Hi guys! I’m in NYC next Wednesday (one night only, only night only…) for my March 5th event at the Strand with Rebecca Mead, in which I stand up and say nice and true things about her and her book, and ideally you show up and either buy a book or a gift card of similar value (online or at the door) and then we hang out after and enjoy each other’s company.
Anyway, I’m very excited, and I’m going to wear a sleeveless dress and flex while I make hand gestures to show off my guns. This is a great opportunity to say that I’d like to start discussing the first two chapters of My Life in Middlemarch (up to page 73) on March 10th. Who’s thinking of coming, and who would be interested in hanging out after at a bar of some kind? The event ends at 8pm, so we’ve got some time to play with, even though it’s a school night.
I also have five signed copies of MLIM to give out for free to the worthy (let’s make this one for non-NYCers only, just to be different), and I’m just going to go with first-come-first-served via the comments of this post for those (make the comment rhyme, please.) They also come with a copy of Middlemarch, which obviously you already own, but can no doubt sell on the street at a wild profit.
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Why I want my children to be bilingual:
Elderly Egyptians recount how in Alexandria, in the early 20th century, they would switch between Arabic, French, English, Italian and Greek, depending on what they were doing and whom they were addressing. Multilingualism was a way of life for many, a shared culture. New York in the 19th century had up to seven different Yiddish newspapers, as well as others in Italian, Swedish and German. Like America as a whole, the city was once home to rich pockets of linguistic difference before their gradual dissolution into the national melting-pot.
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Why mainstream critics fail writers of color.
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I’m not watching True Detective yet, but I’m GONNA, and in the meantime, here is an article about it I haven’t read that everyone is talking about. Edith Zimmerman and Logan Sachon are also doing these emoji things about it that I’m sure are amazing.
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James Kress seems like a real winner.
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It makes me a little uncomfortable when Benedict Cumberbatch actually looks normal-sexy. Happily, it’s just the first pic and then he goes back to looking freaky again.
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Alec Baldwin needs to read up on Greta Garbo.
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“International Blackness v. Hometown Negroes”
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Oh, wow, this Emily Gould piece on debt and writing.
OH HURRAH. Yes I am interested in being inside a bar with you. (I’m concerned about your sleeves though. Bring a cardigan, will you? Is cold here!)
Responding here so I can be alerted to the plan! I have class until 8:15pm so I can’t make the Strand event. But I’d gladly hop over to any bar afterward to potentially hang out with Nicole and Jolieeeee! (swoon)
I will bring my X-Men coat and a pair of boots so I only have to wear heels for the exact amount of time I am standing to introduce Rebecca.
I should have known not to worry.
I would like to get in on this party very much.
If you and Matt and Jolie all come I will lose my shit. I will stay until 9:30pm, but then I have a hot date in the Bronx with an air mattress, a dear friend, and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Mr. Wilson.
Consider it done
I haven’t actually managed to leave my lab before like 8 all year but I am so in for the bar section of this feature (Nicole I will abandon my cells to die if I must to get there well before 9:30)
I’m in! And I can hang out afterward!
I can do both the Strand and the bar yayyyyyy!
I’m coming! I’m in pretty deep on this Middlemarch/MLIM/Rebecca Mead lovefest.
PSA for those who might want to buy the book ahead of time: Do not attempt to buy the book online and then select the in-store pickup option – if you do it that way, they won’t let you pick it up until the day of the event. But you CAN just walk in and buy the book, in which case your receipt will allegedly get you into the event next week.
I am definitely interested in the bar part, but unfortunately I have not tackled Middlemarch yet (although I DID buy a copy, it’s gonna be my summer project), so I will probably miss the Strand part.
Responding to stay up-to-date on plans as well! Hooray, sort-of Toastup!
Yes! I’m coming to The Strand and will happily tag along anywhere afterwards! Exclamation points! (I am waaaaaaay too excited about My Life in Middlemarch.)
Is anyone in this thread in the facebook group? I’ve got an event page there with details so I can get a headcount.
