The internet is my boyfriend.

June 2013

1 post

On what would have been Maurice Sendak's 85th birthday:

• Terry Gross: Can you share some of your favorite comments from readers that you’ve gotten over the years?
• Maurice Sendak: Oh, there’s so many. Can I give you just one that I really like? It was from a little boy. He sent me a charming card with a little drawing. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters—sometimes very hastily—but this one I lingered over. I sent him a postcard and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim, I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Jun 10, 2013

May 2013

3 posts

“That’s the nature of any creative activity — you’re mostly going to be rejected.” —

The New Yorker’s Bob Mankoff at a recent TED salon. When Mankoff quit psychology school in 1997 to become a cartoonist, he submitted 2,000 cartoons to the New Yorker that year. Of them, 2,000 were rejected. Today, he is the magazine’s cartoon editor.

(via explore-blog)

May 17, 2013365 notes

Brownstoner Queens' New Editor Is Not Moving To Queens, But He’s Thinking About It → observer.com

Ugh.

May 17, 2013

“An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the products sold at By Brooklyn. The store does not sell dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup, and Early Bird granola ‘gathered in Brooklyn.’ An earlier version also referred incorrectly to the thoroughfare that contains the thrift shop Vice Versa. It is Bedford Avenue, not Bedford Street, or Bedfoprd Avenue, as stated in an earlier correction.” —NYT via Poynter

May 3, 20131 note

April 2013

4 posts

Listen

The real history of the Southern drawl. (more info)

Apr 17, 2013178,925 notes

So The New Kids on the Block have a new album.

Let’s start counting now what percentage of stories about this will begin with something to the effect of “while no longer new or kids.”

And we’re off to the races.

Apr 11, 20131 note

Being 20 wasn't actually that much fun.

Turning 30 soon. Googled “30 is the new 20,” and all the results are about how 30 is not the new 20 after all. Well, phew.

Apr 4, 20131 note

Play

Apr 2, 2013

March 2013

6 posts

“Yvonne Brill is believed to have been the only woman in the United States who was actually doing rocket science in the mid-1940s… Part of Mrs. Brill’s rationale for going into rocket engineering was that virtually no other women were doing so. “I reckoned they would not invent rules to discriminate against one person,” she said.” —Yvonne Brill, Rocket Scientist

Mar 31, 20131 note

Polari: Ancient gay slang? → en.wikipedia.org

“Polari is a form of cant slang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, merchant navy sailors, criminals, prostitutes and the gay subculture… There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced back to at least the 19th century and possibly the 16th century.”

(h/t @ Queer Museum & see also: Polari Glossary)

Mar 29, 20131 note

And the second runner-up for Miss USPS goes to a colony of mold spores

rubyspurflower:

Being called “a pretty lady” at the post office is like winning “most charismatic carbon-based being” in a room full of dead leaves. 

My friend Caitlin is really the queen of the vivid simile.

Mar 22, 20136 notes

“Find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.” —David Ferguson, The Onion

Mar 20, 20131 note

Pictures of Hipsters Taking Pictures of Food → pohtpof.tumblr.com

This Tumblr is so meta I can hardly stand it. (h/t MUG)

Mar 20, 2013

Mar 14, 2013

February 2013

2 posts

Pick a Year. → newloren.com

People have prophesied that the world will end this year—almost every year. Click through to read them all!

(via @sapinker)

Feb 12, 2013

Feb 5, 20131 note

January 2013

4 posts

Women Laughing Alone With Salad | The Hairpin → thehairpin.com

Title says it all.

Jan 30, 2013

Jan 16, 201358,014 notes

Jan 11, 2013

“Sometimes not only you, but every other single person you might look to, has absolutely no idea what to do. No one. If you’re past a certain age, there is no authority to whom you can go caterwauling when things go wrong. I would have anticipated this would frighten me, but it doesn’t; I find it reassuring. It makes you feel gentler about the world, about other people’s imperfections, about the degree to which a hurt may or may not have been intended. None of us knows what to do! We are all only doing our best! It would probably do us well to be kind to each other about that.” —Carrie Frye

Jan 7, 20131 note