If you do not like the things we approve of, we suggest you revisit your stance. You are still allowed to like and/or engage in the things we dis-approve of, you are just wrong. Previous installments can be found here. – Eds.
The Toast Approves of the Following Things:
1. TRAINS.
2. Kristen Stewart, no matter what she does.
3. Katharine Hepburn’s queerness as canon.
4. Bob Seger’s “Night Moves.”
5. Anne Helen Petersen leaving academia for Buzzfeed.
The Toast Disapproves of the Following Things:
1. When you make a list of, like, eight things you think are great, and someone says “I can’t believe you forgot [some fucking thing they like.]”
2. Houseplants.
3. Birds as pets.
4. Academia.
5. Saying “here is a thing I wrote” when promoting your work on social media. YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING WHO DID YOUR JOB. OWN IT.
Tags: business, meta, nicole and mallory, official toast stances, stirring the people up, whimsically held positions
OFFICIAL TOAST STANCE UPDATE
CON: Oscar “The Abusive Murderer” Pistorius
I hate him with the fire of a thousand suns, and I hope he kills himself in custody and spares Reeva Steenkamp’s parents the pain of waiting for a verdict.
ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh
edit: “The defence has previously claimed that Mr Pistorius screams like a woman and that neighbours had confused his screams with those of Ms Steenkamp.”
REALLY, DEFENSE TEAM? REALLY?
ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh
that was literally a plot point on ‘Bart of Darkness’ when Bart thinks Ned Flanders killed Maude
Oh, ew, EW, there’s not enough soap in the world to make the defense team stop feeling dirty after that.
“he has forgotten the password to his iPhone”
fuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuu
It’s okay, the NSA can find it!
(also: UGH ugh ugh ugh)
Like, that is simply not possible. That is a motor-memory skill you do multiple times EVERYDAY. I will forget my own damn name before I forget my iPhone password.
Reading her texts was so affecting. His behaviour before the shooting was dreadful and I really admire how she was brave enough to tell him that he shouldnt act that way.
Also to the prosecutor who said that there was only one negative text amongst 3,000 please note that if the only one text says “I’m scared of you” then it completely outweighs the other 3,000.
Everything I’ve read about her in this trial serves only to increase my respect for her. If she had lived I’m convinced she would not have stayed with him, maybe that’s why she was killed.
I remember cheering for him when he won the 400m in London, the whole stadium on their feet; my family was about four rows away from the track and I saw his face closer than I have seen many famous peoples’ faces in my life and I was so happy and now I feel sick to my stomach when I think about it and basically want to crawl back in my bed and hide forever 🙁
YES TO TRAINS, TRAINS FOREVER.
When I went on holiday to the UK some years ago, my family were a little disappointed when I showed them my photos on my return that I only would only really take one or two photos of the places I visited (I’m ordinarily not one for photographing things anyway). Here is my two pictures of St Pauls, a few of Buckingham Palace, etc. Then we got to the York photos, and my visit to the National Railway Museum, where I had taken OVER TWO HUNDRED PICTURES OF TRAINS. “Hayley, when do the pictures of trains end?” “NEVER.” Because we have finite time on this earth, and while historical landmarks are nice and all they are nothing compared to trains.
Highlight of my trip to UK: Edinburgh – London sleeper train. Leave Edinburgh at midnight, and sleep through the country to arrive in London at 7:00 AM.
I took a train from Birmingham to Edinburgh on a gorgeous clear day, and that stretch over the English-Scottish border where the train line is right next to the sea? Damn well brought tears to my eyes.
I very rarely suggest anyone that they take a train in the US because they are chronically late and not very nice, but there are stretches that are worth it. I suggest a Google image search for Coast Starlight, especially the section between San Diego and Los Angeles.
There is a point on the Acela from Boston to NYC where the train approaches the Connecticut coast, and the scenery goes from scrubby woods to the vast expanse of Long Island Sound, and it gets me every dang time.
You had me until the last sentence–I live for/off historical landmarks, sometimes quite literarlly–but you still pretty much have me.
If you come to SF, we have *two* local railway museums. They are both small and bursting with heart. http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2012/05/c…
Oh I will always visit any and all historical landmarks that are going, and ask weirdly specific historically minded questions, and probably buy some kind of teatowel in the gift shop. Historical landmarks are great and I love them, but everything pales when it comes to trains.
I love a good souvenir tea towel. My folks went to London last year to visit family and one of my aunties sent them back with QEII Diamond Jubilee tea cup and tea towel for me. They’re both on display in a glass-front cabinet in my living room.
I feel kiiiind of silly asking this, because the answer is “of course,” but melis has read Raising Steam, correct? Because it’s an entire Pratchett book that appears to be almost exclusively train-based fan fiction.
It only just came out in the states, and I am going to buy it and read it on my plane to Boston while wishing I could take a cross country train.
re: Katharine Hepburn’s queerness as canon, can we just talk about Sylvia Scarlett all day?
We encourage it.