I wish I could be in NYC on the 5th! But a free signed book is a good consolation prize.
My reading comprehension is failing; this comment’s rhyme was ailing. early mornings are obscene…bring more caffeine.
YOU GET A BOOK. Email me (nicole at the-toast dot net)
Free books from The Toast? I would love that the most!
Haha, jinx rhyming.
YOU GET A BOOK. Email me (nicole at the-toast dot net)
I love books and I love The Toast. Nicole’s signed copy would make me happy– the most.
(It’s kind of a shame
that my rhyme was so lame.
But I had to be fast,
or the books wouldn’t last!)
Oh shoot, you’ve really upped your rhyme game!
Maybe it’s my turn to feel that shame…
YOU GET A BOOK. Email me (nicole at the-toast dot net)
Also, is it too much to hope for a remake of Sunset Boulevard starring Alec Baldwin as Norma Desmond?
I get out of class uptown at 7, which means I’m sorry to miss most of the event but with plenty of time to hit the bar. Also, yes, plz wear a cardigan, you’ll catch your death.
Language is such a fascinating thing. My husband was born overseas and lived in a refugee camp before coming to Canada and spoke no English until he was almost seven. He still speaks Vietnamese (and Mandarin when necessary) to his parents and family–fluently, but with a Canadian accent. His younger-by-two-years brother barely speaks Vietnamese at all, despite that being the lingua franca of their home and social circle. It’s extremely important to his family that our kids will learn enough Vietnamese to talk to their family, but oh my god, what a challenge it will be, but I really believe that teaching kids multiple languages at a young age is beneficial to them.
I’m still irritated with my dad for not teaching me Polish as a kid, even though he spoke it growing up and speaks it still to his siblings. Oh god languages why are you so fascinating and yet endlessly infuriating???
My dad’s parents spoke Yiddish to each other (English was my grandfather’s 4th or 5th language), but didn’t teach him or his siblings any. They used it as a way to talk about things that they didn’t want the kids to hear, even. My aunt is taking Yiddish classes now.
If I stay here and have Dutch kids I’ll teach them English, but of course, the power of the language in society is a hell of a lot different than when my dad wasn’t learning Yiddish.
yes, this stuff is so frustrating/fascinating!
I had to learn French the hard way because my mother wouldn’t send me to french pre-school (we were living in a francophone country) because my *brother* had speech delays. So annoying! (I did learn it starting a few years later, but late enough that I had to work hard at it instead of just absorbing it the way little kids do, and I still have to work to keep it alive & in good working order).
My mom is bilingual in Spanish and also never taught me that, although to be fair that was my fault not hers; she wanted to, but we never lived anywhere that it was spoken, so it seemed unreal and irrelevant to me as a kid.
Now of course I’m learning Spanish as an adult to talk to… my husband’s entire family, so, whoops, child-me!
It’s amazing how in the end so many bi- and trilingual parents let their kids do the easy thing and grow up monoglot. Are there any parents out there on the Toast now resisting?
My cousin is sort of the opposite–her mom never taught her Polish (like me), but she learned Spanish in high school and college, well enough to move to Texas, teach math in Spanish AND English, and marry a Cuban dude and speak to his family. She is wayyyyyy beating me in the “learn your in-laws’ language” stakes.
good for your cousin — that sounds like a lovely arrangement!
oh my god, the in-law thing is so fraught. Is your mother-in-law-language Spanish too? My mother-in-law lives in a region where nobody speaks English, and she doesn’t speak other languages, so she kind of doesn’t get the learning process, and likes to go around introducing me to her friends by saying, “This is X, she speaks really bad Spanish.” !! As if that will encourage anybody to speak with me so I can get better. And it’s also kind of frustrating since I do speak 3 languages fluently as part of my job — just none of them happen to be hers! It messes with my sense of identity sometimes. But finally my Spanish is improving, bit by bit: trial-by-fire! grr.
