Steve Dyer

Rebecca Schwarzlose considers it “a major benefit of having long-term relationships”:

There’s too much information in this world to know and remember. Why not store some of it in “the cloud” that is your partner or coworker’s brain or in “the cloud” itself, whatever and wherever that is? The idea of transactive memory came from the innovative psychologist Daniel Wegner, most recently of Harvard, who passed away in July of this year. Wegner proposed the idea in the mid-80s and framed it in terms of the “intimate dyad” – spouses or other close couples who know each other very well over a long period of time. Transactive memory between partners can be a straightforward case of cognitive outsourcing. I remember monthly expenses and you remember family birthdays. But it can also be a subtler and more interactive process. For example, one spouse remembers why you chose to honeymoon at Waikiki and the other remembers which hotel you stayed in. If the partners try to recall their honeymoon together, they can produce a far richer description of the experience than if they were to try separately. …

This fact also underscores just how much you lose when a loved one passes away. When you lose a spouse, a parent, a sibling, you are also losing part of yourself and the shared memory you have with that person. After I lost my father, I noticed this strange additional loss. I caught myself wondering when I’d stopped writing stories on his old typewriter. I realized I’d forgotten parts of the fanciful stories he used to tell me on long drives. I wished I could ask him to fill in the blanks, but of course it was too late.

Previously: The Hunger of the Caterpillar and The Giving Tree.

A mother bird sat on her egg. The egg jumped.

“Oh, oh!” said the mother bird. “My baby will be here. He will want to eat. I must get something for my baby bird to eat,” she said.

“I will be back!” So away she went.

The egg jumped. It jumped and jumped and jumped. Out came the baby bird.

“Where is my mother?” he said. He looked for her. He looked up. He did not see her. He looked down. He did not see her.

“I will go and look for her,” he said. So away he went.

Down and out of the tree he went. Down, down, down. It was a long way down.

The baby bird could not fly. He could not fly, but he could walk. “Now, I will go and find my mother,” he said.

He did not know what his mother looked like. He went right by her. He did not see her. He came to a kitten.

“Are you my mother?” he said. The kitten just looked and looked, and did not say a thing. The kitten was not his mother, so he went on.

Then he came to a hen. ”Are you my mother?” he said to the hen. “No,” said the hen.

The kitten was not his mother. The hen was not his mother. So the baby bird went on. “I have to find my mother,” he said. “But where? Where is she? Where could she be?”

Then he came to a dog. “Are you my mother?” he said to the dog. The dog held her breath. A very old hunger that she thought had died stirred in her throat.

It isn’t right, it isn’t fair, the dog thought. You can’t — you can’t. 

He doesn’t know any better, the dog argued with herself. He thought the kitten was his mother. She left him. She left, she left, she left. Christ, it isn’t fair, that I can’t have any and she would leave the one she has.

The dog would have to admit, if she was going to be honest with herself, that it was less likely that the bird’s mother had left forever than just happened to not be around when the egg hatched, and would be coming back soon.

But the dog was not particularly interested in being honest with herself that day. She wanted to be his mother so badly that she could almost convince herself that she was.

“Yes,” the dog said, after a minute. “I am your mother.”

“Oh,” the little bird said after a minute. He didn’t seem to disbelieve her, exactly; he was simply taking it all in. No one had ever lied to him before.

“I am your mother, and I was so worried when I couldn’t find you. Come here, and sit down right next to me, and I will tidy your feathers for you.”

“All right,” the little bird said, and he hopped over next to her, and she wept a little in relief and gratitude.

“Why are you crying, mother?” he asked, and her chest ached to hear the word.

“I am crying because I am so glad that you have come back home to me,” she said. Now he had been lied to twice.

He never asked the questions she lived in constant fear of — how he happened to be born in a nest when she lived on the ground, why they looked so different, whether or not a dog could lay an egg. Once he asked very sweetly if she thought he might ever have a brother or a sister, and for a moment she thought wildly about stealing one for him. But she wasn’t capable of that, she knew. It was one thing to take advantage of a moment that might never come again, a moment that had seemed designed by a compassionate universe to alleviate her sorrow and loneliness, but to go out and snatch an egg from the nest — she couldn’t even climb a tree.

“He’s going to notice, one of these days,” her friends had said almost happily. “This is ridiculous, what you’re doing. It will never work.” So she stopped talking to her friends.

