at the beginning of this season i was content for the cubs to take it all. now that the giants have pulled this close my fool heart is all in

http://www.eater.com/2016/5/23/11739484/mexico-city-chinese-food

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/fashion/marriage-breakups-separation.html

Shakespeare had it right: “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart, concealing it, will break.” I never spoke of the anger in my heart, the mounting resentments and hurts, and neither did he. I never demanded attention or care, and neither did he. And that’s why we broke. What hurts most is not the loss of the marriage. What hurts most is that our relationship had never, evidently, been the kind worth raising one’s voice about. ... All these differences expanded over the years as we became our truer selves. Quietly. Sometimes I would open my mouth to say something about our growing distance. Probably he did, too. But no. My mind would run through the list of reasons to keep quiet: I would come across as unreasonable, nagging or needy. He was tired. The children were in the house. They should not hear us fighting. ... I sometimes wonder if our inability to strike out is heartbreakingly rooted in our love for one another. Because we did and do love each other. And we both had been so injured by our violent and loud childhoods that we found refuge and joy in the quiet. But that kind of love often doesn’t survive life, and in the end, our silence was less about respect or affection or love than it was about cowardice. He and I were equal partners in that, turning inward instead of speaking out.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/may-web-only/man-from-another-time-zone.html

Dignity is "a value that creates irreplaceability." (This one, he graciously attributed to Immanuel Kant.)

Somebody once said of Dallas: "I'd like to live in his time zone." During one of his lectures, a listener challenged him with statements that were both offensive and incorrect. Dallas paused, thanked the person for their comments, and then simply moved on to the next question. Somebody asked Dallas afterward why he had not countered the student's argument and put him in his place. "I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word."

Dallas would get very impatient with writings that idealize anyone, particularly him. I remember hearing him talk once about his struggle with harboring contempt for people. If he did, it was in a very deep harbor. But God alone knows the human heart. Somebody asked me recently if Dallas realized what a remarkable life he led. It reminded me—as almost everything does—of another of Dallas's observations: "One sign of maturity are the thoughts that no longer occur to you." On the first day of sobriety, a recovering alcoholic will be filled with thoughts of her heroic efforts. After 20 years of sobriety, her mind will be free to think other, more interesting thoughts. Her sobriety will no longer look heroic, only sane—only a gift.

I am occasionally asked by other Christians, “What happened during that hour?” I answer that God did not speak to me. Rather, like the protagonist in Memento putting his past together with Polaroids, I figured out what I already knew. What happened during that hour was the natural culmination of my coming to faith: I had been cracked open to the divine, I read books that I would have laughed at before the cracking, and the stars lined up and there was God, and then I knew, and then I said it out loud to a third party, and then I giggled.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/june/nicole-cliffe-how-god-messed-up-my-happy-atheist-life.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-orange-ball-superheroes-fight-lupus_us_573459f7e4b07a3866043526?platform=hootsuite

sammillerbp on chemistry

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9749026/oakland-athletics-success-due-player-chemistry-not-metrics-espn-magazine

ask polly

I have two daughters, and this, for some reason, is my biggest fear when it comes to them, that they’ll waste their lives chasing men in circles instead of recognizing how much sunshine and genius and expansive, outrageous possibility they carry around with them everywhere they go. But this anxiety of mine isn’t just about young women and their tendency to ignore their own value and worth and potential. It’s also about 30-something men and 40-somethings and 50-somethings and everyone under the goddamned sun. We are all so completely poleaxed by our own longing, by our own magical thinking, by our own physical resistance to hard work. We put our faith in prefabricated fantasies instead of reality; we believe in easy answers and short cuts instead of craft; we admire popularity instead of originality; we find ourselves reaching for shiny dreamworlds and ignoring human beings. The world tells us that we should be disappointed in ourselves, every single day. The best party is across town. The best party is across the universe. We should be fucking a ghost that looks like Chris Hemsworth, gently, in some galaxy far away.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/ask-polly-why-do-i-always-want-unavailable-men.html

http://the-talks.com/interview/alicia-keys/

A lot of times when people talk about empowering women, they often use male-associated attributes, whereas crying is typically seen as a sign of weakness. Right. Our boys and our young men can never be expressive. If they cry they hear, “Why you acting soft?” Once you express yourself, you’re in that vulnerable state, you’re growing. You’re learning, and you’re able to become stronger because you’re saying, “Okay, here’s who I am, here’s what I feel, here’s who I want to be, here’s what I want to let go of.” But if you never get a change to express it or feel it, or go through it, you can never get to the next place! So I personally feel that I’ve learned that. And it’s so empowering; it really is! I’ve kept myself down in the past, I’ve kept myself from growing by not allowing myself to just be vulnerable. When you entered the music industry you were only a teen, so I can imagine you’ve learned a lot since then. It was a natural progression for me, and I think it’s a natural progression for all of us, but when I first started in the world of music it was such a shock and such a different world. In a lot of ways I started to think that I had to be perfect and look perfect and sound perfect and say the perfect phrase.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2882185/i-speak-to-god-in-public-chance-the-rappers-faith/

