Amy Lynne Grzybinski

Via Ken Layne, here's a snippet from a newspaper article from 1956, documenting one of a very few incidents in which honey bees attended their keeper's funeral quietly, and after the burial, flew back to their hive.

Hallelujah! We have finally left the cesspool that was April, and Susan Miller has arrived with predictions of a May to remember. Yes, the horoscopes are a little belated (Susan, we're sending good vibes for a speedy recovery!), but the good news is all the more welcome since we had to wait for it. Now that we're on the tail end of the effects of that last eclipse (it's out the door tomorrow, May 10th), it's time to give those May forecasts a closer read with the Susan Miller Drinking Game. So pull up your forecast, break open the liquor cabinet, and let's get started. If you're still alive by the end of the first round, there's a bonus round at the end.

Take a sip:
- for every mention of a new moon or full moon
- if Susan can't tell something because she doesn't know your specific chart
- any mention of your house of earned income
- if there's a good day to sign papers or a contract
- if you should be on the lookout for health concerns (Susan, what sign are you again???)
- if Mercury is in retrograde and coming for you

Take a shot:
- if your birthday falls on a date mentioned (plus or minus five days, of course)
- if you have 15 or more important dates for love, meetings, or actions
- every time Susan says "dear [insert sign here]"
- whenever the universe hates a vacuum
- whenever Susan uses the phrases "eclipse out" or "rare aspect"

Empty your glass:
- if you felt an event the month before it happened
- if your ruling planet makes you more sensitive to something
- if you're going to be making a big life decision this month: getting married, deciding to have a baby, meeting your one true love

*** Bonus Round! ***

Take a sip:
- for every mention of the wretchedness of April 2014
- every time Susan promises you money
- if Mars being in retrograde has fouled up something
- if May is your month to travel or take a weekend away
- for every warning about the worst day of the month (May 10th)
- for every mention of the year 2026

Take a shot:
- if you are still supposed to be wary of the April 15th eclipse that never ends
- when Susan channels George R.R. Martin talking about the meeting of fire and ice
- if the full moon on May 14th is going to lock you into something

Empty your glass:
- if the best day in your forecast already happened
- if your forecast includes warnings about water damage in your vacation home

Drunk? Drunk. Have a good month, everybody.

Kristin Appenbrink is a freelance writer and ice cream obsessive. She's glad April is over.

italktosnakes:

msmorstans:

fucoid:

Spend 7 minutes of your life watching this show on gendered marketing

This is brilliant. I specifically buy razors and shaving cream marketed to men because it’s at least 30% cheaper in the US, and yet the quality is way better. 

This video is great.

yourmotherseyes:

The Vagenda Magazine asked their Twitter followers to tweet them edited headlines

This is my favourite thing at the moment

The struggle is real

Isn’t that what art is?

[Photo: An H Mart location/Michael Kappel, Flickr]

At 9:30 a.m. today, the long-awaited Central Square H Mart opened its doors, welcoming customers into its plentiful aisles of Asian groceries and its food court full of ramen, sushi, baked goods, and more. Founded in 1982, the beloved chain has stores across the United States; locally, there's also one in Burlington. The brand new Cambridge location is open from 7 a.m. until midnight daily, and its food court features Sapporo Sushi & Ramen (related to the Sapporo Ramen at the nearby Porter Exchange in Porter Square), Go! Go! Curry, and Paris Baguette.
· H Mart [Official Site]
· All Coverage of H Mart on Eater [~EBOS~]

Welcome to mid-April; or, that dark chasm of working days that stretches on with no holidays until Memorial Day. Joy! In that spirit, I've been hitting the Wikipedia hard lately, and these are the most gruesome sentences I could find. I consider it a public service to share them. I'm sorry.

Anencephaly. “The most common type of anencephaly, in which the brain is completely absent.”

(Even if you can stomach the first photo, don’t scroll down. Seriously, don’t. I screamed out loud at work. Similar precautions go for the following 25 entries.)

Belle Gunness. “Hack driver Clyde Sturgis delivered many such trunks to her from La Porte and later remarked how the heavyset woman would lift these enormous trunks ‘like boxes of marshmallows,’ tossing them onto her wide shoulders and carrying them into the house.”

(runner-up: Botfly. “Squeezing the larvae out is not recommended, as it can cause the larvae to rupture; their bodily fluids have been known to cause severe anaphylactic shock.”)

Carlos II. “The physician who practiced his autopsy stated that his body ‘did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water.’”

Dyatlov Pass incident. “Some were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes that seemed to have been cut from those who were already dead.” (In sum, this is possibly the best Wikipedia entry of all time, not to get all superlative or anything.)