Christopher Strong! Christopher Strong! Moth costumes! Pants! Aviatrix!!!
HOW COULD I FORGET?!?
Listen, if The Toast can’t be a collaborative discussion of Kate Hepburn’s queerness, then I’m just not even sure about anything. We’re here to remind each other of the best pants-wearing, barrier-destroying moments that she committed to early film.
have you read William Mann’s bio of her? I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT KATE AND LAURA HARDING
Um, I haven’t, but I’m definitely using that huge Amazon credit I woke up to this morning to get buy it!
Also, do your feelings about them make your heart flutter? Because I think that’s COMPLETELY NORMAL.
They make my heart sink at the thought of what could have been… Hepburn may have been queer, but she was also a bit heartless
I’ve been accused of being pollyanna-ish before, I guess it extends to this. I choose to ignore the sad parts, all the sad parts, of her life. I idealize her, and the whole thing, really. I think I’d rather stick to heart flutter as a rule.
YES WE CAN
“2. Kristen Stewart, no matter what she does.”
I have never disagreed with a Toast stance before, but I’m really gonna need someone to make a case for this. I just don’t see it!
Mallory loves her so she can do no wrong
I will assume we are being trolled.
I guess this was my version of taking a Creed stance and falling into a sea of haters. I know my opinion is unpopular, I’m sorry!
She is beautiful and sulky and perfect, and Mallory and I are 100% united on this front.
Things Mallory has said about K-Stew:
“Kristen Stewart has the sullen, dirty-handed charm of a kidnapped and disinherited princess. She looks like she might have TB.”
“if you fashioned a woman out of an unhappy iceberg she would be Kristen Stewart. She is the kidnapped Moon’s daughter”
“if you put a curse on a diamond and that diamond took the form of a white stag and that white stag became a woman through Love”
But Mallory, tell us how you really feel about KStew.
Mallory is a prophet crying out in the wilderness, the one who prepares the way for Kristen Stewart
I watched every single Twilight movie in the theater and I have them all on DVD and watch them whenever I’m sick or feeling low or just want to watch her slump around and bite her lip perfectly.
Mr DrLadyBiz insisted on buying the box set when it was on sale around Xmas-time, and now I have to explain to everyone who comes over and sees it on our shelf that Kristen Stewart is a magnificent creature who stands next to people with nice cheekbones. It is my cross to bear.
Kstew seems very teenage dirtbaggy.
A++ i approve
She DEFINITELY looks like she might have TB. I’ll give you guys that.
How dare you sully the good name of unhappy icebergs by suggesting we are some kind of spoiled bored actre- no wait that’s pretty accurate.
a) When Kristen Stewart played Joan Jett in that movie and kept that haircut for a year, letting her late 70s lesbian mullet grow out at its leisure as she traveled the world promoting one of the twilights.
b) Tiny Panic Room Kristen Stewart as a pre-teen dirtbag riding her scooter inside the house and egging her mom, Jodie Foster, to swear more.
She is inspiring in all forms.
YES to Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. It is a GOOD look for her. I’ll have to watch The Runaways again soon!
I don’t think she’s a great actress, but I like her a lot (or what I know of her) because she’s awkward and edgy and not really comfortable in interviews or as the center of attention, and she owns all of that about herself. She doesn’t seem to try to fit the pretty/sexy, inoffensively pleasant mold so many other actresses her age do (which I don’t judge or dislike them for; I understand trying to get by in this patriarchal women can’t win system they’re in). And she’s the object of a lot of really sexist criticism and hatefulness – all that “why doesn’t she smile” crap is just so tiresome, and she basically gives a giant middle finger to all of that. She isn’t perfect, but she doesn’t seem like she’s trying to be, and I appreciate that about her. So personally, that’s my case for Kristen Stewart getting the Toast stamp of approval.
I found myself really suddenly and firmly on her side when that whole “scandal” broke, where she had apparently slept with the director of Snow White and the Huntsman, and all of the media coverage was about KSTEW, SHAMELESS RPATTZ-HEART-BREAKING HUSSY AND HOMEWRECKER rather than RUPERT SANDERS, GROSS MIDDLE-AGED MARRIED FATHER OF TWO SLEEPING WITH A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD WHO HE IS KIND OF THE BOSS OF, WHAT A GROSS JERK.
Edit: I sort of got carried away hating Rupert Sanders and forgot to finish my sentence? Anyway. I had no particular strong feelings re. Kristen Stewart prior to that, pro or con, and then that happened and all of a sudden I was like YOU STEP OFF, US WEEKLY with a startling vehemence.
I/r/t that incident, Jodie Foster’s letter defending Kristen Stewart was so weird and wonderful. Definitely a point in the pro-Kristen column.
Oh my god RIGHT? Like that doesn’t seem like a great move for like a billion reasons but what if the guy CHEATING ON HIS WIFE had to take some responsibility? It’s not like her ladybits are a goddamn bear trap he tripped over in the middle of the night.
“It’s not like her ladybits are a goddamn bear trap he tripped over in the middle of the night.”
