Game of Thrones dad and occasional seafaring captain lookalike George R.R. Martin recently had an interview with Metro newspapers, and once again defended the casual, sauntering pace his writing has taken in recent years:
"I did not start to write slower over the years," the American author explained. "I was working on the first book for six year and four years on the second one. Fantasists who release their novels every year, do not offer books of large volume. These are not 1.5k pages like mine, but, for example, 500. In addition, I have not become younger. Age does not add enthusiasm."
When asked if he watched the TV show--which, at this point, has blown past the plot line in the books--Martin said he hasn't caught much lately of Jon, Dany, and crew because of his touring and writing.
That dull ache you feel is the onset of a headache trying to figure out Martin's verbal dance-around. He's closing in on seven years to write the latest GoT installment, but he "did not start to write slower over the years." Uh-huh. Yet--YET!--at the same time, "age does not add enthusiasm." And to cap it off, he's too busy to watch an hour of TV once a week because of all the writing/touring going on.
Lest Martin forget, he's not getting any younger doing conventions across the country or interviews with media outlets that find him repeating the same train of thought again and again.
Age doesn't add enthusiasm--although neither does a lack of new books.
Nick Fuentes, an 18-year old student from the suburbs of Chicago who was about to start his sophomore year at Boston University, has decided to abruptly quit the school before the new semester starts. Why? Because he swung on down to Charlottesville and protested alongside KKK members and Nazis, and apparently folks back in the Boston area haven't been too thrilled with him.
"Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, are among the most left wing states and cities," Fuentes told the Boston Globe. "Probably anywhere I would go would be safer than Boston."
I'm sure some people in Barcelona and Syria might note the hyperbole from Fuentes, but I digress.
Fuentes claims he's received a number of death threats, telling the Globe the area is very dangerous. In a video with Time Magazine, Fuentes explained why quitting Boston University was for the best:
His brand? His brand? I'm fairly certain sometime in Marketing 101 at college they don't suggest the Neo-Nazi or KKK association as a good idea for branding. OHHH, but Fuentes is quitting college, so he might miss that class.
According to the Globe, though:
Fuentes said he thought the event was intended as a demonstration against “immigration, multiculturalism, and post-modernism.” “The rally was about not replacing white people,” he said. Public officials handled the event poorly, he said. The police were not allowed to do their jobs properly, making the rally “a total disaster from start to finish,” he said.
That seems to contrast mightily with how Fuentes felt while actually at the rally itself, when he let his thumbs do the talking on Facebook:
Ahh, those "incredible" "disasters."
The same thing could be said of Fuentes' decision-making as of late.
"We have definite proof it was a prank," Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson told The Associated Press regarding the following sign caught by a Twitter user:
Yet, according to the Chicago Tribune, "[Crowson] wouldn't say where the image had been made — only that the mystery had been solved." The Tribune also notes that Crowson wouldn't divulge what evidence Walmart had that the signage was a prank. In essence, we're to take his word for it, because no major company would ever lie to cover a public relations mishap. Nevvvver.
Listen, where's a grade schooler going to get their affordably priced weaponry for the first day of school if Walmart doesn't step forward? Ever since Target stopped selling nunchucks and billy clubs for the kids, it's been nearly impossible.
When he was a running for president, then-candidate Donald Trump let the world know he didn't read books.
As The Washington Post described it--regarding if Trump ever read biographies of former presidents--he replied: "I never have. I’m always busy doing a lot. Now I’m more busy, I guess, than ever before."
The Post continued, explaining Trump's reading habits:
"Trump’s desk is piled high with magazines, nearly all of them with himself on their covers, and each morning, he reviews a pile of printouts of news articles about himself that his secretary delivers to his desk. But there are no shelves of books in his office..."
Fast forward to candidate Trump becoming President Trump, and nothing much has changed. At the annual Easter egg roll at La Casa Blanca--where presidents traditionally read to children--Trump still couldn't grab a random Dr. Seuss and take five minutes for rhyme time.
What we got was the Press Secretary--and human steam missile--Sean Spicer reading to some random child, alone, in a how-to of awkwardness:
Is that kid questioning his life decisions the entire time? Yes--yes he is.
Elsewhere, Attorney General Jeff Sessions read It's Not Easy Being a Bunny, a 39-page marathon that doesn't have much of a Wikipedia page, and goes for the low-low, moved-to-sell price of $6.01 at Barnes and Noble.
First Lady Melania Trump chose a children's book by Kathie Lee Gifford, Party Animals, to read.
