For every Beiber and Boo Boo, there's a handful of genuinely good shows, bands, books and blogs you may skip over simply because they’re marketed towards the younger set. To keep you “jiggy” (am I saying that right?) with today’s youth, here are five of the best things out there that may have flown under your radar.
Read MoreClothing company UNIONMADE, which sells goods that are not union-made, has been in the news recently for being a bunch of lying shitheels. Apparently some people don’t like their misleading name, but their PR department doesn’t know what the big deal is.
Read MoreWatching Shuggie Otis's ill-starred Echoplex show on Wednesday, my native Angeleno companions and I got to debating whether there is an “LA soul” sound — one that captures the soul of the city itself. Here are five of my personal choices for quintessential soul-of-LA artists.
Read MoreWhat does poetic inspiration have in common with inhalational anesthesia? Amazingly, it is not known how either of them works.
Read MoreThe IDF and Al Qassam Brigades may be tweeting from their respective countries, but their words meet in a space that belongs to neither of them — a space that requires neither visas nor passports from its visitors. Twitter highlights the Internet's status as terra incognita where pure freedom of speech holds sway.
Read MoreIt's been over a decade since the last Baby-sitters Club installment came out, but the fandom lives on. "Snark" communities analyze the books into harsh oblivion, Ann M. Martin has over 12k likes on Facebook, and people are still speculating where the sitters are today.
But the BSC's biggest impact can be seen, surprisingly, in fashion blogs. We've matched the club's members with their blogger progeny, and it's hard to deny: Stoneybrook style is still alive and well.
Read MoreAll my friends are complaining about the (frequently hilarious) shortcomings of Apple Maps. But I have a soft spot for just about any map that shows me the world in a new way. Here are five of my favorites.
Read MoreI know it’s October, but have a look at these ads, all from the Manhattan-bound platform of the Court Square E/M stop, and consider that there was barely enough remaining wallspace to accommodate that new Paul Blart spinoff.
Read MoreAfter an incredible meeting with Tumblr literary high priestess, Rachel Fershleiser, we are ready to unveil the shiny new Black Balloon Tumblr! On it, you'll find exclusive odds and ends from our books, outtakes from our blog, photos from events and parties, and anything worth reblogging from our literary friends and allies. To commemorate such an occasion, we've compiled a list of some of our favorite literary Tumblrs. Do yourself a favor and follow all these blogs immediately. Your cat-filled, Ryan Gosling-studded dashboard will thank you.
Title 2 Come: Gif blogs may be played out, but this literary-minded one is extremely relevant to our interests. Besides, any excuse to use this Ron Swanson gif is an Internet victory in our books.
Book Storey: For the extremely detail-oriented design bibliophiles, this collection of rare books will make you swoon. Recommended for people who spend way too much time in the Strand's Rare Book Room.
Fishing Boat Proceeds: YA author, John Green, is a Tumbly messiah, herding masses of “nerdfighters” to do outrageous things like register to vote and donate to Kiva. If you want to know that the kids are up to these days, jump on his bandwagon.
Underground NYPL: Forget the Sartorialist. This is the street style blog you want to be caught on. Subway riders reading, with the occasional e-reader thrown in for good measure.
Rachel Fershleiser: Obviously.
On the Strand: UK Penguin's Tumblr ain't the standard huge publishing blog. They post never-before-seen bits and pieces from their books, and if you're lucky you can catch an early glimpse of soon-to-be bestsellers, like they did with Zadie Smith's NW a couple of months ago.
The Collected Blurbs of Gary Shteyngart: Yes, he really did blurb this blurb blog. But this is handy to follow, should you ever need a crash course in book blurbing.
The Composites: “Images created using a commercially available law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters.” Either extremely beautiful or extremely upsetting, depending how you imagined Katniss Everdeen to look like.
Book Stalker: Again, obviously.
Bookshelf Porn: A visual case against e-readers.
Better Book Titles: One of the many Tumblrs that has went on to a (well deserved!) book deal but continues to post funny content.
Slaughterhouse 90210: Imperative for anyone who's ever wondered what would happen to the time-space continuum if Edith Wharton and Blair Waldorf ever crossed paths.
WORD and Housing Works: Two best bookstores on Tumblr. Extremely entertaining Twitter feeds as well.
Thanks to John Locke and RJ Ellory and many more like them, we now know that the online book marketplace isn't as simple as click-and-buy. Let's look at two very different methods of gaming the online review system, their wily practitioners, and the moral shallows between them.
Read More
A Black Balloon Publication ©