(runner-up: Danny Lyons. “As Lizzie the Dove lay dying she was said to have told Gentle Maggie that she would ‘meet you in hell and there scratch your eyes out.’”)

Elizabeth Báthory. “Before being burned at the stake, Semtész and Jó had their fingers ripped off their hands with hot pincers, while Ficko, who was deemed less culpable, was beheaded, and his body burned.”

Flaying. “Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact.”

Gangrene. “The affected part is edematous, soft, putrid, rotten and dark.”

Helios Airways Flight 522. “They intercepted the passenger jet at 11:24 and observed that the first officer was slumped motionless at the controls and the captain's seat was empty.”

Iron Maiden (torture device). “It was anthropomorphic, probably styled after primitive ‘Gothic’ representations of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with a cast likeness of her on the face.”

Jellied Eel. “The eel is a naturally gelatinous fish so the cooking process releases proteins, like collagen, into the liquid which solidify on cooling to form a jelly, though gelatin may be added in order to aid this process.”

Katherine Knight. “She then decapitated him and cooked parts of his body, serving up the meat with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy in two settings at the dinner table, along with notes beside each plate, each having the name of one of Price's children on it; she was preparing to serve his body parts to his children.”

Localized cicatricial pemphigoid. “Nikolsky's sign is present in case of pemphigus only but not in the case of pemphigoid.” (This is terrifying because none of these words mean anything to me.)

Marion Parker. “Her eyes were wired open so as to make her appear alive.”

Necrotizing fasciitis. “For reasons that are unclear, it occasionally occurs in people with an apparently normal general condition.”

Ovalteenies. “Ovalteenies are round sweets made of compressed Ovaltine.’ (Shudder.)

Purgatorio. “The souls of the envious wear penitential grey cloaks, and their eyes are sewn shut, resembling the way a falconer sews shut the eyes of a falcon in order to train it.”

Quiricus and Julietta. “Julietta was tortured, and her three-year-old son, being held by the governor of Tarsus, scratched the governor's face and was killed by being thrown down by some stairs.”

Rat king (folklore). “It consists of 32 rats.” (Imagine that on the A train.) (Sorry, I have to go have a little sick now.)

Scaphism. “The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing a severe bowel movement and diarrhea, and more honey would be poured on his exposed appendages and on his genitals to attract insects.“

Teratoma. “The tissues of a teratoma, although normal in themselves, may be quite different from surrounding tissues and may be highly disparate; teratomas have been reported to contain hair, teeth, bone and, very rarely, more complex organs or processes such as eyes, torso, and hands, feet, or other limbs.” (Screaming.)

Unusual deaths. “Garry Hoy, a 38-year-old lawyer in Toronto, fell to his death on 9 July 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in an attempt to prove to a group of visitors that the glass was "unbreakable," a demonstration he had done many times before.“ (Go read this page and you’ll appreciate how hard it is to pick just one sentence. Sadly, it’s been edited down lately, and I would be remiss if I didn’t send you here instead.)

Verrucous carcinoma. “This form of cancer is often seen in those who chew tobacco or use snuff orally, so much so that it is sometimes referred to as ‘Snuff dipper's cancer.’” (If you’re trying to get someone to quit tobacco, maybe show them the pictures.)

Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? “He found taffeta in her mouth, suggesting that she had died from asphyxiation.”

Xabi Alonso. “Alonso was regarded as a quiet and friendly person by his former teammates at Liverpool.” (Xabi Alonso is not gruesome, he’s an adorable Spanish footballer, but I thought you deserved a treat for making it this far.)

Yellow fever. “Bleeding in the mouth, the eyes, and the gastrointestinal tract will cause vomit containing blood, hence the Spanish name for yellow fever, vomito negro (‘black vomit’).”

Zelus biloba. “Zelus biloba is a species of assassin bug found in Florida.” (This is terrifying because it is the only sentence. Although I’m not surprised that it’s found in Florida.)

Previously: Imaginary Miniseries I Would Enjoy More than Downton Abbey

Molly Pohlig lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. She is currently tweeting her way through Proust, all seven volumes, at @poppycockltd.

Via Fast Company:

First, let's talk a bit about Comic Sans, the world's most reviled font. As it was designed by Vincent Connare for Microsoft's kid-friendly Bob operating system–an operating system it was bizarrely never used in–Comic Sans was a pudgy, slightly clumsy, but otherwise affable font. It looked like the hand lettering of a comic book. The effect was very much by design: Connare needed a font that looked more appropriate when coming out of Bob's cartoon OS assistants than Times New Roman or other overly formal fonts.

