Jay Caspian Kang’s profile of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is unbelievably fascinating:
This is the Abdul-Jabbar paradox: He’s a man who cares enough about his legacy to write two memoirs and eight other books, but he refuses to engage in the usual smoothing, sanding and editing that is required of a public persona. He instead asks you to accept his version of his truth, even if the truth is that at 68, he sometimes has a hard time being civil to children and still refuses to shake the hand of a reporter.
Nikki interviewed CONSTANCE WU for the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE:
How would you like to go about promoting Asian-American stories? Are you thinking of producing or directing?
I’m not thinking of directing, because I directed once, and it was the hardest thing I ever did! I don’t think I have the type of brain for that.
I looked up the people who went to the Sundance screenwriters’ lab last year, and I saw there were two Asian-American artists — Yung Chang and Christopher Yogi — who had screenplays in the direction lab. These labs are just an opportunity to help teach young filmmakers how to direct and run a set. I actually turned down a Bruce Willis movie to go and do this workshop for free — to support and meet these Asian artists. I worked on Chris Yogi’s script. So I make choices like that. The luxury of having a network show is I financially have a bit of freedom, so I would like to use that freedom the best I can [and] hopefully help Asian creators.
AHP on the past, present, and future of Tiger Beat:
Laufer also understood the profitability of these magazines wasn’t in subscriptions ($5 for a year) or ads. Instead, it was exploiting the depths of obsession via a vast web of what we’d call “swag”: Each magazine was chock full of offers for fan clubs ($3 for David Cassidy), offers for readers to complete their Tiger Beat collections through the purchase of back issues (75 cents a piece), an “Osmond Sweatshirt ($5) and “Donny Cap” ($5), theTiger Beat Super Annual ($1.25), the “Star Address Book” ($1.25), selections from theTiger Beat Paperback Library ($1 a piece for titles like The Secret Lives of Girl Stars, Brady Bunch in New York Mystery, and Stars & Their Pets), and “An Osmond Love Gift” ($2).
Why you shouldn’t name your white band “Viet Cong.”
Okay, I’m ready to get butterfly tops back in style.
Susan Brownmiller is a great reminder that your heroes will always disappoint you, so just love cats and dogs instead:
You are taking a strong position here.
Well, I take a hard line with victims of domestic violence, too. I feel it is my place as a feminist to say, “Get out, get out, get out of this relationship.” They feel that we should respect their opinions and beliefs because they are survivors. If they can’t get out because they don’t want to reduce their living circumstances, or they don’t want to go, or they are passive people, then I am supposed to respect that. But I don’t. My feeling is “Get out.”And my feeling about young women trapped in sex situations that they don’t want is: “Didn’t you see the warning signs? Who do you expect to do your fighting for you?” It is a little late, after you are both undressed, to say “I don’t want this.”
Dahlia Adler on red flags to look for when you’re querying agents:
Do not trust agents that try to sell you their services, their clients’ books, or anything else. Seriously.
In the case of one of the times I’ve heard about an agent rejecting for an absolutely within-guidelines word count, the rejecting agent “helpfully” suggested the writer consult an editing service for assistance in beefing it up.
How incredibly convenient that that agency provided paid editorial service.
These old magazine ads for cocaine accessories are INCREDIBLE, you have to bask in them.
this is great, and horribly sad, so figure out if that’s something you can read today:
When I say that my husband, Mark, and I are fine, the response is invariably the same: Oh, you’re so lucky to have each other. At this point, I sometimes have to stifle a laugh. Usually I take a deep breath and clamp my mouth shut. Yeah, we’re really lucky, I think, so bloody lucky. Clearly they aren’t thinking about the fact our only child died of a neurodegenerative disease so rare that at present she’s it’s only casualty.
I’m afraid eventually I won’t be able to contain myself. I’ll be transformed like the bitter sister in the fairytale Diamonds and Toads, and all these pent up thoughts will drop from my mouth in the shape of snakes. I don’t want this to happen. I’ve seen enough of life’s cruelties to know I don’t want to perpetuate them.
Thinking of making a career change, please message me if you own a dreary mansion & need a beautiful governess with social media experience
— Umami Skeleton (@Merman_Melville) September 17, 2015
My friend Carrie’s new puppy is back from the vet, and now she has to wear a cone for a little while: 
My friend Anna speaks for me. pic.twitter.com/atvrcdST0A — Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) September 17, 2015
Deleted comment of the day:
Well, there’s nothing like starting off a Friday with some good old fashioned “If you didn’t want to get raped why did you get drunk?” And “why didn’t you leave when he hit you the first time?” Because life is perfectly black and white and all decisions are easy ones and women must always be the ones who are blamed when they are attacked in some way! They caused it, you know, us unfortunate women and our propensity to make our own life decisions, just getting in the way of rapists who are just trying to live their lives, man!
