I had the most restful few days imaginable, as our submissions address had not ported over from the old host yet, and Tech Goth Maria, at my urging, agreed not to fix it until after the Glorious Fourth. The silence! The glorious silence. It came to an end yesterday morning, but I will never forget the serenity of this weekend. It is truly a brief absence that makes the heart grow fonder. I am rejuvenated and excited to read your work once more.
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Robert Shelton looks back on working at the Domino Sugar refinery:
The sugar that was once stored here came in by barge on the East River. It started out brown; it took a mixture of animal bone charcoal and chemicals to bleach it white. In the char house near the sugar house, Mr. Shelton’s kilns heated the bone char for reuse. The smell, he said, made him sick to his stomach. Against the heat, he wore long johns and special insulation, layers that did nothing for the sweat that clung to his hair and squished in his socks.
That heat: night shifts, day shifts, weekend shifts, holiday shifts, 60 or 70 hours a week for 20 years, all feeling like 2,000 degrees. It made even the most veteran kiln workers woozy. It still imprints his body. Accustomed to furnacelike temperatures, Mr. Shelton said he wore wool socks in his sneakers even when he played handball in the summer. For him, each winter is torture.
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That garbage Anthony Cumia idiot got canned, bless the universe. dur dur free speech something. We needed a victory after last week, even if this is small potatoes.
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Jesus, Guernica has been having some great stuff recently:
When our donors met the actual people they were helping they often didn’t like them. During our Secret Santa drive, volunteers sometimes refused to drop gifts at houses with TVs inside. They got angry when clients had cell phones or in some other way didn’t match their expectations. Other times, the donations we got were too disgusting to pass along—soup cans that bulged with botulism and diapers so dry rotted they crumbled in our hands. One Thanksgiving, a board member called from the parking lot, requesting help carrying a frozen turkey from her trunk to our office. “Can you find a deserving family?” she asked. I lugged the bird up three flights of stairs. Somewhere near the top, I noticed the expiration date. It was seventeen years old.
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Great, difficult-to-read profile of Roxane Gay from NPR.
I ask Gay if recovery is only a fiction. “No, I don’t think it’s a fiction, but I think we have a fictionalized understanding of what recovery means,” she says. “Especially for Miri, in the novel, recovery is just getting to a place where she wants to be alive, and feels alive, and can be present in her life. But I think we like to believe that recovery means we can get over everything and that we can forgive those who have trespassed against us. And I just refuse to do that. And I believe in forgiveness but find it very difficult to offer up forgiveness and I don’t particularly feel like forgiveness frees you from your burden of trauma [she says this last phrase with contempt]. I think we just tell ourselves these palliative things to just become more comfortable. And to believe we can overcome anything.”
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Bakeries you should visit before you die. OR AFTER, AS A POLTERGEIST.
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On the earliest English-language translation of the Quran:
In November 1733 the first translation of the Quran from Arabic into English — a copy of which Jefferson would eventually purchase — appeared in London. Its author, Sale, had learned Arabic in his spare time and had never visited a Muslim country. He once wrote, “I am but too sensible of the Disadvantages, one who is neither a Native, nor ever was in the Country must lie under, in playing the Critic in so difficult a Language as the Arabick.” To translate the holy book, Sale mainly used volumes in his own library, including a recent Latin translation that had been published in Counterreformation Rome. This Latin Quran, designed for the use of Catholic missionaries, contained a wealth of previously untranslated information.
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On quitting Facebook:
Here’s what shakes me the most now: Facebook’s privacy changes laid the foundation for this breach of my personal privacy, and its doublespeak facilitated it. So how was Facebook’s complicity so invisible to me that I didn’t assign it any blame? That is, why did I accuse my family member of negligence, instead of accusing Facebook of negligence?
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The only thing better than Richard Dreyfuss’s kids talking about JAWS is the olds in the comments assuming this must be the END of Mother Jones.
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I had never, ever seen “Gap Yah,” and then Mallory sent it to me, and now I care for nothing else:
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I read my very first Guernica piece this morning (Kelly Sundberg’s brutal, gorgeous, awful essay on domestic violence, “It Will Look Like a Sunset”) and look forward to reading the entire rest of the back catalog at the next opportunity.
To counteract the oof-ness of that piece, here is a photo taken from my local news website today:
(From this weekend’s Mid-America Miniature Horse Club Mini Julep Cup.)
This is too cute for words, and also not helping the baby fever that I have right now.
EVERYTHING IN THIS PICTURE IS SO MUCH TINIER THAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE. According to the photo caption, the young man is THREE.
AHHHH <3
He’s THREE? My little cousin is 3, and if he can be counted on to not run into the middle of the street it’s amazing.
Maybe your cousin just needs a TINY HORSE FRIEND. And some TINY BOOTS.
