“Apples to Apples 4D” (The audience is pummelled with apples at the end of the movie.)

I don't care for romantic comedy genre nearly as much as Mindy Kaling, but I do have interest in seeing some of her proposed movies:

"Bananagrams 3D”

“Apples to Apples 4D” (The audience is pummelled with apples at the end of the movie.)

“Crest Whitestrips”

“Sharks vs. Volcanoes”

“King Tut vs. King Kong”

“Streptococcus vs. Candidiasis” (Strep Throat vs. Yeast Infection)

Good ol' Clarence and Ginni

I want to read this Jeffrey Toobin article on Clarence and Ginni Thomas, but I am afraid it will be so enfuriating that I won't be able to sleep; I will be forced to stay up all night reading and re-reading while eating popsicles and nursing leftover Tecates. Is it worth it? I will report back.

If anyone is interested in a refresher course on how, until recently, the individual mandate was a conservative healthcare policy goal, achieved by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts with the help and endorsement of G. W. Bush, please see here.

Every hour, an American dies of melanoma

Also, it's not cool to look 60 when you're 40. So slather on some SPH 50+ and reapply often!

For inspiration, please read this, my favorite Shouts and Murmurs piece.

Of Course I Take Pictures of My Penis and Send Them to People

I think Anthony Weiner is getting too much press but I laughed at this.

Blood, Bones, and Butter

I might want to read this when it comes out. I read Gabrielle Hamilton's personal essay in the latest New Yorker and enjoyed it, though it took a surprise turn to tear town. Seriously! Came out of nowhere.

On the subject of food and books, I think I also want to buy this cookbook when it is reprinted. I may even eat at Julienne this weekend. Their chewy graham bars are well-received.

Judicial Activism

QUESTION FROM BARRY LOGERSON: Sometimes i just wanna grab a hold of Roberts’s smug, arrogant, ass and punch him right in the puss! How’s that for judicial activism?

Dexter Filkins moves to the New Yorker

Wartime reporting stallion Dex has moved to the New Yorker. I have no idea why, or what this means for the future of journalism, but I do know that I will continue to refuse to read The Forever War. Too scary!

Related: Why can't I find the piece his ex-wife wrote for Vogue online anywhere? It strongly informs the plot of her new book.

Lena Dunham: Inspiration or source of raging jealousy?

Lena Dunham has received a ton of press for Tiny Furniture (see: New Yorker profile, Vanity Fair blurb, NY Mag, etc.). I can't tell if I am supposed to be inspired by her success, jealous of her from-day-one artistic leanings, or pissed that she is making a pilot about post-collegiate life in New York. Mostly I am incredulous of her downtown wardrobe mentioned in the New Yorker profile: Alexander Wang and Comme de Garcons on a 24-year-old!

Casino Jack

I want to see this movie about lobbyist/criminal Jack Abramoff. The director Alex Gibney also created "Taxi to the Dark Side" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." The Enron movie is great, and especially worthwhile to anyone affected by the rolling blackouts in California in 2003 and the recall of Governor Gray Davis as a result.

"Taxi to the Dark Side" is too much for me to bear; after reading these excellent articles by Jane Mayer, I don't want to know anything more about extraordinary rendition.

A Modest Bestiary

Last week Mike and I went to see David Sedaris read at Royce Hall. He read a couple stories from his book that will be out this fall, A Modern Bestiary. All of the stories in A Modern Bestiary are about animals, but none of the stories he read featured cats. Sorry Jenny!

He also read some other work, diary entries, and answered audience questions. Hearing him speak makes me think Sedaris is much darker than the persona in his books, which is fun (for example, he recommended this book to the audience). I was surprised at how diverse the audience was; I expected it to be middle-aged and gay, but there were young and old, gay and straight, though they were 98% white (a few Asians show up).

My favorite Sedaris piece so far (full disclosure: I haven't read all of his books) is this essay that appears in the New Yorker, "Guy Walks Into a Bar Car." It includes a joke about testicles that I have tried to tell on many occasions, with poor results.

Living in Teartown

Nobody knows why we cry, but we do.

Latest stories to make me cry:

• Researching the Holt and Stone Weeks fellowship


• My second read of "The Dime Store Floor" by David Owen in the New Yorker.

