THE NEW YORKER

Their terrible cover this month aside, Smithsonian Magazine has a good essay in the most recent issue from Joan Acocella on the New York City state of mind. I find this to be her truest point:

While New Yorkers don't mind correcting you, they also want to help you. In the subway or on the sidewalk, when someone asks a passerby for directions, other people, overhearing, may hover nearby, disappointed that they were not the ones asked, and waiting to see if maybe they can get a word in. New Yorkers like to be experts. Actually, all people like to be experts, but most of them satisfy this need with friends and children and employees. New Yorkers, once again, tend to behave with strangers the way they do with people they know.

Read rest here.

JUDGING MAGAZINE BY ITS COVER

I received this month's issue of the Smithsonian magazine today. Usually this magazine features a pretty interesting topic or story on their front cover, but when I saw this month's cover (see above image) I couldn't have been any more indifferent. "Magical Maine." Are you f'ing kidding me? This isn't an attack on Maine...but come on! Maine?! Oh well.

Check out this magazine online. Say MRod sent you.

DROPPING KNOWLEDGE: CHINESE HISTORY

Holy forbidden city, I must have missed this lecture in the Chinese History class I took my sophomore year that was taught by a archetypal college professor who wore tweed blazers and would puff on a tobacco pipe during class:

"The emperor chose his night companion from nameplates presented to him by a eunuch," says Yuan. A high-ranking eunuch, the Chief of the Imperial Bedchamber, would remove the woman's clothes to ensure that she carried no weapons or poisons, roll her up in a quilt and carry her on his back through the courtyards to the emperor.

[...]

Passions and ambitions stewed in this world within a world. In Chinese lore, more than 200 concubines died on the orders of the 16th-century emperor Shizong. Seeking to end their misery, 16 members of his harem stole into his bedchamber one night to strangle him with a silken cord and stab him with a hairpin. The emperor lost an eye in the struggle, but the empress saved his life. Court executioners then tore the limbs from the concubines and displayed their severed heads on poles.

To read more...click here.