I invite you to join me in laughing a long and full-throated laugh before clicking “close tab”:
“My son was born in March, and my sabbatical went from early May to mid-January, which, in a tidy coincidence, is nearly nine months. But since his care was taken care of by his mother—whose apparent willingness and capacity to do almost everything for him flooded me with awe—I spent those nine months trying not to be bored while not writing a novel that was coming due. (No novelist who recognizes the unholy hardship of writing a novel ever wants to write a novel.) Hey, the proper dose of lager seemed to slacken my body without sapping my mind, and all day long, while I was not-writing my novel and not-feeding my newborn son, I looked forward to those drinks with a religious panting.”
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHA [click]
*
As well as being the author Adam Nicolson, you’re also the 5th Baron Carnock. To what extent has your noble ancestry shaped your love for Homer?
I don’t love Homer because it’s about warriors striding the world in a manly, baronial way. I love Homer because Homer dramatizes the shared human condition of struggle and competitiveness and pain.
THIS IS THE ONLY INTERVIEW I EVER WANT TO TALK ABOUT FOR THE REMAINDER OF MY NATURAL LIFE, ALL INTERVIEWS SHOULD BE WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE THEORIES ABOUT THE GENESIS OF THE ILIAD WHILE ALSO BEING BARONS
*
How many ancient Egyptian queens did you think there were? Add one to that number.
*
Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I have seen John C. Reilly’s Walk Hard three times already in 2015, and that last night I failed in getting my family to watch it with me (they turned it off after the first hour). The fault was mine. I should have made sure we saw the theatrical release and not the extended unedited version. The theatrical version is only 96 minutes, with minimal full-frontal male nudity. They weren’t ready for the deep cuts.
I will try again.
In the meantime, here is the best song ever written as a fake emotional coda for a movie parody about unearned emotional payoffs that actually brings me to tears every time:
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I feel SORT OF BAD about this, because on the one hand [Jenna Maroney voice] RESPECT CELEBRITY PRIVACY, but on the other hand, HERE ARE PICTURES OF KRISTEN STEWART BEING PRETTY GAY ON THE BEACH (I’m splitting the difference between my heart and my conscience by linking to but not embedding the pictures. I’VE MADE MY CHOICE).
Putting aside for the moment that she is a real human being with her own identity and private life, PLEASE TELL ME YOUR EXACT HEADCANON ABOUT KRISTEN STEWART. To WHAT DEGREE did you ever buy Robsten? My belief: 100% staged. All of it. Even those super stage-y cheating photos. ALL STAGED. THIS IS THE REAL KRISTEN. (Also, I love FKA Twigs, and I wish Kristen was dating her instead of Rob, but one can’t have everything.)
*
Love that Barbara Pym.
*
This piece by Molly Crabapple about the racism and inherent corruption of prostitution courts in New York City is worth a read.
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I…okay. For a misandrist, there is a part of me that is EASILY SWAYED by the romantic figure of the old-timey British gentleman, and this shit is not helping:
Carton de Wiart served in the Boer War, World War One and World War Two. In the process he was shot in the face, losing his left eye, and was also shot through the skull, hip, leg, ankle and ear.
In WW1 he was severely wounded on eight occasions and mentioned in despatches six times.
Having previously lost an eye and a hand in battle, Carton de Wiart, as commanding officer, was seen by his men pulling the pins of grenades out with his teeth and hurling them with his one good arm during the Battle of the Somme, winning the Victoria Cross.
The…the Western cult of masculinity and of imperialism is…
It says much for Carton de Wiart’s character that despite being one of the most battle-scarred soldiers in the history of the British Army, he wrote in his autobiography: “Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.”
la la la I can’t hear you —
During an attack on an enemy stronghold, he was shot in the arm and in the face, losing his left eye and part of his ear. He received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his exploits.
Speaking in 1964 Lord Ismay, who served alongside Carton de Wiart in Somaliland, described the incident:
“He didn’t check his stride but I think the bullet stung him up as his language was awful. The doctor could do nothing for his eye, but we had to keep him with us. He must have been in agony.”
Lord Ismay also gave an insight into Carton de Wiart’s innate love of fighting:
“I honestly believe that he regarded the loss of an eye as a blessing as it allowed him to get out of Somaliland to Europe where he thought the real action was.”
He returned to England to recover in a nursing home in Park Lane. He was to return to this same place on each subsequent occasion he was injured. This became such a regular occurrence that they kept his own pyjamas ready for his next visit.
OH COME ON
Tags: link roundup, the internet
I’m imploding over the general quality of today’s link-roundup, SPECIFICALLY THE MASCULINITY THING and also the Robsten thing was so staged it’d be kicked off Broadway for being too broad strokes.
