Posts tagged Katie Honan
“ Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino says he recognized elements of his Italian heritage when he saw how Italians talk with their hands and stage elaborate meals like his family.”
And the abs/hair/fighting combination? Totally Italian, too.
Oh, the Jersey Shore is back tonight for a 4th season, and castmembers are promising it will be their most dramatic ever. They spent half of the time in Italy, but then returned to Seaside Heights after, I think, the entire country teamed up to kick them out.
-KH
Taxi Excuses. Getting a cab to take you out of Manhattan is hard. But the videos that have come out of the cabbies’ resistance to it have been AWESOME, and Jen Doll wrote up the best excuses used by hacks to avoid crossing a bridge of any kind. Some of my favorites:
- 7. Feigning sleep or illness
- 3. Physically attempting to pull you out of the car by your legs (with video!)
- 11. Yelling “NO NO NO!”
What are some of your favorite cabbie excuses?
-KH
“ Bad spellers are a breed apart from good ones. A writer with a mind that doesn’t register how words are spelled tends to see through the words he encounters — straight to the things, characters, ideas, images and emotions they conjure. A good speller, by contrast — the kind who never fails to clock the idiosyncratic orthography of “algorithm” or “Albert Pujols” — tends to see language as a system. Good spellers are often drawn to poetry and wordplay, while bad spellers, for whom language is a conduit and not an end in itself, can excel at representation and reportage.”
The NYT takes a look at typos and bad spellers, which seem to be on display more now than in the pre-digital age. Typos are popping up in print more than before, some say, because most publishing houses have gotten rid of their full-time copy editors. Also, the expectation to print more books at a faster pace means tiny typos and misspellings slip in more than before. But there’s also hope for bad spellers (I happen to be one). Turns out we can jump straight to the emotions that the words represent. Which is great news for me!
-KH
[NYT, the20newyork]
(via nbcnewyork)
“ They [Nathan’s] didn’t know we were doing it…They would have filled the hot dogs with lead if they did.”
That’s Steve Greenberg, owner of the 230 Fifth rooftop bar, which hosted the unsanctioned hot dog eating contest starring rogue former champ Takeru Kobayashi. The Japanese hot dog eater was not eligible to compete in the famous Natan’s contest in Coney Island because he refuses to sign an exclusive contract with Major League Eating, the organization that sponsors the contest and others. Greenberg paid Kobayashi to “compete”—against himself—at the same time the Coney Island contest was going on. He ate 69 hot dogs, while the official winner Joey Chestnut ate 61.
-KH
[DN, the20newyork]
“ I did not criticize her lasagna. All I said is it’s not Italian. Cottage cheese and tomato soup might be low on calories, but it’s not Italian lasagna.”
That’s Matilda Cuomo, mother of Governor Andrew Cuomo, having her final say in last year’s lasagna drama. If you recall, drama broke out when Mrs. Cuomo was asked her opinion on the special semi-homemade lasagna made by Sandra Lee, the Food Network cook and current girlfriend of her son. She scoffed at Lee’s interpretation of the Italian specialty, which included cottage (blech) cheese and tomato soup as opposed to some good ol’ Polly-O ricotta and a made-from-scratch sauce. Mrs. Cuomo says she is incredibly proud of her son, and says “he’ll always be my little man.”
-KH
[Times-Union, h/t @TuCapCon, the20newyork]
“ Like any 7-footer loosed by the NBA, Eaton’s sports afterlife has been by no means premised upon permission. Any sort of enclosed space—the Whole Foods near his home in Park City, the ski lodge at Deer Valley, the Italian restaurant he co-owns in Salt Lake City—is stage enough for a spectacle that must, like the towering 54-year-old himself, be seen to be fully believed. Even with the planet’s biggest celebrities (your Oprahs and Biebers) word of their presence must spread before madness ensues. But for men of Eaton’s height, famous or not, there is no hiding. Instead, every entrance is followed by a sudden hush and accompanied by a Truman Show—like sensation that everyone is staring at you, discussing you and executing covert schemes to chronicle you without your knowledge. As Eaton, who these days works as a full-time motivational speaker, sums it up, ‘For us, there is no fading into the mist.’”