The divisions of sacred and secular dissolve upon contact with the way a heart really works.

guys my mucus level is under control for the first time in two months

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/writing-is-an-act-of-pride-a-conversation-with-elena-ferrante?mbid=rss

To the writer, no person is ever definitively relegated to silence, even if we long ago broke off relations with that person—out of anger, by chance, or because the person died. I can’t even think without the voices of others, much less write. And I’m not talking only about relatives, female friends, enemies. I’m talking about others, men and women who today exist only in images: in television or newspaper images, sometimes heartrending, sometimes offensive in their opulence. And I’m talking about the past, about what we generally call tradition; I’m talking about all those others who were once in the world and who have acted or who now act through us. Our entire body, like it or not, enacts a stunning resurrection of the dead just as we advance toward our own death. We are, as you say, interconnected. And we should teach ourselves to look deeply at this interconnection—I call it a tangle, or, rather, frantumaglia—to give ourselves adequate tools to describe it. In the most absolute tranquility or in the midst of tumultuous events, in safety or danger, in innocence or corruption, we are a crowd of others. And this crowd is certainly a blessing for literature.

In “My Brilliant Friend,” I wanted everything to take shape and then lose its shape. In her effort to tell the story of Lila, Elena is compelled to tell the story of all the others, including herself, encounters and clashes that leave very varied impressions. The others, in the broad meaning of the term, as I said, continually collide with us and we collide with them. Our singularity, our uniqueness, our identity are continually dying. When at the end of a long day we feel shattered, “in pieces,” there’s nothing more literally true.

can't teach taste

ashley :)

https://twitter.com/Minnesota_Nicer/lists/women-on-sports/members https://twitter.com/jenmacramos/lists/fems-in-sports/members http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/magazine/what-i-learned-from-kristi-yamaguchi.html?_r=0 http://www.yomyomf.com/follow-a-homeless-ucla-phd-student-through-his-daily-routine/ http://oaklandlocal.com/2014/05/what-are-oaklands-most-walkable-neighborhoods-may-12/ https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=stationery&find_loc=Piedmont+Ave%2C+Oakland%2C+CA

http://www.thenewpotato.com/2016/05/16/tracee-ellis-ross-2016/

What advice would you give your younger self? We live in a world that will tell you that life is all about getting things, and getting what you want. I would tell my younger self that if I stay focused on getting to know myself, accepting myself, loving myself, and allowing myself to be myself that life will become less about getting things and more about building experiences that match who I am. As a result, you will wake up one day and you will have become someone you like – and you’ll be surrounded by a life that matches who you are.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/23/billy-eichners-comedy-of-confrontation

Smigel considers Eichner’s version of man-on-the-street completely original. “I love that the joke is entirely on him,” he told me. “Just this crazy person who thinks everybody has the same pop-culture obsession that he has, and has no time for anybody who doesn’t.”

Lanthimos’ tone is always chilly, devoutly clinical, and bleakly funny, yet full of compassion for his numbed creations. At one point in “The Lobster,” Farrell — who delivers a daring performance that’s a perfectly calibrated, lifeless blank — explains his decision to mate with the Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia, “Dogtooth”) as a path of least resistance. He’s decided that it’s easier to pretend to have no feelings than to manufacture real ones, and he knows that the secret of survival isn’t learning to love, but learning to exist more comfortably with an internal void. Her name a warning in itself, Heartless Woman causes David to bolt for the Loner woods. There, he meets Near-Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), and the circle of lovelessness keeps spinning. ... And none of it is all that far from real-world truth. The genuine, human search for love is routinely exploited by the world around us. It spawns bizarrely unreal romantic comedies, Nicholas Sparks novels, terrible hookup apps, “The Bachelor,” colossally expensive destination weddings, weird anti-Valentine’s Day parties, and suicidal songs about breakups where the singer usually asserts that not to have “you” is to “have nothing.” If Lanthimos’ gloom-vision is decidedly more blunt, it’s no less accurate an assessment of every heartless thing human beings already inflict on one another. His is a wild, sad, mordantly funny dystopia, but one that gives sexual desperation the bad name it deserves.

