Is The Baffler Back?

The Baffler, which was founded in 1988 by Thomas Frank and Keith White in Chicago, was a magazine of cultural criticism. It spawned two essay/article collections (Commodify Your Dissent: The Business of Culture in the New Gilded Age, 1997, and Boob Jubilee: The Cultural Politics of the New Economy, 2003) and helped turn Frank into a respected cultural and political commentator.

But The Baffler ran into problems around the time its offices in Chicago burned down in mid-2001. It all but ceased publication in 2003. Its 17th issue was released in 2006.

When I posted a nostalgic reference to The Baffler yesterday, I got a quick comment from someone who said that it had been revived, along with the e-mail address, contact@thebaffler.com. My message to that address bounced back, and the website, www.thebaffler.com, has little information beyond that e-mail address and the announcement that it is in fact back.

It might be. In June this year, the New York Observer reported that Frank was bringing it back and that some of its former writers and some prominent new ones had agreed to write for it. Its new publisher, the Observer reports, will be Conor O'Neil, who started an ambitious lecture and arts group while an undergraduate at Northwestern. The Observer said the first new issue was scheduled for October.

The Baffler also seems to have a Facebook page, and as recently as November 9, the page was updated to say that new issues would be available in bookstores and newsstands later in the winter.

In the meantime, here's another excerpt from a favorite article from The Baffler, circa the early 90s. The article was called "Harsh Realm, Mr. Sulzberger!" and it was about a hoax played upon the New York Times by an annoyed former Sub Pop records employee named Megan Jasper.

In November, 1992, the Times' Style section ran an article about the "grunge" scene in Seattle, and included a list of grunge jargon. That list was completely made up, as The Baffler revealed later:

"Convinced that 'all subcultures speak in code,' the Times went looking for some colorful argot from the Seattle rock scene and Ms. Jasper was only too happy to oblige them with some of the most inspired fake slang outside of Monty Python. Thus the Newspaper of Record dutifully repeated her comical assertions that youth in the Pacific Northwest regularly refer to their torn jeans as 'wack slacks,' platform shoes as 'plats,' people they don't like as 'Lamestain' or 'Tom-Tom Club' or 'Cob Nobbler,' and that they often spend time 'Swingin on the Flippity-Flop.'"

The icing on the cake was that Seattle band Mudhoney started using some of those terms in interviews to help perpetuate the hoax.

Here, from the November 15, 1992 edition of the New York Times, is the full list of grunge slang terms.

LEXICON OF GRUNGE: BREAKING THE CODE

All subcultures speak in code; grunge is no exception. Megan Jasper, a 25-year-old sales representative at Caroline Records in Seattle, provided this lexicon of grunge speak, coming soon to a high school or mall near you:

WACK SLACKS: Old ripped jeans

FUZZ: Heavy wool sweaters

PLATS: Platform shoes

KICKERS: Heavy boots

SWINGIN' ON THE FLIPPITY-FLOP: Hanging out

BOUND-AND-HAGGED: Staying home on Friday or Saturday night

SCORE: Great

HARSH REALM: Bummer

COB NOBBLER: Loser

DISH: Desirable guy

BLOATED, BIG BAG OF BLOATATION: Drunk

LAMESTAIN: Uncool person

TOM-TOM CLUB: Uncool outsiders

ROCK ON: A happy goodbye

Jasper worked for Sub Pop, not Caroline -- the Times got that one wrong too. Read the rest of the story in Commodify Your Dissent.

A & R

When a friend used the term A&R in conversation to refer to a record company's talent scout, we realized that neither of us knew what the A and the R actually stood for.

"Artists and Repertoire," says Wikipedia. Scrolling down, I see that this particular page has been vandalized by someone who doesn't like American Idol. Right below the heading for the job description, someone entered:

SIMON COWELL IS A TOTAL SPOILT WANKER.

But scrolling down further, I see a reference to an old article from The Baffler, a great but now defunct periodical out of Chicago that was started by Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America".

The article, called "The Problem With Music," is by Steve Albini, a musician who's been in bands like Shellac and Big Black. He's also an audio engineer and a producer.

This excellent (but depressing) critique of the music business, circa 1993, starts like this:

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.

Nobody can see what’s printed on the contract. It’s too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody’s eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there’s only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, “Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke.”

And he does, of course.

Quote of the Day: Sarah Palin

"If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?”

That, according to a number of sources, including the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic Monthly, is the wisdom of "rogue" ex-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

She apparently posed the question in her new book, "Going Rogue: An American Life".

