Still Not Going To Do This Every Day

gq: 18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:18:47 -0500

18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars,
2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque,
and 1 Man Dead in Ohio

Your longread of the day / week / month / year? GQ’s Chris Heath brings you the astonishing true story of the Zanesville zoo massacre—which began when a depressed, desperate man named Terry Thompson turned loose his 56 exotic animals in rural Ohio, touching off a mass slaughter that was covered around the world. Below, just a very brief portion of the story from its opening section. The full piece is here. Read it. We solemnly swear you will not be disappointed.

Inside the barn Sam Kopchak locked the doors, then telephoned his mother, sitting in front of the TV about a hundred yards away back in the house. There was, he told her, “a major problem.” They’d long known that there were strange and unusual animals kept out of sight over the brow of the hill around Thompson’s house—often they could hear lions bellow and roar. “We didn’t have any idea how many there were,” Mrs. Kopchak would later reflect. But they assumed that these two runaways must have come from there, so the first thing Mrs. Kopchak did was to dial her neighbor’s number.

No answer.

Only then did she call 911 and alert the world. She sounded calm when she reported what her son had seen, as though there was really nothing too strange or alarming about a lion and a bear running loose on an October afternoon in Ohio. But maybe she was a little rattled. When the 911 operator asked for her first name, Mrs. Kopchak answered “Dolores,” the name on her birth certificate but one she never uses: “I’ve been called Dolly for eighty-four years.”

Her son remained trapped in the barn. From there, looking through a north-facing window, he watched the menagerie grow. Along came a wolf. And a second bear, this one much larger than the first. And there was the lion he had seen before, now pacing back and forth. And also a lioness, anxiously scuttering around. “And then,” he says, “I saw a tiger. I’m telling you, the lion is bad enough, and the lioness is bad enough, and the wolf is bad, and the bear, but…don’t be around the tiger. The tigers are actually bigger than the lions if they’re fully grown. He started snarling, and went after the horses.”

[Photographs byTim Flach]

"My husband can not fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:12:32 -0500

“My husband can not fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.”

- Gisele Bundchen, speaking truth.

nycgov: Congrats, Giants! We’re getting ready for tomorrow’s championship celebration at City...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:54:22 -0500

nycgov:

Congrats, Giants!

We’re getting ready for tomorrow’s championship celebration at City Hall Plaza. Live in NY, NJ or CT? Click here to enter to win 2 VIP tickets.

Public Service Announcement.

Is A Reblog The New Byline?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:35:31 -0500

futurejournalismproject:

Interesting idea submitted by Alakananda Mookerjee (blog / Tumblr) — FJP.

My reloaded résumé quotes a quixotic statistic—the number of my original and curated posts. I mention the number of times I have reblogged others, and others, have reblogged me.

No, I am quipping. But, stick around.

As nearly all of us know, today, the profession of news reporting is in a state of creative destruction.

This is the Golden Age of Social Networks. It is the heyday of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Google+, among countless other networks.

To borrow a phrase from David Brooks’ op-ed in The New York Times, “The Saga of Sister Kiki, “online, eyeballs and page-views are king.”

But, regardless, a byline is what it is—a prestige. And the more venerable a publication it appears in, the greater its journalistic stock value.

When reputable news organizations, everyone from The Economist to The New Yorker to the NPR have eagerly taken up social blogging, it is not terribly irrelevant to ask if getting reblogged on Tumblr, by a media heavyweight, is the digital equivalent of a byline in its print or online version.

A narcissistic life-form, who believes in selfless self-promotion, may well put that on her or his résumé, stating that her or his post was reblogged by The Washington Post.

No?