Then the guilt mostly faded, along with the fear, and the two of them lived fairly happily together for as long as a dog and a bird can live.

There had sprung up a certain coolness, the dog noticed, as her little bird grew into a not-so-little bird and began noticing that all of the other birds could fly and had mothers who looked like them. There were places that she could not go, and she did not know how to apologize to him for her physical limitations.

“I don’t like this food,” he said one night at dinner. She froze. Was this not what birds ate? It’s what she would have fed a puppy. She had always lived in hope of having a puppy to feed. What did birds eat? Seeds, or worms, or berries, or something? She tried to remember.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said calmly. “Would you like me to bring you something else?”

“No,” he said. “No, that’s all right. I’m sorry I was cross.” She watched him carefully from then on. It was very important that he continued to love her, and she set up an altar next to his love, and tended to it carefully, and monitored its strength, and fed it and stoked it and banked it whenever necessary. She could love away their difference, love away the shame of his origin, she knew.

After enough time had passed she had almost managed to convince herself that just once, in her case, a dog had laid an egg.

He’s more mine than he is anyone else’s, she thought to an imaginary interrogator. No one else has the same right to him that I do. No one else has a better claim. He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine by choice and by routine and by time and by love and no one else has a better claim to him. 

Now he had been lied to many times.

The day came — of course the day came — when they were walking past a tree (he had never learned to fly; she could not teach him and was in fact more than a little relieved when he never asked about it) and saw a robin perched on one of its bare branches. She knew that robin, had seen it flying wild-eyed and desperate over the countryside years ago, calling out a name she couldn’t pronounce and didn’t want to remember.

He didn’t look at her. At least, he didn’t look at her any more than he looked at any other bird. He seemed less curious about them now. And he looked so different, it had been so long; there was no chance that the other bird would recognize him. Almost no chance.

They walked past her, and the dog held her breath. She is still holding it, even now.

Read more Are You My Mother? at The Toast.

suzeart:

Click one of the links below to complete your single pizza adventure!

…and everything is absolutely horrible.

…and I’m on top of the world!!

Summer Heights High creator and star Chris Lilley's spinoff Ja'mie: Private School Girl has only just premiered in the US, but he's already announced that another character from Summer Heights will front a new show. Lilley tweeted a confirmation of a BBC story that Lilley character Jonah Takalua will be getting his own show.

Takalua, a rowdy 14-year-old schoolboy, was expelled from Summer Heights High at the end of that series, and sent to live with his extended family in Tonga. The new series will find "Jonah in the midst of island life and experiencing the familiar frustrations of a bored teenage delinquent." The series is due to air in Australia and the UK in 2014. In the US, HBO has aired Lilley's three most recent series, though they haven't announced if when they'll be airing the Takalua spinoff.

Yesterday was the official release date for Midnight Memories, One Direction’s third studio album. Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Yessss!! No? Am I talking to the right demographic? It doesn’t matter. I’m here to talk to you about the important stuff, which is the music.

The music: holy smokes.

Our boys are still the same boys, even if they're now boys-verging-on-men, and they even helped write almost all the tracks on the new album. Let that sink in: it’s their very own words coming from their very own souls into my very own earphones.

Let's do this: track-by-track, first-but-not-final impressions.

(And if anyone can correctly list them in order of slow-burners—1D albums are nothing but a test of the power of the slow-burn—oh, how I have economized that debut album—I will buy them a "Teenage Dirtbag" sweatshirt.)

Read the rest at The Hairpin.

The post A Reasonable Review of One Direction's New Album, Which Is the Best Album Ever appeared first on The Awl.

“I’m an atheist and a socialist. And in a world sorely missing anything resembling true humanity, I believe that this Pope is the most important, relevant world leader to yet emerge in this century,” – a commenter at the New York Times.

GOATS IN SWEATERS!

The post Goats Besweatered appeared first on The Awl.