KIRSTEN IS BI I WILL ACCEPT NO OTHER THEORY bisexuals get erased all over the place so I WILL HAVE MORE OUT BI CELEBRITIES IF IT KILLS ME
REPRESENT
(i actually identify as queer rather than bi but will stand up and jump around and wave my arms for the cause of bi erasure)
Yes this, good
Er, I’m kind of side-eyeing the “headcanoning real people” thing (as opposed to phrasing it as speculation or something), but, y’know, the existence of bi people doesn’t negate the existence of gay people. One can be aware of the existence of bi people and still think the relationship with Pattinson was fake.
signed, a person who, no sarcasm, has never seen Kristen Stewart in anything or read anything about her personal life, but is tired of this trend of claiming that you can have gay representation OR bi representation and you SHOULD pick the latter
Lol dudes
I choose to believe in Robsten because I love the idea that dating RPattz + having illicit cheating oral sex made KStew realized that men might be attractive, but they are in no way worth wasting time on.
this theory is so close to my heart
I choose to believe they actually really liked, maybe even loved each other. I like to think they’re awesome people who happened to get suckered into a supremely shitty movie franchise and found comfort and solace in each other. Was it possibly manufactured by the studio? Sure, probably. But that doesn’t mean they were totally faking all the time. At least I hope not. Because I think they’re both adorable.
so you’re saying they’re basically Katniss and Peeta in the Hunger Games, only IRL? I could believe that.
Pretty much, yes, I think? Basing this only on what I’ve seen in gifs on Tumblr because I haven’t read the books or seen the movies, soooo….
The Twilight franchise was like a Hunger Games that no one wanted to survive.
That first dude is one of those things I’m desperate to hear The Other Side. Because I’m really curious to hear what your wife thought about all that time you were SO BORED while she was, I’m sure, selflessly caring for your baby without any interest or desire in anything else because That’s What Women Do! Duh. God, it’s so simple. Now excuse me while I email blast him with 5,000 copies of Mallory’s Dude Novels.
Also, #3 here: “My coworker’s Thai name is embarrassing to me, can I ask her to change it to something Not Her Name?” [GOD ARAVIS PUT IN THE LINK] http://www.askamanager.org/2015/01/our-admin-earn…
I always love to see the overlap between Toast readers and Ask A Manager readers.
you will know us by our thousand-yard stares
My head nearly exploded while reading that AAM question this morning. It’s not YOUR NAME! YOUR FEELINGS ARE MEANINGLESS.
I SAW THAT QUESTION AT AAM AND WAS SO ANGRY. God. Needless to say I’m staying the hell out of the comments there, I can only imagine….
No, the OP got a strongly worded rebuke.
Yeah, luckily Alison shot that down and the comments are overwhelmingly “No, don’t be fucking ridiculous.” Thankfully.
That’s good. I totally had a vision of people kind of defending the OP because hey in MY language it’s a rude word blahblah.
Also guys, the question from the dude (let’s be real it’s almost certainly a dude) complaining that the admin makes more than him is making me angry.
Other than The Toast and Captain Awkward, Ask A Manager is the only place I ever read comments.
I’ve had………..very *mixed* experiences in the AAM comments section. Most days I do not have the energy to play “JAQ me off: Feminism 101 for assholes arguing in bad faith.”
You are not wrong here. I dip in occasionally but leave as soon as my angry pedantic side rises up. Gotta save the blood pressure rise for arguing on Twitter…
I have never had too many bicycles, I must say. Although if I decide to get a 29er or (got help me) a 650B mtb in the near future, it may be slightly ridiculous……
guess whoooo wants a fatbike for winter funs…well, all the funs…
They are SO FUN!
I got new MTB shoes for the first time in, like, 8 years? I’m SO EXCITED!
Yes, but unfortunately there’s a loooot of tone policing in the comments, unfortunately :/
“Racism is a strong word u guys it hurts my feels”
That dude. So he went on leave and nursed a hangover while his wife still did most of the work, I gather? He sure is the epitome of “self-consciously progressive”.
He’s my personal nightmare. I’ve been helping out my boss at work doing research to help support expanded parental leave policies at my university. It’s one of the few things I do for pay that I legitimately care about. The irony is I’ve been using a big study about it from BU. Prof. Asshat could have researched this and not even have left his university’s website. You know, instead of just whining about how hard and confusing it is. It’s supposed to be as much about helping out women as it is supporting men who want to take care of their kids–you know, so women don’t get penalized because they take leave and men don’t. Also, you know, calling it “work reduction” is just “bureacracy” to confuse you–there can’t possibly be anyone who isn’t a hetero father or a birth mother with a kid to care for.
Sorry for the preaching-to-the-choir rant, but why are people so terrible?!? Why am I so shocked about it all the time?
I am sorely tempted to send that link to BU’s HR office. Maybe they will come for him, after all.
So true — and why did he have to write an article for The Baffler like this and potentially spoil things for other fathers who DO want to help take care of their child, possibly even because the mother desperately needs help, or is going back to work sooner than the dad?
What a louse.
He should have job repercussions. And what’s up with his wife, bless her heart?
What is especially baffling is that this guy is a lecturer… it’s not like he’s protected by tenure or anything. If he’s lucky, he has a contract–which I am sure has clauses for things like this. And also, you want your future employers to find this when they google you? What in the world was he thinking?
Maybe that why that website is called The Baffler….
Semi-related, I heard a funny story recently about an American being introduced in public by a Puerto Rican, and her name in English is totally unobtrusive but in (Puerto Rican) Spanish, it is very close to being “pretty pussy.” The introducer worked VERY HARD to pronounce it in a way that didn’t make her giggle. And succeeded!
“Bil” in Dutch means “ass,” but I’ve mostly found that out every time I mention a Dutch name that’s kind of ridiculous in English. (Like Cock, for example.)
