May 2010
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“Pistachio nuts, the red ones, cure any problem. When I’m upset or...”
– opening paragraph to The Pistachio Prescription by Paula Danziger
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Questions that authors are never asked
From The Guardian
Margaret Atwood
Why are you such a pushover for everyone who wants you to do stuff for them?
I was the child who refused to eat her Easter rabbit-shaped cookie because I wanted to talk to it. I should just have learned early to bite the heads off quick. Otherwise the rabbits start telling you their tales, and then it’s game over.
Will you never learn?
Apparently not. I...
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A Writer's Ruminations: The Summer Day by Mary... →
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who is gazing around with her…
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“If the Christian faith claims to speak of the truth, it must have some...”
– Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine
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“People, one day we’re going to realize all these anti-sex, anti-gay-marriage, pro-abstinence, family values weirdos — all of them have something to hide. It’s just a matter of time until they’re all outed as sexual hypocrites…They’re all hiding something. It really should reach a point where somebody is a family values conservative, and the first...
“‘Then what is a Southern belle?’ Granny demanded.
‘A state of mind,’ Herb said. ‘One which Evelyn is geographically incapable of achieving. The belle is a product of the Deep South, which is a product of the nineteenth century and the Age of Romanticism. Virginia is a product of the eighteenth century. It’s impossible to extract a belle from the Age of...
in a democracy...
kerryshaw:
… we’re all responsible for our government’s actions, because we’re responsible for electing the government. Even if we, the people, don’t do anything wrong, we put the wrongdoers in place.
Sarah Vowell, Take The Cannoli: Stories from the New World
Holy smokes I love this quote. It’s exactly what was on my mind when I started this blog. The ellipsis-pair is mine, otherwise this is...
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In other, better news,
Dorothy Snarker hits us up with two awesome collections of Tina Fey videos. Ms. Snarker can’t get enough of this brilliant/hilarious/super hot woman, and neither can I. The two of them are fake married, but don’t think I’m not next in line for when Tina files for fake divorce.
At After Ellen
At Dorothy Surrenders
Really, Salon?
Sadly, instead, these incredibly shallow mock-feminists can’t even bother to have one decent conversation with a Muslim woman, because they’re too immersed in picnics on the desert and singing Arab disco karaoke renditions of “I Am Woman.”
- Wajahat Ali at Salon
Look, I’m not saying that most of this article isn’t correct on one level, but on another level...
“Alice came to the fork in the road.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where...”
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (via treee, sans-serif, justbesplendid, justgo) (via vainbuthonest) (via ghostgrl) (via chickadette)
The Rumpus Red Carpet Report: The One Story... →
I need to figure out how to get an invite to the next event like this. (Who am I kidding? I will totally clear tables, though. Or otherwise be the help.) One Story, perhaps you should take notice of this Tumblr post.
To Kill a Mockingbird Celebration Weekend! →
Do not think that I would not go to Alabama in July just for this.
awritersruminations:
(via weelittleactress)
Obituary: Dorothy Kamenshek / Player portrayed in... →
Because Dorothy Kamenshek did what she did and because what she did means that A League of Their Own happened.
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“In fact, Sweet Valley is a microcosm of the real world. Many girls who started...”
– Francine Pascal in the note at the end of Sweet 18, the very last Sweet Valley book, published in 2003.
“Whenever I am asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for...”
– Flannery O’Connor (via awritersruminations)
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Mrs. Dalloway's publishing birthday
So, I subscribe to The Writer’s Almanac on my Google Reader and get pretty giddy when the day includes writers or pieces of writing that I love. It’s probably pretty obvious that I’m quite delighted that it’s the publishing birthday of Mrs. Dalloway. Here’s what The Writer’s Almanac has to say on the subject:
It was on this day in 1925 that Virginia...
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From a concert a long time ago
Dar Williams: Chapin, you're in Vogue because of those shoes. Patty, you're the "Fall into Romance" spread in Elle. And Shawn, Shawn you're "Pretty in Pink"...in Seventeen.
Shawn Colvin: What about you, Dar?
Dar Williams: I'm the designer in the bottom corner, like Donna Karen. Here are all my bright, beautiful clothes, and here I am in a black smock.
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“Watching Bewitched and The Brady Bunch again, I was flummoxed as to why they...”
– Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates
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Theory, Literature, Hoax →
“We love stories as much as we need them, but a funny thing has happened to departments of literature. The study of literature as an art form, of its techniques for delighting and instructing, has been replaced by an amalgam of bad epistemology and worse prose that goes by many names but can be summed up as Theory. The situation seems to call for a story, and one written in the style...
“…there are people whose reality is cut up into such a number of little fragments...”
– Katherine Mansfield (via katherinemansfieldproject) (via awritersruminations)
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My dad and I talk baseball on gchat
Dad: wow the Pirates are better than the Cubs at the moment
Me: how? they lost 20-nothing and then other horrible things. did the cubs just sit in the grass and braid each other's hair? that's the only way they could be worse
Dad: we must be
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"won't you celebrate with me" - Lucille Clifton
won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.
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Betty White's SNL Digital Short →
This seriously makes my entire life. Thanks, Vin.
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Dear SNL,
That was a delight. Serious warm fuzzies going on.
The first person to find me a good quality video of the Digital Short will become my new best friend.
Love, Amy
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What Betty White on SNL means to me or, how I...
I am high off of Saturday Night Live. This is why I write about TV, why I love TV. Even in the few dragging moments of the episode, it was an hour and a half of laughter and togetherness. I couldn’t be more serious.
We all have our SNL casts, the cast of our teenage years, and mine is with Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer. You know which cast I’m talking about. When my little sister texted me...
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Cheri Oteri on Returning to TV, Becoming a Life... →
“Saturday Night Live alum Cheri Oteri, best known as the other half of the Spartan Cheerleaders (with Will Ferrell), has returned to TV comedy with a new AMC ‘comic mini-drama,’ Life Coach. The show follows an eccentric life coach, played by Oteri, and began airing as commercials on the network last month; the full episodes begin tonight. Vulture recently spoke with Oteri about...
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Cheri Oteri →
Of all the women on SNL tonight, Cheri Oteri is most notably missing.
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What Betty White hosting 'SNL' says about our... →
“It’s the simplest sort of television-era algebra: Let Sue Ann Nivens equal x. Let Rose Nylund equal y. Take the square root of all the love America has left to give. (Take those nights spent watching ‘Golden Girls’ reruns on the Hallmark Channel, with the tray of microwave brownies and the fuzzy blankie — don’t pretend you don’t know.)”
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“What the internet is creating is a class of literate, gifted amateur writers, in...”
– Roger Ebert (via azspot) (via awritersruminations)
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“…amateurs were more romantic, seeing the wireless as a utopian form of...”
– Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV
(Why I don’t get particularly stressed when people fret about the Internet.)
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Gilda Radner madness
My dad went through the first five seasons of SNL and extracted all of the Roseanne Roseannadanna skits for me. First, this is exactly where I get my nerdy tunnel-vision projects. Second, I pretty much have the coolest dad ever.
Gareth Thomas ... The Only Openly Gay Male Athlete →
One of the best articles I’ve read in quite some time. Thanks for the link, Katy.
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“Second base is reading Tennyson.”
– Sarah, Parenthood 