From the Editors

May 23, 2009

This month’s Of Recent Note topic is:

What have you been paranoid about lately?

There’s always job loss and pandemics to worry about, and zoo carousels that go much faster than a zoo carousel ought to go, and two-year-old nieces who can run up and down the stairs faster than you can. And then there’s sunburn and ghosts and fax machines. These are by no means all real-life examples.

Please send your entries to bridget@themorningnews.org by Wednesday, May 27, at 10 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words, and please include a link to your web site.

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April 17, 2009

This month’s Of Recent Note topic is:

Your Favorite Print Periodicals

The ones you love—whether thriving, surviving, or recently defunct.

Tell us about your morning coffee with the New York Sun, your favorite section of the Seattle P-I, the vice-like grip you have on the last Washington Post Book World— or how the “Outlook” section isn’t bad, either. Tell us about the Timeses, the Posts, the Globes you love, the monthly or weekly (or downgraded to quarterly) magazines you delight in finding in your mailbox, or how you’ve saved all your past issues of Real Simple and plan to sell them for profit on eBay.

Please send your entries to bridget@themorningnews.org by Wednesday, April 22, at 9 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words, and please include a link to your web site.

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April 13, 2009

TMN is looking for an intern for Summer 2009. The internship is unpaid and done where you like. You’re required to supply your own computer, web connection, and green visor. Most likely your work will include helping out with the headlines and a few editorial projects, but it also can involve grunt stuff like handling merchandise fulfillment, or fun stuff like shopping for beer at the Retreat. Probably 10-20 hours a week of work.

Here’s what our three most recent interns have to say about the experience:

I’ve been an intern for a number of places, and wow most of them sucked. You do tons of work and all you get is a lot of really awkward no-eye-contact, am I right? Well, not so at TMN. First off, most of the work is actually pretty fun and rewarding. Second, the staff really is the coolest bunch of people you’ll ever meet in your life. They’ll look you in the eye, listen to you talk, remember your name. It’s incredible! So apply now. You won’t regret it.—Matthew Robison

TMN people are the nicest, funniest people you’ll ever meet, and TMN projects are the nicest, funnest, most challenging work you’ll ever do. TMN will make you use the internet in ways you never did before, and never in the oh-god-I-just-spent-three-hours-on-YouTube kind of way. You couldn’t ask for a better summer job.—Nozlee Samadzadeh

An internship with TMN is hugely enriching. The whole TMN family is warm and friendly. Interns have a unique opportunity to soak up expertise from a fantastic pool of people, and work on projects that will leave you invigorated and inspired. Dive in! It’s quite possibly the best way to spend a summer.—Mike Smith

The candidate we’re looking for has good web chops, a wide taste in reading materials, and an interest in online publishing. Applications should include a CV and a paragraph or two on why you want to work for TMN, any relevant experience, and how you came to start reading the site. Please keep things brief. Bonus points if you can name the song Andrew and Rosecrans sang in the drunk karaoke video that once appeared in this space.

Send us everything via email to talk@themorningnews.org by midnight, Monday, April 27. Thanks!

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March 18, 2009

This month’s Of Recent Note topic is:

Your Favorite Thing About the Recession

Maybe it’s that you’re suddenly thankful for your thankless job. Maybe it’s that Restaurant Week turned into Restaurant Month and then Restaurant Forever. Maybe it’s your shiny new stimulus check. Or maybe it’s all the sales—and if so, which ones?

Please send your entries to bridget@themorningnews.org by Tuesday, March 24, Monday, March 30, at 9 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words, and please include a link to your web site.

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February 14, 2009

This month’s Of Recent Note topic is: People I Wish I Knew.

They’re your would-be acquaintances, your potential best friends, your maybe-someday muses. They’re the person you don’t know that you’d like to go out to dinner with. They’re the person you’d most like to text about the thing that just happened. They may be Barack Obama. They may be anybody.

Please send your entries to bridget@themorningnews.org by Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 6 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words, and please include a link to your web site.

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February 9, 2009

Attention New Yorkers: Our limited-edition TMN Annual 2008 is now for sale at one of our favorite bookstores, the Strand in Manhattan (828 Broadway, between 12th and 13th Streets).

Will our shrink-wrapped volume suffer the same lustful attacks as the erotica collections just five feet away? Only you can decide.

And for those who live beyond the city environs, you can always purchase a copy online—while supplies last, of course. For those who’ve asked, we’ve got around 25 of the books left. —Andrew

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January 19, 2009

Update: The Zombie Poll is now closed. Thank you to everyone who voted!

The 2009 Tournament of Books Zombie Poll is now open, so please click here and vote for your favorite book. Please note that you can only vote once. Also, you don’t need to give us your email address or your name, though we do ask a couple of additional questions about TMN (they’re optional, but your responses always help us quite a bit).