Yeah. That comment seems to be spoken by someone who has never, in the course of just living their life like a normal, non-paranoid person, found themselves in a situation where they’ve had to think “If this person here decides that they’re going to have sex with me, there’s nothing I’m going to be able do about it.”
…Or, where my brain went: spoken like someone who’s had something terrible happen to her but she’s bent on owning some kind of agency to it so she can believe she was never really helpless. :/
Rage wakes you up better than caffeine, dontcha know.
I just had the pleasure of de-friending an old acquaintance who fairly frequently dabbled in this kind of bullshit thinking. I gently chimed in a couple times, but nopenopenope, he was a white dude (who is totally an ally, guys!) and he was not interested in being corrected.
Rephrase it: “Okay, so you want this woman to escape from a violent criminal. Immediately. With no backup or preparations.”
Is this what the police usually recommends? No it is not. It’s literally the opposite of what you’re supposed to do when you get robbed or beaten.
Domestic violence where he doesn’t want her to leave is even worse. “Okay, so you want this woman to escape from a HOSTAGE SITUATION, immediately, with no backup…”
Running away from a violent home seems to be pretty much as difficult as breaking out of prison or hiding from the mafia. They literally know everything about you and have shown that they are able and willing to use violence. If the police doesn’t care, exactly what is she supposed to do? Dig a tunnel? Fake a new passport?
And the point at which a victim of abuse leave (or tries to leave) the relationship is the one when they’re most at risk. That’s what’s so scary about it – staying might be safer than leaving, because leaving can trigger something even worse. It’s horrifying.
And if you have kids, or pets, or a medical condition, or literally any other thing that makes picking up your whole life and moving it somewhere else more difficult, or more vulnerable…
Honestly I don’t know how anyone ever manages it, it seems so so so hard and I think people who leave abusive situations should get a million medals.
I did not read that article – but it certainly says SOMETHING about what she knows about life that the only three reasons she can think of for not leaving an abusive relationship is “don’t want to reduce quality of living” (of course no acknowledgement that reducing quality of living from barely surviving to pretty much nothing can be fatal for women and their children) “don’t want to” and, finally, are just “passive” types, you know, no reason at all, that’s just how they are, they can’t be bothered. Yes, women too greedy, wrong and passive to leave an abusive relationship would be hard to “respect” or understand; strange how those are rarely the reasons that I’ve heard about. Maybe she could respect women who are scared, in danger, women without any resources, without a job or money or a support system, women with no place to go, women who are doing everything they can to protect and provide and care for their children, women who are using their ingenuity to survive in an impossible situation; maybe she could respect women like that. Just a shame that there are no women like that around!
Also, I can’t get over that she gave “don’t want to” as a reason they can’t get out. “Don’t want to” is not a reason someone can’t get out, it’s a decision one has made based on their circumstances and their understanding about the consequences and results of each respective decision. I like that it takes one clause for her to assume women are bad at making decisions (“don’t want to go” = wrong / too stupid to make the “right” decision = can’t be trusted to make sound decisions about their own life based on what they know about their own situation) to criticizing women for being too passive. Beautiful.
Someone please ask the most ignorant person in their life what the top three reasons abused women stay in relationships are. I just want to know if it’s possible to top this – one willful misunderstanding of the importance of having resources in being able to leave, and two contradictory character flaws that aren’t even close to being to actually being a reason.
Yeah, she seems confused about what “of all of my current options, this option is the least bad” actually looks like.
“Extend your focus to the larger percentage of women and girls who are in danger of being raped. They are more important than the college kids. ”
haha there’s nothing like hearing a feminist icon play Oppression Olympics with your rape
Argh.
The “didn’t you see the warning signs”? How are women supposed to see the “warning signs” when we aren’t taught them, and are instead taught to be “nice” to people and “give them a chance”? Especially young women who don’t have the life experience. How do you think the rest of us learned what the warning signs are? By NOT knowing them and getting into a dangerous situation. And it is so easy to ignore them, to sweep them away, to think that they don’t apply in this case. It’s like telling yourself the pollen count is just high and you don’t really have a cold.
Add on top of that the fact that so many abusers are so fucking charming and good at finding people who don’t have strong self-esteem or good support networks (and then cut them off from what support the DO have).