Many readers pounce on this post:

If your reader concerned about the use of “sucks” worries that he sounds like a queer studies major, then his worries are founded. By his logic, we should think about ceasing to use “jerk” (from the fuller “don’t be such a jerk-off!”). The British “tosser” has to go too. So does “ass-kisser”, which seems a perfect description of someone who sucks up to the boss – but ‘”suck up” probably has to go too, as well as “brown-noser” obviously. More generally, we should probably consider dropping “fuck” and its infinite permutations (certainly “this fucking sucks”), for we don’t want to suggest that there is anything wrong with fucking. Or are we allowed to keep “motherfucker” because we still disapprove of incest? What about “asshole” – isn’t that just a body part like all the others? Does the use of “asshole” as an insult display a certain puritanical revulsion at the body? I could go on indefinitely …

Another:

I’ve never considered “sucks” – as in “this broccoli sucks” – to be referring to a sex act. To me, it means the thing in question sucks the joy out of the situation. “This broccoli sucks the joy out of eating.”  Nothing derogatory about it.  Maybe it’s a guy thing to automatically jump to the sexual?

Another:

“Sucks” can actually be traced back to a phrase common among farmers during the Great Depression, who would remark that something “sucks hind tit.” This is because pigs, dogs, etc feed from their mothers, and from the perspective of the farmers the rear one was the least desirable (I’m not sure if there’s a reason for that, or just the general proximity to the rear end of the animal).  From there, the phrase was shortened and has certainly be considered low and offensive for a long time.  But that might speak more to the dirty minds of the censors than those who actually came up with the term.

Several more:

A quick Google search reveals that there is an ongoing debate as to the origin of the word.

According to the Urban Dictionary, it comes from jazz musicians.  A great musician on the horn could really “blow.”  Someone who was horrible sounded like they were “sucking” on the horn.  A recent defense of the word on Slate offered other sources, like farmers using the phrase “sucks hind teat” or British schoolchildren using “sucks to you” with no sexual connotation. And even if it does have a sexual origin, who cares at this point?  Your reader should just suck it up and let it be.

Another:

Back when I was a kid, I was able to convince my very skeptical father that I should be allowed to wear a “Boston Sucks” T-shirt (I’ve been a lifelong Yankees fan) because it was plausibly “Boston Sucks Eggs” rather than “Boston Sucks Shit”, which was how he interpreted it.  I seem to remember “Go suck eggs” was a relatively common insult (the functional if less inflammatory equivalent of “Eat shit and die”), even showing up in cartoons. I’m pretty convinced that that’s the etymological line that leads to everything sucking these days.

Another:

In 1986 or ’87, when I was a naive 6th-grader (maybe 7th), on the first day of class my science teacher laid down the rules.  She was a tough, progressive, feminist, four-Swatch-on-one-wrist-wearing bitch. Not butch, but maybe a lesbian – I don’t know.  I liked her right away.  In addition to saying things like, “This classroom is not a democracy, it is a monarchy, and I am the monarch,” she also said:

I will not tolerate the phrase “you suck.”  Do you know where that term comes from?  It comes from the root word “cocksucker“ meaning one who sucks cocks, and in no instance is it appropriate in my classroom.  It is derogatory and offensive and will not be tolerated.

Holy Handjobbers!  I’d never heard such a thing, but boy did it stick with me.

Another:

So we have a word that may or may not have originally referred to a homosexual act and that is usually not used to refer to a homosexual act. I fail to see the problem. Etymology is not destiny. Just because the origin of the term is fellatio does not mean that’s what it means now.  Lots of words are secretly vulgar. “Pencil” shares a root with “penis”. “Avocado” is an Aztec word meaning “testicle”. “Scumbag” means condom. I will give you the pleasure of looking up the etymology of “pumpernickel” on your own. Words change. Usage matters more than history.

(I can’t believe I just spent half an hour researching “suck”. This is why I read your blog.)

saucytrumpet:

mu5icliz:

eldritch-elegy:

fuckyeahnerdpr0n:

whelp, I can now turn off the internet, I have seen everything

He also wore sweaters because of tattoos I believe he got in the Navy.

All this time i thought he was the image of suburbia. Turns out he’s more street than i am

oh my god.

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.

One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and – pop – out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar. He was alone, except for his hunger, and his hunger was a writhing and a hissing thing.

He started to look for some food. On Monday he ate through one apple, but he was still hungry.

On Tuesday he ate through two pears, but he was still hungry. He wept, because he was alone, because his only companion was the hunger in his stomach, and he ate his own tears. He built a smaller caterpillar out of burdock leaves and he called it Leaf-Friend, and then he ate it, and then he cried again because his friend was dead.

