Monday, November 30, 2015
21 Books That Will Remind You Of Your British Childhood
Posted by Unknown on Monday, November 30, 2015
Five go on a trip down memory lane.
The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr
Remember the horror of discovering your local supermarket didn't stock cans of tiger food? Cat kibble just wasn't the same (tigers are very particular about their brand of food).
various brennemans / Via Flickr: brenneman
The Worst Witch by Jill Muphy
Mildred Hubble made you feel so much better about your own school life. No matter how clumsy and awkward you felt, at least you never turned anyone into a pig.
The Famous Five by Enid Blyton.
Remember Julian, Dick, Anne, and George? Remember Kirrin Island? REMEMBER ALL THE TONGUE SANDWICHES? So many tongue sandwiches.
Instagram: @instagram.com/p/-XV305raO_/
The Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones
Everything Diana Wynne Jones wrote was gold (Howl's Moving Castle was THE BEST), but the Chrestomanci series wins, mainly because there was more than just one book to read. Finishing the whole series and realising there weren't any more was the actual worst.
Whisper Campaigns And "Zipper Problems": How Jeb Bush's Allies Tried — And Failed — To Stop Marco Rubio
Posted by Unknown on Monday, November 30, 2015
On the night of the 2010 midterm elections, a portly, silver-haired Jeb Bush stood on a stage in the courtyard of Miami’s luxe Biltmore Hotel, appearing to choke back tears. The beloved former governor of Florida was there to introduce the young conservative insurgent who had just pulled off a remarkable underdog victory in the U.S. Senate race.
“Bushes get emotional, so I’m gonna try my hardest,” Jeb told the ecstatic crowd of Republicans. “My wife told me, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ But Marco Rubio makes me cry for joy!”
At the time, it looked like the culmination of a sturdy alliance and deep friendship — the proud mentor presenting his protege. Five years later, however, the two men are locked in a fight for the Republican presidential nomination, and recent headlines suggest the relationship has soured. According to the New York Times, Bush’s super PAC has threatened to spend $20 million in a blitz of negative ads intended “to damage … Rubio’s reputation and halt his sudden ascent in the polls.” And last month, an internal document leaked detailing the Bush campaign’s efforts to cast Rubio as “a risky bet” for donors. “Those who have looked into Marco’s background in the past have been concerned with what they have found,” the document cryptically warned.
The Bush campaign didn't elaborate on its innuendo. But, as I detail in my new book, The Wilderness, Jeb's allies went much further in a behind-the-scenes, last-ditch effort to keep Rubio from running in the first place.
Jeb and his team recognized the threat posed by Rubio nearly a year ago, and took aggressive action to knock him out of 2016 contention — with some in Bush's circle trying to smear the senator by allegedly circulating lurid, unsubstantiated rumors of infidelity.
Reached for comment Sunday, Bush spokesman Tim Miller said, “Our campaign has never said anything of this nature and doesn’t believe it. The candidates will be graded on their records both in the private sector and public office, as well as their plans for the future.”
But months before the campaign began, Republican donors, operatives, and politicos told a different story. The same day Mitt Romney bowed out of the 2016 race — marking the first and last real victory for Jeb’s “juggernaut” campaign — a California bundler who was being courted by Bush’s team told me, “They’re going after Rubio next. It’s like whack-a-mole. They’re going to try to take out everyone before the primaries even start.”
In March 2012, Marco Rubio charged Terry Sullivan — a loyal, salty-tongued aide out of South Carolina — with the task of running his political action committee, Reclaim America. The strategist's job was to lay the political groundwork for Rubio's next move, positioning him for either a spot on the 2012 Republican ticket or a future presidential bid of his own. And Sullivan knew immediately what his first priority would be: putting an end to the incessant drip-drip of damning intel on Rubio, and figuring out exactly what skeletons might be lodged in the senator's closet.
Ever since he began to make a name for himself in Tallahassee, Rubio had been trailed by a persistent series of unsubstantiated rumors about his sex life. Jilted mistresses, sordid affairs, secret love children — Rubio’s team had heard it all, and the more seasoned strategists among them knew that such tittle-tattle was commonplace in every state capitol. But even as Rubio indignantly denied any suggestion of infidelity, the unconfirmed gossip had proved difficult for him to shake, popping up frequently on local political blogs and via the endless behind-the-scenes speculation of his loose-lipped legislative colleagues.
