February 2, 2012
This month's painting is all about journeys.
Columbus setting out for the new world. Greek soldiers descending on Troy to recapture the beautiful Helen. The ancient Israelites entering the Promised Land. These were legendary journeys of discovery, vengeance, and...
It's eight years ago, and I'm sitting in the student housing office located in the administration building of my college campus. I'm meeting with Emily, my supervisor, to ask her if I can still have my job after I return from studying abroad in England for the summer. I love my job. I work as one of those people who sit at an information desk...
Working on the Times media desk has for the last few years seemed like a rough and thankless job, and certainly the last few people there reporting on print media seemed like they were more than a bit unhappy. (Or were at least phoning it in.) Which is to say, we are not here to express rancor...Ugh, I am not ready for the tenth anniversaries of all my favorite websites.
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Is there life on other planets? With the universe so vast and our knowledge of it so infinitesimal, it would be foolish person who bluntly offered an answer one way or another, which is why it does not fill me with any amount of pleasure to have to tell...
Want to be a pretentious show-off with your friends this weekend when the big game is on? But you don't know the difference between the infield fly rule and a two-line pass (or even to what sports they apply)? Well, it's OK. Sports radio enthusiast and noted laundromat-lurker Jim Behrle, who graced us...
"Given the recent stateside popularity of the espadrille...the evening slip-on has big potential for a life outside the opera house."
—GIRL. NO.---
See...
December 30, 2011
Shut up about Brooklyn already. We all know about Brooklyn, that shining city on the hill, where everything is made only of awesome. Yes, there are beards and clunky eyeglass frames and lawyers who skateboard and grandpas with noise bands. The hipsters run-off freely now, the cheesecake is...
January 1At Philadelphia -8.5 Washington
The bad dream's over
in Philadelphia.
Fire Andy Reid!
PICK: EAGLESAt Atlanta -11.5 Tampa Bay
...
I wish they'd open
a Waffle House for us in
Brooklyn, NYC.
PICK: BUCCANEERS
In October of 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was about to give a speech in Milwaukee in support of his reelection campaign under the newly created Progressive “Bull Moose” Party when a bartender named John Flammang Schrank walked up and shot him in the chest. Roosevelt of course was not killed, but neither...
December 29, 2011
In the long summer vacation of 1971, I "worked" on a construction site in the English countryside where they were proposing to build a new hangar for the U.S. Air Force, and used the proceeds to take a holiday in Greece with my friend Charles. Originally, the idea had been to hitchhike,...
It's a good thing I enjoy humor because, if I had to estimate, I'd put the number of humor pieces I've read this year somewhere in the low thousands. As a fan — and someone who's numb the the embarrassment that comes with laughing aloud while riding public transportation — I imagine I'd have read some fraction of...
Wherever you went in 2011, you could hear Adele’s 21 catapulted at you from every open car window, open apartment window, and open mouth. That album has its charms, but I see a much more long-lasting and powerful influence in Rufus Wainwright’s Poses, and its tenth...