TINY HORSE is clearly a positive influence.
Oh my god, oh no, the mother in that DV piece. My heart.
Yep yep yep. Who SAYS things like that?
THOSE TINY HOOVES. I’M DYING.
Oh god I read the actual Guernica piece (the one Nicole linked to) and now I understand why the tiny horse and his tiny friend are necessary. Oof indeed. But I am excited to have a new place to read interesting things.
That sunset piece knocked me out yesterday. Guernica has been spot on the last five things I’ve read there.
We saw miniature donkeys on the weekend and they were so small and their owners all had miniature donkey stud pun names like Lil Lass and Windy Passtures.
That bakery in Vienna looks like the inspiration for all the sweet-eating scenes in Marie Antoinette in the best way.
Oh my goodness I have to go to ALL the bakeries. Has anyone had first-hand experience with any of the stores in the article?
I have! I’ve been to one of the Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aokis in Paris (it was right near where we were staying, and I made us go because I will go anywhere with green tea desserts) and Pastéis de Belém in Portugal. They were both awesome. I might be thinking about those custard things from Portugal now and sighing that I don’t have one.
I have been to Tatte! It’s indeed delicious, but it’s EXPENSIVE. And the location is rather odd – like, the outside of the bakery itself looks like a perfect Parisian storefront, but then the buildings its under/around are mostly glass/steel scary pharmaceutical companies. But Genzyme employees need croissants, too, you know? Anyway, it’s great if you have a little extra dough (HAHA GET IT) and aren’t trying to go there for lunch on a weekend. Plus the interior design is to die for.
I’m looking at Tatte’s site and going “Why do you have THREE LOCATIONS around Kendall AND NONE IN HARVARD OR CENTRAL???” I mean, probably real estate, but it makes my pastry quest much more difficult.
Du Pain et des Idées used to be my neighborhood joint! Now I make pilgrimage from across town, which involves a bus transfer, so you know it’s serious. Have also been to Pastéis de Belém and the Konditorei Buchenwald. All stellar.
I am using the Toast recommendation of this article as an excuse to go to Bakerbots in Toronto this week. I have never been there, but I will go and report back on their ice cream sandwiches.
In my experience, the cookies were too hard to be good for ice cream sandwiches. BUT an ice cream with their cookies crumbled on top?? Hell ya. My fav ice cream sandwich in the city us at Moo Milk Bar in the Beach.
Eat the cookies alone, or the icecream by itself or or or better yet, have the butterscotch tart!!! oh yes
Breads Bakery is amazing, I was a semi-regular for a while since they’re across the street from the physical therapist I was seeing for a sprained ankle. Everything I got there was great but my favorite was probably the chocolate rugelach.
I’ve been to Tartine in San Francisco! I had the most amazing amazing frangipane tart there and it was worth standing at the counter to eat while watching a hipster nurse her water while reading her own diary. Really the tart was incredible.
Macrina in Seattle. Though I’m surprised it beat out Cafe Besalu right next door, which has the best French pastries I’ve ever had, including when I went to Paris, or Bakery Nouveau in Capitol Hill which is likewise awesome.
No, but I feel like the kolache pick in Texas might be a bit controversial. It is conveniently on the way between my place and my mother’s place, though, so I’m keeping it in mind for future trips 😀
I am now super disappointed with myself for going to Vienna but somehow not visiting Demel. I did have Sachertorte at the Hotel Sacher, though, so there’s that.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the Sachertorte was actually invented and first served at Demel, and their version is still commonly considered to be the best. There was actually a fairly long and drawn-out legal battle between Hotel Sacher and Demel over who got to call their version the “original” Sachertorte, which came down to arguments about 1 vs 2 layers of apricot jam, chocolate medallions, slicing schema, and so on. VIENNESE CAKE POLITICS.
RE: Demel – I lived in Vienna for a time and always took out-of-town guests to Demel. Recipe for perfection: slice of Esterhazytorte, cardamom-infused hot chocolate, sit up on the very top floor in the chintziest window seat you can get and watch the snow fall and think about waltzing.
Lonely Planet did inform me that there was a rivalry between Demel and the Sacher re: the invention of the Sachertorte, but it didn’t side with anyone in particular. The cake I had was delicious, although my memory is a bit hazy – virtually every time I ordered coffee, the server would ask me if I wanted rum in it, and how can I say no to an offer like that, so I was lightly buzzed pretty much the entire week I was in Vienna.
Also all the coffee has real whipped cream in it. Vienna is *great*.
“lightly buzzed” You are bringing back many a fond memory. Thank you. In any case, if a distinguished, elderly man in a tuxedo offers you booze at 9am, it’s only right that you should drink it.
