One Siberian city is offering free subway rides to passengers who can recite “at least two verses from any poem by Alexander Pushkin.” The obvious corollary would be NJ Transit providing free service to passengers capable of singing “Born to Run” in its entirety.
Poets Ride Free
United Slang of America
(Interactive) Infographic of the Week: Slate’s United Slang of America. Click each state to find out more about the state-specific slang. You could also read our own Michael Bourne’s piece on, like, why the word like is really cool!
The End of a Myth
When Hanna Rosin published The End of Men this year, the book stirred up a lot of controversy (and a number of parodies, to boot). Now Stephanie Coontz, a historian, takes issue with Rosin’s premise -- the “myth of male decline” -- in the pages of The New York Times Book Review.
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Greed is Good Again
There's a trailer out for the upcoming sequel to Wall Street. Gordon Gekko and his giant mobile phone are back. He is joined, regrettably, by Shia LaBeouf.
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Suck It, MRAs
“I am very fortunate to be involved in a number of supportive communities who rally when things like this happen – but rarely do I laugh quite as hard as I did when reading Avid Reader’s responses.” The Guardian has the uplifting story of how an independent Australian bookstore "took on anti-feminist trolls and won." If for some reason, after reading that, you want to wade into an equally polarized comments section, scroll down to the conversation following Daniel Jose Ruiz's recent piece on geekdom and race.
Not for Everyone
Ultra-niche magazines operate a bit differently than their larger and more mainstream cousins. Magazines like Donkey Talk, which caters exclusively to donkey hobbyists, aim for tiny audiences of a few hundred to a few thousand readers. They also cultivate their own jargon -- one magazine, The Mountain Astrologer, tosses the word “quincunx” around as casually as “email.”
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