I found Two Monks fanfic this morning! http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide20…
Also, there is a particular breed of 19th century Englishman who just astounds me. We don’t breed them like that any more. See also: Ernest Shackleton, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Titus Oates…
English women either… Mary Kingsley and Emmeline Pankhurst…
Perhaps this is just because I don’t read fanfic (GASP. I KNOW. I’M SORRY THE TOAST), but isn’t it weird/bad that Mallory isn’t credited or mentioned anywhere in this piece? Like, she came up with the idea and the characters and the format and stuff? Maybe I just missed it or something. I dunno…just asking for a friend.
it’s ok bb you aren’t the only one!
I only read it, I don’t write it and I’m not involved in any communities so I have no real idea of the etiquette. A lot of the stories have a disclaimer along the lines of ‘I don’t own these characters, I’m not making profit’, but not all. That site is organised by fandom though, so there is a page of Buffy stories, a page of Princess Bride ones, etc – perhaps that in itself is the acknowledgement? I think it’s fairly implicitly accepted that the writers are using someone else’s universe but I may be entirely wrong.
Yeah, the credit is where it says “Fandom: Two Monks Inventing Things (The Toast)” at the top. It used to be more common to include those disclaimers (characters not mine, I’m not earning any money off this) but there wasn’t really any point to them–if you’re not making a profit, it doesn’t make any legal difference to announce that fact, and if you’re writing fanfic, it’s a given that you didn’t invent the characters. The Archive of Our Own, the website where that story is hosted, is run by the Organization for Transformative Works, which does a lot of legal advocacy around the topic of fanfic, fanvids, etc. and fair use of original material. Their position, which so far has held water legally, is that fanfic is sufficiently transformative (that is, creating something new from the copyrighted materials) that it doesn’t infringe the original creator’s copyright, so long as the fanfic writer isn’t getting paid for it.
Gah, this is the best comment. I wasted so many years of my life trying to explain to the internet that those disclaimers are worthless and fanfiction is transformative anyway. Thank you for explaining it so much more concisely than I ever did!
At the top of the page, in the list of fandoms, it says “Two Monks Inventing Things (The Toast)”, which while not really a credit, does mention the site. It was written for Yuletide, which is a small fandom fanfic exchange, where people request stories for certain fandoms, and then other people familiar with them write a story, so both the original recipient and the writer are obviously familiar with Mallory’s work. But yes, it would be good in the notes for the author to include a link, so that if someone got there via the Pride and Prejudice tag, they would see a link to the inspiration.
NB – As freshwaterpearl said, the disclaimers that used to be common are mostly pointless, I just would argue that when writing in such a small fandom where the original source is easily available online, linking to the originals is a good way to share something you enjoy with other people who might also enjoy it.
I think there’s a general expectation that if you’ve bothered to click on the fic you know (or know of) the source material. Also, by the time you’re surfing fanfiction archives, your google skills should be at least adequate enough to search out the source if it has intrigued you.
I think the best we have, as far as that kind of Englishman, might be Sir Ranulph Fiennes (first cousin-once removed- to Voldemort!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes
One of the great problems with America is that we don’t bestow our men with the kinds of names that inspire them to go to war. A name like Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes practically demands swashes to be buckled.
Fun fact: a swashbuckler doesn’t buckle swashes, but swashes bucklers (small shields).
Also, doesn’t sound like he was named by Dorothy Sayers or Wodehouse?
Bisexuality is a thing it’s a real thing! And even if one were to later in life ID themself as gay, it doesn’t make past relationships with dudefolk any less real or valid.
Yeah, I don’t really see how Kristen being queer reduces the authenticity of her relationship with RPatz. I mean, there are other reasons to maybe question its authenticity? But I definitely see how being romantic co-stars in a long movie franchise could lead to dating, and also it’s not that uncommon for gay ladies to have a het relationship in the past. And also bisexuality is real, and sometimes bisexual ladies dress pretty butch and confuse people who find out they’re married to dudes. Not that I have any personal experience in that or anything.
“No, drinking simply made me happy before it didn’t. It ended when my paternity leave ended, when my surfeit of time was no more. I’ve never been so pleased to see the inside of a classroom.
My wife wants another child now.”
So many great choices happening in this household,
Right?!?! I mean, Young Child #1 is really going to cut into his day-drinking when his wife is busy with the new baby.
Wait, where’s the link for the Homer-loving baron? I googled the quote and didn’t find anything.
Found it! “Author Says a Whole Culture—Not a Single ‘Homer’—Wrote ‘Iliad,’ ‘Odyssey'”
Thank you! It’s a great interview and I’ll have to check this guy’s books out. I don’t know why, but I’m irrationally attached to the idea of a single Homer who actually wrote the Iliad. #iliadtruther
I’ve only read one book by him—Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides—but it was beautifully written and just pretty excellent all around. would definitely recommend!
Just based on this comment and the pull quote above I am already crushing on this guy. Sea room, you say? Go on.
I also have a romanticized notion about who Homer was, so I can’t wait to read this dude’s book! That’s a great interview, too – and I’m glad they mentioned that the world of the epic is, sadly, a man’s world.
