A foreign talisman holds great power, but those who use it do so at their peril. In the grand TMN tradition of celebrating Halloween, our editors and writers create new endings to a well-known scary story.
My Contemporary British TV Detectives
Who Loves You, Lynley?
To try and demonstrate why Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is the third best detective in contemporary British television, as viewed by me, I bottomed out in YouTube and woke up in a dumpster of mush clips, or mash videos, or something—I have no idea what they’re called, but my eyes are quivering, and I think I rode a unicorn.
Air Google
In Zarafshan
Cruising and boozing around Uzbekistan, a Canadian reporter winds up in a place that gives no logical reason to visit, where the question Why? has no answer. Fortunately, virtual travel remains risk-free, except for all the beer.
Fieldwork
Danger Ahead
We asked you to show us how close the recession is to your doorstep, and here’s our first submission, straight out of Big D:
Name: Lindsay Graham
Location: Dallas, Texas
Recovery/downturn: I have NO idea whether this is recession or recovery, but it’s unsettling nonetheless. (An unrepaired leak is a mark of the downturn, but that a sign was purchased and set up portends recovery. —Eds)
Distance from home: Three blocks
Send your photos of recession or recovery to talk@themorningnews.org. Please also include where you took it and how far it is from your home.
Crushes on Strangers
That Girl
“Guess who my new wife is,” my friend IMed me one morning. This was not an unusual way to begin a conversation. His previous wives had included Minka Kelly from Friday Night Lights, and Lenny Kravitz’s daughter, Zoe. None of them were his actual wife, whom he had been happily married to for years.
I did not know the woman in question, though her face was plastered all around New York at the time, and my friend certainly wasn’t the only one noticing. “Who is that girl in the T-Mobile ad” turns up 199 million Google results. That was his first thought upon seeing her, actually. Not, Wow, she's hot, but, Who is that girl? Do I know her from somewhere?
“I’m pretty sure it was the dress,” he says now. “She was wearing a really cute pink-and-white sundress.” The sundresses play a leading role in this story, as sundresses have quite a hold on the erotic imagination. Another guy I know refers with longing not to the first day of summer, but to the first day of sundresses. Continue Reading
Guides to America
Arbotchery
Across the country, in cities large and small, trees are being hacked, whacked, and chopped into unnatural shapes in the name of the power company. An illustrated catalog of abuse.
Late last month the artist Bob Cassilly was killed in an accident on the grounds of Cementland, the 54-acre disused cement factory near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in St. Louis that he was transforming into something uniquely fantastic.
Since 2000, more than 182,000 truckloads of dirt have been unloaded at the park, then sculpted by Bob and his crew, mostly by bulldozer (presumably, that is what Bob was doing when he had his fatal accident). It’s hard to describe the project but at one point it was slated to include obsolete cement-making machinery grinding away, navigable waterways connecting the buildings and other remnants of the former factory, waterfalls, beaches atop high hills, and a “skywalk” that would allow visitors a picturesque view of downtown St. Louis.
It’s a strange project, but it seems perfectly logical in the context of Bob’s unconventional, brilliant career. Continue Reading
Gimme Fiction
Sex Lives of the Saints
Once you begin imagining yourself as the romantic lead in a novel—and convince others of it as well—you won’t want to stop.
Excerpts
How to Paint an Oak Tree
Made famous in Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Stephen Taylor spent three years painting the same oak tree over and over again, in all weather, day and night. In an excerpt from his new book, Taylor walks us through his painting process.
Late Night Sports Radio
Homage to Terrence Malick, Part Two
My wife Laurie and I are back at my family’s river house near Bath, North Carolina. The visit got off to a rough start the first night when a cap on one of my teeth popped off. Simultaneously, the landlines went out, and (of course) the pathetic AT&T; mobile signal won’t reach anything but densely populated (blue state) areas. By noon the next day, however, my cap was replaced and the landlines were restored.
This morning I went to the Old Town Country Kitchen in Bath to get something to eat. Bath has a population of 268. It was the first incorporated town in North Carolina, and once even the state capitol. Today it remains one the most beautiful access points to the state’s coast, but its formerly proud Bath High School is boarded up, the farming and fishing industries nothing like they once were. Continue Reading
Men & Women / Men & Men / Women & Women
The Things She Carried
Once a relationship is past the point of repair, once her Go Bag is packed for leaving, some things are better set down on paper than spoken aloud.