The new version is called Comic Neue, and according to Craig Rozynski, the new font's creator, it'll "make your lemonade stand look like a Fortune 500 company," which is a fairly hyperbolic description, isn't it? On the one hand the new Comic Sans is not nearly as stupid-looking as the original; on the other hand, it is not nearly as stupid-looking as the original.

Note from Matt:  Last year when I chose the course for my first 100-miler, one of the criteria I looked for was “fair.” I didn’t want the easiest, flattest course around, but at the same time, it is 100 miles, so why make it tougher than it needs to be? 

Next month, Doug Hay will be running his first 100. But in choosing his race, he didn’t look for “fair.” Instead, he went with the race that most inspired him, the Massunutten Mountain Trails 100 — which happens to be one of the toughest on the East Coast. Not a coincidence.

This choice perfectly sums up Doug’s passion for ultrarunning and trails. And it’s the reason I asked him to answer a question that people ask me all the time these days: “I’ve run a marathon, but now I’d like to run an ultra. Any advice?”

Above all, the difference between marathoning and ultrarunning is the mindset, and Doug’s post will help you to understand that shift. 

Here’s Doug.

When it comes to running ultramarathons — any distance over 26.2 miles — most people don’t have a clue where to start. The distance sounds so much longer, the courses so much tougher, and the word “ultra” that much more hard core.

I know that before running my first ultra, I worried about things like:

• If I train for an ultramarathon, will I end up rotting alone somewhere deep in the woods?
• Will training for an ultramarathon take over my life and piss off all my family and friends?
• How do I even begin training for such a distance?

Questions like these were filling my head with doubt, and I know these same doubts are common based on the questions I get from runners and readers.

The good news is that the leap from marathoner to ultramarathoner isn’t as big as most runners believe. With a few key distinctions and (maybe) a little extra mileage, you can be well on your way to adding “ultra” to your running accomplishment list.

9 Keys for Going from Marathoner to Ultramarathoner

1. Understand that ultramarathons aren’t just for elites and superhumans.

As Matt once told us,

If you can run a marathon, you can run an ultramarathon.

It’s true. Believe it or not, you don’t have to be a superhuman to run an ultra. The truth is that most training schedules for a 50k, and even some 50-milers, look strikingly similar to a marathon training plan. The major difference: most speed is out, and some additional mileage is in.

But not so much mileage it should intimidate marathoners from going for it, or even require you to cut too far back on your social schedule.

The first step in the transition from marathoner to ultramarathoner is to know you can do it. And if you can run a marathon, trust me, you can do it.

2. Learn how to run trails.

Ultramarathons can take a variety of forms. They can be timed events, such as a 6, 12, or 24 hour looped race, or they can be any set distance over 26.2 miles. The most common distances are 50k, 50 mile, 100k, and 100 miles. Multi-day stage races are also a big part of the ultramarathon scene.

But one thing that nearly all ultras have in common is that they are run on trails. Of course you’ll find exceptions, but if you plan to train for an ultramarathon, it’s safe to assume that it will be at least partially on the dirt.

For me, spending time out on trails is one of the best parts about training for the new distance. It’s good for any runner’s training, even road runners, and it can be a lot of fun.

If you’re new to trail running, here’s where you should start:

1. Get familiar with trail running basics.
2. Don’t concern yourself with pace and speed, but instead focus on time spent out on each run.
3. Run with a more experienced runner and watch how they handle the terrain.
4. Pay attention to safety issues and always let someone know which trails you’ll be running and when you expect to return.

3. Learn how to walk.

I was about 2.5 miles in to my first 50k when we hit the first major hill. Before the runners ahead of me took more than 3 steps up the hill, they all started walking.

I couldn’t believe it. Walking? Just over two miles into a race?

I zoomed right past them and ran up the hill. Take that, slow pokes.

It didn’t take more than 10 miles to realize that walking, or hiking, during an ultramarathon is a big part of any proper pacing strategy. And my strategy was terrible.

Walking is often more efficient than running up steep inclines, so runners power hike up those hills to save energy for the rest of the race. When all those runners I passed at mile 2.5 flew past me further into the race, I know I had made a mistake.

Hills are great for building strength throughout training, but treat long runs as race practice and don’t be afraid to hike the steep inclines — you don’t want race day to be the first time your hiking muscles get a workout.

4. Stay on top of your nutrition.

Nailing down your nutrition is key for any successful ultramarathon.

Even at the 50k distance, ultras can take several hours longer than your fastest marathon, making it that much more important to keep on top of your energy intake.

Everyone’s nutritional needs are different when it comes to endurance sports, so use your long runs as trial runs every week. Here are a few rules I always follow when it comes to nutrition:

• Consume calories every 30 to 45 minutes, starting at the very beginning of your run.
• Mix in real foods, like dates, PB&J, boiled potatoes, or fruit.
• Drink at least some of your calories. A NMA favorite these days is HEED sports drink.