I bought the Homer book for my dad for Christmas, after seeing it reviewed when it came out and figuring it would be right up his street (the classical part, not the baronial bit so much). Alas, I have not yet heard whether he likes it.
Although Samuel Butler (the Erewhon one, not the Hudibras one) thought that Homer was a woman. (Butler was also a bisexual, so that ties two threads together rather neatly).
I saw Walk Hard in the theaters and loved it, so I am 100% here for that every time.
The article about Queen Khentakawess III was awesome – yay, finding more history! – but then there was a blurb at the bottom that said something like “Canada porn actor planned murder” and I really want to click it but I’m at work and I don’t need IT scolding me.
It’s gonna be about Luka Magnotta, unless there are more murderous porn stars in this country than I had previously thought…
I would 100% have Clicked Porn star planned murder SO FAST but alas! I am also at work
“Okay, the university made me sign a document that swore I’d be incurring more than 50 percent of parental duties. But let’s be honest: even in self-consciously progressive households, it’s a rare new father who does as much baby work as a new mother.” CLOSE TAB CLOSE TAB CLOSE TAB
KStew headcanon: she stays at home while I work my 9 to 5 because she’s between films, but she keeps me entertained with regular texts about horrible scripts she’s received and the antics of our two dogs. If I’m too tired to cook when I get home, we discuss various restaurants but always end up ordering vegan Thai, cuddling on the couch, and making weekend plans.
Sorry, wait, what’s a headcanon?
“But let’s be honest: even in self-consciously progressive households, it’s a rare new father who does as much baby work as a new mother.”
I don’t think my household is “self-consciously progressive”, but it’s not that fucking hard to share new baby responsibilities. The partner can do literally everything except nurse.
Seriously why was this piece even published? “We had a baby and I wasted my PAID PARENTAL LEAVE, AN UNSPEAKABLE LUXURY IN A BACKASSWARDS COUNTRY WHERE THE VAST MAJORITY OF WOMEN DO NOT GET ANY AT ALL, by being generally useless and becoming a half-assed alcoholic. I am so interesting.”
I think his wife just wants to get pregnant again to watch him drink himself to death so she can collect on the insurance money and he’ll finally have contributed something to the marriage.
Would like hundreds of times.
I think there’s this idea the birthing partner will somehow have a ~stronger bond~ with the child as a result of going through the birth or… something. How this explains inequity in, say, adopted babies’ care is never explained.
And if the baby isn’t being nursed period, there isn’t even that! Ugh.
Here’s how I imagine it went:
Author: Hey babe, we’re splitting parenting duties 50/50, right? How about you clean off all these spitty towels, empty the diaper genie, and refill the ear infection prescription, while I take the baby to “Mommy and Me” yoga?
Wife: Um, I kind of wanted to go to yoga today. Would you mind–
Author: Oh my god babe you’re so motherly, it’s incredible. Ok, you can do it all, I’ll get out of your way and work on my novel with “Mr. Jameson.”
Wife: That’s not–
Author: (mugs to camera) Hey, I tried to do half the work, right? (laughtrack plays)
And then she murders him (laughtrack plays)
Better yet, Filmed In Front Of A Studio Audience, and we are that audience!
Is that how it works now? We see all these statistics about how even young liberal men aren’t pulling their weight, so men point to them and say “look, all men suck, so I don’t have to be any better.” Aaaaarrrgh
In my experience with useless young liberal men, it’s more likely that they strenuously object to the idea that the workload is unequal because of gender, it’s just because they are unique special snowflakes who are alone in the world for not “being good at” or liking domestic tasks while the women they date just happen to be better at cooking/cleaning/childcare.
Or they have Important Art they need to be creating and can’t be bothered with other trifling matters.
Never not a good time to link to this https://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive…
Good lord, reading that made my heart hurt terribly. I hope the author divorced her husband.
Can’t tell if she did or not from Google, but 45 years later she sure as hell isn’t the only one. Check out the graph that’s up at the top of the New York Times website today.
That could have been written yesterday with very few changes. Sometimes I think the only advancement of feminism at all in the last forty years has been as an incidental result of queer liberation.
BINGO.
My ex-marriage.
And I mean, okay, thought exercise: even if this woman is a fucking superwoman mom and can attend to literally every single baby need without taking a single break, the new father is incapable of picking up the slack in, say, non-baby household duties? Like, cooking, shopping, cleaning stuff that I have to assume this woman was handling before? She never naps or showers or poops? What the hell is wrong with this dude?
YES! UGH
Yesss, god, yes. My husband gets one flipping week of paternity leave, which I should be glad about considering basically no one gets any paternity leave, and I will say that he felt a little like a third wheel on the baby-care front, just because newborns nurse so much in that first week. I, however, would have turned into a puddle and died without him. He cooked amazing meals for my ravenous breast-feeding self, did the shopping, and coordinated grandparent travel to and from airports. And he doesn’t see it, but he also saved us all in the middle of the night by walking the floors with the wide-awake baby who hadn’t figured out the difference between day and night yet.
Babies were not meant to be cared for by one exhausted woman.
My dad was responsible for a lot of the late-night car rides which were the only thing which would soothe the colic I apparently had as an infant. Also doing most of the cooking. TBF, he still does most of the cooking, so that may not have been an actual change in routine.