It’s better than the alternative I guess. Amitav Ghosh’s wife once told me about how she was not looking forward to their yearly trip to Calcutta because she had never been able to learn Bengali, so she would just sit there during family catch-up sessions and drink and drink whiskey, in silence, for days…
No, my in-laws are Vietnamese, and luckily they have been marvelously well-mannered about my torturously bad attempts at their language. (And I try, I swear.) His dad and I also both speak Russian so theoretically we could converse in that too, but I am not willing to introduce another potential minefield there.
Lots of times they chat and I sit there in silence and admire my father-in-law’s garden.
Vietnamese is so much harder to learn than Spanish though, for an English speaker. I’ve been trying to teach my unilingual girlfriend random Viet words, and she tries, she really does, but she does not get the tones at all. The best progress we’ve made is when I explained that it’s like singing a song — you can’t just sound out the words, you have to hit the right notes too or the meaning changes. Thinking of it that way has helped, but being able to hear the tones automatically is just gonna take more practice.
The lure of the Family Language! I’m one generation too late for mine — my grandfather spoke Czech as a first language, my mom maybe could have learned it but didn’t, and I was completely out of luck. I’d still really like to learn it, but as far as I can tell there is no source in my area for Czech classes.
My dad was the first generation in his family to speak English in the home– more than a hundred years after his ancestors arrived in the US. My grandfather only spoke pidgin English until he joined the army in WWII. They lived in a pocket of rural America where everybody just spoke German and read German-language newspapers. It’s amazing to think that that sort of linguistic isolation could go on for such a long time before the rise of modern American social structures, and that it pretty quickly disappeared in the mid-20th century. I imagine it’s pretty rare now to be born in the US and not be proficient in English.
Another fascinating language thing- I’m friends with a bunch of well-educated young Romanians, and in their Facebook posts with each other they switch back and forth between Romanian and English, often in the middle of a sentence. Like today they were having a conversation and one posted “ce e factually valid? mie imi suna cam cum dadea ceausescu vina pe “agenturili straini.” criticspanac. not even once either.” It’s super fascinating to me. (The Dutch don’t switch in the middle of sentences as much but they’ll go back and forth between Dutch and English posting.)
My mother went and stayed in Iran with her future in-laws before she married dad (she is English) to learn the language by total immersion. My two older sisters both spent part of their childhoods there so are both bilingual, but I was born just as we were high-tailing it out of there before the Revolution, since dad’s blonde Western wife and his links to the royal family would not have made them popular.
So I’m the only one who doesn’t speak Farsi, and they all use it to talk about me when I’m in the room. My sister is teaching her daughter bits of it. she’s not bilingual but she is pretty good for her age and exposure.
My grandfather was raised in Spain but didn’t teach my father more than a little Spanish, which Dad learned in school, and then Dad didn’t teach us any at all. There’s a whole side of the family I can’t communicate with – though some of them speak English fluently, not all do, and I took fucking Latin in school instead of Spanish. Ugh. It bums me out a lot.
As the younger, not really fluent little sister to a more fluent, Viet Nam-born older sister, it’s really hard to keep up your fluency! Especially when you realize that your capacity to express yourself in one language far outstrips the other. The anxiety from potential and actual ridicule of my Vietnamese by my sister and older cousins didn’t help.
It is awesome that you guys are going to try though.. there are all of these resources out there like bilingual children’s books that weren’t around when we were kids.
You are essentially my little brother-in-law! No, it’s very understandable, but it’s also very stressful for everyone involved–I mean, my father-in-law would pretty much rather not talk to his son than talk to him in English, so. It’s all very frustrating for everyone.
Also those books are amazing.
That sucks. 🙁 My mom is pretty patient with me, so I end up doing this crazy Vietnamese with English mixed in when she speaks to me in Vietnamese.
Honestly my older cousins (and I mean older as in 12-24 years older; my sister is 9 years older than me so I’m basically a bit of an accident 😉 ) lightened up on me once they realized that while I was wiling to speak some Vietnamese, their own kids wouldn’t at all.
