Nicole Chung, our beloved part-time assistant editor, has accepted our offer to come on-board full-time as the Managing Editor of The Toast, and I am experiencing such waves of JOY and RELIEF and cannot express what a delight she is, and also that her Inbox Zero game is TIGHT, and she will be writing in addition to her other duties, and what a time to be alive, really.
In 1968 James Baldwin was a guest on The Dick Cavett Show and said, “…as Malcolm X once put it: the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday.” High noon, he said in a slight baritone as if trying to find the right key for a song. Baldwin then goes on to give examples of other institutions, not just the Christian church, where systematic racism has wielded its power; the labor unions, the real estate lobby, the board of education. Part of this episode can be found on YouTube and runs a swift one minute, one second. Baldwin’s voice—its’ near-sport of a voice—is one I cannot unhear. The way he says “evidence” is capable of galvanizing the most blasé listener. His is a staccato that quickens in clip when Baldwin repeats words like “white” or “hate,” but ripples with words like “idealism” so as to wane its meaning into nothing more than what it is: a naiveté.
When Baldwin asks a question, it does not ferry the inflection. Instead, he issues it declaratively, testing the acoustics of a room. Close your eyes and sure, Baldwin has a sermonizing tone, but one that bounces like a boxer in his ring. Baldwin’s voice multitasks, and requires of me what he was asking of America and the world: to pay attention. His words toll and have carried their repercussive meaning into today. So much so that in August when the headlines read “No Fly Zone Over Ferguson,” for a minute, I only heard those words in Baldwin’s voice.
Celebrity fan mail. WINONA, WHY?
I just adore James Wood on Penelope Fitzgerald:
Lee is oddly incurious about the question that must occur to every reader: why did Fitzgerald wait so long to start writing? The obvious answer is that she had three children, a wayward husband, and was earning a living—and yet you feel that, during the nineteen-sixties, had she started also writing, things could hardly have gone worse for the family. (The painter Alice Neel, for instance, lived amid domestic impoverishment in large part because she was furiously painting.) Certainly it seems relevant that Fitzgerald started to write after her children were old enough to leave home and take care of themselves. Was it also significant that she started writing shortly after the death of her father? Did some Knoxian combination of insecurity and confidence hold her back until she could be sure of avoiding public failure? “Decision is torment for anyone with imagination,” a character says in “Offshore.” “When you decide, you multiply the things you might have done and now never can. If there’s even one person who might be hurt by a decision, you should never make it. They tell you, make up your mind or it will be too late, but if it’s really too late, we should be grateful.” Potential remains potent if unused.
Genuinely hilarious dog video.
Are other people watching The Flash? I am watching The Flash and Gotham and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is only becoming more delightful. Andre Braugher was so good in “The Mole,” an episode of recent memory, that I almost lost the ability to speak.
THE PAPER OF RECORD covers Dad Magazine:
One recipe for a successful Dad Magazine headline, a co-creator, Matt Lubchansky, told Op-Talk, is “a thing my literal dad has said to me.” More broadly, these headlines express the idea that dads “have this one thing that they seem to be obsessed with, whether it’s a hobby or turning off the lights.” These obsessions can be somewhat absurd (see for instance growing food in the basement). “The archetypal dad,” said Mr. Lubchansky, “is a very strange person.”
Makes you think:
Staged baseball photos!
WHERE THE FUCK IS PRINCESS LEIA?
In the Great Bartering Exchange known as trying to get a three-year-old dressed for nursery school I would spend not a small amount of time trying to convince her various pairs of underwear were in fact Princess Leia underwear. Some days I was more successful than others. Many days there were tears. Some days there were tantrums. Once or twice my nephew missed the bus as a result of our debates and had to be driven (by me, still in my pajamas, coffee mug wedged between my legs). Tired of the exchange and thinking she did in fact deserve her own Princess Leia underwear, or paraphanelia in general, I went to the local Walmart. Somewhere in the pink ghetto otherwise known as their girls toys section I figured I would find something.
I didn’t.
Not a thing.
