Hearing-Impaired Little Girl Writes Touching Letter to Seahawks' Derrick Coleman →

Jake Silver, writing for Bleacher Report:

Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman beat all odds to make an NFL roster as a member of the deaf community. His story (which he touches on in this outstanding commercial) has apparently made the rounds, as the father of a young hearing-impaired girl tweeted out this heartwarming letter she wrote the pro football player.

Everything about this story—including the commercial mentioned above (link in the article)—will warm the depths of your soul. Remember it when you are at your lowest, convinced that the world is a bog of pop star shenanigans and political scandals.

‘New York was a very different place in the 1980s.’ →

Richard Conway, writing for TIME Lightbox:

Over a six-month period in 1981, Morris embedded himself in the world below, sometimes riding the trains alone, other times riding with the Guardian Angels volunteer anti-crime group. He’d hang out with groups of teens riding trains at night, and show up in the early morning to catch work-bound commuters.

Using ektachrome film and a magenta filter to offset the florescent lights, Morris found interesting subjects in the relatively safe commuting space of midtown Manhattan, further north in the Bronx, and the eastern wilds of Brooklyn.

The photos are amazing. The NYC captured in them is unrecognizable from the NYC of today.

/via Daring Fireball

So Money: An Oral History of Swingers →

Alex French and Howie Kahn, writing for Grantland:

Vaughn: The reading would always play phenomenally. We did this for over a year and would get huge laughs, great responses. But the business model was always a problem. You have a bunch of guys that don’t really mean anything to Hollywood. Jon had done more than the rest of us, but wasn’t a big enough name to open a movie. And they always felt the movie was funny but also very specific to out-of-work actors in Los Angeles. I think they all totally missed the universality of it: a guy dealing with a breakup and coming of age, taking a journey with a group of friends, and wanting to meet somebody to love. Everyone goes through it. And they wanted to replace me, Trent, with a woman.

I’m still not over this idea—and they talk about it more throughout. If Trent is a woman it’s a totally different movie. And that would be tragic.

Also—everyone has their favorite Swingers line. Mine?

"You want me to ask? All right, I’ll ask. Ma’am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?"

Bill Murray’s Reddit AMA →

Janet_Coquette and _BillMurray:

Q: The rumor is that you went up to someone that was eating french fries, and took a french fry and ate it and said: "No one will believe you."

Did this really happen, or is it an urban legend?

A: Well I have no idea what you're talking about.

Somebody asks what he whispered to Scar-Jo at the end of Lost in Translation. The response is classic Bill Murray.

/via kottke.org

Fatherhood: A Documentary Series by Hank Azaria →

mom.me:

Actor Hank Azaria wasn't sure he wanted to have kids. So, he started asking famous friends like Bryan Cranston and Kevin Bacon about their experiences and filming their answers for a documentary. A funny thing happened along the way, however: Hank became a dad! Watch as Hank navigates the touching, enlightening, and humorous journey of becoming a father, collecting advice from pals, experts, and ordinary dads-on the-street as he goes.

Stick with it; shit gets real at about the 5:00 mark of ep. 1.

‘Now, the addendum.’ →

Dave Eggers, in a 2000 interview with The Harvard Advocate:

You actually asked me the question: "Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?" I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

I don’t agree with everything Eggers says here—his thesis that you shouldn’t criticize something until you’ve produced something similar on your own is ludicrous—but every artist should read this, if only to be inspired to no longer be embarrassed about the connection between making art and making a living. As the Advocate editors point out:

It is all worth reading but gets more salient about halfway through, when Eggers writes, "Now, the addendum."

/via John Roderick

‘There was the sense that he wanted to be big.’ →

David Remnick, writing for The New Yorker:

At dusk, Air Force One touched down at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Obama and his adviser Valerie Jarrett stood for a moment on the tarmac gazing at Mt. Rainier, the snow a candied pink. Then Obama nodded. Moment over. They got in the car and headed for town. Obama’s limousine, a Cadillac said to weigh as much as fifteen thousand pounds, is known as the Beast. It is armored with ceramic, titanium, aluminum, and steel to withstand bomb blasts, and it is sealed in case of biochemical attack. The doors are as heavy as those on a Boeing 757. The tires are gigantic “run-flats,” reinforced with Kevlar. A supply of blood matching the President’s type is kept in the trunk.

The Beast ascended the driveway of Jon Shirley, in the Seattle suburb of Medina, on Lake Washington. (Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates live in town, too.) Shirley earned his pile during the early days of high tech, first at Tandy and then, in the eighties, at Microsoft, where he served as president. Shirley’s lawn is littered with gargantuan modern sculptures. A Claes Oldenburg safety pin loomed in the dark. The Beast pulled up to Shirley’s front door.

This is a fascinating read, regardless of which way you lean politically.

A Mommy Blogger’s Lament →

Devorah Blachor, writing for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

June 20, 2039

Dear Son,

I realize that you’re angry, and I’d like the opportunity to clarify a few things. If you heard my side of the story, you wouldn’t be so quick to resent a mother who’s done nothing more than love you.

I never pitched “Is my Toddler a Homophobe?” to Thisisnotyourbubbysblog. After my “What the Fuck Happened to my CD Player?” essay in It’s Motherhood, Bitches, they approached me and asked if I had any story ideas.

Jesus, this is perfect.

Neil Armstrong's Heart Rate During Apollo 11 →

Comes via my new favorite Twitter account, @HistoryInPics.

The iPod of Prisons →

Joshua Hunt, writing for The New Yorker’s Elements blog:

Commissaries often carry other, bargain-brand radios, but according to former inmates and employees of the Bureau of Prisons and the Keefe Group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, America’s federal prisoners are most likely to own a Sony. Melissa Dolan, a Sony spokesperson, confirmed in an e-mail that selling portable radios in American prisons has long been a “stable business” that represents “sizable” sales for the company. Of the models available, the SRF-39FP remains an undisputed classic, still found on commissary lists an impressive fifteen years after its initial release, making it nearly as common behind prison walls as Apple’s iPod once was outside of them, despite competition from newer devices like digital radios and MP3 players.