http://www.thewrap.com/the-lobster-review/

THEKILLERWHALE • 6 days ago I saw this about two months ago. This review is pretty accurate except that I feel like it is describing a more enjoyable movie. There were a few genuinely funny moments and a bit of pathos, but, overall, it lacked a lot of the intangibles that make a good film. The deliberately dour atmosphere and awkward human behavior may have had a bit to do with it. I was never truly immersed and wanted it to be done for large parts of the running time. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Pinkie Fisticuffs THEKILLERWHALE • 5 days ago So . . . like actually dating.

http://www.avclub.com/review/colin-farrell-goes-full-frumpy-darkly-deadpan-lobs-236504#comment-2672034041

But Lanthimos poses some crazily poetic questions in The Lobster, particularly about what it means to ally yourself with another person. How much of yourself do you give up? What must you hold on to at all costs? And can you ever be sure you’re not making the other person fit just so you won’t be alone?

http://time.com/4327442/the-lobster-movie-review/

The Lobster, though, is downright lunatic from start to finish. It is not a frenetic bit of crazy; Lanthimos’s derangement is most impressive for how restrained and controlled it is. He creates little dioramas in which only the people in his brain could possibly live, and then brings us into those worlds. There’s a lesson in this movie about love, and companionship, and the fear of being alone. But the lesson isn’t nearly as compelling as the vessel Lanthimos uses for its teaching. He’s my favorite beautiful loon.

For such a strange artist, Lanthimos has a lively, mischievous sense of humor, and there’s a scene involving electronic music in the forest that is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in months. But his general subject here is love, and our desperate, often undignified search for it. Lanthimos mocks our need for companionship—which is really just a search for someone like us, or at least someone who can serve our individual needs—by heightening their stakes: Our culture demands coupling up, in Lanthimos’s view, which is just a few steps away from actually demanding it. ... Somehow, unfathomably, Lanthimos turns this into a love story, which saves the sharp-elbowed comedy from curdling into something deeply unpleasant. David might not necessarily find love, but he finds someone who needs him as much as he needs them—which, even if love doesn’t actually exist, is a reasonable facsimile, one that ultimately serves the same purpose. Against all odds, The Lobster ends up becoming a little bit romantic, even hopeful, as embodied by Farrell’s impotent, beaten-down, defeated, yet still somehow full-hearted performance. He makes you believe that, even in the demented universe of this film, there’s still a chance for you. This movie doesn’t have much new to say about love; its insights are far from blinding. But it does show us a new way to think about it

https://newrepublic.com/article/133456/lobster-animal-magnetism-else

Other singletons are exposed as too picky (like the blonde who would rather become a pony than date someone bald) or too much of a pushover (like the woman who wheedles David with cookies and any kind of sex he wants). Naturally, David prefers the Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia), a literal manhunter who helps capture escapees who’ve formed their own screwed-up society in the surrounding forest. The Heartless Woman is a terrifying creation, a combination of your worst psychotic ex and the independent Greek goddess Artemis, and it’s heartbreaking to watch David numb himself to tolerate her cruelty. But Farrell smartly doesn’t play David like a victim — being with the gorgeous killer is his own superficial choice, and he’s fine breaking nicer women’s hearts. Explains David, “It’s more difficult to pretend you have feelings when you don’t instead of pretending we don’t have feelings when we do.” Meanwhile, the established couples who run the camp put on their own show of contentment. They stage plays about the joys of relationships: You’re less likely to get mugged on the street! You’ve got someone to give you the Heimlich maneuver if you choke! And they use their power to visit small indignities upon the single: no tennis, no volleyball, and no, um, self-pleasure. The film has a bleak, deadpan beauty that matches its emotions. Scenes look washed over with a watery gray; the city is mechanical and drab; the woods never see the sun. Then, suddenly, as the camera pans across the trees, we glimpse a rogue flamingo and think, Who was that and what other future did they dream? Most movies make a mockery of love. An action hero spots a passive babe, rescues her from the bad guy, and they live happily ever after. Even romantic comedies are nonsense. They argue that opposites attract, with endless stiletto-heeled uptight girls falling for slackers and changing their whole personality after a powerful kiss.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2879822/the-lobster-movie-review/

Tranquil in manner yet brisk in momentum, it lays out the foreground of the story without pausing to fill in the backdrop; clue by clue, we have to work it out for ourselves.