*
The hands-free bird belt was the Google Glass of its day. pic.twitter.com/w4HklnfGfN
— Ben Richmond (@a_ben_richmond) November 19, 2014
I am watching The Flash and Gotham and enjoying them both quite a lot. This week’s Gotham was, I thought, particularly good.
I am watching the Flash (and Arrow, which is also good). Haven’t watched Gotham though, I hear mixed things.
Oh thank fuck it’s Friday. It’s been a WEEK. I’ll be in the open thread with abandon, Toastrons.
SAME
I want my own hands-free bird belt. CHRISTMAS IS COMING TOASTIES MAYBE WE SHOULD DO A SECRET SANTA!
I’m down with a Toasty Secret Santa thing as long as hand-made gifts are okay because I am so fucking broke ugughghghgh.
can you make a hand-made hands-free bird belt?
(thank you for two John Watson gifs this morning <3)
SUCH A GOOD IDEA!
That essay about LeGuin is great, and it’s a measure of her gifts as a writer that I’m indignantly mumbling, “But what about ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’? ‘Til Human Voices Wake Us?'” while knowing that listing everything she wrote is not the road to a proper critical introduction. AND YET.
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”
I use that very short story when mulling over moral dilemmas. Do I stay and accept the status quo or say “fuck this, this is WRONG” and beeline outta there?
Case in point (and I’ll try making this short):
-Accept the responsibility of a rescued senior horse that was delivered as a walking skeleton?
-Go with the popular opinion of “it’s too old and too damaged, put it down already”
In this situation, I walked away from the majority of popular opinion and towards the horse (because he was still interested in his surroundings, could recognize voices, could move about with some degree and still had a healthy appetite).
Christ, I know this comes off as a humble brag, but it’s the only example I can think of at the moment. (And there is a part of me that wishes I never saw that horse because then I could go on believing in horsey happy land…GAH!)
Le Guin! For some reason it used to seem really important to decide once and for all whether my favorite was The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness. Then I read Lavinia and the prospect of a 3-way struggle was too much for me. Now I just say that I love every single thing by Le Guin that I have ever read. (I haven’t read the Earthsea series yet, but it’s on my list.)
Having recently read Rocannon’s World I can’t say I love everything Le Guin has ever written, but goddamn she is always interesting.
(She held an honorary writing chair at my tiny midwestern college for a year, eleven years before I went there, and I will always, always regret missing that.)
I read the Earthsea trilogy (the first three) in Grade 6 and I LOVED them; at 45, saw them in a used bookstore, bought them, took them home and started reading. STILL LOVED THEM!
Have you read any of her essays? Dancing at the Edge of the World is a marvelous collection of them and possibly my favorite Le Guin book.
Oh, the essays are so wonderful! The Wave in the Mind is tremendous too—the way she writes about scansion in Woolf makes me shiver with happiness and recognition.
And Earthsea, and the Voices, and oh god, “A Fisherman of the Inland Sea”—can we please talk about sedoretu as the ideal marriage form?
My favorite favorite Le Guin book, really the one that consolidated my identity as a feminist, is this obscure late-period masterpiece, Always Coming Home—it’s this subtle and moving interweaving of stories and poems and grammars and plays, a kind of anthropological notebook from a people who “might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California.” I find some of her earliest work a bit too didactic, but in the really mature work, she’s moved past all that. We’re so lucky to have her voice.
Always Coming Home is the best. I looked for that one for years before happening upon a copy in a thrift store and devouring it. It’s such an odd book and hard to explain or recommend to people, but so *so* good.
Always Coming Home is being rereleased! With an introduction by … John Scalzi.
… Now, there are certainly people who would be worse than John Scalzi in that role. But I definitely think there would be writers would be better. Like, say, Ann Leckie, who just won the Hugo & Nebula & Clarke awards with a novel that was most definitely influenced by Le Guin. Or N. K. Jemisin, or Kameron Hurley.
But it’s business, so we get Scalzi. Sigh.
