timoni.org

[ Mel Gibson’s Tudor Style Mansion, via Hooked on Houses ]

This is, oddly, both the staff house from Mel Gibson’s Greenwich mansion, and also very similar to the sort of house I dreamed of living in as a kid—the stone cottage in the woods where you live before finding out your destiny and taking off on a magical adventure.

food society

A city where pizza is only consumed as a booze sponge.

Caroline McCarthy

Question to all: What is it with San Francisco’s reputation concerning pizza?

Is it because I only ever eat from Little Star and Delfina that I’m ignorant to some twisted, dark underbelly of San Francisco, where terrible cheese-lathered bread-product unworthy of the name ‘pizza’ is rubbed against a dog and baked in the warmth of someone’s flatulence? Is there really pizza that bad in this city? Is New York really that good? Am I going to have to fly across the country to find out? Who wants to come? When?

(via benw)

Delfina is fine. Paxti’s is fine. So are Beretta, Pauline’s, Pizza Nostra and Flour + Water. (Little Star is very fine.) But none of them are great, really. I have no idea what the magic ingredient is, but visit Lost Dog Pizza in Arlington, Pizza Paradiso in Georgetown, or Two Amys in DC and you’ll have had a better pizza than I’ve ever had in San Francisco.

I haven’t had a lot of pizza in New York—definitely nothing exciting, anyway— and I’ve never been to Chicago to try their deep-dish offerings. So this is just me, saying, after only having great pizza in DC, that San Francisco’s pizza really, really, weirdly!, oddly!, isn’t that great.

My running theory is that, since American-style pizza is kind of the anti-slow-food, Bay Area chefs really can’t get into it.

…One of the most commonly cited statistics about marriage is that half of marriages end in divorce. But that number reflects the expected lifetime divorce rate of people married in the 1970s.

The story is different for more-recently married couples. A comparison of 10-year divorce rates among college-educated men married in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s shows that divorce is becoming less common, said Dr. Stevenson, the Wharton researcher. Among men who married in the 1970s, for example, about 23 percent had divorced by the 10th year of marriage. Among similar men married in the 1980s, about 20 percent had divorced by the 10th year. Men married in the 1990s are doing even better — with a 10-year divorce rate of 16 percent.

[ Marriage Stands Up for Itself, from the New York Times ]

The fifty-percent-divorce-rate number always seemed bizarrely high, much higher than the number of divorced people I’d actually met. These makes more sense.

[ The fact that Ian can make this expression in real life means he pretty much does have a lock on it. ]

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture. In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she’s an Ask and you’re a Guess. (I’m a Guess too. Let me tell you, it’s great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you’ll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you’ll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It’s an interesting exercise.

[ What’s the middle ground between “F.U!” and “Welcome!”?, via Ask Metafilter ]

Oh man, am I an Ask. Also, I like this distinction.

Buying Used Bikes

Excellent guide from Box Dog Bikes.

[ The poster for Moon, via blog.spout.com ]

Love this poster. Also loved the movie.

[ Michael Jackson via MSNBC ]

(This is from the Victory Tour, 1984.)

[ Michael Jackson via 100 Luscious Presents ]

Google reminded me how cool Jackson used to be (and why I, uh, used to kiss my Thriller poster every night). 1982: best year for him. After that it was the downhill road to scary and pale, but in 1982, he not only got away with sequins but totally rocked them.

[ We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful - Morrissey, via www.vulgarpicture.com ]

(My favorite Morrissey cover. So cute with the glasses!)

[ Viva Hate - Morrissey ]

[ Music for Men - The Gossip ]

[ Today’s Weather, from Ain’t Life Grand ]

[ from the color script for UP, via Lou Romano ]