On Wednesday he ate through three plums but he was still hungry. He had always been hungry. Famine filled his mouth and his throat and his lungs; even his veins felt empty. Death wore him like a hollowed skin.

On Thursday he woke again and wished he had not. Even the peace of sleep had left him. When he slept, he dreamed, and in his dreams he dreamed of eating and he chewed on nothing, wore his teeth down to raw and flaming stumps, champed at the air and woke with a burning throat and an empty belly. I will starve, he thought to himself, I will starve to death. His hunger was an inferno that was never exhausted, and never turned away fuel, and savaged everything in its path.

On Thursday he ate through four strawberries but he was still hungry. On Friday he ate through five oranges but he was still hungry. His jaw cracked and popped with every chew; he was so tired. That night he slept and as he slept he dreamed and as he dreamed he saw a vision: two spirits frozen in a single hole, packed so close, one head hooded the other one; the way the starving devour their bread, the soul above had clenched the other with his teeth where the brain meets the nape.

He visited Leaf-friend’s grave and ate the headstone.

On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon.

That night he had a stomachache.

The next day was Sunday again and the caterpillar ate through one nice green leaf and after that he felt much better. Now he wasn’t hungry anymore — and he wasn’t little any more. He was a big fat caterpillar.

He started to build a small house called a cocoon around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then one day he nibbled a hole in the cocoon and pushed his way out, and he was hungry again. “No,” he sobbed, to nothing and to no one. “Please.” All around him there were damp, iridescent newborn butterflies pushing themselves out of their own cocoons. Everyone has made the change but you. And he was still hungry.

Still weeping — always weeping now — he hauled his enormous bulk across the dirt and began to feed on his brothers and sisters. Some of them were screaming. Some of them hadn’t even noticed he was coming, and still struggled ridiculously against their cocoons. If he could not fly, neither would they.

He was a very hungry caterpillar.

Read more The Hunger of the Caterpillar at The Toast.

Come and knock on our door
We’ve been waiting for you

Don’t waste another minute on your crying
We’re nowhere near the end

And love…won’t hurt anymore

Hear the roar
Thundercats are loose
Thunder, thunder, thunder

Who’s that girl?
Who’s that girl?
Who’s that girl?

They were four men,
Living all together,
but they were all alone

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go–

Someday the mountain
Might get them
but the law never will.
Makin’ their way,
The only way they know how
That’s just a little bit more
Than the law will allow.

Read more Theme Songs That Read Alternately Cheerful and Terrifying at The Toast.

It was still dark out when he got the news. He was alone in his room, and then suddenly, he was not. A slender red-haired woman who had appeared at his side whispered the words, “It’s you, Adam. People has chosen you,” then quickly and gracefully flung herself out the window. He could hear screams drifting up from the street. He wiped his eyes.

“It’s me.” A grin broke out across his face, and the power of it woke the rising sun. “It’s me.”

***

The rest of the day was a rush of Coronation duties — he was carried in a pearl daïs by retired Victoria’s Secret models (the angel wings, he learned, weren’t a costume; in fact it was incredibly difficult for them to hide it off the runway) to the ceremony, declared once and for all who wore that Miu Miu wrap dress best, had lunch with Ginnifer Goodwin, left a drunk voicemail for Cee Lo Green telling him how much he appreciated him.

He’d spent most of the day trying not to think about what came next. But it came just the same. The room was dark, and warm, and small.

“Bring forth the last king,” Faith Hill intoned. “Bring forth the lamb for the slaughter.”

Adam held back a gasp as a bound and beaten Channing Tatum was led into the room. His head was lolling forward, and a guard struck him with the butt of her rifle. “Look your king in the face,” she commanded. He spit a thin trickle of blood onto the ground and did his best to open his swollen eyes. He tried to manage a smile, then grimaced in pain.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said. It wasn’t the greatest opening line, but under the circumstances, Adam considered it pretty damn good.

“Hi, Channing,” he said quietly, feeling sick. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Channing’s gaze. He looked dumbly at the stone knife in his hand.

The ceremony began. So quickly; without any warning. I’m not ready, Adam thought helplessly, and found himself giggling softly and absurdly. No one told me it was about to start. What kind of king doesn’t even know when his own coronation starts? 

“And on the last day of the Sexiest Man Alive’s reign, he shall baptize the new Man in his blood, and with his blood shall the new Man be consecrated,” Mary J. Blige read from a book of human skin. Everyone was looking at him. Why was everyone looking at him?