I just. Argh.
How are we meant to see the “warning signs” when our culture is so drenched in rape apology and so bad at respecting women’s boundaries that it’s genuinely hard to tell the difference between ‘clueless idiot who doesn’t understand that his behaviour looks like a warning sign’ and ‘person who will try to rape me’. And when we treat the clueless idiot and his warning sign as such, we’re reproved for being mean and rude.
I am a fan of Andrea Dworkin taking her to task for this type of mentality. Apparently Brownmiller chose not to learn much in the 20+ years since it was written. (Granted, I love Dworkin through all the cockles of my misandrist little heart.): http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneAf…
There was a gang rape in the UK recently by four soldiers on a drunk man, and it was interesting to see how the (minimal) coverage in the press focused on the nationality of the soldiers and animalistic language. Always good when a victim isn’t blamed, but you could definitely see the difference between treatment of male and female victims. Like the police’s quote was how the victim was treated like a ‘wounded animal’ being ‘hunted’, which I couldn’t see being said about a woman without some kind of commentary about how being drunk or accompanying strangers to a second location was a poor choice. Not to mention the absence of the usual ‘what were you wearing, why didn’t you get a cab?’ questions.
The world is beautiful and terrible.
I was going to say something snarky about the deleted comment, but then I read “Are You Still Married” and I don’t really feel like being snarky anymore.
Same. It was wrenching and beautiful.
“I don’t like the cone of shame!”
Interpretive dance would be a very useful skill for the astronaut who’s radio has died but needs to relay complex emotions during a space walk.
I know almost nothing about the book/movie “The Martian” but now I have the singular hope that it involves space dance.
He sort of makes a robot do a communications pirouette…
Interstellar could have benefited from some of the humans doing interpretive dance instead of just the spinning robot.
I can’t not recommend Stardance by Spider and Jeanne Robinson at this juncture, one of my favourite books and trilogies of all time.
I’ll look for it at my library. I own a half a dozen things by Spider.
I’m really not okay after reading “Are You Still Married” so I’m just going to try not to think about it and talk about Tiger Beat instead because my heart can only handle so much. Which pages did you rip out to put on your walls? NGL, mine were a shrine to the Backstreet Boys (especially Brian…)
Hanson. I had all four walls AND parts of my ceiling covered in Hanson posters. Please see this not at all embarrassing photo as a SMALL example:
That’s only one of my childhood bedroom walls, haha. Which is too bad because while you can see my awesome boombox you cannot see my cool, clear blue inflatable plastic chair, gosh.
Your dedication to Hanson is impressive. I, sadly, lived in a bubble where I escaped all preteen girl obsessions until the LotR cast hit me like a ton of bricks at the beginning of high school. But I did, however, have an inflatable chair. Inflatable chairs were the bomb. Mine was also blue, but with multicolored Austin Powers-esque flowers all over it.
It lasted about a week until the cat tried to nap on it.
I was obsessed, lmao. Amusingly, my Hanson obsession did eventually become an LOTR obsession, too, (or an Orlando Bloom obsession) though by that point I was less about the walls of posters and more about message boards and siggies/graphics and fanfic, haha.
RIP your blue inflatable chair, though. I LOVED mine. It matched my really cool cordless phone, you know those ones that were clearish so you could see the wires inside? THIS ONE.
Oh man. I wanted one of those so bad. I would’ve been so jealous of your phone then. Heck. I’m jealous of it now.
My Tolkien obsession straight up was always fanfic and art related, the internet only made it easier to creep on other people’s fandom. My best friend was the one with the whole wall shrines to Bloom and Wood. When it came to decor my LotR cast obsession wasn’t allowed to go far beyond a few movie posters. My mother wouldn’t allow more. (But oh, I’ve got dirt on her. I’ve seen pictures of her girlhood bedroom. I know Tom Selleck and his mustache were hanging above her bed… I know Baryshnikov is in her laundry room to this day.)
I also had THREE-WAY CALLING on that phone which at the time was like a huge deal to me for some reason.
Yeah, the internet really made fandom much bigger for me. Lmao at you having the dirt on your Mom. (For mine it was Donny Osmond!)
I had the exact same progression!!
OMFG I went from Hanson to LotR/Orlando Bloom/Elijah Wood/Everything in LotR that was vaguely hot, including the ladies (that was an interesting awakening!).
I haven’t gotten away from the love for LotR, but I only occasionally venture into Hanson territory.