First Lady Melania Trump read aloud "Party Animals" by Kathie Lee Gifford, celebrating differences & similarities in people. pic.twitter.com/yxNnASPqqE
"Successful talk show host, singer, songwriter, actress, and author Kathie Lee Gifford has come up with a delightful book for children! Lucy Goosy is carefully reviewing her list of animals to invite for her birthday party. She has to make sure to invite the right guests so that her party will be perfect. But when she focuses on everyone's bad qualities, instead of good, she discovers that there is no one to attend! With a little help from the Wise Owl..."
Okay, that's enough. I was lost after calling Kathie Lee a successful singer and songwriter. Amateur mic night at the Chuckle Hut has better creativity.
Instead, our First Lady chose a book written by a ghost writer most likely created by a morning talk show host to share at Easter. That, and it had human kamikaze, Sean Spicer, indulging in a creepy read-along with random kid alone.
Yet, nowhere was the president.
By comparison, Barack Obama routinely read books to children, and not books by television hosts:
Here is a picture of Obama reading Where The Wild Things are to some children in 2014. pic.twitter.com/94jcn8BRYH
She's getting irked because she saw someone do something nice.
Ayn Rand is either a philosopher, a genius, and a skilled writer,
OR
She's a selfish, frightening, and a miserable hack at making books.
Either way, she's as popular as ever.
The way you view her says as much as your view on literature as it does your own personal moral compass. While Rand wrote two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, it is her creation and development of a philosophical movement of Objectivism--featured in her two books--that keeps her memory alive 35-years after her death.
Did you just ask her for a cookie? Did you??
While her philosophy's scope darts in a dozen directions, one area stands forth today. In layman's terms, Objectivism argues that people should be selfish for their own personal betterment, and that personal self-interest in the only proper moral action. In essence, Objectivism bristles at altruistic behavior, and finds nothing good in doing good deeds for others. Want to eat that last cookie instead of sharing it? Objectivism would tell you to have it all for yourself, then buy a new bag of Oreos and refuse to share them with your friends or loved ones. Keep those cookies away from the hungry people most, too.
Put another way, it's a fancy way to explain being greedy.
A how-to guide on how to be mean!
Jonathan Freedland, a columnist with London's Guardian newspaper, focused on how Rand's philosophy has been embraced with open arms by the current La Casa Blanca administration and executives in Silicon Valley, with believers like Donald Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, House Speaker Paul Ryan, the founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick, and even the deceased Steve Jobs, who called Atlas Shrugged one of the "guides of his life." It seems Ayn Rand is more popular in death than she ever was in life.
Says Freedland:
"No wonder the tech companies don’t mind destroying, say, the taxi business or the traditional news media. Such concerns are beneath the young, powerful men at the top: even to listen to such concerns would be to betray the singularity of their own pure vision. It would be to break Rand’s golden rule, by which the visionary must never sacrifice himself to others.
[...]
Such an ideology will find a ready audience for as long as there are human beings who feel the rush of greed and the lure of unchecked power, longing to succumb to both without guilt. Which is to say: for ever."
If, by chance, you feel the allure of Ayn Rand and Objectivism slowly wooing you, like you wouldn't mind being selfish and only praising yourself, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had a quick comedic segment a couple seasons ago asking why Ayn Rand was still a thing:
Why IS Rand a thing? Because selfishness is a thing, and selfishness is easy.
That said, slogging through a thousand pages of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead is hard. Be selfish and refuse to subject yourself to them.
The Washington Post can be thanked for clarifying one of the great injustices to humankind in, truly, the entire galaxy.
Sarah Kaplan, a science writer for the Post, was writing a story on black holes and E/earthlings, and wasn't sure what the proper spelling was--'Earthling' or 'earthling.' The problem? The dictionary the newspaper was using, a Merriam-Webster version (those rapscallions again), claimed a lowercase version was to be used. Kaplan wondered, though, why are Klingons, Vulcans, Wookies, and Martians all capitalized, but earthlings get the uppercase shaft? Why the blatant disrespect??
Post science editor Laura Helmuth reached out to Merriam-Webster via Twitter to ask what's up with subjugating humanity to submissive wording:
The dictionary folks replied quickly, saying they were conferring...and went silent for hours. Kaplan stayed glued to her computer wondering the outcome.
After minutes turned into hours, Merriam-Webster decided to bestow honor upon the human race.
In fact, 'Earthling' now merits inclusion, at least as a variant spelling. We've made a note to update the entry. 🌎👽👍 @laurahelmuth
There we have it. Humanity has risen in status. We haven't been this united as a species since we all came together to admit Kanye lost his cool three years ago.
