(Part 3) Best arts & literature biographies according to redditors
We found 3,934 Reddit comments discussing the best arts & literature biographies. We ranked the 1,642 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
Fact:
North Koreans generally refer to pretty girls as "Section 5 girls", as they will likely be impressed into service by Section 5 of the Organisation and Guidance Department, which is responsible for Kim Jong-il's private life. Section 5 maintains his guesthouses and villas, and maintain the food and "entertainment" there.
The girls are selected at 13, undergo annual examinations until 16 for final selection, do a year of training, and are stationed from the ages of 17-24 at different Kim holiday homes and retreats.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Leader-Escapee--A-Inside-North/dp/147676655X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409241737&sr=8-1&keywords=dear+leader
I hate to break it to you (or maybe you're excited!) but he already wrote one ~15 years ago. It's called "The Rock Says" and is actually a decent read!
https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Says/dp/0060392983
This book states that these women 'serve' between the ages of 17-24 and that they're selected at the age of 13. This book then states that "Pleasure girls retired from the corps at 22, after which they were often married off to other members of the elite."
This book, which was written with the full knowledge and cooperation of Batali, contains several scenes of borderline or actual sexual harassment by Batali. And it’s always explained away as, that’s just how celebrity chefs are.
Reading that book when it first came out gave me a new respect for what a talented chef he is, while leaving me disgusted by what a shitty human he is.
Crazy to think that book was published just a decade ago.
Or you could read Yeager: An Autobiography
He was a lot more badass than most people know. And last I checked he's still alive at 90. In fact, last year he flew backseat in an F-15 over Eduards AFB on the anniversary of breaking the sound barrier.(YouTube vid in the link)
I guess I get to be the turd in the punch bowl.
Mario Batali is being really nice to a famous celebrity, in said celebrity's moment of need. Which, good for you Mario; that's great.
But you still stole tons of money from your workers. And there are stories about your conduct elsewhere.
So, I mean, well done here but maybe apply the same attitude to everybody.
This wasn't written by Belichick, but is an excellent read: Education of a Coach by Dave Halberstam. I read this 5 or so years ago and it made me completely re-think how I viewed coaches in the NFL. I highly recommend it.
Hell, I'm going to go home after work and start re-reading it now that I'm reminded of it.
Awesome. I own a copy of Craig's autobiography. A pretty good read about a very rock'n'roll life and his struggles with alcohol and drug abuse.
Please read this whole comment; I write it with compassion. You asked for advice! Here's a bunch of inconsiderate words.
You will not have a "normal family" as one half of a straight couple, two biological kids and a dog. You will not have a normal heterosexual relationship. You already know this, you just don't want to deal with it. Either you'll be lying to yourself and your girlfriend (that's not normal!) or you'll be honest with her about your sexuality (which is not 100% straight).
The more quickly you let go of "normal" the less painful it will be. There is in reality NO NORMAL. There are majorities and minorities; that doesn't mean that those in the minority are abnormal. (When compared to people who are 99% straight, you are actually in the minority in this situation.)
Try small steps first. You should tell your friend (with whom you are very close!) that you think you might be gay, or bisexual. See what she thinks about that. You would want her to know this, right?
You don't need to find a Life Partner right now. You're 22. For God's sake, pull your head out of your ass, go out to a (gay) bar and dance your butt off. Try finding a date first, before you start planning your wedding. Slow the fuck down! :)
You can raise children with another man, if you want. You can even fuck a woman and get her pregnant, and then raise the child as your own. You can adopt or foster. Go read The Kid by Dan Savage.
Don't agree to do something you don't want to do, trying to avoid hurting your friend's feelings. It won't help in the long run. Try dating her first? It might work, it might not, you need to find that out first.
>I just wouldn't feel comfortable with that lifestyle. I know my friends and family would accept that I am gay, but I just don't want that.
There is no "lifestyle." You are living a "queer lifestyle" right now because you are queer and your heart is beating. You don't have a choice.
I think that if your friends and family will accept that you're queer, you should also accept that you're queer. Everything will become easier and more honest when you accept it. You won't have to worry about these things. That I can definitely promise!
The best part of The Man Inside Me is that it also doubles as another running joke: Tobias is an albino black man.
The Genius: How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty
https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Reinvented-Football-Created-Dynasty/dp/0345499123/ref=sr_1_74?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238145&sr=1-74&keywords=nfl+book
Jaws might be loudmouthed idiot on tv, but he co-authored a pretty darn good book
The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays
https://www.amazon.com/Games-That-Changed-Game-Evolution/dp/0345517962/ref=sr_1_67?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238131&sr=1-67&keywords=nfl+book
And all hail Belichick
War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team
https://www.amazon.com/War-Room-Belichick-Building-Perfect/dp/006208240X/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238058&sr=1-11&keywords=nfl+book
The Education of a Coach
https://www.amazon.com/Education-Coach-David-Halberstam/dp/1401308791/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238301&sr=1-1&keywords=david+halberstam+belichick
Pretty funny insight into players perspective:
The Rookie Handbook: How to Survive the First Season in the NFL
https://www.amazon.com/Rookie-Handbook-Survive-First-Season/dp/1682450341/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1475237975&sr=8-4&keywords=nfl+book
Also Pete Carrolls book Win Forever is an excellent read.
It has more to do with his Trojan days, but is a very clear telling of his coaching philosophy and why he has succeeded in Seattle. That man knows how to connect with people.
Have you read Dan Savage's book about the process? It is called the kid, it is from 2000 so you should be able to find a second hand one in a used bookstore by now.
I have seen other redditors asking this over in /r/lgbt if you want to search for previous posts over there.
Her book, Yes Please, is great. I listened to the audiobook, which added a lot to the experience for me
A moth goes into a podiatrist's office. The podiatrist says, "What's the problem?"
The moth says, "Where do I begin with my problems? Every day I go to work for Gregory Vassilievich, and all day long I toil. But what is my work? I am a bureaucrat, and so every day I joylessly move papers from one place to another and then back again. I no longer know what it is that actually do, and I don't even know if Gregory Vassilievich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and this seems to bring him much happiness. And where is my happiness? It is when I awake in the morning and I do not know who I am. In that single moment I am happy. In that single moment, before the memory of who I am strikes me like a cane. And I take to the streets and walk in a malaise, here and then there and then here again. And then it is time for work. Others stopped asking me what I do for a living long ago, for they know I will have no answer and will fix my empty eyes upon them, and they fear my melancholia might prove so deep as to be contagious. Sometimes, Doc, in the deepest dark of night, I awake in my bed and I turn to my right, and with horror I see some old lady lying on my arm. An old lady that I once loved, Doc, in whose flesh I once found splendor and now see only decay, an old lady who insults me by her very existence."
"Once, Doc, when I was young, I flew into a spiderweb and was trapped. In my panic, I smashed my wings till the dust flew from them, but it did not free me and only alerted the spider. The spider moved toward me and I became still, and the spider stopped. I had heard many stories from my elders about spiders, about how they would sink their fangs into your cephalothorax and you would be paralyzed but aware as the spider slowly devoured you. So I remained as still as possible, but when the spider again began moving toward me, I smashed my wing again into my cage of silk, and this time it worked. I cut into the web and freed myself and flew skyward. I was free and filled with joy, but this joy soon turned to horror: I looked down and saw that in my escape I had taken with me a single strand of silk, and at the end of the strand was the spider, who was scrambling upward toward me. Was I to die high in the sky, where no spider should be? I flew this way, then that, and finally I freed myself from the strand and watched as it floated earthward with the spider. But days later a strange feeling descended upon my soul. Doc, I began to feel that my life was that single strand of silk, with a deadly spider racing up it and toward me. And felt that I had already been bitten by his venomous fangs and that was living in a state of paralysis, as life devoured me whole."