Sound Advice
Girl Talk
Lesley Kinzel’s Open Letter to Teenage Girls contains some awesome advice. I wish someone had told me this stuff when I was a teenager. I don’t know if I would have listened, but maybe some of it would have gotten through.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of modern girlhood lately. My husband and I have 10 much-younger girl cousins between us, mostly in middle and high school, and I’m getting ready to buy Christmas gifts for many of them. I don’t have kids; instead of trying to guess what these girls might want, I just give them what I think every girl needs. This always brings out my inner bluestocking, a mash-up of Gertrude Stein, Jane Austen, George Sand, and Virginia Woolf, with just a bit of Jane Pratt on the side. This posse and I go to the bookstore to buy novels with smart, brave heroines that every girl should read.
I think every girl also needs Lesley’s advice. I think it’s so spot-on, I’m going to shamelessly add my own page to her open letter. Continue Reading
Following the Riots
The Barber Comes Around
When London’s Tottenham district fell to youth-driven chaos this past August, an elderly barber almost lost everything. Then other young people stepped in to keep him cutting.
New York's Roadside Attractions
St. Paul’s Church
On Saturday I took the subway farther north than I ever had, coming to the 5 train’s end at the Eastchester–Dyre Avenue stop. Technically I wasn’t even in the Bronx anymore, but in Westchester County. Walking about 10 minutes north from the stop put me at the National Historic Site of St. Paul’s Church in Mount Vernon, formerly colonial Eastchester. Construction on the church began on the Eastchester Village Green in 1763. The cemetery outside the church predates it, containing stones that date back to 1704. The church wasn’t finished by the start of the Revolutionary War, and wouldn’t be completed until Oct. 24, 1805. During that time, since the United States had disassociated from the Anglican church, St. Paul’s became incorporated under an Episcopal congregation.
I decided to visit the site last weekend because of an event commemorating the Battle of Pell’s Point, fought about a mile from the church on Oct. 18, 1776. It was a gorgeous day, and one of the first that truly felt like autumn here in New York. I talked my friend Paul into being my photographer for the day, and as we approached we could smell the wood burning to stoke the blacksmith’s fire. The church itself is quite beautiful in its modesty, small and quaint compared to the cathedrals of larger cities. The greatest incongruity comes in looking across the street, where the industrial community sprang up around the church in the centuries since its construction. From the entrance to the church you can see an auto body shop and various nondescript warehouses. Continue Reading
Letters From Tel Aviv
Marriage, Israeli Style
For Israelis of a certain age, marriage beckons. But in this cradle of so many religions, a tangle of ancient rules and modern laws makes things surprisingly complicated.
My Contemporary British TV Detectives
Inspector, Find Thyself
Robbie Lewis (Kevin Whately) isn’t what you’d call lucky. As the sidekick in Inspector Morse, Lewis was a beat-up, working-class dad/husband/copper with baggy cheeks who, for 13 seasons, played straight man to Morse’s older, wiser, eccentric genius.
Then Morse died and Lewis got a promotion and his own show, Lewis, to keep solving murder cases in Oxford, the university town he dislikes. You’d think they’d let Lewis to retire to Newcastle, but no. At the start, his wife’s killed in a car accident. And his children virtually disappear once the new show begins. Instead, Lewis is saddled with Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox) for a sidekick—a younger, smarter, eccentric dreamboat. Continue Reading
Notes From #WallStreet
Meditations in an Occupation
I arrived at Zuccotti Park for the first time last Friday night as a group of drummers on the east side of the park were performing a collective improvisation—including a guy on a real drum set. It was amusing, but not memorable. I walked into the camp, and soon met three SUNY Stony Brook graduate students: Leo, Danilo, and Dan. “You look like Sparrow,” Leo said. No one ever recognizes me (his father knew me from my website). I’m less famous than the drummer of the Butthole Surfers, whose name is King Coffey.
I and the three students conversed. I asked Leo what he was reading. He said Crime and Punishment. I said, “That’s funny! I’ve just been obsessing on Crime and Punishment!”
At that moment, a woman walked by with a sign saying: “Crime But No Punishment,” about the Wall Street moguls. Continue Reading
Spoofs & Satire
Remembering Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Mellow Cat
When al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a drone attack late last month, friends and colleagues were left to mourn a man of generosity, humility, and an amazing porno collection.
Crushes on Strangers
The Contradiction
It’s rare to find a word with the versatility of crush: It is a verb, a noun, a delicious soft drink; it is practically onomatopoeia. It’s a gratifying word, and there’s an entire universe of meaning inside its five letters. It is as soft and as hard as a word can get. I will crush you; I have a crush on you.
Not surprisingly, the crush Wikipedia page is quite robust. There is the movie with Alicia Silverstone. There is a Dave Matthews song (of course). There is a Mates of State album. Tragically, there is something called a crush film, in which live animals are stepped on. This is the opposite of what I might expect from a crush film. Continue Reading