The Scottish Sunday Herald still posts television listings in their newspaper for those folks who shun the guide on their television and trust only the news that's fit to print.
Previewing the highlights for the coming week--and instead of a standard, straightforward description of Donald Trump's inauguration--the Scottish Sunday Herald decided to detail the event in a slightly different tone:
"Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories — among the most common is the 'What If The Nazis Had Won The Second World War' setting — but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present," says the Herald.
As the orange human windsock himself might tweet, such a scenario sounds "Sad!"
PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, NYC, smelled of urine, had rats crawling in the walls, lacked textbooks, didn't teach art or gym classes, and lacked formal reading and math programs. As if that wasn't bad enough, students were left to watch movies like Alvin and The Chipmunks and Monsters, Inc. for hours at a time. This suddenly turned more tortuous than a North Korean prison.
This school of such impeccable educational standards was overseen by Marcella Sills, the principal. The school slipped through the cracks because it's evident that no one in a city of seven million cares to oversee deplorable conditions for children--and what 10-year old kid is going to blow the whistle on all-day animated movie marathons?
Now, according to The Post, "Last year, an arbitrator ruled Sills had 'committed theft of time' between September 2012 and January 2014 by failing to document 178 instances of her tardiness and hours absent from school." As a result, she lost her job. Ever the optimistic sort of rascal, Sills filed a reinstatement petition.
The problem with the principal that always showed up late to work is that she--wait for it, wait for it--filed her petition late, too.
As a result, Manhattan Judge Manuel Mendez tossed the reinstatement petition by Sills.
Somewhere in Far Rockaway, Queens, a group of grade schoolers released a collected defeated sigh that they'll never get marathon sessions of Alvin and The Chipmunks ever again.
Modern poetry has drifted from popularity, and now exists sort of like that annoying friend you have on Facebook that shares their confessional works which sound like a third rate ditty written by a Sarah McLachlan clone at an ASPCA rally.
That's it. No directions, no focus, no overly detailed analysis--no rules.
Just a poem, trending topics.
The two poems are wildly different despite the same focal point.
Kate Sutherland wrote "Year-End Tally," in which her rapid-fire lines add, subtract, divide, and multiply the year's news stories. As it begins:
Add a small boy Subtract a gorilla Multiply mosquitos Subtract bumblebees Multiply flames Subtract homes Subtract jobs Add golf Add rugby Multiply medals Add innings Add PokéStops
Generally, it continues that way until a slew of Twitter-like hashtags finish the poem.
By comparison, Stephen Thomas wrote "Celery Water," drenched in humorlessness, and as serious as a deadly diagnosis:
We are sick. You can almost feel your insides kicked. In a darkened dorm, we reverse and blast “Purple Rain.” Like life, the guitar part is long, and we black out stranger things: November 8, around 10 p.m. Eastern. Scratch out this year, which “cursed you like a witch.”
Oh--it continues with multiple mentions of death and pounding and creatures and crying. The events of 365 days affects people differently, clearly.
Both poems mention PokeStops, though--so despite all the chaos that was this year, Pikachu and friends is what really mattered in 2016.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the median salary for an average newspaper reporter in the United States is $36,360. A reporter's average salary usually maxes out at roughly $81,580--and that's not for any old reporter. That's for a Scoops McGee type person, someone with the fifty years' weight of misery, shame, and newspaper ink holding them down. Cigars, high-waist khakis, and a pocket full of back alley sources are their M.O. And Scoops still has to own a 15-year old, 250,000 mile Chevy Impala on his salary.
Tim Kawakami is one such writer. He works at the San Jose Mercury News covering sports, and recently recounted on a podcast how he made a joking bet that the San Francisco 49ers' billionaire owner Jed York wouldn't have the team's new stadium built by a random 2014 deadline. A chuckly ha-ha was had by all.
Except the stadium was built by 2014. Except Kawakami still agreed to buy dinner. Except York wanted that dinner. Except York was bringing his wife along, too. Except everyone agreed to go to The French Laundry for the dinner.
[[[pause]]]
If you don't know, The French Laundry makes for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience. It is also like pouring kerosene on your life's savings and smoking feverishly around the fumes. Reading the wine list alone will take the rest of your afternoon to cover. Looking for that casual $50,000 bottle of wine? It's there, my friend. "Screaming Eagle Vineyards." Hotkey search that. Then double-check your credit limit. [[[end pause]]]
The problem Kawakami had with the whole situation wasn't that he paid off the non-binding bet, but that York didn't seem to register the impact of such a meal on a measly sportswriter income, at The French Laundry no less. As Kawakami recounts:
"If I thought Jed [York] was sticking it to me, I’d almost be okay with it. I don’t even think he knew. I don’t think he knew what $2,100 means to a sportswriter who didn’t inherit a billion-dollar team."