"My daughter, Alexandria, fell to the cold of last winter. The cold took her, as it did many of us. And so my family mourned. And I placed on my countenance the look of grief, Doc, but it was a masquerade. I felt no grief for my dead daughter but only envy. And so I have one child now, a boy, whose name is Stephan Mikhailovitch Smokovnikov, and I tell you now, Doc, with great and deep shame, the terrible truth. I no longer love him. When I look into his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I see when catch a glimpse of my own eyes in a mirror. It is this cowardice that keeps me living, Doc, that keeps me moving from place to place, saying hello and goodbye, eating though hunger has long left me, walking without destination, and, at night, lying beside the strange old lady in this burlesque of a life I endure. If only the cowardice would abate for the time needed to reach over and pick up the cocked and loaded pistol that lies on my bedside table, then I might finally end this facade once and for all. But, alas, the cowardice takes no breaks; it is what defines me, it is what frames my life, it is what I am. And yet I cannot resign my self to my own life. Instead, despair is my constant companion as I walk here and then there, without dreams, without hope, and without love."
"Moth," says the podiatrist, "your tale has moved me and it is clear you need help, but it is help I cannot provide. You must see a psychiatrist and tell him of your troubles. Why on earth did you come to my office?"
The moth says, "Because the light was on."
____
^(This is from Norm MacDonald's book Based on a True Story: A Memoir.) ^(It's a great book,) ^(you should buy it.)
Humphrey Carpenter's biography is quite good, and pretty widely available, I think.
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
Don't forget the cover of his book!
> even at the cost of denying the mother agency and bodily autonomy
We Westerners are apparently okay with locking children into prisons for 9 years (12 years, 9 out of 12 months) when they could pick up the same skills in less time with less "formal" schooling. We also work for many months to pay taxes before we make enough to take home. You'll need to come up with a better excuse.
This "lost autonomy" is only from the date when the woman becomes aware of her condition, the loss is pretty much limited to, "you'll be a bit fat for a while, then lose most of it all at once."
Most anti-abortionists would gladly make birth control free to all women in exchange for the elimination of abortion. But for some, abortion at 8 months is preferable to them wondering what happened to the child they gave away. Gotta preserve that autonomy somehow.
BTW: A (very funny) discussion of open adoption was given by Dan Savage of all people.
Not an understatement.
“Dostoyevsky by way of 30 Rockefeller Center . . . the best new book I’ve read this year or last.”—The Wall Street Journal
https://www.amazon.com/Based-True-Story-Norm-Macdonald/dp/0812993624
Isn't he the author of The Man Inside Me?
The best book to read, the thing that rings the truest I've ever read about working as a cook / chef is this book Sous Chef it reads as if I was speaking out loud to my friend about what my day was like.
Bill Bufords Heat is also a really good read. These books may make you want to start cooking for a living. I implore you don't. Your bank account will shrink, your knees and back will go out and your social life will become destroyed.
/r/KitchenConfidential and Anthony Bourdains books are pretty good as well. Nearly any chefs Bio is good. Although Bourdains trends to tell white and sometimes black lies for dramas sake in his books.
A memoir, not a novel, but Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.
I highly recommend his book. The term 3-dimensional chess is overused, but it honestly does apply.
I have some interests similar to your girlfriend and this is on my list! http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Please-Amy-Poehler/dp/0062268341
I've got a question for you
I coach HS men's lacrosse and college men's rowing
My major was sport psych, so I learned a lot of useful tools in the classroom but also found it really helpful to read about other people who actually applied stuff in the real world. Even if our situations aren't the same and it's not 100% applicable, I like to read about successful coaches just to see what I can pick up from them.
Textbook: Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. It's cheap and really useful as just what it sounds like--laying a foundation.
Textbook: Sport Psych Handbook. Also cheap and useful, lot of good information.
Pick up something by John Wooden and read it. You don't have to believe 100% of what he says, but every coach should know some basics of positive coaching and sport psych, plus just having it as a piece of cultural literacy.
When the Game Stands Tall was a great book about a coach who took a program from nothing to The Streak. Haven't seen the movie.
Education of a Coach by David Halberstam, a fantastic sports writer, about Bill Belichick. Biographical and written with a lot of input from Bill himself.
If you have anything you're particularly interested in, let me know and I can maybe provide some more specific recommendations. Regardless of what sport/age you coach, the above are all good and useful books.
As far as fiction goes, the best I have read is "Nevada" by Imogen Binnie. This is one of those books that I immediately started reading again as soon as I finished it the first time.
https://www.amazon.com/Nevada-Imogen-Binnie/dp/0983242232/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466321271&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Nevada+imogene+binnie
Another work of fiction that is not about the transgender experience but does touch on some themes that you may be able to relate to is "Middlesex" by Jeffery Eugenides. It is really well done and has several interesting story arcs that intersect in really interesting ways with the protagonist.
https://www.amazon.com/Middlesex-Novel-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0312427735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466321681&sr=8-1&keywords=Middlesex
As far as bios go I really liked Janet Mock's "Redefining Realness" and "She Not There" by Jennifer Finney Boylan.
https://www.amazon.com/Redefining-Realness-Path-Womanhood-Identity/dp/1476709130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466321501&sr=8-1&keywords=redefining+realness
https://www.amazon.com/Shes-Not-There-Life-Genders/dp/0385346972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466321522&sr=8-1&keywords=She%27s+not+there
Edit: My auto correct want Boylan to be be Moylan.
The Rock Says...
The principal biography is the authorized one by Humphrey Carpenter. (Stay away from the one by Daniel Grotta, which contains considerable misinformation.) There's also a very good book about Tolkien's experiences in WWI, Tolkien and the Great War, which I highly recommend.
Beyond that, if you want more information, seek out Hammond and Scull's two-volume J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide.
September 20, 2016.
256 Pages.
Also available as an audio book.
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/220620/based-on-a-true-story-by-norm-macdonald/9781524703189/
https://www.amazon.com/Based-True-Story-Norm-Macdonald/dp/0812993624
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/based-on-a-true-story-norm-macdonald/1123308211
I'd take Brady vs Manning off that list. The writing was so disappointing poor (IMO) that I didn't make it even halfway through the book. The sentence construction is just so awkward, like the guy is writing some bad Tom/Peyton fanfiction and doesn't know how real people talk.
The Education of a Coach was a really good read, if you want something Pats-related and don't mind that it was published in 2006.
I'll also always recommend The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, highlighting the importance of offensive tackles.
Thought I'd provide some Amazon links to these fine suggestions, along with a few of my own.
J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0008214549/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Jc.DCb1A3J8V6
​
Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/000755690X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Qe.DCbHG7HWXM
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Art of the Lord of the Rings US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0544636341/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_3f.DCbB8Y2ZNZ
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Art of the Hobbit US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547928254/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_ng.DCbCX2CT65
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Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1851244859/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Vg.DCbSEH99RE
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Rateliff's History of the Hobbit US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CF6AZWK/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Dj.DCbGWY7970
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Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-Earth US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618126996/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Kk.DCbC2XF6NT
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Letters of JRR Tolkien US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618056998/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_ml.DCbREBRZH4
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Carpenter's Tolkien: A Biography US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618057021/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_xm.DCbY976PAE
If you haven't already, I recommend reading/listening to Craig's memoir American On Purpose. He's really such an intelligent man.
Some of my favorite late night appearances have been on his show. Two of them being Stephen Fry's appearances with an audience and without.
Craig's show was rarely about the promotion of someone's project, and much more about making a real connection. I miss that in late night television.
McDonalds in Ireland has curly fries?! The fat man inside me is a bit pissed right now.
["Yes man"] (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068680/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt) literally just took the title and the idea that a man starts saying yes to everything. [The book was written by an english man and is way funnier.] (https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Man-Danny-Wallace/dp/1416918345/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485288804&sr=8-1&keywords=yes+man+book) And everything in the book did happen. They didn't even used the real reason he started to say yes to everything.
I think i've listened to each podcast episode like 15 times now. This is going to be so good.
If you've never read it, there is a 33 1/3 book about Masters of Reality that is a fictional story about a young kid who gets put into a psych facility because he listens to sabbath and smokes weed and it's all about how Black Sabbath helps him get through the ordeal. It's super short, and I've probably read it at least six or seven times. It simultaneously tells a fictional story and breaks down the record at the same time. It's amazing, I can't recommend it enough.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Sabbaths-Master-Reality-33/dp/0826428991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538611851&sr=8-1&keywords=master+of+reality+33+1%2F3
1995, mostly about lost highway. http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html
also found in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
https://www.amazon.com/Supposedly-Fun-Thing-Never-Again/dp/0316925284/
an excellent read throughout that gets to the core of how lynch works
This book - Dear Leader - really explained it well to me through the eyes of a defector who had actually met Kim Jong-Il and was his poet laureate.