This collection is also my favourite! “Into the Spaceship, Granny” and the transcript from Intracom (a radio drama/pregnancy metaphor set in a spaceship beset by an alien) and the graduation address from Bryn Mawr which sets my brain on fire whenever I read it, and and and
All the angry dads decided to show up in the comments section of that NYT article! Jeez, learn to take a joke, dads…
This is the first time I’ve ever seen people speak poorly of Dad Magazine and I’m utterly beside myself. I guess I am just living off family money and writing for a middle-class website like some entitled millennial who also loves the patriarchy.
Jaya, I always read the comments, but I REFUSE to read those comments.
Ugh, Nicole, I should have followed your wise advice. BUT NO, I had to go look, and now I’m wasting time wondering what in the hell this guy is talking about:
As a single parent and someone who has spent most of his adult life as an advocate for fathers, I don’t think we will ever see fatherhood reach full fruition in this country until men have been given the same rights and consideration in the home as women have been given in the workplace.
Hey buddy, I don’t think anyone is stopping you from doing the vacuuming, balancing the checkbook, scrubbing the floors or cleaning up Junior’s puke. Or are there other “rights and considerations” in the home that I’ve been missing, like the rich person Costco in the thread below?
Screw those guys. My Dad died 14 years ago, and every time I read Dad magazine it fills me with warm, fuzzy feelings about my much-beloved, not-ever-an-asshole Dad. NEVER GIVE UP, JAYA! Vinnie is smiling at you from Dad Heaven.
This alone makes Dad Magazine worthwhile.
Most of those comments don’t even make SENSE and at least one is from an MRA, so not one of us should defile our eyes by reading them.
Rather we should bathe our eyes in the goodness and light that is Dad Magazine.
People who don’t get the whole premise of Dad Magazine are not worthy to comment. Do NOT read those comments!
you guys are burying the lede on Dad Magazine– FUTURE BOOK!
OMG this guy:
Hopefully, this new Dad culture isn’t presumptuous enough to believe that they represent anything but an integral part of .01 living. Otherwise they may run the risk of bipolar disorder in later years. Quiet grandiosity can produce just as florid a psychosis as the more ostentatious dressed-as-Napoleon types. And I suppose I really intend that statement for The New York Times, whose fetish for affluent white culture is so pathological that no one darker than Wonder Bread would ever qualify for such a fluffy exaltation.
SOMEONE has their MFA! (Not that I don’t agree with the characterization of the NYT as going overboard with its coverage of affluent white culture a lot of the time…)
wat.
*waits patiently for someone to explain what a florid psychosis is*
is it when someone thinks they are a flower
Fairly certain there’s a Philip K. Dick short story about that….
And after literally Googling “Philip K. Dick plant short story” here it is! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_in_the_Woods
Florid Psychosis is the name of our new radical feminist collective rock band
Nothing says “We are the elite 0.01% of Dads” like jokes about only wearing free hats with logos on them (maybe they are FANCY free hats with logos on them, like promotional Patek Philippe free hats) and bulk shopping (for priceless artworks, I guess) and not remembering what grade your kid is in (because you never see them since they’re at their $100k/semester boarding school in Connecticut).
Omg what if there is a rich person Costco none of us know about, and you can get like, buy one get one free Rothkos?
It’s on that island that only rich people know exists.
“Grenarnia!”
(30 rock reference, in case you’re baffled)
Waaaay better than Svenborgia.
Patek Philippe only do promotional top hats
Well, only after 6 PM. In the summer, they have promotional boaters.
NYT reader base: YOU’RE the affluent white person! No you are! No, you!
“SOMEONE has their MFA!” is a beautiful, beautiful insult, and in this very same sentence I’d like to apologize to all Toasties who have an MFA, because you are almost certainly delightful.
Who ARE these angry dads? My dad is definitely confused by Dad Magazine (I gleefully send him the link every time there’s a new one, obv), but he doesn’t get mad about it because that would be WEIRD.
My mom, on the other hand, thinks Dad Magazine is the funniest thing in the entire world.
My dad LOVED the last issue Dad magazine – also True Dads would never write hostile comments in a newspaper. Dad Standard Practice is to take you aside, quietly , and discuss issue in low voices
“Honey, I’m not angry, I’m just very disappointed in you. I expected better.”
