Nutcracker at the Lincoln Center.
Things that I consumed in the past week
Books I finished:
- Michael Lewis’ Boomerang
Books in progress:
- Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending
- Kevin Wilson’s The Family Fang
- I started Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories by Bill Frank but I got bored!
Articles:
- “Choosing” by Jeff Moskovitz in Tablet Magazine, on 81-year-old Israeli novelist who sued to become the first official secular Jew in Israel
- “A Monster Among the Frum” by Matthew Shaer in New York magazine
- “Loving a Madoff” by Laurie Sandell in Marie Clare
- “U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over,” in the NYT
- “How to get Unstuck,” by Sugar in The Rumpus (this is a favorite)
Food:
- Margherita pizza that I made
- Gnocchi with tomato sauce and ricotta; shaved Brussels sprouts salad from Frankie’s Spuntino (their gnocchi is to-die-for)
- Fish tacos with guacomole and salsa
- Tapas (patatas bravas, shrimp, cheese) at Socorrat
- Japanese food takeout, at least once, maybe even twice
- I made the ginger spice cookies—again
- Lots and lots of Tulsi green tea
- Oatmeal for brunch with homemade mimosas
- A bunch of Italian tapas-style dishes at Bocca Lupo in Cobble Hill
- A simple salad from Delectica, which I was pleased to stumble upon after reading raves about it in Geoff Dyer’s Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (a personal favorite)
- Half of a grapefruit
TV:
- Parks and Recreation: charming, as ever (Please, can Amy Poehler write a book already?)
- The Office (kinda sad last week)
- The Wire (SO good)
Film:
- We Need to Talk about Kevin starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver and directed by Lynne Ramsay. Basically, We Didn’t Need to See This Movie.
“We face a demand for freedom from religion in the civil registry,” the verdict read. “Freedom from religion is derived from human dignity, which is protected in the basic law: human dignity and liberty. When the given law is laconic, the fundamental right shall decide, which tilts the scales in favor of the claimant and his self-definition in the registry.”
— on 81 year old novelist Yoram Kaniuk, who sued to become the first Jew in Israel officially labeled “without religion.” The result has sparked a movement towards official secularism. Read “Choosing” in Tablet Magazine by Jeff Moskovitz, an inspiring piece of journalism.
Aaand the award for best caption writing of the day goes to Outside magazine for the above image: Aieee! Shrunken heads from Ecuador.
Straightforward and to the point. Gets the message across.
(via longreads)
A documentary about Victor Gottesman, the founder of the French NGO & Biket Initiative’s partner, Grain de Sable, an organization devoted to providing children in Mali, West Africa with bicycles. Donate to Biket Initiative’s Kickstarter campaign. Why do these children need bikes? For starters, they’ll help them reach schools, clean drinking water and medical care. Learn more about this and see Mother Jones’ 10 smart, charitable Kickstarter projects to consider when you’re giving holiday gifts.
Google Documents Past and Present
Item from my Google docs: “Should I go to law school?” Last modified in September. A question, reaching back to probably the early 2000’s. I remember sitting on a stone bench in Florence, Italy when I was 20 and studying abroad and furiously scribbling in my leather diary about my growing doubts on the topic. It never stops! The only thing in this document is a quote that I found in the slightly biased “Why I love being a lawyer” cover story in the American Bar Association journal, arguably an entry in the “pro” column: Best job in the world: I get paid to read, write, think, talk and argue—all things I would do anyway.
Read, write, think, talk, argue. All things I do anyway, too. And then I read this article in Slate, “Paying Students to Quite Law School.” Sheesh.
Declining marriage rates via NPR, a report that is slightly reminiscent of Japan’s own changing trends. “But what it does bring home to us is that we can no longer pretend that marriage is the central organizing principle of society,” Coontz says.
“She had to do more than hold on. She had to reach. She had to want it more than she’d ever wanted anything. She had to grab like a drowning girl for every good thing that came her way and she had to swim like fuck away from every bad thing. She had to count the years and let them roll by, to grow up and then run as far as she could in the direction of her best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by her own desire to heal.”
— The lovely and amazing Sugar, always an inspiration, on reaching. From “How You Get Unstuck” on Stephen Elliott’s The Rumpus.
“But Ms. Gable said such background checks were the one thing she needed Facebook for. “If I have a crush on a guy, I’ll make my friends look him up for me,” Ms. Gable said. “But that’s as far as it goes.”
This woman. She’s incredible!
Amy Sedaris
Jerri Blank.
LOL e-mail subjects from my Gmail inbox
I just got an email from a certainly daily website whose subject line says:
Your Apartment Called: It Wants a “Dwell” Magazine Subscription
Really? Are you sure what it was saying that and not garbled by some bad AT&T connection? ‘Cuz I think what it wants is a new couch, a fancy new coffeemaker (sorry, French press!), to be in a less noisy location, and actually maybe just a total makeover. Now that we’re on the subject, it might not even want to be an apartment in the first place. Did you even bother to ask? I get the sense, email subject line, that you’re not really listening. And that’s all it wants, my apartment. That, and all those other housewares I’ve just mentioned. Oh yes, also a New York Times subscription. It’s getting sick of hitting the paywall so much. What a demanding little apartment! Could be depression.
This never gets old.
This won “Best Animal Photo” at our Web Awards last night. Check out the rest of the winners
This made us laugh.
