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Varsity Letters
December 7, 2006
Varsity Letters Live
The authors of the three books featured on our front page will be speaking spoke at a free Gelf event in New York on Dec. 6th. Come Thanks for coming by the Happy Ending Lounge at 302 Broome Street at 8 pm to see writers Jack McCallum, Joshua Prager, and Brad Snyder read from and discuss their works.
Media
December 4, 2006
The 'Gone with the Wind' of Rock Comedies
In this week's edition of Blurb Racket—the Gelf feature in which we take a close look at those critic blurbs that are a fixture of ads for movies—see breakdowns of blurbs for Casino Royale, Happy Feet, Deck the Halls, and more. This week's Bogus Blurb of the Week comes in an ad for Fast Food Nation:
Sports
November 30, 2006
Sum Ergo Sum
In the postmodern era since Manny Ramirez was excused for his erratic behavior because he is in fact, Manny Ramirez, stating "that's just X being X" has become an even more popular (and less useful) cliché among athletes than "going out there and giving 110%." Still, there seems to be some confusion about when the phrase is appropriate—an Arizona high school golfer recently excused his poor putting by stating, "It was just golf being golf"—so let's see how the big boys use it.
Sports
November 29, 2006
What Stephen Jay Gould Missed About Big Mac
Baseball writers are debating whether to vote retired slugger Mark McGwire into the Hall of Fame in his debut year on the ballot, despite reports that McGwire used illegal steroids to enhance his performance and Big Mac's refusal to refute these reports. Paleontologist and lifelong baseball fan Stephen Jay Gould would have seen no cause for debate, because he applied little scientific skepticism to the game he loved.
Media
November 28, 2006
Maybe Strange Romanian Sites Aren't the Best Source for News After All
Right now, if you go to Google News and type in Tracy Morgan, your first search result will be an article from Playfuls.com about the comedian's recent drunk driving arrest in New York. While the story is pretty straightforward— it borrows several sentences from the related Associated Press report—it curiously makes no mention of Morgan's current starring role on the NBC comedy 30 Rock.
Sports
November 25, 2006
Wide Wrong
Last week, an article in the New York Times pointed out that even at the highest level, kickers' performances on field goals vary widely from year to year. In fact, the author posited that NFL kickers should be valued not for their ever-changing field-goal percentage but for the length of their kickoffs, which remains relatively consistent throughout their careers.
Varsity Letters
November 22, 2006
December 6: Varsity Letters Reading Series
New York's Varsity Letters sports reading series, launched earlier this year by Dan Shanoff, returns on December 6 with a new affiliation: Gelf Magazine's Carl Bialik will be hosting the event, where some of today's best sportswriters will read from their works.
Media
November 22, 2006
Chimps Dig Mrs. Robinson
A recent paper in Current Biology shows that, contrary to humans, male chimpanzees seem to prefer older females as sexual partners. While the scientists behind the study propose that this difference is a result of both humans' tendency to form unusually long-term mating bonds and the lack of menopause in chimpanzee females, much of the media coverage of the study has been light on theory and heavy on innuendo.
Sports
November 22, 2006
Oh, Shit
As a sports headline, it was both confusing and evocative: "Injuries, suspension shit Tigers' strength." Were the Memphis Commercial-Appeal editors using "shit" as a verb, without the usual preposition "on," as per terse headline style? Or should we read "suspension shit" as a noun phrase, with the editors expressing their opinion on either the merits of the suspension or on the sheer shittiness of the suspension situation? Alas, we'll never know, for the shitty headline was one more thing: short-lived. Yet it lives on, after the jump.
Sports
November 20, 2006
ESPN's Dueling Banjos
Ohio State and Michigan played a football game on Saturday, and this game was really important in determining who will play for college football's national championship. Well, not really. The game—which ended in a 42-39 victory for the Buckeyes—may not have cleared anything up, as the close final score means that Michigan remains ranked at No. 2, making a rematch likely.
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