It was fascinating how he went from believing the propaganda to seeing the truth.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Inside-Me-Tobias-F%C3%BCnke-ebook/dp/B01DEEY94G
No problem, I'm glad I could be of any help at all. I'm with you, I first read the book in my late teens and didn't understand its implications until much later. All I saw was the great writing, the moving story, but stories like this have context and implications beyond themselves.
Here is a link to Iwasaki's memoir. As a person above stated, she's not an author by trade so I don't think her work will have the same literary weight, but it will be a true story told by a woman who lived it, and I think that can be very powerful in of itself. :)
Man, yesterday I was all ready to write an essay about this, I have it like 1100 words in and lost momentum, mostly because I revisited another race-poetry kerfuffle a friend of mine got in a couple years back, or, really more a brother of a friend but anyway, it really dissuaded me from bothering putting my opinion out there in a more official manner. I'm just going to give some bullet points here, I may finish the essay and post, still very much on the fence. (edit—looks like I spent a lot of time on this post now, great.)
Hicok's essay in my eyes: It is kinda like an old hippie who used to make money selling merch about air and water pollution who noticed a dip in sales, and he is grappling with his own selfish desire to sell as much merch as he used to sell, and the comfort that the air and water are getting better which is why his merch isn't selling, and ending at it being good for everyone even if he's taking a personal financial hit. And damn did he repeat so many times how great he thought it was. He was terrified as being seen as a self-pitying rich white man for expressing his feelings at a situation he and many others in his milieu are experiencing. The essay wasn't aimed at me, though in a number of ways we're similar-ish, I think he's putting too much weight on his sexual/racial status and not enough on a possible lack of keeping up with the times, or more likely, just that people are excited by the new. He's the seasoned. He's also afforded many opportunities because of his connections and reputation, which he acknowledges. For me it was too long by quite a bit, I thought he spent too much of the essay reiterating how good multiculturalism is for literature and the world—we agreed with you the first ten times you said it in various ways—especially when the method of the day is to cherry-pick quotes out of context, which Yu definitely did. Onto that.
Yu's response was more combative than I felt Hicok's essay called for, if it was supposed to be a part of a discussion and not an irritated yelp review. He treated Hicok's essay like an editorial as opposed to a personal essay, which it seemed to me to clearly be. Yu saw it as a call to action, even pointing to the so-called hypocrisy of having the spotlight put upon him for a piece that laments losing the spotlight. Who do you think was directing that spotlight? People outraged that someone might be a little bummed they're not as cool as they used to be. The first sentence Yu quotes is cherry-picked to not even show the entire sentence, some bush-league shit right there, very disengenuous. Maybe I noticed it more because I'd just read Hicok's essay so it was fresh in my mind, but it put me on edge right away with its trickiness. Here's a little bit I'd drafted regarding that quote:
>His selective quote early on omits a section that undercuts his point of Hicok being an old straight white man crying on his mountain of gold. Here is the fuller quote with the omitted section included. “In American poetry right now, straight white guys are the least important cultural voices, [as was inevitable, given how long we’ve made it difficult for others to have their say.]”
>This is an example of trying to make a simple point and couching it in an apology because people are so reactionary. I would argue that it’s a valid point, due to supply and demand. The straight white male writer’s perspective has saturated the market and while there will still be a demand for that perspective, with more options there will be fewer readers of any given poem, especially if it's more of the same perspective that had been readily available before. By taking the second half of the sentence away, Yu transforms the use of the word ‘important’ into one of ‘prominence’, whereas in context it is to be understood as ‘needed’.
Yu does rightly point to problematic language in the "inversion of the hierarchy" but it also seems to be out of line with the rest of Hicok's essay which is praising the levelling playing field. If I were workshopping that essay I'd recommend rephrasing. But I'd also say that he tried to hard not to offend people... yet here we are.
Yu then sites data that's kinda relevant, but not entirely. Hicok said that it's something he's noticing and not something that is canonical. Yu even calls Hicok's observations a 'harbinger'... then he sites Pulitzer numbers... see how those don't line up? Yu should have sited, among others, Amazon sales, but then he'd be faced with the fact that neither of them addressed, which is that the majority of people don't buy poetry to read it closely. The top 30-50ish is almost entirely stuff clearly bought for an English class (Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Maya Angelou—Joy Harjo has a bump for being the Laureate which is rad, she's a great poet), a couple celebrities, and mostly Instagram poets. An example of one of their highlighted poems (in its entirety) would be:
>Distance often gives you a reason to love harder.
That's right. An idiom reworded to be worse. And there are quite a few poets of that ilk in the top 20 (Claudia Rankine's in the top 30 to which is good, I have her collection "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" in my 'to read soon' stack). Hicok didn't seem to be talking about the apparatus of publishing or the established canon, he was talking about hype, about the poets who were being talked about, who're going the poetry version of viral. Kind of like how Richard Siken was the hottest shit for awhile around Crush. Maybe he still is, but my point is that people are drawn especially to the new, to new discoveries, new voices. Nick Flynn is another one kind of around that era who was 'hot' around the release of his first collection Some Ether and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City(both around $5 used with shipping at those links, both great books in case even one person reads this haha). Poets sometimes will get 'hot' around their first collection or around prizes. Hicok was just saying that in addition to lower sales (I think he specifically says readers, but, ipso facto, the only real metric is sales) he noticed that the 'hottest' writers were of a more multicultural background than he.
Yu points to Hoagland, which is where I went to right away while reading Hicok's essay. I guess I'm of a somewhat different viewpoint because I've never seen poetry as a way for me to confess my life story, but as a way to entertain. I'll add in some real life elements if they fit and are better than fiction, but I've never seen first person poetry as being strictly the person's voice and read all of Hoagland's What Narcissism Means to Me as an exaggerated/invented persona with some real life elements likely worked in and shrugged at the pov. Someone brought up the controversy when I was in grad school and I revisited the poem and yeah, there's certainly problematic areas and Hoagland's narrator was a bit too close to his own POV that the tribalism he expressed wasn't properly addressed...
There were two other recent dust-ups in the poetry community regarding race in the last decade that I know of: the aforementioned poem "How To" by Anders Carlson-Wee in The Nation—here's a NYT article on the controversy and the Yi-Fen Chou/Michael Derrick Hudson issue from Prairie Schooner and Best American Poetry. Here is Sherman Alexie's essay regarding the BAP selection. I think both are pretty silly to be honest. In "How to" the voice is pretty clearly not the poet, but it didn't have anything racial in it. Perhaps I've just spent more time around homeless people but nothing in the poem made me think that the speaker was black or white. It wasn't important to the poem or to me. I was more concerned with small inconsistencies in the voice but even that was tolerable. Calling it 'ableist' is absurd. I'm saddened that the poetry editors felt forced to put that apology up, whether it was pressure on them from the outside, or from higher up editors scared of the wrath of Twitter. The Yi-Fen Chou issue is interesting mostly because nothing in the poem has anything to do with the pseudonym, there's no appropriation of anything other than using a fake author name. I don't recall the poet's reasoning, but it is intriguing that people gave so much of a shit. It shows that the cover letter does matter as much as the poem, to some people, but for not for elitism, for inclusivity (Alexie's essay is really good, if you haven't read it I highly recommend it). But, not many journals claim to read submissions blind, that incident reminds you of that. What really bugged me the most about that whole story was that Prairie Schooner didn't accept simultaneous submissions at the time, (I know more than the average bear about literary magazines from my years of research and reading) and in Hudson's BAP notes he talked about 49 rejections prior to publication. I know how long it can take if you're simultaneously submitting, to pull a poem from being submitted and waiting until you get all replies if you want to submit it to a journal that doesn't take SS's. It's possible but unlikely that the poem was actually only submitted to Prairie Schooner. Sorry, long aside there)
Why are you specifically choosing a same-sex couple? I'm a lesbian and seriously want to thank you for making a decision that will mean the world to one lucky couple.
On a related note, Dan Savage and his partner adopted their son in an open adoption. I highly recommend his book, The Kid.
A few thoughts:
At one point Lewis and Tolkien were going to write companion novels about space and time. You can see echoes of this in the last chapter of Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in CSL's Space Trilogy when he mentions that space has been cut off from human travel and now any future voyages would be through time. There's also echoes of what might have been in JRRT's Notion Club Papers, which has a time-travel element, but was never published.