Check out Matt’s detailed write-up of his 100 mile race for ideas and advice on what works for him.

5. Reevaluate your understanding of distance.

Distance is relative.

At least that’s what I like to say when telling myself a 25-mile training run will be no big deal.

If you’ve run a marathon, you probably remember that the long runs you thought felt long at the beginning seemed like easy runs by the end. Your understanding of distance changed with your training.

The same will happen while training for an ultramarathon.

Regular 13-20 mile weekend runs will become standard, and after a few weeks, you won’t sweat the distance like you did in the beginning.

Most ultramarathon training plans even call for at least one or two back-to-back long runs, where two 13-18+ mile runs are scheduled on consecutive days in order to replicate the feeling of running on tired and overused legs.

When looking at that weekend on your training plan, keep in mind that by the time it comes, the distance will be less intimating. You’ll have a better understanding of what that distance feels like and how to properly manage your effort throughout the run.

6. Get the right gear.

Trail running doesn’t necessarily require new gear, but running an ultramarathon, especially one on trails, might mean you need to pick up and train with a few new items:

• Headlamp: Many ultramarathons start pre-dawn or run after sunset and require a light source to see the trail. Headlamps tend to be the preferred choice for most runners, although you’ll find many runners, including Matt, using a small handheld flashlight instead.
• Hydration System: Aid stations at ultramarathons are often several miles apart, and when out running for multiple hours at a time, it’s important to take in water more frequently than aid stations allow. Almost all runners will carry some sort of handheld bottle or pack for water or other energy drinks and small amounts of nutrition. The size and type of pack or handheld is completely up to the runner and distance.
• Shoes: When running a trail ultra, it’s a good idea to have a pair of trail running shoes, which have a thin rock plate to protect your foot against the terrain, and larger lugs on the bottom to provide traction in the dirt and mud.
• Clothing: No special clothing is required for most ultramarathons, but keep in mind that you’ll be out much longer than a marathon, and weather is often less predictable in the woods or mountains. And don’t forget about spots that rub. Lube up. You’ll thank me later.

7. It’s all about pacing.

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably already figured out that pacing is an important part of ultramarathon race strategy. What you do during the first half will have a massive impact on how much pain or pleasure you feel the second half.

Think about how important it is to keep your splits under control at the beginning of a marathon. Now think about how much more important it is when you add another 6, 24, or more miles after that initial 26.2.

During your training, practice running a slower race pace. Practice keeping excitement and speed under control, and practice letting the terrain be more of a pacing guide than your GPS watch.

8. Embrace your new community.

The trail running and ultrarunning communities are one of my favorite parts about running ultramarathons. The ultramarathon race vibe often feels more like a laid back day at summer camp than a loud crowded city marathon.

Runners chat and encourage each other as they run by, aid station workers assist with much more than just handing out water, and after the race even strangers will want to listen to your battle stories and hear about the race.

Runners training for their first ultra can get involved with the community well before the race itself. Here are a few good ways to start:

• Seek out a trail running club in your area.
• Volunteer at an ultramarathon before your race. No experience is needed to help out.
• Chime in on the ultrarunning section of the NMA Community Forums.

9. Learn from others.

There are so many unknowns for most first-time ultrarunners that it’s often intimidating or frustrating, but reaching out to others who have run the same or similar races can be a big help.

I’m currently training for my first 100-miler, a rugged course known as being one of the toughest on the East Coast. To say I’m nervous would be an understatement.

But just this past weekend I bumped into a friend on the trail who happened to be running with last year’s female winner of that very race. I joined them for a few miles and picked her brain about everything from pacing to running through the night. It was a huge help in calming my nerves and pumping me up for the race.

You might not know anyone else running your ultramarathon, but you can take advantage of resources around you, like ultramarathon training guides or a number of ultrarunning podcasts (including No Meat Athlete Radio episodes like this one).

If you have the will, you’re most of the way there.

Don’t let the word “ultra” or the facial expression people make when you tell them you’re planning to run 50-miles fool you: running an ultramarathon isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

Ultramarathons have given me a sense of strength to conquer the impossible unmatched by anything else I’ve experienced. Any of that pain or discomfort that once filled me with doubt has always been well worth the achievement of crossing the finish line.

Embrace the drive that’s motivating you to take on such a distance and channel it into your training, and arm yourself with the right tools, training plan, and support group to make the journey a successful one. These nine tips will get you started … it’s up to you to make the leap.