That is the best/worst image ever. I love it.
CO-SIGN. I had close-to-zero opinion about her until that happened because why would I? Young woman in movies I’ve never seen doesn’t engage in the compulsory-smile parade for paparazzi? Sounds okay to me!
Then that news splashed around so big that even I heard about it, and I found myself suddenly, emotionally on her side because YEAH NO it is not reasonable to put the focus of blame on the heartbreakingly young woman rather than the older married dude who has been in a position of power over his actors for some time.
I’m not saying that in this instance, there was a manipulation and abuse of power, because of course I don’t know, but I am saying it’s odd that the media ignored that possibility so roundly in favor of the narrative they sprayed out.
I mean, aside from those occasions when she is presenting a major award and fumbling over her lines and looking like she might have a panic attack and I imagine becoming Deforest Kelley as Dr. Bones and shaking her hard by the shoulders and yelling into her face, “Get it together, man!”… aside from THAT, I would never begrudge any young person from acting/ looking however they damn well please. Her teenage dirtbaggery is sort of refreshing.
I’m hearing you guys. I’m considering reconsidering my opinion. It’s a lot to digest.
girl have you seen those pictures of her at coachella though SHE LOOKS LIKE SHANE
SHE LOOKS LIKE SHAAAANNNEE
This is exactly what I was going to say!!
LOOK
Interesting. Very interesting.
If this were a trial in a real courtroom, this would be your “smoking gun,” and you would casually stroll in front of the jurors in your perfectly tailored pantsuit and confidently throw down an 8″x10″ glossy of this picture, and the jurors would crane their necks to see it and as the image took form in their eyes, they would audibly gasp in unison.
You play dirty, Mallory.
…wow…
I had no beef with her previously, but now? Nawt but gladiolas and benedictions.
Mallory the image is broken, I tried 3 different browsers…please help I desperately want to see Kristen Stewart looking like Shane!
Her recent Wildfang photo shoot is pretty great, too: http://www.autostraddle.com/playlist-these-pictur…
Ok it turns out the image is FINE but my work computer flagged it as porn! I mean she does look GOOD in that photo but really…
WUT?!? I have never thought she was attractive before. I feel confused now.
Okay!!! Okay!!! I will never say number 5 ever again! I DID IT ONCE AND NOW I AM FILLED WITH REGRET AND DESPAIR I PROMISE I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN EVER EVER EVER OKAY
I’ve said number 5 too. I think it’s because when you’re newly published, you type, “This is a thing. This is a thing I wrote,” and you’re too full of childlike wonder to be more specific.
I’ve done it oodles of times. And, I am a grownup ass lady who is paid to write, um, well, things. Which, is a bit embarassing when it comes down to it. But I’ve promised I will never do it again. Because I would not want the Toast to rain wrath down upon me or anything.
When I had to start tweeting about my own writing, it took all I had not to be diffident, even apologetic. I still have to pump myself up a little bit to reach a point where I can be appropriately self-promoting, and a big step of it is the (patently unfair) question “Well, if I were a self-important white dude, would I be shy about this? I would not!”
(It’s doubly unfair because my husband, long-time professional writer, still often defaults to “Hey, thing I wrote, link.” Me, I like a good pull-quote. I should remember from now on to put Twitter-minus-link-length pull-quotes in evvvvverything.
i am SURE if you scroll back far enough in my twitter feed i also said it at one point, we are none of us perfect
Nuh-uh, Nicole is perfect.
Haven’t we previously established that K.Stew is perfect, though?
ANNE HELEN!! Oh man, I think I just spent more time on the Hairpin than I have in the last few months just reading every drop of that interview. I even logged in and commented! Ahhh, that good ol’ wave of ‘Pin nostalgia. She just laid down so many truth bombs about academia and how overfull it is of PhD candidates who will never get jobs in academia despite years and years of toil and it just makes me so mad. I mean, I’m purposely never getting the PhD I always quietly wanted because of the nonsense around academia, and AHP expressed the nonsense culture of academia it so eloquently in that interview. I may just reread it on lunch.
TRAINS ARE GREAT.
Oh my god, yes, THIS. THIS. SO MUCH TRUTHS. I’m feeling the same way about the PhD I thought I wanted, and every time I see someone with stars in their eyes about entering Ph.D studies now I just want to sigh so much.
“The system is broken. There’s no other way to put it. There are too many PhDs—which the schools need, because they’re such incredibly cheap labor—and very, very few jobs.
Even if you do everything right (get amazing evaluations, publish your ass off, go to a billion conferences, network like crazy, work with the top scholars in your field) it can still yield nothing”
AHP YOU GODDESS OF TRUTH
I love that one commenter being like “AHP isn’t up to snuff ANYWAY”. Like, yes. Right. You can absolutely judge someone’s scholarly work by the pop culture pieces they write for blogs. SAME DIFFERENCE.
