Artisanal Manliness For Fun and Profit

Caity Weaver · 01/31/13 12:00PM

Do you have a Y-chromosome and also a keenly refined rustic aesthetic? Are you eager to go camping but hesitant to put yourself in a position where you could ever be out-of-doors? Do you have $40 to blow on a hand-stitched "masculine, yet understated" leather keychain?

How to Use Humor on the Internet

Hamilton Nolan · 01/31/13 10:51AM

This week, internet website "The Awl" sparked a minor uproar when it ran an article parodying the voice of Business Insider's Henry Blodget under Blodget's byline—when, in fact, the article was written by someone at The Awl, as a parody. It's not hard to see the potential for confusion. How is the average reader supposed to know that Henry Blodget himself did not label his own career "a testament to the total decline in the traditional concepts of personal responsibility and moral behavior?"

Hostage-Taking 'Doomsday Prepper' Passes 30th Hour of Bunker Standoff with Cops

Max Read · 01/31/13 10:00AM

It's now been more than 30 hours since police began negotiating with Jimmy Lee Dykes, the 65-year-old "anti-government" "doomsday prepper" who allegedly shot and killed and a school bus driver before retreating with a six-year-old hostage to an underground bunker on his Alabama property. Authorities say the boy, who remains unidentified, is okay — he's been given medicine and a coloring book and crayons — but the situation is "static" and the endgame is unclear.

The New York Times Declares War on the New York Public Library

Tom Scocca · 01/30/13 04:48PM

This plan from the New York Public Library to have Sir Norman Foster gut its beloved central building and rework it, getting rid of the pesky "books" there in the process, all in the name of modernization and The People and prudent money-management—Michael Kimmelman, holder of the office of New York Times architecture critic, has reviewed the plan, and he has delivered the verdict, and the verdict is: DEATH. The library and its "celebrity architect," Kimmelman writes, have cooked up a plan for a "money pit," an "Alamo of engineering" that will pointlessly deform a vital and important structure to no good or useful end.