Maybe what’s wrong with Dude is her putting up with it. Boundaries and some standards? One kid with him is tragic. But two? Why does this seem so OK to her that she’s having another kid with him?
Stockholm Syndrome?
Speaking as someone who just left a shitty marriage, it’s amazing the things you just assume are okay and inevitable, until you realize they’re not. Boundaries and standards are awesome and I’m glad to be improving mine, but once you get into “I’d treat you well if only you’d insist on it” territory, things are already bad. What’s wrong with Dude is definitely Dude.
I kind of think that his wife probably doesn’t trust him with the baby. If I’d married someone like that, I wouldn’t. (And can you imagine the kind of self-aggrandizing crap his novel is filled with??)
But even if, even IF you aren’t involving yourself with the primary baby-care responsibilities, you can step up and do all of the stuff that the primary baby-care giver doesn’t have time. Make sure your wife has time to shower every day. Vacuum. Laundry. Dishes. Cook. Paint her nails as she’s nursing! UGH SERIOUSLY
Seriously, if he spent ALL HIS TIME DRINKING, then no, I wouldn’t trust that drunken sack of shit with the care of my child either. Of course, he’d be doing his drinking back in his parents’ basement, and I would be assisted by the high-class nanny I was able to hire after selling all his belongings and stripping all his assets.
but if you don’t trust your husband, father of your child, with your SHARED BABY, then how are you married to this immature hoople-head? what is in it for you? how is this man your f*ing “helpmeet,” as they say?
This is the part I don’t understand.
Maybe he’s rich? Though there aren’t many people making their fortunes as university professors and novelists these days.
Trust fund.
Extra points for “hoople-head.”
I thumbs-upped for the same reason.
Yes yes yes.
This is one that I saw advertised on Twitter because I follow that publication (how my paternal leave drove me to drink, or something like that). I thought it was about a man who took leave to take care of his new infant and found the responsibility and loneliness so crushing that he took to drink. I imagined an essay about a man coming to terms with the enormity of the unpaid labor mothers have been doing for centuries.
I liked that essay better.
Again, would like 100 times!
When I was born in 1986, my dad (with a Commonwealth job) was the one to take parental leave. Originally he was supposed to be off for a year. He barely lasted 6 months because it turns out being alone with a newborn when all of your friends work and don’t have kids and you are in a small town is REALLY LONELY AND HARD and not quite the year of no-work fun he was anticipating.
I think that’s a much more interesting essay.
Right? I came away from that last graf thinking “something is fishy here. Either she’s insane, superhuman or he’s lying?” but I like your murder by alcoholism theory better.
The paternity leave thing is hilariously terrible but also makes me kind of mad because I know my Dad wishes he’d been able to spend far more time at home when I was born, and generally when me and my brother were very young, and wasn’t able to because I mean, this was the computer industry in the 90s, job security and so on. So BOOO to that asswipe.
Despite knowing comparatively little about ancient Greek literature (for now! I’m working on it!) I am VERY INVESTED in discussions of things like Homeric authorship because my brain is weird like that. So I am utterly delighted to see an article about that here!
KSTEW LINK ISN’T WORKING PLEASE ACTIVATE EMERGENCY PROTOCOL
careful, if you google it you reach the D***y M**l.
ugh, yes, and their post was all about Kristen and her PAL and how happy she was living the SINGLE LIFE…mmmhmm sure.
(shakes head at d.m.)
(shakes head at self for having even clicked on that link)
I don’t know what that means!
Daily Mail, the most heinous of British publications. Do not visit their website unless you want to hate the world and yourself.
If you google the link you can access the cached version by clicking on the little arrow next to it YOU’RE WELCOME.
THANK YOU! I’m leaaaarnnnning!
The Fug Girls (at Go Fug Yourself) refer to it as the DMIK, which is the Daily Mail I Know. As in, I Know it’s a crap source and I should never look at it by sometimes I can’t help myself.
the link to the kstew photos isn’t working so I googled her out of curiosity and it is hilarisad that someone who looks a hella lot like her girlfriend is described by one publication as her “live-in gal pal”
it’s a little baffling
Also liked the picture where they are clearly kissing and so they decide to up them to “best friend” status. LOOK AT THE BEST FRIENDS BEING BEST FRIENDLY!
lesbianism: everyone’s going to think you’re best friends or sisters, unless you actively make out in front of them, and even then it’s like 50/50, I mean, they could just be like really close
When I was a wee teenage lesbian, my mother kept trying to convince me I was just confused. “Just because you like holding hands with your female friends doesn’t mean you’re a lesbian! I used to hold hands with my friends all the time when I was your age! It’s normal for girls to be more physically affectionate!”
All I could do was make non-committal noises and slowly edge out of the room because there was no way I was explaining the, uh, full breadth of our friendly activities.
I feel Brittani Nichols said it best: https://twitter.com/BisHilarious/status/552247164…
MALLORY why didn’t you post the Bob Dylan parody from Walk Hard it is the the funniest song in the movie by 100 miles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u5x9pdInTU
What do YOUR parents think about my protest songs, Mister Time Magazine?
Kristen Stewart looking like Shane at Coachella a few years ago is the true Kristen Stewart.