I checked my memory of the rivalry at wikipedia, and:
“The author Friedrich Torberg, who was a frequent guest at both establishments, served as a witness during this process and testified that, during the lifetime of Anna Sacher, the cake was never covered with marmalade or cut through the middle.”
SOMEONE FILM THIS GRITTY COURTROOM DRAMA.
The only way to know is TASTE TESTING. I volunteer myself as tribute. For us and for Science.
I have been to Demel and I still dream of going back there. I studied abroad in Vienna. And omigod, the pastries were the best, and Demel was…. well, right. They were the bakers to the imperial court, so you aren’t far off with the Marie-Antoinette reference. 🙂
Reading through the entire “Books I Hate” thread is a delightful way to start my Monday. Thanks, Toast!
I was so bummed to have missed that, but 2/3 of my Most Hated books were mentioned by others, so I feel okay and righteous about it.
Oh wow, should not have clicked through to read the tweets that Anthony Cumia got fired for. “Racially-charged and hate-filled remarks” is putting it mildly. Welp, glad he’s gone, at any rate.
I just wish that people would understand how the First Amendment works. That would be great.
Pretty sure it reads, verbatim: “There are no consequences for any actions that involve speaking, writing, or really anything.”
…as long as you’re a white man.
xkcd is fighting the good fight:
UGH YES
I tend to throw out Amendment Ib in situations like this:
“Congress shall make no law abridging the right to think you are a total fuckwit.”
Oh god yes perfect.
I like that now, when presented with the actual way the First Amendment works, they fall back on “Sure, that’s the letter of the law, but not the SPIRIT of the law!”
But it’s not against the LAAAAW to be Hitler. What kind of crazy bizarro universe are we in where you can be fired for something that isn’t against the laaaw, especially when you are Anthony Cumia
I clicked through despite the warning and am absolutely horrified. Not only at Cumia’s disgusting tweets, but at the huge number of commenters who see the woman in question as an aggressor, despite the fact that Cumia was clearly taking creepshots of strangers in the middle of the night. I’ll never make the mistake of reading comments elsewhere again.
Toft! I recently read Moominvalley in November. What a strange, eerie, oddly enchanting book. I wasn’t expecting it to be nearly so dark. Toft and his overactive imagination and his longing for a family and his bursts of anger that he couldn’t understand really tugged at my heartstrings.
Have you read the other moomin books? Several of them are very similar in tone.
I’ve read Moominsummer Madness, which was mostly the kind of endearing whimsy I was expecting after working my way through the comics. Although it did feature this nihilistic exchange, which I copied into a note on my phone so I wouldn’t forget it:
“I like it here,” said the Mymble’s daughter. “It’s just as if nothing really mattered here.”
“Does anything matter anywhere?” asked Little My.
“No,” her sister replied happily. “Don’t ask such silly questions.”
The public library here doesn’t have any of the other books, but I fully intend to buy them if I come across them in a used bookstore.
They are all lovely and beautiful, but heavier on the melancholy than whimsy, most of them. I love them all.
Those tweets. Those were panic-inducing. I can’t imagine how much worse it is to read those when you’re one of the people he identifies as “not human” because of your skin color. He’s vile.
That was a terrible glimpse into the kind of blatant, virulent racism that is often invisible to people who aren’t specifically targeted by it. I see racism in action, as we all do, but it’s usually subtler, the kind that the practitioners of it can deny as racism per se when they’re called on it — and maybe they honestly don’t know it’s racism. But Cumia’s tweets were… well, not subtle, for sure.
Such good stuff in this roundup! I especially loved the piece about the Domino factory worker. I wish they’d interviewed him for longer!
But… of… course…
HAVE THAT NATURE! ONE-NIL!! Gap yah. Genius.
Just like Fulham. <3
I’m so thankful my first therapist really hammered home that I had no obligation to forgive.
I once ate four custard tarts in one sitting in the Belem custard tart bakery in Portugal and would do it again. So, so good.
Stellar round-up! OMG those bakeries; food porn at its finest.
I am LOSING MY MIND looking at the chocolate cake at the Berlin one.
My sister’s boyfriend used to live around the corner from Tatte in Brookline/Boston. And holy crap I had no idea it was so well known. That place was *choice*. Also, unlike some of the other places on that list, almost no lines!
I resent being limited to only 25 bakery visits for a lifetime. I mean, if there are 1,000 places I should visit before I die, why not 1,000 bakeries?
I feel like I wouldn’t be nearly so upset with Facebook for the privacy breaches and emotional manipulation if it could at least present me with a well-ordered timeline, but it can’t even do that.
Currently on my feed, from top to bottom:
1. a post from 18 minutes ago
2. a post from 17 minutes ago
3. a post from 6 minutes ago
4. a post from 22 minutes ago
5. a post from 7 minutes ago
6. a post from 2 hours ago
7. a post from yesterday
8. a post from 3 hours ago
etc…
Do you filter yours by most recent entry? Mine keeps trying to show me “Top Stories”, but it’s quite quick to switch back so I can actually see new things at the top.