I think I have the answer to Ms. Palin's question. I've been thinking about this for some time, and I really think I've got it: God obviously intended for us to eat animals, which are made of meat, because he made vegetables out of vegetation. I mean, it's like how people aren't made of meat. Because we don't eat people, right?

Take that, haters.

Fake AP Stylebook on Twitter

Usually, the twits who tweet on Twitter seem less like super-networked representatives of tomorrow's technology today and more like a small group of middle-aged ego-maniacs endlessly updating each other on daily minutiae while a story-starved media "reports" on the finer bits.

But, as in poetry, there are occasional gems. Like the Fake AP Stylebook. As a writer reluctantly bound to follow the Associated Press's thin and vague style guide, I found this quite helpful. Here are some choice examples:

Avoid the archaic term "lunatic." Specify whether the subject suffers from Hulkamania or Macho Madness.

Replace "situation deteriorated/worsened" with "shit [just] got real." Ex: On day three of the hostage crisis, shit got real.

While it’s tempting to call them ‘baristi’ because of the Italian roots, the plural of ‘barista’ is ‘journalism majors.’

Use ‘student’ to refer to college attendees, and ‘coed’ to refer to really hot students.

Robots should only be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns, no matter how sexy they may be.

If you cannot find the source of a quote, make one up. Nobody's reading your story anyway. Get over yourself.

When describing the subject of a story's "assets," be sure to make the next sentence, "You know what I'm talkin' about."

The plural of "vagina" is "vaginas." The plural of "penis" is gross, nobody wants to read about that.

Always capitalize 'Bible.' You don't want to get letters from those people.

Dates should be formated as MM/DD/YY except for the years 1990 through 1992, which should be denoted in 'Hammer Time.'

Use the quintuple vowel to transcribe the utterances of small children, "Daaaaaddy, I waaaant a Pooooony!"

Since the 1986 edition, the plural of McDonald's is officially McDonaldses.

The word "boner” is not capitalized, regardless of size.

Use quotation marks to express skepticism: Cher’s “Farewell Tour,” Creed’s “Best Album,” Jay Leno’s “comedy.”

Quote of the Day: Hank Pantier

"If you stuff five pounds into a two-pound container, it doesn't make the five pounds smaller. It just makes it stranger-looking and uncomfortable."

Colorado man Hank Pantier, 35, is talking about his wife, 40-year-old yoga instructor Mary Pantier. She's one of thousands of American women who pack themselves, sausage-like, into modern-day spandex corsets from Spanx.

The Wall Street Journal discussed the ins and outs of Spanx -- which has been endorsed by Oprah -- in a recent article featuring some horror stories. For example, women find themselves trying to secretly ooze out of these products before one-night stands; others find it difficult to use the bathroom. Hank Pantier tells his wife she feels like a tire when she wears Spanx.

It's Election Day

Both New York City and Minneapolis have mayoral elections today. But who to vote for? Here are a few of the candidates you may not have heard enough about.

New York City

Jimmy McMillan of The Rent is Too Damn High Party: McMillan, who looks like a black Hulk Hogan, has a simple platform -- "There Is Nothing Else To Talk About!" he says of the City's high rents. His website is a collage of articles, images, clipart and animated graphics bearing the message, “We apologize for the bad grammar. But... your rent is still too damn high.” Yes, it is.

McMillan, who has run for mayor (unsucsessfully) before, made news recently when the damn Board of Elections made him shorten the name of his party. McMillan argues that the longer name wasn't a problem when he ran in 2005, and that the Board is trying to censor him on religious grounds.

McMillan told New York Magazine:

"I had a hell of a day, man. I would love to put on my website that the Board of Elections can suck my dick, I would love to do that, but I got little children going to my website, I can't do it, the motherfuckers. I would love to, before every one of them go to bed at night, suckin' my damn dick. That's what I'd love to put on my website. Every fuckin' one of them, you know."

So he was forced to change the party name on the ballot to: "The Rent is Too High Party."

His website is full of odd quotes and anecdotes, like this one, next to an animated graphic of a man running:

"Slow down Jimmy
I cant People are getting evicted like crazy.
We gotta do something Rent is too damn high.
Help us stop this 'High' Rent madness. Please, HELP Us..."

McMillan is running against incumbent Mike Bloomberg and Democrat Bill Thompson.