“Carton de Wiart did have a habit of getting injured but this is simply testament to his belief of leading from the front. He inspired his men with the simple and eternal words, ‘follow me’.”
A “habit of getting injured”
His looks remind me of old Indy from Young Indiana Jones a bit.
Wow, I definitely did not parse that paternity leave excerpt properly — I somehow didn’t even think it might be a man talking until I clicked through and was like, “wait, why are we making fun of a woman who is a very incoherent writer of having complicated feelings about motherhood?”
But no, it’s just a dude being awful. Ban all men from ever talking about motherhood ever y/y
EDIT: OH WOW I actually finished it and it just kept getting worse??? Good heavens, what an embarrassment of a human being.
You’re not the only one! I thought a woman was writing it and I wasn’t sure what was so awful.
My ongoing issue with Barbara Pym is that she is not, in fact, Miss Pym from Josephine Tey, an author I would follow to alternate universes so she didn’t die so young and with so few books written. But yes, that is lovely.
Josephine Tey! I, too, wish she had lived to write more lovely goodness. I can’t really re-read Miss Pym Disposes much, though, as it’s too painful and I always want to reach into the novel and slap the headmistress upside the head.
Oh yes. My favorite is Brat Farrar, in part because Ponies! I just finished Expensive Halo through Barnes and Noble. The preview wasn’t working correctly (it never cut me off?), and I managed to read it all the way through, which felt sufficiently sneaky that I bought an ebook of something else to make up for it.
Have you found anyone else you like that writes like that?
My favorite mystery writer is Margery Allingham, but other good ones are Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James, Patricia Moyes, Louise Penny and Alan Bradley. I enjoy Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth as well, but their writing style is not quite on the same level as Tey and the others.
I love Brat Ferrar too! I re-read it and The Daughter of Time fairly regularly.
I couldn’t help it, I hate-Googled William Giraldi. I was gratified to find that: 1) even though I don’t think it’s fair to judge people by their faces, he has the face of a self-important doofus; 2) he’s been a tone-deaf idiot before.
Ho boy. His face is very bad.
Guys this awful William Giraldi person also wrote an AMAZING humblebrag about how it’s so annoying that everyone compares him to Cormac McCarthy: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/22/wi…
THE GELID WILDS
WHAT
OMG what an asshat
I think my brain just overloaded with hate. Is that a thing? Maybe I need a drink or two to process it.
REGNANT MAFIOSO OF THE AMERICAN MASCULINE
Oh my gosh, it’s THAT guy! Man, I hate to say it, but this kind of breathtaking cluelessness practically guarantees his success in the World Opinions.
Can we leave copious mediocre Amazon reviews on his novel pretending we think it’s by Cormac McCarthy?
‘Not one of McCarthy’s finest.’
‘I enjoyed The Road but this was not to my liking.’
‘McCarthy has lost his touch; this was average at best.’
YES PLEASE LET US DO THIS RIGHT NOW
so the link to the KStew photos was broken, so I googled it, and the Daily Mail (of course) was the first result. To their credit, all references to “maybe this is her girlfriend????????” were subtle, and every other paragraph was a quote like “She is really enjoying the single life with her best gal pal!” Which is hilarious. I love/ship this so hard.
She is SO HOT in that beach get-up, ugh. I want her girlfriend, too.
My theory about those heroic British Empire gentlemen: anyone who has watched Downton Abbey would know how stultifyingly boring life as an aristocrat was, War was 1000 % more interesting. Even getting shot in the eye=better than tea with the vicar and cricket
My theory about Day Drinking Dad: His wife wants another baby as company, and she just keeps him around as breeding stock
If he were my husband I’d be in prison now, as he’d be dead from an Unfortunate Accident.
Not to mention more interesting than the duties of estate management, sitting up straight at all times, and repressing all visible emotions. (Says one who just watched the “Manners of Downton Abbey” special, which featured a historian talking about how weird the Edwardians were.)
True – I think* a lot of 2nd (and 3rd, etc.) sons of aristocrats were really jazzed about war because it gave them something to DO finally.
*Based solely on Downton Abbey and other period dramas/lit
Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? I mean who could convict you?
OMG you guys that horrible father makes me fucking enraged, because you KNOW that pieces like this will be used to argue against equal parental leave, thus A) perpetuating the motherhood penalty and B) denying men who actually want to, you know, BE ACTIVE FATHERS the chance to be equal parents in the first few months.
Fuck that fucking asshole.
I cannot say precisely why my “workload reduction” coincided with my “drinking problem,” except suddenly I had so much time. Okay, the university made me sign a document that swore I’d be incurring more than 50 percent of parental duties. But let’s be honest: even in self-consciously progressive households, it’s a rare new father who does as much baby work as a new mother.
[…]
My son was born in March, and my sabbatical went from early May to mid-January, which, in a tidy coincidence, is nearly nine months. But since his care was taken care of by his mother—whose apparent willingness and capacity to do almost everything for him flooded me with awe—I spent those nine months trying not to be bored while not writing a novel that was coming due.
I want to rip his throat out with my teeth. I realise this is a completely disproportionate response, but I am very furious.
But his wife’s work filled him with awe! He acknowledged that she’s, like, just better than him at parenting! That’s even better than helping, because it comes with the approval of a Man!
It *is* awfully disproportionate, but it is nice of you to be so merciful.