Can’t wait to see “As Reblogged by the Washington Post” on ads worldwide.

ilovecharts: Smile Clearly, Brian Wilson didn’t get...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:36:26 -0500

ilovecharts:

Smile

Clearly, Brian Wilson didn’t get around as much as he claimed.

jeannebrooks: curiositycounts: This map of state funding cuts...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:07:36 -0500

jeannebrooks:

curiositycounts:

This map of state funding cuts to public media is enough to make you donate to your favorite library or radio station

Reblogging because on the one hand I’m shocked that my home state of Kansas cut $1.7 million from public media funding and on the other hand I’m shocked that my home state of Kansas was even giving $1.7 million to public media.

jenna: Ok, Cooper. Das reicht jetzt. I think the ‘world...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:48:42 -0500

jenna:

Ok, Cooper. Das reicht jetzt.

I think the ‘world will end in ice’ people are winning.

"Late afternoon of April 25. The window slats casting bars of shadow all over his room in the ICU. I..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:21:05 -0500

“Late afternoon of April 25. The window slats casting bars of shadow all over his room in the ICU. I had asked my mom and dad if they’d mind giving me a moment alone with him, since I still wasn’t sure he knew quite who I was. I did know he wasn’t aware of being inside a hospital; his most recent idea was that we were all back at my grandparents’ house having a party, and at one point he slipped loose and went to the nurses’ station to find out whether his tux was ready. Now we were sitting there in his room. Neither of us was speaking. Worth was jabbing a fork into his Jell-O, and I was just watching, waiting to see what would come out. Earlier that morning, he’d been scared by the presence of so many “strangers,” and I didn’t want to upset him any more. Things went on in silence like this for maybe five minutes. Very quietly, he began to weep, his shoulders heaving with the force of emotion. I didn’t touch him; I just let him cry. A minute went by. I asked him, “Worth, why are you crying?” “I was thinking of the vision I had when I knew I was dead.” Certain that I’d heard him right, I asked him again anyway. He repeated it in the same flat tone: “I was thinking of the vision I had when I knew I was dead.” How could he know he’d been dead, when he didn’t even know we were in a hospital, or that anything unusual had happened to him? Had a sudden clarity overtaken him? “What was it? What was your vision?” He looked up. The tears were gone. He seemed calm and serious. “I was on the banks of the River Styx,” he said. “The boat came to row me across, but .. instead of Charon, it was Huck and Jim. Only, when Huck pulled back his hood, he was an old man … like, ninety years old or something.” My brother put his face in his hands and cried a little more. Then he seemed to forget all about it. According to my notes, the next words out of his mouth were, “Check this out—I’ve got the Andrews Sisters in my milkshake.””

-
Feet In Smoke: A Story About Electrified Near-Death

This is pretty fantastic from John Jeremiah Sullivan, and I suspect the book is even better.

Alex Balk: Weirdest fortune cookie ever.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:14:30 -0500

Alex Balk: Weirdest fortune cookie ever.:

alexbalk:

“Years later you will realize that Mike’s crazy girlfriend was a person just like you, and maybe the things that you and your group snickered about and gave Mike shit for were actually signs that she was as damaged as everybody else and had the basic insecurities that we all do, and actually Mike…

Honestly, if Alex Balk wrote fortune cookies I would eat Chinese every day for the rest of my life.

This is going to be the cover for our first album.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:39:27 -0500

This is going to be the cover for our first album.

O Estado de São Paulo: A surpresa que veio do Brasil

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:36:58 -0500

O Estado de São Paulo: A surpresa que veio do Brasil:

radiofreeandrew:

NOVA YORK - Não faz nem cinco meses, a rede de blogs Tumblr era apenas uma promissora empresa de internet no vasto universo de startups de tecnologia americanas. Em setembro passado, no entanto, investidores - e concorrentes - passaram a olhar de forma diferente para o site de hospedagem de blogs criado pelo americano David Karp em 2007.

...

This picture was taken on my first day at work at Tumblr, in July 2010. It’s been an amazing ride so far, and I feel so lucky to have been a part of this.

Whoa. Nice to Senator McCaskill upping her Tumblr game.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:53:00 -0500

Whoa. Nice to Senator McCaskill upping her Tumblr game.

Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr: Tumblr Tuesday

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:11:54 -0500

Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr: Tumblr Tuesday:

motherjones:

We don’t endorse candidates. We do, however, wholeheartedly endorse these Tumblrs:

jspong: Texas Monthly senior editor John Spong, purveyor of old photos of famous people from Texas.

hollybailey: Writes about the 2012 race for Yahoo! News! Follow for instragrams of Mitt Romney looking at…

Seconded

In which we are reminded of how much we love Network Awesome,...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:37:33 -0500

In which we are reminded of how much we love Network Awesome, especially when viewed through this theme.

austinkleon: Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence I tore...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:07:51 -0500

austinkleon:

Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence

I tore through this. Lethem’s original 2007 Harper’s essay was a huge influence on Steal Like An Artist and probably a bunch of other people. (Heck, David Shields took the method of the essay and turned it into a whole book, although I’m guessing from Lethem’s acknowledgements, their influence on each other is a two-way street.) I had fun in the book version of the essay, highlighting and annotating the passages from other sources, showing the unmarked passages that Lethem wrote as the glue between them.

It’s such a big book (over 400 pages) that it’s impossible to share all my underlines, but this passage from the intro says a lot:

[I pit myself] compulsively against bogus valorizing notions of originality, authenticity, or naturalism in the arts….For if we consent that what appears natural in art is actually constructed from series of hidden postures, decisions, and influences, etc., we make ourselves eligible to weight the notion that what’s taken as natural in our experience of everyday life could actually be a construction as well.

Other than his writing on other writers and influence, I really loved his pieces about musicians. His piece on Rick James, his profile of James Brown, and interview (!) with Bob Dylan are all very much worth reading.

Again, it’s a huge book, not as tight or as focused as The Disappointment Artist, but not meant to be either.

Recommended.

Still working on this, but, yes. Highly recommended.

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY'

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:40:31 -0500

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY':

murkavenue:

CLUE 1:
“went to short dogs house,
they was watching Yo MTV
RAPS”
Yo MTV RAPS first aired:
Aug 6th 1988
CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on:
Feb 23 1993
CLUE 3:
”The Lakers beat the Super
Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…

I would have also looked for “Days Where Ice Cube Didn’t Have to Use His AK”, but this is pretty thorough.

Today in Tumblrs We Love: Dispatches from the American Now, a...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:05:00 -0500

Today in Tumblrs We Love: Dispatches from the American Now, a great new Tumblr from American Public Media.

Nathan Englander is now on Tumblr!

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:10:00 -0500

aaknopf:

Worth a follow.

res ipsa loquitur!

Pro Tip, MTA: It doesn’t inspire confidence if your...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:00:55 -0500

Pro Tip, MTA: It doesn’t inspire confidence if your elevators come with a built-in “Out of Service” sign

Livestreaming: The State of the Union

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:19:46 -0500

Livestreaming: The State of the Union

Still Not Going To Do This Every Day

gq: 18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1...

18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio

"My husband can not fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe..."

nycgov: Congrats, Giants! We’re getting ready for tomorrow’s championship celebration at City...

Is A Reblog The New Byline?

ilovecharts: Smile Clearly, Brian Wilson didn’t get...

jeannebrooks: curiositycounts: This map of state funding cuts...

jenna: Ok, Cooper. Das reicht jetzt. I think the ‘world...

"Late afternoon of April 25. The window slats casting bars of shadow all over his room in the ICU. I..."

Alex Balk: Weirdest fortune cookie ever.

This is going to be the cover for our first album.

O Estado de São Paulo: A surpresa que veio do Brasil

Whoa. Nice to Senator McCaskill upping her Tumblr game.

Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr: Tumblr Tuesday

In which we are reminded of how much we love Network Awesome,...

austinkleon: Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence I tore...

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY'

Today in Tumblrs We Love: Dispatches from the American Now, a...

Nathan Englander is now on Tumblr!

Pro Tip, MTA: It doesn’t inspire confidence if your...

Livestreaming: The State of the Union

18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars,
2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque,
and 1 Man Dead in Ohio