In addition, JRRT did not care for the Narnia series because he felt it lacked a coherent theme. However, in the controversial Planet Narnia, Michael Ward posits that CSL actually did have a theme: the medieval view of the planets (The Seven Heavens). There are definitely intriguing arguments made in the book, especially as he combines information from Narnia and the Space Trilogy into his thesis. I wouldn't say it's iron-clad, but if I was still in education, or had the luxury to write papers, this is an area I'd love to explore in depth - specifically the influence of Charles Williams on the evolution of CSL's thought.
If you're interested in aspects of their backgrounds that influenced their worldviews, I would recommend The Discarded Image from CSL (on medieval literature - my favorite CSL book) and The Road to Middle-Earth by Tom Shippey (on the philological undergirding of Middle-Earth). The Humprey Carpenter books are also good (JRRT Letters, Tolkien bio, Inklings bio) as are CSL's letters.
Look for one about someone who is involved in something you are interested in. I've always been a plane nut, so my favorite autobiography has been Yeager: An Autobiography.
I am a professional chef and while watching people prepare food is entertaining and sometimes also educating I actually recommend you to buy books and learn the basics first.
You can then use youtube pretty well in order to watch how to do specific things, like i.e. deboning a whole chicken for a gallantine, or how to trim certain pieces of meat.
Start with french cuisine. Once you have understood how things are connected you'll actually understand everything else.
If you want something simple and entertaining for the start I'd choose Anthony Bourdaine's Les Halles Cookbook. It's amusingly written and the recipes are fairly easy and they are all legit.
Then there is Paul Bocus. Living legend with three long-term girlfriends.
And of course you want to have Escoffier at your home. Doesn't get much more classic than that.
If you want to get a sense of what drives a top notch chef, watch In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumethal. Very very good stuff.
And finally, if you want to learn something about culinary history I highly highly recommend Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany and to learn about our lifes as a chef you need to read the (admittedly exaggerated) autobiographicly Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain.
All this provided, you won't learn cooking without actually doing it.
Edit: Depending on your budget, I also heavily recommend Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine.
The Education of a Coach - David Halberstam. Great book about Bill Belichick
$7.95 on amazon.com for the paperback :)
It's well worth a read. I really enjoyed reading it again.
When I was a kid I read his autobiography (it was a thing a lot of the wrestlers were doing then) and he had talked about how he didn't want to do it for a while- he tried getting drafted into the NFL from college and eventually just played in the Canadian Football League before finally going to wrestling, I believe. He mentioned being very poor earlier on in life, if I correctly recall.
Here's the book, it was written long ago though- before he was ever a movie star, or before you saw wrestlers in movies.
https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Says/dp/0060392983
You dad sounds like he would love Nick Offerman's (Ron Swanson) book "Paddle Your Own Canoe"
http://www.amazon.com/Paddle-Your-Own-Canoe-Fundamentals/dp/0451467094/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418134129&sr=1-1&keywords=paddle+your+own+canoe&pebp=1418134130597
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Inside-Me-Tobias-F%C3%BCnke-ebook/dp/B01DEEY94G
eesh, that does make sense though.
all I know about FAS is I knew two camp counselors when I was a kid who had the facial deformities and speech problems, they were brother and sister and were also both deeply kind and good people. (camp names: Sunflower and Monkey)
that and Dan Savage has about a whole chapter on it in his book The Kid, where he frets about his adoptive son being born with flippers and recalls that his alcoholic Irish catholic grandmother, despite drinking all through seven pregnancies, never produced a kid with FAS.
I agree with all of that, but want to point out that adoption also costs the adopting family money.
Dan Savage's book The Kid is a great read for any gay guys who are considering adopting. (He says that he wanted to call it $300 Per Ounce (or whatever the number was) based on the amount of money they paid in the adoption process and their son's birth weight.)
I think I'm more interested in fostering (which you actually get paid for, although in reality you better be spending more on the kids than the state is giving you), although I'm a bit worried about what it's going to be like taking care of kids who may have any number of emotional, mental, or physical wounds to deal with. I'm not planning on starting any time soon, though, so I have plenty of time for people who went through foster care to convince me that it won't be that bad.
Unfortunately there really isn't any one book that puts all of that into a fun narrative like there is to describe all fo the things that a woman goes through pre, during, and beyond puberty. We just don't experience anywhere near the level of daily difficulty with our hormones and our anatomy to warrant a large selection on narative essay literature.
This is also compounded by our historical bias toward male centric view points making mens health the general topic, simply called Fitness, and womans health the specialty topic.
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I've selected the following titles, all are a cross between narative essay and textbook. But they swing more toward a less technical lexicon
The Joy of Sex
Practical Encyclopedia of Sex and Health
The Harvard Medical School Guide to Men's Health
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For books by men I respect:
Terry Crews: Manhood: How to be a better man-or just live with one
Nick Offerman: Paddle your own canoe: One man's fundamentals for deliciuos living
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To answer the question you kinda asked in your reply...
Pre-ejaculate fluid does not contain sperm. It is created by the Cowper's glands at the base of the penis, completly seperated from the testes. It is also not the same thing as semenal fluid. The misconception about pre-ejaculate comes from a few perfect storm style things occuring in a row.
A) The male must have ejaculated prior to the new pre-ejaculate.
B) Some sperm must have remain behind in the urethra
C) No urine passed through the urethra between ejaculation and new pre-ejaculate
If all of that happens, then the sperm will be picked up by the new pre-ejaculate and expelled from the urethra.
It's not a book. This is an excerpt from a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College. If you like this, you should definitely check out the full speech or check out one of his three collection of essays. He's also got a number of short story collections, including a particularly famous work Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. He's probably most famous for Infinite Jest, a novel well over a thousand pages in length.
I grew up in Louisiana and always had these at the ready in case another Katrina came by. Barebones and lightweight in case you need to get up and move.
Multitool - Something that's sturdy, offers plenty of options, but also is lightweight. If I got washed out, this would be one of the top things I'd want coming with me.
First Aid Kit - You just never know. Water can hide a lot of nasty stuff like sharp metal edges, broken glass, etc. The kit I've linked to also comes with a multitool.
Water Filtration System - Dehydration will get you before anything else. Southern heat combined with physical exertion takes a lot out of anyone and tiny filtration systems like this will take care of you without adding bulk.
Meal Replacement Bars - You'll ideally want a few days emergency food. I recommend meal replacement bars that are high in protein and fiber and no less than 500 calories. They'll provide decent nutrition and should make you feel satiated for at least 2-4 hours. I don't have a recommendation on this one because there are so many brands and flavors.
Hand Crank Lantern - A reliable source of light that you can crank on your own. Generally, I avoid using generators and the like. I'm paranoid about electricity after flooding occurs.
Whistle - Great for alerting people without tearing up your vocal chords. It's also very, very, very good to have in case animals that shouldn't come by are nearby.
Dust Mask - If your city floods, there's going to be a lot of crud that comes up from the sewers and a lot of things accumulating inside buildings. Save your lungs and your noses.
Portable Battery - I love this age of technology we're in. Charge this a few days before the storm hits and you'll be able to keep your phone charged for days if the power goes out.
Insect Repellant - The ample amount of still water after a hurricane is prime bug nesting. A little repellant goes a long way.
Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman - Or any book really to help pass the time. This is a fantastic read though. :)
I'm currently reading Dear Leader and so far I highly recommend it.
I don't think the movie was based on that book! It was based on 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace. The story of a man in London who actually said yes to everything for a year. It's literally a laugh out loud book...way better than the film.
> Would you be willing to consider not telecommuting?
This, and changing job to find somewhere that has a younger bunch of people is also a good idea.
> Finally,my last thought is try saying yes more
There's a great comedy/reality book about this theme:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Man-Danny-Wallace/dp/0091896746
I agree and the original book is also a good source. It helped guided me to opportunities that I never thought I'd have.
MtF here-- I'm not all trans views nor am I the only trans-feminist view.
First of all, it doesn't necessarily make you a TERF. TERFs generally hate trans folk, at least in my experience. Being uncomfortable and hating aren't the same.
​
Second, while I don't know about that book (and it sounds like they have a deep misunderstanding of gender identity,) I do believe that Yaviv is just a sick individual who is using the trans movement for his or her or whatever the pronoun is's own fetishes. Yaviv does not represent all trans people, just as Martin Shkreli doesn't represent all white people.