When I was applying to PhD programs in English lit, one of my letter writers forgot to send in his letters, despite my reminders (he “was in Paris”). I mean, I might not have gotten in anywhere anyway, but without his letters I definitely didn’t. Some days I think about that, and have an urge to drive over to the campus, kick open his office door, and scream, “YOU SAVED MY LIFE! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!”
That was a mighty good interview. Go AHP.
AHP is a fucking hero, as is everyone who just says NO to the emotional manipulation and pure BULLSHIT required to stay in academia
I have so much rage built up towards academia it’s ridiculous, so I was super excited to hear Anne Helen was getting out. It’s a poisonous system that warps people’s brains.
After a really rough weekend of enduring the announcement WHILST AT AN ACADEMIC CONFERENCE this sort of feedback is really, really amazing/important/lovely to hear.
We love you and your work so much! We wish you the best!
AHP, we love and adore you always, you know this. Keep writing good things! We will follow you into battle.
I was just discussing with friends this weekend how excited we are to read your book and your surely fantastic BuzzFeed articles yet-to-come!
I’m sure there were many lovely people at your conference with their own professional victories and difficulties, but I wonder how many of them can point to a large group of people they’ve never met and say, “Yes, these fine individuals want to pay their hard-earned American dollars for the privilege of reading my work, and then use that work as creative, critical fodder for important conversations about creativity, feminism, the Hollywood machine, and Paul Newman’s bare chest.”
So, among many other good things, you have that going for you during this career shift.
Agreed; I have always wanted to earn my PhD and teach at the college level, but everything I’ve seen suggests there would be zero return on my investment. The fact that I can make more as a high school teacher than I would make teaching at the college level is SO DEPRESSING.
That article perfectly crystallized all the reasons I decided to start writing an obscure personal blog instead of going to grad school.
For once, I am in perfect alignment with the Official Toast Stances. This is a disconcerting yet enjoyable feeling.
Ditto. I AM SO HAPPY.
Here is a thing you wrote.
THIN ICE
and HERE is a thing you wrote! and here is a thing you wrote! and here and here and here!
Now I’m singing this to the tune of The Daves I Know. “Here is a thing I wrote I wrote, here is a thing I wrote!”
I was imagining Oprah “You get a car!” but that’s even better.
Here is a thing I wrote:
A THING
Yes! There is a thing you wrote!!!
Approval 2: YES
Disapproval 2: WHAT
THEY’RE DISGUSTING AND MESSY AND MAKE EVERY HOUSE LOOK LIKE MISS HAVISHAM’S
Also CATS. Houseplants and cats are a bad bad bad combo.
Except my one aloe plant, which is the only one I can keep alive anyway, and the cat dislikes it. And we all burn ourselves all the time because we are crap in the kitchen, so it’s a good thing I can keep it alive.
My cats will rip all houseplants apart; they obviously take orders from Mallory
My cat lives in perfect harmony with my multitudes of houseplants.
I shall respond in the thread below, where the plant lovers are.
…I guess that shows you.
Oh, Mallory, it is not the houseplants that make my home look like Miss Havisham’s.
It’s everything else.
You may rip my houseplants from my cold dead hands. It is like a jungle in my house and I love it!
Trains are the best. My grandfather worked for the railroad and they are in my blood.
I love your house. I love all the houses with indoor jungles. You can make my house like a jungle if you promise to maintain said jungle forever. Otherwise, I, like Mallory, must disapprove of houseplants in *my* house. I can’t stand being responsible for one more living thing. I hate it when they die and feel guilty when I fail to keep them from illness.
I really want my office to be an indoor jungle. In my last workspace there was this woman who had all these plants, and I used to kind of mock her for it, until I realized that her office smelled like fresh air while everyone else’s office smelled like office. And then I learned she was awesome. So this is my guilty disclosure for the day.
Yeah I don’t get the houseplant hate?!? I adore my plants and am so happy to see them every day, especially the ones that reach toward the sun because they’re aliiiivee and beautiful!!!
“I do not have a Doctorate in Classics because I like it eat.” what I tell people who ask why I quit studying and teaching Classics and went into tech. Our tech department when I started: 1 Classics teacher (me), one archaeologist, one behavioral psychologist, and a former ballet dancer.
Seriously, losing my funding and leaving with an MA in Classics was in retrospect one of the best things to ever happen to me.
OK, but what is wrong with houseplants? They refresh the air and bring a small reminder of the existence of life and goodness to dreary office spaces.
My boyfriend has a bonsai tree and he cares for it as if it were a child birthed of his own body.
My bonsai is the light of my life!!!
I may have gotten overly attached to my office plant, which gamely survived nine months in a windowless fluorescent-lit office before I took it home for the holidays. I put it next to my north-facing (read: indirect light) window and it’s so much happier now that I couldn’t bring myself to bring it back to work. I got guilted by a plant. Help.
Why can’t I like this about a dozen more times.
Can we start a support group for those held emotional hostage by plants? I have a poinsettia left over from Christmas sitting on my windowsill, and I don’t really want it but I feel obligated to keep it alive. Whyyy. What do people do with poinsettias anyway? I don’t even know how it got into my house.
