THE ONLY PIECE OF NEWS THAT MATTERS EVER AGAIN
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This piece by Talib Kweli Greene about Lauryn Hill and the expectations we have as fans and consumers is ON:
No matter what Lauryn Hill decided to do after she gave us The Miseducation, never forget that she already gave us The Miseducation. It was the most critically acclaimed album of 1998 and has become a modern classic. The following year, Lauryn Hill became the first woman ever to be nominated in ten different Grammy categories, and she won five of them, including Album of The Year. This was another historic first for women. During the acceptance speech, Lauryn Hill claimed us loudly and proudly by declaring “This is crazy. This is hip-hop.” For this, I will always have Lauryn Hill’s back. For this, I will ride for her whether she ever releases anything ever again. She’s already given me so much, I feel I owe her more.
On Madewell, and how a family company from 1937 became a J. Crew brand:
Madewell’s story — my story — leading up to that moment in SoHo began over a century ago, half a world away. It traces the evolution of how Americans shop, and how Americans shop heavily informs how Americans see themselves; we, as a country, are what we buy. Mickey Drexler, in creating J.Crew’s new womenswear stores, shrewdly read the market and realized that stocking nice clothes wouldn’t be enough: He’d have to tell a story along with them. Drexler didn’t have any stories, so he bought ours.
Only Casey Cep can make me read a story about a ferry and the community is services and be genuinely glad I did:
A neighboring grave belongs to Reverend and Mrs. Daniel Maynadier, almost as famous as Morris, though not because of history but folklore. Hannah Maynadier became ill, but before she died she asked to be buried with her favorite ring. So valuable was the ring that once it was buried, two thieves tried to recover it, only the woman’s fingers were so swollen that the ring got stuck. Mrs. Maynadier, not having actually crossed Charon’s ferry, woke when the thieves cut off her finger. Prematurely pronounced dead, she scurried from the grave back to the rectory, for her husband was then the White Marsh Church rector, and they lived awhile longer until they were finally buried together years later, five years before Morris.
Diana Athill on being 96 and not particularly worried about death, though hoping for an easy one:
I live now in an old people’s home with 42 others, our average age being 90, or perhaps a little more. When one makes the difficult decision (and difficult it is) to retire from normal life, get rid of one’s home and most of one’s possessions, and move into such a place (or be moved, which doesn’t apply here I am glad to say) it means that one has reached the stage of thinking, “How am I going to manage my increasing incompetence now that I’m so old? Who is going to look after me when I can no longer look after myself?” Death is no longer something in the distance, but might well be encountered any time now.
the immortal genius of william langewiesche, who consistently turns the minutae of flying details into terrifying and informative longform pieces about plane crashes:
There were no bumps; the night remained smooth as the airplane gradually approached the weather. Dubois said, “Bon, we’ll just take whatever measures are required.” It was the closest he came to advising Bonin of a plan. Bonin lowered the cockpit lighting and switched on the landing lights to illuminate the outside. They entered a cloud layer. Dubois answered an intercom call from a flight attendant, who told him she was taking the night duty in case he needed anything. He answered with a French endearment, “Yes, my flea,” and ended the call. Although thunderstorms lay ahead and were showing on the radar, no lightning was visible. They were in mild turbulence, without any need yet to deviate from the straight-line course. Bonin said, “It would have been good to climb, huh?” Dubois said, “If there’s turbulence.” He meant significant turbulence, which the record later showed they never encountered. Referring to rules associated with distance from potential diversionary airports, Dubois said, “We’re entering the ETOPS zone, the death zone,” and Bonin answered, “Yeah, exactly.” The airplane was building up a static charge, causing some popping on the radios. Bonin got the impression that they were flying close to the top of the cloud layer. Once again he suggested a climb. “We try to ask for 3–6 [36,000 feet] nonstandard? We’re really at the limits [of the layer]. Even 3–6 would be good.” Dubois for once was unambiguous. He said, “We’re going to wait a bit, see if this passes.” The ghostly lights of Saint Elmo’s fire danced across the windscreen.
Beejoli Shah, on what she learned at her first white person wedding:
That’s not to say I hadn’t been to any weddings before. It’s just that — thanks to socializing primarily with other Indians, and receiving most of my wedding invitations via my Indian parents — they’ve all been Indian weddings. I love Indian weddings, in all their colorful, weeklong splendor; in fact, I’ve spent years lobbying my parents to throw me a Bollywood circus when the time comes. But when this “save the date” showed up in my mailbox, addressed to just me and nobody else, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Would a wedding be as fun if the entire event took place over the course of a day, instead of stretched out over a week? Would I be able to remember all the etiquette and customs expected of guests, despite never having encountered them before? Would I make a fool of myself, all because “what to do at white people weddings” yielded so few results on Google?
It is not enough to dump him, you have to nuke him from orbit:
I’m divorced and have a young daughter. I don’t have a job, but I do take care of my father full-time – he has ALS, Parksinson’s, and dementia. I have a longtime on-again, off-again beau who always mocks me for being a “single housewife” and a “lady who lunches.” He dismisses my protests and tells me I’m lucky to be the daughter of a rich man (I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m lazy.) He also says he could never “really” be with a woman who didn’t work outside the home. I’m not kidding when I say my whole life revolves around childcare and eldercare, including school visits, doctors’ visits, pharmacy visits, grocery shopping, and other errands, and these occasional dates are the only time I have to blow off steam. He’s really begun to get on my nerves. Should I dump him?
YES TAKE MY MONEY HOME DEPOT pic.twitter.com/hl8jM9IvJO
— Choire (@Choire) September 27, 2014