You though.. did you try taking lessons? It’s awesome that you’re trying too. 😀 My (non-Viet) husband has been gently nudging me towards Rosetta Stone, which I’ve been ignorantly dismissing out of fears that it’s in the northern dialect and not the southern one that my mother’s family uses. I think there are other resources online and I’ve been thinking about trying them.
SHUT UP are you me? We just had a conversation the other day about Rosetta Stone and whether it would be enough for me to learn to speak conversationally, if not fluently, with the family.
I’ve been poking around on reddit to see if there are other online resources.. I’m also kind of stingy about the price. 😉 I’ll let you know if I find anything!
That’s the exact opposite of my family. My sister and I speak fairly broken Vietnamese, so sometimes our parents will try to talk to us in English, and we’ll ask them to speak to us in Viet. Both of them speak decent English, but it’s obviously harder for them to express their thoughts that way, so meaning isn’t always clear when they do that. And comprehension isn’t the problem anyways — it’s speaking and coming up with Viet vocab in time for conversation to flow.
We had those sort of bilingual books when I was little, which was supposed to simultaneously teach us Viet history and folklore while improving our literacy. I loved reading them, but unfortunately didn’t want to struggle with the Viet portions so I just read the English parts over and over. I’m glad I got something out of them, at least, even if it wasn’t what my parents intended.
Its hard for parents to reinforce that second language and if there isnt an obvious need to use it (say the part you live in isnt multi lingual) its confusing for kids to have to learn twice as many words say the same thing and they will gravitate to the way that they can express themselves the best. I had one friend who was raised speaking 3 languages and was frustrated as there wasnt a single one that she felt confident in.
Saying that it is an excellent skill to have so, just ignore me.
Please I would like that MLIM signed!
I have neither book so I’m in a bind
I live in Baltimore, no NYC for me
This is the perfect opportunity
(My rhyming is subpar.)
YOU GET A BOOK. Email me (nicole at the-toast dot net)
This Toastie lives in DC
and is quite terrible at poems,
But would love a book
So take a look,
and I’ll leave poetry alone!
Best I could do on short notice 🙂
Ahhhh nooooo too late 🙁
YOU GET A BOOK. Email me (nicole at the-toast dot net)
In my head, you sound like Oprah (And YOU GET A BOOK! AND YOU!)
Cribbed from Reading Rainbow, I see. *frysquint*
Actually, not at all – I’ve (shamefully) never seen an episode of Reading Rainbow. Any “cribbing” on my part was coincidental and unintentional. But if you’re still feeling squinty you’re welcome to borrow my copy!
Nonsense! All human people alive in this day and age have absorbed knowledge of the Reading Rainbow theme song through osmosis. *holds up RHYME TRUTHER sign*
I loved Emily Gould’s essay, but, MORE IMPORTANTLY, I am, like, 96% sure that I’ve stayed in the campground with the terrifying manager next to the house she rented. If I’m right, then she really downplayed his horror movie vibe.
Oh my gosh, please expand on this, I want to hear all about this horror movie campground.
Oh man. Bill (his name is Bill) looks like a horror movie Santa gone to seed. I have never actually spoken to him– I refuse to get out of the car for check-in, and occasionally duck under the dashboard to avoid his gaze–because he inevitably berates people for 1. showing up too late, or bringing too many people, and 2. wrecking his livelihood by not staying with him often enough.
There’s a running joke that he has peepholes drilled in the bathroom walls. It’s probably a joke.
“Horror movie Santa gone to seed” is a very strong mental image.
Yes to all that was said about True Detective.
I was immediately drawn to the show by the drawl, the dialogue, Matthew McConaughey’s sinewy arms. But I am ever disappointed as the show plays on with the paper doll sluts, wives, daughters, murder victims. Also, there was a line from MM’s character a few shows ago that twinged all my lady nerves: “You can’t even recognize crazy pussy” or some such nonsense referring to the woman who, like so many cummy tissues, would be tossed from the character line-up with no more than a blink.
So much potential ruined by arrogance and repetition. Of course I will continue to see it through to the end because I’m a damn tv junkie.