Minneapolis

John Charles Wilson of the Edgertonite National Party: "In May 1982," writes Wilson on his homepage, "I saw my first vision of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who told me that She is God, I was right to be a Communist, and that she would give me a message to preach to the world. I realised this wouldn't endear me to the traditional Communist Party USA, so I planned to start my own political party."

And so the Edgertonite Party was born. Wilson, who calls himself an Author/Minister/Politician/Transit Historian, says he was "a political prisoner in the mental 'health' system from 1983 to 1987."

The Edgerton he refers to is "The Nation of Edgerton," which is a 240-mile radius of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Edgertonite party website explains:

"We are a non-traditional Communist party, based on the ideology of Lauraism: the belief that Laura Ingalls Wilder is God, Communism (public ownership of business) is the best form of government, age of consent laws should be repealed, public transit should be returned to the routes, fares, and schedules of 18 September 1970, the Nation of Edgerton should secede from the United States as a Lauraist homeland, and all people, including children, deserve as much personal liberty as possible consistent with public safety and the rights of others. Capitalism is a per se violation of people’s rights by exploitation."

As creative and amusing as that is, one begins to suspect Wilson may be a little too interested in the freedom of children. In a bad way.

Joey Lombard is Awesome: Lombard explains his party's name on his blog:

"People tell me it's sad that I chose to use 'Is Awesome' as my political idea. They seem to be under the impression that I think simply being awesome will be enough to win an election. That's not the case at all. While I think it's awesome that I'm the first person in Minneapolis' history to be officially designated as 'awesome' and have since decided that being notarized awesome is enough to RUN for office, I know it's not enough to win. I'm not stupid. The reason I said I'm awesome is because I'm on a limited budget. I can't afford to put tens of thousands of dollars into yard signs and mailings. I wouldn't anyway because that's horribly wasteful and I'm a hippy."

That post is signed, Joey Lombard, Practically the mayor. Lombard graduated sub cum laude from Patrick Henry High School in 2005, according to his website.

Wilson and Lobard are running against incumbent RT Ryback and a large pool of others.

Victor Wong

Victor Wong, an actor who starred in nearly 30 movies including John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China and Prince of Darkness, was a renaissance man who only began making movies later in life.

His face, which for the latter half of his life was affected by a form of nerve paralysis, was widely recognizable for its lopsidedness, a trait that may have helped his film career but effectively ended his earlier broadcast television career.

As an obituary from 2001 in the Sacramento News & Review said:

"He was at varying stages a teenage Christian evangelist, a Protestant minister-in-training, a Buddhist, a visual artist, a poet, a Beat Generation luminary, a Merry Prankster, a pioneering photographer and broadcast journalist, a comedian, a successful stage performer, a teacher, a mentor to younger writers and filmmakers, and, in the end, possibly one of the most famous Chinese-American character actors in Hollywood."

He was born in San Francisco, the son of a poet and advisor to Chiang Kai-Shek (then Taiwan's president) in 1927. At one point he wanted to be a Baptist minister. Later, he went to UC Berkeley to study political science and journalism.

Discovering acting in college, he hooked up with the Second City Comedy Troupe and performed with actors like Alan Arkin.

While in Chicago, he went back to religion, enrolling in the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Theology and studying under Paul Tillich, Rheinhold Niebuhr and Martin Buber.

He was one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and appeared as the character Arthur Ma in Jack Kerouac's novel Big Sur.

In the 50s, he studied art under Mark Rothko at the San Francisco Art Institute, exhibiting his work at his friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti's famous San Francisco bookstore, City Lights.

Victor Wong died on September 12, 2001 at his home in Sacramento.

Quote of the Day: Andres Duany

“When I originally thought of New Orleans, I was conditioned by the press to think of it as an extremely ill-governed city, full of ill-educated people, with a great deal of crime, a great deal of dirt, a great deal of poverty. And when I arrived, I did indeed find it to be all those things. Then one day I was walking down the street and I had this kind of brain thing, and I thought I was in Cuba. Weird! And then I realized at that moment that New Orleans was not an American city, it was a Caribbean city. Once you recalibrate, it becomes the best-governed, cleanest, most efficient, and best-educated city in the Caribbean. New Orleans is actually the Geneva of the Caribbean.”

That's Cuba-born architect Andres Duany, talking to Wayne Curtis in this month's Atlantic Monthly. The article, "Houses of the Future," gives a tour of the new affordable, compact, and high-tech homes of post-Katrina New Orleans -- starting with some built by Brad Pitt's charity.

Duany is not like the other architects who are working on homes in New Orleans. “The high design? That has nothing to do with reality,” he scoffs. “That’s just architectural self-indulgence.”