All throughout Rubio's 2010 Senate bid, his campaign aides had worried that their flailing primary opponent would go public with the gossip — but the rumors never managed to bubble up to the mainstream press. Now that Rubio had emerged as the most buzzed-about prospect in the 2012 Republican veepstakes, however, he had a fresh target on his back, and journalists were scrambling to find new angles on the young freshman senator. It started when The Washington Post published a story poking holes in the inspirational tale of Rubio's Cuban "exile" parents; a few months later, I reported at BuzzFeed News that Rubio had been baptized Mormon as a child. Neither revelation was particularly scandalous, but they served to rev up the D.C. rumor mill, and soon the “zipper problem” rumors were resurfacing in the gossip among politicos. Taking note of the chatter, conservative columnist Marc Thiessen wrote, vaguely, that a “malevolent oracle is at work in Washington . . . seeking to undermine the ascent of a rising GOP star” by “suggesting that Rubio may look good on paper, but he cannot ‘pass vet’ for the vice presidential nomination.” Of course, no one in the staid, starchy D.C. press corps was willing to explicitly lay out the rumors dogging Rubio — but they gestured toward them all the time with broad suggestions that “another shoe” (a stiletto, perhaps?) was still waiting to drop on the Floridian.
To lay this meme to rest, Sullivan sought out a Sacramento-based firm named MB Public Affairs, known in campaign circles for its “political vulnerability research” and tight-lipped discretion. Sullivan pulled more than $40,000 out of the PAC’s bank account to cover the company’s fee, but before setting the researchers loose, Rubio’s top aides had a frank talk with the senator. They warned that the process they were about to undertake would be about as invasive and unpleasant as a prostate exam — but just as necessary to his political health. Rubio concurred. Though the senator had taken issue with the way the Washington Post handled the story about his parents, the truth was that the paper’s findings had genuinely surprised him: He had never heard the full story from his mom and dad. He realized now just how much damage could be wrought by a single, seemingly benign secret — even one that wasn’t his own.
The political rectal probe started right away, with the firm’s researchers eventually digging through Rubio’s messy personal finances and rounding up every piece of paper that had passed through his office in Tallahassee. Field operatives fanned out across the country, descending on the tiny Missouri town where his now-defunct former college once stood, and showing up on distant relatives’ doorsteps, from Miami to Las Vegas. Their mission was to dig up any and all dirt that political opponents might try to use against Rubio — especially anything likely to turn up in the vice presidential vetting process. That included quietly dispatching a private investigator to Florida to fully suss the extent of the infidelity rumors.
To Rubio's longest-serving aides, most of the stories they heard about their boss contained all the verisimilitude of Fifty Shades of Grey fan fiction — but they knew a couple of rumors were particularly persistent in political circles, and they targeted those for debunking. One that reporters in Florida had repeatedly tried to run down over the years dealt with a Tallahassee politico who Rubio had supposedly taken on several romantic out-of-state trips and paid for them with the state party's credit card. Another, even more pervasive rumor, held that Rubio was hiding a secret second family somewhere, and sending regular cash installments to support them (and keep them quiet). The details of this story varied substantially from one telling to another: sometimes the mother was a former Dolphins cheerleader; other times she wasn’t. Sometimes there was one kid living with his mom in New York; other times there were two kids and they lived in Florida.
Rubio’s operatives found these stories impossible to reconcile with the devoted family man and conscientious careerist they knew and admired. But they also knew that smoke routinely preceded fire in political sex scandals, and they needed to find out for sure if there was a “bimbo eruption” looming on the horizon. Acting on explicit instructions, the research firm investigated the rumors and determined that they lacked concrete evidence, which was enough to give Rubio’s advisers peace of mind. But along the way, the firm encountered enough dishy Miami-Dade politicos hocking titillating gossip to fill the entire newsroom of a supermarket tabloid. The firm concluded that, in many cases, the rumors were being fanned by the same South Florida Republicans who claimed to be Rubio’s supporters.
And unfortunately for him, many of those Miami gossips would, come 2015, join the cutthroat ranks of the Jeb Bush juggernaut.
