fshklr

fshk. Writer. Editor. Brooklynite. Cat lady. Nerd. Twitter. Interests include: mustaches, dinosaurs, baseball, baseball players with mustaches

[fshk]

observation

My dash is, like, 78% Teen Wolf gifs. You guys are FANS, huh?

[fshk]

Hi, tumblr! Hi! I have been a sporadic user of you all summer, but I have some things to say in long form, so I'm back, bitches, at least for today!

[alexskarsgardnet]

The first Calvin Klein ad featuring Alexander Skarsgård for the men’s fragrance “Encounter” has been found in the September 2012 issue of Details magazine. (Jake Gyllenhaal is on the cover).

[missworded]

I actually just had some sort of fit.  Nobody really looks like that, do they?

[fshk]

Um. Wow. I've been DVRing True Blood in favor of watching Olympics, so there hasn't been enough ASkars in my life lately. *fans self*

[fshk]

I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.

George R. R. Martin

[nanowrimo]

We Want More of Erin: The ML's Guide to Writing in New York

Erin is one of our fantastic Municipal Liaisons in New York City, and has been leading the NaNoWriMo charge there since 2003. We asked her to give us the Wrimo’s Guide to noveling in NYC, and boy, did she deliver.

If you find yourself wondering where to write in the Empire City, let Erin regale you with tales of the “Desperation Libation”, typing in front of the Flatiron Building like the Wrimos above, and where to get the best latte:

Read More

[fshk]

I'm totally famous, you guys.

[fshk]

Superstar on Broadway

Last night, I went to see the Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar; I give it 3.5 stars.

There was nothing new or different about this production, and the cast is all unknowns. (I would take the time to look up their names, but I'm lazy.) A rundown:

This production seems determined to play up the Judas-Jesus-Mary love triangle (altering the score slightly to do so—for example, Judas sings Peter's lines at the end of "Could We Start Again Please?" which got a rise out of my theater companion, and not in a good way.) The three actors are on stage together frequently. None of them have much chemistry with each other, which I think is why the production is like, "LOVE TRIANGLE, GEDDIT?!" so much.

The guy playing Jesus was a little flat for me. In terms of affect, I mean. He came across not so much as "serene" as "asleep" in some scenes. Also, that part requires some vocal acrobatics for which this actor was not up to the task; he screamed his way through "Gethsemane," which was not so great.

Mary was kind of aggressive. The actress did this weird pigeon head-bob thing when she was trying to make a point through song, so when she tells Jesus not to worry, it seems like she's yelling at him rather than trying to soothe him. So that was a little weird.

There was an understudy Herod who opted to play the part super gay, which is... a choice. Actually, I liked "Herod's Song," it was probably the splashiest number in the production.

The ensemble was pretty great, too, but I would have liked to see more dancing. There was a lot of just standing on stage and singing. (Also a lot of Les Miz-style marching across the stage. Kind of expected them to break out into, "Do You Hear the People Sing?")

I did think the guy playing Judas was pretty fantastic, though. Great voice, a tendency toward scene-chewing in a way the part requires. Unfortunately, "Superstar" lacked the glitter and panache it really requires (largely because of bland staging and costuming) and that was my one great disappointment with the show. The consequence is that the whole last twenty minutes of the musical end up being super anticlimactic.

Summary: this is one of my favorite musicals ever, so I'm being especially nit-picky.  Overall, it was fine and enjoyable but not spectacular.

[fshk]

Also, hey, what's up, tumblr. I've been too busy to pay much attention to you for the last couple of weeks and I miss my dashboard, which is pretty much all hot guys, romance novels, baseball, and dinosaurs all the time. THE BEST, in other words. The long winter of work sucking out my soul is hopefully ending soon, and then I will be back, and all shall love me and despair.

[dianadaum]

I have a love/hate (really more hate than love recently) relationship with Jezebel, but I was so thrilled to see their ode to Judith Krantz’s novel Scruples. I read it for the first time when I was 13, and I quickly followed it up with every other Krantz novel. But Scruples is still my hands-down favorite. 

Last spring, I was talking to a few friends over Twitter about “the books that taught us about sex”—you know, the first book you read that didn’t fade to black, the one that made you go, “Oh, so that’s how that works!” Several of my friends named Harlequins. I never read Harlequins growing up. No, the book that taught me about sex was Scruples. 

I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, so I decided to reread it during my summer vacation. I reminded all of the basics of the plot, but I had totally forgotten just how graphic the sex scenes were. I remember being very confused when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, which would have been right around the same time as my Krantz phase, so I suspect that a lot of the mechanics went right over my head. 