​
Third, regarding children transitioning, I want to ask you a favor. At your local library, browse through the online catalog and try to find the transgender section. There should be a variety of books on what being trans is, what the LGBTQ trends are, etc-- but I want you to specifically find the memoirs. I don't remember many names, but I remember this one: https://www.amazon.com/Redefining-Realness-Path-Womanhood-Identity/dp/1476709130
It discusses being transgender as a child the way she experienced it. I could tell you my experiences as a child-- and I didn't even know the word transgender until I was a sophomore in high school and my friend wanted to beat down a transgender freshmen and I learned about the concept of being trans. I acknowledge that transgender minors are a touchy topic, but I think that if you read about how many of us know from a young age that we are trans, then that'll help. Even so, you can support one part of the community without supporting another. It's like listening to a politician: You can totally support (Using this so I don't flare up tensions) Abraham Lincoln on his view of slaves without supporting his economic views and still overall support the Lincoln presidency.
Buying a book is not about obtaining a possession, but about securing a protal. How true that sentence is!
Thanks so much for the contest!
This is something that's on my To-Read list, but I saw you like memoirs so I'm going to recommend Geisha: A Life or Geisha of Gion as it's known here by Mineko Iwasaki. I plan to read it along side the novel Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. The reason why these intrigue me as a pair is that Iwasaki agreed to help Golden with his novel, as long as he promised not to name her as a source. He went back on his promise and she got a lot of slack for that, especially as a lot of aspects about Geisha life was misrepresented/fabricated in his novel. It was because this she wrote her autobiography as a rebuttal to the novel, in order to contrast what she really experienced with the world Golden created.
Good question, I'd go to [etsy] (http://www.etsy.com/) and buy a few things from there. But since I'm from a country that not a lot of people on the internet are from (South Africa) I'd also put a lot of typically South African things in too, but nothing cliché and gimmicky. I'd also put in my favourite book, [The Book of Disquiet] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141183047).
Cool. Last suggestion is one is one of my favorites I just remembered.
Yeager. Chuck Yeagers autobiography. A military/war/test pilot story. Absolutely incredible read. Dude was a bad ass.
Yeager
The University School classes are probably the best in town, but they don't release the catalog until around thanksgiving, and the classes usually occur in the first few months of the new year.
Chef Jamie Watson is a local chef who does mostly French cuisine, which is perfect for learning techniques, and he does some intensive workshops from time to time. The Salud school at Whole Foods is probably the next best option, but I haven't heard great things. You also may want to consider a book; I'd recommend this one.
Unlike Sir Anthony, Craig calls himself an American and actually wrote a book about this subject.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Purpose-Improbable-Adventures-Unlikely/dp/0061998494
Uh. What about J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter?
Another super entertaining book that isn't a cookbook is Heat. It definitely changed the way I look at cooking and ingredients, especially eggs, pasta and meat. Great read.
I don't know any but I am currently reading "The Kid" by Dan Savage where he talks about adopting a child with his boyfriend. Pretty entertaining so far.
I'm in the middle of 5 different books because I am a bit of a moody reader (sometimes I'm in the mood to read something funny, other times I want something mysterious, something informative, something that will give me second hand embarrassment, etc.)
Currently I'm reading:
On my "next to read" list:
Has anybody read Jang Jin-sung's book, Dear Leader? It came out a couple months ago. He's a good source of information on the regime, but at the same time a bad source of information on the regime...
Have you read his book? How is it?
Where my mind went: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Inside-Me-Tobias-F%C3%BCnke-ebook/dp/B01DEEY94G
Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki is one of the more interesting biographies I've read. She was the inspiration for "Memoirs of a Geisha" but was ultimately displeased with the way she was portrayed and decided to write her own autobiography instead.
Hello, I read one of your sections of your new book, Yes Please about parents and it reminds me of my relationship between me and my parents. My questions are:
Thank you, you're one of the funniest female in show business right now.
Bill Buford, in his book "Heat" writes about the beginning of french cuisine when Catherine de'Medici left Italy for France and it's subsequent evolution.
This is oddly specific, you can gift him a planer even if he isn't proficient with it. It is very nostalgic and as a woodworker he could understand/appreciate its use.
Or
Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living by Nick Offerman
Tolkinova biografija, svaki bitan trenutak je napisan, od rodjenja do vecnosti :).
I'm copying these ideas from another post I made on the thread for a Secret Santa but I think they still apply
If you are interested in this kind of thing, Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee is a must read. He is an insider who escaped and gives unprecedented inside views.
tupperware because it would be incredibly useful for cooking in large batches and I'm always running out of Tupperware.
Black Sabbath's Master of Reality because its a book written by John Darnielle, one of my favorite musicians. I would have bought it for myself already except that I don't have a lot of income and I feel guilty buying things for me because everybody in my house needs way more important things.
Seems like it
Based on a True Story: A Memoir
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993624/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_zh5hybVT64329
Thanks for the reply friend.
I did read his book a couple years ago. It was surprisingly good (surprising meaning I get so tired of the same ol' same ol' cookie cutter celebrity addiction stories). He is really an amazing guy and it was an amazing read.
Amazon link to the book if anyone is interested.
Tom Hardy is another celebrity addict that I admire for the way he approaches his addiction. He doesn't let it define himself as a person but realizes the power it has and the need to remain ever vigilant.
Dofleini mentions that "what was on [the] desk at the moment."
Broom is much less demanding time-wise, although I agree with your sentiments... Not only is it much less polished than his later work, I think it's also less rewarding. It almost seems as though he was warming up for Jest... I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I read it after Jest & Interviews. For me, it falls into the same category as the early Dickens novels: entertaining in their own right, but more interesting as a window into the foundation for more developed later work.
I'd recommend Brief Interviews or A Supposedly Fun Thing as entry points for Wallace, followed by Infinite Jest if you like what you've read.
Picked this up a decade ago and I have never put it down since (metaphorically speaking).
Sunset Tree is one of the most emotionally charge albums I've ever heard.
Also, he's a writer too.
When I am depressed, I read The Book of Disquiet. When I'm ready to pull out of it, I read The Consolation of Philosophy. These are my ying & yang.
Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet has a lot to say about renunciation of (and absolute boredom with) sensual pleasure and preoccupation with introspection, which informs certain aspects of my understanding of Buddhism.
From a review:
>If there is a common thread, it is that of unsparing introspection. Over and over, Pessoa asks of himself and of the living mirrors which he has created, 'Who am I?', 'What makes me write?', 'To whom shall I turn?' The metaphysical sharpness, the wealth of self-scrutiny are, in modern literature, matched only by Valery or Musil or, in a register often uncannily similar, by Wittgenstein. 'Solitude devastates me; company oppresses me. The presence of another person derails my thoughts; I dream of the other's presence with a strange absent-mindedness that no amount of my analytical scrutiny can define.' This very scrutiny, moreover, is fraught with danger: 'To understand, I destroyed myself. To understand is to forget about loving.' These findings arise out of a uniquely spectral yet memorable landscape: 'A firefly flashes forward at regular intervals. Around me the dark countryside is a huge lack of sound that almost smells pleasant.'
Geisha, a Life
If you'd like a different view, there's also Autobiography of a Geisha, whose author was a geisha at an onsen and writes about quite a different experience for a group of women also falling under the title of "geisha".
his biography is great, worth reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Yeager-An-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256742
He Already Has....
https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Says/dp/0060392983
I read it in the 7th Grade... The guy had a pretty bad ass ride up until that point of his book. I'm sure a continuation would be just as awesome!
As the title implies, the book basically suggests being more open to all manner of "invitations." Basically, saying "yes" more often. You'd be surprised how powerful the word is, in all honesty, when you really start to think about it.
In fact, the most incredible times in ones lives are usually a result of saying "yes," rather than "no."
Almost any great job, girlfriend, or experience, you had to say "yes" to going out in the first place, yes to a date, yes to accepting the job, et cetera. People say "no" a lot and there are good reasons, but sometimes the word just gets in the way of keeping life exciting.
https://www.amazon.com/Yeager-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256742/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chuck+yeager&qid=1554877984&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Ive never wanted a movie based more then one based off his life. https://www.amazon.com/Yeager-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256742/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chuck+yeager&qid=1554877984&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Something I want
Something I need
Something to wear and
Something to read
This something to watch
will make me laugh,
And this will be music to my ears…
But what I want most, my dear friends, is to ease sadness and tears.