Clay Rodery for BuzzFeed News
When new hires would show up for their first day of work at the Tallahassee offices of Florida governor Jeb Bush, they would find on their desks a bound copy of an 1899 essay titled “A Message to Garcia.” Even in its 19th century prose, the 1,500-word pamphlet was a breezy read that could easily be skimmed in the space of a coffee break — but the aides who wanted to thrive were expected to fully internalize its thesis.
In the essay, author Elbert Hubbard relates the story of a U.S. army officer assigned by President William McKinley to deliver an important message to the Cuban rebel general Calixto Garcia, deep in the island’s jungles. The exemplary officer takes the order “without asking any idiotic questions." He dutifully sets off on a boat, disappears into the jungle, and emerges weeks later having executed his mission flawlessly. Praising the officer’s quiet diligence, Hubbard writes, “There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book learning young men need...but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing — ‘Carry a message to Garcia!’”
Inside each pamphlet, the governor’s aides would find a handwritten inscription from their new boss: “Be a messenger.”
Some of the new staffers no doubt interpreted the gift as little more than a well-intentioned bit of fortune cookie management theory. But the ones who would become the governor’s most trusted aides were those who received it as it was intended: a new creed to live by, an invitation to convert. From those baptized into the Bush inner circle, Jeb demanded fierce obedience, a bullet-blocking sense of loyalty, and a monomaniacal drive to get the job done by whatever means necessary. Across Florida, allies and adversaries alike marveled at his Vader-like grip on his troops. “He instills something weird in you,” David Johnson, one of Jeb’s longtime loyalists, told me. “You really want to please him. It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 50. You want to make Jeb Bush happy with your work, happy with your competence.” And often the fastest way to earn the boss’s attaboys was with sharpened knives and a killer instinct.
Indeed, beneath the glossy exterior of his public profile — that of the compassionate conservative, the happy warrior, the good-natured reformer — Jeb possessed a hard-edged, often ruthless political style that ran through his entire rise and reign in the Sunshine State. “He’s been the big, bad kid,” Chris Smith, a leading Democrat in the Florida House, complained to a reporter toward the end of Jeb’s term. “And he’s wielded that power mercilessly.”
Clay Rodery for BuzzFeed News
It wasn't until Rubio dazzled a roomful of donors at the Koch brothers summit in Rancho Mirage that Jeb and his tight-knit 2016 team decided the young senator needed to be neutralized. For their new mission, they adopted a code name: “Homeland Security.” Few of Jeb’s lieutenants believed they would need to subject Rubio to too much browbeating in order to sideline him, and their commander agreed. All he needed was a gentle reminder of his place in the pecking order. And so the word went out to Jeb’s army of foot soldiers: Carry the message.
Over the next several weeks, Jeb’s messengers rallied his vast matrix of Florida allies in an effort to lock down support in his home state. They set up conference call pep rallies with hundreds of self-proclaimed “alumni” of the Bush gubernatorial administration (including many Rubio supporters) and ginned up excitement about getting the band back together. They moved swiftly to extract endorsements from state lawmakers — wooing them over brown liquor and red meat at the exclusive Governors Club near the capitol, and then encouraging them to make their allegiances publicly known.
Meanwhile, Jeb’s ever-expanding political operation made a big show of its fundraising supremacy, particularly in Florida. At an event hosted by his political action committee in Tallahassee, his team branded the donors like cattle, with large red stickers exclaiming “Jeb!” — and then they invited reporters into the formerly private meeting so they could ooh and ahh and tweet about the impressive herd of millionaires.
Nine hundred miles away at the Capitol Hill offices of Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC, the message came through loud and clear.
Rubio’s advisers had hoped to stay off Jeb’s radar entirely, quietly raising money and assembling a lean and nimble staff while the juggernaut blasted away at bigger targets and boasted about its gargantuan fundraising hauls. The loudmouth lieutenants on Jeb’s finance team were already bragging to reporters that they had set a $100 million goal for the first quarter of 2015 — an astronomical sum that would shatter any and all fundraising records if achieved. By contrast, when Rubio had assembled his top donors in Miami Beach at the end of January, his advisers explicitly asked that they resist, for now, any urge to hype their contributions in the media.