Doug Hay’s first ultramarathon was more of a sufferfest than a fun day in the woods. He’s out to make sure no one else makes the same first-time ultramarathon mistakes he did, with his new ultramarathon training system, Discover Your Ultramarathon. Also find him at Rock Creek Runner or as co-host of No Meat Athlete Radio.

Let’s start with some statistics.

Cost of the average American wedding in 2012 = $27,000 (not including Honeymoon).

Cost of the average New York wedding = $65,000.

Median U.S. income = $45,000.

Dollars generated by the wedding industry every year = $30 billion.

That includes dresses, elaborate engagement photos, groomsmen gifts, monogrammed handkerchiefs, signature cocktails, bachelorette parties. The soul/love/capital crushing process has been dubbed the “wedding industrial complex,” a cold term that connotes just how effectively capitalism has insinuated itself in an institution supposedly characterized by love and other priceless emotions.

The wedding industrial complex is not without its detractors: Jezebel has entire category devoted to deriding it (recent headline: “Strapless Wedding Dresses, We Are On to Your Bullshit”); Rebecca Mead wrote a bestselling book, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding about it; and dozens of websites (including Offbeat Bride, A Practical Wedding, and the now-defunct Indiebride) offer alternative—and significantly less expensive—routes to wedded bliss.

But the pull is strong. The more people have elaborate weddings, the more pressure for others to have similarly elaborate weddings—pressure applied by friends, mothers, mother-in-laws, and even groomsmen as they become accustomed to a certain lavish matrimonial standard. We could think of it as simple peer pressure, but I think something a bit more complicated—and insidious—is going on. Take the engagement iPhone case, dozens of which are available, in highly personalized form, on Etsy:

On the most basic level, these cases are part of a phenomenon that one friend, deep in the trenches of wedding-planning, referred to as “buy all the things.” At few other times are we given a sizable, ever-expanding budget and told to spend it on whatever makes a day “perfect,” even if that means spending outside our means. I imagine it somewhat like the shopping sprees on Nickelodeon’s Super Toy Run, when you just manically run down the aisles shoving things in your basket. Maybe that’s how some brides feel on Etsy today, especially the ones who haven’t been meticulously planning their weddings for years: just put all the things in your basket and press purchase.

But the “buy all the things” mentality doesn’t completely explain these covers. If our phones have become our primary mode of engagement with the world, then our phone cases (or lack thereof) communicate something about ourselves in the same vein as our choice of eyeglasses. An indestructible Otter case = a dad or very sensible; bedazzled = teen girl or irony; covers that suggest a book, cassette tape, or other analog technology = rhetorical hipster resistance.

So what does your engagement phone cover say about you? That you’re taken, sure. In that way, it functions like an amplified engagement ring: I am coupled; do not hit on me. But the case is less of a man repellant than a broadcast system to other women: I won. You may not be the first to get married, but if the overarching task of a 20- or 30-something American female is to have a guy “put a ring on it,” then you won. The phone cover functions as an odd form of surveillance, propping up the validity of the “game” and the inclination to visually celebrate its victory.

But this somewhat aggressive pronouncement is often packaged in passivity. The “He asked; I said yes” suggests just how little agency the (presumably female) partner has in engagement scenario. She may get to plan the wedding, but she has little control over whether or not it’ll happen in the first place. She has decorating power, in other words, but no actual power. In this way, the cover functions as a precise condensation of postfeminism, in which the politics of feminism are traded for the bounty of consumerism—when the freedom to choose becomes the freedom to consume or, in this case, choose the color and design of wedding dress, floral arrangements, and engagement phone cover.

As for the “Soon to Be Mrs. [Insert Husband’s Last Name Here] covers, they’re just straight-up regressive, less postfeminist than pre-feminist. I’ve seen rhetoric like this before, but only in one of two places: on tank tops made especially for the night of the Bachelorette party and designed to be barfed on; and in classic Hollywood melodramas. Regardless of context, it figures marriage as a traditional sublimation of the woman under the man’s identity.

Granted, millions of women still take their husband’s names, but there’s something different about the phone cover announcement—something territorial, even defensive. In proclaiming yourself the future “Mrs. Courtney Cole,” you not only broadcast your status, but his. Much like Peggy Olson’s “Mark Your Man” campaign for Bel Jolie lipstick in Mad Men, these covers provide a means for socially and politically impotent women to use what’s available to them—namely, commodities—as a means to control men.

It’s easy to think that these covers are just an exponent of Etsy and Pinterest culture, where the postfeminist rhetoric of “having it all” blends with the traditional feminized pursuits of crafting, collecting, and “nesting.” And that’s certainly where these covers—and dozens of other products like them—thrive. Yet that’s an easy way of compartmentalizing a trend that is actually far more widespread, isolating the problem to a group of people “not like us” or, at the very least, “not like me.”

