Get it together (the news confirmed over the weekend he was one of those laid off):
E. Ethelbert Miller, a noted poet and longtime director of the Afro-American Studies Resource Center at Howard University, believes he was laid off last week in a round of staff cuts after working for his alma mater for four decades. He cites solid evidence: He was locked out of his university computer and e-mail account. A larger-than-usual paycheck from his employer was deposited Friday in his bank account. A local television news station reported that day that he had been fired along with more than 80 others.
But Miller said he still isn’t quite sure what’s going on. As of Tuesday afternoon, he said, no one in the university administration had directly informed him of his termination or told him what his severance package will be.
This has not been the greatest year or two for the CBC:
So there you have it. The CBC pulled a documentary from the air when a company objected to footage the public broadcaster had legally licensed from Global. Under pressure from its insurers, the CBC then edited the documentary for a later broadcast and removed criticisms of the company, who claim the CBC told them the doc would be free of criticism. In doing so, the CBC misrepresented the views of one of its subjects without her knowledge or consent.
you should only every scam UPWARDS, don’t scam cabbies, but this is legit amazing:
Not sure he’ll ever live this one down pic.twitter.com/pwy2V1B0rh
— Meredith Frost (@MeredithFrost) April 11, 2015
SOLID interview with Liz Phair.
By now you should know that I will always link to stories about The Mountain Goats:
Darnielle’s troubled adolescence has become a rich source of material – he’s gone back to it, obliquely or directly, on albums like Transcendental Youth and The Sunset Tree, the 2005 record where he opened up about his stepdad. (In the liner notes, Darnielle said the album was “made possible by my stepfather, Mike Noonan [1940-2004]: may the peace which eluded you in life be yours now.”) “There’s a sense in which adulthood is much less interesting than youth,” Darnielle says. “Adulthood is interesting to adults. But I would never want to write about stuff I don’t feel everybody can connect to. If I’m writing about dope, not everybody’s into dope, but everybody knows what it’s like to feel desperate. Everybody knows what it’s like to feel degraded.”
One Asian Book Is Quite Enough:
The fact that it didn’t sell didn’t in itself bother me; indeed, looking back, I’m very happy that book never saw the light of day as it clearly wasn’t my best work. What disheartened me was the type of feedback that my agent got from editors. Much of it was all over the map, with one exception: Three different editors from three different publishers said that it was too similar to another book with an Asian-American protagonist on their list.
In all honesty, I think that these editors were probably looking for kind ways to say that the book wasn’t up to snuff. Publishing as an industry was going through a very, very tough time. Of course houses didn’t want to take on a book that was too similar to something they already head – it was difficult enough to market the titles they already head. But still.
What comments like this tell me is: “We’ve filled our quota.”
Matt and Jaya were visiting me this weekend, and we had the BEST TIME. Matt emailed me before they got here and asked “are you watching Game of Thrones?” and my heart BROKE for anyone visiting someone who wasn’t watching Game of Thrones this weekend! Also, Jaya wrote basically the Moneyball of Four Weddings.
This workout was really fun! You could do it with any set of exercises. Just set a thirty minute timer, and work on hitting 650 reps OF ANYTHING. Like, if you want to get your 650 reps from just sit-ups, do that! And if you have a Competitive Spirit, like me, you might find yourself AGAIN going head to head with your trainer’s fifth grade son (I got 725 reps. He got…more.)