“His care was being taken care of by his mother”. Who was taking care of him. His dad was just careless.
“apparent willingness and capacity”. APPARENT. Not that any of us were in doubt, but nice of him to make it crystal-clear that, no, they didn’t have a conversation where she was like, “Actually, I will feel great about life if I do everything for the baby while you drink and don’t write.” He just took a look around, thought, “Welp, she’s doing everything and isn’t openly weeping or breaking down, so I guess we’re good here. Where’s the beer?”
British papers were successfully sued (by Liberace!) for labeling celebrities as gay in the past, so maybe that’s what the Daily Fail is trying to avoid. Also Kristen Stewart’s queerness has always been obvious to most other queer women I know. And here’s the thing about celebrity couples: they’re all fake, even the straight ones–especially if they just so happen to be in a big movie together.
And here’s the thing about celebrity couples: they’re all fake, even the straight ones–especially if they just so happen to be in a big movie together.
This is why I absolutely refuse to believe that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are really a couple. That is the only reason. It certainly has nothing to do with my post-The Social Network conviction that Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg should be together forever.
I find the whole concept of fake celebrity relationships fascinating – I thought it was something that went out of style with the studio system, but no!
This William Giraldi dude is making me roll my eyes more than I normally would, because 1. my dad was my primary caregiver until I started going to school, and while my mother occasionally looked on in horror when she got home from work at night (“WHY IS SHE WEARING RED TIGHTS WITH A PINK SHIRT?”) I’m fairly certain the burden of my care never drove him to drink, and 2. one of my cousins was a stay-at-home dad until recently, and he adored it and his kid clearly adores him and he has ALSO not been driven to drink by the indignity of being a SAHD. So if two of my working stiff family members could do it, surely Famed Novelist (But Not Cormac McCarthy, Stop Calling Me That) William Giraldi should be able to manage, ESPECIALLY because his wife was ALSO home and taking on some (haaaaaaa) of the workload.
Yeah my brother is full-time dad once a month while mom has a nursing shift, and it’s so neat to watch him futz around tending baby. He’s cool about it but I can tell he loves it 🙂
I would not have been upset with this piece if he had been driven to drink by being a stay at home dad. I could totally relate. The fact that he was taking up drinking because he was doing fuck-all while on paid paternity leave was what was so goddamn infuriating.
I was bushwhacked by this surfeit of free time, unprepared for the realization that I required a job other than writing to provide me with some psychic equilibrium. I am not alone in this regard: think of the tremendous ennui and the earthquakes of personhood that can occur when men are laid off or retire. After my grandfather quit working in his sixties, I’d often catch him standing in the basement, staring at a cinder-block wall.
Oh yes won’t you please think of the men when discussing paid family leave and unpaid housework?
Well, women don’t have personhood, everybody knows that.
This guy is supposed to be a writer? Really?
I didn’t read the actual article but based on the pull-quotes here, that was my takeaway too. “bushwhacked by this surfeit”?? Are you drunk NOW, while writing this?
Odd, neither of my grandfathers ever stopped working, even when they retired. They just took up more woodworking projects. Maybe the men in his family are just bad at intrinsic motivation.
One of my grandfathers bought a farm when he retired. Not gentleman farming, but full on corn/ soybeans/ cows. He’s now retired from that and last time I heard was teaching himself microbiology or something. It’s amazing how many things there are to do out there in the big wide world.
I mean, I’m sure retiring can be really difficult for people, especially if they’ve been in one job for decades, and have to adjust to no longer inhabiting that role. But seriously, people manage it. If you can’t find anything to do but stare at a blank wall, the problem might not be the world having failed your masculine needs (retired women, of course, never experience this ennui, because they just keep nurturing people), but your own lack of motivation.
I missed that part, but WTF. The retired men I know have floundered for years trying to figure out what to do next, while the retired women get right to doing interesting shit.
Retirement seems like the perfect opportunity to develop Ultimate Dad Skills, like alphabetizing, cross-indexing, and sorting by size every tool in your workshop, or developing an obsession with esoteric historical trivia. Or taking up birdwatching or something.
Or drink yourself into oblivion, apparently. #notalldads
Although I feel bad for attacking his dad, who may very well be a perfectly lovely person who had difficulty adjusting to a new paradigm, which is totally fair and reasonable. The author may not have inherited his crisis of masculinity in the face of avalanches of ennui from his father; it may be entirely his own fault.
That’s certainly something that can happen. I told my dad when he retired that he needed a “life plan.” It took him about 2 years to figure it out, but now he has a little cottage on the river that he is fixing up and he is happy as a clam (uh, no pun intended). I did see one neighbor start drinking quite a bit before he found his new calling (writing and self-publishing books). I’m proud of my dad (and my neighbor) that they figured something out. Didn’t mean to attack his dad – just sounds like the writer may have more trouble when his own retirement hits.
He probably only thought his dad was blankly staring at a cinderblock wall. His dad was actually trying to figure out, without any physical measurements, how best to display his entire collection of antique navigation equipment.
Also, it can be darn hard when your whole identity is wrapped up in your job, crisis of masculinity or no. I personally dread the day I retire. I need to figure out my own life plan (besides “read lots of books, repeat”).
