The guy who talks loudly on his cell phone about very important business things so everyone around him knows he is a very important business man. He is always wearing a suit that remains remarkably unwrinkled.
The guy who opens his laptop the moment he sits on the plane because he has very important work to do and he is going to maximize his efficiency or something like that.
Oh, how I loved Edith Wharton. We were like two peas in a pod. True, she grew up stifled by the conventions of Old New York at the turn of the century, and I grew up on an Adirondack commune during the Age of Aquarius. But we both felt such claustrophobia, her in the drawing room, me with the hippies and the trees.
I blame the flight to Ogdensburg. Nothing disastrous happened on the flight itself, but something disastrous definitely happened inside me. Before Ogdensburg, I was a champion flyer. My parents were travelers, for work and for pleasure, and as a small child, I flew with them to London, Vienna, Paris. I can remember peeling back the warm tin foil on meal trays, the different foods tucked into their little compartments, as though made for a child.
I didn’t realize the hostel was a prosthetic limb factory until I checked in and walked around the property. A firestorm of sparks rained from the building next to mine, while men wielding saws and operating welding equipment walked in and out of the concrete structure. Though this was late 2010, the workers were still constructing parts for the thousands of people who had been maimed by machetes in the 1994 genocide. On my way…
Hayley Krischer's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
I traveled across country just before cell phones were widely available. My cousin in Baltimore had a cell phone, so my father instructed me to drive there from my house in New Jersey on the first leg of the trip to get it. The phone was the size of my current laptop and was wrapped in a leather bag.
An elderly gentleman who remarks on your license plate, one rarely seen in his rural Northeastern neighborhood. You happen to grab a coffee at the same cafe. He perseveres through your extended effort to ignore his hovering, thrusting the local paper at you, suggesting several regional events that will surely enliven your visit.
Proposed Project: Shopping mall with central plaza Method: Adaptive Reuse Marked by a history of violence, this arena boasts ample square footage for varied commercial successes. The current structure is a hallmark of urban blight, crumbling and home to transient populations prone to noise and loitering violations (pictured above.) Allowed to go to ruin, current lot in need of renovation to bring investment for cultural amenities. Retaining and reinforcing outer wall, developers could…
OUR WAITRESS: Thanks for meeting me for a drink, babe. Wow, do I need it after the crazy time I had at the restaurant tonight. OUR WAITRESS’S BOYFRIEND: What happened? WAITRESS: These two American women came in to be seated. Mother and daughter, they looked like. I tried to seat them in the nice part of the restaurant, but a guy was smoking a cigarette at the table next to them, so they flat-out refused.
First of all, no one gets the personal space they deserve on a plane. Accept that right off the bat; do not sink into pity for your seatmate if he is 6'7 and convince yourself that he merits the armrest between the two of you. You are on a plane; you are bound now only by Skylaw. The rules of God and man no longer apply. Wring mercy clean from your heart. I promise that…
Yes, it almost inspires a panic attack to think of spending just five days in Morocco when there are so many incredible cats to see! Fortunately, our feline-focused travel experts have mapped out the purrfect itinerary that will scratch and sate that cat-travel itch right behind your fuzzy ears. Day 1: Marrakech Start your journey by hopping off the plane and into the heat of the capitol. Make a quick dash across the…
According to the Phantom Time Hypothesis theory, the period between 614 AD and 911 AD didn’t exist; the history normally attributed to that time is either a misinterpretation or a deliberate falsification of the evidence. If this were true, Charlemagne (reigned 768-814) never existed and the year 2012 is actually 1715." Of course. Of course. The very fact that this possibility has never once occurred to me seems now to be the greatest argument in favor…
I'm Anthony Bourdain. I wear a leather jacket on my heart and I have cigar eyes. I've done a lot of drugs, so you can trust me. I'm your Food Man. I once used Courtney Love as a board to windsurf down to Baja to satisfy a craving for these perfect little fish tacos they sell on the beach outside of Rosarito. Join me next week on No Reservations as I slip through the wardrobe to…
Lindsey Palka last wrote for The Toast about What Katy Did. Today we forget how hard it was to leave home in the past. We can video chat our loved ones on the other side of the world, text them our every thought within a second, fly (in an emergency) to visit them in a day. Would you leave home if it meant you would probably never return? That you would almost certainly never…
This post was brought to you by a reader in memory of Katharine Hepburn but NOT Spencer Tracy. The Toast's previous coverage of trans* issues can be found here. New Year’s Eve was the first gathering of all my mom’s siblings and their children in over ten years, to celebrate my grandma’s 90th anniversary and my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary. In addition to his love for ordering outdated cocktails then lambasting bartenders who…
You can see Top Withins from a mile away. At first, it is nothing but a dark blip on the horizon. But as you walk towards it, the place looms ahead, standing alone at the top of a hill. According to local legend the abandoned farmhouse was the spot Emily Brontë envisioned as the place where the Earnshaw family lived in Wuthering Heights. Though, as a bronze plaque affixed to the side explains almost…