I used to, but a few weeks ago I noticed that the Top Stories/Most Recent option disappeared. I don’t see it anymore, whether I’m viewing Facebook on my computer or on a mobile app.
Another thing I hate is when it says things like “Jane Doe and 35 other people wished Anne Jones a happy birthday!” and then proceeds to show me those wall posts. I don’t know Jane Doe or most of the other 35 people, why do you think I care, Facebook?
My cousin’s birthday was over the weekend and my feed was subsumed by 100+ people wishing her a happy birthday. I don’t care! Stop showing me this, Facebook!
How infuriating. And yes, I hate that too. I don’t know these people! Why do I need to be shown this?
This is a huge pet peeve of mine! I just want it to display ALL my friends (that I haven’t hidden from my timeline) in reverse chronological order. Like Twitter, but less like trying to drink from a fire hose.
YES.
If they can’t manage to put it in chronological order, what right do they have to even CALL it a “time” line?
Well, this is perfection.
It drives me NUTS that I can’t permanently set my feed to Most Recent. I keep changing it and it keeps changing back.
I don’t even have that option anymore, neither on any mobile apps nor when I’m viewing it on a computer. The Top Stories/Most Recent toggle menu at the top just vanished for me.
It’s not ideal if you’re mostly a mobile app user, but I have http://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr bookmarked on my browser, and it always displays recent stories first.
On the mobile app they hid it under the ‘more’ thing down in the corner. For me it shows up under ‘favorites’ but there’s also a ‘feeds’ menu under there. Basically they made it way harder to find because they want you to use their stupid ‘top stories’ feed, which is ridiculous.
Also drives me nuts. I will cry if the option to change it goes away.
What’s the point of collecting all this data on me if you CAN’T REMEMBER MY PREFERRED SETTINGS
Oh, now I get to tell the story about being the only person in class who didn’t realize who Ben Dreyfuss’s dad was!
He mentioned that he wasn’t going to be at school next year–he was probably transferring, but he was also planning on taking time off to try acting. I said something like, “Oh, cool! Your parents are okay with that? Mine would kill me,” and he looked at me for a moment and said, “Well, my dad’s an actor, so…”
I was like “Oh, what has he done?” and he said, “Uh, some plays…movies…Jaws…”
And I said, “Oh….OH!”
He was like “I thought you knew! Why did you think people keep giving me shit about Krippendorf’s Tribe?” Which was a fair question.
That would so be me. I am always the last to figure things out like that, for whatever reason. On the plus side, you spent all that time treating him like regular folk, which may have been nice for him?
I think a lot of the kids in class lived in the same dorm, so I’m going to assume that they were tipped off on move-in day. The college had a lot of industry kids and he was good people, so aside from the aforementioned Krippendorf’s Tribe ridiculing, he was treated like regular folk.
Hahaha, the first comment under that (wonderful) Roxane Gay profile is some guy all butthurt that she is “rejecting” him by not reading internet comments. It’s so easy to hurt men’s delicate feelings.
Men have so much trouble controlling their emotions, which is why they’re unfit to hold office or other important leadership positions.
Oh, this gave me a lovely cackle.
men feel invisible and then they lash out NEWS AT TEN AND THEN EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR
Local hurt men on the 8s!
The ego! “She should spend all her time wading through sexist, hateful, insulting comments so that she doesn’t miss what I have to say, or I will be personally offended!”
And now some total tool has interpreted her comment about it being easier to play dumb with repairmen as “being unwilling to do the hard, dirty work to get” something, and then labeling feminism as a “sad, vicious joke.”
Hey ladies, we’re not only terrible people for being feminists, we’re responsible for all the terrible macho people out there when we don’t speak up! It’s wicked fun being wrong all the time, ain’t it?
The pedants freaking out about the Dreyfuss kids in the comments are amazing! Like, seriously, how well informed are you about your dad’s career? For example, my dad works in a bearing factory. The only thing I know about bearings is they make things go around.
I want the Dreyfuss kids to regularly chat about their dad’s movies. Or other actors’ kids to do the same!
Also, bless the internet for giving a space in which everyone can be very passionate about their narrow fields of expertise and mock those who are ignorant.
Guys, I got to the gang-rape scene in An Untamed State last night and I finished the chapter, closed the book, took a deep breath, and WEPT. I am halfway through the book and I feel like it’s haunting me. I’m trying to go through a normal workday and then I suddenly remember what happened in the book and am reminded that I don’t know what’s going to happen next and it’s JARRING.