But you can find the same ideology, albeit slightly modified, all over the bourgeois and hipster internet:

These covers are from Society6, a site once described to me as “Urban Outfitters + Threadless + Phones.” Both Urban Outfitters and Threadless are perfect examples of commodified indie taste: why go to the thrift store for a weird message tee when you can buy it for $22 online? Most of the phone covers hover between the cool (Bill Murray’s face), the ironic (Taxi Lllama), and the abstract, but dig a little deeper, and you’ll not only find the the covers above, but their little sister as well: the “I Love My Boyfriend” cover.

It’s nestled between covers that broadcast “I’d Rather Masterbate” and “Netflix is My Boyfriend,” but the message, a sort of postfeminist starter kit, remains. Over at Nordstrom, you can buy a Kate Spade cover, part of the designer’s “publishing series” that, in theory, evokes literary sophistication by reproducing the cover of a famous novel. But in practice, it replicates the same rhetoric as the Etsy covers.

It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on with this particular cover—who’s the ideal consumer? Does Kate Spade and, by extension, Nordstrom, think this is a cute play on romance novels? Does a man buy this cover for his beloved? Does a college student buy it aspirationally? The answers to those questions matter less than the covers’ very existence: if Kate Spade sells it at Nordstrom, people are buying it and brandishing it in public.

When it comes to the wedding industrial complex, it’s tempting to blame the brides who are its most visible exponents, breaking down on Say Yes to the Dress or posing ridiculously in yet another set of engagement photos on your Facebook feed. But this is what happens when modern capitalism meets patriarchy, and the last 200 years have been a slow march to this logical conclusion.

In the end, the engagement phone cover says less about our specific cultural moment and more about the unyielding resilience of patriarchy and the industries that support it. The solution isn’t to ridicule these cases and the women who buy them, but to continue the much more difficult, frustrating, yet absolutely necessary work of challenging—and illuminating—the often invisible systems that produce them. Alternately, get on Etsy and start designing the feminist phone case of your choice: you may have to put “I asked, He Said Yes: Soon to Be Life Partners in the Eyes of the State” in smaller print to get it to fit on the case, but just think how loudly it would speak.

Previously: Suri's Burn Book and the Celebrity Offspring Economy

Anne Helen Petersen mostly writes about celebrity, feminism, and media, and will soon do all of those things for Buzzfeed. Follow her at @annehelen. 

Are You a BLAH Girl? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!

Pick the phrase that best describes how you feel about yourself on a typical day:

a) My 12-year-old self would be disappointed
b) Mayor of Crap Town
c) Have lost all connection with self, am dry husk
d) This isn’t a good time

Getting Out of Bed

What fresh hell is this? Oh, daytime. Is there a point? Well, can you still feel the crushing weight of existential dread pressing down, forcing the air from your lungs until each breath is more shallow and desperate? Yes?

Congratulations, there is no point. Hit the snooze button just right and you can relive this horrifying realization of your own cosmic irrelevance two or three more times in the next 30 minutes.

Prepping Your Face for the Bathmat

So you made it out of bed before peeing yourself and now you need a rest. But the couch is way too far away and you’re not yet ready to admit that you won’t be bathing today. Again! What to do? Why not just slide down off the toilet and take a rest on that nice, plush bathmat? The one the two of you bought on your last trip to IKEA together, when you had so much fun pointing out all the couples fighting with each other. Remember how you took that bathmat and the new shoe rack he bought you to your favorite neighborhood bar and laughed about it? You were a fun girlfriend. What’s that smell? Probably mildew. This place is a shithole.

The Latest Fashions for Shut-Ins

Is it clean? Wear it. Is it dirty? Have you smelled it? Wear it. Is it on you right now? Keep wearing it. Is it chafing? Cut the waistband.

Wine Pairings for Yet Another Night In

When choosing the right wine for your Saturday night at home alone, let your nose guide you. If it smells like alcohol, you’re on your way. Red goes well with rich, hearty fare like Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pockets, while white nicely compliments lighter cuisine like Pepperoni Pizza Lean Pockets. Breathing note: after opening the wine, pour yourself a glass and leave the bottle on the kitchen counter. Sit down and drink the glass. This counts as one glass per sitting. Repeat as necessary throughout the night. You are definitely not an alcoholic if you’re only drinking one glass per sitting, even if the sittings are twenty minutes apart; it’s science. You definitely are getting fat, though.

People Who Just Don’t Get It

Your parents. Your boss. Your friends. Everyone.

Spotlight on Health: Lexapro or Lexa-con?

