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Wednesday, October 10, 2018

It’s Time To Talk About “It’s”, by Leah Finnegan, The Outline

It’s true about “It’s”: If I have to read another article that begins with “It’s,” it’s unclear what will happen, but it’s not going to be good.

It’s time that I show you some examples of ledes (journospeak for the first paragraph of an article) that begin with “It’s,” which I have quickly cherry-picked from various publications excluding the New Yorker because I am out of free articles.

What do you think of these ledes? Here’s what I think: No. Not even two sentences into these pieces and I am ready to take to my bed for the day. This is the writing of people who have given up on writing. I have definitely written ledes like this, in my youth probably, and for that I carry with me crushing shame that prevents me from writing further.

When A Writer Wants You And Only You To Design Their Cover, by Alison Forner, Literary Hub

When I was contacted by Grove Atlantic last year to design a memoir, I was thrilled—I had never worked with them before and I’ve always admired the books they publish. When a follow-up email mentioned that the author, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, had specifically asked for me—she found me through a Google search and said she loved the way I integrated illustrations and fonts—I was shocked and incredibly flattered . . . which quickly led to an overwhelming sense of dread that I would never be able to pull this off, and that all of my previous design work had been the result of divine intervention. Such is the roller coaster of creative work.

Wrestling Magazines Were Bloody, Dumb, And Sleazy, And I Loved Them, by David Bixenspan, Deadspin

A couple weeks ago at an independent wrestling show in New York City, the promoter, Jac Sabboth, arrived with a treasure trove of old magazines. Sabboth also owns a pro wrestling memorabilia store, but even bearing that in mind the selection was startlingly eclectic, from the most popular magazines from the 1970s and ’80s to a number of obscure ones that even I had never heard of. I culled and culled from a gigantic pile during intermission and after the event, negotiated a deal with some help from one of the wrestlers on the show, and finally escaped with approximately 20 magazines for $60. It is worth wondering why someone living in a cramped apartment in a crowded city would buy old periodicals of any kind. I can explain that, sort of. It’s because wrestling magazines are awesome, and different from basically any other type of publication, and because I love them.

A Cake Fit For Julia Child, by Dorie Greenspan, New York Times

Julia let the chefs work, showed the steps and asked the questions any novice would — she didn’t consider herself a chef and, in fact, once put her arm over my shoulder and declared, “We make such a good team because we’re just a pair of home bakers!” She gave herself up to the satisfaction of completing a recipe and to the pleasure of eating it. She cried when she tasted Nancy Silverton’s cream-topped brioche; it reminded her of her beloved France.

Sometime later, while I was writing the book, I made a 15-Minute Magic for Julia. After all the polished sweets we’d shared, after all the complex desserts the professionals had made, I was touched that Julia still liked my easy-enough-for-fluffies cake. When I told her this, she gathered herself in what I’d come to think of as her declarative posture and announced: “All that matters is taste.” She waited a beat and said: “And this tastes very good.”

Nicole Chung’s Adoption Memoir, “All You Can Ever Know,” Is An Ode To Sisterly Love, by Katy Waldman, New Yorker

And yet there may be value in that familiarity, as in a sibling’s embrace. Remembering the fiction she scribbled down as a kid, Chung writes that she “found a measure of previously unknown power” in envisioning “places where someone like me could be happy, accepted, normal.” An author with Chung’s gifts for introspection and pathos may return to these same themes later, and do something bolder with them. For now, her book traces an arc from self-blame and self-doubt to considering oneself, as Chung puts it, “worthy of memory,” and authorized to add to the culture’s family lore.

Red Birds By Mohammed Hanif Review – A Thrilling Satire Of US Foreign Policy, by Dina Nayeri, The Guardian

Red Birds is an incisive, unsparing critique of war and of America’s role in the destruction of the Middle East. It combines modern and ancient farcical traditions in thrilling ways. It is the photo-negative of the many south Asian novels that appear each year, all succumbing to the well-worn trope of melancholy eastern-sounding language paired with western realism. How much more exciting to read a razor-tongued critique of US foreign policy, from a philosopher dog and a street-talking teenage refugee, both of whom sound as though they were born in New Jersey. And, after all the laughs, it ends with an appeal to the heart, made by the women of the novel to whom Hanif finally gives voice. All goes silent during the prayer of a grieving mother who “wants her son back. She wants to go to sleep watching him snore gently. She wants to pile more butter, more sugar, on his bread ... She wants to collect his shirts strewn on the floor and smell them before throwing them on the laundry pile.”