“Don’t try to steal Jeb’s thunder,” one Rubio adviser instructed them. “It’s like a pendulum. Let them pound their chest and build themselves up, and when they don’t hit their goal, it’s gonna come crashing back [in] the other direction.” In the meantime, they would go about their business without Jeb’s interference, and when the fundraising totals were made public, Rubio’s haul would far exceed the low expectations.
Alas, the Bush brigade had Florida on full, threat-level-red lockdown, and with the exception of a few loyal backers, Rubio wasn’t getting anywhere in his home state. Meanwhile, as they tried fundraising outside of Florida, they began to notice a curious pattern among the Republican donors who were turning them down. Many of them seemed to like Rubio’s ideas and message, but when they explained their doubts about his 2016 prospects, they often used the same vague, coded language: concerns about the wealth of “oppo” that could drag him down, or the “talk coming out of Tallahassee,” or the importance of nominating a “fully vetted” candidate. This, of course, was nothing new for Rubio. But it seemed oddly top of mind all of a sudden in certain quarters of the GOP money world.
“It’s the same thing from the Jeb Bush camp. They keep telling me, ‘Oh, we’ve got the thing that’s going to take him down.’ But nobody’s ever produced anything that we all haven’t read in the Tallahassee Democrat.”
A 6-Year-Old Is Getting Support After Her School Cancelled A Reading Of A Book About Being Trans
Posted by Unknown on Monday, November 30, 2015
A community is rallying behind a 6-year-old transgender girl after her school cancelled a planned reading of the book I Am Jazz to introduce her gender identity to her classmates due to backlash.
The student was planning on introducing herself last Monday to her friends at Mount Horeb Primary Center in Wisconsin as the girl “she really is," her mother told the Wisconsin State Journal.
The girl's transition started a year ago after her parents and teachers noticed she was displaying signs of anxiety and depression. The girl and her family have not been named publicly for privacy reasons.
"She also would ask, 'Why do I have boy parts? I feel like I’m a girl. Can I grow my hair out? Why can’t I be a girl? I feel like I’m a girl,'" her mother told the paper. “It progressed from there. She vocalized more as she got older and she became more persistent."
After discussing it with the girl's parents, the school planned a reading and discussion of the book I Am Jazz — the true story of transgender teen Jazz Jennings — to help the students understand their classmate's transition, the newspaper reported.
Jazz Jennings
Kimberly White / Getty Images
In a letter to parents sent on Nov. 19 and obtained by The Cap Times, school principal Rachael Johnson told parents they would read I Am Jazz in class to "foster respect and support" among the children.
"We have been working with the family of a student on your child’s floor who identifies as a girl, but has male anatomy," Johnson wrote in part. "We refer to this as having a girl brain and a boy body. Together we have come up with a plan to support this student in living as her authentic self."
But a day later, the school received an angry letter from religious group Liberty Counsel. The group demanded the school cancel the reading or face legal action for violating "parental constitutional rights."
The five-page letter calls being transgender "a psychological and moral disorder" and claims students will be subjected to "propaganda having no basis in science or reality."
Expecting other students to call their transgender classmate "her" or "she" "infringes upon the other students’ rights to tell the truth, in accordance with their religious convictions, and reality," the letter said.
Earlier this year, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed the Liberty Counsel as a hate group due to their anti-LGBT rhetoric.
After receiving the letter, the school cancelled the reading.
Mount Horeb Primary Center / Via mhasd.k12.wi.us
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, the district said the school's original plan was cancelled pending further discussion with officials and parents. The district didn't specify what the original plan was.
"We respect our parents’ need to have the opportunity to review and discuss information the school may provide to their children in advance of such activities," the statement said. "Accordingly, we have chosen not to proceed as originally planned and allow the Board of Education the opportunity to review the needs of all involved, and address a situation for which the district has no current policy."
The mother of the girl told the Journal the reading’s cancellation “was not a surprise" but that the school has been great to work with.
But after the cancellation, the local community is taking a stand to support the girl in their own way.
Community members are planning two public readings of I Am Jazz to support the girl.
Parent Amy Lyle, who has a child at the school, told BuzzFeed News she heard about the incident on local radio and will hold her own reading of the book at Mount Horeb Library on Wednesday.
