When you’re writing for the Toast, do you picture an ideal reader?
A librarian. Like, a fun librarian.
Carrie “The Best Editor Nicole Has Ever Worked With” Frye has written the most incredibly brilliant thing for the Gawker Review of Books about Rebecca and Daphne du Maurier, and you are to sit down right away and bask in it, please and thank you:
Daphne had a few romantic relationships with women as well, although she rejected the term “lesbian.” “… by God and by Christ if anyone should call that sort of love by that unattractive word that begins with “L”, I’d tear their guts out,” she warned in one stormy love letter, whose recipient, being a woman, might have felt she had a right to call the love exactly that. This avoidance gets complicated, and her biographer Margaret Forster writes perceptively about it.
Part of it was surely internalized homophobia, a reluctance to acknowledge herself as that way; something, too, to do with her time period’s narrow conventions of what being a lesbian meant. But also mixed up in there is du Maurier’s recognition of herself as a boy—an identification she only allowed herself to make in her 40s—and a boy isn’t a lesbian. This boy was who Daphne had been as a child; she’d put him away as a teenager (“locked him in a box,” she described it), but he emerged in her writing, she felt, giving it its vim and daring. The male narrator of My Cousin Rachel, for example, was a psychological self-portrait of Daphne in love (and behaving badly). He’s there in The Scapegoat, too, a great novel about a man and his more freewheeling, rakish double. (It’s the other of her books I wish Hitchcock had made a movie of.)
lol the men are losing it bc of lindy west gettin’ that job at gq
Kara Brown on the Shonda Shonda (that is a Yiddish joke I just made.)
Super fascinating read about Gary Hart and how his scandal changed politics/journalism:
The Hart episode is almost universally remembered as a tale of classic hubris. A Kennedy-like figure on a fast track to the presidency defies the media to find anything nonexemplary in his personal life, even as he carries on an affair with a woman half his age and poses for pictures with her, and naturally he gets caught and humiliated. How could he not have known this would happen? How could such a smart guy have been that stupid?
I am very happy to read a compilation of childbirth horror stories, as it happens! Are you all familiar with my own magical birth story? I guess I’m doing it again, bc I have booked my doula for Round Two, but feel like I might bail out sooner this time? I dunno. It was kind of cool but also stupid. We’ll see. OH, and all the gold stars for this lady, buried down in pending comments, who pulled off the best long con I’ve ever seen:
So some back story. I was living on a ship with my husband, who was one of the crew in the engine room, and while I hadn’t planned to get pregnant so quickly after the marriage, we were pretty thrilled. I was due in a week or two and we were discussing baby names, so it was a pretty normal morning. I’d had a spectacularly easy pregnancy so we saw no reason to worry about labor.
Then the worst thing that could ever happen to a ship happens. We hit something. I was in the mess hall having lunch and suddenly everything starts shaking, the lights flicker and we lose power. It later turned out that the hull was intact but that hit felt positively bone-shattering. Except it didn’t shatter my bones, it shattered my water.
A week early, trapped in a mess hall with only emergency lighting, half the people in the room already have minor injuries from falling when the ship was hit, and I go into labor. There’s no way to get off the deck at to the medical bay, because we can’t see for shit in the halls and anyway the power won’t run the elevators. I’m not crawling through a duct in labor, and this far along I probably wouldn’t fit.
I tried to tough it out but with no medication in sight and the only person qualified to deliver was the fucking security douche who once took a first aid class. There he is, desperately consulting his PDA for what to do, and I’m screaming, “JUST CATCH IT, I’M DOING ALL THE WORK HERE.”
And that’s how a motherfucking Klingon got up close and personal with my ladybits.
Jamie and Claire finally fucked.
HOLY CRAP, this dude:
Shavarsh Karapetyan’s rescue mission had lasted longer than 20 minutes when emergency workers told him to stop diving. Anyone else left inside the bus would already be dead. “They said, ‘Don’t kill yourself for nothing,’” Karapetyan recalled. The brothers estimate he dragged 30 to 35 passengers out of the water, several of whom were no longer alive by the time they were placed in the boats.
ESPN did a major piece on what the Ravens and the NFL knew about Ray Rice and when, and how they manipulated that information:
The Ravens also consulted frequently with Rice’s Philadelphia defense attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, who in early April had obtained a copy of the inside-elevator video and told Cass: “It’s f—ing horrible.” Cass did not request a copy of the video from Diamondstein but instead began urging Rice’s legal team to get Rice accepted into a pretrial intervention program after being told some of the program’s benefits. Among them: It would keep the inside-elevator video from becoming public.