The irony could not be more acrid: our hero, unable to lose his heart at the hotel, then loses it in the one place where the loss is considered a crime. Only in the city, where David and the woman evade suspicion by pretending to be a couple, do we see them share a writhing smooch, and even then they are told not to overdo it. Wherever you go, Lanthimos implies, the laws entrap you. That is a serious charge, and, for all the pranks that he plays on our assumptions, Lanthimos is full of grave intent. No art, for a filmmaker as for a novelist, is finer or harder than that of keeping a straight face as you hold the world up to scorn. You could easily claim that the film confines its ridicule to the Tinderized—to those who are offered such elaborate assistance in the speed and the precision of their wooing that they are left with no excuse for being alone. The script, by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, certainly sports with the notion of the perfect match.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/16/the-lobster-and-captain-america-civil-war

The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them. -thomas merton, no man is an island

“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.” ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

http://www.arthistorysalon.com/?p=452

Holzer, SURVIVAL, 1983-85 YOU ARE TRAPPED ON THE EARTH SO YOU WILL EXPLODE WHAT URGE WILL SAVE US NOW THAT SEX WON’T? PUT FOOD OUT IN THE SAME PLACE EVERY DAY AND TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO COME TO EAT AND ORGANIZE THEM SAVOR KINDNESS BECAUSE CRUELTY IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE LATER DANCE ON DOWN TO THE GOVERNMENT AND TELL THEM YOU’RE EAGER TO RULE BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU THE BREAKDOWN COMES WHEN YOU STOP CONTROLLING YOURSELF AND WANT THE RELEASE OF A BLOODBATH SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY FAST MOTHERS WITH REASONS TO SOB SHOULD DO IT IN GROUPS IN PUBLIC AND WAIT FOR OFFERS OUTER SPACE IS WHERE YOU DISCOVER WONDER AND WHERE YOU FIGHT AND NEVER HURT EARTH IF YOU STOP BELIEVING THIS YOUR MOOD TURNS UGLY DIE FAST AND QUIET WHEN THEY INTERROGATE YOU OR LIVE SO LONG THAT THEY ARE ASHAMED TO HURT YOU ANYMORE IF YOU HAD BEHAVED NICELY THE COMMUNISTS WOULDN’T EXIST TRUST VISIONS THAT DON’T FEATURE BUCKETS OF BLOOD IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY IF YOU’RE CONSIDERED USELESS NO ONE WILL FEED YOU ANYMORE WHEN YOU EXPECT FAIR PLAY YOU CREATE AN INFECTIOUS BUBBLE OF MADNESS AROUND YOU YOU ARE SO COMPLEX THAT YOU DON’T ALWAYS RESPOND TO DANGER MEN DON’T PROTECT YOU ANYMORE WITH ALL THE HOLES IN YOU ALREADY THERE’S NO REASON TO DEFINE THE OUTSIDE ENVIRONMENT AS ALIEN WHEN SOMEONE BEATS YOU WITH A FLASHLIGHT YOU MAKE LIGHT SHINE IN ALL DIRECTIONS FINDING EXTREME PLEASURE WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON IF YOU’RE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT THRILLS YOU USE A STUN GUN WHEN THE PERSON COMING AT YOU HAS A GOOD EXCUSE IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR WILL BE SECRET THE CONVERSATION ALWAYS TURNS TO LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE FUN WHAT COUNTRY SHOULD YOU ADOPT IF YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE? USE WHAT IS DOMINANT IN A CULTURE TO CHANGE IT QUICKLY PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT YOU ARE CAUGHT THINKING ABOUT KILLING ANYONE YOU WANT IT’S HARD TO KNOW IF YOU’RE CRAZY IF YOU FEEL YOU’RE IN DANGER ALL THE TIME NOW YOU CAN’T REACH THE PEOPLE WHO CAN KILL YOU ANY TIME SO YOU HAVE TO GO HOME AND THINK ABOUT WHAT TO DO THE FUTURE IS STUPID HIDE UNDER WATER OR ANYWHERE SO UNDISTURBED YOU FEEL THE JERK OF PLEASURE WHEN AN IDEA COMES SOMEONE ELSE’S BODY IS A PLACE FOR YOUR MIND TO GO WHEN THERE’S NO SAFE PLACE TO SLEEP YOU’RE TIRED FROM WALKING ALL DAY AND EXHAUSTED FROM THE NIGHT BECAUSE IT’S TWICE AS DANGEROUS THEN IT’S EASY TO GET MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON EVERY CONTINENT TO PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO EATING AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY GO WHERE PEOPLE SLEEP AND SEE IF THEY’RE SAFE HANDS ON YOUR BREAST CAN KEEP YOUR HEART BEATING TURN SOFT AND LOVELY ANY TIME YOU HAVE A CHANCE IT IS FUN TO WALK CARELESSLY IN A DEATH ZONE YOU LIVE THE SURPRISE RESULTS OF OLD PLANS LET YOUR HAND WANDER ON THE FLESH TO MAKE POSSIBILITY MULTIPLY IT IS EMBARRASSING TO BE CAUGHT AND KILLED FOR STUPID REASONS SHOOT INTO INFINITE SPACE TO HIT A TARGET IN TIME AND CALL IT INEVITABLE YOU HOVER NEAR LOVELY UNCONSCIOUS LIFE-FORMS THAT OFFER NO IMMEDIATE RESISTANCE PEOPLE LOOK LIKE THEY ARE DANCING BEFORE THEY LOVE BODIES LIE IN THE BRIGHT GRASS AND SOME ARE MURDERED AND SOME ARE PICNICKING SILLY HOLES IN PEOPLE ARE FOR BREEDING OR ARE FROM SHOOTING YOUR MODERN FACE SCANS THE SURPRISE ENDING

