Big-budget films tell us earthquakes are bad, volcanic eruptions can be catastrophic, and meteorite strikes—barring the presence of Bruce Willis—may kill us all. Seeking expert advice on how scared we should be.
End Zone
Divisional Weekend Stinks
To call football predictable is to call it brutal. The things you can count on in a football game, in a football season, always seem to reflect the ugliest aspects of the sport: An underdog will be demolished; a player will be hurt; a brief career will end in disappointment on a national stage. So to say that the 2012 NFL season collapsed into predictability over Wildcard Weekend is to acknowledge that it collapsed into humiliation and pain.
How else to describe Andy Dalton’s stats at the half last Saturday: four for 10, with three passing yards total. How else to explain RGIII limping off the field in the fourth quarter on Sunday, the ACL and LCL in his right knee fully torn; or the postgame spectacle of Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan insisting that Griffin was determined to continue playing after aggravating a pre-existing injury in the first quarter—“He said to me, ‘Trust me, I want to be in there.’ And I couldn’t disagree with him”—as if it released Shanahan himself from responsibility. (The extent to which the coach has failed as a custodian of his quarterback’s safety is only now being revealed; when RGIII’s knee was first injured, on Dec. 9, Shanahan claimed he allowed the QB to go back into the game for four plays only after he was cleared by orthopedic surgeon James Andrews. Dr. Andrews now claims he not only did not clear Griffin for play, but that he in fact never examined him.) Continue Reading
If you’re about to gnaw your arm off, why not take a break from the carrot sticks and sate your appetite with four delicious stories about food? Ready to read here on TMN or in an e-book you can export to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc. Continue Reading
Personal Essays
Separate Housewives
A happy suburban neighborhood experiences its first affair. Soon every living room—every computer screen—reverberates with news bulletins. Even for the Facebook generation, divorce comes with surprises.
The View From the Lighthouse
Right Here Waiting
After frequenting a local haunt where nobody knows his name, a Chicago writer makes new friends, rips on Richard Marx online, and then suddenly lands a real live celebrity musician at their door.
Cloud of Atlases
Back to the Start
And how fares the brand-new you? We’ve left off the identifying information from the below map. Try guessing what it references using only clues contained within the map. The answer is linked after the jump.
(One clue to get you started: The map doesn’t represent gross national anything.)
Spoofs & Satire
Handicapped Children
All parents like to believe their children are special. But horse breeders know better: Progeny can be unique, but for very particular reasons. How to be more honest about your offspring and their ability to finish in the money.
Gallery
A Kiss Before You Go
Excerpts from an illustrated memoir of love and mourning after an artist loses his wife to a tragic accident.
Birnbaum V.
Ben Fountain
Our man in Boston sits down for an extended chat with the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, covering Kissinger’s travel woes, the beauty of track meets, and the very best place to be a fiction writer in America: Dallas.
End Zone
Wild Card Weekend Stinks
And then there were 12. If nothing else, the beginning of playoff season makes the task of a football fan easier: There are only four games this weekend. Pick a team you don’t hate, and settle in for four weeks that will end in heartbreak.
This is the wild card round, and, as the name would imply, there are a few surprises in the mix. Take the Bengals. After Week 9, they were 3-5. They’d lost to, among others, Cleveland, Miami, and Pittsburgh, three teams whose seasons are now over. Against the Steelers, fiery-haired QB Andy Dalton threw for a piddling 105 yards. BenJarvus Green-Ellis ran for a mediocre team high of 69 yards. Ryan Whalen—who has seven catches and 53 yards on the season—snapped up a grand total of 31 yards; he was the Bengals’ leading receiver. Continue Reading
TMN Weekender
Gérard in Russia
After French actor Gérard Depardieu moved to a Belgian border town to avoid his native country’s sky-high tax bracket for millionaires, Vladimir Putin pounced on the opportunity to—well, it’s not quite clear what Putin’s motives are, but it involved a public offer of Russian citizenship to Depardieu.
Depardieu has not responded to the offer thus far. Perhaps he’s still thinking about it. To help him make up his mind, we present Elizabeth Kiem’s excellent “Reading Roulette” series, highlighting emerging Russian writers—ready to read here on TMN or in an e-book you can export to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc. Continue Reading
Lunch Poems
J. Y. Strain
A new poem in our lunchtime series, and a brief Q&A with the poet to discuss modern poetry and grocery stores.
E.g., “We don’t live in a world of generalities, we live in a world of endless options, where we define ourselves by the merchandise we own, by the brand names we prefer, and by the music booming from our subwoofers. Writers are the last people who should fear addressing that world directly.”
J. Y. Strain lives and works in Bloomington, Ill. This poem is dedicated “for my brother, regarding his ride.”
The Music Box
Playing Johnny Ace
A young crooner’s untimely, macabre death left questions for those who would follow—musicians and fans alike. Was it suicide? Was it a hit? A listener’s query into one star’s place in the history of early rock and roll.
Spoofs & Satire
This Will Be the Year That Was
Already 2013 has seen America drive off the fiscal cliff, only to freeze momentarily, then either reverse in mid-air or drop straight into the canyon—depending on how you look at it. Here’s more of what to expect over the next 12 months.
Cloud of Atlases
Here I Go Again
And we’re back. We’ve left off the identifying information from the below map. Try guessing what it references using only clues contained within the map. The answer is linked after the jump.
(One clue to get you started: The map doesn’t represent gross national anything.)
Announcements
The Most Tweetable Sentences of 2012
We’ve known Paul Ford for a long time. In fact, he was one of the five or so writers we asked to join The Morning News back when we started publishing the magazine in 2000. So who better, when it came time to assess our favorite stories of the year, to call up for duty?
We asked Paul to choose his favorite articles published on TMN in 2012. We had a pretty good year, we like to think: Many stories we loved, many reprints and nods elsewhere, citations in “Best American Essays,” finalist at the Online Journalism Awards… But now you can tell we’ve gotten into the eggnog. Anyway. Paul wrote back and sent us a list he billed “The 10 Most Tweetable Sentences of the Year.” And we thought that was a wonderful idea.
So, without further ado, our most tweetable sentences of the year, all linked up for your easy tweeting. Continue Reading
Guides
2012 Holiday Survival Guide for Slackers
‘Twas the day before Christmas, when all through the house still no presents were purchased—again, you’re a louse. Gift ideas for the ungifted.
Closing the Door
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We gathered writers and thinkers to consider everything that happened over the past 12 months and asked them: What were the most important events of 2012—and what were the least?
End Zone
The Kickers Stink
If you’re looking for evidence of that famous American spirit of innovation, avoid football. It’s a stodgy sport governed by a conservative league. Theorists of American football have largely rested on their laurels since the invention of the forward pass over 100 years ago. Has the game evolved since then? Of course—the pass-heavy West Coast Offense has risen at the expense of the old “ground and pound;” the combination of “packaged plays” and the no-huddle offense makes it difficult for defenses to guess right, ever; also, J.J. Watt exists.
Nevertheless, the NFL is still struggling to get used to the radical idea that the player who usually throws the football might also be able to tuck it under his arm and run for a first down. Like Rex Ryan trading for Tim Tebow so he could run a wildcat offense, then casting his lot with traditional-but-flailing QB Mark Sanchez, coaches are often tempted by the appearance of innovation, only to retreat to the safety of the known, even if it doesn’t work. Continue Reading