Best/Realest Tweets of the Fortnight, 5/26-6/8/13
Four Loko on Law & Order SVU is “Five Crazy” in case you were wondering — Hazel Cills (@hazelcills) June 4, 2013 bellybuttons make me nauseous — Alessandra Cat (@alessandradite) June 3, 2013 boys simply love promising to teach you guitar someday — lauren mc (@laurenbutt) June 2, 2013 marriage should be like a presidency term after 4 years you should get to vote if you still want to be married — Sarah Beattie (@nachosarah) June 2, 2013 RT if you...
How to Suck at Sports
1. Harbor irrational fear While America marveled at the gravity-defying finesse of the parkour craze, I foresaw bone breaking against concrete and braced myself for shock footage of compound fractures. My instant cowering from dodge balls, volleyballs, and even ping-pong balls is not just human reflex. That is because as a terrible athlete, you are not necessarily injury-prone. You are injury phobic. As a terrible athlete you are able to imagine—in the split-second it takes to pitch a baseball—the crunch of bone and the taste...
How to Know Whether You’re Overanalyzing a Movie
If you just said that a movie “epitomizes the spirit of our era,” people are allowed to say you’re reading too much into it. If you just pointed out that a movie’s minority characters are offensively stereotyped, do not allow people to tell you you’re reading too much into it. If you just referenced a writer—especially Hemingway—people are going to tell you you’re going too far, and they may well be right. If you just referenced a director, people should get the hell off your back....
Three Reasons Why “Braveheart” Seems Way Worse Today Than It Did In 1995
Last night my girlfriend and I pulled Braveheart up as a kitschy couch-potato flick, and in that respect we were not disappointed. It didn’t seem like a film anyone would confuse with a good movie, and we attributed its Best Picture win to the Academy’s predictable taste for historical epics. I was surprised, then, to later read the reviews and find that the film was immediately adored by critics—not just the famously unsnobbish Roger Ebert, but by the New York Times, whose writer Caryn James called it “one...
Insights from “The Red War on the Family” (1922)
“Monogamic marriage, with divorce granted only for good and sufficient reasons and not because one or both of the parties directly concerned tire of the union and desire a change, is the sheet anchor of our civilization, and anyone who seeks to injure or destroy such time-honored and respected institution must be regarded and treated as a foe to civilization.” (p. 118) “In the paragraphs we have quoted from Engels we have [...] the promise to those pulsating with sex love, who ever hunger after...
How Long Your Car Alarm is Allowed to Go Off Before You Are Morally Worse than a Car Burglar
This is a sliding scale depending on how much your car is worth. $50,000+: Ok, your car alarm can go off for awhile. I get it. Your car is worth 2x the national average student loan debt ($24,000). Your burglar could send two of his burgling kids to college on what he might make selling your car off. Let’s let that beep until it’s rightful owner can save it. (Unless it’s more than half-an-hour, then fuck you). $26,000+: Your car seems pretty new, like you...
A Comprehensive Guide to Fowl, from Worst to Best
Swans Have you been to a state fair? Have you seen the rooms with rabbits, chickens, ducks and swans all in cages waiting to be judged? Rabbits are in the cages because they are reasonable creatures who would like to leave the fair. Swans are in cages to protect you. From them. Swans are what happens when you take pure hatred, impatience and self importance, compress them into a hot core, and then put it into a body that can only communicate its rage through...
A Guide to Interpreting My Snapchat Selfies
Sad Face: Pay attention to me. Sad Face with hand-drawn sad faces: Why don’t you love me/Snapchat me back? Mirror Pic: I’m wearing a cute outfit, and I want you to see it. (Does this mirror make me look fat or sexy?) Close up of my mouth (open): I honestly had nothing better to Snapchat you. Close up of my mouth (closed, possibly tongue showing, boy): I didn’t want to take a nude pic, so this will have to do. (But I considered it.)...
Suggested Track Listing for Amanda Bynes’s Rap Album
Welcome to the Errordome Dickelodeon Bang a Gong (Throw a Bong) Fear of a Planet Tan Bitches Can’t Shit (When They’re Living Off Movie Premiere Cheese Trays) Wanksta’s Paradise Murder (My Vagina) Was the Case (not feat. Drake) Straight Outta Thousand Oaks White Lines (Do It) Nuthin But a G String Keep Ya Head Up (Or I’ll Hit Ya With My Car) All Phat - Jay Gabler and Heidi Thomasoni, with a prompt from Becky Lang Photo via @AmandaBynes
Girly Essay Collections to Self-Publish When I’m 30
Pussy: When Cats See Too Much Porcelain: Accomplishments, High Scores and Mental Breakdowns on the Toilet Why are you all staring at me? Did I get period on my pants? and Other Paranoid Girl Moments When Tequila Did Not Mean Fiesta: Feelings from the Stomach Sorry, I Was Drunk: Relationships I’ve Ruined via Text That Was Not My Best Idea: Streaking, Speeding and Cheating What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting (Or Even Considering) Feelings: All the Time, All up in Your Face All My...
Are Baby Boomers the Most Tragic Generation of Our Time?
I was born in 1975, on a generational cusp between Gen X and Gen Y. For all the various differences between the cohorts on either side of my demographic fence, they have one key attribute in common: they really fucking resent Baby Boomers. In the past couple of days, the “old economy Steve” meme has been catching fire online, as Millennials bash the people who were born into a booming postwar economy and are now seen to regard 20-somethings as lazy and entitled. Their big...
The Five Everyday Struggles of a Curly-Haired Woman
1. General wildness Curly hair is unpredictable. When you’re a little kid, it’s cute, but once you hit puberty, those soft ringlets will transform into mean, teen coils of fury. Part of the excitement of having curly hair is not knowing what you’re going to get at various stages of life—for example, when my Italian mom had me, her curly hair mysteriously went straight. A curly-haired woman will spend most of middle and high school just figuring out basic styling, and even once you do...