On the other hand, that article on True Detective convinced me to start watching a critically acclaimed television show. And that show is Top of the Lake. Ooo, you’re on Netflix! I’m starting you tonight!
So true and Top of the Lake is fantastic! As is The Fall.
YES SO GOOD. Say goodbye to sleep / social engagements for the next few days.
It is, however, really intense and deals with a lot of weighty subjects, so gird yourself and be prepared to look at cute overload for a while after each viewing sesh.
I will be prepared! Luckily my cat is a sleepy lil’ cuddlebug.
Yes! I posted about this to facebook and got a bunch of people saying “But that’s the genre!” or “But it’s so good!” Not my point, friends, not my point.
Is it just me or did you expect Rust Cohle to rise above the tired portrayals of every cop character ever? I think I also expected him to challenge all the tired portrayals of every woman character ever.
*smacks hand on forehead*
Ahhh, I’m seeing it now, my expectations for tv are too high.
Well I expected a TV show made in 2014 and broadcast on HBO to go beyond tits tits tits as groundbreaking and have more than oh, zero women main characters, but obviously I’m asking for too much.
Ugh, yes yes yes! I think my exact words to my husband in the first episode were “great, another dead, naked woman.” I quit watching in a rage after the second episode, but started again with the 5th after people went nuts about how “amazing” the show had become (I am ashamed to say I was seduced by the description of the 6-min tracking shot. Whatever.) At this point the mystery has interested me enough to finish the season, although I kind of hate myself a little and I have to get up to do chores at least once or twice in each episode when it becomes intolerable.
Top of the Lake though, so excellent and should be required viewing for all humans.
What is this 6 minute shot?? I’ve watched through episode 4, which is where it is supposedly contained, and I did not see anything that impressed me.
It’s right at the end of episode 4, where [character] is trying to escape from [place] and it’s all tense and whatnot. (that was my attempt at not spoiling things for people)
Yeah I googled and figured it out, and as I explained to my male friends who were insisting I’d change my mind after that shot (why would a shot with no women change my mind about how I was upset there are no women in the show???), “Great, [spoilers], everyone’s a greedy idiot” and good cinematography does not make up for no multidimensional women!
To be fair there were 2 ladies, one being dragged around by her neck and another giving away the location of Cohle and company.
I didn’t recognize it as such at first either, but it’s at the end of the episode…the robbery. In fact, it begins with the caper itself. I noticed when they climbed over the fence toward the end…there is an overhead shot that gives it away. I actually am more impressed with it now, in a way, since it wasn’t obvious to me that it was happening until it was almost over – makes the gimmicky aspect less annoying.
If you google “6 min shot true detective” you can find the whole thing. I am suddenly unsure whether it’s allowed to post links in the comments here, or I would do it for you 🙂
I can’t decide: when Rust Cohle says that, is he saying what he believes or what he knows Marty can hear? Is he speaking his own dialect or just trying to speak Marty’s?
I think the show is playing interestingly with the Grizzled Handsome Men tropes, but that line hit me in the gut, too.
Similarly: in the first episode, I was incensed by Michelle Monaghan’s introduction, because an actor of her abilities deserves more character than is promised by a panty-clad derriere shot as she lies passive in bed. Then a beat later, it cut to another butt shot of her and I thought “… oh. This isn’t just male gaze; it’s a remark about male gaze.”
[THIS CONTAINS A SPOILER, vaguely phrased but still a spoiler.] I was disappointed to the point of nausea, though, by the turn taken by Maggie’s character in the most recent episode. It seemed like the most predictable “aw, you know women” bullshit possible. I understand all the dramatic reasons for it, but it makes me spitting angry.
If that’s true (Rust speaks to Marty in a language his philandering brain can grasp) then the writers are going out of their way to deify Rust by making him a character of untouchable integrity. I mean grizzled handsome man trope wins again, amirite?
Well, I think the writers clearly have been going out of their way to elevate, if not deify, Rust’s ability to slip into another person’s viewpoint and speak their language throughout the show. Not his integrity, but his flexibility of mind and speech.