I've just finished Go ask Alice, it is pretty great :)
Geisha: A life by Mineko Iwasaki, is also one of my favorite book...
If you like comics and graphic novels, read The league of extraordinary gentlemen, Watchmen, The crow, Essex county a book about the rural lifestyle, hockey and family issues...
All of those are books I really loved and hope you will like if you read them :)
Reminds me of Yes Man: http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Man-Danny-Wallace/dp/1416918345
David foster Wallace discusses Lynch (with a large focus on Lost Highway) at length in this fine book. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316925284?pc_redir=1404145978&robot_redir=1
I thoroughly recommend it.
here you go buddy
If you're interested he did an interesting book about a black Sabbath record a while back: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0826428991?pc_redir=1407182053&robot_redir=1
2)Sleep. Glorious sleep. When I'm done sleeping, I plan on reading a book just for fun. Perhaps on the beach, where I might have a little more sleep.
What are your holiday plans? If that is too far away- What are you and /u/WMichaelis going to do tonight, Brain?
Seems like you might like this book
Archives for the links in comments:
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I am Mnemosyne 2.1, Archives for the Archive God! ^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^message ^^^^me ^^^^suggestions ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time ^^^^Opt ^^^^out ^^^^of ^^^^tracking ^^^^by ^^^^messaging ^^^^me ^^^^"Opt ^^^^Out" ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time
I was like you until senior year in high school when I started reading for pleasure. My first two books were Yeager and Malcolm X. For me reading these autobiographies moved me and taught me some stuff that made reading seem both fun and productive. Later that year I went back and read most of the required books that I faked my way through in the previous years of high school. I've since come to appreciate literature and become a reader of most every kind of book and these two books really got me started. I think it was because at that age I wanted to know what living a life was truly all about.
Don't let the fact that you didn't get fully involved in the Foundation as some impediment. The lack of a strong character based plot makes that book kind of a chore. If there are a few historical characters you are really interested in why not find the best biographies associated with them and give them a shot? It worked for me!
I really enjoyed The Rock Says.... Most of it is pretty common knowledge now but at the time it wasn't. You get a great amount of detail how he came home with only $7 in his pocket story, his father training him, etc.
Definitely not historically accurate. Same old fake cliches and stereotypes, recycled.
What really pissed me off was the title. I had read a book (Geisha: A Life an actual memoir by real geisha) a few months before seeing this movie, and went to see it, thinking it was the movie version of the book. Not quite. The book was far more interesting and informative.
Still, a pretty movie at times. Just don't be fooled into thinking the profession is accurately presented here. It's all fake.
EDIT: da book
If you liked Consider the Lobster, then you will also very probably like A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Both Flesh and Not.
Edited to add that Everything and More is also very good, though it's not a collection of essays.
Yes Man by Danny Wallace - totally changed my way of thinking and, without being dramatic, my life. Here is a link - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Man-Danny-Wallace/dp/0091896746
Well now you see what happens when you just assume I'll be conversational... In all seriousness, I really had nothing else to argue or bring up about the education thing... Also what do you mean by teh tecknawlahgees (the technologies)? Do you mean advancement? Or just the ability to learn stuff using the internet? Speaking of technology, not sure if you've seen After Earth yet, if you haven't then I won't spoil it don't worry. But the technology they use in the film is all like Bio-Tech, like a seamless fusion of tech and humanity. It's pretty cool, and where I think technology should be heading towards.
Well first-off the African Wars have nothing to do with Northern/Mid Africa. Well not in this context anyway. Sorry I didn't make it clearer, but the African Wars I was refering to was the Anglo-Boer War, which I assume you know something about? If you don't it was when the Afrikaaners and the British got into a little bit of an argument, and by argument I mean war. Which the British lost. The reason I call if the African Wars is that there was a third party involved and those were the Native peoples in South Africa, they too played a part in the War. And so that part of history has been renamed the African Wars. Much like the American War of Independence, had Patriots, British and the Native Americans all fighting one another. Or have I got that wrong? Please enlighten.
As for the rest of Africa affecting us, they most certainly do. Firstly we have an open door policy when it comes to refugees and so we take on a lot of refugees. Not a bad thing because they have really good work ethics and often start working immediately. I suppose it is a bad thing for South Africans seeking similar employment (factory worker, farm labour and domestic workers) who can't find work because they are considered lazy in comparison (have to agree). Side note, North African doctors, aren't welcome here if they are refugees because they are needed more in the country they come from. But literally any other skilled worker is a God send because they will do the same job for less.
But African instability affects us in other ways too, like South Africa is constantly trying to push for an AU but keeps getting either shot down by dictators, or the whole system is abused by dictators. Hosni Mubarak, Kony, Muammar Gaddafi and so on had huge pull in the African Political Circle, and used the old African Union as their personal power houses, causing the whole thing to lack meaning and come apart. Now though, the idea of reinstalling an African Union is on the cards again with South Africa at the helm. Former President Thabo Mbeki (who is blamed for never doing anything and was actually impeached [unjustly] to allow the cards to fall in just the right way to get our current President Jacob Zuma his seat in power), is heading up the whole operation, and has been for the last 7 years.
I kinda want to be frozen till 2700, to see how the world will be like. But also to hear the final notes of Longplayer ring out. I think it would be cool to go to one of the sites and just listen as the last ring is played and the whole room just drops into silence. Do you think people will just clap endlessly as that happens? Would be cool.
>if anything about you posting that upsets me it's that you screwed up the formatting.
Well for YOUR information it wasn't me that screwed up the formatting, but rather RES/Reddit editing that did it. I posted it as He wrote it, but RES had different ideas and 'corrected' it to the format you saw it in. I tried to correct it but to was to no avail. So please do be kind as to fuck off (read sarcastically), because it's not my fault. As for finding a poem that might annoy you, I have taken on that challenge. With an entire styl (on purpose) it's called [MNMLST poetry] (http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm) and is possibly one of my favorites! (as you've guessed). On that link you'll find the thing I was actually after which is the i with a thumbprint as the dot. Love that poem [(which it is)] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poem). On the topic of things which are short (unlike this reply), here is the world shortest [novel] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn) comprised by Ernest Hemingway. Thought you might like something just a little different.
And from the topic of literature we dive straight into book recommendations--getting the hang of segueing--though maybe not this whole business of extra information in between dashes.-- Where was I? Oh right! Well I just picked up on of Pratchett's new books; [Dodger] (http://www.amazon.com/Dodger-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062009494). There is another cover other than the one in the link. Very much enjoying the Steampunk/Victorian setting. Something I do suggest you maybe pick up for a fun read would be [Poison an Illistrated History] (http://www.amazon.com/Poison-Illustrated-History-Joel-Levy/dp/0762770562/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372521410&sr=1-2&keywords=history+of+poison), an interesting read if you're interested I guess. Plus wow your friends when you can recite all the people killed by poison! Moving on to the book I most highly reccomend, it sits in with my favorite literary technique of narrative. And is all about, and written by, the famous writer [Fernando Pessoa] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa). It's called [The Book of Disquiet] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141183047). I put the Amazon pages for all the book recommendations as to not tempt you into reading spoilers from their respective Wiki pages. You're welcome to if you so wish, but I don't want to be held responsible for that. However [here] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Disquiet) is the Wiki page for The Book of Disquiet; it hasn't got any spoilers, but rather valuable information you need to know before reading the book so check that out if you want.
Also [Cloud Atlas] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)). Because it's pretty good and you should probably give it a read.
As for things to recommend back, please do! Sure my taste might be expansive (if you say so) but that means I am just more willing to take on whatever you suggest. Oh and do like Sci-Fi, but only certain authors and certain sci-fi. Please I'm not some neckbeard.
As for other things you should do, this Collegehumor [video] (http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6898570/kim-jong-un-launches-a-nuke) is pretty funny, and the rest of the series.
Don't really have much music to suggest, so we'll skip that this time round, plus this message is getting pretty long...
