New Yorkers are complaining about the cold. Do they know how bad it is in Boston1? Even their garbage fire of an ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani can’t warm them up. That reminds me of a joke: what’s black and white and just read Rudy Giuliani all over? The New York Times! Remember when they tried to sell Rudy to us as “America’s Mayor?” He’s so awful that try as he might (and he really did try), even Chait couldn’t find a way to defend him.
A charming pair of new acquaintances is living their best life in Chula Vista, CA, and elsewhere in embarrassing things to see in public, TLDR posted the Vivek Wadhwa episode update, and, as they say, “it’s like a trainwreck.” But it’s a strange kind of trainwreck where an idiot blowhard runs as fast as he can into the front of a stationary train and then lies on the tracks screaming that he’s been run over. Just one of the incredible exchanges in this podcast:
Meredith Haggerty: Kelly Ellis is the woman who we’re talking about. She tweeted at you. She’s a software engineer, according to her Twitter bio.
Vivek Wadhwa: Neither you nor I have spoken to her or know who she is.
Meredith Haggerty: I mean, I have spoken to her.
And of course, Wadhwa immediately took to Twitter to complain about it, which led to this:
.@wadhwa so what you’re saying is, it’s actually about ethics in journalism
— Sarah Jeong (@sarahjeong) February 20, 2015
I think we’re done here.
Net dot sleaze Hunter Moore is going to jail. David Brooks has a long road ahead of him but it’s great to see him taking the first step. Maybe we should all mail him dickbutt for encouragement. If you can’t quite find the right words for the card, try the Emotional Labor email extension!!!!! 😉 Keira Knightley: Maths? Maths? Maths? Maths!” Near-tragedy at Balthazar, but Denton survived. Unfortunately, so has Ello. No word yet from Taylor, but Business Insider is on it.
Good Things to Read on a Friday:
- Casey N. Cep went to Monroeville to investigate the mystery of the new Harper Lee book for The New Yorker dot com.
- Laura Olin, who writes my favorite newsletter Everything Changes, made a Thought Clock.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates is probably the only person both qualified and talented enough to wrote the farewell David Carr deserves, and he did so in The Atlantic.
- Johannah King-Slutzky in The Awl: “The Secret of the Bro“
- Kyle Chayka on the .nyc TLD and gentrifying the ‘net.
- Please stop being surprised that Alexis Coe isn’t gay.
With their Kickstarter backing now at over eight million dollars, Exploding Kittens should make it a stretch goal to hire an artist.
— Greg Knauss (@gknauss) February 19, 2015
We only have one more week with intern Vicky! And she never did learn to make a decent cup of coffee. She’s pretty good at the writing though, so get her to write for you.
The ‘mystery’ of black women’s hair can be a source of much indignity. Even for professional models, finding someone who can work with black hair is a challenge:
“If you’re hired for a job, you expect everyone to be on-point,” Brandee says. “They show up, know what they’re doing, and stay focused. That’s why they’re working; that’s their specialty. So, to show up as a hairstylist and not know how to work with Black hair — how is that professional?”
At some point, I stopped wanting to get my hair done in the basements of women my mother knows. Instead, I went to salons where a well-meaning stylist would wet my hair for a decent tip. Sure, it was needlessly expensive but between the hand massage, the smoothie, and the flash of panic in the stylists’ eyes, I knew I could at least look forward to buying a new headscarf.
But I am tired of that too. I am now in the natural hair phase, which involves more olive oil than a Mario Batali cookbook. Simply put, going natural is about no longer using chemicals to straighten one’s hair. When I started, I had dreams of looking like the love child of Diana Ross and Angela Davis. That has yet to occur, which is why I am now in the uncomfortable position of sympathizing with Kim Jong Un.
Get you some earrings, girl. It’ll grow out eventually.
See? That was outstanding. I can’t even neg. Sorry, Bijan.
Today’s Song: Stephen Malkmus and Some Band That Isn’t Pavement covering Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space“
~All right stop what you’re doing cause I’m about to ruin the image and the tabs that you’re used to~
Read us on Fast Company or subscribe Is this week over yet? How about now?
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1 J/k no one really cares how bad it is in Boston.