We see him do it over and over in “the box” speaking to suspects. He uses whatever language and tropes will get the result: he’s an atheist who invokes God’s forgiveness to get a confession, a solitary man who speaks the language of family if that’s what is most effective, and I find it entirely plausible (though by no means certain) that he would use the same slippery shape-shifting linguistic tricks to corral an out-of-control partner.
I definitely underestimated Cohle’s adoption of philosophies, speech etc. to fit particular situations. It’s getting out of hand how much time I spend mulling over this show.
I go back and forth on it. I think the show is trying to comment on the way women suffer as a result of poisonous ideas of masculinity, but just maybe not doing it so well/not actually saying that much we haven’t all heard before. I feel like it critiques Marty’s treatment of women, but then undermines itself with the ubiquity and direction of the sex scenes. Likewise, they have made a point of showing that Marty is choosing women who look and act like younger versions of Maggie, but they’re still having all the major women characters acting exactly the same and then not really explaining WHY they are acting like that beyond “that’s how women are”. Because did anyone else thing Maggie in Episode 6 was waaaaayyy out of left field?
I didn’t have too much of a problem with Rust’s crazy pussy line, though, because he’s a complete hypocrite, talking like he’s too cerebral and above it all to be caught up in cultural norms while actually acting like pretty much any other “detective who cares too much” character, which I also think is intentional.
Yeah, they’re definitely playing a game of eat your cake and have it too, positioning the show as a reflection on and skewing of the tropes of masculinity while still using all tropes and images that an unreflective series would show: all the bare-nekkid T&A, all the women’s bodies as objects of violence, all the cleavage-and-ass shots.
Do I prefer True Detective’s skewering of these tropes (while still getting the benefit of them) to a series that just uses them without skewing or skewering? You bet. Would I prefer that they wrote a show in which women have agency beyond choosing (sometimes, but only sometimes) which handsomely grizzled dude they’re going to fuck? You betcha!
I almost didn’t watch TD at all; I tuned 2 or 3 weeks back and was immediately treated to a scene in which a dozen men in various states of five o’clock shadow stood around having a Talking Like This contest. I watched long enough to see a scene where women did appear, and they were perched around passively like so many mounted stag’s heads. I turned it off.
But watching from the beginning, I understood what they were doing, and for five episodes, I was wholeheartedly on board. Then came [event from S1e6 which I am not going to spoil, but if you haven’t seen it, maybe don’t read the rest of this], which may have ruined the show for me completely by resorting to the age-old accusation that women are poisonous critters who use their wiles as a weapon.
Back and forth is right. These days I’m suspicious of all the ladies walking away satisfied, especially the episode 6 scenario.
That article about book critics and authors of color filled me with righteous anger (well, anger as righteous as can be considering I’m not a person of color). It truly makes me wonder if I should try to get back into the publishing industry so I can crawl up the ranks and try to DO something. In the meantime, I think I just have to make more of an effort to seek out the work writers of color (which will be easier since the DC Toasties book club is planning to do just that!).
To add to my list of demands: For a trapdoor to open up under anyone who brings up height discrimination when discrimination based on race, class, gender or sexuality is the subject at hand. “Has any ensured there is no ‘vertical inequality’ by making sure that people of all stature are ‘properly’ represented.” Goodbye!
“Kress said he had received emails both in support and opposition to his position, and “only one really obscene one”– from a UC Irvine student who called him an asshole.”
Can this be possible — that he’s only been called an asshole by one person?
This is because that’s a student, everyone else already knows he is an asshole
Right? Probably like two sentences into his thingy my brain was like “ASSHOLE ASSHOLE ASSHOLE!”
I can’t decide whether it’s depressing or darkly humorous that this dude thinks “you’re an asshole” is a “really obscene” response to someone having an opinion on the internet. GEE, NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN’S AND WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES HERE, THAT’S FOR SURE.