And not many of the people who have brought their expertise and money to the city know what they're doing, Duany argues:

“All the do-goody people attempting to preserve the culture are the same do-gooders who are raising the standards for the building of houses, and are the same do-gooders who are giving people partial mortgages and putting them in debt. They have such a profound misunderstanding of the culture of the Caribbean that they’re destroying it. The heart of the tragedy is that New Orleans is not being measured by Caribbean standards. It’s being measured by Minnesota standards.”

Duany is one half of Duany Plater-Zyberk, a Miami-based firm. Duany and his partner, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, are among the co-founders of Congress for the New Urbanism.

Duany Plater-Zyberk is most famous for designing the town of Seaside, Florida, a New Urbanist development that started in 1979. The resort town, which has narrow streets and cozy houses with porches, was featured in the 1998 movie, The Truman Show.

My Favorite Horror Movies

I'm struggling to come up with a common theme in these five films. Some of them are great because they aren't as explicit in what they show. Encounter at Raven's Gate builds tension and doesn't let us down they way War of the Worlds did when it revealed the aliens. But others, like Re-Animator, are so explicit, it's delightful. On the other hand, Prince of Darkness succeeds as a horror movie because it takes itself so seriously. Near Dark takes a tired genre and makes it new with a decidedly un-gothic setting and chracters. Phantasm is an adolescent fantasy done well. Here, just before Halloween, are five of my favorite horror movies:

1. Prince of Darkness (1987, dir. John Carpenter)

Prince of Darkness came out a year after Big Trouble in Little China and featured a couple of the same actors -- Victor Wong and Dennis Dun. The plot was clever: an obscure Catholic order of monks in Los Angeles seeks help from physicists and ancient history scholars when a dark secret that they've guarded for more than two thousand years threatens to leak. Donald Pleasance (who will be familiar to horror fans as Dr. Loomis in 1978's Halloween, also by Carpenter) plays the head priest who goes to Howard Birack (played by Wong), a professor of theoretical physics at a public university. When Birack brings his students and some other professors to study the ancient secret in the church's tombs, bad things start to happen. Look for a cameo by Alice Cooper, playing a demonically possessed homeless man.

2. Re-Animator (1985, dir. Stuart Gordon)

Based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, this gorey horror movie stars Jeffrey Combs, a great character actor who has played at least three species of aliens in the Star Trek franchise. Combs is Herbert West, a medical student who studied under a controversial doctor in Switzerland doing research on...re-animating dead tissue. After a public disgrace involving the death (and failed but near re-animation) of his mentor, he comes to a small town medical school in New England to finish his studies. Not happy being forced to abandon his mentor's research, Herbert West starts doing experiments, and his more conventional roommate, played by Bruce Abbot, is getting worried. This movie is disgusting, offensive, and hilarious.

3. Near Dark (1987, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

Near Dark, one of the best, most stylish and understated vampire movies ever made, stars much of the cast of the previous year's Aliens. Lance Henriksen is the patriarch of a group of nomadic Southern vampires, with Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton as his wife and son. Their younger vampire daughter, Mae, played by Jenny Wright, meets Adrian Pasdar's Caleb in small town Oklahoma one evening. When she can't bring herself to kill him, he reluctantly joins their traveling killing spree. Never is the word "vampire" mentioned in this movie, nor do we really see much in the way of fangs. These vampires are refreshingly unbound by traditional vampire lore and baggage; they are Southern white trash. Despite that characterization, director Kathryn Bigelow (who later did Point Break and Strange Days) gave Near Dark an art film sensibility, as befitted her background -- she studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Whitney Museum.

4. Phantasm (1979, dir. Don Don Coscarelli)

This low-budget classic looked much better than it should have. Special effects like shiny silver flying spheres with retractable blades and drills were apparently thrown like baseballs and then played back in reverse. The story is set in a small town (as so many are). A boy witnesses strange goings on in the local cemetary after his parents die and discovers that the undertaker (played brilliantly by an actor named Angus Scrimm) is re-animating dead people, shrinking them down to half-size, then transporting them to a red planet with higher gravity for slave labor via a portal in the funeral home. Woah.

5. Encounter at Raven's Gate (1988, dir. Rolf de Heer)

This Australian movie is, on the surface, an alien encounter story. What makes it so great (unlike the recent remake of War of the Worlds, which was fantastic up until a certain point) is that we never really see the aliens. Steven Vidler plays an ex-con who comes to work on his brother's farm in the outback. Slowly, this rural community is terrorized by strange incidents. The nature of them -- lights in the sky and power failures, for example -- is the only thing that seprates this tale from a classic ghost story. It's been years since I've seen this, but its creepiness is very memorable.