I sent my dad the one with the thing about the free hats and he informed me, joyfully, that I was disowned. It was a moment of perfect understanding.
I wish my dad were here so I could send him Dad Magazine, because he would get a huge kick out of it, even if he didn’t get all of it, and he would send me an email back with “thanks love you” in the subject line and nothing in the body.
“What’s wrong with wearing socks with sandals? Are NYT readers such elitist phonies that they think there is? Or are they just too short a time out of high school that they worry about such childish trivia? Dads don’t. Dads are big guys, and they are not running for student council any time soon. They know what their job is, and it doesn’t have anything to do with wearing sandals or wearing socks.” lollllll
Yeah I was just about to say that one is legit fantastic, A+ angry peanut-gallerying
The Dark Side of Dads
More writing from Nikki? Can’t wait!
BROOKLYN NINE NINE
Andre Braughers is a gift. A goddamn gift.
And the episode pictured featured one of my top dad crushes, Marc Evan Jackson, in a silk robe! So great!
The moment at the end when Holt said his middle name was Jacob and Jake lost his shit was so adorable.
I want Brooklyn Nine-Nine to be back on UK TV IMMEDIATELY. (Googling for air dates has just brought up “Latest/Next UK Premiere Date: No exact date/time – Unknown 2015 “. That is not helpful.)
Hands-down favorite B99 moment is at the end of the episode about Jake being worried about Terry working a drug bust, when Terry hands Jake the card his girls made and Jake just goes “WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THAT?” and makes the ultimate face.
NOW YOU’VE DONE IT. YOU’VE MADE ME TURN IN MY CHAIR.
My current favority moment was the discussion between Terry and Jake about finding the “thing” with a woman.
Jake tells Terry they both liked “Wings”.
Terry: The show or the band?
Jake: The food!
I laughed so hard I cried.
the halloween episode where he says the dramatic “dun DUN DUNNNNNN” but in his complete deadpan—it brought tears to my eyes.
Every single moment between him and Terry Crews is a contender for television moment of the year.
“you’re a grown man, sergeant. strong like an oak.” “that’s a pretty good tree.” “it’s a mighty tree!”
i was so glad that this past week’s episode got to see lots of interaction between them!
“Do you have any chairs that are actual chairs?”
OMG Capt. Holt BOUNCING ACROSS THE ROOM to get to the printer. I nearly died.
THAT SHOW IS EVERYTHING 2 ME
“‘Kwazy’ is a difficult word to say in anger.”
In an overlap of two of today’s links…
My mom loves to read, and loves loves LOVES Ursula Le Guin. She wrote her a letter once, and received a handwritten note from her in return, which she framed and has had hanging over her desk ever since.
<3 Ursula <3
I met Ursula Le Guin at a signing once in college; I’d only brought the books from the Catwings series (since that’s the thing of hers I knew/loved best at the time), while everyone else had book after book of her sci-fi stuff. I got to the front of the line feeling completely ridiculous that all I brought were kid’s books, and all she said was “Oh! Nobody ever brings me Catwings!” and drew tiny pawprints all over the title pages.
She’s the best. <3
CATWINGS OH MY GOD. I had completely forgotten about those! So good except for the crushing disappointment of realizing that there is no such thing as adorable cats that can fly.
Every so often, I’ll pick up my own cat and zoom her around while saying “You can fly!” but it’s not the same, really. Also I get bitten.
Letters from favorite authors are the best thing ever. When I was 9 or 10, I wrote a letter to Eloise Jarvis McGraw and received a letter back. She recommended another book of hers (also about Egypt) and I checked it out from the library, read it, and wrote back to her. I received another letter back. I still have those letters.
“Mara, Daughter of the Nile”!
That was what she recommended I read. I had read “The Golden Goblet” and wrote to ask her if she was going to write a sequel. She very kindly explained that she couldn’t write one because all of the characters were in a good situation now and there wouldn’t be any conflict in the book.
I also loved “Mara, Daughter of the Nile” I had such a crush on Sheftu…
Oh, Sheftu! I’ve never read “The Golden Goblet.” How does it compare?