For its part, the NFL — which in other player discipline cases has been able to obtain information that’s been sealed by court order — took an uncharacteristically passive approach when it came to gathering evidence, opening itself up to widespread criticism, allegations of inconsistent approaches to player discipline and questions about whether Goodell gave Rice — the corporate face of the Baltimore franchise — a light punishment as a favor to his good friend Bisciotti. Four sources said Ravens executives, including Bisciotti, Cass and Newsome, urged Goodell and other league executives to give Rice no more than a two-game suspension, and that’s what Goodell did on July 24.
Lovecraftian beauty tips.
My brother sent me this link. I…have nothing to add.
Welp, I read that article about Lindy West, and now I’m thoroughly depressed and also I just read a book about the women’s suffrage movement over the weekend and I can’t believe that it’s been almost a hundred years (for the US) and men are still pontificating angrily about women doing their own thing and not making it their goal in life to soothe men’s gentle egos in every way, and a woman writing about women and other stuff is somehow the most radical and horrifying thing they’ve ever seen. How is this even possible. How. Part of me wants to actually meet a person who spews venom like this in real life, but then part of me wants to go crawl into a hole in the woods and abandon human society forever.
HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE.
Every time I mention some instance of misogyny to my mother, she says, “We were supposed to have been past this by now.”
Seriously. How damn long does it take for men to get over themselves?
I’m only in my 30s and already I feel like I’ve seen the arguments repeat themselves for 15 years. I can’t imagine how people who were activists in the 60s and 70s feel about a half-century of re-hashing.
I’ve met and lived with an awful lot of them over the years. Sometimes they change. Mostly they don’t.
It’s like living at different depths of the ocean, except sometimes you’re just hauled up several atmospheres, your ears pop and you spit blood and everything’s horrible and then someone tries to eat you, you slip over the side and back to the cool dark where there may not be so much sun, but at least there are fewer knives.
The other depths of the ocean can’t conceive of any world but their own and it sucks.
I had a guy sing a song about mutilating my genitals at a party once, because I’m a feminist.
Trust me, you don’t want to meet these people in real life.
OUTLANDERRRR. *Fans self; celebrates the female gaze*
PRAISE
Praise the Goddess for Jamie Fraser’s sex faces and perfect ass. Amen.
All I could think about during that scene:
DEM THIGHS Y’ALL.
BRB, acquiring Scottish virgin to do reverse sexy-ism with.
That long, lingering butt shot is basically what’s giving me life.
brb, slappng Ideal Reader of The Toast on my resume
I’d be a terrible librarian, concepts like “organization that makes sense to other people” doesn’t really work for me. I’m an academic instead!
This is me, too! I’m fascinated by taxonomies and organizational systems, but I start breaking them down and splitting them into smaller categories and trying to unify across genres and otherwise fucking up the beautiful simplicity of a well-organized bunch of stuff.
Which is to say, I envy you librarian folk for the way your brains work.
I read that and was like, “Well, now I have to start applying for MLS programs.” I can do this? I can do this.
MMMEEEEEEE TOOOOOOO!
I’m a librarian, and I like to think people believe I’m fun!
Likewise.
(I saw that and thought, “It’s true! The Toast really is written just for me.”)
Yes yes yes! I love being a librarian AND a Toastbrarian AND the idea of adding awesome random facts to my resume like “Ideal Reader of The Toast” and “exceptional long-distance driver”
My new beauty regimen:
For smoother skin, exfoliate with fine coffee grounds and the raspy tongues of those in your eternal thrall.
Unrelated, mostly: I fed a giraffe this weekend! It had a very raspy tongue, which surprised me.
It might have been in your eternal thrall.
OH THE THINGS I WILL DO WITH AN ENTHRALLED GIRAFFE!!!
great now I am in the giraffe’s thrall.
http://www.andreatarrodi.com/albums/23/?track=1
“One night I dreamt that I had a giraffe. We were the best of friends, my giraffe and I! I climbed up on it, and we jumped out of a window and rode away. We rode through forests, over meadows and mountains.”
An excellent start, to be sure. World domination will certainly follow.
Does… does that mean my cat? He’s got a raspy tongue, but I’m not sure that he’s in MY thrall so much as I am in his.
