It can say a big “fuck you” to the big-city Urban Outfitters franchises with their condescending employees. It can prove that salespeople can be both nice and have dyed hair/tattoos/neon leggings. It can say, “Despite our hip national status, we are still going to integrate into Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall culture by being hospitable and unpretentious. [...]
Archive > May 2009
In which my husband solves the newspaper publishing crisis
There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the future of journalism residing in “hyperlocal” news. Hyperlocal news steps in where the doomsday scenario leaves off: Newspapers fire experienced writers, writers have no place to go, newspapers die out, the end is nigh. Yet we still crave news that is streamlined and directly relevant to [...]
What – I can’t blog from hell?
Lately I’ve been thinking about what will happen to my blog and my Facebook account after I die, so this CNN article, “New services promise online life after death,” is timely. Maybe I will create a cyber will. I hereby bequeath my Twitter status updates to my husband. I hereby bequeath my Bookreads account to [...]
George Saunders makes me want to be a better woman
I’m more of an Esquire girl myself, but last night I read George Saunders’ 2007 GQ travelogue about visiting the Dominican Republic and Africa with Bill Clinton, and I was shaken in my boots. I’d read some of Saunders’ fiction, but not his essays, and this one reminded me of a less tangential David Foster [...]
For my seven-year-old fanbase
Last night a friend of mine told me that her seven-year-old daughter reads my blog. I couldn’t have been more delighted if she had told me that Salman Rushdie was a fan. Granted, her daughter has also read the entire Goosebumps series, but I feel like if you can hold a precocious seven-year-old’s attention even [...]
Charlottesville blind items
1) Baby rabbits 2) Dates set up by mutual friends 3) Rear view mirrors 4) Bats I was going to write a list of local blind items in the manner of Gatecrasher/Page Six, but everything I came up with just seemed too mean-spirited. How am I going to make it as a writer in New [...]
My dental surgery – a postgame
The Novacaine wore off about halfway through the grafting procedure, so suddenly I could feel as well as see the dentist’s dainty fishhook as it threaded sutures through my gums. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the pain. My dentist just hurts me so good, like Steve Martin in Little Shop of [...]
Unloading some sweet links
Stuff White People Do (as distinguished from SWP Like) is a thoughtful blog about racial behavior in America. This isn’t really indicative of most of the posts, but read this former slave’s response to his ex-master’s request that he return to the plantation in Tennessee: I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty [...]