Yes, you’re still on antidepressants, but it’s just temporary, to get you through a rough patch. Only ten milligrams a day. Maybe fifteen if you’re on your period. Your therapist agrees that it was a bad idea to try to get off of it in the first place, so what does your mom have to say now? That you have a weakness of character? Well whose fault is that? You didn’t ask for this family. 

New Advancements in Staring

Possible places to cast your lifeless gaze: the wall, the ceiling, a muted television, the lips of whoever happens to be speaking, the bracelet you admired at an art fair that he bought in secret and saved for your birthday, piles of dirty laundry, a pan of brownies with all the edge pieces cut out, pictures from when you were too young to know what a disappointment you would be, the nest of your own hair piling up in the corner, your side-of-knee fat, the phone, the floor.

Holiday Travel

OH GOD, THE HOLIDAYS.

Profile: That Smug Couple Next Door

There’s something sad behind her eyes, don’t you think? Especially when she talks about her husband. Have you ever actually seen them together? They barely touch. She seems to spend a lot of money on clothes, but she always looks a little droopy. He’s decent-looking, but probably afraid of being alone. I feel sorry for people like them, spending Saturday night with their boring couple friends playing board games about resource management or some shit. Drinking craft beer doesn’t make game night less lame. He kind of had a thing for me once but I thought his head was too pointy.

Horoscopes

ARIES: World of shit; TAURUS: Don’t bother; GEMINI: Give it up; CANCER: Glass totally empty; LEO: Stop looking at me like that; VIRGO: We all die alone; LIBRA: Goddamn it where’s the corkscrew; SCORPIO: No one will ever love you; SAGITTARIUS: Bottomless pit of despair; CAPRICORN: You’ve peaked; AQUARIUS: Your sister is the pretty one and the smart one; PISCES: Who cares.

Katherine Carlson is a writer and teacher in New York.

Art by known genius Maya West. 

A couple of interesting tidbits come by way of the most recent Somerville Licensing Commission agenda [PDF] for a meeting that took place earlier this week. Precinct, which has been closed since early February for a major revamp, reportedly including a renewed focus on food and drink instead of live music, wants to change its name to Local Branch. It's unclear whether this has anything to do with the fact that a Boston restaurant is opening today by the name of Precinct Kitchen + Bar.

Meanwhile, Aguacate Verde, which replaced Tacos Lupita on the outskirts of Porter Square a few years back, is seeking to "make alterations to the premises" to add a bar.
· March 17, 2014 agenda [SomervilleMA.gov]
· All coverage of Precinct on Eater [~EBOS~]
[Photo: Official Site]

From Serious Eats: New York

[Photographs: Rabi Abonour]

Chinatown's markets are known for their exotic ingredients: foreign produce, live seafood, dried goods of all kinds (oysters anyone?). Just a couple blocks away from the hustle and bustle of Mott Street, you'll find a market with a different—but no less interesting—inventory. May Wah Vegetarian Market, a small, brightly lit store on Hester Street, specializes in faux meat products.

Looking for a "fried egg" made of soy protein with a cheese powder yolk? A whole "lobster" made of yam flour? Vegan "beef stew," wrapped in plastic and ready to eat? Whatever meat substitute you need, you can probably find it here.

About three quarters of May Wah's business is wholesale—they supply temples, churches, and schools, as well as many of the city's vegetarian restaurants. Be it for health or religious reasons, May Wah's customers abstention from meat comes with a cuisine all its own, such as the vegetarian Buddhist fare you'll find at nearby Buddha Bodhai.

May Wah imports its products from owner Lee Mee Ng's native Taiwan. In the early years the store sold only established brands. Some of those foods—tea, noodles, and sauces—still stock the shelves, but eventually the store started selling products under its own May Wah Vegan label.

The first May Wah Vegan foods were frozen imitation meat. Based mostly on soy or wheat, these include chicken nuggets, Gong Bao chicken, and teriyaki chicken and beef. Seafood, too, gets the vegan treatment. May Wah sells imitation lobster, whole fish, shrimp balls, and more, all made from konnyaku, a type of Japanese yam. Many of the seafood products are shaped to look like the animals they are based on—May Wah's freezers are full of cartoonish representatives of sea creatures.

Over the years, Ng has recognized the importance of responding to customer demand. When customers started asking for more ready-to-eat foods, she supplemented May Wah's frozen line with freeze-dried ready-to-eat meals including beef stew, braised curry, and spicy chicken. They also began to make vegan jerkies, with flavors ranging from spicy beef to basil chicken to black pepper seitan.

