What we read while turning down the Donald Trump debate…
- Tim Tebow keeps engineering miraculous comebacks (it’s almost making John S believe in God) and last week two of NPI’s favorite writers tried to figure out why so many hate him: Paul Shirley analyzed the racial aspect of the Tebow phenomenon, while Chuck Klosterman thinks it’s all about religion.
- Speaking of Klosterman, he ranked his favorite hair metal albums of the 1980s.
- You’re never going to guess who’s comedy album is ranked as the best of 2011 (unless you guessed Louis C.K., because it’s Louis C.K.). C.K. also released his new special at his website for $5. In other comedy news, Ron Swanson was named the best TV character of the year and David Wain returned with more episodes of Wainy Days!
- Perhaps the biggest sports story of last week was Albert Pujols signing with the Los Angeles Angels for $254 million. Friend of the blog Will Leitch was obviously distraught, though Pujols will always have a place in Cardinals history. As usual, Jonah Keri tried to break down the numbers.
- While Pujols was the biggest on-field story, John Branch’s three-part exploration of late Rangers’ enforcer Derek Boogaard may have been the most important off-field story done all year.
- This building may evoke images of 9/11 but still, doesn’t it look really cool?
- Oh potential of high-speed rail, we hardly knew ye.
- The Millions kicks off its always entertaining and enlightening “Year in Reading” series.
- Serious Eats’ on Bad Good and Good Bad pizza.
- So, um, this is pretty racist. And so is this.
- ESPN’s Tim Keown laments the ossification of the sports interview.