http://espn.go.com/wnba/story/_/id/15472015/dallas-wings-star-skylar-diggins-wants-change-marketing-game-wnba-players

"You hoop?" He smiles shyly. "I dabble." "That's awesome," she says, beaming. Diggins has a jock's cool disposition, so when she smiles, it's transformative, like a ray of light passing through stained glass. In person, she is disarmingly beautiful, with hooded eyes, Ginsu knife -- sharp cheekbones and the kind of lips people pay for in Beverly Hills.

The BodyArmor ad centers on Diggins working out after hours, a glimpse at the solitary grind necessary for greatness. After nailing a dozen shots, Diggins sets up cones for a pick-and-pop drill, attempting to hit three long-range shots in a row. When she misses one, her mouth twists with frustration, and she mutters something under her breath. On her second attempt she bricks another one and cries out. It isn't until she misses again and throws her hands up in the air that I realize Diggins isn't acting -- that she's so relentlessly driven, so hyper­focused on winning, both in and away from the game, that she actually cares about making a meaningless shot whose only witnesses are her entourage. Diggins spins toward the corner where we're watching. "Can y'all get out?" We all jump to our feet, scurrying toward the door. No one says a word. A few minutes later, Diggins bursts out of the gym, carrying a ball in one hand. She walks past us, heading toward the exit, so we wait. Eventually, she returns. The group quietly files into the weightlifting room, where the cameraman is going to shoot another sequence, and Diggins sits on the bench. While she's stretching, I approach her, somewhat anxiously, and ask: "Did you make them?" She looks up and smiles. It's the kind of smile that makes rivals wither and fans click "follow," a smile that can sell cars and sneakers and anything with or without a price tag. It's a smile that's genuine, because it's born of both swagger and sweat. It's a smile that says: Hell yes, I did.

i have to start over for me.

http://www.bkmag.com/2016/02/24/you-will-be-tokenized-speaking-out-about-the-state-of-diversity-in-publishing/

Rakia Clark senior editor Beacon Press Books I was so hungry and eager at the start that I’d basically drawn a big sign on my back that said, “Nurture me! I work hard and I’m smart!” I didn’t realize it till much later, but that read as “Keep me as an assistant! I’m really friendly and will bring you coffee with a smile!” But that’s not how people get promoted out of assistanthood. So I dwelled there for a long time and watched people who were hired after me and with fewer years in the industry get better opportunities. That surprised me a lot. I don’t think my colleagues—especially the senior ones—saw themselves reflected in me. And I think people tend to want to help those that they see themselves in. I had one boss who, after months of working with me, stared at me a beat too long and then asked out of the blue what my parents did for a living. It was an innocent question but she was clearly summing me up. She wasn’t trying to relate to me at all. She was trying to make sense of the difference she felt.

Mira Jacob novelist The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing After 20 years, my novel sold right away and everything changed. When I went to these houses, I was in this rare position that I got to interview the people who were interested in the book. I was worried they would sari and spices me, that they would do the India they wanted. One said, “You can talk about all of these things but you can’t have them all in there. What’s the most important angle? It’s the immigrant angle, obviously.” I’ve been running from that editor my whole life. I will be one person only to that editor. I cried that night even though I was able to say no to her. How many authors had to hear that before me with this editor as their only option? How many stories have I not heard because this editor was in charge?

Daniel José Older novelist Midnight Taxi Tango For some people [who have talked about A Fine Dessert and A Birthday Cake for George Washington], it’s a conversation about trauma and invisibility and pain. It’s really about life and death. For other people it’s just another quirky, fun intellectual exercise. That says a lot about white culture, being able to turn tragedy into cocktail discussion. The fact that A Fine Dessert was published at all and the fact that it was loved, then the backlash to the criticism—there was a level of intellectual dishonesty that was really astonishing to me. Critics of the book repeatedly expressed very intelligent, well-thought out, passionate, vulnerable arguments about what that depiction of slavery meant to them. No one defending the book responded to the actual critiques. Instead they said we were the oppressors of this situation. None of us are laughing—this isn’t a learning moment. This is all a game to you. You are trying to figure out situations where you win. The conversation about who physically was involved is a complicated one. It’s never just about the writer or the illustrator. The book is a product of a community.

