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Time for a slice of John Scalzi‘s Schadenfreude Pie “My word, what is this dark and vaguely sinister-looking pie you see before you? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the world’s first Schadenfreude Pie, the pie to enjoy while you are reveling in the horrible misfortunes of others.”
posted by Bottlecap at 10:25 PM PST - 26 comments

"Today, we're going to be looking at the hottest neighborhood in San Francisco--Austin Texas!" Brimming with crypto, billionaire robber barons in cowboy cosplay, and the cleanest Crocs you'll ever see, the hippest up-and-coming San Fran neighborhood of Austin, TX is undoubtedly a "vibe."
posted by mecran01 at 2:04 PM PST - 75 comments

The bait (or assignment). [more inside]
posted by aniola at 10:46 AM PST - 14 comments

For gay men who grew up in the ’90s, there are two distinctive eras: the time before we saw Kevin Bacon’s full-frontal scene in "Wild Things", and the time after. "Near the end of the movie, after Sam has double-crossed Suzie and Kelly, he returns to his beach bungalow to find someone in the shower. The figure emerging from the steam isn’t Suzie or Kelly, both presumed dead, but a fully nude Ray Duquette. It’s a pivotal moment that reveals both Ray’s complicity in Sam’s plot and, also, Bacon’s penis ... But it also feels like much-needed confirmation to those who watched Wild Things suspecting there was something gay about it all along. The major twist is that a movie that seemed all about the male gaze is actually about the male gays." Revisiting Wild Things, "As a rule, movies like Wild Things fight an uphill battle with critics would want to seem above titillation. But this was one of those rare films whose underlying smarts couldn't be denied." [more inside]
posted by geoff. at 8:10 AM PST - 39 comments

For every £1 fetched by a male artist’s work, one by a woman gets a mere 10p – and its value plummets further if she signs it. The creator of Recalculating Art, a shocking new radio exposé, reveals her findings
posted by Etrigan at 7:58 AM PST - 19 comments

Guardian longread. A story on the deteriorating water quality in British rivers.
posted by Ned G at 5:21 AM PST - 7 comments