For those of you who are new to the Tournament, here’s how the Zombie Round works:

1. You vote for your favorite book from the list of Rooster contenders.
2. We tabulate the scores and publish them when the Tournament of Books launches in March.
3. The two books that receive the most votes and lose a round of play prior to the Zombie Round are brought back for a last chance before the finals.

Because we get the occasional email from readers confused by the Zombie Round, here’s an example scenario:

1. Of all the titles on this year’s Tournament book list, your favorite is Whore in Fleece.
2. You vote for Whore in Fleece in the Zombie survey. So does everyone else. Whore in Fleece is the most popular book of the year! It’s sure to win the Rooster!
3. Unfortunately, the Round One judge who’s assigned Whore in Fleece disagrees and thinks it’s lousy. She chooses to advance its opponent, Sublime Fun Is Meant, to Round Two.
4. Boy are you pissed.
5. However, you’re not too angry, because you know Whore in Fleece was the top Zombie book, and therefore will return in Round 4 to eat brains and wreck havoc!

You have one week to complete the survey, so get voting. Thank you for your participation. Check back here soon for news of the 2009 judges and some sweet Rooster merchandise. You can also join us on Facebook over here.

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January 15, 2009

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when you get to feel like a failure because you did not stick to your pre-appointed resolution. Perhaps because you drunkenly blurted it out at 12:03 a.m., right before lighting another cigarette. Perhaps because it’s the same lame resolution you make every year. Perhaps because you are railing against the man and resolutions are made to be broken, kid! Living on the edge!

This month’s Of Recent Note theme is:

Broken Resolutions

As always, we invite you to take part. Send some words to bridget@themorningnews.org by Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 10 p.m. Eastern. One write-up per broken resolution, please, but feel free to submit as many as you can bear. So did you forget and add refined sugar to your coffee? Did you promise not to make fun of your sister’s boyfriend only to discover that he wears sunglasses indoors? Did you join a gym and then not even go during the two-week free-trial period? Don’t worry: Those aren’t failures; they’re Of Recent Note fairy dust.

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December 11, 2008

Here it is, the final Of Recent Note of 2008: What’s the best thing you discovered this year?

It could be the Fleet Foxes album, it could be tweed moccasins, it could be “change.”

It could be something that makes you think about what 2008 has meant to you; something that makes you hope for what 2009 may bring.

It could be patriotism, cultural identity, expensive shoes that are actually comfortable because they are so expensive—who knew??

It could be a person, a vacation spot, a mental trick to keep you sane when your boss is talking.

It could be the fantastic ease of a messenger service, the beauty of having a calling card, the realization that Facebook is the best/worst thing on the planet.

Maybe you got a raise and it made you think; maybe you got fired and it made you think more. Maybe you bought a couch or a new mattress. One without bedbugs. Maybe you discovered skim milk. You learned a new language. You finally saw The Princess Bride.

It could be anything.

Please send your entries to bridget@themorningnews.org by Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 6 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words. Please also include a link to your web site.

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November 20, 2008

Tell us about your favorite, semi-secret, slightly (or mostly) guilty genre of books and a couple of recent favorites in said genre. You know: crime, romance, sci-fi, founding father biographies, New York Review of Books titles, vampire lore, cats who solve mysteries, etc. If you hoard philosophy textbooks in a secret bookshelf, this month’s Of Recent Note is for you.

Please send your entries (one entry per genre, unless your choice warrants more) to bridget@themorningnews.org by Sunday, Nov. 30, at 6 p.m. Eastern. Entries should be around 150 words. Please also send along a link to your web site.

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November 10, 2008

To inaugurate a new feature on TMN we’re calling TMN Talks, this Friday we’ll be joined by the great Jad Abumrad, co-host of one of our favorite radio shows, Radio Lab.

Jad and the whole Radio Lab staff are kicking off their fifth season this week. The first episode will stream on WNYC’s web site this Friday at 3 p.m. Afterwards, when the episode’s finished, Jad will be dropping by TMN to answer your questions about all things Radio Lab.

So: send us your questions this week (email them to talk@themorningnews.org) and then tune in here around 4 p.m. on Friday for a talk with Jad. See you then!

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October 21, 2008

It’s fall, which means many things. You know: New England scenery, school buses, the crippling inability to get out of a warm bed on a cool morning. One more wonderful thing about fall is the food. Give us a pumpkin anything, an apple whatever, a baked good or toasty sandwich of mostly any shape and size.

October’s Of Recent Note will be all about Fall Food: those delicacies, dishes, and treats of the season that you’ve discovered recently and discovered to be GREAT.

Send your ideas for autumnal delights (and recipes!) to bridget@themorningnews.org by Sunday night, Oct. 26, 9 p.m., Eastern. Write-ups should be around 150 words (or less, and that’s flexible where recipes are involved). Please also send along a link to your web site.

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