best way to start the day

to envision second chances

Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

from “From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones,” about michelle jones, a Ph.D. candidate at NYU, who was released from prison after serving 20 years (and accepted and then rejected at Harvard):

“One of our considerations,” Professor Stauffer said in an interview, “was if this candidate is admitted to Harvard, where everyone is an elite among elites, that adjustment could be too much.”

Alison Frank Johnson, director of graduate studies for the [Harvard] history department, dismissed that argument as paternalistic.

“Michelle was sentenced in a courtroom to serve X years, but we decided — unilaterally — that it should be X years plus no Harvard,” she said. “Is it that she did not show the appropriate degree of horror in herself, by applying?

“We’re not her priests,” Professor Johnson added, using an expletive.

terrifying handout at the lodge in cloudcroft

“There are some who believe that Rebecca is in search of a new lover or friend who might appreciate her flirtatious and mischievous ways.”
DECLINE

stills-off

lorrie moore reviewing david roberts’s book, stephen stills: change partners, in “ain’t it always stephen stills”:

Backstage at the Ryman this spring, before the show, [Stephen] Stills sits at a table and signs merchandise. When it’s my turn in line, I hand him a fan letter and he sticks it respectfully and unopened in the inner pocket of his black sport jacket.

lorrie moore as stephen stills fan letter writer = too much

jean jullien

jean julien

(courtesy of ann friedman newsletter)

i major in bathtubs

oprah in vogue:

When the [photo] shoot is finally over, I am taken to the teahouse, a romantic, open-air stone structure Oprah built for the sole purpose of reading The New York Times in the morning while drinking her tea.

!!!!!!

Pausing on my way out to use one of her many bathrooms before the drive back to Los Angeles, I say to Oprah, “Remember at your house in Telluride when you showed me your tub that was molded and shaped to your body?” “Yup,” she says. “I still have a nice bathtub. I major in bathtubs. I spend my time looking for the best possible bathtub a woman can buy. And actually, Stedman’s never been in this one. When I was in Chicago, he would ask for permission: ‘Can I get in your tub?’ And I would say, ‘Mmmmmm. . . . OK.’ ”

SHE IS MY QUEEN

hungry ghosts

mike white on hollywood and success:

Do you consider yourself successful?
I feel successful. If you told me when I was younger that I would be able to keep doing this and I’m still in it, I would be stoked. I feel successful because I’m going to have a lot of movies come out this year. Whether I’m proud of everything, I don’t know, but I’m still in it. It wasn’t obvious to me when I started out that I was going to be able to have a career, so with that, I feel successful.

But then when you get into the nitty-gritty of it, you go, “Oh, it would be nice to have an Oscar, or huge box office.” It’s nice to have everything, you want it all, and then you get caught up in these external markers of what success is and start feeling sort of empty or deflated. I resist it but I still can get caught up in that, and I think that’s what Brad’s Status is about. It’s a sucker’s game. I’ve seen it in Hollywood: People who are at the top levels are still chasing something. It’s a drug, and you get the drug and then the drug fades and you need it again. You see a lot of hungry ghosts who have these great careers and tons of money and all of this admiration and then you get close to it and it’s like, “Wow, this person is so much more miserable than you would expect.”

a moment to discuss the mindy project

as everyone knows, i love the mindy project, even though it is weird as hell and problematic and etc. etc. so i was pleased to see this article, “Mindy’s Love Interests on The Mindy Project, Ranked From Worst to Best,” but really it should have just said “they were all terrible except chris messina; and the preacher and the lawyer were especially bad; and her dating life was actually the strangest part of the show.” THE END

this is also good (tuesdays are 4 instagram embedding)

Mr. Larkin SS18 Photography @josephinelochen Muse @millebechjunge HMU @emilieand #mrlarkin #MLSS18

A post shared by Mr. Larkin (@mrlarkin) on Sep 9, 2017 at 5:43am PDT

this is good

LANDED #venezia74 @woodshockmovie

A post shared by Kirsten Dunst (@kirstendunst) on Sep 2, 2017 at 7:51am PDT