A+ Would support smisandrist or similar Toastwitch beauty article series. PLEASE PITCH, Littlehuntingcreek.
That piece about Rebecca was fascinating – especially that she bought Manderley with the proceeds! And there were many rats!
Also, totally fell for the long con, and I’m happy I did.
Me too. Still giggling about it, best comment ever I think.
I spotted it by the 2nd paragraph, but only because I’d been told it was a long con (and also because I sometimes like to exclaim, “now is not a good time, Keiko” when poorly-timed drama occurs).
Okay between that Daphne du Maurier piece and re-reading this weekend about how Katharine Hepburn referred to herself as Jim when she was a child, I just
Try Alice Sheldon’s biography (she wrote as James Tiptree Jr and fooled the world for like 10 years)
And Willa Cather went by Tommy in high school IIRC (which I might not)!
Oh noooo I posted my Childbirth Horror Story there and I also wrote a comment about it here a couple of weeks ago and now my cover is blown.
also, re: Lindy West “An article about doing something like building up a blog, or increasing your brain power has longevity. An article about “12 things dudebros need to stop mansplaining” is relevant for about 30 seconds. ”
“increasing your brain power”
It has LONGEVITY. A thousand years from now, history will remember the corpus of increasing your brainpower articles produced in the early 21st century as vital to human cultural development.
BUILDING UP A BLOG
“An article about doing something like getting the most e-coins on your Xanga, or the best themes for blogspot, or increasing your Livejournal community has longevity.”
The optimistic part of me is hoping that that whole thing was just some really elegantly crafted satire. Like, seriously, dudeguy? Building up a blog and increasing your brain power? THOSE were the two topics that you thought would have longevity? AKA possibly the two most superfluous topics on all of the internet ever???
The optimistic part of me is wrong.
“The optimistic part of me is wrong.”
You just summed up the entirety of human history & civilization in seven words. Bravo.
Clearly that dudeguy lives in some kind of feminist utopia in which if a dudebro reads an article like that, not only him but EVERY OTHER DUDEBRO immediately internalise it and quit mansplaining. In 30 seconds. Or less!
“That’s a cute little list, Lindy, but as a man, it’s time I told you the REAL way to get a man to stop mansplaining.”
They just need a periodic update on which things to stop mansplaining. I assume because they don’t get the newsletter every week.
If only he’d read the article about things to stop mansplaining, perhaps we would all have been spared his comment.
He read it, but you know, it was only relevant for 30 seconds, so…
The exhibit “In the Company of Cats and Dogs” just closed yesterday at the Blanton Museum, here in Austin, but they had three screens with internet cat videos. That cartoon is not that far off from reality!
The Walker (modern art museum in Minneapolis) hosts the Internet Cat Video festival every year, and it is PACKED.
I’m a little too into Oklahoma loves pickles, and other revelations from Food Twitter analysis because I needed a good fluff piece this morning. Apparently we really love tagging clams here in Jersey.
My home state: grits, awesome!
State where I currently live: prunes. What the fuck.
I clicked through to the PDF of the actual article and it mentions that Prune is apparently the name of a popular restaurant. There’s lots of other interesting stuff in the actual study, btw, and my afternoon is now completely shot thanks to Elyse 😛
I wondered about that, because I can guarantee you that Mass’s favorite food is not cod. I bet you people are tweeting about their awesome lobster rolls/fried clams/ice cream sundaes on Cape Cod.
ooohhh it all makes sense now…I’m kind of disappointed. I wanted for everyone else in NYC to be pounding down prunes while I waltzed about blissfully unaware.
“Tacos” is a mystery to me. I mean, we love tacos here…but who doesn’t, really?
Capers? What the fuck, Oregon.
BRB Movin’ to Oregon. I’m getting a tattoo of a caper berry flower on my shoulder. (Which isn’t as weird as it sounds, caper berry flowers are very pretty!) Not even kidding. I love capers. I eat spoonfuls of them out of the jar.
Oh man, I hadn’t even noticed some of the other weird ones, I just went straight to the states I’ve lived in. Now that I’m looking more closely I would also like to ask Maine, Illinois, and North Dakota (not that there’s anything inherently weird about flan, just, why North Dakota) what the hell is going on.
I can’t help but think that #capers is referring to some kind of Ocean’s 11-style restaurant heist.