This is all by way of saying that Roxane Gay is a tremendous writer and I don’t even have the words for how deeply I feel for her characters, and herself, and all survivors of sexual violence.
Oh, it is one of the most physically difficult books I have ever read. I am so in awe of her for giving the world this fucking novel.
Nicole, does the Toast book club have a timeline anywhere I should refer to so I can be up-to-date for the next post? I haven’t pored over the comments of the first Untamed State thread because I haven’t yet started my copy and it seemed silly to court spoilers, but if the details of the club are in there, I’ll look.
I’m telling people our next discussion date and where to read to in tomorrow’s roundup!
Thank you!
I cried so hard my husband came in from the bedroom, where he had gone to sleep without me because I couldn’t stop reading, and held me for a long time, and then when I was all cried out he was like, “So, can you come to bed now?” and I was like, “No, sorry, have to read more.”
Uh-oh. I got the book last week, and I’ve been giving it side glances every time I walk past. Not sure this week is a mentally healthy time to read it. But I want very much to catch up to The Toast’s book-club; if I’m putting myself into that vulnerable head-space, there’s no one I’d rather be there with.
It is hard, hard, hard to read. We’re here for you every step of the way but it’s important to figure out for yourself if that’s a place you want to put yourself in.
I’m looking at it this way: I’m going to read it sometime — and soon, at that. Would I rather do it alone or in tandem with a supportive, affectionate group reading the same pages, so we can be here together to discuss the nuances of meaning and feeling in the text, and how we interpret and feel it? The latter sounds like the right answer for me, though it wouldn’t be the right answer for everyone. Knowing this community, the discussions will be insightful, honest, and compassionate.
“An Untamed State” is a rough read but I am so glad I stuck with it. I generally don’t care for graphic violence and will put a book down if I don’t think it’s justified… but in the case of “An Untamed State” the level of detail is both justified and necessary. It’s really one of the best fiction books by a “new” writer I’ve read in quite some times.
“Bad Feminist” is going on the wish list.
I’ve been putting off catching up on my reading of it just for this reason. It’s going to be pretty challenging, it’s well outside of any subject matter I would have chosen for myself without the incentive of the book club.
I think someone already said a variant of this in the comments on BOOK HATRED on Friday, but I really appreciate that we did not get into “oh, I loved that book! you are WRONG BECAUSE” comments, and everyone just respected that we were here to hate.
Some dude showed up in pending with a boner for some book one of our readers hated, and I sent him to spam and then made myself a celebratory protein smoothie.
I was deeply afraid after seeing a few “aw but that book is awesome!” comments but very gratified to see the immense respect everyone had for AUGHGUHUGDHISDUGSHD THESE BOOOOOOOOKS. It was a terrific weekend for spamming that article to all of my friends, is what I’m saying.
The lack of “oh, I loved that book! you are WRONG BECAUSE” comments pleased me (and my husband) to no end. I used to be a regular poster on a dude-heavy culture message board and we could NEVER just hate things. It was awful.
Sometimes I think I would be amazing if you took the worst/best/bestworst of the would-be posters who end up in spam and pillored them for our amusement. But I recognize the importance of protein smoothies and delicious, delicious silence.
A smoothie flavored with boner-dude tears!
I nearly did this! I was about to defend a book but then I thought of depriving people of their lovely glowy hate-fest and I didnt have the heart.
So I swanned off and made a snide comment about Jane Eyre.
NICE
I only said one positive thing about a book that someone else hated, and it was in the context of “someone tell me something actually happens in this, please.” (My response was something along the lines of “yes things happen and I like it but it’s not for everyone,” which was hopefully acceptable.)
That thread was a beautiful gift.
“That thread was a beautiful gift”. OMG, yes, yes, yes.
I also said one positive thing about a book but only and explicitly as a way to unpack and examine my agreement with the person who hates the same part that I HATE HATE HATE RAGE-SWEAT HATE did I mention I don’t like it I HATE IT.
I was all set to say something in defense of China Mieville then I stopped and considered how elaborately qualified a defense of China Mieville would have to be, and didn’t.
Yeah, this.
RIGHT? A hatred thread is for hatred, not for being Sam I Am. You go on & hate that thing, fellow Toastie, you hate it TO PIECES. I’ll be over hear quietly admiring both the book and your glorious hatred of it.
This proves that I am Officially Lowbrow, but could we do a hate thread about movies and/or tv shows sometime?
Ooooooh that would be delightful.
I am SO FUCKIN HIGHBROW and would also enjoy this yes please
As a critic, I sometimes get paid to watch something awful. But both my husband and I are critics, which means sometimes one of us ends up watching something awful that only the other is paid to watch.