You guys in case you missed Mallory live tweeting Chopped last night I storify-ed (storified?) it because it’s a thing of beauty and light: https://storify.com/keelerco/mallory-live-tweets-…
That gave me ALL the warm fuzzies this morning. Thank you for the storify and thanks Mallory for the play by play!
This is WONDERFUL thank you for this.
Oh, also, Mallory dropped this little gem on Twitter and it’s the only thing getting me through the morning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pseudohisto…
I saw that late last night and I had to tear myself away from my phone to actually get some sleep. I JUST WANT TO READ PSEUDOHISTORY ALL DAY AND NIGHT.
Why is “Bosnian pyramid claims” listed under the Os? o_O
I grew up in a baseball home and I still think the 60s era uniforms with the knickers and stirrups are some of the sexiest sport uniforms to ever grace a playing field. That said, most of those staged photos are beyond ridiculous. Except George Brynan’s. Holy schnikes.
Everything about that gif is mesmerizing. Please tell me the source. Or don’t, and leave me with it in its purest state.
Ah ha ha ha! Far be it from me to not educate you about Farscape, one of the best SF shows ever. Ever. That there is Aeryn Sun, only in an alternate cartoon reality where she played a captive princess in a video game that the show protagonist was supposed to rescue. Kind of. It was a great episode, trust me. Here she is looking more like she usually does in the series:
This show was amazing and heartbreaking and beautiful. If you like space opera TV and don’t mind your heart being torn out of your chest, I highly recommend it. It’s a serious emotional investment. Be aware.
ETA: this gifset on Tumblr sums her up nicely without giving away any real spoilers.
Preach.
I have an enormous crush on Claudia Black. I may or may not have squealed when she showed up on a recent Stargate: SG-1 rewatch I was having with my dad.
I dumped Gotham early, have people gotten less dumb about dealing with problems by communicating??
But THE FLASH. OH BARRY ALLEN I ADORE YOU. I haaaaaaaaate the “we have to keep the (possible) love interest in the dark ~for safety~” trope so much. I hope it goes away soon.
I LOVE BARRY ALLEN. I want to adopt him and make sure he has an endless supply of cookies and pizza to feed that crazy metabolism. <3 u, Barry.
He’s just so dreamy!
He is def a cutie but….I just….his eyebrows. They are so, so weird. Is it just me?
I want them to drop her as the love interest (they barely have chemistry!) and have Felicity Smoak do crossover episodes all the time. I mean, fuck, give Felicity her own damn show. Felicity 4eva
I’m firmly in the Felicity/ANYONE BUT OLIVER camp, so this works fine for me! I think Iris has pretty decent chemistry with The Flash, but not really Barry?
Also, Felicity would be a FINE Oracle type person if Laurel Black Canary and Huntress want to go all Birds of Prey.
I’m so sad that no one has posted the link to the interview with a dude dating a horse (yes an actual real horse) from NYMag yesterday. The whole thing was … befuddling.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/11/what-its-lik…
HI I AM HERE TO TALK ABOUT HORSE DUDE. And I just, oh my god. It is so fascinating and horrifying. He has a wife! He thinks a lot about horse consent! He judges other guys who just sleep with horses and don’t care about their personalities!!
JAYA OH MY GOD I clicked on that link from your twitter yesterday THANKS A LOT
Can we please discuss how fucking horses is not actually like having sex with a “mute” person please and thank you
THAT WAS JUST, OH GOD, WHO–who can equate that? How about humans have a lot of non-verbal communication skills to rely on for affirmative consent, like smiling or nodding your head or actively kissing back or something! And horses don’t because they are horses!
OH MY GOD THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THINGS OMG
That part especially creeped me out because I feel like it is a justification and a view of sex & consent that could easily be applied to a lot of (other) super gross and illegal things. Just… that is not what consent is! Cut it out!
I spent the entire afternoon yesterday reading it at work, with my jaw on the ground.
“You Know You’re a Bleeding-Heart Liberal When…” you actually try to read it thoughtfully and not run away screaming the first minute it becomes clear that he has sex with a horse on the regular and also he is polyamorous and the horse is his girlfriend.
