Ten Kinds of Book People It’s Impossible to Have a Conversation With
The Book Clubber. This person can’t stop talking about The Kite Runner, The Devil in the White City, The Help, and Gone Girl. Airport bookstores meet all her needs. You suspect that books not containing discussion guides terrify her. The Fast Reader. He likes books that you can read quickly, and he reads them quickly. He goes through a dozen different mystery series a year, and dips into science fiction when he has to. He has lots of positive things to say about books, but only in the most...
Live-Blogging the Overnight Security Shift at the St. Mark’s Parish Festival II: The Year the Rains Came
10:39 PM: Once again this year I’m working the overnight security shift at the St. Mark’s Catholic Church community festival in St. Paul, Minnesota. My task: to remain awake and alert for the next 8.5 hours, and to make sure no one fiddles with anything they’re not supposed to be fiddling with. I’ve been instructed to take particular care to ensure that no copper wiring is stripped from the ferris wheel and that the deep fryers aren’t rolled away. I’ve set up a base camp in the...
Does It Matter That No One Gives a Shit About Classical Music Any More?
Minneapolis likes to compare itself defensively to New York, which makes it all the more poignant that James Oestreich of the New York Times has just published a pained essay calling Minneapolis a “great cultural mecca” and lamenting the fact that one of our indisputably world-class cultural resources—the Minnesota Orchestra—has just lost its entire 2012-13 season to an “agonizing and seemingly inexplicable” labor dispute. “Inexplicable” might be a little strong—the basic explanation seems to be the possibly insurmountable challenge of funding a world-class orchestra in a city...
Love and Marriage: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, and It Shouldn’t Have To
Today Minnesota, The Tangential’s home base, is poised to legalize gay marriage. That’s a dramatic, very welcome, and long overdue change—but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ways in which the public and private faces of romantic relationships are changing, in a good way. As Katie’s pointed out, many defenders of “traditional” marriage conveniently ignore the fact that marriage wasn’t invented so that Ozzie and Harriet could save on their taxes. The legal, social, and emotional implications of marriage...
Best/Realest Tweets Since the Last Time I Bothered to Do This
PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL IS MY DREAM WOMAN. OLDER, A BITCH, AND PART CAT. — ΞMiLY (@TEENSLUT666) May 11, 2013 Most adorable prison synonym? Gotta be pokey. — Jay Boller (@jaymboller) May 8, 2013 When I’m rich I’m going to hire a trainer but really just someone to hide in the bushes and jump out and smash burritos out of my hands. — Kat Georgé (@kat_george) May 8, 2013 OUR NATION TURNS ITS LONELY EYES TO YOU, BLANKET JACKSON. — Mouthful of Platinum (@mouthofplatinum)...
Great Gatsby Tries Really Hard to Make An Ugly Story Pretty
When I got to the screening of Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, I had one of those moments where I realized I’d fallen out of touch with “what teens like.” People were lined up around the whole building, holding flimsy fliers and emails probably given out from radio stations to lucky winners. For some reason, I hadn’t been expecting that, although I had when I went to the screening of Spring Breakers. It was like when I asked the kids at a daycare what...
Why Magazines are Failing (Besides the Death of Print)
Let me start by saying that my opinion here is coming from a perspective that is 1/3 someone who has been behind closed doors at a magazine office, 1/3 adamant, life-long magazine lover, 1/3 someone who works in advertising. Meaning I’m putting bits together to create an assumption, however imperfect that assumption might be. Here’s what I think. Magazines are failing for many reasons, but what ends up being the silent, invisible nail in the coffin is when they attempt to save themselves by writing exclusively...
“Iron Man 3″ is More of the Same—In a Good Way
I’m going to keep this short and sweet so that I don’t waste too much of your time before you go buy your tickets for Iron Man 3, which opens today. I suspect that people who hate fun and routinely miss the point will say things like “I’ve seen this before.” And my response to that is yes, you probably have. Pop culture is mostly repetition. Shakespeare was ripping off contemporaries for material hundreds of years ago and now movie remakes are like catnip for...
“Girls Are Intelligent” and Other #GirlsTechDay Tips From the FCC
“Technology is playing an increasingly important role in all aspects of our lives including #health, #education & #careers” (@FCC) “Women & girls are powerful and intelligent.” (@IG_Online, retweeted by @FCC) “Having an Internet accessible device AND access to the Internet is essential today.” (@livingrural, retweeted by @FCC) “general typing skills are always important” (@USOPM, retweeted by @FCC) “It’s OK if you don’t know exactly what career you want, but it’s good to explore your interests!” (@girlshealth, retweeted by @FCC) “Don’t be afraid of the computer!”...
Is Everyone Falling through Doors Making Out but Me?
When I was younger, I had this one really, really strong opinion about station wagons. But my opinions and peeves have sort of dissipated as I’ve aged and now they are pretty much exclusively reserved for commentary about television and film. Here are the top things I’m just not buying about characters in television and film: They never shut the door They’re always walking into rooms and just leaving doors open. The scene that ensues could be riddled with gripping dialogue. It could be the...
Vegetarianism and The End of The Circle of Life
I never thought much about vegetarianism growing up. I tried to become a vegetarian for a week at age 12, simply because I thought I “didn’t like meat,” and it did not last. I was very addicted to chicken nugget Happy Meals. I still do not think I could say goodbye to them. Like many humans, I have a gift for dissociating what I eat with where it came from, and a certain level of comfort with being at the top of the food chain. I often...
Our Friends at Philolzophy Talk Their New Book
What’s the process of translating a blog to a book like? What was hard? What was surprising? C: It’s very fun for people like us who like to think about meta stuff. I always knew there was an underlying narrative to our blog so it was fun to lay that out. We pasted all of our favorite articles into a Word document, it ended up being 125,000 words that we chiseled down to around 25,000 over four weeks. S: What was surprising for me was...