(I’m new over at The A.V. Club, so I was delighted to have two, count ’em, two of my write-ups included in the roundup of worst episodes of the 2014 season, and therefore get a little remuneration for watching these rage-sweat-inducing shows. If you’re keen to know which I wrote, I’ll be happy to tell; otherwise I leave the guessing game as an exercise for the reader.)
I only have time to skim that article right now but will dive into it delightedly later. First impression: GLEE IS STILL ON THE AIR?
WHO KNEW
Also, I only contributed to part 2; part 1 is linked at the top. I won’t also link here because I already feel weird taking eyes away from The Toast so you can read MY DEATHLESS PROSE OF WONDER about terrible TV.
I love reading hate-stuff about horrible TV. Just at a first glance I’m guessing The Following and We Are Men for you, maybe? (I may just be pulling everything with the word “misogynistic” in it.)
Although written by a man, Anthony Lane’s takedown of the Star Trek movie that came out a few years back was so glorious I needed a cigarette afterward. I’d seen it after all my friends insisted it was awesome, and I saw it, and it was Not Awesome despite the presence of Zachary Quinto. And then I read Anthony Lane’s review. And all was right again with the world.
I will tell you. Here it comes. I’m telling, so if you don’t want to know, look away. The next thing is me telling you which ones I wrote.
[SPOILER I AM TELLING, also spoilers for How I Met Your Mother]
I wrote the entries on
– How I Met Your Mother, or as I do not call it in that article, How I Forget Your Mother, and
– Sing Your Face Off, which my husband got paid to review and I just sat there, watching gape-mouthed and taking it like a chump because I COULD NOT LOOK AWAY.
OH MY GOD. Sing Your Face Off sounds…it cannot be real! Can it? It cannot!
(My feelings regarding the HIMYM finale are well known but to sum up: I fully agree with you, and it was UNFORGIVABLE.)
Sing Your Face Off is not only real, it’s the U.S. version of an international franchise.
About HIMYM, I am particularly proud of the phrase “Superfluous Wife Syndrome.”
I WATCHED SING YOUR FACE OFF. While chatting with friends in ALL CAPS about WHAT IS GOING ON HOW IS SEBASTIAN BACH DRESSED AS WILLIE NELSON WHAT IS HAPPENING AM I INSANE NOW.
It was a delight of hate and insanity and nonsense and Debbie Gibson’s eye makeup.
And now that I’ve read your piece, yes, that was exactly the problem. It was insane, but in such a pat and simple way, when it could have been so delightfully batshit. And it just reallllly toed the line on blackface, didn’t it?
Ah, I read that earlier and didn’t realize you’d contributed to it! I’m so sorry that sometimes you watch garbage for free! D:
ooooh WHICH BOOK? I would be so happy if one of my hate-books gave that sap a rage-boner. I mean, she probably just really didn’t understand the author, or possibly the subject matter is too complicated. Or she doesn’t have a sense of humor? I’m sure he was armed and ready with a hundred mansplanations for the poor misinformed soul.
i do not remember but he was saying something about something not being orientalist
Maybe The Windup Girl? We hated that a fair bit, and it’s definitely orientalist.
OF COURSE HE WAS
I never knew that I had so much love in me for other people’s hatred of books I love. The thread is a truly beautiful thing. Thank you, beloved Toast
The Guernica piece is perfect. It’s hard to explain to people what’s going on with you when you’re really deep in losing-battle activism territory, where you’re both too committed to The Cause to act like a normal friend and also too cynical to talk about it like you used to. I’m still in the nonprofit field but no longer on the front lines and no longer under the illusion that I’m going to change the world. It’s okay.
I think the part that most people struggle with is that when you’re doing hard, tedious, underappreciated work like that– you’re not building towards the revolution. The work is kind of all there is. Sure, there are structural problems that desperately need to be changed, but no academic paper is going to get it done. In the meantime, there will always be crises and people in need, and a just society is one where people are willing to take time every day to do things that are important and helpful even through it’s not fun or profitable.
The Guernica piece is perfect, I totally agree; and what I found so true about it was the attitude of “deserving” vs. “un deserving”. No, the women’s shelter and/or the non-profit government agency does not want your ripped/dirty sweater or broken child’s toy because (a) Wearer DIGNITY and (b) it costs volunteer time and money to take YOUR GARBGE to the local landfill.
Assholes you think “you should be grateful for my discarded crap” and “fuck the dump, that’s gonna cost me, like, ten bucks; I’ll just pile it behind their back door, let the workers deal with it because hey, I’m actually doing THEM a favour by making them sort my junk because earn that two dollars an hour job” are one of the biggest scourges of society.
ASSHOLES (sorry, I never swear on this site, never, but this article really resonates with me).
OH, also, I get a lot of tentative emails from readers who want to draw my attention to something they’ve written, for link roundup purposes, and they’re not sure it’s cool to do that, so, for the record: it is very cool. I may not always link to it, but I really get great stuff that way, and am thrilled to be sent them.