Same. I was really trying like, “Well … he is making some coherent-ish points about how we don’t care about what happens to animals when sex isn’t involved, so?”
What I am really interested to know is how/where he gets his information about what an aroused/sexually interested horse looks like. Is he just guessing? Basing it on porn? Are there consulting vets for this sort of thing?
Maybe he goes to Tijuana a lot?
Also there probably is a lot of information out there about horsey sex because breeders need to know those things in order to create adorable little baby horses that are also purebred, buuuuuuuuuut I am 99% sure that information is not be used for interspecies sexytimes.
I tried to do that, and I just couldn’t. I managed to run away silently though, rather than screaming.
Since he’s married does that make the horse his concubine
Inquiring minds want to know, what is the barnyard harem structure
not under Islamic law it doesn’t, since Islamic law expects that your sexual relations will be with HUMAN BEINGS
I also read that at work and had a hard time not throwing up at my desk but I just. kept. reading. it.
He knows a lot of veterinarians who are okay with it and counseled him on the possibility of horse STIs! WHO ARE THESE VETERINARIANS
I dunno that sounded very “I’m not racist, I have a black friend!!!!!” to me.
“Yeah, I totally know some vets who are cool with me boning horses. They are definitely real people who are also definitely totally real vets and they said it was okay, don’t worry about it.”
WHOOOOA! No kidding, no vet in his/her right mind would condone this, period.
oh my
oh dear
“mare friend”
“Sexy Knickers”
“rainbow bridge”
“contrast between the inside and the outside”
oh my
Oh God, please tell me this is the same guy of “His wife? A horse” fame on LJ because I don’t want to know that there are two of him.
Ha! I didn’t see your comment before I posted, but unfortunately no, I think they are two different people? Because wasn’t that guy’s wife the horse and his girlfriend was human but here it’s the opposite? (omg I can’t believe I actually just wrote that sentence)
Yeah, that guy was a real “alpha” (I remember him describing himself as having a “Stallion Mentality) so I’m pretty sure this is a different fellow.
The only thing I could think about the entire time I read that article was the old classic, “His Wife? A Horse” from Fandom Wank way back in the day.
I read that last night, and I got so angry, I went to bed angry, and I woke up angry. I’ve decided to start a group of itinerant nuns wandering the countryside intoning, “That is not consent, you keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means” because people, horse dude and people in general, clearly do not understand.
His friend held the lead rope. That is above and beyond, friend.
Also. This sentence:
“When I first gave a horse oral sex I was in my early 20s, and one of the things I had to overcome was the thought that it’s disgusting to go down on a horse”
that certainly is a barrier to overcome, yes
Things I could’ve happily lived without knowing: what horse vagina tastes like
if you can call that ‘living’
Yeah, honestly I’m more befuddled by the friend than by the dude. WHO IS THIS FRIEND? WHAT HORRIBLE SECRET WAS HE TRADING THIS FAVOR FOR?
guy got hazed by animal fuckers for being an animal fucker virgin
this is the story they should tell in those middle school ‘just say no to peer pressure’ PSA videos
I’ve decided for my own mental health not to read it because I just can’t really deal with the world’s vast multitudes in all their glorious selfiness right now.
Did anyone else see this piece on “Lolita” in Hazlitt? http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/longreads/re…
It’s not as disgusting as the title suggests.
Oh, god, that piece is so good, and so heartbreaking.
That golden retriever video made me cry. My golden from childhood lives with my parents several states away because they have a house/yard/pool and I have an apartment and am never home. Sometimes I miss him a LOT, including when I see other goldens being adorable on the internet. 🙁
I had a Golden as a young adult that I put through obedience classes because I wanted to compete in CKC obedience trials.
He hated it.
-Points off for lagging WAY behind on the heel.
-Points off for dragging his heels on the recall.
-Points off for FALLING ASLEEP in the “long sit”.
The worst/best part was coming out of the ring. He knew when he was done and was OVERJOYED, dancing and wriggling around everyone. It was such a contrast and I always felt mortified.
God, he was such a good dog. See you in the afterlife, Caber!