"When we heard about the lawsuit we felt angry and concerned that an identified hate group would try to insert themselves into our community, threaten our teachers and school district, and try to intimidate others," Lyle said. “We believe Mount Horeb to be an accepting place for all children.”
Another reading will be conducted by Mount Horeb High School’s Straight and Gay Alliance on Wednesday, according to the Journal.
The girl's mother told the Journal that her daughter just wants to be "accepted, included, and not bullied."
“We want people to remember that at the center of all of this is a child and her family," she said.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Why I Stopped Running From New York
Posted by Unknown on Sunday, November 29, 2015
The following is a slightly edited excerpt from Never Can Say Goodbye, a collection of essays edited by Sari Botton and originally published in 2014.
Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed
The first time I considered moving to New York City I was fresh out of college and there was a job on the table: “I know a guy we could deal cocaine for,” my buddy Pete said.
It was tempting. I’d spent the whole summer working on a paint maintenance crew on an island off the coast of New Hampshire, and the idea of moving to the largest city in the country had its appeal. Not to mention that I’d always thought I’d be good at dealing cocaine.
My other option was to work for little money on a long-shot congressional campaign in Pennsylvania’s Eighth District. Much to the relief of pretty much everyone I knew, that’s what I ended up doing. The candidate was Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war vet who would eventually win, become the youngest Democrat on the Hill, and help get rid of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, only to be voted out again in 2010.
But I wouldn’t be there for any of that. After six months on the campaign trail, sleeping in suits and living in an unheated, unfinished room built out of crumbling drywall on a diet of scotch to help me fall asleep, I, with a fresh degree in political science and episodes of The West Wing bouncing around in my head, realized that I had made a terrible four-year-long mistake. Politics wasn’t for me.
Luckily I had an escape route. I’d met a girl while painting all those buildings in New Hampshire—a girl who had just moved to San Francisco. Like so many of us who don’t know what to do with ourselves, I chased a relationship. While all my friends on the East Coast were moving to New York City, I moved three thousand miles away.
California was totally unfamiliar. My life had been East Coast all the way, from Boston to Philadelphia to Washington, DC. But moving to the West Coast gave me something staying back east didn’t: much-needed distance from my childhood. I had a history with my parents, as any of us who have parents do. A history of a combative household filled with explosive arguments and estranged silence. My parents were married when they had me, just to different people. Their lives weren’t easy. Not enough money or trust, too many tough situations with no way to win. We lived poor in Boston at a halfway house for low-income families run by the Catholic Worker, and then in North Central Massachusetts, white and rural and impoverished.
In North Central Massachusetts, my parents began to reconcile. But I was still a child and unable to understand the difficulties that they had faced. Angry and resentful, I turned to the distractions available to me in backwoods Massachusetts—riding around in trucks, consuming beer and terribly stepped-on drugs in deserted forests and quarries. As the wounds between my parents healed, I withdrew from them, unable to forgive them for being human.
San Francisco was beautiful and new and strange, but my bad habits made the trip with me.
San Francisco was beautiful and new and strange, but my bad habits made the trip with me. A year after I arrived, the girl moved back east to get away from our relationship, which was really more of a drinking partnership at that point. She left, but I stayed, bottle in hand.
I lived in a one-bedroom apartment that I shared with three people, where mice ran across the kitchen table while you were eating like you weren’t even there and pigeons nested in the walls. I waited tables at Buca di Beppo (which was like Olive Garden but worse), slung beers at old, punk-encrusted bars, and at one point was the world’s worst sushi chef. At five a.m. every morning, I got up to make rolls that I would then drive to different tech campuses—Google, LinkedIn, Facebook—stocking their snack refrigerators with the hand-rolled fruits of my labor from a blue beer cooler. In my uniform of a black T-shirt and ripped jeans, and reeking of fish, I’d drag the cooler through brightly lit offices where everything matched except me, as I skulked past beautiful, well-dressed kids my own age having loud sex on the tops of piles of money. At least that’s how I remember it.