That’s awesome to know!
Was literally about to email you with this exact question. Toast miracle #…how do you make an infinity on this thing?
A lot of what I’m exploring in Bad Feminist is how I’m overcoming the preconceived notions I’ve had about feminism and what feminism actually is, and confusing feminists with feminism.”
Sweet Jesus, yes. I think I needed to read that, right there. I think I need to reread it over and over again, when I feel like I’m failing at being a feminist.
The bakery list includes the Czech Stop in West, Texas, so it’s a list we can all believe in!
Choosing one kolache bakery over another is the fraughtest of hornets’ nests; consider, for instance, the Schulenberg Kountry Bakery’s fine caloric options (and stay for pie). Then make peace with me over the outrage that is a friend’s family’s belief that all proper kolaches are (a) sealed, (b) filled only with poppyseed, and (c) roughly quadrilateral rather than circular. Anathema! Anathema!
I will allow that there are many good or even great kolache bakeries, but the best kolache bakery is Hruska’s, in Ellinger. (If you take the I-10/71 route between Houston and Austin, it’s also a very good place to stop for coffee and clean restrooms!)
Also your friend’s family are lunatics. I love poppyseed best, but there is room in my heart for all kolaches. I have eaten a creamed spinach kolache and liked it.
I have probably driven past Hruska’s and seen it mostly as a blur, on my way to see the La Grange gorilla. Next time I’ll know to stop.
Friend and I, like many people raised in different faiths, carefully walk around this potentially explosive issue and do our best to respect one another’s incomprehensible differences. (I draw my personal line at sausage kolaches. The Czechs brought many fine culinary innovations to Texas, but their spice mix is not my thing.)
Your friend’s family is MORAVIAN and you need to come to Jesus. Everyone knows the best kolachky are from your Moravian babitchka’s kitchen and they’re all folded. Also, the only acceptable fillings are poppyseed, apricot, or prune, and they come out of the Solo can.
THE ULTIMATE. I have definitely smuggled some babička-made blueberry bublanina back into the USA at ~great personal risk~ going across the border. Of course I was more than willing to eat the whole thing at customs if they gave me any trouble, so it was definitely worth it.
I am faintly sad that JAWS makes no sense! I mean, I know it doesn’t, but it’s still one of my favourite movies – and I saw that as a lifetime member of the shark trust, with my own adopted Great White, and today wearing a megalodon tooth necklace.
Ooh, why doesn’t “Jaws” make sense (asks a fellow shark admirer).
Oh, mostly just the stuff the kids say in the article – not to mention the whole ‘obsessed man eating shark’ thing. It’s still one of the DVDs I put on about once a month when there’s nothing on TV.
Yup, just read the Dreyfuss kid article…c’mon, PonyAlong, DUH. I must have severely suspended common sense and mentally negated every shark doc ever seen because I just love that movie.
Plus, first movie crush in a 2 for 1: Dreyfuss and Schneider. YUM.
One of those bakeries is in Boston. BOSTON TOASTIES I THINK THIS NEEDS TO BE A DAY TRIP.
OH MY, that pear tart! Decided:
1. I am going to visit Boston soon and eat a whole pear tart on my own.
2. I am finally buying myself a rectangular tart pan because DAMN.
I just realized that it is ON MY COMMUTE and yet I’ve never been. So many pear tarts that have lain uneaten! Must remedy this immediately.
I would be up for that! I have some Fridays off coming up.
There is a Google Boston group, that’s a place to plan such a thing!
AS DO I. LET’S DO THIS.
Does anyone else want to be cruise director before I turn into Julie McCoy? I will wait a few minutes before I take the plunge. 🙂
Yes please!!
I would totally be down for that even though I am more Merrimac than Boston!
I’m north shore, it’s all good!
I’m totally down with that, even though I’m still recovering from the fact that one of the Tattes is right near my former office…and we’ve moved the company into Boston. *sob*
Take me! Take me!
Went to Tatte with friends and had a bite of cheesecake from someone else’s plate. I don’t even like cheesecake usually and it was magnificent. I say this as someone who bakes really great stuff at home, so I’m often unimpressed by “amazing” bakery fare. A branch is taking the place of a bakery in my neighborhood that I am also very fond of, so I am equal parts sad, excited and *afraid*.
JAWS. It will always have a special place in my heart because Richard Dreyfuss’ character has the same exact name as my brother. “Hopper” indeed, Emily Dreyfuss.
So, is it okay to be self-satisfied for not using facebook, or is it already the new “I don’t even own a TV”?
It’s completely okay! I kicked Facebook to the curb years ago, never looked back. Correction, months ago I stupidly suggested that our local chapter of a province-wide horse organization open a Facebook account to better serve media savvy members. It was immediately embraced and I dutifully opened an account to access the page.