I know it’s old enough to be attending elementary school by now, but I thought many of you would be tickled by this thread, in which guys argue about how many days there are in a week:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=10…
(the fun starts about 5 replies in.)
…incredible.
I cried laughing at that, thank you.
That was even better than I thought it would be.
You don’t start counting on sunday, it hasn’t been a day yet, you don’t start counting til monday. You can’t count the day that it is, did you never take basic elementrary math?
wow
It’s like the bro equivalent of “Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.”
Oh my god, this is beautiful.
It goes on for FIVE PAGES. I cannot.
The thread was posted in 2008, do you think they’ve figured it out by now?
But his wife’s work filled him with awe! He acknowledged that she’s, like, just better than him at parenting! That’s even better than helping, because it comes with the approval of a Man!
Original KStew link is also cached on google, if you want to spy (s-bi?) w/out supporting the evil Daily Mail empire.
I think that transition from expecting to having a new baby is intrinsically a little hard, because for nine months the baby has been a part of the mom’s life in a way that the dad (or other partner) can’t totally replicate. When she was a fetus, I used to call my daughter “my imaginary friend” because I was the only one who knew what was going on with her all the time and everybody else just had to take my word for it: “She’s sleeping,” or “she’s excited about the spicy food,” or whatever. For the better part of a year, everything that went down with her was firsthand for me and secondhand for my husband, except for those moments when we both listened to the heartbeat or looked at the ultrasound.
So when the baby is suddenly an external concern, I can see how it might be tough for the other partner to step up and immediately grasp that now he can be as or more involved than the mom is. But, you know, good people figure it the fuck out. Especially since whoever just biologically produced the baby is very likely to feel like they got hit by a truck.
Also, the baby was born in March, and his leave didn’t start until May. There was some time in there to figure out what was going on.
Has anyone else read “The War Lover” by John Hersey? Whenever I read about someone like Carton de Wiart the character of Buzz Morrow springs to mind.
Your Twitter inspired me to watch Walk Hard again with some friends on NYE. I forgot how fucking incredible that movie is. I started 2015 with several organs failing from laughing so hard. Thanks a lot, Mallory. Jerk.
BARBARA PYM. She’s such a genius. A depressing, depressing genius.
I’m really confused as to how anybody can be so simultaneously aware of and oblivious to his own uselessness. Like, dude, get off the couch and parent your child, if you’re so aware that you’re not helping.
Has no one yet noticed/ commented on the fact that Mallory is in Forbes’ 30 under 30? http://www.forbes.com/pictures/flji45eefm/mallory…
I know, have met, or have corresponded with way too many people on this year’s lists to not feel slightly bitter about having no reason to be included.
Ughhhh that Paternity Leave Douche. The PLD. I feel there should be a PLD meme: a gross crumpled white man drunk-face, with “Wife had a baby. Now I’m drunk all the time.”
ANyway yay for bi KStew! Or pan or whatever. (no need for labels)
Thirdly, if any of you are interested (blatantly hoping Mallory notices but not gonna happen) I have an upright/uptight English Gentleman for a father and blog about the amusing stuff he says, which keeps some of my friends entertained: http://lastenglishgentleman.tumblr.com/
Okay, I’m completely in love with your father right now. Totally completely. So thank you for that.
hahaha. He is really something.
Are you one of my new tumblr followers? I got a few from this post I think 🙂 Welcome
Anyone else here follow the Tournament of Books? I was reading the shortlist announcement and notice Nicole is going to be a judge this year, woo!
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/announcing-…
THE GAY KRISTEN STEWART PICS ARE NOW GONE, NOW I WILL NEVER KNOW HOW GAY THEY ARE. D: #noshame
I’m afraid I Daily Mail-ed it, as they were still up there (obviously for the people running that site have no shame)
Very confused about why they kept referring to her being “single” (I don’t mind the phrase “gal pal”- that could be claimed by lesbians/ us bi-folk surely, it sounds kinda fun)…when she was clearly snogging a woman on a beach.
The version of Walk Hard we saw in the theater had the full frontal male nudity. I fully appreciated how uncomfortable it made the rest of the audience. Breasts? No big deal. But a penis and suddenly shit gets real. And I don’t even know what “real” means in that context.
The version of Walk Hard we saw in the theater had the full frontal male nudity. I fully appreciated how uncomfortable it made the rest of the audience. Breasts? No big deal. But a penis and suddenly shit gets real. And I don't even know what "real" means in that context.
I missed that part, but WTF. The retired men I know have floundered for years trying to figure out what to do next, while the retired women get right to doing interesting shit.
Or drink yourself into oblivion, apparently. #notalldads
That's certainly something that can happen. I told my dad when he retired that he needed a “life plan.” It took him about 2 years to figure it out, but now he has a little cottage on the river that he is fixing up and he is happy as a clam (uh, no pun intended). I did see one neighbor start drinking quite a bit before he found his new calling (writing and self-publishing books). I'm proud of my dad (and my neighbor) that they figured something out. Didn't mean to attack his dad – just sounds like the writer may have more trouble when his own retirement hits.
Also, it can be darn hard when your whole identity is wrapped up in your job, crisis of masculinity or no. I personally dread the day I retire. I need to figure out my own life plan (besides “read lots of books, repeat”).