot.com/2013/09/24/buy-ebooks-indepen…
The Magic Mike sequel will still have the Pony dance, right?
SPEAKING OF WHICH, Jezebel ran a video yesterday (yesterday?) of one of Evgeni Plushenko’s old exhibition figure skating routines with Pony dubbed over it, and it’s…something.
The infamous Sex Bomb skate, which put the exhibition in exhibitionist.
yessssss. Made even better (?) by the new soundtrack.
He’s a silly silly man.
Oh god, am I actually going to go to Jezebel to find this? I might just.
*girds loins for battle*
WAIT don’t go, here’s the link! Figure skating to Pony
THANK. YOU.
Edit: Ah ha ha ha ha! I should’ve known this would be the Sex Bomb performance. <3
OF COURSE. Muscle shirt and all.
Ha I was hoping that if I waited long enough, the link would magically appear!
That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen.
In the late ’90’s, I went to a male strip club several times with my best friend and my HOMEROOM TEACHER (ooooh) and Pony was for sure the most popular stripping song, sometimes to great effect. Also very popular, oddly: “Let Me Clear My Throat” by DJ Kool. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There was also a guy who did a whole vampire thing in a poet shirt (well, in a poet shirt briefly). He’d drop down from the rafters and strip to Cry Little Sister from the Lost Boys soundtrack. Male stripping is bonkers (or was, in the late ’90’s – I haven’t been in years cause honestly male strippers unnerve me a little bit. They’re so large and oily and hairless, like shaved Clydesdales!)
Oh my God, I am intensely interested in that guy’s vampire stripping routine, SOMEONE FETCH ME A TIME MACHINE AND DIRECTIONS TO THAT STRIP CLUB.
SAVE A SEAT FOR ME.
It was pretty elaborate. I seem to remember some girl from the audience would be picked to sit in a chair and he’d like drop down behind her FROM ABOVE! and be real uh, vampire-y at her for a while? He had lots of long curly hair that he’d drape about dramatically, and it was very “Interview with the Vampire” minus the homoeroticism. Then, nudity!
There was also a guy who dressed like a construction worker who would inexplicably get into a baby pool full of oil. I failed to see how those two things were connected at the time and frankly, it’s never become any less confusing.
“Also very popular, oddly: “Let Me Clear My Throat” by DJ Kool. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ”
This song reminds me of roller rinks, and now we’re going to need a male stripper on rollerskates STAT. Or at least a guy naked powersliding through some balloons. SOMETHING.
It was kind of Wendy Deng to save Rupert Murdoch the trouble of hacking in to her phone.
After reading that quote from Mallory’s sister, and that comment from Mallory’s dad a few days ago, I am starting to wonder if the Ortbergs are not some kind of mutant family passing down a Superhuman Hilarity gene from generation to generation.
I had the same thought. We can only wonder what her mother is like…
She is probably a terrific and hilarious lady! And I sort of feel sorry for the Ortbergs, because if this keeps up, I can only imagine that hordes of Toasties will soon show at their door, pleading that they be allowed to come in for dinner and sit quietly eating while listening to various and sundry Ortbergs talk about their day and exchange banter in hilarious ways that make you laugh until your guts hurt.
Yesterday my mom told me I was “pretty lucky to have a mom who’s an essentialist, huh?” after I tried to explain Foucault based on what little I remember of him, so.
Has your mother considered writing a book called “The Essentialist’s Guide to Parenting”? Because I would buy that.
No, just these two: http://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Ortberg/e/B001JS731G
No joke, I think my mom has “Looking for God.” Next time I go home I’ll have to bond with her over our mutual appreciation for Ortbergian writing.
God that BYU video is such a perfect hate-watch. The crushing, overwrought sincerity! The vast tundra! I can’t look away!
That “Writerly Friendships” article… equal parts “inspiring to know groups and friendships like this exist” and “holy shit I’m jealous, where do I get that??” I’m reading Lidia Yukanovitch’s The Chronology of Water right now and it is so engrossing and fantastic in a way I never expected. It’s the first book I’ve ever read on the train that completely holds my attention, even when weird people are in my peripheral vision doing freaky things.
I’ve never heard of Lidia Yuknavitch, but after reading that interview I am absolutely going to track down her work. How can I resist a woman who says things like “thank baby Jesus’ dinger” and “fuck hootie” in everyday conversation?
Oof I slaughtered her name in my original comment and now can’t edit it! But yes, her book is much in that same vein of, “What in the world did she just say? Because I like it!”