I had a cowprint inflatable chair. I am sure it’s still in a cupboard at my mum’s house. Posters were Mike Patton and ponies, and that’s pretty much how it still is today.
I had a Hanson obsession too! But that wasn’t “cool” so the posters weren’t on my walls, I papered the inside of my closet with them. I had a closet that wasn’t walk-in-huge, but big enough for me to sit inside and read my contraband Sweet Valley High books, so it was like a little Hanson/SVH clubhouse in there by the time we moved.
My bedroom walls were reserved primarily for Rider Strong and (heart of my own heart) Jonathan Brandis.
I think my Hanson obsession was “cool” at the time I had all the posters… not so much as time went on, lmao. But oh gosh, I had all the SVH books too. Also Saddle Club, and the Babysitter’s Club! Shelves and shelves of them… and RL Stine.
OH man Saddle Club! I had so many of those too! Also the Thoroughbred series. My bedroom walls were covered in pictures of horses, mostly Arabians. I was maybe a little horse crazy.
That sounds like my bedroom. I had a subscription to Young Rider, which came with multiple gigantic posters every month (every two months)? I obviously couldn’t take down any of the old posters so the walls just got progressively more crowded.
Yessss! Young Rider and Saddle Club! I loved both. I owned a couple of horses and showed professionally for a bit, so horses were my jam. I collected model horses, too! I even did a presentation for a competition on how I built a stable for them along with equipment made out of recycled junk and vet wrap. …I was an interesting child/teen.
I had a wall EXACTLY like this, and even have a similar photo of said wall
TWINS!!!
(Did you also happen to have a poster of them on the ceiling right above your bed? Because… >.> LOL.)
Oh lord, Hanson. I very diligently and carefully put together a collage of Hanson photos and posters on my bedroom door (though never anywhere else), out of a desire to be like a normal middle schooler (it was weird enough I’d lived in another country before sixth grade started and was bad at sports; I thought this would help). I picked Zac as my favorite, because our birthdays were exactly a year apart.
Upon reflection, I put way too much thought into all of this.
Oh my gosh though, Zac was my favorite because we had literally the exact same birthday (month/day/year). So you and I are also (almost) birthday twins, haha.
!!! This is excellent. Hooray for birthday twins!
Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Always and only.
My older sister had an entire wall of JTT pictures from Tiger Beat and Bop and I used to sneak into her room to gaze at them sometimes. I remember there was one that was a picture of all three kids from Home Improvement but she scribbled over the little one and drew a speech bubble coming from the older brother that said “I’m stupid.”
Oh, I was super into JTT for a bit. Him and Andrew Keegan and DEVON SAWA.
DEVON SAWA.
REMEMBER WHEN HE SHOWED UP AT THE END OF CASPAR? That was it for me. I think my sister and I had that on tape and would rewind it and rewatch that dance scene like eleventy billion times.
Also Exhibit B: Now and Then
Still one of the most formative movies of my childhood. Still mad that Christina Ricci got to kiss that sucker TWICE.
Oh, Now and Then. My friends and I would pause and rewind a lot during that skinnydipping scene. Probably the first time I ever ogled anyone, of any sex, ever. I made my husband watch it a few weeks ago, and he (and I ) were actually kind of shocked at how much kid-nudity there was! It was a great gift to hetero and bi pre-teen girls, but is kind of odd when you watch it as an adult.
I had forgotten alllllll about my Devon Sawa obsession until right now. I had a bunk bed and a gabled ceiling, which meant the top bunk was like a little cave walled in on three sides, and that cave was plastered with pictures of Devon Sawa, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Bryan White.
ANDREW KEEGAN. Nothing makes me happier than the fact that he has started a hippie cult. It really seems like the perfect “ending” for him. (I mean he’s like 36 so I’m sure he has a lot of life and things to do ahead of him, but.)
My mom just sent me a bunch of unsorted old photos and I have already found a glorious one of me, age 12 (MASSIVE frizzy/knotted hair, massive glasses, big shiny braces, little other visible person- I was THE HOTTEST, obvi) holding up my birthday present of a JTT poster, filled with uncontrollable glee. It is magical. I may frame it.
I have the same picture except Lucas Grabeel and a triangular bob haircut.
RIDER STRONG ALWAYS AND FOREVER
I am old, so mine was Travolta in the Vinny Barbarino days.
New Kids on the Block. Jordan always and 4ever, although I shared a birthday with Joey.
Kirk Cameron. But I did not have a crush on him, I just liked his show and it seemed like the kind of thing a girl my age should do. He was a glossy paper beard.