Yolk? YOLK? Is Illinois full of old-fashioned body builders or something? At least the rest of you guys got foods that are traditionally consumed by normal humans.
I know, right? Not even “eggs,” just “yolk.”
My home state is “cloves,” though, which is just mildly weird.
Maybe #cloves is actually referring to clove cigarettes?
And maybe #yolk is actually referring to…yeah, I got nothing there. Unless it’s a tragic misspelling of #yolo.
Hahahaha all the southern states states tagging grits and then PA. PA is clearly tagging grits as in, “What are #grits srsly?” I’d have thought we’d be #perogies
I did not realize Oklahoma and I had anything in common, but I guess we do, because pickles are the greatest.
“Tagging clams” sounds like a slang term for a sex act…
… Durian? *Durian*? In Maine? I mean, why? What’s the connection between Maine and Durian?
Also I do not know why all the caviar-eaters are in California, when they could be eating sourdough or burritos or avocados.
My home state is apparently obsessed with tarragon, which only makes sense if a whole bunch of gardeners are bitching about how it won’t grow in Alaska.
Hmmmm you know that might explain the Maine-Durian connection, because while I have never been to Maine, I would be VERY SURPRISED if durian grew there.
Nicole, this was the first time I read your birth story and it was excellent. A+, would read again.
I also just read it for the first time. I nearly fell out of my chair at #21.
Loved reading Mallory IRL, i just adore you. What a lovely way to start my Internetting for the day.
So, a very christian friend of mine posted this on Facebook and she and her friends were mocking it. It has to be a joke, right?
http://www.mommyish.com/2014/09/19/mom-rewrites-h…
TIL that I am Aunt Petunia
“[H]e does not need your religion, he has science and socialism and birthdays.”
YEP, PRETTY MUCH
Oh if ONLY I had socialism. I guess I’ll have to make do with science and birthdays until we can get rid of Harper.
the thing I like most about fundies and the internet, is that the ways they manage to baffle me are so myriad and mysterious, that just when I think I’ve Seen.It.All., a wonderful curveball like this one gets lobbed….Humanity is just….stupid.
Phew, at least Christian Harry is sticking up for us women.
“Women shouldn’t not have careers because women are stupid!” Harry shouted indignantly. “Women are not stupid at all! Women should not have careers because women are nurturing and loving and their gifts serve them best in the home!”
I’m still trying to unravel the subtext behind the idea that the Slytherins are “Mary-worshipping Catholics.” The author says that like it’s a bad thing.
Fundamentalist Evangelicals are pretty sure the Catholic church is the Whore of Babylon. At any rate some of them are sure. Others just think Catholics aren’t real Christians.
Oh, isn’t that cute! I’ll get my Catholic friends to say a few novenas for them.
Y’all, Y’ALL… SATURDAY’S OUTLANDER. The chemistry was basically like New Girl’s kiss scene for 44 minutes.
Can we talk about how good this show is? Incredible structure, writing, costuming (that dress good god), ACTING (Tobias Menzies last ep killed it). Everyone should be watching Outlander!
the sexual tension, dear god.
I’ve been reading the books (because of show hype and a friend who basically shoved them at me), and I am really loving how they’re adapting them, too. The show is fixing a lot of the book’s pacing/plotting issues and tightening things up really well. Having Tobias Menzies tell the story of the flogging was brilliant and so well-acted.
Oh my god, did anyone read the Vulture piece about that ep, and how a lot of the dialogue is stuff that the showrunner said to his wife (who is also the costume designer on the show)? That line about how when he saw her it was like the sun came out or whatever was something he literally said to her and I was like, <3_<3
Uuuugggghhhh I am watching via Canadian iTunes which for no reason at all is 2 weeks behind the US release. I have to wait two whole weeks for this episode!
*leans out from an alley in a trench coat* psssst I could tell you how to do it illegally
I’m reading The Scapegoat right now! I love Daphne. She was complicated and a great writer. One of my favorite writers.
The Lindy West article: men are terrible.
Dear Toasties! We are, apparently, “whip-smart and invitingly warm” according to that article about Mallory! Hooray!!
Reading that made me feel all cozy inside. <3 <3 <3
I’m coming down with a sore throat (and my sore throats are always worse than anyone else’s) and I am v grumpy. I thought “Well, that must mean Everyone except me”. I need to go home and pour myself a brandy with honey and lemon.