Silver Sparrow and associate professor Rutgers-Newark University MFA program The MFA—it’s the gatekeeper for publishing. Pretty much everyone who is publishing fiction and poetry has an MFA. That is problematic in and of itself: There’s a specific demographic of people who go to grad school. We can’t change the fact that the MFA is the gatekeeper, but we can change the MFA. A diverse MFA program is a space where students can tell your stories where they don’t feel like they have to be the representative voice of color. When you publish the first book, they think you are going to be the next “fill in the blank.” By your third book they know that you are going to be you. When I had my first book at Grand Central, Linda Duggins publicized my book really heavily in the black market. The black women of color who I reached with my first book have been there for me throughout my entire year. They buy my book as soon as it comes out. I am always grateful for my Grand Central audience for giving me my lifetime audience.

Erin Belieu poet and co-founder VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts Back when I was an editor at AGNI magazine in Boston, I had a friend at Poetry magazine. They were giving out their big prize, the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. My friend, who I had every reason to think well of, asked, “We’re getting a lot of noise about the fact that a woman has never won it.” I said, “Oh wow that seems problematic.” So I gave him a list of amazing writers who happened to be women. What’s the problem? “Well you know we already gave it to Adrienne Rich,” he said, “and we can’t think of anyone else who is worth it.” This was 1996. I was just gobsmacked by this. There’s no Bond villain—he didn’t really have any idea of what he was saying. That’s one of the formative moments that made me want to found VIDA. They don’t realize how occupied their own minds are. Poetry gave the prize to a man that year too.

Syreeta McFadden writer For many of us, you know more writers of color than ever before, we know about the community of writers of color, because of the internet. To have that vehicle to push ourselves to the place where we have now, it’s been so instrumental. The world got introduced to Stacia L. Brown from blogging. Daniel José Older’s Twitter feed. We were able to share content very quickly and make these beautiful, powerful professional connections. My visibility creeps, a blog post of mine gets cross posted on PostBourgie, then the Huffington Post, then Feministing. All the while steadily working on my longform nonfiction pieces. I wrote for the New York Times Magazine because of my blog. I’d like affirmative action the fuck out of that space. I’d readjust salaries for these folks. Solicit interns outside of the usual places. Train them in the culture of what a literary citizen should look like. Make them listen to Kanye. Get the United Colors of Benetton in that bitch. Empower people of color open their own bookstores. Create a literary agency. Buy a pop culture media outlet. I know a couple of people who are doing that but they need capital. I’d give it to them—a fund for affirmation. Seed money for people who are already doing that work. That’s the thing, right? We’ve been out here working.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/17-women-talk-about-how-to-make-friends.html

I had a kid right after moving to France in 2013, and when I think back on my first fall and winter here, and how pathetically lonely I was, I feel so sad for myself that it's almost like it was another person. I would stay at home with my baby, rearrange the knickknacks and books on the shelf, and when my husband would get home from work ask him to spot the changes. — Noelle, 30
My approach to friends for the past few years is that I notice someone being really smart and/or funny and/or a good writer online and in my relative peer group and I decide we are friends. Gradually, I let them in on this by asking them out on a friend date, texting them, emailing them, etc. I assume a level of familiarity that is appropriate for already-established friends but not in a way that is invasive or entitled. I don't expect them to reciprocate or anything, I just ask sincere questions and don't keep any secrets, always assuming the stance: So fun to be around you and in contact with you, Friend. It works really well! They are tricked into being my friend almost every time. — Charlotte, 33

http://sarahbessey.com/off-brand/

A brand isn’t exclusive to corporations or non-profits. We often embrace a certain “brand” for our lives as regular people, we have a story we want to tell with our lives and we expect everything in our life – our food, our worship, our budget, our homes, our friends – to all reinforce that story. This isn’t always bad but it can be restrictive. We are often unconsciously thinking of what our choices communicate to the world about who we are and what we value and what our purpose is in this life.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/showrunner-roundtable-12-a-list-892520