I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO CHIME IN WITH DEVON SAWA!
I would also like everyone to look up Wild America because it was blatant preteen dream boat eye candy and preteen me LOVED IT!
Wild America was the best movie ever.
WILD AMERICA WAS AMAZING. I saw it like 10 times.
Goodness I feel so young and naive. Jesse McCartney and the JoBros were king.
I was only in that phase for a year until I discovered Doctor Who and my room was wall to wall tennant.
And now I have my life size Zefron as Link Larkin poster in my dorm.
ahh, I have (probably) the same Link Larkin poster!! It was the only BRIGHT PINK thing I allowed in my dorm room. Now I’m trying to figure out where to put it in my new apartment…. the living room & kitchen I’m trying to keep relatively “adult” looking, but I’m not sure I want him staring at me while I change anymore, either.
Duran Duran, y’all. I had two walls absolutely covered (the other two were taken up by a door and closet, the other with windows and my bed). Like, no white space whatsoever. I eventually started putting pictures on the closet doors. My mom wouldn’t let me tape things to the windows. I also had a jean jacket covered front and back in those little 1″ buttons–all of Duran Duran. Group shots, individuals, the logo, album covers, whatever. If it was D2 related, I had the button. That jacket weighed a ton and I wore it everywhere.
My walls-of-full-size-Duran-Duran-posters and I are gazing enviously in the direction of you and your glorious jacket.
Of all the clothing items I’ve lost over the years, that is the loss I mourn the most.
I still have the poster that served as the sleeve for The Reflex 45.
Durannie 4 Lyfe
Ahhh, yes. And also Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Even my mom liked Frankie Goes to Hollywood. That was just some damn fine music, yes yes.
Haha when I was 16 I got taken to the police station for being at a drinking party while underage and I knew I would get kicked out of boarding school if I gave them my real name, so I told them my name was Rio. (Rio Schultz, if you must know.) And they bought it and let me go home with my “brother” (actually boyfriend’s younger brother) and I managed to actually graduate unscathed! I was drunk and panicking and of course that name was what came to mind because that record was like the only thing I listened to that spring.
Fellow Durannie 4 lyfe, is what I’m saying.
I did not plaster my walls with posters, but my middle-school obsession was Titanic-era Leo DiCaprio. I owned a book that I think was a novelization of the movie (???) that existed mostly to put his face on every other page.
In retrospect I’m pretty sure I saw Titanic 8 times because of Kate Winslet, not Leo, but that’s not what I told myself at age 13.
Leo was everything in middle school. And Ryan Gosling in Breaker High
<3 <3 <3 I loooooved Leo, and Titanic was my jam. I watched it so many times.
also yes, Kate Winslet is sooooo gorgeous.
I had my parents’ copy of Rolling Stone with Gavin Rossdale on the cover. All of those pictures were on my camp bunk wall. I looked them up again for reasons and you know, they really do hold up.
I had a lot of Buffy/Angel stuff on my walls. I would buy those fan magazines because they usually had at least one full size poster in the middle, but I would also tear out other pages/photos and put them up. I am very sad that I don’t think I have any photographs of the glory that was my middle school/teenage bedroom…
I had so many Buffy and Angel posters. My walls were covered in them. I only took them down a few years after starting university.
I was not allowed to put anything on my walls that wasn’t framed and hung by my father, but my parents let me put glow in the dark stars up on my ceiling with stickytack, so I once put up a picture of James Van Der Beek up there and it stayed up for a couple days.
Thank goodness that I (and Joey Potter) came to our senses at about the same time and moved on to Josh Jackson.
this sounds made up
Unlike all the real fantasy novels, which are not made up at all.
Also: puppy in the cone! Poor baby. She looks so gloomy.
Great interview, Nikki! I love reading anything about Constance Wu, and even more so when she’s interviewed by such a great writer 🙂
thank you! I WAS NERVOUS but it was a lot of fun.
I am not defending Brownmiller because awful, but I was really annoyed that the interview ended right at the point where they brought up men. I want to know what she thinks of male responsibility here! Does she really have nothing to say?
It felt like the interview inadvertently reinforced the idea that rape is something for women to argue about and fix.
(Of course, totally sickened by the idea that rape victims don’t have their behavior scrutinized ENOUGH. I’m sure just a little more’ll fix the problem right up!)
I haven’t read her book in years but I remember having the impression that she just thinks all men are essentially prone to violence and rape. It seems very fitting in context of her other comments.
