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Varsity Letters
February 6, 2007
Varsity Letters 2/7 Author Interviews
The authors of the three books featured on our front page will be speaking spoke at a free Gelf event in New York on Wednesday, February 7. Come Thanks for coming by the Happy Ending Lounge to hear writers Jack Cavanaugh, S.L. Price, and Katie Hnida read from and discuss their works.
Sports
February 5, 2007
Team Nike v. Team USA
Take a look at the photo for Nike's "The Second Coming" ad campaign. Go on, check it out, and while you're over there, see if you notice anything different about the guy third from the left. Now come on back. What's that? My, you're perceptive. Yes, that's right, he's Canadian.
Media
February 2, 2007
Coonass Controversy
As you may have heard by now, new Alabama football coach Nick Saban has gotten himself into a little bit of trouble after using the word "coonass" to refer to a man of Cajun heritage in an off-the-record but still-taped chat with Miami media (Deadspin). One of the reasons that the incident has aroused attention—even though the word appears to be on the lighter end of the slur spectrum— is because it (intentionally or not [Wikipedia]) combines the words "coon," which is a pretty derogatory term for black people, with "ass," which can also be a somewhat mean word. Confusion over the nature of the term has led to two separate government incidents in which a black person complained after misconstruing the nature of the insult.
Sports
February 1, 2007
The Sopranos' Wisdom About Barbaro
If you're inclined to react cynically to the grieving over the late Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro, you won't have much trouble. We eat meat, wear leather, use animal-tested health and beauty products—and mourn a horse? T. J. Simers said as much in the Los Angeles Times; so, too, did Barbaro, in a manner of speaking, as channeled by the Mighty MJD. But one oracle preceded them all: A late, fictional mobster.
Sports
January 30, 2007
Grappling with Headlines
On the ESPN.com home page, there's a link to an Associated Press story about the Minnesota State High School League's decision to ban wrestling competitions and practices indefinitely after athletes from 10 different teams came down with herpes simplex Type 1, the type of herpes that is caused by skin-to-skin contact and causes cold sores. It's a bold move calculated to prevent infections that could lead to blindness, but it was ESPN's headline—"Grappling with Herpes"—that aroused the mirth of several message board posters and bloggers. ESPN isn't the first publication with a sense of humor about herpes and wrestling headlines.
Media
January 30, 2007
Saving Silverman's Joke
With Sarah Silverman's Comedy Central show debuting Thursday, the PC-puncturing comic is getting shout-outs all over, including in a Slate article refuting Christopher Hitchens by asserting that women can, indeed, be funny. Slate author Laura Kipnis also demonstrated that women can bungle punchlines as well as men.
Media
January 25, 2007
Between I-raq and a Hard Place
The next comedian to speak at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April has a hard act to follow. Last year, Stephen Colbert mocked the president to his face as many of the press in the audience sat stunned. (Whether Colbert "spoke truth to power" was the subject of a Gelf investigation.) This year's speaker is 69-year old impressionist Rich Little, who tells the New Yorker that his favorite young comedian is Robin Williams and that he won't even mention Iraq in his routine. But, he adds, he does have a biting laugh line about the war ready for other occasions: "George W. Bush here. I tell you, I'm between I-raq and a hard place."
Media
January 24, 2007
It's a Man's World
Twelve years ago, Cosmo Kramer and Frank Costanza debated the relative merits of the terms "bro" and "manssiere" for a new male chest-support garment. While neither word wins out in that Seinfeld episode, these days manssiere would crush its competition. That's because "man" has become the in prefix for the hip crowd.
Sports
January 23, 2007
Understanding Parity in the NFL
Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column over at ESPN.com tries to define parity, and fails miserably. He claims that the current idea of parity in the NFL is a myth because "supposedly parity is proven by an outbreak of close games." He goes on to show that there are no more close games now in the NFL than there ever have been. "Some earthshaking trend," he writes. But all that Easterbrook has done is to knock down a straw man of his own creation.
Varsity Letters
January 22, 2007
February 7: Varsity Letters Reading Series
New York's Varsity Letters sports reading series, the event for erudite sports fans and book lovers, returns on February 7. At this free monthly event at a hip Lower East Side bar, hosted by Gelf's Carl Bialik, three writers will read from their works, talk about them, and take questions.
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