The years passed, and crappy jobs turned into less crappy jobs, as they tend to if you stay in one place long enough. Bouncing turned into barbacking turned into a few shifts bartending turned into a trip running medical supplies illegally into Burma out of Thailand turned into a job for a news website that actually had a steady paycheck and health insurance. I quit after a year because a friend offered me an opportunity that was too good to pass up: taking a fifty percent pay cut and absolutely no insurance whatsoever to help him with his new online arts and culture magazine. But, hey. Talking about books online might be a meager living, but it was still a living. And it was talking about books online.
As a child I had always loved books but never had a clue about how they were made. For the first time, surrounded by the amazing artists and writers of the Bay Area, I was thriving in a job that I actually enjoyed. I stopped drinking tequila in the morning (for the most part) and eventually moved into an incredible, illegally subletted, way-too-grown- up-for-me rent-controlled studio that I had all to myself. The city, which initially seemed to reject my very presence, slowly began to tolerate me, and then—it felt like—champion me. And in turn I championed her. “Look, look,” I would say, grabbing everyone who would listen, “look at this, the most beautiful city in the world. This is my home.”
Then my new job began bringing me east, more and more. My parents and I started
getting in touch more often. When I first got to San Francisco, I would call every week on Sunday, like the lapsed Catholic I was. In return, they would never visit. We maintained that schedule for years, until my first piece of writing was published: an essay about letting a woman fuck me in the ass with a strap-on. My father didn’t come to the phone for six months, although my mother and I still spoke. Then, one Sunday, my father picked up the line. We talked baseball, as one does when talking about feelings is too harrowing to consider. Sunday by Sunday, despite the distance, we grew closer. The calls turned into one visit, then two. My parents had moved, and our old home was behind us. The things I held against them, the things they held against themselves, seemed to soften with age. Instead of avoiding them when I was in New York on business, I invited them into the city for dinner.
The things I held against them, the things they held against themselves, seemed to soften with age.
After eight years of living in San Francisco and fighting to carve out a life of my own far away from my childhood home, I moved back to the East Coast. The decision came quickly. My half brother, from my mother’s previous marriage, was struggling to start a new family. He and his wife had suffered a devastating miscarriage on Christmas Day the previous year, a Christmas I wasn’t there for, and they’d been trying to get pregnant again ever since.
We spoke on the phone often. He’d describe fertility tests and drugs I couldn’t pronounce, procedures and endless appointments with doctors nearly as numerous as the miles that stood between the Atlantic and the Pacific. They lived on the New Hampshire coast, near where I’d painted those houses and met that woman who brought me west. I felt useless, wearing my armor of three thousand miles. When he told me that he and his wife had finally succeeded—that they would be starting a family in the summer—I realized that I wanted to be there. That I didn’t want distance to be a part of our family’s next steps. My half sister, from my father’s previous marriage, lived in New York City. She didn’t know a guy I could deal cocaine for, but she would be happy to share the city with me and even help me find a place to live.
I moved in December. The winter was the harshest that it had been in years, or so
people would say as they saw me shiver through the drifts of snow, longing for
the California sun. Like San Francisco, New York did not welcome me with open arms. Why should it? New York is just a place. A city. It has no feelings toward me one way or the other. When I got to New York, I was the age my parents were when they had met and had me. What does anyone know about living life at thirty? About as much as I knew about the subway, I’d have said, as I took the wrong trains, missed my stops, and tried to figure out if Coney Island was ever the right direction to go in.
I saw my parents more in four months than I had in the past eight years. All I had to do was walk outside my apartment and money would disappear from my pockets. I stepped into every deceptively shallow-looking monster slush puddle that seasoned New Yorkers knew to avoid. I was anxious, feeling as though the entire eastern seaboard bore down on my shoulders, trying to push me underground.
The thing about missing eight winters, though, is that you forget that you also missed eight springs. Now, the sun is here. I no longer hide underground, crowded into subway cars that I worry I’ll never get used to. Riding my bicycle over the Manhattan Bridge, I see the city, instead of scuttling beneath it. And it is beautiful. Parks. Markets. Blossoms. People. Dresses. Pavement. This city is alive and full of wonder and I am just one lost person in it, but I wouldn’t want to be lost anywhere else. That’s the flip side to leaving a city that made me feel cozy and comfortable and loved: I get to be lost. I have an entire expanse of concrete to explore, to learn about, to appreciate. And to hell with concrete—I hear there’s a beach, even. I look forward to meeting the Rockaways, and perfect summer midnights and bitching about the heat and the smell of baked garbage. I look forward to meeting all the joys and challenges of a new city remade for a new season. My brother’s daughter will be born this summer. I look forward to meeting her too.