(We did get our Companion Dog title but by the skin of our teeth.)
Aha, sounds like he was lovely!
Goldens are so smart but just SO GOOFY and I think that’s why I love them so much. They’re the “adorkable” dog breed.
I had a comment all set to be written about Daniel Handler and his apology, but the Butter beat me to it in a more eloquent, smart way. I love this site (and the Butter).
You won, Golden Retriever, you won.
Those other dogs might have trophies, but you know what they don’t have? A whole shitload of sausages, that’s what.
I watched this very late last night with my boyfriend and he laughed so hard he cried a little.
oh my god that poor girl lol
Who’s a good boy? You are! Yes, you are! That’s right.
I WANT TO TELL EVERYONE ON EARTH HOW GOOD BROOKLYN NINE-NINE IS. The acting, the characters, the plot, the jokes… ALL OF IT IS PERFECT AND WONDERFUL.
Comedy that I can watch without feeling like a horrible person!
(B99 and Bob’s Burger’s. Comedic gifts)
YES! Maybe it’s because I’m getting old and crotchety, but I really just love TV that isn’t about people being terrible. B99, Bob’s Burgers, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock… I love when people love each other!
I love that even though the main character is yet another immature white guy, they’ve done a decent job of developing his character to where I believe that all the excellent people around him are actually friends with him because they like him and not because he’s the Main Character so they have to be. Also Andre Braugher is amazing and so is Terry Crews and so is literally everyone.
I think what makes Peralta work is that while he is yet another immature white guy, he’s actually pretty dedicated to and good at his job, you know? He’s not a guy that everyone makes excuses for for some reason, like so many other protagonists of his type.
And not to mention, he is pretty regularly learning good, real lessons about being a person (not just “don’t talk behind people’s backs!” or whatever other sitcom trope lessons there are). My very favorite episode is “The Apartment,” where he is forced to come to terms with the fact that he has effed up some aspects of his life, like financial planning. And Gina is the one who shows him that! It’s excellent.
That episode is the reason why Gina is one of my B99 Top 3. (Gina, Rosa, Chief, and Terry. They are all tied for top three.)
I loved that article on Princess Leia. I’m working hard to raise my boys feminist, and so far it seems to be working out. My four year old is obsessed with Marceline from Adventure Time (as am I).
Wait up. Wait up. I wound up at Jaya’s Daily Dot piece about dad humor, which I enjoyed, but: Jaya doesn’t think the “four eels” Outkast joke is funny? Do we live on the same planet? That is one of the funniest jokes I’ve ever heard.
Am I a dad?
Thank you for reminding me about the four eels joke! I’m chuckling at my desk now.
The four eels joke is a work of genius.
I think it’s hilarious!! But is it naturally hilarious, or calculated to be hilarious? I’ll never know. Not that it even really matters, but I don’t think a dad would ever spend a lot of time thinking about something like that, which is why I aspire to be one.
Oh, I see! Sorry I misunderstood! (For my money, it’s crafted — Weird Twitter rather than a dad-joke.)
I know the guy who wrote that joke. Second-hand faaaame!
My boyfriend found an LL Bean catalog in my mail and got so excited he had to sit down to look at all the “quality gear.” I just stood, frozen, like “oh my god how are you such a dad already.” he didn’t get it, because “carhartt just makes really good stuff, what are you talking about” which now that i think about it, is actually a very dad response. oh my god.
“They make good stuff!” is the most Dad defense of a store. I have heard it multiple times from my dad whenever I make fun of a place he likes.
I have a Carhartt jacket my dad gave me – it has twenty-six pockets, including a game pouch that extends across my entire back, EIGHT pen and pencil holders, and FOUR secret inner pockets. It’s waxed canvas, but the insides of the cuffs are lined in corduroy so when you dip your hands into a creek/work with equipment that’s covered with dew, you can dry your hands off on the insides of your perpetually warm and fuzzy cuffs.
It’s amazing: I wear it in camp, and in the morning the pockets fill with my headlamp, my breakfast, my keys, the map for the site, an extra pen, handkerchief, TP, the tent spikes….