Jenny sent this to me. I should buy her this out of gratitude.

The Autobiography of an Execution

Last night I listened to the Fresh Air interview with David Dow, author of Autobiography of an Execution. If the Amazon reviews are accurate, the book may not be a great read, especially if you are looking for info on the death penalty (in Texas, the most active by far of all dealth penalty states). But I found the interview to be very interesting, and recommend it (I do not, however, recommend listening to that interview, followed by this one about a little girl's advice for her unemployed dad, and then watch an episode of Intervention. I did that, with catastrophic, tearful results).

And if you want to learn more abotu the death penalty in Texas, and probably cry, you should definitely read this New Yorker article by David Grann. It is amazing and terrible.

Alternatively, if you feel that we don't have enough capital punshment, move to China!

To get paid and to get laid

Best part of the online chat with Ariel Levy regarding marriage and Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed:

QUESTION FROM CARL: I have six children, with 4 different mothers, women tell me i have commitment issues, i tend to think they’re wrong. what women don’t understand is guys want two things in life: to get paid, and to get laid. marriage is not a requisite part of either of those two goals.

New Yorker fiction is depressing

This analysis of New Yorker fiction has at least one glaring omission: no discussion of the topic or tone of the fiction. Namely, that in the past year the fiction has become increasingly depressing, to the point that I often can't fall asleep afterwards until I sing the alphabet 20 times to myself.

I don't see this addressed in the FAQ either.

For example (in reverse chronological order):

• This story set in a post-apocalyptic (due to global warming, only 30 years in the future)world involves multiple homicides and one forced miscarriage!
• I didn't even read this one by DFW, because just thinking about his suicide was awful enough.
• Ambiguously lonesome narrator stuck in Indianapolis during a snowstorm has a chance encounter with former girlfriend distraught over abduction of her two daughters? Sure!
• Oh, this girl was part of a suicide pact when she was young, survived to tell the story but spends the rest of her life trying to cut herself off from the world.
• A fat lady and her dog die prematurely in this one, and it is relatively light in tone. A humor piece compared to the others (I do like Stephen King).
• In a misguided attempt to recapture the pleasure of his youth, he returns to a part of Malawi where he did community work, only to get malaria, get robbed, and die slowly in a strange land surrounded by people who don't like him.
• After attempting to renovate his old family home, he loses all of his money and friends and the house burns down.
• This story was, for me, the most shocking. It wins points for brevity and precision. I was furious after I read it.

These are just a few examples; I could have summarized each story from the past year and included it on the list of stories that make me sick to my stomach.

The recurring theme, if there is one, is that you are alone in this world. And even when you try to connect with people, or think you have connected, you remain alone, and those bonds are fragile and transient.

THANKS A LOT.

For worse, no husband

I liked this short profile on Evan Kleiman, and really admire how involved she is in so many aspects of the LA food/dining community.

But, this quote made me sad: "For worse? No husband, she says."

Not as sad as the final paragraph of Ariel Levys' discussion of two recently published books on feminism.

"So close. And now so far. The amazing journey of American women is easier to take pride in if you banish thoughts about the roads not taken. When you consider all those women struggling to earn a paycheck while rearing their children, and start to imagine what might have been, it’s enough to make you want to burn something."

P.S. Everyone should read Levy's piece on Caster Semeya.

How much can one man eat and not die?

Jonathan Gold appears to be testing that limit every day! I found this profile to be an amusing read, though I didn't feel like I learned much.

Updated: Read the whole profile here.

I would like to see a battle of the New Yorker food-related Jonathans of late.

Related: I maintain that Jitlada is overrated!

Too Gangsta

The Sept. 14 issue of The New Yorker (the style issue) has a very readable article about online retailer Zappos. The story is interesting chiefly in its description of nice and strange CEO Tony Hsieh, and the extremely dedicated workforce. My favorite line from the piece is semi-related to the latter, and comes from a moment where the author is riding in a shuttle to the customer service headquarters in Henderson, Nevada.

On my maiden shuttle trip, the driver mentioned that the relentlessly upbeat vibe at Zappos—Core Value No. 7: Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit—had broken up her marriage. “My husband didn’t fit in with the culture,” she said. “He was too gangsta.”

TOO GANGSTA.