Jay Gabler: Archive

Two thoughts on this radio ad featuring my cousin Jesse.

1. Jesse is four years older than me. I remember being four when he was eight, and thinking that he was just the coolest person in the world. I mean, he had a Batman alarm clock. Seriously. I decided that Jesse had proven definitively that eight was the perfect age, and that I wanted to get older for four more years and then stop and just be permanently eight years old, so I could be as cool as Jesse forever.

2. Is there any genre in all of media that changes as little as the radio ad does? Seriously, this announcer could be interviewing Little Orphan Annie about the virtues of Ovaltine.

Dec 30, 2011

My Great-Grandparents' Birthplaces, According to a Genealogy Chart My Uncle Gave to Me for Christmas

1. Brown County, Minnesota

2. Brown County, Minnesota

3. Brown County, Minnesota

4. Brown County, Minnesota

5. Brown County, Minnesota

6. Brown County, Minnesota

7. Unknown county, Minnesota

8. Unknown county, Pennsylvania

Dec 26, 20112 notes

Dec 26, 20113 notes

#GPOYChristmasGifts #PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

Dec 26, 20111 note

#PEN592 #penready #GPOYChristmasGifts #Minneapolis

Dec 26, 2011

#GPOYChristmasGifts #PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

Dec 25, 20111 note

#GPOYChristmasGift #PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

Dec 25, 2011

#GPOYChristmasGift #PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

In Which I Tell My Dad a Joke That John Jodzio Taught Me

Me: I've got a joke for you, Dad. So this grasshopper walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Hey! We've got a drink named after you!" The grasshopper says, "You've got a drink named Steve?"
Dad: That's a little lame. He should say, "You've got a drink named Grady?"
Me: I don't get it.
Dad: You know, like, Grady Grasshopper. Instead of Steve. Just get a little something going there.

#PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

Dec 23, 20111 note

Dec 23, 20112 notes

#PEN592 #penready #Minneapolis

I may be a superfan, but I think I have to draw the line on this one.

teganandsara:

The T+S cycling cap! Just a few remaining of this special edition hat at teganandsara.com/shop

Dec 20, 2011276 notes

THE ASIAN CARP INVASION OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER IS BAD AND GETTING WORSE.

Maybe I should go take a Xanax before continuing to post today’s news.

tcdailyplanet:

You have enough to worry about this holiday season—so let us give you more than enough!

Dec 20, 20111 note

On Glamour

It’s funny how when you’re in an unhealthy relationship, it seems totally unique—you tell yourself that no one else really understands your partner, and that’s why they’re all telling you to run like hell. But then once you’re out of it, you read about other unhealthy relationships and see the same patterns recurring again and again and again and you’re like, shit, how did I not see that? But you didn’t, and neither did I.

When I was going through my version of this, my ex did something or other that I found absolutely shocking and heart-stopping, but my roommate—who’d already been through that wringer—just shook her head. Referring to my then-girlfriend, my roommate said, “She’s so fucking predictable.”

emilybooks:

by Ruth Curry

“You had better STOP that SHIT. You don’t know THE STREET. They will eat you alive. You think you’re going to get away with THAT SHIT? Do you know what’s going to happen to you? You’re going to get FUCKED UP THE ASS. Let me tell you something before you let some man fuck you up the ass: You make sure he LOVES YOU.” – Emily Carter, “The Bride,” Glory Goes and Gets Some

The first time I read this I was twenty-one years old. I was an intern at a small press in Minneapolis, and reading this story collection was one of my first assignments there. It had just been published. Chris, the editor-in-chief, wanted me to get a feel for the kind of books Coffee House did. In this passage, a random barback lectures the protagonist Glory— a nice Upper East Side Jewish girl and a heroin addict—about the things she’s doing to feed her addiction.

I was shocked by these lines in the way only a nice Midwestern girl raised by fundamentalist Christian parents could be. I had landed this internship in part because I was as clean-cut, as punctual, as good-spirited and enthusiastic, as high-achieving as they come. I had been a Bible Quiz champion, for god’s sake. I mean, my friends and I joked about my Illinois State Bible Quiz Champion crown while too underagedly-drunk to stand, but still. Fucked up the ASS?

Read More

Dec 20, 201147 notes

My Christmas card, and feedback

The card:

E-mail from Dad to his friends:

E-mail from one of my friends:

Texts:

Postscript:

Dec 19, 20116 notes

Dec 19, 20111 note

#notthattheresanythingwrongwiththat

“There are certain things about women that men will never understand, in part because they have no interest in understanding them. They will never know how deeply we care about our houses—what a large role they play in our dreams for ourselves, how unhappy their shortcomings make us. Men think they understand the way our physical beauty—or lack of it, or assaults on it from age or extra weight—preys on our minds, but they don’t fully grasp the significance these things have for us. Nor can they understand the way physical comforts or simple luxuries—the fresh towel or the fat new cake of soap—can lift our spirits. And they will never know how much our lives are shaped around the fear of bad men and the harm they can bring us if we’re not careful, if we’re not banded together, if we’re not telling each other what to watch out for, what we’ve learned. We need each other’s counsel, and oftentimes it comes when we’re talking about other things, when we seem not to have much important on our minds at all.” —

The New York Times magazine picked Caitlin Flanagan’s “The Glory of Oprah” as one of their top #longreads of 2011. This is the third-to-last paragraph and so it’s really not fair for me to quote it out of context since it elaborates on and completes thoughts she’s been weaving through the piece.

Or maybe it is fair to quote it out of context. Maybe what’s really unfair is for Flanagan to spend the rest of the piece casting a diabolical spell with her wit and flawless style and perfect innate balance between pathos and humor, so that when you get to this paragraph and its galling, risible gender essentialism, you are inclined not to throw down the magazine or close the tab in disgust, but to nod, narcotized by her smooth sentences, and agree. Of course all men are one way and all women are another way, nature has made them that way, not culture. Want … soap …

Shake it off, readers! Don’t let her win! Caitlin Flanagan is a DANGEROUS LUNATIC and WE MUST NEVER ALLOW OURSELVES TO FORGET THAT, NO MATTER HOW FUNNY AND CONVINCING SHE IS! AUGHH!

Oof, I seem to have overexerted myself. Can I have a fresh towel?

(via emilygould)

Malcolm Gladwell makes me similarly uneasy. He can make even smart, informed people completely believe theories that he pretty much just pulls out of his ass.

Jay Gabler

December 2011

99 posts