However, I’ve never looked at it since and because I locked it down with every privacy setting offered at the time, other Facebook users can’t find my page. So, yay, I guess!
Yeah, but, I mean, how would people even know you’re being self-satisfied about it unless you have FB to tell them? So in the end there’s no real problem.
I got first very excited, then momentarily confused, to read # 6, Du Pain et des Idees in Paris has “every flavor of escargot you could imagine.” I love snails and almost never get to eat them, so I went through this process in a split second: “SNAILs AND FRESH BREAD AW YEAH wait, ‘every flavor’? Like, garlic or paprika or fennel WHATEVER LOTSA SNAILS Y’ALL oh they prob’ly mean swirly pastries DANG,”
I just assumed that they had snails in all the flavors. Are we wrong? We should not be wrong.
The photo dashed my hopes completely, as did the lurking knowledge probably left over from French class, that there’s a form of pastry (just a fancy swirly-bun thingy) called escargot. WHERE’S MY SNAILSES?
Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Snails.
vanilla buttercream snails.
the fanciest snails
Yes, I had this reaction too, and I was like ‘Wow, there are flavours other than garlic butter? I want this!’
Btw, I’m still having that problem where I click on a post title or the ‘read more’ link and get sent to an ad site. Mostly using my phone.
Just happened to me too, I’m using Chrome.
WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I AM HEARING OF BAKERBOTS!?
(I live in Toronto.)
GO NOW, REPORT BACK
Protip:
Don’t go on a Saturday (Friday) night. I see the line as I’m walking home, and shudder. The tarts are my favourite!
This is totally irrelevant to everything except maybe the bakery thread,but I am in Rome making pasta right now purely and solely because The Toast exists. SAY YES TO HOLIDAYS WITH STRANGERS.
If you’re ever in Santa Fe (makes “call me” hand gesture), try Sage Bakehouse. My travel writer friend described their pastry as “made from angel’s underpants.”
I’m having a problem loading the main website, if I try to load the main page it flashes and then redirects me to an ad. Not the website for the ad, just the like 200×300 ad box. I’m on chrome on an iPad. http://imgur.com/2l0nHiN
Nick believes it is now fixed!
There was a time in the past where I changed. I didn’t like the kind of person I was or think the things I had been doing were things I could be proud of, and because of this I changed. However, Facebook gave me no ability to delete or edit my own posts. There were still pictures and posts about me doing things that were pretty repulsive, meaning any new friends, employers, etc, could access the old me (and associate them with the new me) with relative ease. This was horrifying, so I deleted my account.
I am not on Facebook anymore, and I often feel like I’m the only person I know who is not on Facebook. I know I miss out on things because I’m not on Facebook. Parties and gatherings are often only advertised on Facebook, and anyone not on Facebook doesn’t hear about it. You have my email and my phone number, and if you can’t be bothered to get in touch with me via these perfectly legitimate means, I have to question how important our connection is to you.
I understand–I’m not on Facebook–and I have a couple relationships that I’m questioning–if they don’t want to take the time to return a phone call or respond to an email and instead say, “why aren’t you on Facebook, it would be so much easier!”…then I’m not certain what the point of our relationship is. It clearly isn’t one that’s valued. In one instance it’s a friendship that pre-social media probably would have just faded away but when this friend tries to pressure me into opening an Facebook account, I feel like this person doesn’t want to try to maintain our relationship, but rather just wants to be a voyeur of my life.
OF COURSE HE WAS
Sing Your Face Off is not only real, it's the U.S. version of an international franchise.
About HIMYM, I am particularly proud of the phrase "Superfluous Wife Syndrome."
I WATCHED SING YOUR FACE OFF. While chatting with friends in ALL CAPS about WHAT IS GOING ON HOW IS SEBASTIAN BACH DRESSED AS WILLIE NELSON WHAT IS HAPPENING AM I INSANE NOW.
It was a delight of hate and insanity and nonsense and Debbie Gibson's eye makeup.
And now that I've read your piece, yes, that was exactly the problem. It was insane, but in such a pat and simple way, when it could have been so delightfully batshit. And it just reallllly toed the line on blackface, didn't it?
Thank you!!
In my experience, the cookies were too hard to be good for ice cream sandwiches. BUT an ice cream with their cookies crumbled on top?? Hell ya. My fav ice cream sandwich in the city us at Moo Milk Bar in the Beach.
Thought the image for this story was a pastel de nata—clicked the bakeries link and YES I WAS RIGHT. Family visits to my dad’s home country never officially kicked off until we’d visited a pastry shop and grabbed some pasteis de nata for breakfast.
Can’t for the life of me find one in North Carolina, though.