Look into caulking up the cracks around the windows this summer – helps keep pests & other uninvited life forms outside. But then you might get a poinsettia swarm on the porch…
I rescued a poinsettia one of my co-workers put in the trash. I don’t want it, I just couldn’t bear the thought of a living plant being thrown into a landfill. I have trouble throwing avocado pits away, too, because I can grow them into little avocado trees.
I’m completely pro-choice, though, which seems contradictory to me.
I did the same! My office had these five giant, beautiful poinsettias in our entry, and the receptionist stapled a sign that said “TRASH” on each one right after New Year’s. It made me sad, so I rescued one, and now I have a mammoth poinsettia sitting on the floor by my desk. (Like, it’s too big to even fit ON my desk.) Why? Is it going to be there forever? Is it happy here?
I have one of those too! It’s from the Christmas before last, and it’s getting so leggy and just looks like there’s a giant weed in the corner of the office. I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
You can cut it back to fix the legginess. They do really well with being cut back heavily every year. I know this from also being unable to throw them away.
Ooooh, really? Thank you! Now I have a project for my tea break!
I have two little pinetree things that I rescued from someone who was just hoping they would die while sitting in a corner. I left them with someone who never watered them while I was working elsewhere for 3 months. I think they were watered twice. I really should give up on them but I just keep on trying because I think I am being held emotional hostage by my pinetrees.
I’m on the lookout for an office plant because my cubicle is a gray hole of depression, but I feel guilty just thinking about making another living thing spend its time in here.
Tillandsia! Also known as air plants. A whole lot of mini tillandisias, even. Easy to care for, and they will honestly be like, “Hey post-its, hey pens, this is a great party you’ve got going on!”
That is just the most fun image ever.
PLANTS ARE ALIVE THEY ARE LIVING CREATURES THAT CAN BE HAPPY OR SAD OR TERRIBLE DRAMA QUEENS LIKE THE PEACE LILY ON MY DESK.
TEAM PLANTS
I have a lovely spider plant in my office. I grew her from a baby-offshoot of my mother’s enormous spider plant when I first started working after law school. It turns out she’s a barometer of how happy I am at work – when I languished away in a terrible place for 3 years, she kind of stagnated. I’m much happier at my new job, and so is she – she’s green and lovely and growing fast, and she even has a baby-offshoot of her own!
My first job (not the terrible place) gave everyone a plant upon passing getting admitted to the bar. It’s supposed to be bad luck if your plant dies. Everybody’s died, though.
I love plants. I even keep some of them alive for years at a time! Plus we have an orange tree that gives us tiny oranges that we can eat! It’s like magic.
they’re dirty and wrong and sinuous and globby and they grow and twist at weird angles and they sit in pods of DIRT and growing things belong OUTSIDE and books and clean silence belong INSIDE
Yes! Like constantly changing, slightly creepy ART! That helps save you from carbon monoxide poisoning! Do your BOOKS help save you from carbon monoxide poisoning? No, they do not.
I just finished watering all of my office plants, and am now contemplating how much I love the sound of water slowly seeping into the dirt. It sounds like very quiet Rice Krispie crackles.
St Jerome begs to differ – plants AND books indoors.
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/anton…
I want to get like, a tiny herb garden for my cubicle; that sounds amazing.
DO IT. Little green things make the whole world better.
It’s like bringing nature inside with you! If you love nature, that is a wonderful breath of fresh air and happiness! If you hate nature (MALLORY), perhaps you can think of it as controlling and manipulating nature and forcing it to do your bidding!
i love nature; i do not love it inside. it belongs outside.
I’ve read a witch-fingers post that says DIFFERENT.
Loving Twilight is my declawing. I just love those shitty, shitty books, man.
Those books would have been great without the boys. TEAM BELLA IS BETTER OFF ALONE!
But she needed to be a vampire! She was put on this earth to be a vampire, and I only wish she had been turned by the evil kind of vampire. What majesty, what grace she would have displayed in the service of the Volturi!
If I were a vampire, I would NEVER waste my beautiful gifts eating stringy-ass deer. I would be an avenging angel of death, and I would fill my stomach with the hot, rich blood of the unworthy and the weak, and I would LAUGH.
(i have no idea why this thread is showing up twice, by the way. Perhaps the Gods of Twilight just want to make sure everyone gets to read it.)
Pitch this to HBO: Like Dexter, but a sexy Vampire. This would be a great mini-series.
In the service of the Volturi? Surely she would rule them, subtle but unyielding, like an iron fist in an awkward, tubercular glove.
Well she could certainly have become a vampire with the help of Alice or Rosalie. I maintain the boyless alternate universe version of those books are the good books.
Basically a quadrilogy of KStew shrugging around in a long-sleeved tee with her sleeves over her hands and biting her lip and running one hand through that awesome hair, that’s a thing they could have sold, I’m sure of it.