***
Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and been given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. He is the editor of BuzzFeed Books and co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them. More at www.isaacfitzgerald.net.
***
This essay, originally titled "SF -> NYC," was first published in the collection Never Can Say Goodbye, edited by Sari Botton. Copyright 2014 by Sari Botton. Reprinted by permission of Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Here Are The 9 Books President Obama Bought On Small Business Saturday
Posted by Unknown on Sunday, November 29, 2015
Now we know what the Obamas will be reading his holiday season.
On Saturday, President Obama continued his tradition of shopping on Small Business Saturday at a local bookstore.
On Saturday,
Pool / Getty Images
The FIrst Family went to Upshur Street Books in Washington D.C.
Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images
And that's where he, Sasha, and Malia picked up some new titles, just in time for the holidays.
Pool / Getty Images
The president, he's just like us!
Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Which Hogwarts Houses Do The Characters Of "Hamilton" Belong In?
Posted by Unknown on Saturday, November 28, 2015
25 Books Every Pop Culture Nerd Needs To Read
Posted by Unknown on Saturday, November 28, 2015
Books for people who love to go ~behind the scenes.~
Amy Sefton for BuzzFeed
Amy Sefton for BuzzFeed
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Updated and Expanded by David Thomson
While you may not agree with all of film critic David Thomson's opinions, you can't argue with his selection of iconic films and the folks who make them happen. This is the ultimate movie reference guide and pretty much a necessity for any movie buff.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood by Peter Diskind
This movie is all about the time in Hollywood when the phrase "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" was actually invented. Equal parts film analysis and celeb gossip, this is a juicy read for anyone who misses or missed out on the '60s.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Can You Name Every One Of Terry Pratchett's Discworld Books?
Posted by Unknown on Friday, November 27, 2015
Stray into a zone with a high magical index and test your knowledge of Discworld.
Image: Colin Smythe
22 Fred And George Weasley Moments That'll Make You Laugh, Cry, And Everything In Between
Posted by Unknown on Friday, November 27, 2015
ALL. THE. FEELS.
When you realised that every mirror is the Mirror Of Erised for George.
Via jealousofhermione.tumblr.com
And the fact that this was the only time Fred and George would ever grow old together.
Via imgur.com
When they opened the best store Diagon Alley had ever seen and you were filled with pride because you knew it was their lifelong dream.
Warner Bros. / Via tumblr.com
J.K. Rowling Has Some Important Opinions About Whether Snape Is A Hero
Posted by Unknown on Friday, November 27, 2015
SPOILER: No. No, he isn’t.
As every dedicated Harry Potter fan knows, the morality of Severus Snape is one of the most important and continuous debates of our time, and possibly in the history of forever.
Warner Bros.
Many fans argue that, because Snape died fighting against Voldemort on behalf of the wizarding world, he was actually one of the series' greatest heroes.
His unconditional love for Harry's mother Lily – after her death – motivated him to double-cross Voldemort and work with the Order of the Phoenix in order to ~defeat evil~.
Warner Bros.
Others, however, say that Snape simply used his unrequited love for Lily Potter as an excuse to act abusively towards his students. Not to mention the fact that he actually decided to become a Death Eater in the first place.
Snape actively abused Harry for no reason other than he looked like his father, whom Snape hated. He was such an awful person that, when Neville came to face the Boggart, it took the form of Snape because – in a world where his parents were tortured by Death Eaters to the extent that they were hospitalised for the rest of their lives – Snape is what Neville feared the most.
Warner Bros.
Can You Guess The Urban Dictionary Definition Of These Words?
Posted by Unknown on Friday, November 27, 2015
*splashes holy water on screen*
Who Is Actually The Best "Jessica Jones" Character?
Posted by Unknown on Friday, November 27, 2015
Time to see who the real heroes are.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Which "Jessica Jones" Character Are You Based On Your Zodiac Sign?
