The New Black

Tracy Morgan doesn't hold back. On an interview with Terry Gross that has been making the rounds, Tracy Morgan speaks candidly about his childhood, getting out of the ghetto, and his experiences as an actor on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.

He's charming, he's real, he's effusive. It makes for a very good interview.

Morgan is promoting his memoir I am the New Black (Random House).

Transcript here

Audio here

Soul-Stirring Reading

I was up really, really late last week reading Ian Brown's series for the Globe and Mail called The Boy in the Moon. The report is an intimate and raw account about his family's struggle to care for and understand his son Walker, who was born with a rare genetic disorder.

I know you will love it and it will move you.

Ian Brown's book based on the G&M series was published by Random House Canada this fall. A preview here:

Ryan!

Today, we welcome good friend, pasta maker, promising butcher, and future architect Ryan McClanaghan into the blogospheres.

Here he is, just 30 minutes old: ryanmcclan.tumblr.com

NEW MICHAEL CHABON!!!

I'm three months late, so what?

Here is Manhood for Amateurs

via New York Review of Books

Blockbuster Book Trailer

Not too long ago, nobody knew Quirk Books. Now, with the smash success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, they are publishers to watch. Currently, Quirk is pulling out all the stops for the follow-up book Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters with this fantastic book trailer.

Authors, beware: Your publisher may not hire actors and put them in costume and actually light them properly.



via HuffPo

Braggart Alert

I was doing a little bit of cleaning around my house and found a print-out of Bruce Handy's article from the September issue of Vanity Fair. Know what's it's called? "Don and Betty's Paradise Lost."

A year ago I wrote a paper about Mad Men and Milton.

I'm just sayin'...*


*that I'm brilliant and prophetic.

Goodbye to "the Magazine of the Good Life"

Looking back on 68 years of Gourmet covers. I'll miss you.

Memorable Gourmet pieces -

• "Consider the Lobster" (plus, Editor in Chief Ruth Reichl on DFW)
• Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver Culinary Smackdown
• The Trouble with Julie and Julia
  

[ruin the beauty of this cover by clicking for related creepy story]

NYTimes breakdown of why Condé Nast closed four magazines this week.

Phew! Gourmet recipes will be searchable on www.Epicurious.com, shared with down-market sister magazine Bon Appétit.
via Toronto Star

He's a Borg

"Ladies and gentlemen, your President is a robot. Or a wax sculpture. Maybe a cardboard cutout. All I know is no human being has a photo smile this amazingly consistent.

"On Wednesday, the Obamas hosted a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, during which they stood for 130 photographs with visiting foreign dignitaries in town for the UN meeting. The President has exactly the same smile in every single shot. See for yourself — the pictures are up on the State Department’s flickr. And, of course, compressed above into 20 seconds for your viewing pleasure."

from Bus Your Own Tray

This ad combines many things I like: San Francisco, (some) skateboarders, big thinking, and TETRIS.



via BoingBoing (but the post has since been taken down -why?)

October

Love Like A Sunset – Animal Collective Remix