Did you ever read the book that was basically book one of Twilight but from Edward’s perspective? It was actually written by Stephanie Meyer and I went on some bizarre Twilight binge after someone told me about the books…it was like a trainwreck, I just couldn’t look away.
Why havent I read this, it sounds amazing! Except I can only imagine it this way:
Ate deer, biology homework *again*, smell girl.
It’s called MIDNIGHT SUN. You can read it here: stephaniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html . Just scrollll down to the bottom and click the link and it comes up as a pdf. You’re welcome.
It’s even better, it’s all tortured and emo and it’s called MIDNIGHT SUN. I tried to post the link earlier and it didn’t go through but if you google midnight sun the author’s website will come up and you can find it (just scroll way down to the bottom of the post where she talks about how sad she is that it was leaked to the internet and how no one should read it and then shares the link).
I read that while i had the flu and was very out of it and later thought I dreamed it.
Okay, I read a bunch of it last night and it was a) what I expected and b) better than a sharp stick in the eye by a small factor.
Have you seen Twilight with the MST3K dudes’ treatment? There’s a Rifftrax for that, and it’s pretty damn funny.
Birds are tiny, stunted dinosaurs that poop everywhere and want to eat your eyes. They do not belong in your house. (Exceptions will be entertained for crows, which are medium-sized, clever dinosaurs. They probably still don’t belong in your house.)
I am told that the aviary in my burgh is lovely, but I will never see that for myself because BIRDS.
Accurate. I somehow talked my parents into letting me get a cockatiel when I was a child. That bird hated me but really liked my dad, for some reason. Birds are too smart by half.
I think the exception would even better if you have a roof or large balcony and the birds can roost there.
Because I want that with a pair of Ravens.
Ms. Stewart is, for me, a not terribly well – done re-rendering of Bridget Fonda, and I much prefer Ms. Fonda. I give you “Singles” as evidence.
Fuck yes. FONDA ALL DAY.
No, I’m sorry, but I must compress this comment to “Fuck Fonda,” because hell no. I give you that movie about the townful of idiots who find the bag of money in a plane as evidence.
GET OUT OF MY WEBSITE BRIDGET FONDA ARE YOU KIDDING ME
I did limit it to “Singles.”
Mallory, I love and respect your views, but this Bob Seger thing is just…wrong. I suspect it’s generational, though, and therefore understandable (though I just cannot agree).
If you had come of age in the 80s in a small Michigan town, being the sole punk-rock freak amid a horrifying sea of lighter-waving Seger fans, and that goddam song was ALWAYS on the jukebox in EVERY shitty bar you ever went to to get out of the house and then came home alone from feeling like more of a freak than ever, you would, I assure you, feel differently about it. When I hear Bob Seger I have an irrepressible urge to punch things.
This primarily my stance, and I stand by it utterly.
That is, however, a sad and charming story.
Instead of punching things, you should try working on your night moves.
Oh my goodness, you have tapped into the root of my anti-Seger stance. I am cross just having read the title to “Night Moves” because now it’s in my head.
The Toast Disapproves of the Following Things:
1. When you make a list of, like, eight things you think are great, and someone says “I can’t believe you forgot [some fucking thing they like.]”
YES. YES. YES.
It’s just so fucking RUDE to say that. No, I did not forget [some fucking thing you like], I just don’t have the time or inclination to list every single possible great thing relevant to this list of great things. Or hey, maybe I just don’t agree with you that [some fucking thing] is so great! Or even maybe I did forget about it, but instead of gently reminding me you’re coming at me all affronted like I was trying to personally offend you. It is not that hard to say, “hey these things you listed are great, and [some fucking thing] is also great and relevant to this discussion!” If you’re feeling indignant about something being left out of the list, WRITE YOUR OWN LIST.
I mean, it’s nice that they assume I am some sort of universal, final arbiter of whatever I am listing (“best fast food milkshakes”), to the point where anything I forgot and fail to include is immediately cast like Morgoth beyond the Walls of Night into the eternal Void and is forever verboten (“speak no more of the Shamrock Shake, for it is an abomination”).
It’s nice that they assume that, because I am.
True. I mean, you can’t really blame them for wanting to protect what they love from the eternal Void. Though I am gonna give some major side-eye to anyone willing to fight, even on the internet, for the Shamrock Shake.
They too shall be thrown out into the darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth and a vague minty aftertaste.
This drives me even more nuts when it’s clearly a list of “things I like,” not “things that are the best.” NPR Music, as one example, does end-of-year lists of their favorite music, and they explicitly say they’re not calling it the best, and 90% of the comments are like, “you guys are morons and clearly NPR has no grasp on culture.”
It’d take some doing, but I’d love to make some sort of comment filter that automatically turns any comment like that into I AM A DEEPLY INSECURE PERSON WHO FEELS THE NEED TO PROVE MY INTELLIGENCE ON THE INTERNET BY YELLING AT STRANGERS ABOUT POP CULTURE TRIVIA.