Oh guys we have to talk about that book! Because I hated it so much that I threw it across the room.
Well now I have to read it. To the library!
Ha! Just when I’m excited to finally be reading something mentioned on The Toast, Mallory comes along and throws it across the room! I’m about halfway through the book. It took me minute to get into it, but I’m pretty happy I pushed through. What do you hate about it??
LITERALLY
EVERYTHING
oh man it’s been a while now but if I recall it was just that kind of deeply overwrought memoir/poems titled “stillbirth”/”meditation on my eggs and blood and the meat that makes this wracked and ruined body” type of thing that makes me want to set the world on fire
BUT I also did not like the Mists of Avalon, so you should feel very free to throw my book opinions out in the trash!!
No, no. Mallory’s book opinions will always be valid opinions. I felt the same way at first. I had been reading SO many of those “stillbirth” pieces that I didn’t think I could get through another one. But once she got into the writing about her teenage years and her 20s, it became more interesting to me. Maybe I’ll feel differently by the end!
I’m new to this Amazon prime thing, but the other night I discovered that insomnia list-making could instead be insomnia Amazon-app-shopping, and now I’ll go home today and there will be 15 pounds of dog food on my front porch and I won’t have had to go out into the rain to get it.
The fact that Bezos’s master plan was to get affluent internet shoppers to feel comfy with his site via books is mad genius scary stuff. (Also the whole “books rarely break in shipping” thing. As someone who regularly ships glass via UPS, I can tell you, that is a huge consideration. Though from the sounds of their negotiating techniques, Amazon probably makes UPS/USPS pay for any damages themselves, while the small business owners among us fight our way through the claims process to yet another loss.)
That’s one thing Amazon has really going for it: insanely good customer service, backed by the might of the Persian Empire power of Bezos.
Now adding “lead revolt and/or rebellion” to bucket list.
Now thinking, aren’t a revolt and a rebellion the same thing?
I think there’s an argument to be made that a revolt is usually the lower classes against the upper, or the oppressed against the oppressor, and a rebellion is splitting into factions with less regard for class? In my head, revolt is an up arrow and rebellion is an arrow pointing to the left or right.
That might just be my brain, though.
I think a revolt’s more a single-issue, short term uprising, whereas a rebellion is playing for keeps.
Yuuuuup. When I staffed a locally owned boutique, I worked in-store 5-6 days weekly and consulted with the owner on buying. In that local business, these cards would have worked*, if we define working as "someone who makes buying decisions sees your feedback."
This is another good reason to buy locally. The buy local movement isn't only about keeping money invested in the local economy; it's also about spending money with individual or small-scale businesses, where your individual, idiosyncratic needs might be heard and respected, where your patronage and input can actually shape how a business shapes its inventory and its market.
*But maybe that's not saying much: we already stocked as wide a size range as our designers offered, requested that they expend that size range, and put our money where our mouths were by buying up every "specialty size" they offered.
That New Yorker article on Amazon and publishing so speaks to me. Since working in the industry (especially at a smaller press like where I’m at now) I’ve learned so much about how Amazon extorts/controls us. The co-op fees they charge are the biggest crock of shit, but it’s not like we even have a choice, since almost half of our sales come from Amazon.; stop giving into the co-op extortion racket, and our books are de-listed, and we lose a huge amount of sales.
If you don’t have an indie store near you, there are many indies that have a huge web presence. You can buy at powells.com and support a great indie with a huge selection of new and used books, and they offer free shipping on orders over 35 or very cheap shipping (like $4 otherwise). It’s the perfect alternative to Amazon if you don’t have any good indie stores near you. Shopping at local used bookstores is great if you want to browse, and aren’t looking for a specific title/edition. Really, anything other than Amazon. If you want to read digital, get a kobo and pair it with a local indie—they’ll get a portion of the e-book sale at no extra cost to you.
It was pretty elaborate. I seem to remember some girl from the audience would be picked to sit in a chair and he'd like drop down behind her FROM ABOVE! and be real uh, vampire-y at her for a while? He had lots of long curly hair that he'd drape about dramatically, and it was very "Interview with the Vampire" minus the homoeroticism. Then, nudity!
There was also a guy who dressed like a construction worker who would inexplicably get into a baby pool full of oil. I failed to see how those two things were connected at the time and frankly, it's never become any less confusing.
Those are excellent points, except that my parents bought me a kindle for christmas three years ago, not a different ebook. But yes, if I was making the decision again, those would be good choices.