During last year's roundtable, Lee Daniels said he finds white people writing for black people offensive. But I wonder whether it goes beyond white people writing for black people, black people writing for white people … BARRIS That doesn't happen. Black people don't get to write for white people. They don't? BARRIS They do not. I don't hate white people writing for black people because I think it's been done really well. The Color Purple is one of my favorite movies of all time. I don't think it's fair that it doesn't go the opposite way — and to be completely honest with you, we have a better idea of your voice than you do of ours because we have to live in your world. You don't have to live in my world; you're a visitor if you choose to be, if you want to go hang out with your girls and listen to hip-hop. But if I'm going to be an active member of society, I have to live in your world. So I have a better idea of your voice than you have of mine, but I am not allowed to write your voice and you're allowed to write mine. KHAN If I waited to write only for a Persian lesbian, I'd still be waiting. But I can write for straight white men because those are the jobs. If you want to be a writer, you have to learn to write in other people's voices until you get the chance to write in your own. What's so exciting to me [about the diverse ABC comedies] is that now we get to flip the switch and tell stories that maybe you've seen before through a different lens. YANG I would never begrudge someone's ability or capacity to write for a character who doesn't look like them, but that being said, there is something to shows where there is that authenticity. Our show is about two 30-year-old guys who are Asian and Indian, and the guys who create the show are Asian and Indian. So yeah, Harold & Kumar is a great movie, but I'm glad there is a show that's about those two characters that is made by people who look like them because there are certain things you've experienced that maybe someone who doesn't look like you hasn't. BROSH MCKENNA It's an interesting thing because you want your differences to be acknowledged. It's very important to me that I'm a woman, that my parents are immigrants, that I'm Jewish, that my mother was a Holocaust survivor. But I don't want to be defined by them, and that's the road you walk. We have a writer, Rene Gube, who's Filipino. He helps us a lot with Vinnie, who's Filipino, but he will also riff whole Rachel bits because he understands her comedic sensibility. You want to be able to make that contribution because you have a unique point of view, but on the other hand you want to feel like it's not important when I say it's not important.

http://www.josephbarkley.com/2015/10/08/how-im-eliminating-wasted-time/

Hustle breeds activity. Hurry breeds absent-mindedness. Hustle means running toward something you want. Hurry means running away from something you fear. Hustle is fueled by priority. Hurry is fueled by worry. Hustle appreciates progress and results. Hurry only sees the next thing.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/least-likely-off-broadway-phenom-annie-baker-is-confounding-some-but-charming-all-the-right-people/

Lots of writers would love to write how people talk: Baker just does it. She doesn’t forget that sometimes people, when they’re talking how people talk, are also funny. And that sometimes they’re mean, or self-indulgent, or worthy of love, despite themselves. In the restraint and silence of her plays — her complete disregard for your desires — there is something undeniably punk.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140526210335AACrm0k

Patriarch------ The backbone of the group. He or she is the strong willed leader of the group. Matriarch----- A sort of secondary leader who has a much softer touch. He or she is generally the "councilor" and tends to resolve the disputes between the characters; or is otherwise the most emotional/caring of the group. Clown----- He or she is the comic relief. This character is rarely taken seriously by the rest of the ensemble, usually very quirky and strange. Craftsman----- The serious one. This character is the one who is the most grounded in reality and sees things for how they are.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/kristen-wiig-in-welcome-to-me-and-carey-mulligan-in-far-from-the-madding-crowd/

All Ferrell’s done at the movies is further unleash his id. This is what Wiig does, too, but here she’s more artistically effective. The writing and directing and other actors are there to catch her. You’re not simply amused by her. You’re moved by her. That’s well left of American comedy’s center right now. But Wiig’s performance here argues that it doesn’t have to be.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-madding-review-20150501-column.html

This change of heart in our heroine suffers most from the leanness of the script. In Hardy's novel, her feelings are much more tied into Troy's sexual magnetism and what the young woman senses — that the dashing sergeant is the one man who doesn't need her. In the film, however, it seems that just a bit of fancy sword work does the trick. All we've been given to believe about Bathsheba crumbles in a few unbelievable moments, along with a stray lock of hair the sword slices away. Even Mulligan, as good as she is at giving Bathsheba a spine and a spirit, fades at this point. The film's best pairing is between Mulligan and Schoenaerts. Because Oak's unwavering devotion anchors the narrative, it's definitely the one to get right. Both characters are strong and stubborn, and yet the attraction is there. The actors make that tension palpable — a world of love, tenderness, hurt, rejection, respect playing out in their glances and brief conversations.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/fighting-on