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
It’s written in the stars.
7 Dark Disney Origin Stories That Will Ruin Your Childhood
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
…and they lived happily ever after??
BuzzFeed Video / Via youtube.com
Here Are The Books Your Favorite Writers Are Most Thankful For
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
Celebrate Thanksgiving with the books Junot Díaz, R. L. Stine, John Green, Colum McCann, Rainbow Rowell, and more of your favorite authors are grateful for.
Jarry Lee / BuzzFeed
In honor of Thanksgiving, we asked writers we love to tell us about the book they're most thankful for. Here's what they had to say:
Junot Díaz
Nina Subin
15 Totally Weird Words That Deserve A Spot In Your Vocabulary
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
They’re eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious!
Acersecomic:
Read the full definition here.
Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed
Adoxography:
You can read more good writing on this small matter right here.
Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed
Alectryomancy:
You can read more about how it was done right here.
Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed
Anaphalantiasis:
You can read more about it here.
Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed
19 Extremely Important Things JK Rowling Taught Us About Harry Potter In 2015
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
Who said magic was dead?
The very important reason why the Horcrux inside Harry didn't die when he was bitten by the basilisk.
Warner Bros. / Twitter
What ~actually~ happened to Fluffy after he was finished guarding the Philosopher's Stone.
Warner Bros. / Twitter
The reason why the pure-blood Black family's home was in the middle of a Muggle housing complex.
Warner Bros. / Twitter
The reason why the Resurrection Stone still worked after the Horcrux inside it had been destroyed.
Warner Bros. / Twitter
17 Books That Prove YA Novels Are Morally Complicated
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
Although, let’s be real, what YA novel isn’t complicated?
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
When Anna takes a trip to Aruba with her boyfriend, Tate, and best friend, Elise, things take a turn for the worst when Elise is found brutally murdered.
Simon Pulse
Far From You by Tess Sharpe
When Sophie Winter's best friend, Mina, is murdered by a masked man, the cops deem it as a drug deal gone wrong but Sophie knows there's more to the story.
Disney-Hyperion
The Death House by Sarah Pinborough
Toby lives in the Death House, where he, and the others who live there, are studied for any sign of sickness to determine if it's time to send them to the sanatorium where no one ever returns.
Titan Books
What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
When Evie's father returns home from World War II, Evie soon realizes that he brought back more than just good war stories.
Scholastic Paperbacks
Now You Can Watch "The Little Prince" Trailer In English
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, November 26, 2015
“Growing up is not the problem. Forgetting is.”
Last year, the trailer for The Little Prince was released in French.
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com
And now, it's available in English.
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com
Just like the timeless children's book it's based on, the movie looks like it's going to be absolutely magical.
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com
And will make you feel all of your feelings.
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
How To Be An Adult, According To Judah Friedlander
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, November 25, 2015
The stand-up comedian and author stopped by BuzzFeed and gave us important life advice about how to be adults.
How can you stop worrying so much about what other people think?
Jon Premosch / BuzzFeed
"Get off social media, it'll just make you worry a lot more."
Judah Friedlander / BuzzFeed
What would you say to a friend who always cancels at the last minute?
Jon Premosch / BuzzFeed
"You just kick 'em off a cliff."
"Next time they actually show up and they come late, which they probably will, you just kick 'em off a cliff, and then you don't have to worry about them being late or not showing up ever again."
Judah Friedlander / BuzzFeed
"Poorly Drawn Lines" Is Now A Book And It's Just Wonderful
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, November 25, 2015
“What are you thinking about, little duck?”
Poorly Drawn Lines is a popular web comic by San Francisco artist Reza Farazmand.
Reza Farazmand / Plume Books
Farazmand told BuzzFeed he started posting the comics in college, but only "got serious about it" in 2012, when he started posting three times a week.
Reza Farazmand / Plume Books
With his unique mix of wit, silliness, and social commentary, he quickly built a loyal readership, and started working on PDL full time in 2013.
Reza Farazmand / Plume Books
On his prodigious output, Farazmand said: "I have to get all these ideas out or they'll eat me up from the inside in an attempt to escape. It's a matter of survival."
Reza Farazmand / Plume Books
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17 Of The Funniest Tweets About Books In 2015