And how he thinks it’s much more “obscene” for someone to call him an asshole than it is to dismiss and minimize the concerns of a substantial number of his colleagues because they’re dumb girls whining about dumb girl stuff.
But I’m still fifth on the waiting list for My Life in Middlemarch at the library!
Do you have an e-reader? Or are willing to read on your computer/smartphone? I got my copy for free from project gutenberg
What’s the Official Toast Stance on the Oxford comma? I had a hard time reading that bilingualism article without it. I’m trying to train myself away from two spaces after a sentence, but you’ll have to kill me to rid me of my beloved Oxford comma.
I don\’t know if we have an official stance, but I am VERY pro the Oxford Comma.
This goes some way towards making up for your hateful stance on the “spaces after periods” issue.
I support an official Very Pro the Oxford Comma stance.
In my editing life I add it back in when an author has left it out. No one has ever questioned this.
Speaking of Cumberbatch: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/sherlock-st…
An hour-long video interview with him.
Does anyone know how one would go about watching the movie of Half of a Yellow Sun from America? It’s not not Netflix. I would pay money.
I just checked the movie’s Facebook page – it looks like so far it’s only been shown at film festivals but is scheduled for an “early summer” theatrical release in the US, slightly earlier in the UK and Nigeria. Yay!
It is not out in the US yet. (It was at one festival last year?) But should be out in theaters (probably in limited release) in July? It will be a long while before Netflix, probably.
Oh wait I live in NYC I could theoretically come to this.
I wish I could come!! Let this comment count as my entry into the free MIML copy raffle. My rhyme:
Excuse the rhymes, it’s early morning
My statistics lecture is boring
I wish I was sleeping
Instead I am weeping
For instead of going to the city
I’m taking a midterm, on which I’ll do shitty
On me, please take pity
And send me a copy of MLIM!
Sorry that last part didn’t rhyme. I looked up “pity” on rhymezone.com, but I figured I shouldn’t continue the rhyme in the direction of “titty.”
ARE THE FIVE COPIES ALREADY GONE?
I’M READING ANOTHER BOOK RIGHT NOW THAT I WOULD TOTALLY CHEAT ON
WITH A COPY OF MY LIFE IN MIDDLEMARCH
I WILL READ IT WHILE EATING STARCH
I SAID I WOULD DO WHATEVER IT TOOK
TO GET A (free) COPY OF THIS BOOK
UNFORTUNATELY IM NO GOOD AT RHYMING
BUT HOPEFULLY I AM GOOD AT TIMING
BECAUSE SHE DID SAY FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, RIGHT?
BECAUSE BASED ON THIS RHYME I PROBABLY DO NOT DESERVE IT?
I know that last one was a stretch
But if I dont win I’m really going to kvetch.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
NICOLE CAN YOU PLEASE DO THE RHYMES BASED ON LENGTH NOT FIRST COME FIRST SERVE I THINK I MISSED IT BUT LOOK ITS SO LONG!
Thats what she said. she being anyone who ever had to write a five paragraph essay.
Kress will not be spared, come the Revolution
Goddammit Alec Baldwin, you are such a major disappointment as a human being and an actor who was in 30 Rock.
Those Bendysnip Candypants pictures are freaking me out. The first one looks like they went to incredible lengths to make him look tan, which is just… no. But the amount of photoshop or other weirdness in the second one is really weirding me out. My brain is certain that that face and that street are nowhere near each other.
Green screen? Or too much post-production photoshop? I can’t even… ow, brain hurts, ow
It really looks like his head was pasted in from another photo and it’s giving me the creeps.
Hi Nicole! I’m a member of the NYC Toast group and we’d love to team up with you to do a mini meetup after the event, if you’re interested! I just sent you an email and while I’m sure you’re very busy since you’re only here for one night I think it would be a lot of fun, and I think a lot of our members would be really excited to come, including some who may not be working there way through Middlemarch but who love your and Mallory’s writing for the Toast. Anyway, I sent you an email and feel free to let me know what you think!
Nicole, I was the other person mentioned in the email/cc’d. Approving all of the above!! We’d be thrilled!