Pablo Torre writes about the tallest people he could find, those who played in the NBA and those who resisted. When you’re 7’4”, the scouts come and find you (when you can dunk a basket with your heels on the court, it’s sort of a given.) Even for those who claimed to hate the game—and the expectation that they automatically play it just because of their height—many found structure and a purpose playing in college and professionally. It also provided them with a network of tall-clothing manufacturers, since Macy*s doesn’t generally stock size 20 shoes.
-KH
“ Guess I learned the hard way that crabs do not discriminate but cross over all socioeconomic strata. He must have had quite the active life. What a way to put the kibosh on a relationship.”
So that’s actress Florence Henderson writing in her new memoir about the parting gift she received from a one-night stand with former NYC mayor John Lindsay. Turns out Lindsay was a friend of the Brady mom (he’s described incorrectly in one story as an “unattractive” friend, which is totally false!) and they both fell into temptation. After he found out what he gave her, he sent her flowers to apologize.
-KH
[Reuters, the20newyork, h/t @SteveKornacki]
“ Lured out to the vacant Woodside rental, Guldensuppe opened a closet door — and was shot in the head by a waiting Martin Thorn. They’d sawed off Guldensuppe’s head, bundled the legs, the midsection and chest, and then mixed up a basin full of quick-drying plaster and dropped the head in. Thorn and Mrs. Nack took the next ferry, carrying heavy-wrapped parcels. From the back of the boat, they tossed the plaster-encased head, which sank instantly. Then they threw the torso over too. But that didn’t sink. Horrified, the two scattered the other two pieces elsewhere, hoping nobody would find them. They then split up, planning to reunite in Germany, and Thorn pawned the dead man’s clothes to hide out in a $3-a-week room on 25th Street. When detectives swooped in on the room, they found Thorn’s valise filled with newspaper clippings about the case. He’d followed the sensational coverage, just like everyone else.”
The New York Post wrote about the historical murder that “plunged New York into scandal,” bringing a new style of journalism—sensationalism—into newspapers across the country. It was 1897; there was a love triangle, a murder, a headless body in the river. Basically, all stuff that would sell papers in 2011. There’s a book out now detailing the murder, as well as the “tabloid wars” that started as the daily papers—including William Randolph Hearst’s The New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World—fought to break the story.
-KH
[NYPost, NYT, h/t @maghabepolitico, the20newyork]
The Ultimate Summer Playlist.
Greg Gillis, the man behind Girl Talk, shared with New York Magazine his 154-song summer playlist, perfect for grillin’, chillin’, and beachin’ with your friends now that the weather is warm. He has a bunch of gems on here: Aaliyah, Billy Joel, Grateful Dead, even ZHANE is on here. And NY Mag even did you the favor of organizing all the songs into four youtube playlists, so you’ll have to press play only four times to play hours and hours of music. The music’s even great for those (me) sitting in a dark office and eating lunch at your desk.
-KH
[NYM, h/t @BKabak, the20newyork]
“ I’m sure it was a sweet and genuine idea by someone who meant well, but we’re already bombarded by reminders that it’s Father’s Day; seeing that little ‘Call Dad’ note just isn’t pleasant for those of us who CAN’T call Dad.”
That’s from a commentator on a Google message board discussing the “Call Dad” reminder that popped up as a status for the Google Voice option in Gmail. I saw it yesterday morning and thought it was sort of weird. Who is Gmail to even assume I speak to my dad? Or that I didn’t already remember to call him? Forbes wonders if it wasn’t a bit invasive. Google and their mail client knows everything about us—I imagine some guy in a dark room reading my G-chats, wondering why I misspell everything—and having this Big Brother reminder was additionally freaky.
-KH
[Forbes, h/t @ThisIsJenDoll, the20newyork]