Ugh, I guess that does explain how you arrive at the “We must protect ourselves from the wild animals” attitude.
Anyway, I love Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I’d love him if he didn’t do anything except be a basketball player who fought Bruce Lee in A Game of Death and was super-into yoga, but also he’s a really astute cultural commentator and I think the fact that he doesn’t give a shit about not seeming like a bit of a crank is fantastic.
Gay Talese talking about how Abdul-Jabbar didn’t want to be a “man of the body”, as though being a writer was a diminishment of him, is actually a really fascinating and utterly wrong-headed understanding of humanity. It seems to me that Abdul-Jabbar’s problem (or one of his problems; the major problem he has is he lives in a racist society, and how that society expects black people to both endure racism and to forgive racism) is that our culture is so intent on dividing mind and body up, so that you can be a Thinker or you can be a Doer, but the idea that you might happily and comfortably be both of those things is unthinkable.
It makes sense that he’d be drawn to things like yoga or Jeet Kune Do, which treat the intelligence of the body as part of a spectrum of understanding with the intelligence of the mind.
Yes yes yes yes. That whole mind/body dichotomy business can go jump off a cliff.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time as an athlete, it is that Descartes perhaps needed to move around a bit more so that his mind-body duality made less sense to him.
those cocaine ads, wow….. wow.
Everyone needs a coke sifter!
I know. I started off with that and now I don’t know how anything else the day throws at me can compare for sheer wtfery. Jerkass ethics professor better up his game today.
I’m a little disappointed, actually. I was hoping for more weird innuendo, but it was so overt.
So overt!! I mean tbh the comparison to like, Spencer Gifts’ marijuana merchandising is pretty appropriate. WHY BE COY WHEN YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH PUTTING MARIJUANA LEAVES/COCAINE LINES ON EVERYTHING.
It’s also so deeply weird because in my head, magazine ads in that style are so specifically for “Souvenir Ceramic Bald Eagle” and “Limited Edition Fancy Coins”…
I’m really disturbed by the set of ivory accessories because the color really clashes with the pure white of the cocaine.
Maybe it’s so that ivory can complete the full colonialism set!
Somehow the idea of buying genuine ivory through a mail-order scheme is more scandalous to me than the overt drug imagery.
I feel like you have your priorities in order.
I REALLY like the one with the fish. And the tiny vacuums!
I have no intention of ever snorting coke but some of those spoons are just so cuuute.
Also the “nose doucher,” ewww.
I have to admit I’m giggling like a 12-year-old at the repeated use of “toot.”
The fish one with the fish puns! Because scales? MULLET OVER! It’s like if my Dad (who has never even had alcohol in his life, and recently stopped drinking his last vice, caffiene-free diet coke) wrote the ad copy for cocaine stuff.
I thought all the coke accessories were the absolute coolest part of the VERY cool Cruel Intentions. Especially the last scene where she busts Kathryn in front of everyone.
My dad has a book of college glee club songs published in 1916; one of the ads is for a cocaine care package to send to the boys at the front.
I thought for sure they were going to be from the late 1800’s, back when cocaine was used medicinally. Nope, pure 70’s brazenness.
Me too! Boy did I get a shock.
I think the hoover is my favourite.
I bought 4 issues of Tiger Beat at the height of my Jonas Brothers phase. I found it manipulative and disgusting but I WANTED THE POSTERS.
also
////THIS SOUNDS MADE UP///
Oh, it may SOUND made-up, but I think most of the commentariat know from personal experience that it is not. I wanted the posters and I also wanted to take endless quizzes to find out which member of N*Sync would be my true love (Lance Bass, obviously).
I was always a Nick Jonas girl and prided myself on that fact.
But now looking back I realized they commercialized the purity ring and therefore girl’s virginities…
Ech it was a mess but he was SO CUTE. so cute.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might be my favorite. And I really REALLY want to read his Holmes book; I bet it’s going to be amazing. I will be very surprised if it isn’t something of an autobiography: the story of a brilliant, gifted man who never fit in and spent his entire career in a rivalry.
I would like to read his Mycroft Holmes book, but I would ALSO like to read a novel about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar solving mysteries and dropkicking suckers in the 1970s.
(OR about retired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar solving mysteries in the present. Like, imagine that TV show, instead of some new Sherlock Holmes? That would be rad as hell. RAD. AS. HELL.)
Oh my god I have never wanted anything this much
Man, there’s so much good room for conflict — dealing with his natural introversion, the care he has to exert because of his double-edged celebrity. He could be like Nero Wolfe, except he is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Who do we know in TV?