Corollary, when there’s an article about an artist, and someone has to be the fucker who is like, “this dude’s a hack, what about this other dude, he did it way better”. And is it possible to be not such a shit about it? Why the need to tear down one person to hold up your idol higher? Perhaps on could say instead, ” this dude is good, a similar artist who works in light is this other dude, check it out!”
YES YES YES YES. I came down into the comments to see if someone had talked about this (and do it myself if no one else had) and just, god. I hate it when people do this; the people who do are the worst.
Here for K.Stew. Always.
Are we talking “academia” as the system of higher education and research or using the word “academia” to describe that system? Cause there are distinct reasons for hating both. But only one is completely unredeemable (seriously, how do you come up with a word that pretentious?).
I’m fully employed in higher education and research and I don’t understand this comment. help.
Your wording is terribly unclear. How is the first system different from the second?
Omg birds. There are birds flying into people’s mouths here in New York. Just flying right in. It’s terrifying.
Also I saw a man bring his parrot to a beach and wanted to end everything right then and there.
Yesterday I saw a man with his fucking cockatoo on his shoulder INSIDE A CAFE. god dammit, San Francisco.
I am staunchly in support of houseplants, and sometimes get a yen to just fill up my apartment with ferns and trailing air plants and just swan around in jumpsuits and gloriously unkempt hair and slightly awkward cleavage like it’s the 70s up in here. DON’T KILL MY DREAMS.
I will say that I am staunchly in support of academia as a means to an end, but necessarily not an end in itself. One should also unpack the term a bit, so you’re not lumping in good aspects with bad.
Is there room for calftan wearing in this scenario as well?
There is always room for caftan wearing
Yessssssssss I have a very cluttered 1970s antique-glass-jar-and-fern-frond aesthetic rooted deep in my heart. We don’t actually live like that, but oh I want to.
I used to have a cactus which was, to be frank, the max level of responsibility I was cut out for. I had it for years and it was tiny and wonderful. Then my now-fiancee moved in with me and replanted it. IT PROMPTLY DIED. I’m still upset that she murdered my bachelor cactus.
are you sure it wasn’t on purpose
IT STARTS WITH THE CACTUS…
You don’t even know. It eats me up inside.
The other day I posted an official list of things I am into on my tumblr. The list included Chris Evans. Someone reblogged it and in their tag said they didn’t know who Chris Evans is. My first thought was, “Oh you sweet summer child” quickly followed by “should I enlighten them?”
YES, YES YOU SHOULD
I AM HERE FOR THIS GIF
OMG THE BOTTOM.
😀
Hmmm, yes, you are correct. This should be shared.
Haha. Dimples doesn’t like birds, pets or otherwise. I think I told y’all she said this AS we were entering the aviary at the zoo. “Don’t make me look at them!” Flying birds were especially upsetting, although she allowed she would tolerate birds who were standing still.
How does she feel about birds that walk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3a88_SjJR0
(Bonus: Benedict Cumberbatch telling you about cute birds.)
I have never managed to keep a houseplant alive in my life, because I cannot remember to water them. Ever. It’s like they become invisible. It is currently part of my job to water the office plants once a week and they are all dying. PLANTS BELONG OUTSIDE AND SHOULD NOT BE WATERED BY HUMANS.
But but but but on social media, the other option is just to drop the link and run!
Like, “here’s a thing I wrote on Topic for Publication [link]” vs. “Article Title [link].” Since people are dropping articles in my streams all the time, I want them to know that THIS ONE’S MINE, YO.
Is it the word “thing” that’s objectionable? Would “here’s an article I wrote on Topic for Publication [link]” be better? Or is The Toast disagreeing with the entire construct?
I feel like the vagueness and sniveling humblebrag quality of “thing” is the most objectionable part. Just call it a blog post or a rant or a sestina or a motet for six voices or an epistolary novel or whatever the heck it is that you actually wrote!
Haha I took so long drafting my comment (no coffee yet) you basically said the same thing!
“Here’s a(n) essay/article/piece/review/listicle/quiz I wrote for ______, give it a look” is, I think, much better on something like Facebook. I don’t know but the “thing I wrote” sounds weirdly humblebraggy to me, and also vaguely unprofessional if you are getting paid for it.
Aww, I hope you guys can disapprove of academia without disapproving of us poor academics. We get enough crap, as you may have heard tell. [resumes playing lonely harmonica]
Yes, it’s the system that’s unsustainable for the participants.
I am all for AHP doing what is best for her, and if her leaving the academic world for BuzzFeed means (as it appears to) that we get to read more of her lovingly researched stories of how individual actors fit into the narrative that Hollywood and audiences demand of stars, I’m grateful.
And if it spurs any extra discussion of how difficult it is to sustain a career in academia, and how (and why) some academics look down on a colleague who also writes for popular press/sites even when it’s to the same rigorous standards as their academic-press work, that’s great too.
I kept wanting to object to her interview/article but there wasn’t anything to object to (to which to object?). I just want more cool/fun/perspective-having people in academia, and the more of those people leave, the more painful my committee meetings get.