I am here croaking my agreement with this. Have a lot of work to do before I can get to the honeyed booze, alas.
Yes I may make that my new profile info everywhere 🙂
I think it’s episode 8 of the podcast Tell The Bartender has the most hilarimazing/horrifying birth story ever. I was both cringing and cracking up listening to it on the bus. I’m sure I looked incredibly sane.
America’s College Boyfriend Johnathan Franzen has graced us with another gem
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/05/13/reviews/010…
I managed to get halfway through the second paragraph. Ugh.
Here’s the thing: I actually thought Freedom was a pretty good book! And in it, Franzen actually managed to write an interesting female character in Patty, and – what’s more – managed a sickeningly realistic description of acquaintance rape and the pressures of not reporting. So I really don’t know where his discomfort with men writing female characters comes from.
ALSOOOOO Toasties! I saw Roxane Gay read at Book Court in Brooklyn yesterday and she is EVERY BIT AS AMAZING AND WONDERFUL AND FUNNY as one might imagine, except MORE SO because it was in real life!!!! At one point, this awesome little girl stood on a stool and asked Rgay, “What advice would you have for a 10 year old girl who is a writer?” And Rgay was all, “Stay awesome, and write as often as you can, maybe not every day because that’s really hard and not always realistic, but definitely as often as you can, and read above your reading level, because girls are awesome and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be reading the stuff we’re reading,” and everyone just DIED with how cute and cool that girl is, and how amazing Rgay is, like seriously, pretty much everyone had tears in their eyes INCLUDING this burly beardy guy standing next to me, which, me too bb, me too. AND THEN she went on to talk about how you have to be relentless, like a cockroach, with a dangerous level of confidence and belief in yourself, and how even if there’s a nuclear winter, she’ll still be writing, so now my main goal is to cultivate a relentless cockroach work ethic too.
So I’m just going to leave this here: I recited the passionate vows to the empty hotel room within which I am ensconced so I’m pretty sure this room and I are forever wed.
I LOVE HER SO MUCH
“relentless like a cockroach with a dangerous level of confidence” is such a badass mantra
Oh my god, yes! I just joined a critique group which threatens to destroy my confidence in my writing, so this what I needed.
SWOON
I saw Roxane Gay yesterday too! But it was at the panel on feminism at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The line to get in wrapped around three blocks, and the line for signings afterward was also quite long and serpentine, and I got to the front of the line FINALLY and told her I love her writing so I am reading her entire tumblr backward, and her reply was “That’s awkward.” But she said it with a measure of affection and humor (I am choosing to believe).
Awww haha but at least you got to meet her! The line was very long, and I was feeling kind of shy, and also I was very hungry, so I didn’t wait to say hi.
Also I get all stuttery when I meet people I admire. Like, last year I saw John Finnemore perform some stuff he was working on at a pub in London, and I tried to squeeze unobtrusively by, and my friend was like NO YOU WILL REGRET NOT SAYING HI, so she herded me over to him and I stuttered out how much I love Cabin Pressure, and then we took a picture in superhero poses.
Which was very fun in hindsight but — well, I don’t have a complexion that normally blushes but HOLY WOW was I bright red in that moment.
I was there too!!!! She was so good. I tried to go to her panel earlier in the day too and the line was 3 whole blocks long and one whole block of us (sadly including me) did not fit in the auditorium!
Americans really do love making their voting-booth decisions based on who they think would be a good friend or family member, don’t they?
Which is mildly horrifying, when you think about it. I love my friends and family, but am not sure I’d want any of them running the country. (Conversely, I figure that most politicians are largely awful.)
I think my mom would be a good president. Also my parents’ church’s former pastor. (I would not be, for the record. I mean, I might be better than all likely alternatives, but not as good as my mom.) Otherwise, yeah…
Yup. Does anyone remember during one of the recent Presidential elections (I can’t remember if it was 2008 or 2012), Mike Huckabee appeared on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, and the next week Paula Poundstone just went the fuck OFF about how someone being funny does not make them qualified to be president, and it was basically the best thing ever?
Yep! I also enjoyed how in I think the same cycle very many Americans rated teetotalers Romney and Kucinich as “would most want to have a beer with.” LOL/crying forever/done with democracy and moving to Shanghai.
Although I would seriously love to sit down and have a cup of herbal tea with Dennis Kucinich.
Just don’t ask Elizabeth for a date!