Oh, are you kidding, if I new someone in TV I’d have like thirty TV shows right now.
GET ON IT, BRAAK
You are bringing old memories to the surface. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was playing basketball on TV when I was in high school. My band director was an accomplished composer and came to school one Monday with a bee in his bonnet. He had watched basketball over the weekend on his TV, but the sound did not work. He became transfixed by how differently Kareem Abdul-Jabbar moved on the court, compared to the other players. He decided the man’s body moved like he was dancing ballet on the basketball court. My director had spent 15 hours that weekend on a ballet movement dedicated to this vision. I still see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a dancer, even when he is just walking.
KAJ still attributes his incredible longevity as a basketball player to his studious practice of yoga, interestingly enough.
This is a great speech/essay about lack of non-white stories in the publishing industry: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mirajacob/you-will-ignore…
Dad Magazine Pitch: My dad used to buy issues of Tiger Beat for me if he saw a new issue at the store. Talk about being secure in your masculinity!
Re: the literary agents article. If someone asks you for an exclusive, you can and should say no, unless the agency requires an exclusive submission and clearly states this in their query guidelines on their website (and at that point, you should seriously consider whether or not you’re comfortable agreeing to that.) If you do grant an exclusive, it should be time-limited and no more than 4 weeks unless there are extenuating circumstances (surgery, death in the family, etc.) If an agent or editor asks where else you are querying, you should decline to provide this information. It’s not unusual to receive a rejection and a suggestion to employ an outside editor to help with the manuscript. It IS unusual and probably unethical to reject someone and steer them towards an in-house paid editing service.
Though it’s a good idea to have a literary agent who you get along with, keep in mind that this is first and foremost a business relationship; you should treat it as formally as you treat any other business negotiation. As in any negotiation, you are not obligated to accept the first thing that is presented to you, you are not obligated to say yes to everything, and you should remember that many terms are negotiable.
A good agent or editor will respect your hustle, even if they’re a little bit annoyed by it (everyone gets annoyed by having to do extra work, it’s just part of being human.)
Butterfly tops and sterling silver coke accessories… Nicole, you’re not going to pull a “I Loved The 1970s So Much I Decided To Live In Them” on us, are you?
The story of how The Toast slowly became a roller disco…
In, in, in, a thousand percent in! A big queer roller disco for librarians and other nerds.
ROLLER DISCO-OOOOOOH YEAH!
Can we take a page from Roller Derby and give ourselves awesome monikers like ABBA Dabba Doo (that’s really terrible, c’mon, let’s see something way more fabulous!).
I would read that AND the confused deleted comments it would be sure to generate.
“has a hard time being civil to children”
Joey: I think you’re the greatest, but my dad says you don’t work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don’t even run down court. And that you don’t really try… except during the playoffs.
Roger Murdock: The hell I don’t. Listen kid, I’ve been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.
I loved this scene SO MUCH.
Literally only know him as “that dude from Airplane”
Bless you, Josh
I remember coke spoon necklaces as a fashion statement! This was back in the day when everyone said that cocaine was only “psychologically” addictive, a misconception that unfortunately persisted into the ’90s when, as a counselor at a homeless shelter, I could sometimes not get addicts into detox because they “only” smoked crack.
I thought that until just a few weeks ago, when I looked it up. I am ashamed of myself. (I have never done cocaine, or any other recreational drug. But still.)
I know it’s an advertisement, but this made me cry yesterday – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XTtx-QpGJ0
I made the mistake of watching that at work yesterday. It’s so wonderful!
So great!
Is an advertisement for a Jenny Lawson book really an advertisement, though?! Scalzi! and Rothfuss! AND DAY!!!!
I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying.
The first book in Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series is currently on sale for 99 cents. It is an awesome series. It’s like a murder mystery, if you replaced murder with a world with secrets and history most of the residents have forgotten about, and the investigation was conducted by a serious woman trained in logic and knowledge-gathering techniques.
That sounds awesome. Just saw that Jo Walton also loved the book. Can’t click BUY fast enough.
Yes yes yes!
The first book is a little rough in spots–the tone is a little wobbly, and more importantly, there’s a non-graphic scene in which torture is matter-of-factly engaged in by our protagonists (the book was written in 1989, for what that’s worth)–but the series as a whole is really amazing. Female friendships! Subversion of fantasy barbarians! Exciting external action setpieces and exciting internal realization setpieces! Worldbuilding galore!
I’m so relieved about the puppy. I was worrying hard.