That's right. The 36-year old York is a billionaire because grandpa was one, and such stacks of cash get passed down two generations. And, as I told you, check that wine list out. It's $310 a person for food The French Laundry. Three people = $930. (Service is included.) York cranked out another $1,200 on Kawakami through drink, but was oblivious.
Maybe York was oblivious that there was a $50,000 bottle available on hand. Things could have snowballed so much more rapidly.
The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team is having a good year, with their pitching staff striking out seemingly everyone they face. Lest you don't know, "K" is the baseball scoring symbol for a strikeout.
Once alerted to their snafu, Philly.com swapped out the headline for the following, which has no double-meaning. No, none whatsoever. Not for a team that had a player just suspended for banned substances:
That's what University of New Hampshire Media Relations Director Erica Mantz told the Union Leader newspaper after it came to light (hey-oh!) that the school bought a custom-made dining hall table that comes equipped with LED functionality. The cost? $17,570.
The table, which can seat sixteen people, has a top that can light up and change colors, presumably pleasing both preschoolers and EDM enthusiasts alike. Dining hall operations director Jon Plodzik told the newspaper that it can also be used for culinary demonstrations. Like demonstrating how food looks while bathed in ambient blue tones. Plodzik added the cost included "delivery from the workshop in Chicago, which we considered reasonable for a custom piece of furniture made exclusively for UNH." You don't see just any second rate state school with high tech dining hall tables, people!
Junior chemistry major Maddie Dombrowski told the Union Leader the table was special.
"I ate at it once. It lit up. I ate my food and I left," Dombrowski told the paper.
The Boston Globe tweeted days ago they were going to reveal today the one headline they never wanted to publish. Some people wondered. Was the paper folding? Going solely online? The moon landings were all fake? What was it?
Strike up the Yakety Sax music, because things just became rib-tickling here!
Dated one year from now, April 9, 2017, it creates a grim view of the nation and the world under a then-President Trump. Curfews, deportations, trade wars. Let the hilarity ensue!
This is the satirical equivalent of having Chips Ahoy! say they make chocolate chip cookies just like grandma makes. Sure, it sounds fine, but we all know grandma's cookies can't be beat.
Which is why satire is left to The Onion. Leave it alone.
Like much of the newspaper world, the Boston Globe has seen better days. But when they tweeted out a teaser the other day they received more attention since they broke open the Catholic church sex abuse scandal.
This has led to half of Massachusetts and at least three Whalbergs and an Affleck to question what it might be.
ALL DUNKIN' DONUTS TO CLOSE TOM BRADY RETIRES LAST KNOWN LOBSTER PLUCKED FROM THE SEA CLAM CHOWDER OUTLAWED TRUMP PURCHASES GLOBE
It's probably going to be the Globe announcing its demise or going entirely online. Whatever it turns out to be, one thing is for certain. It can't be worse than CNN holding onto a one minute video they hope to never play.
Jerry Springer would never exist without Maury Povich, and Maury Povich would never exist unless vast numbers of people with poor decision making skills decided to air their dirty laundry on national television. For twenty-two years, Povich has made a career out of unruly teenagers, abusive men, polygraph tests, and revealing paternity test results. In essence, the worst dinner party guests ever. People like this guy:
Sounds legit.
Despite all of the tabloid angles to what's made Povich wealthy, he still has roots in the newspaper business. His father, after all, was the famed Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich. This has led Maury to helm a rural, out-of-the-way newspaper, nearly unknown to the public for nearly a decade.
The Flathead Beacon newspaper serves the town of Kalispell, Montana, and the accompanying Flathead County, where Povich and his wife, former news anchor Connie Chung, own a vacation home. And in an era when many newspapers around the country fold on a monthly basis, the Flathead Beacon has actually seen readership increase--and with a total lack of paternity test revelations, too!
That doesn't mean Povich is ready to quit daytime television for newspapers just yet. As he told CNN Money, "After nine years, we're almost breaking even."
Apparently people in Montana don't make nearly as many bad decisions.
Crossword puzzles are cozy, something grandparents and people riding the subway have done for years to pass the time. In a world of ambiguous moral grays, crosswords are literally one of the few things that are black and white.
Just like plagiarism is black and white. You either commit it or you don't. In the world of crossword puzzles, plagiarism is a rarity, mainly because of the whole "puzzle" angle and its complexity toward stealing from someone else for fifteen across, five letters, starts with "t." (Hint: "thief.") Now, though, a scandal has rocked the nebbish crossword world, striking fear into their bowtie community.