I have replied to your email, and am more than happy to merge my \”some bar or something\” plan into you organizing something so I don\’t have to call bars and say \”so…I have a website and can we show up and drink?\” We\’ll work it out and update everyone on venue.
Fantastic!
Wait, there is an NYC Toast group? TELL ME MORE.
It’s a legacy Hairpin readers/current Toast readers super group. We’re here if you’d like to get updates via facebook!
We are very fun, I have references.
I will have you know I just logged in to Facebook for the first time in months just to send a request to join. I had to remember my password and everything; it was very traumatic.
oh my GOD this is what I have been looking for ever since I moved from SF two months ago. FINALLY! I just sent a request to join and I’m very excited to meet y’all next week.
There is a pinup this Friday! If you check through the page (since you just joined now you may have missed the event) you can find it. The book club portion begins at 7 and the full meetup at 8pm. It’s at RPM bar (266 broome st). Come out and say hi! We’re very friendly.
I can vouch for the fun-ness. The book club section also reads outstanding books – we’re doing The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt now and The Group by Mary McCarthy for March. You should come!
/chanting “One of us! One of us!”
I just tried to request to join the group and it wouldn’t let me. It said I didn’t have permission… any idea what I’m doing wrong?
It’s a closed group (to keep out marketers and creepers) so once you click join you have to be approved. Let me know if it doesn’t work for you soon!
That International Blackness article is really good. (Adichie talks about similar stuff in “Americanah,” which everyone should read because it’s awesome.)
I’ve had that next on my reading list for forever. But my brain has somehow filed it as Very Important, Serious Reading, which wasn’t a problem with, say, GRRM or The Red Tent. So I keep shying away from starting it.
Will you pep talk me past that? And also, should I read it or Hild first?
The thing is, Americanah absolutely doesn’t feel like that! It handles a lot of very serious and important themes, yes, but it’s also just an incredibly readable story. It doesn’t feel like hard work. The central narrative is really well told, the prose is fantastic on a page-by-page level. It’s not fluff but I did not find it to be a slog at all.
Sadly, I learned a lot from that article since I tend to think of “blackness” as just an American and know very little about Africa as a continent. Like the whole “Yellow Igbo” concept? Totally new to me.
I’m coming around to having to read Americanah as well, even though like ThatOtherWench, I’ve been shying away from it as SRS WORK.
It is also super fun–beautiful descriptions, narrative breaks for blogging, lots of sex and romance–so I hope you both recover from your aversions and enjoy the read!
I’m game for both the Strand event and hangouts after! Hecka psyched.
DC Toast Book Club update has been posted in the Google Group, FYI! I’ve also started a thread for a general Toast DC meetup, so check it out and give me your thoughts.
Where/how does one join said Very Important Group?
E-mail me at [email protected] and I’ll send you an invite.
“Given that everyone has unique DNA, it is scientifically certain that no two people will be identical in terms of capabilities,” he wrote. “Given that everyone has unique DNA, it is scientifically certain that no two people will be identical in terms of capabilities,” he wrote. “ALL SORTS of differences in capabilities exist in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Math, etc. Those who work harder, overcome their capability deficient and make themselves equal to or better than their colleagues. Hard work is the way to address the capability issue and thus achieve equality.“
WHICH MAKES IT SO CONFUSING TO UNDERSTAND WHY ONLY OLD WHITE MEN HAVE BEEN ABLE TO “EXCEL.”
I’m already planning to attend the Strand event, and a hangout afterward would be fabulous! Yay meetups!
I love looking at Benedict Cumberbatch as a rule, but despite my abiding love for men in beards cannot get behind the idea of bearded Benedict Cumberbatch. Just. It doesn’t work for me for some reason.
hi!! I will be in NYC for the event 🙂 I would love to meet up afterwards!
I’ll be at the Strand event, and likely the hangout afterward. Yay!
I just finished reading My Life in Middlemarch – when do we start discussing it? When? When?
TOMORRRRRROW!