ME TOO
Oh god this Viet Cong article, reading a response from Gang of Four now, ““People should be treated as grownups, capable of making their own decisions. We should not be deciding for people what we think they are capable of understanding or not. Artists; film-makers, writers, musicians need to be un-censored so they can make their point, political or otherwise.” No one is making it illegal to name your band racist or hurtful things… people are just having their own individual and appropriate reactions about it. Go to hell. If a community stands up and says “we do not want a group of white men branding their band Viet Cong to play in our community,” then sorry play a show somewhere else, or better yet rename your fucking band! I am grumpy this morning > : (
I am all sorts of cosigned with the article above. I’ve seen mention of it on the Asian American social media outlets I’ve followed, and I just keep on rolling my eyes.
Note for indie fans who do want to support good, quality music by POC: check out Thao & the Get Down Stay Down! I might be biased because she’s Vietnamese American from the DC metro area (and her first name is the same as my sister’s). I genuinely love her music.
Ah! That band (Thao, not the racists) showed up on a spotify radio playlist I was listening to just the other day! It was so good I actually stopped what I was working on to go look her up.
Yes! I saw her a few years ago play at the Black Cat w/ Mirah. Great show.
You answered the question I was about to ask before I could ask it, thank you!
“Viet Cong” is, ironically, the whitest band name I’ve ever heard.
One time I went to a concert that, as one of the opening acts, had an all-white-male band called “Black Actress.” All their merch had blaxploitation-style imagery of a woman with a huge Afro. Not only were they tasteless; their music sucked, too.
If Kareem Abdul-Jabbar really had a hard time being civil to children, there’s be a bunch of kids running around with a footprint on their chest from where he kung fu’d them. He’s fine, just cranky. He’s 68, he gets to be cranky IMO 🙂
Those Viet Cong guys are gross. Also, I had *no idea* about the provenance of the name “Joy Division” and now I feel kind of ill. 🙁
I think maybe Joy Division didn’t do it deliberately? But when they found out they didn’t change their name?
Hahahahaha, that is MY deleted comment, which I can assure you was meant ironically. I don’t know whether to feel embarrassed or proud…
I award you this shiny new Poe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vprlc6Jcm74
It is a little late, after you are both undressed, to say “I don’t want this.”
Oh my GOD, you’re not mid-murder plot! Everyone just needs to stop and put their clothes back on, maybe a little awkwardly. I’m not sure I want to read more beyond that snippet.
Right? SEX IS NOT PARACHUTING, we can stop at any point and say “No, I changed my mind.”
But how do you resist the sex gravity?
There’s less sex gravity on the moon, so I just do it there.
…we’re not? well shit, what did I take all these clothes off for then?
Here’s a Colors of the Wind/Never Gonna Give You Up mashup, with a guest verse from Nicki Minaj.
That’s all.
I knew that was going to give me the earworm from hell and I listened to it anyway.
This… this is my life now.
Okay, but did anyone else put their cut-out magazine covers in plastic sleeves before taping them to the wall? And keep a bunch of other ones in other plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder, the better to update the bedroom-wall gallery at will? No? Just me, then?
Haha not exactly! But I made very elaborate collages in high school that I would slip inside my three-ring binder covers, and when I was ready to swap one out for another I would carefully cover the old collage with tape so it wouldn’t rip up when I archived it inside my binder full of old binder covers.
I think there are several people from my family and/or high school who are a little surprised I didn’t become a librarian – for this and many other reasons.
I did, I did!! I had my Hanson Binder and it was beautiful, I assure you.
Mine is purple because my whole dorm is purple. My new “thing” though is Aryan Khan, Shah Rukh Khan’s 17 year old son. He’s exactly one day younger than me so I think it’s meant to be, since SRK is like 49 and thats apparently “too old”.
Shout out to the greatest butterfly top of all time: Anya’s in Once More With Feeling
Bunnies aren’t just cute like everyone supposes
<3
BUNNIEEESSSSS
ANYA 4LYFE
Aaaahhh, I want to be friends with Constance Wu so badly. She just seems all-around GREAT.
ALL THE BUTTERFLY TOPS! Funny enough, I just bought a butterfly top from a consignment/thrift shop 2 months ago (cue eerie music…!).
Shameless name-dropping: Pop Jinx went to high school with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Apparently he was just as intelligent and interesting and nice then as he is now (not that anyone is surprised by this).
When you said “old magazine ads,” I assumed it was going to be OLD magazine ads, like from the 1800s when cocaine was still medicine.