Okay so my favorite tea... it's a three way tie between Rooibos (Uniquely South African thing as far as I'm aware?), the Vanilla Chai tea from [Woolworths] (http://livingincheapluxury.wordpress.com/tag/woolworths-vanilla-chai-tea/) (their official site is down for maintainence). And this special Chai tea that I have no idea the name, only that I buy it from this guy who makes it himself and sells it for R100 for a 1kg burlap bag, which is a huge bargain! There is also a really nice tea cafe near to where I live that I really enjoy going to called [O'ways] (http://www.oways.co.za/), run by an asain couple who know be name now.
Right I think thats it for answering all your questions... That just leaves me with a question to ask back to you (without tradition what do we have?) <--- Not the question but feel free to elaborate. No what I want to know from you is; have you ever made a terrible decision, but stubbornly stuck with it to prove a point? If yes what was it and what was the outcome? (had to add the second part, because I foresaw you being a dick and just answering with a yes and leaving it [and if you just say no and leave it then I'll be upset, and will throw a massive tantrum]).
Dit het dankie vir die vraag! Ook beteken dit totsiens in Afrikaans.
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. It's basically a memoir of the author's drug addiction and his life up to the writing of the book. I read it a couple years ago mostly because Patton Oswalt highly recommended it in a blog or an interview and am very glad I did.
Pretty sure this is a movie already. But skip the movie and read the book instead. A LOT more amusing.
The book this is based on is absolutely hilarious.link
This is a good place to start. If I weren't a lazy shit I'd dig up some of the letters that Lewis and him traded, but I can't find them anymore.
I liked Ninety Days: A memoir: http://www.amazon.com/Ninety-Days-A-Memoir-Recovery/dp/B00D9TPDHE
I'm not a drug user, but it felt honest and realistic.
Also, if you heard of Craig Ferguson, he wrote a hilarious memoir (http://www.amazon.com/American-Purpose-Improbable-Adventures-Unlikely/dp/0061998494/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404325206&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=craig+ferguson+books) that is also very honest about his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He also is well known for his Talk Show speech about alcoholism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVWIELHQQY
Heat. Written by a previously untrained guy who goes to Italy to learn to cook Italian food and ends up as a chef in the kitchen of one of Mario Batali's restaurants. A great read, really engrossing. A perspective on cooking and professional chefs that I never would have seen otherwise.
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
Who knew a Portuguese poet and a 15 year old Asian girl studying for her SATs could think the same way?
But in all honesty, it reads almost like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but a bit more grittier. Like a story with no plot, just an insider perspective and a lot of emotions. Lots of existentialism themes.
The book that catalyzed my gender questioning and discovery was My Gender Workbook , which it seems now has an updated sequel .
Another very good trans memoir is Janet Mock's
Amazon says December 2nd: Redefining Realness
.co.uk (where I usually shop) says 12 February.
You could always read his book, which details his views pretty extensively.
It's pretty good actually.
Sure, susans.org is a huge forum with allies and partners and trans people of all stripes.
This website is part of the Silvia Rivera project who is a rather well known leader in the community, since Stonewall, who died of cancer.
https://srlp.org/resources/trans-101/
There’s tons of trans vloggers you can go to. Most but not all have a 101 video, and/or talk about their experiences being trans. Here’s a list:
https://blog.feedspot.com/transgender_youtube_channels/
There’s a number of authors you may look into as well, here’s some books:
https://www.amazon.com/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoating-Femininity/dp/1580056229
https://www.amazon.com/Redefining-Realness-Path-Womanhood-Identity/dp/1476709130/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543615079&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=janet+mock&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=5179e6QMxzL&amp;ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Surpassing-Certainty-What-Twenties-Taught/dp/1501145797/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543615079&amp;sr=8-2&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=janet+mock&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=511ZZslW8TL&amp;ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Transgender-History-second-Todays-Revolution/dp/158005689X/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=158005689X&amp;pd_rd_r=0ddc8e87-f4eb-11e8-8ad5-2179f688e965&amp;pd_rd_w=dZYLz&amp;pd_rd_wg=l40fZ&amp;pf_rd_i=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_p=926ebe02-3236-40c6-ac63-01ad178f498a&amp;pf_rd_r=7XK0K0TEGTZS8SNQ9YMP&amp;pf_rd_s=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_t=40701&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=7XK0K0TEGTZS8SNQ9YMP
https://www.amazon.com/Trans-Bodies-Selves-Transgender-Community/dp/0199325359/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_15?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0199325359&amp;pd_rd_r=0ddc8e87-f4eb-11e8-8ad5-2179f688e965&amp;pd_rd_w=mqDub&amp;pd_rd_wg=l40fZ&amp;pf_rd_i=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_p=57b46099-d750-4d74-83ee-63ad64b310a4&amp;pf_rd_r=7XK0K0TEGTZS8SNQ9YMP&amp;pf_rd_s=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_t=40701&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=7T7APJ7MA85RWVJHJW5T
https://www.amazon.com/Shes-Not-There-Life-Genders/dp/0385346972/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_17?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0385346972&amp;pd_rd_r=0ddc8e87-f4eb-11e8-8ad5-2179f688e965&amp;pd_rd_w=mqDub&amp;pd_rd_wg=l40fZ&amp;pf_rd_i=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_p=57b46099-d750-4d74-83ee-63ad64b310a4&amp;pf_rd_r=7XK0K0TEGTZS8SNQ9YMP&amp;pf_rd_s=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_t=40701&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=BNNAHM1QDG52M4D25XX2
https://www.amazon.com/Gender-Outlaw-Men-Women-Rest/dp/1101973242/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_20?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=1101973242&amp;pd_rd_r=0ddc8e87-f4eb-11e8-8ad5-2179f688e965&amp;pd_rd_w=mqDub&amp;pd_rd_wg=l40fZ&amp;pf_rd_i=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_p=57b46099-d750-4d74-83ee-63ad64b310a4&amp;pf_rd_r=7XK0K0TEGTZS8SNQ9YMP&amp;pf_rd_s=mobile-dp-sims&amp;pf_rd_t=40701&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=WC57YE4ZTSS8XPR20CRY
Amy
My husband and I love your work and everything you've done, we both enjoy Parks and Rec twice, once while high and once while... not high. We consider you one of our gay icons in comedy. Loved you on Louie too.
Everybody knows you're really good friends with Tina Fey, any possibility of her appearing in the last season of Parks? Any other collaboration ideas?
While writing this btw I went to amazon and bought "Yes, please" right away. (http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Please-Amy-Poehler/dp/0062268341/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414608697&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=yes+please)
Why did you write the book if I may ask? Is it your take on Tina's Bossypants?
Thank you again! And if you're around Encino, my husband and I would throw a fab fondue party for you!
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
http://www.amazon.com/Another-Bullshit-Night-Suck-City/dp/0393329402
Another bullshit night in Suck City
by Nick Flynn
http://www.amazon.com/Another-Bullshit-Night-Suck-City/dp/0393329402
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sabbaths-Master-Reality-33/dp/0826428991
This is the first memoir he put out, and he has another one on people whom he admires, called Gumption. I have Paddle Your Own Canoe on Audible so he reads to me. It's incredibly relaxing.
I just read Another Bullshit Night In Suck City by Nick Flynn and loved it. It feels like a story, not just someone telling about their life. He doesn't just talk about his life in highlights - he shows his own mistakes, his own flaws. The memoir focuses on his relationship with his father, and both of them being writers sets the text up with some great dialogue exchanges and poetic phrases.
https://www.amazon.com/Another-Bullshit-Night-Suck-City/dp/0393329402
Read "Heat" by Bill Buford, he has some interesting perspective. http://www.amazon.com/Heat-Adventures-Pasta-Maker-Apprentice-Dante-Quoting/dp/1400034477/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1293387244&amp;sr=8-5
There's also an article out there written by Bourdain entitled "So you want to be a chef" or something similar that would give you some perspective if you're thinking of becoming a professional.
I like the books by Danny Wallace. They inspire me to live more in the moment, be more open-minded, and indirectly also to travel (which I'm planning on doing next year). They are also very funny. I especially like Yes Man (this is what that Jim Carey movie is based on), Are you Dave Gorman (travels around the world meeting everyone whose name is Dave Gorman :p), and Join Me: The True Story of a Man Who Started a Cult by Accident
I like A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by DFW, but haven't read Consider the Lobster.