I'm looking for something great to watch on Halloween. Anyone have any suggestions? Please comment.

Quote of the Day: David Carr

"It is a riddle of modern magazining that during a period when staffs are expected to file early and often to the Web to make sure that publications have a significant digital presence, all the while still making the print product, that they are now confronted by dramatic cuts in staff that raise practical issues of getting the work done."

Well said. That's David Carr, writing in the New York Times today about all the cuts Forbes is making.

In other news, the owner of a small chain of upscale men's apparel stores here in New York told me last night that his business is back. Why? Finance guys are shopping again. The pen is not mightier than the dollar.

Scenes from Movies I Can't Find on Netflix

Black Cat White Cat (Serbian, 1998, dir. Emir Kusturica)



Bleeder (Danish, 1999, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

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Jar City (Icelandic, 2006, dir. Baltasar Kormákur)



Idioterne (Danish, 1999, dir. Lars Von Trier)



Good news: West 32nd Street, a film by Michael Kang about Manhattan's Koreatown staring John Cho (of Harold and Kumar fame) and Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica), is finally coming out on DVD this month.

The Bronchitini

When confronted with a nearly empty liquor cabinet and a yearning for a cocktail, One must innovate. After a recent bout with bronchitis, I found that I had a nice stock of cherry-flavored cough syrup. A new cocktail was born.

Ingredients:
2 ozs. gin
one-quarter tsp cough syrup

Start with a chilled martini glass. Swirl the quarter tsp of cough syrup in the glass to coat it. Shake 2 ozs of gin in a cocktail shaker with ice to cool it. Pour gin into the cough syrup-coated martini glass.

Notes: I've attempted this drink with a cough drop as a garnish, but it becomes sickly sweet. The beauty of the cough syrup is that it's sweet, but not too sweet. A tiny bit adds a bittersweet edge to the gin, and flavors it quite subtly. I used prescription cough syrup, but over-the-counter varieties would certainly work. I'd avoid children's cough syrup (too sweet). The amount of codeine in a quarter tsp of cough syrup will be negligible, so go ahead, make two.

Urinals of the World

The New Cooper Union Building

Cilantro Cocktail

This is adapted from a drink called a "Puebla" served at Applewood in Brooklyn.

Ingredients:
2 ozs. tequila
2 quarter-inch slices of jalapeño
1 lemon
1 tsp agave nectar
lots of fresh cilantro

Pack a third of a large lowball glass full of cilantro leaves. Squeeze the juice of one lemon into the glass. Add jalapeño slices (the more seeds you leave in, the hotter). Muddle. Add tsp of agave nectar to sweeten it, then add two ozs of tequila.

Shake everything in a cocktail shaker and strain into a large lowball glass with three ice cubes and garnish with cilantro.

Notes: It's easier to muddle in a short glass, rather than a cocktail shaker. Lemons seem to work better than limes in this drink. Honey may be reasonable substitute for agave nectar, but I haven't tried it. The true amount of cilantro will vary by taste, but aim for about one loosely packed cup. Using better tequila will be rewarding.

Cilantro and its Enemies

A certain percentage of the population, it turns out, has a fierce hatred for cilantro. I had this in the back of my mind as I told a couple of friends about a delicious drink I had at a Brooklyn restaurant, a muddled cilantro and jalepeno-infused tequila concoction.

"I hate cilantro," one friend said. "Apparently I'm one of those rare people for whom cilantro tastes like bleach or dish soap."

My friend is not alone. Not even remotely. How did I not hear more about this before?

ihatecilantro.blogspot.com (there used to be another cilantro hater's website, ihatecilantro.com, but it is now a virus-generating mess -- don't go there.) has a handy "guide to cilantro-free restaurants." The blogger tries to mitigate her hatred by pointing out that she loves so many other things:

"...how could I or you or anyone so passionately hate something as much as cilantro without loving so much else, in fact most else, of nature's bounty, as foodies insist on calling it, or food, as I like to think of it."

People get weird about their food dislikes.

I should know: I hate cheese. I'll eat mild, tasteless mozzerella on pizza, but I'll pull it off if there's too much of it. I won't eat cheeseburgers. The smell of parmesan cheese is like an unbathed European to me. Feta smells like it sounds: like sweaty feet.