I love her, I really do.
I’m avoiding looking at the Rebecca link because I’m reading it now! I mentioned this on Twitter but my mom bought me the book because she found out Nicole & Mallory named their company after the house. She also took the book for a couple weeks to reread so I’m only now reading it, but, you know. MOMS.
Fun family story: My mom was reading Rebecca when she was younger, staying up late to finish it. Then her mom came in and revealed the twist! his is the story she told me to console me over the fact that I spoiled the 6th Harry Potter book for some friend of my friend’s. Whatever, she NODDED when I asked if she’d finished.
The article about Daphne du Maurier, yes! I read all of her work when I was in like middle school or something and loved it. I’ve been recently reading through some of her novels again (following a 2011 visit to the actual Jamaica Inn!) and was so fascinated by the dynamics of sexuality and gender in My Cousin Rachel. He’s the badly-behaving, emotional one, not her. And you can never figure out who she really is. And the first line! So good.
I’m thinking i need to start watching outlander…? do we, the Toast, approve of this show?
Dudefriend got to Roxane Gay’s reading yesterday before me, and texted me (as I was sprinting from the train): “Rgay has exhorted the room to watch Outlander.”
Also my dad has been bugging me to read the books for yeeeeears, both on merit of the books and ’cause he’s got a sciencey crush on Diana Gabaldon (he’s a science teacher, she has degrees in zoology, marine biology, and behavior ecology and taught at Arizona State University.)
She also just seems really cool:
In 1988, Gabaldon decided to write a novel for “practice, just to learn how” and with no intention to show it to anyone.[10] As a research professor, she decided that a historical novel would be easiest to research and write,[10] but she had no background in history and initially no particular time period in mind.[4] Gabaldon happened to see a rerun episode of the Doctor Who science fiction TV series titled “The War Games.”[11] One of the Doctor’s companions was a Scot from around 1745, a young man about 17 years old named Jamie McCrimmon, who provided the initial inspiration for her main male character, James Fraser, and for her novel’s mid-18th century Scotland setting.[4][10][11] Gabaldon decided to have “an Englishwoman to play-off all these kilted Scotsmen,” but her female character “took over the story and began telling it herself, making smart-ass modern remarks about everything.”
I like and respect both my dad and Rgay, so I’m going with a firm yes haha. If he ever finishes his reread, I’m stealing all his books.
whoah, yeah – seems like a firm yes to me too! I will make the time for it.
The books are a fun read although I think as they go on they suffer from a lack of editing. They get way bloated and kind of difficult to slog through. Which is kind of why I’m loving the show. ~MONTAGE~ rather than 80 pages of stuff that is interesting, but perhaps not necessary in the grand scheme of things.
Also the show took waaaay better advantage of Jamie’s virginity.
Yusss. Anne Helen Petersen also wrote an excellent article on it: “‘Outlander’ Is The Feminist Answer To ‘Game Of Thrones’ — And Men Should Be Watching It”
Hi everyone, I’m a quasi-ideal Toast reader and I write Beauty by H. P. Lovecraft *waves tentacles*
Welcome! I’m sure there will be plenty of Toasties who also aspire to Lovecraftian beauty ideals who will be following your page soon.
Soon…
Thank you! I’m not really new here, I’m just too shy, er, I mean, BUSY BUILDING AN ARMY OF NAMELESS HORRORS, to join your conversations. You’re all awesome!
Bravo! It’s hilarious!! I just followed (or liked or whatever you’re supposed to do these days) you an hour ago!
Thank you so much!
I just finished glancing through your site and was absolutely, gloriously tickled pink by it! Bravo!
Tee-hee, so glad you liked it! Thank you!
It is really funny!
Aw, thank you, you’re very kind!
…and the story about Karapetyan’s rescue is making me well up. What an amazing story. All the goosebumps.
I read these every morning, typically before any other website because they are delightful, but today’s roundup was freaking SUPREME and relevant to my divergent interests. +1000 pts.
That ESPN report made me so disgusted when it broke Friday. I know it was naive of me, but I really wanted to believe that the Ravens executive office was not as complicit in protecting Rice as they turned out to be. And I hate that if TMZ hadn’t cleaned up and released the video, Rice would’ve played yesterday and everyone would be acting like nothing happened. At least John Harbaugh wanted to cut Rice immediately.
