Joe Posnanski wraps up the national championship game, and Wright Thompson delivers the goods from Augusta. One of the bigger stories emerging from The Masters wasn’t winner Charl Schwartzel but rather the club’s denying access to the locker room to Bergen Record reporter Tara Sullivan because she’s a woman. We don’t often condone the use of “Really?” as a stand-alone reaction, but…really? Sullivan, who anyone in the business knows is a pro’s pro, wrote about the experience here — a “misunderstanding” according to Augusta National, which somewhat famously doesn’t have any female members — while also delivering her regularly scheduled column on Rory McIlroy. You may also remember Sullivan writing about the Ines Sainz scandal with the New York Jets back in the fall.
It’s been a few weeks since we had an NY Times heavy medley, so we figured we’d catch up on old tricks all at once. Here’s Stephen Pinker’s review of Malcolm Gladwell’s newest collection of essays, which does to Gladwell kind of what South Park did to Family Guy a few years back. In that same book review is David Gates’ look at Vladimir Nabokov’s latest (and last) The Originals of Laura. Gates’ review vacillates a little between warnings that Nabokov’s incomplete and posthumously published work (we’re not assuming all our readers know Nabokov is long deceased) can’t possibly live up to the standard of his finished work and light urgings to read it anyway. (Our favorite part: There’s a character named Hubert H. Hubert; he takes an interest in a so-called nymphet. We’re not sure, but we imagine some hijinks ensue.)
In case you ever wondered why the Wall Street Journal doesn’t focus on sports, it might be because it churns out ludicrous stories like this one on the underdog status of Iowa Football. Now, we’re not here to say that Iowa isn’t, relatively, an underdog in major college football; it is, after all, located in Iowa. But, to write this story, after the Hawkeyes lost, when much much MUCH bigger underdogs such as TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State are still unbeaten, was a bit shortsighted.
After we (John S and Josh) settled our squabbles on anchoring, we went to the highly recommended Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York nearly every week this summer (sometimes twice) to see some of the best (and worst) up-and-coming and established comedians. The vast majority of these comics were seen at Leo Allen’s Whiplash,but some were also seen at Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler’s variety show, Hot Tub. All in all, we saw over forty comedians perform. In traditional NPI fashion, we decided to rank them. Below are the five best comedians we saw this summer, all of whom we strongly recommend: Continue reading »