My hatred is so strong that I'm convinced there's a genetic component. I've gotten in heated arguments about this, and even ruined a relationship before it got off the ground because of it (The conversation went, "So if I had you over to my parents' house, you would refuse their food?" To which I responded, "yeah, if all they offered me was cheese." It was downhill from there.). But my brother feels the same way, so maybe it really is genetic.

Whatever it is, it's so strong in us that we characterize it as an allergy, partly because it literally makes us sick to our stomachs, partly because no one understands it or takes it seriously otherwise.

There is apparently genetic research that suggests, if I'm understanding this right, that vegetables like broccoli taste extra-bitter to some people, perhaps as an evolutionary mechanism to keep us away from compounds that would inhibit thyroid function. But there's also research that says that people who avoid bitter foods have higher risks of cancer because they aren't getting essential nutrients.

But back to cilantro. In a Wall Street Journal article from February, a cilantro hater recalls driving 20 miles to return a cilantro-tainted burrito, demanding a replacement "immediately."

Why do some people hate it so rabidly? It probably is genetic. An article on NPR.org explains that some people will not smell the lemony/limey freshness, but instead detect only an unpleasant bitter, soapy smell. The rest of us don't get that at all.

There may be another component at play with people who have strong flavor dislikes. So-called "supertasters" apparently have more taste receptors than the rest of us. A New York Times article from the late 90s explains that taste researchers divide the world into three groups:

A quarter of all people tested are nontasters, half are medium tasters and a quarter are supertasters -- people who react violently to PROP [6-n-propylthiouracil]. Medium tasters say the substance is bitter, but they are less sensitive than supertasters to small concentrations. Genetically speaking, two medium taster parents can produce a supertaster or a nontaster child, or a medium taster like themselves.

In looking at people's tongues with a special blue dye, researchers have found that supertasters have as many as 1,100 taste buds per square centimeter of tongue, while nontasters have as few as 11 buds per square centimeter.

I'm clearly not a supertaster; I love bitter foods and spicy foods. The article continues,

Supertasters find many sugary foods to be sickeningly sweet. Frosting is yucky. Saccharine has a strong aftertaste. Coffee is too bitter, and alcohol too sharp. Hot peppers and ginger produce an unpleasant burn. Food should be tepid.

The website supertastertest.com sells the PROP test for $4.95.

As we learn more about why some of us hate certain foods, will we become more tolerant of food quirks? It's hard to imagine not being chided to try stinky cheese by zealous moldy dairy lovers.

Glenn Beck's Mormon Conversion

Glenn Beck, the weepy-eyed rabble rouser who has been out Limbaugh-ing Rush, converted to Mormonism in 1999. Mormonism, which now boasts at least as many members as all of Judaism (by most accounts, each have about 13 million worldwide), has been called the fastest growing religion in the world.



Then again, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, there are only about 4 million active members, and Seventh Day Adventists are growing faster. And, for every Glenn Beck, there's a Harry Reid, who once said, "I think it is much easier to be a good member of the Church and a Democrat than a good member of the Church and a Republican."

The Future of Journalism

Fact #1: Journalism is hemorrhaging jobs. From an article in Editor & Publisher:

"Unity: Journalists of Color's 2009 Layoff Tracker Report shows an average 22% increase from month to month in journalism jobs lost from September 2008 through August 2009. The general economy lost jobs at an average monthly pace of about 8% during that time, according to Unity."

Fact #2: Even ice cream men make more than journalists. This former finance guy, Bill Sonner, made $350,000 as a trader at the New York Stock Exchange. Now he makes about double what a lot of low- to mid-level journalism jobs pay -- about $60,000 to $80,000, he says.



Fact #3: A first year cop for the NYPD will make more than I do as a writer:

"Under the agreement, the January 2009 Police Academy class will have a starting base salary of $40,361 and goes to $41,975 on August 1, 2009. When adding holiday pay, uniform allowance, and average night differential; a first-year Police Officer will have a total salary of $46,228 before overtime."

Fact #4: NYC Subway workers, even trash collectors, make more than I do. As of 2005, the year of the transit strike, the average subway cleaner made $40,000 a year. Wrote the New York Times, "According to the [MTA], the average subway or bus operator earns nearly $63,000 per year. The average subway conductor earns about $54,000. The average station agent earns about $51,000."

Fact #5: Freelance writers are not doing well either -- even experienced freelancers. This one is supplementing his income as a lifeguard at a Brooklyn public pool.