TOASTIES, my job interview this morning went really well! I had a good rapport with the interviewers and they did a lot of thoughtful, approving nodding during my answers. Obviously all of your good vibes reached me. I should know by mid/end October.
Also, as a librarian who is also fun, I am very relieved and honoured to know that I am Mallory’s ideal.
Yay excellent interview!
Hooray for a good job interview! Hopefully they will offer you the job WELL BEFORE THAT TIME. That is a lot of weeks to wait.
It was almost 4 months after I had applied that they contacted me about the interview, so a 4-WEEK wait seems quite brief by comparison.
So….I have read a truly appalling amount of historical romance. Soooo much. Sometimes I forget what I’ve already read and I have to play the “wait, have I read this one, or are the plots just THAT similar?” game.
And I hate Outlander. I have no real reason for it. I’ve certainly read and enjoyed books that are less well-written and with similar content but…..OUTLANDER. Feh. I ground my way through it a few years ago, put it down and thought, “wow, I’m glad that’s over.”
I don’t have an excuse for feeling like this. Lots of people (like the Toasties above!) are totes into it, which is awesome. It just makes me itchy.
I made it through the first book and decided not to go on, so I understand how you feel about the books. But I’m really enjoying the show – its moves so much quicker.
I finished the first book, and, like you felt like I ground my way through it. Also, there were just things I didn’t need to know, especially about torture.
I mean, I feel that I have very little ground to judge (due to aforementioned reading and enjoyment of Terrible Highland Romances), but I just couldn’t buy in for another thousand pages of it. And the super detailed torture etc was not helping.
Same here! Love historical romances, read an embarrassing amount of them, couldn’t make it through Outlander. I was youngish (14, 15?) when I tried to read the first one. It never really caught for me, so I started flipping through pages, found the torture/rape scene and closed the book pretty quickly. Even now I try to read the recaps and my eyes just glaze over. Don’t know why.
I am so wildly uninterested in Outlander I’m afraid it will get me kicked off the site if I mention it too loudly.
I was like that with the Harry Potter books. By the time they came out I had read my way through a mountain of fantasy of various qualities, and for whatever reason they just never really caught my attention. I think sometimes the rhythm or the feel or whatever of a book just doesn’t line up with my current wavelength. And since it’s a pretty broad wavelength, if something doesn’t fit, I’m not really likely to keep trying to make it fit.
Outlander – the first and only book I threw into a corner and stopped reading forever and ever. I wasn’t particularily fond of it anyway, but I usually stick even with the “meh” books. But THAT scene ended my tentative relationship or rather turned it into solid hate.
I had already understood that wossname the English was a bad bad really bad person, no need to emphasize it even more. Yuck!
The book went into the nearest recycling bin, and I whacked it in joyfully.
So, the series and I? Not going to happen. Unless someone forces me with money. Lots of money. Fat chance ….
So that’s why The Toast is my favorite website of all time. Because it was aimed at MEEEEEEEE!!!!!
She said, not at all self-centeredly.
But seriously Mallory, how do you know us fun librarians so well?
I am a fun librarian, contractually (SpongeBob demands it), who has been reading the Toast since day 1 and re-read Rebecca two weeks ago, I am just popping in here to mention that I love it here and I love few things more than when the link roundup aligns with all the things I love.
I realized the other day that I have been saying “So today on The Toast…” to my husband at least once a day for at least a month now. I make him read the pieces I really like and tell him about people’s funny comments and their pet photos on open thread and all that good stuff. This is the best online community!
I forward links to my coworkers CONSTANTLY. We love Dad Magazine and Art History and Dirtbag Teens and poignant and excellent pieces for thinking over and I like to think of them as Toasties-by-proxy.
I’ve been doing that to Mr Wren, too! I think he finds it odd, yet endearing.
The students I just force-marched through scholarly article searching for freshman comp papers don’t think I’m fun at all.
AT ALL.
Uh-oh, as a freshman (AND first-year grad student…) I was super dirtbaggy and too cool for school during the “this is a library & how it works” lecture – I am Part of the Problem!! Apologies to university librarians everywhere! 🙁
They’ll appreciate it later! Probably! I know I did!
Mind, I’m now in library school after spending my entire research methods class in grad school round one deeply enthralled by all the cool ways to look stuff up, so probably I might kinda be an outlier there. A bit.
Somebody will appreciate your force-marching one day!