Timothy Parker, who edits puzzles for USA Today and for syndication, allegedly stole large elements of New York Times crossword puzzles. The website FiveThirtyEight dove down this rabbit hole, and found nearly 65 identical puzzles with Parker as editor over a 17-year period, or roughly four puzzles a year being, ahem, borrowed from the Times. It wasn't just that Parker was the editor, but the listed writers of the puzzles simply didn't exist.
FiveThirtyEight reached out to Parker, who didn't deny there were striking similarities in the puzzles. "To me, it’s just mere coincidence," Parker told the website. "We don’t look at anybody else’s puzzles or really care about anyone else’s puzzles."
This is like when I tell people it's a mere coincidence that I look like Chris Hemsworth. Sure, it's uncanny, a mere coincidence, but sometimes people can't believe that it isn't Thor writing an obscure blog about books and words and education, that I could have such a ripped physique simply from typing on a laptop and eating Twinkies. Crazier stuff happens. Like crossword puzzles being plagiarized.
10,000 characters is also known as blogging, but, hey.
Twitter realizes that not everyone has jumped on their bandwagon, much to investors' concerns, so they're looking to branch out.
Twitter's co-founder and current CEO Jack Dorsey has been heading up a project to see how exactly to expand the social media giant's presence, mainly by expanding how much a user can write. Gone would be 140 character limits (although that limit would still remain in your status feed), and users could start writing longer rants during their Twitter beefs without people needing a Rosetta Stone to decipher what most of it meant.
The move is to make Twitter more appealing to the masses. As a result, Dorsey is reportedly mulling the 10,000 character per post mark, but also "only" 5,000. No final decision has been made.
In case you're wondering, this entire blog post you just read? It's 899 characters long.
The New York Timeshas a quick little video documenting the history of, uhh, well, stuff that is less high brow than usual at the New York Public Library. You know, the stuff that your uncle Frank has a large collection of, but your family politely ignores when they gather at Thanksgiving? The sort of stuff that's usually behind the counter at a 7-11, underneath the lotto scratch ticket display, hidden behind some plastic shields?
Porn. I'm talking about porn.
Apparently the NYPL has a large collection, as showcased here:
I'll never look at an Aldo store the same way again.
The English language is filled with a variety of silly rules--rules you should never, never, never abide by because you're a savagely good looking and charismatic individual who wears expensive Italian suits and/or shoes and flaunts society's conventions.
This is to say I'm not against flattery, and I'm also here to twist your arm. (God, you smell great! New cologne/perfume?) Rules in the English language are largely misguided, antiquated, or outright false, rules like Never end a sentence with a preposition! or Don't split an infinitive! or Don't use an adverb with a feeling verb! (Have you done something new with your hair? It looks so full and shiny!)
Another English language 'rule' is that you should always use her/him whenever writing and a singular pronoun is called for--never, ever the plural they. Specificity is key, proponents claim, and they is gender-neutral. (Goodness, it looks like you've lost weight!)
But there are some people--usually people who are writers, who encounter pronouns by the hour ((waves!!)), writers prone to flattery--that gravitate toward the gender-vague they as a singular term. We all use it in conversation every day, so why can't it be written? (Your eyebrows smolder like George Clooney's, just sayin'.)
Writers are split on the matter. Sides are taken. Flattery gets thrown about to woo the undecided. (Your teeth are so white and perfectly straight!)
This explains why the Washington Post Style Guide is now accepting they as a singular term.The Post's copy editor, Bill Walsh, explains it's all really simple, mainly because it's "the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun." And, I swear, half of what Walsh just said makes sense. Promise.
Once one style guide joins the fray, it's only a matter of time (or flattery) before other style guides follow suit. But you don't want to be a follower. You're a leader. A quick witted, gorgeous individual with sun-kissed skin that's just simply radiant!
In the middle of autumn, I know when a squirrel streaks across the sidewalk in a ball of fury, leaping onto a side of a tree, and clicks its throat at me in anger--the first thing I'm wondering is, "Yeah, but do you appreciate the red coming off this maple? It's stunning!"
Someone wrote into the New York Times to ask just that very concern. Do squirrels actually realize trees are changing color, or are they just painfully ignorant about it all?
Turns out the bushy-tailed little acorn bully is very similar in sight to your average color blind human. He can see color changes, but greens and reds sort of blend together.
So, no, they don't appreciate the red coming off that maple. But those yellow oaks? Even a squirrel is in awe.