And look what she throws it away on. Sturridge’s Troy, I’m afraid, is a dumbfounding blend of waxwork and wimp, and so often do his eyes mist over that I wondered whether his real problem was not the vagaries of lust but the Wessex pollen count. Why Bathsheba would give him the time of day, let alone her body and soul, is a mystery, but the film toils hard to make us believe in that surrender. Hence the wonderful closeup, after the first kiss with Troy, of Bathsheba’s hands held out before her, dangling, as if desire had reduced this tough and resolute figure to a doll. Needless to say, there is no right way to play her, any more than there is a right way to play Cleopatra. Hardy gave his heroine a symphonic range, and all an actress can do is pick out certain tones and strains—the fluted whimsy by which Bathsheba is occasionally stirred, or the brassiness of her anger. Julie Christie was the more accomplished flirt, and her beauty was composed of fire and air, whereas Mulligan relies more darkly on earth and water. She hoes the clods of soil like a peasant in a Millet painting, and plunges up to her waist to join Gabriel for the seasonal washing of sheep. In the light of that pluck, Nicholls is right to uproot a vital sentence from the book and assign it to her, practically intact: “It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language designed by men to express theirs.”

Just as Schlesinger’s film screams 1967 (check out Christie’s hair), so Vinterberg’s version will doubtless come to be viewed as a typical product of our time, in both its haste and its recurrent gloom. Though its social scope is narrower than Hardy’s, you do come away from it with a true sense of the shrouded world that he devised, where fate could frown upon even the blithest day. That is why Bathsheba, as she sets off to claim her inheritance, is already clad in scarlet—the same dashing hue as Troy’s uniform. She hasn’t met him yet, but he awaits.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tnwhiskeywoman/scandal-sleepy-hollow-destroy-strong-black-woman-stereotype

As a teenager, Abbie witnessed an event that sent her into years of denial, but once Crane and the Headless Horseman arrive in Sleepy Hollow, she realizes she can no longer remain silent. In a recent episode, her strength and silence — hallmarks of the SBW — bring a creature of death into her life. She, quite literally, must express her emotions and memories, or die. In order to save herself and her loved ones, Abbie forgoes the stoicism we’ve grown accustomed to. She opens up, and in the process, Abbie sheds the burden of being a Strong Black Woman by expressing her emotional turmoil, freeing herself to fulfill her prophetic destiny.

far from the madding crowd

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs."

honorific five spice

hi future employer (if you're out there)

https://medium.com/matter/pay-women-the-money-they-need-to-make-the-culture-e0d80c8cda70

Women who are paid to create culture are often taught to remain separate from one another because they are breathing rarefied air; don’t disturb the atmosphere. And while I want women to control their own production and do it totally on their own if they have to, the idea of the Lone Female Genius is also holding us back: we need to work together if we are going to topple anything. When women are isolated, they compete instead of conspire. And women should be conspiring! (If that sounds scary, welcome to a double standard; when brilliant men work together, people make documentaries about it. When two or more smart women know each other, it becomes a nefarious secret scheme). Collaboration is an essential part of getting work out into the world that not only feels authentic, but truly intersectional.

As a woman watching this, my jaw kept dropping. How does this show keep reflecting back to me the way I have actually felt, what is this alchemy? And this flash of recognition immediately made me sad: How moving it is to feel like you can meld with the screen, how deeply this mirroring affects you and changes the way you feel for long hours. I realize how rarely I feel this way, the way that men must feel all the time.

http://www.mlb.com/mediacenter/index.jsp?mp4=true

http://www.vice.com/read/if-youre-going-to-read-plays-read-annie-bakers-plays

Have you had some deeply frustrating experience with writing that led to a sort of aha moment that taught you something important about your writing? If so, I’d love to hear about it.
Well, I'm deeply frustrated all the time. All my plays usually follow a two-year-period of deep frustration and not-writing and there's usually an aha moment that surfaces gurgling from the pit of despair I've fallen into and unlocks the play for me after I've convinced myself that I will never write a play again. But I had an aha moment, I guess, in my late 20s, when I stopped thinking about What Kind of Play I Wanted to Write and What Kind of Writer I Wanted to Be. I just gave up. I accepted the fact that I'm a little stupid. That I don't know exactly what I want to say. That I don't know what kind of theater I want to make. That I don't know how to classify it. I stopped thinking strategically. I stopped trying to prove to people that I was smart through my writing. I stopped trying to write stuff that I thought other people would like. And all that followed a long period of bad writing and deep, deep frustration with the fact that my talent couldn't live up to my taste. I mean, it still doesn't. What do you do during the not-writing? I read a lot. I always convince myself I have to read just ONE MORE BOOK before I can start writing. Then just ONE MORE. This goes on for years. I like spending time with people I love. I guess I spend a lot of time talking to people I love. I like going to movies. I like walking to my local pharmacy and spending 45 minutes picking out a new brand of shampoo and conditioner. I worry a lot. Not about my career. About my relationships with people.

so googleable