The Rebecca piece lost me when she was all “and then I talked to Daphne du Maurier’s son and he said “most people don’t realize Maxim is an unreliable narrator” and I thought that was a delightful observation.”
How can you read Rebecca and not pick up that Max is the shadiest? I love the novel, and Max is totally sexy, and he is also The. Worst. Don’t believe a word out of his mouth, second Mrs. DeWinter!
WUT? Of course he’s Captain Shady of the USS Afternoon Shade. I mean, come on. He’s totally the type to distract you from your (relevant) inquiries with sex in a closet or a new fur or something. S H A D E.
I agree he’s shady, but I got Z-E-R-O sex appeal out of him. Max is a paper man, in love only with Manderley, the way the narrator exists only (I had somehow missed that you never learn her name) to frame the mystery lady who is Rebecca–about whom we really don’t learn much concrete either. Where did she grow up? What motivates her to spend so much energy on Manderley? What drives her? It’s an odd book; the more you think about it, the less you realize you know about its characters, and yet it’s a first-rate gothy page-turner.
Max is awful. “Hello young one, let me marry you and take you to my house and never talk to you about anything of any importance ever.”
omg that crying baby head on the man body at the top of the thing about lindy west I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
Another person who first learned of Karapetyan’s heroics from the Soviet media was his wife, Nelli. The two had met in 1981 and married shortly thereafter. During and after their courtship, he had never mentioned his role in the rescue. “She asked me why I never told her,” Karapetyan recalled. “I said, ‘We need to make babies, not tell stories.’”
What a guy! I mean yeah “we need to make babies” makes me a little bit uncomfortable. But if I had saved a bunch of people from a bus at the bottom of a lake, it would be ALL I ever talked about.
I also like that this quote is immediately followed by a group photo in which Karapetyan’s entire chest is covered in medals and the other dudes have like, 2 each.
I really want a shirt that says “Proud Member of the Fat Slut Movement” now.
Oh I KNOW. That was my favorite thing in that whole damn story.
Not related to the Link Roundup, but is anyone else seeing ads for Zazzle t-shirts in the sidebar? The designs in the ad are generally small enough that I can ignore them, but the one with the Confederate flag and the text “If my flag offends you, you need a history lesson” does stand out…
EDIT: fwiw, here’s a link to a screenshot – all three t-shirts advertised don’t seem friendly to the Toast or its readership at all. http://i.imgur.com/xmB7x1K.png
Ugh those shirts
Holla at Nick (pavich at this website) and he’ll take care of it!
thanks! will do.
looooooooooooooooooooool the Lindy West link has the best photo & caption ever
Fun Librarian victory dance thread.
I’m dating a fun librarian, who also reads the Toast! Can I do a victory dance too? Too late, already doing one. *booty-shakin’* *hair-flippin* YEEEAAAHH.
*victoriously shakes booty*
When you’re writing for the Toast, do you picture an ideal reader?
A librarian. Like, a fun librarian.
Today was my first day of a Library and Information Studies MA, and I feel utterly vindicated in my decision to do it.
1. Who’s gonna loan me their copy of ‘Rebecca’? It’s a big gap in my already gapalicious reading history. 2. Who is the beautiful lady in that makeup ad with Blake Lively? I feel terrible for not knowing this already, but I am generally media deprived of late, and Ms. Lively tends to blind me to anything in the nimbus that surrounds her magical face. 3. It’s my birthday and I kind of thought the ultimate cupcake was going to be coming here for a gorgeous and artful evisceration of Jonathan Franzen. Not saying I’m bitter or anything, but assuming it does happen I plan to take a huge slice and let everyone else fight over the scraps. In the meantime I have cake, so no worries.
Gotta give it to the French: the guillotine might have been a terrifying murder machine, but that shit was quick.
<3
Outlander – the first and only book I threw into a corner and stopped reading forever and ever. I wasn't particularily fond of it anyway, but I usually stick even with the "meh" books. But THAT scene ended my tentative relationship or rather turned it into solid hate.
I had already understood that wossname the English was a bad bad really bad person, no need to emphasize it even more. Yuck!
The book went into the nearest recycling bin, and I whacked it in joyfully.
So, the series and I? Not going to happen. Unless someone forces me with money. Lots of money. Fat chance ….
Oh, isn't that cute! I'll get my Catholic friends to say a few novenas for them.
*jumps up and down and waves*
I’m a fun librarian! I’m a fun librarian!
*faints*