“I’m sorry,” he said vaguely to the air, still looking at everything but Channing’s ruined face. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“It has happened before,” Channing said. “It will happen again. It will happen to you. Do it now.” Adam squeezed the stone knife so hard he felt the outline of it against his bones. He has a child, he thought. A wife and a child. “I can’t,” he heard himself say. “I can’t.”

Channing rattled his chains. “It’s the Sexiest Man Alive,” he growled. “I watched Bradley Cooper twitch in a pool of his own filth at my feet, and I showed him no mercy with these two hands.” There was blood on his mouth. “While I live, you cannot reign. Kill me. DO IT. Kill me. Kill me.”

Adam lifted a shaking hand and pointed the knife at Channing’s throat. “What I am about to do, I do for beauty,” he chanted.

“What we are about to do, we do for beauty,” the hooded crowd replied. Somewhere, the ghost of Ryan Reynolds smiled.

Adam moved the knife from left to right, and blood followed it. Blood covered his hands and his feet, and Adam knew that he was the Sexiest Man Alive in both name and truth. Channing lifted his eyes, and Adam finally felt equal to matching his gaze. His lips moved, but no sound issued from them.

***

When the servants entered to clear the room, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of Channing Tatum as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.

[Image via Ryanseacrest.com]

Read more The Crowning of Adam Levine, The Sexiest Man Alive at The Toast.

I was going to ask these questions to my brother, who is a scientist and also used to read Animorphs with me when we were kids, but he only answered some of them before going to bed, so I turn to you, the good people of the Toast.

1. I assume you are familiar with Clarke’s law of science fiction writing, which states in part that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With this in mind, does the blue box that the Andalite uses to give Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Marco and Tobias their powers violate the law of the conservation of mass?

By which I mean: when Cassie morphs into an ant, for example, are we to understand that her Cassie-matter has merely been CONDENSED into ant-matter, or somehow wholly transformed?

I think you’re right on about the conservation of mass thing. Clearly hawk-Tobias can fly whereas non-hawk-Tobias cannot, and no hawk has the wing speed velocity to carry a human’s weight.

So to answer the question directly, some Cassie-matter must get stored somewhere – probably in that blue box.

2. When the Animorphs morph, they are often described as having to struggle against the “animal mind” they will share for the duration of the morph, suggesting that their particular consciousnesses remain intact despite whatever form their brain takes. Is this evidence that immaterial souls exist in the Animorphs universe, or is there a biological explanation for this?

I’m a little embarrassed to admit I used to think about that when I read these books. If you turn into the animal, doesn’t that mean you have its brain too? Clearly you can’t take your human brain with you into an ant. Maybe your mind gets to remote control the animal’s mind from safely within the blue box (that theory is becoming more and more appealing), but sometimes the connection isn’t so great and the animal mind starts winning.

3. Apparently some of the later Animorphs writers cooked up the idea of “Z-space” to account for the excess matter left behind while in morph. Does it make any sense to you? How does this matter get to Z-space? Is there some kind of Dewey Decimal system that ensures the proper matter is returned to the proper morpher at the proper time?

That sounds a lot like my idea, except that saying there’s a “dimension…where neither time nor space exist” is like saying you discovered a sound that doesn’t make any noise. Also, whoever wrote this article directly contradicts themselves by claiming Z-space has routes (i.e. through space) and that they take up to ten years (i.e. time) to travel. You shouldn’t have to invoke a new theory on black holes and singularity points just to be able to morph into a animal – really.

famousbeyoncefans:

Empress Beyoncé

Part One here.

The itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again
There he was culled
by his larger
and more genetically fit female mate
She harvested his nutrients to feed herself
and she was right to do it.

***

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Good.

***

Ring-a-round the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
Heterosexual relationships are inherently coercive.

***

Simon Says
Nothing.

***

The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Heigh-ho, the derry-o
The farmer in the dell

The farmer may not leave the dell
The dell is a restricted males-only area
Males may not leave the dell
without a Travel Pass
and a Menstruating Companion

Heigh-ho, the derry-o
The farmer in the dell

***

Day is done,
Gone the son,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
Girls are nigh.

***

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy cried The nuclear family must be destroyed
all the way home.

