Monday, April 23, 2012

Team Columbia

I don't usually read Above the Law, but when I do, it's to watch law revue videos.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Pelvic Mysteries

How can it be a surprise that you have a narrow pelvis? It's a bone. You can see it on an x-ray. You can feel it. This sounds like a fact determinable by means other than "will an x cm baby skull fit through it? no? guess it's narrower than x cm!"

(via the MeFi thread on Gawande's article, with extra added OMG from Deadspin and Rural Doctoring)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The piquancy of East Texas

The positively true story of how the nicest man in town murdered the meanest woman in East Texas, gave $2 million of her money away, and got caught when her son found the body under the pot pies. (via Alyssa)

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

What's keeping you from writing the Great American Novel

Pitfalls include using a child's POV, writing about adultery, and distractions like cocaine, the internet, and other people's opinions. Also, get out of your Brooklyn bubble:
Brooklyn novels are written by smart people who are tuned-in to all the various things that might seem like a life, but just because you’re smart and tuned-in doesn’t mean anyone is ever going to want to read your book. Most likely the opposite. Writing a truly page-turning novel is a weird skill set. And while I might take comfort in the idea that every backpack on the train contains a manuscript, they’re generally the wrong kind of manuscript.
I live in the Southside area of Williamsburg. Here I’m thrilled by the constant whoosh of traffic and trains on the bridge. I mourn the view that has been darkened by another ironic condominium. If you stand on the sidewalk in Brooklyn for long enough, they will build an ironic condominium on top of you. There is a large Hasidic community; I wish someone would write a novel about them. Or the abutting Dominican community. Or looking down from inside the Marcy projects. Why should I care about your story? You have a bad job and want to be doing something different but feel paralyzed because of something and so you gchat with your friends all day the end. Collins and Martin keep you reading deep into the night because at the end of a chapter Katniss’ head suddenly falls off. And you’re like, her head just fell off??? I have to keep reading. Like holy crap. And so you stay up all night furiously turning pages. What happens at the end of your chapters? Someone doesn’t reply to your email or something. Or, like, 9/11 happens. I’m so fucking riveted.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

The passion of Bruce Springsteen

At SXSW:
In the beginning, every musician has their genesis moment. For you, it might have been the Sex Pistols, or Madonna, or Public Enemy. It's whatever initially inspires you to action. Mine was 1956, Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the evening I realized a white man could make magic, that you did not have to be constrained by your upbringing, by the way you looked, or by the social context that oppressed you. You could call upon your own powers of imagination, and you could create a transformative self.
A white boy, moved to action! To embrace the magic formerly reserved for black men! To throw off the chains of his oppression and transform himself! Truly a triumph of the will.