But here’s the great thing about Scruples, and I know I didn’t pick up on this at the time: it is fantastically sex positive and feminist. As Jezebel describes, the protagonist, Billy, and her amazingly awesome roommate Jessica, have tons of casual sex, and there’s literally no slut-shaming. All of the women are really sexually aggressive, unlike the heroines of most Harlequins that were published in the same period. And they masturbate all the time. I’ve known a lot of young women who never masturbated until they were older, or found it incredibly shameful, but that tidbit about how Billy ducks into the bathroom during school to get herself off has always stuck with me. And I mean that in a good way. Rereading the novel, I felt really fortunate that it was the book that taught me about sex instead of one of those rapey romance novels. 

Granted, it leaves out some kind of important stuff around safe sex (uh, birth control? condoms? STDs? I know this was all pre-AIDS, but geez). But still, I can almost see myself, some years down the line, just having a really short birds-and-bees talk with my daughter and then handing her a copy of Scruples.

[fshk]

I am obviously pro reading old romance novels. I don't recall what my first one was, but I do remember reading a Danielle Steel novel when I was maybe sixteen that has a scene where the very suave movie producer hero goes down on an actress, and I remember thinking, "Ew, why would anyone do that?" and was so shocked that it has stayed in my mind all this time, but LIVE AND LEARN, am I right, ladies?

[aledlewis]

[stacylambe]

There’s no reason NOT to have this on my blog.

[Previously in Magic Mike news]

(h/t BarebackContessa)

[siphotos]

Oakland A’s owner Charles O. Finley (center) poses with (clockwise from top L-R) Rollie Fingers, Joe Rudi, Vida Blue, Gene Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Jim Catfish Hunter, Sal Bando & Reggie Jackson during a 1974 SI photo shoot. (Neil Leifer/SI)

SI VAULT: Everyone is in awe of Reggie Jackson (7.17.74)

[oldtimefamilybaseball]

Too much fashion. 

[fshk]

The 70s were a good/bad time for baseball mustaches.

[tossin-and-turnin-blog]

[champions-ballad]

NO

THIS IS TOO CUTE

[fshk]

*dies*

[oldtimefamilybaseball]

Mag-neato! 

From io9’s Awesomely Weird Art of 1800s Baseball Photography. 

[fshk]

This kind of made my day.

[inothernews]

Via the New York Post:

One of DC Comics oldest heroes is super-coming out.

The original Green Lantern - a DC Comics mainstay for the past 70 years - will be revealed to be a gay man in next week’s issue of “Earth 2.”

Alan Scott - formerly a married father of two who first appeared in 1940 - tips readers off to his sexuality early on in the comic when he gives his boyfriend a welcome home kiss.

“He’s very much the character he was. He’s still the pinnacle of bravery and idealism. He’s also gay,” “Earth 2” writer James Robinson told The Post.

The Emerald Guardian’s sexuality was rebooted along with the rest of his fictional universe as part of DC’s “New 52” initiative aimed at rejuvenating their characters.

[oldtimefamilybaseball]

BJ Upton To Become The Official Baseball Sartorialist

(Reuters Pictures) 

BJ Upton has always been a frustrating player. Despite being blessed with an endless array of tools and abilities, Upton has never come close to matching his 2007 season when he hit .300/.386/.522 as a 22-year-old. Since that time, and despite three 40+ steal seasons, Upton has batted only .250/.337/.408, just barely ahead of league average, and has been accused of occasionally taking it easy in the field. 

Well, no longer. 

The good folks at Rays Index took a look at Upton’s season and discovered something that  is quite extraordinary: when Upton goes with high pants and stirrup socks, he performs exponentially better than when he goes pajama panted or with a single-colored sanitary socks. While Upton has an embarrassing .655 OPS with his ankles covered, that jumps to .938 when he gets all immodest and lets those calves shine. 

Even better, Upton took this highly scientific information and decided to do something about it. From the Tweeter machine: 

Considering that the Rays may have the best looking socks in baseball, that deep navy blue being intersected by fundamentally perfect slices of white and sky blue, it’s mind boggling that the entire team doesn’t wear them all day, everyday, whether they’re at the park or not. 

Maybe now that Science and Art have intersected, that will change. 

(h/t Getting Blanked) 

[fshk]

Dude, for the sake of my fantasy team, keep wearing those stirrups!

[ilovecharts]

Learn to write like Dan Brown! (Flowchart Fridays at Book Riot)

[obamarama-blog]

And then all went awry when President Bush challenged a member of the press to “Come up and say that to my face.”