A weekly series that explores a featured theme by pairing classic quotations with urgent images. What recent news items inspired these textual/visual sets? Leave your guesses in the comments, and check back next Wednesday for the answers.
"You’d be surprised how expensive it costs to look this cheap."
—Steven Tyler
"Me, I want to crack up at that completely ... But the look on Bop-Shop Carl? Pissing his pants slowly with his face."
—Bill Peters (from Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality)
"Two different faces, but in tight places
We think and we act as one"
—Irving Berlin
“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”
—Virginia Woolf
"Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked."
—Bob Dylan
See the connections? Write your guesses in the comments — and feel free to leave your own "pants" quotes — and check in next Wednesday to find the headlines that inspired these pairings.
Images: New York Daily News, Vulture, New York, CNN, Politico
Answers to last week's installment:
- "He’s Back All Right, Now With a Memoir" (New York Times)
- "The Most Ridiculous Shoes You Will Ever See" (Jezebel)
- "RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race...returning October 22nd" (LogoTV)
- "BMX biker flies off bike in canyon jump" (CBS News)
- "Greece Protest Photos: Naked Protesters, Swastikas And Hitler Homages Mark Merkel's Visit" (Huffington Post)
Once a week, Black Balloon's editorial assistant Kate Gavino chooses the best Q and the best A from one of New York's literary in-store events. Here, she draws from Gary Shteyngart and Jonathan Safran Foer's discussion at the New Yorker Festival on October 5.
Do you plan to teach your children your native tongue?
Gary Shteyngart: I don't have children but I have a dachshund, and he's sort of Croatian … But if I did have a child, I don't think I would teach him or her Russian. I would put it on the menu. My wife is from a different culture as well; she's Korean. We could put some cabbage and some kimchi on the table and say, “What would you like to eat?” These things happen much later in life, too, which is interesting. I spent so much of my childhood when I was in Hebrew school trying to repress the fact that I was Russian, and I'd tell kids that I was German. Better to be German than being Russian during the evil Ronald Reagan empire. But then I went to this Marxist college in Ohio, Oberlin, and all of a sudden, being Russian was the best thing you can do … That's how it happens. A child rediscovers his or her roots, but it can never be forced. You should never tell a child, “You must learn the Cyrillic alphabet.”
Jonathan Safran Foer: I actually disagree. I think you won't learn [another language] unless you're forced to learn it. It's nice, the idea, to take a trip every now and then and learn three words. But I have two kids, and in my experience, if he chooses that he wants to play piano but never plays piano, then he won't be a young person who has any kind of musical proficiency ... I went to Hebrew school as well, but this one was really informal and there was no chance of learning language. But now we have Hebrew speaking baby sitters, and [the kids] take lessons as well. Do they always like it? Not really, but the goal of a parent isn't to give a life that the kid likes all of the time. You hope that can be the case, but it's not the only incentive. Otherwise they wouldn't go to school. They would eat mac and cheese all day long.
Gary Shteyngart: A child should be taught, but in my case, it's accounting or Excel. Something useful.
Image: Kate Gavino
Last week, all eyes were on Stockholm as the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ... the European Union?
Greece's Ekathimerini, reporting in the midst of austerity measures and full-monty rebellions, remarks that "Crisis-hit Europeans see cruel joke in EU Nobel."
But Germany's Die Zeit, representing the country that has steered Europe through these measures, insists that "Ja, das macht Sinn" ("Yes, it Makes Sense").
Right or wrong, the prize raises another dilemma, probed by the UK's Guardian: "Who will collect the Nobel peace prize for the EU?"
Image: europapress.es
Disusage presents the contradictions and foibles of usage manuals, style guides, and the quirky folks who love them. This week: bullshit (or, if you will, "malarkey") slang.
Read More
If brevity is truly the soul of wit, then your Twitter feed is the Algonquin round table of today's digital Dorothy Parkers and Ogden Nashes. Here's a selection of our favorite tweets from the week; nominate yours by submitting to @blackballoonpub with #twitwit.
Once a week, Black Balloon's editorial assistant Kate Gavino chooses the best Q and the best A from one of New York's literary in-store events. Here, Kate draws from Zadie Smith's reading at Greenlight Bookstore on September 28.
What made you want to write about your hometown?
Zadie Smith: What drew me back to [Hackney] is fiction. I love to think about it and write about it. Some of the changes I fought to put in the book since there's been a great deal of gentrification, which in Brooklyn you're perfectly familiar with. It's always most painful for long-term locals, and some of it I feel is justified. But some of it is also irrational. You're really angry about the cupcake shop even though what was there before was a wasteland with a dead body on it. That's the way it is. I do find myself when I'm [in Hackney] complaining a lot, which I probably shouldn't do.
To me, half my area is very homogenous. It's just the kind of thing that mainstream media doesn't complain about. For a lot of people, when your neighborhood becomes entirely white and entirely upper middle class, it is a different kind of invasion – stressful to the people who live there. Most stressful is the assumption on the part of that community that you are grateful that they come. That's the difference because most immigrants don't assume that you'd be grateful that they've appeared in masses. But that particular contingent thinks they're a great blessing to wherever they land.
Image courtesy the author
A group of young professionals waits in line at Bi-Rite Creamery.
(Teasing): "Look at her, rockin' that like 1987 flip phone!"
(Brandishing): "Yeah, I gotta admit it, I'm kinda proud of my flip phone."
(Defending:): "Hey man, nothin' wrong with that. She's thrifty. That's how she's a homeowner now!"
[Unintelligible financial small talk]
(She, being thrifty:) "Hey, you wanna live in the basement of my house? I'll give you good rent."
Image courtesy the author
Party of five: Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, and two young sisters crouched together staring at a smartphone. They are not talkative but not unfriendly. The three adults order their breakfasts but the sisters do not look up when it's their turn. Grandpa looks at Mom and says:
"Are you going to coach your daughters on how to order?"
Image: closetcooking.com
If brevity is truly the soul of wit, then your Twitter feed is the Algonquin round table of today's digital Dorothy Parkers and Ogden Nashes. Here's a selection of our favorite tweets from the week; nominate yours by submitting to @blackballoonpub with #twitwit.
A Black Balloon Publication ©