***

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay,
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, wash away,
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,
Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar,
Build it up with bricks and mortar,
My fair lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,
Will not stay, will not stay,
Bricks and mortar will not stay,
My fair lady.

Build it up with iron and steel,
Iron and steel, iron and steel,
Build it up with iron and steel,
My fair lady.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Bend and bow, bend and bow,
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
My fair lady.

Build it up with silver and gold,
Silver and gold, silver and gold,
Build it up with silver and gold,
My fair lady.

Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Stolen away, stolen away,
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
My fair lady.

You have failed me for the last time;
The bridge will be built on your back
and the bones of your brothers.

***

Did you know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Did you know the muffin man,
Who lived in Drury Lane?
All his properties and possessions are yours now,
You are the muffin woman,
You live on Drury Lane.

***

Down by the bay (down by the bay)
Where the watermelons grow (where the watermelons grow)
Back to my home (back to my home)
I dare not go (I dare not go)
For if I do (for if I do)
My mother will say (my mother will say)
feminism is the theory
lesbianism is the practice

***

Mary had a little man, little man, little man
Mary had a little man
whose leash was white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went
Everywhere that Mary went
the man was sure to go.

He followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day
He followed her to school one day
which was against the rules.

It made the women laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play
It made the women laugh and play
to see a man at school.

And so the teacher turned him out, turned him out, turned him out
So the teacher turned him out
but still he lingered near,

And waited patiently about, ‘ly about, ‘ly about
Waited patiently about
’till Mary did appear.

***

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake — You there! Man!
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Roll it, pat it and mark it with B,
Put it in the oven and feed it to me.

***

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
His money could not save him; he was killed with the others.

***

Simple Simon met a pieman,
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Let me taste your ware.
Simon was arrested for traveling alone,
The pieman was a Woman in disguise.
Men are not permitted in fairs.
It is forbidden for a man to eat pie.

Read more More Misandrist Lullabies at The Toast.

$JPM VC Jimmy Lee is taking over @JPMorgan on 11/14 at 1pm ET. Tweet Qs using #AskJPM & learn more about him here: http://t.co/eTDT8pJeq8

— J.P. Morgan (@jpmorgan) November 13, 2013

JPMorgan canceled a Twitter Q+A session with vice chairman and veteran investment banker Jimmy Lee yesterday after they realized that people could be mean on the internet.

I have Mortgage Fraud, Market Manipulation, Credit Card Abuse, Libor Rigging and Predatory Lending AM I DIVERSIFIED? #AskJPM

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) November 13, 2013

Are you involved in a massive corruption scandal in China? #AskJPM http://t.co/iUKLVZNagr

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 14, 2013

How can we harmonize Kierkegaard's teleological suspension of the ethical with the Rousseauian social contract? #AskJPM

— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 13, 2013

Do you like puppies? If you had a puppy, what would you name him? #AskJPM

— Matt Levine (@matt_levine) November 13, 2013

#AskJPM why did u think this would be a good idea

— alex pareene (@pareene) November 13, 2013

Tomorrow's Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.

— J.P. Morgan (@jpmorgan) November 14, 2013

It would have been pretty incredible if JPMorgan decided to answer the questions anyway, though Matt Levine’s puppy question seems like it’d be quite difficult to answer.

She woke up like she did every day: slowly pulling her motorcycle helmet off, then shaking her head slowly back and forth to reveal a long, blonde ponytail. Everyone gasped. "That's right," she said, kicking the winning football goal before sliding into a sheer, sexy camisole under a blazer and playing as hard as she worked, "I've been a girl this whole time."

Read more A Day In the Life of an Empowered Female Heroine at The Toast.

fuckyeahnicci:

talldarknbeautimus:

mrpipenpadalocksarcopolis:

rahmagical:

cultono:

likeadisneyprincess:

dallyxxwasxxgallant:

believe-in-laughter:

books-on-tables:

what the fuck

What in the actual fuck?

*slow clap*

My brain just ran out the door… oh shit…

serious mind fuck

Fuuuuqqqq

THIS IS MORE FUCKING COMPLICATED THAN DOCTOR WHO!!! 

Read the entire article about this. It will completely blow your mind. This doesn’t explain it nearly as well as the article.

“I’ve never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I’m happily married. I’ve got more than enough to eat at home. Thank you very much,” -  Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, in a statement, on allegations he told a staffer he wanted to “eat her pussy.”