There was a guy who wrote into Prudie today or possibly yesterday, asking how he and his flying-and-drowning-phobic wife could travel anywhere interesting, and I shouted at the screen “TRAINS! TRAINS! TRAAAAAAAAINS.”
How is there not a bullet train that travels either over or under the ocean yet?
As someone who has taken the ‘here’s a thing’ route and immediately regretted it, I applaud this list item. Take heed, self deprecators!
Hey Team Houseplants, can I ask what your favorite thing to grow is? I am loving my prayer plant lately. I’ve got some other plants that are being bratty teenagers at the end of this long winter, but that prayer plant is a delight!
I just looked up prayer plants and they’re beautiful, so now I want ten!
Right now my favorite thing to grow is my bonsai! It’s a teeny sequoia and it’s the most adorable and I love it with all my heart.
I need a bonsai! That and new window herbs will be my spring treat.
Oh my gosh teeny sequoia!! Is it very very hard to take care of?
I love my ficus because it is a tree in my house.
I am late, but I have a gorgeous bushy four-foot-high Madagascar Dragon Tree that I love because it is beautiful, easy to take care of, and has the best name.
We have a random collection of cacti and succulents that I enjoy greatly. Especially the one that looks like a brain. Bonus is that I basically just don’t water them from November-March (December-February now that we live someplace with sun).
Window herbs are delicious but tend to die in our household.
Nepenthes are my true favorite but they’re really more greenhouse plants than houseplants.
PARROTS! PARROTS! PARROTS! I will never not love birds. When I grow up I will have an entire wing of my house that is an aviary and there will be giant birds on every perch and they will hang out with my giant iguana and talk about “used to be a dinosaur” things.
YES to no to academia.
Trains! Update on the train which remains on an escalator at O’Hare: the National Transportation and Safety Board has assured us all that they do have an emergency braking system, and it did engage. It didn’t, like, stop the train, or slow it down enough that it didn’t go off the tracks and onto an escalator, but don’t worry everyone, the brakes were on!
I have accepted that I will die a horrible death on my commute. I’m just glad it will be on a train.
Trains are truly the Gentleperson’s transportation. I would use them more if the one that goes to Ottawa wasn’t constantly breaking (and prohibitively expensive.)
I like academia. Definitely agree with everything else, though. And I admit academia is complicated and there are parts I don’t like, but as a rule I think academia is pretty great. Especially compared to a lot of other things.
ETA: I also like houseplants, but only if they are easy to take care of and in small amounts. I have two and that’s definitely enough for me.
ACADEMIA FOREVER. How am I supposed to appreciate Pamela posts if I don’t get PAID TO READ?
DEFINITELY FEEL YOU ON DISLIKES 2 AND 3. True story: there was a period in my childhood when one room in our house was devoted almost entirely to unruly plants (I refuse to call them “houseplants” when they’re the size of an actual adult tree) and our foyer area was home to LITERALLY OVER A DOZEN BUDGIES. My dad, bless his heart, thought it would be educational for me to witness the circle of life via budgie procreation, so he bought a male bird and a nest to put in with the female we already owned and let them go to town. NO. DO NOT DO THIS. He didn’t realize he was supposed to remove the nest right away and suddenly the baby budgies multiplied and oh my god the smell still haunts me. Do you have any idea what a baby budgie looks like? Spare yourself the google search – I can’t have that on my conscience. Just imagine a hideous pinkish alien lizard creature with a disproportionately large head, the skin of a hairless cat and visible organs under transparent flesh.
DEFINITELY FEEL YOU ON DISLIKES 2 AND 3. True story: there was a period in my childhood when one room in our house was devoted almost entirely to unruly plants (I refuse to call them “houseplants” when they’re the size of an actual adult tree) and our foyer area was home to LITERALLY OVER A DOZEN BUDGIES. My dad, bless his heart, thought it would be educational for me to witness the circle of life via budgie procreation, so he bought a male bird and a nest to put in with the female we already owned and let them go to town. NO. DO NOT DO THIS. He didn’t realize he was supposed to remove the nest right away and suddenly the baby budgies multiplied and oh my god the smell still haunts me. Do you have any idea what a baby budgie looks like? Spare yourself the google search – I can’t have that on my conscience. Just imagine a hideous pinkish alien lizard creature with a disproportionately large head, the skin of a hairless cat and visible organs under transparent flesh.
Birds are the only pets that can dance, and thus ultimately the only pets worth having
This is a lie, my dog totally dances with me.
There is a point on the Acela from Boston to NYC where the train approaches the Connecticut coast, and the scenery goes from scrubby woods to the vast expanse of Long Island Sound, and it gets me every dang time.
I am officially on record as pro-bird, pro houseplant, and pro Kristen Stewart, FYI
Ok it turns out the image is FINE but my work computer flagged it as porn! I mean she does look GOOD in that photo but really…
I agree that Kristen Stewart looks and behaves as if she has TB. I, however, do not see that as a positive thing.