Echoes Down the Corridor by Arthur Miller - good writing on a variety of issues
The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean - portraits of people she interviewed, including a group of teenage Hawaiian surfer girls that made a particularly memorable essay.
Essays of E.B. White - excellent observations and thoughts and insights.
Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut - an "autobiographical collage" so being a fan beforehand helps, but his thoughts are on a range of subjects, not just his own personal history.
Also these two lists look promising.
The best description I've ever read of why to go Uncircumcised was in Dan Savage's book The Kid
In fourth grade I got written up in english class. Our topic was to read a biography of person of our choice. Obviously, as any fourth grader of the nineties would, I wrote a report over "The Rock Says". I read the entire book and proceeded to write a detailed essay over the history of this great man!
Well the book had about 2 minor curse words in it. I'm convinced the teacher had it in for me as she must have read the ENTIRE book to figure that out. I was written up for god knows what, all I knew was that I was in trouble. As it was one of the only assignments I actually put effort into the entire school year, I was utterly confused. My father wasn't one to put up with my bullshit OR my teachers, so he ripped her and the principle a new asshole.
I still had to write a new essay. What a cunt.
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sabbaths-Master-Reality-33/dp/0826428991
Semi related note, I'd recommend reading this, it's funny and may speak to you:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Man-Danny-Wallace/dp/0091896746
Not exactly a short story, but a collection of 1-2 page diary entries, but I would definitely recommend Pessoa's Book of Disquiet.
Other great short story authors are Poe, Kafka, Flannery O'Connor, and Ivan Bunin(Dark Avenues).
Say Yes More
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by DFW is pretty entertaining, and according to Amazon has 368 pages.
I started off with Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy since I have a history of depression... the principles are solid, and it's something I continue to work on every day. It would be silly to expect decades of negative reinforcement to be rewired instantly.
Other books:
The Power of Now
The Power of Habit
And this is one I haven't got yet but it's next on my list: Paddle Your Own Canoe because Nick Offerman is a BAMF.
That movie was gorgeous.The woman who gave him the information also wrote her own account because she believed Arthur Golden misrepresented her and the life of a geisha and breached their contract (she had stipulated that he not reveal her identity). I recommend it for anyone that loved Memoirs of a Geisha.
You might already know this but I wanted to leave it in case others do not.
edit: apparently this one is also good for a look at the non-glamorous side of the geisha world.
Plus it's George Plimpton, who is a legitimately good writer.
Another good one is The Education of a Coach, by Pulitzer winner David Halberstam.
I really liked "The Real All-Americans" about the Carlisle Indian School. Although it has nothing to do with the NFL. Except that Jim Thorpe played for them and he played in the very very early NFL.
I also really liked "The Education of a Coach". A biography of Bill Belichick. Obviously this would have limited appeal outside of NE.
http://smile.amazon.com/Paddle-Your-Own-Canoe-Fundamentals/dp/0451467094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1425977465&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nick+offerman
With only my phone on me, I'm just going to list out some of the non-fiction I've enjoyed on my commute recently.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory - Caitlin Doughty Great reading for the morbidly inclined.
Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film - Patton Oswalt I would only recommend this book for true cinema fans. It's enjoyable if you get the references and are also a procrastinating creative.
God'll Cut You Down: The Tangled Tale of a White Supremacist, a Black Hustler, a Murder, and How I Lost a Year in Mississippi - John Safran sort of reminds me of Jon Ronson. Good true crime, fish out of water stuff.
Yes Please - Amy Poehler Great advice, hilarious. Get it on audiobook.
Carsick - John Waters John waters being John Waters.
Manson - Jeff Guinn A super fascinating breakdown of the 1960s, and the environment that held Manson is much is a biography. I'm really excited to read his new book his writing about Jim Jones and the 1970's.
Currently on Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon, very excited about it.
Happy Birthday from New Zealand my friend!
I will give you two gifts this day:
Gift One: Watch, or read, Yes Man. It's a bit predictable and lame-yet this made my life better when I was in a dark place.
Gift Two: Happiness comes from you. To be happy, act happy-the emotions will follow.
This. The Movie sucked balls [Get the book](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0091896746?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=3194&amp;creative=21330&amp;creativeASIN=0091896746&amp;linkCode=shr&amp;tag=microncartogs-21 via @).
I really enjoyed Chuck Yeager's. First read it as a teenager and returned to it several times since.
appropriate-schmappropriate: get your teacher's attention with Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
but if you're determined to be school-appropriate, The Road of Lost Innocence is short, incredibly moving and inspiring, and about a very controversial topic (escaping sexual slavery in Cambodia).
Daniel Kellison has gone rogue. After taping the season 3 cold open, Kellison turned to Norm, "I'm fucking sick of this schtick. I'm talented too," he bitched, "and you are wasting my range cramming me into this box." Norm, displeased with Daniel's rant, got up and left without even a mutterance. Mr. Kellison grew weary. He did not know how to take it. Norm's stoicism had broken his spirit. You might be somewhat surprised, as he was equipped to handle Adam Eget's incessant bitching. For in those occasions, Kellison would simply stick a bottle of Bacardi 151 in Eget's suck-hole. Like a pacifier, that would always shut that coke-nosed baby the hell up. But Norm, he's a complex man. Daniel did not know how to treat such a situation. He stayed up for 2 weeks straight -- just about worked himself to death -- thinking about how he would write, direct, and star in his very own youtube podcast, alongside his trusty sidekick Fred Stoller. But first, he'd need a set. "Where can I find a cheap set to use for my show?" he wondered. As you can imagine, it wouldn't take Kellison long to realize that the answer was right under his very nose. He's not hyper-intelligent by any means, but he was standing in the middle of the goddamn studio. He was bound to notice the fucking talk show desk 10 feet in front of him. Fucking retard. Anyway, long story short, he failed miserably. He had gravely overestimated his abilities. Absolutely defeated, he decided to try to win back Norm's affection. But Norm took his disloyalty as an assault on his soul. He had apparently grown despondent. In his mind, Daniel Kellison had been his right hand man for years. They had an open and loving business arrangement that allowed the two to speak freely about such matters. It wasn't the content that irked the ole chunk of coal; rather, it was the fact that Daniel had hidden this from him for 3 fucking years. You see, Norm had previously suspected that Kellison thought of himself as more than just a suit. Mr. MacDonald recalled how in season 1, Daniel would do pirouettes in front of the cameras when they weren't rolling, much too shy to be filmed. But by season 2, he finally got the courage to pursue his dreams. He used his industry connections to get a minor role in a straight-to-internet indie flick. Cuckhold Sessions 38, alongside rising star Adam Eget. The short opened to mixed reviews, but one critic commented "LMAO those bitchbois cryin cuz they wifys getin fed dat nigga dick". After seeing his performance, Norm was so moved that he decided he would give Daniel a shot at a comedy role he was writing. It was a promotional piece for his new book, Based on a True Story: A Memoir, by Norm MacDonald. Eager to ride this newfound wave of success to fame, Kellison obliged. But what he didn't realize was that this was Norm's subtle way of giving him a leg up, just as the Sandman had done for Norm. MacDonald, a virtuous and notorious empath, was able to cast aside the feelings of despair as his closest business associate refused to bare his soul to him. He surmised that he had overestimated the depth of their relationship. It was disheartening, but at least he knew where they stood in that regard; a silver lining. Once he had mentally addressed the 800 pound gorilla in his own mind, everyday became a little bit easier than the previous. Finally, he was approaching normalcy, or at least as Norm's version of normalcy. And then they filmed the cold open...
So knowing the backstory now, I'll loop back around to how this ties into Daniel Kellison photoshopping those photos:
He did it because he wanted to cheer Norm up. Hoping that if Norm saw what it would look like if he had talk show host David Letterman on Norm MacDonald Live, then Norm would return from hiatus to finish season 3. However, Daniel made multiple errors in execution. First and foremost, the fucking idiot didn't even use the actual Norm MacDonald Live set. Huge giveaway. Secondly, he used a stock image of an Egret instead of co-host Adam Eget. And lastly, he didn't bother to find a picture of Letterman in an interview. It looks like he just used a paparazzo's photograph of Dave walking to the bagel shop. So either there was an inside joke that we didn't pick up on: possibly an Adam Eget hates Jews reference? Or Norm saw right through his ruse. I thought the latter and Norm has now confirmed it.