Carhartt makes really good stuff!
Whoa. Could you post the model number/SKU?
So, the A.V. Club decided to provide the list of the 10 best British literary adaptions (essentially, all of Andrew Davies’ works), but they stuck to only one piece per author and it is torturous because of how many Austen and Gaskell adaptions they had to exclude. (Colin Firth’s Pride and Prejudice! Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility! North and South! Wives and Daughters! Cranford!)
http://www.avclub.com/article/10-period-pieces-ch…
I was so saddened by the lack of Emma Thompson’s S&S in that piece. I read it, in fact, because I was sure that adaptation would merit a mention. Nada. That was my favorite movie for *years*.
Maybe it was a genre thing? Mini- series vs feature films?
Still, that Sense and Sensibility is hands down the best period adaptation to feature film. Just perfect.
Sent from my iPad
Agreed! That version of S&S is just perfect. I was happy to see the 1995 Persuasion at the top of the list, and I loved The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. But whoever thinks the Ciaran Hinds/Samantha Morton Jane Eyre is the best adaptation of that book deserves some serious side-eye.
I know these lists are created to cause heated arguments or, ahem, intense debate, but that list is just wrong! Along with the grievous omissions you mention, the “Middlemarch” adaptation is not great, and the author praises the “Mansfield Park” film, which is a smug travesty (that I do admittedly enjoy hate-watching).
<ignorance> So, what’s a managing editor? Is that different from what Nicole and Mallory are? (Congrats, Nikki!)
Wait did I miss it or is The Toast going to talk about that Rolling Stone UVA article? Even though it’s the 19549039th story of massive, frightening institutionalized brutality and failure, it’s hitting harder, somehow (her “friends,” oh my god her friends), and I need a conversation about it. My FB feed is out, obviously, and chatting with my co-workers (our work touches on sexual assault prevention/response) is thoroughly out since someone circulated the article with a derogatory comment about UVA and someone else frostily replied-all that UVA is a wonderful institution that she is proud to send her kids to, and that conversation is now Shut Down.
ugh, yes. i read it yesterday and was kind of scared that it would come up here, just because it gave me massive anxiety. the level of victim-blaming is just…mind-boggling.
Mhm. Charlottesville’s been pretty intense since it came out. Most people knew the frats were messed up to some degree (when aren’t they?), but I think that for non-students it felt sort of… Distant? Unreal? Like, we could all just roll our eyes when a bunch of drunk frat kids stumbled past and pretend that UVA was a whole different world. Most folks in my social circle have been getting really active about it since the article came out, though, which is a really good sign. On the other hand, the school’s been working hard to cover their own asses, and I’m really worried people are gonna lose interest before we can make any significant change.
Winona Ryder was a horrible Jo March, and I am not surprised.
Here’s the Baldwin clip. Reminds you that Baldwin was a preacher at age 14.
Thanks for posting! I was hoping this would be up at the original piece but sadly it was not.
damn, I wish that just writing “I do not want this” on mail and sending it back worked in every mail situation
I wish my dad were here so I could send him Dad Magazine, because he would get a huge kick out of it, even if he didn't get all of it, and he would send me an email back with "thanks love you" in the subject line and nothing in the body.
Agreed! That version of S&S is just perfect. I was happy to see the 1995 Persuasion at the top of the list, and I loved The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. But whoever thinks the Ciaran Hinds/Samantha Morton Jane Eyre is the best adaptation of that book deserves some serious side-eye.
Ugh, Nicole, I should have followed your wise advice. BUT NO, I had to go look, and now I'm wasting time wondering what in the hell this guy is talking about:
As a single parent and someone who has spent most of his adult life as an advocate for fathers, I don't think we will ever see fatherhood reach full fruition in this country until men have been given the same rights and consideration in the home as women have been given in the workplace.
Hey buddy, I don't think anyone is stopping you from doing the vacuuming, balancing the checkbook, scrubbing the floors or cleaning up Junior's puke. Or are there other "rights and considerations" in the home that I've been missing, like the rich person Costco in the thread below?
I need to start sending those links to my parents! The reaction will be the same!