Ng immigrated to the US from Taiwan about thirty years ago. She had grown up with ready access to vegetarian foods, and was disappointed with the lack of vegetarian products in the States. Missing the food she loved from back home, Ng opened her own small shop in 1994.

"The first four years were terrible," says Ng's daughter Lily, who now manages the business. "She worked really hard, and tried to get the word out there."

Rapidly approaching its twentieth anniversary, business at May Wah has improved dramatically. While most of their customers were originally Asian, a growing interest in health food and vegetarian/vegan products has diversified May Wah's clientele. Ng has expanded the market twice to keep up with demand.

Moving forward, the Ngs would like to increase their retail business, both in New York and around the world. They currently ship products to consumers across the United States and in parts of Canada, but want to expand even farther.

"Our whole goal is basically to give the consumers a chance to become vegetarian, and just to spread the word of vegetarianism," says Ng. "So we do want to make it accessible to everybody."

Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges are going to make this thing, and I quite like the look of the Giver's office, but why is the world not in black and white??? Tell me how you feel. Trailer via i09, and in other movie news, here's a look at Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace: that white bandana is putting in work.

My previous hero was this guy who photoshopped himself to celebrity photos, but I think he’s been usurped with this legendary photobomb queen…

If I ever step foot inside a club, this is exactly how I’m spending my time.  Unless “Talk Dirty” comes on… In that case, I’ll have to bust a move.  (Do people still say, “bust a move?”  I’M GONNA BRING IT BACK!  No I’m not.)

The post Girl Photobombs Promotional Club Photos with Gross Faces, and is Now My Hero appeared first on POPHANGOVER.

For those who want to "eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death," the Mount Auburn Cemetery is hosting its first Death Cafe (and there will be more) on March 23 "Come with an open mind, prepared to discuss the topic of death with strangers in a safe, respectful environment" while eating cake. [MountAuburn.org via BRT]
[Photo: DeathCafe.com]

People who don't eat pork have thus far been unable to eat at Yume Wo Katare, where the choice is ramen with pork or ramen with more pork. Now, the Porter Square ramen shop is spawning an internal pop-up called Pop Ramen, taking place on occasional Sundays and featuring a vegetarian miso ramen. The contents, according to Yume Wo Katare's Facebook page: soup, noodles, moyashi (bean sprouts), yakinori (seaweed), negi (green onions), ninniku (garlic), spicy chili sauce, and an ajitama (seasoned soft boiled egg). Those who still do want pork can add it on for an extra $1; the basic bowl is $10.

54 bowls are available each time, and tickets must be purchased in advance during normal business hours at the restaurant. The first will take place on March 30, and subsequent dates will be announced on Facebook.
· New ramen pop-up coming to Yume Wo Katare [J-AIB]
· Pop Ramen [FB]
· All coverage of Yume Wo Katare on Eater [~EBOS~]

While Dunkin’ Donuts is pulling gluten-free items from their menu, Gardein, the award-winning maker of meatless foods such as Chick’n and Turk’y is introducing a new line of GF items which will include Beefless Ground, Veggie Burger and a Black Bean Burger.         

These three items are meatless, free of gluten and are made with non-GMO soy, pea proteins and veggies.

At 84% less fat than regular ground beef, Beefless Ground is a healthy and easy substitute for recipes that require ground beef such as tacos, chili, meatballs and pasta bolognese. The veggie and black bean burger are great low fat substitutes for a beef patty and all three options are a great source of vitamin A, fiber and protein.

Yves Potvin, founder of Gardein, tells us, “We take great pride in offering a variety of great tasting, meatless foods. As so many consumers move to a gluten-free lifestyle, it was a natural next step to develop these products and fulfill an important market need. The taste, texture, versatility and health benefits of all three are unparalleled in the marketplace.

According to Just-Food.com, a Gardein spokesperson has stated that the expansion was prompted by consumer demand for GF items. “The market has reached $4.2B in sales, with a projected increase to $6.6B by 2017. While there is an increase in individuals with gluten allergies, over 30% of adults are cutting back or avoiding gluten for health benefits as opposed to medical necessity.”

The Beefless Ground is currently available in stores across the US, but we’ll have to wait until April 2014 to see the veggie and black bean burgers.

doozy:

atalantapendrag:

icatmeme:

My local rescue has a program called Book Buddies where kids read to sheltered cats to keep them from being lonely.

A wild sea otter mother and her very young pup floated with the tide into Monterey Bay Aquarium’s outdoor tide pool, where they stayed for about a day before heading back out into the wild. Aquarium staff was able to take some beautiful photos and a fantastic video of the pair (we’ve got links to more photos at the bottom of this post):

Check out more photos at the aquarium’s posts here, here, and here, respectively; the video was posted here, and watch another video here!