Patrick Symmes writes about the the five bikes he’s had stolen for Outside:
In America’s rough streets, there are four forms of currency—cash, sex, drugs, and bicycles. Of those, only one is routinely left outside unattended.
Symmes deliberately allowed four of those bikes to be stolen in an attempt to track the thieves using a GPS. He could have just used the Dutch method to avoid having your bike stolen: drive a beater and lock it up with a huge-ass chain.
Splitsider’s Brian Boone on the even-more-meta-than-you-realized Princess Bride:
While in the movie Grandpa mentions that his story is “The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern,” Goldman’s book really explores that notion. The full title of the novel is The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Goldman, he writes of himself in the book’s lengthy preamble, didn’t write The Princess Bride; S. Morgenstern did. He’s a legendary Florinese author, and his original take on the story was an epic tale, the published, long out-of-print version of which gigantic and extremely long, from which Goldman edited to present his book, or as he calls it “the good parts.” Goldman also details how he hoped the gift of the Morgenstern volume would please his loathsome son.
Of course, none of this is true. Goldman wrote the only Princess Bride there ever was. Morgenstern isn’t real, Florin isn’t real, and Goldman never even had a son.
John Davidson, writing for the Bygone Bureau:
Billy was connected to neighborhood but he wasn’t really part of it. He lived in a small apartment in the back of the building and spent a lot of time hanging out on the stoop and playing pool in the tavern across the street. He knew everybody. The way Billy saw it, someone breaking into the building was an attack on all of us and it could not go unpunished. Something had to be done. The neighborhood had to understand that the building — his building, where he once told me he had $20,000 cash hidden away somewhere in case he ever needed to leave town for good — was off limits. Billy explained all this to me out in the hallway. He said he had a pretty good idea who robbed us but he had to go talk to some people.
This is why you don’t fuck with Philadelphians. They take it personally.
Watch Arcade Fire on PBS. See more from Austin City Limits.
It’s a great show all around, but the transition from “Month of May” to “Rebellion (Lies)” is awfully good.
Rebecca McPheters, writing for AdAge:
Of the 5,000 magazine and newspaper iPad apps we’ve evaluated for McPheters & Co.’s iMonitor service since April 2010, far too many simply do not work well.
In the summer of 2010, about 45% of the apps we evaluated revealed significant malfunctions.
The primary iPad magazine I read is The New Yorker. The app has gotten significantly better over time, but it’s still crashes too often, and still — amazingly — doesn’t allow for downloading issues in the background. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if Newsstand background downloading always worked. If I could read the entirety of each issue in Instapaper, I would.
Mat Honan gets fed up with Google and switches to Bing. I’m giving this a try myself; Google still has a cleaner, less cluttered design, but if — as Honan claims — Bing gives more relevant results, the switch may be worth it.
See also: Mat Honan’s CES coverage
The Morning News announces the short list, bracket and judges for the 2012 Tournament of Books. The Tournament begins in March, but you only have until Jan. 18th to vote for The Art of Fielding as your favorite book of the year.
Dave Gardetta on how Los Angeles’ parking requirements are crippling the city:
Urban planners, says [Donald] Shoup, have no theory, use no hard data, when choosing parking requirements; they consult the manuals to decide. Every business imaginable is found within: Funeral parlors? A basic formula is eight parking spaces plus one for each hearse. Convents? One-tenth of a space per nun is fine. Adult bookstores? One space for every prospective patron plus one for the cashier holding the longest shift (no mention of the flasher in the alley). Public swimming pools? One space for every 2,500 gallons of water on the premises, chlorine included.
Unlike other cities, businesses in LA are required by law to provide a certain number of parking spaces, and those numbers are often completely arbitrary. As a result, LA has the highest density of parking spaces in the world, but a lack of walkable neighborhoods, efficient public transportation, and clean air.
The Best Story I Read This Year That Wasn’t Technically Written This Year
The Courage of Jill Costello by Chris Ballard
Sports Illustrated
The Top Five:
A Rough Guide to Disney World by John Jeremiah Sullivan
The New York Times Magazine
Chris Evans is Captain America by Edith Zimmerman
GQ
Cranking by Merlin Mann
43 Folders
Paul Haggis vs. The Church of Scientology by Lawrence Wright
The New Yorker
Three-Man Weave by Chuck Klosterman
Grantland
Honorable Mentions aka Five Sports Stories of a Part:
Welcome to the Far Eastern Conference by Wells Tower
GQ
Allen Iverson: Fallen Star by Robert Huber
Philadelphia Magazine
Why Isn’t Mike Vanderjagt Still Kicking In The NFL? by Eric Adelson
The Post Game
Searching for the Meaning in the Mistake by Amy K. Nelson
ESPN
Tony Gwynn Returns After Facing Cancer by Tom Friend
ESPN
Additional Thoughts
I’m not a particularly big sports fan, but you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong by pegging me as one after taking a look at this list: out of a total of eleven entries, a total of seven article focuses on current or former athletes. Five of those stories were written specifically for sports publications.
It’s a not a new insight, but the best sports stories contain many, if not most, of the qualities of a compelling narrative: a hero fallen from grace, a tiny underdog going up against Goliath, a quest for redemption. Those qualities are built into the DNA of good sports reporting.
No story this year moved me as much Chris Ballard’s article about Jill Costello, the coxswain from Cal State. There’s nothing I can add to it, except to say that everybody should read it, an nobody who does will make it through with dry eyes.
Al Gore calls the climate crisis a “struggle for the soul of America” in Rolling Stone:
Those of us who support and admire President Obama understand how difficult the politics of this issue are in the context of the massive opposition to doing anything at all — or even to recognizing that there is a crisis.
But in this case, the President has reality on his side. The scientific consensus is far stronger today than at any time in the past. Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real. It is time to act.
