What’s a financial self-help book when you can read this? (via Amazon)

On Saturday, celebrated children’s author E.L. Konigsburg died at age 83, at a hospital in Falls Church, VA, following a stroke. And while Konigsburg didn’t have the same literary cache or trigger the same kind of post-childhood hipster nostalgia as, say, Maurice Sendak, and though most of her stories weren’t particularly New York or Brooklyn-centric, her death hit the brokester in me, hard. (more…)

50 Shades took a lot of shade this year. Via Nova FM.

If you wanted to feel even worse about that tortured-genius manuscript you have floating around that no book publisher will even sneeze on, this will make you feel even worse. Mom bondage porn phenom 50 Shades of Grey sold so well this year — more than 35 million copies and staying at the top of the best seller list for 40 weeks now — that all the employees of publisher Random House are getting a year-end bonus. A $5,000 bonus, which is a lot of money that cash-strapped publishing industry workers could sure use. But do they feel dirty about taking dirty (talk) money? We asked this 28-year-old Random House employee from Boerum Hill (who asked to be anonymous lest he wake up bound and gagged in the RH dungeon) to walk us through the feels. -Td.

If there was one heartening story that came out of the publishing industry this year, among the mergers, e-books, and lawsuits, it was the success of 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James. I should disclose right at the top that I haven’t read 50 Shades or its sequels, but I do work for the company that published it and will soon be receiving a $5,000 bonus because of its outsized success. About all I can say about the tomes is that women (and sometimes men) really seemed to get their panties in a twist about it (sometimes literally). It was the book everyone from my mom to my girlfriend wanted a copy of, and when people weren’t discussing their favorite new boudoir tip they were complaining about the quality of the writing. For whatever reason it caught the public’s indecent imagination, and we were the publisher fortunate enough to deliver it to them. Should I feel bad about this? (more…)

They may look unassuming, but these nosebleed seats are a nightmare.

I recently took my first trip to the Barclays Center to see my new neighborhood team, the Brooklyn Nets, play my hometown team, the Boston Celtics. It took less than a quarter for me to realize that a.) I can’t afford to be a Nets fan and b.) I’m too tall to be one, anyway. (more…)

We dd it guys! We were funny on Twitter! via Infowars

After the Presidential Debates, we issued a plea for people to step up their joke game on Twitter. You listened. Last night, with the deluge of campaign coverage options, including an apparently shitfaced Diane Sawyer on ABC, Twitter was the most entertaining. Behold, some of our favorite election tweets from Brooklyn funny people.

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The face of a man that can’t use Twitter. via The Rico and Mambo Morning Show

Last night marked the third and final Presidential Debate. Thank god, because I don’t think my newsfeed or my eyes can handle any more pointless tweets. Live-tweeting is as much a part of the American dream as playing the lottery: hoping against hope that a blog will see your brilliant tweet, broadcast it and you’ll get a ton of new followers and a book or a sitcom. But at the very least, turn off Facebook sharing so that your loved ones aren’t subjected to your  ”wit.” (more…)

Our Fashion Week correspondent tries to look the part.

I like bright colors and shiny things, but I can’t claim any actual fashion expertise. Last week, I nevertheless found myself on the list for multiple New York Fashion Week events.

I fit none of the criteria and/or stereotypes regarding that merit NYFW invitations … most of my clothes are free or thrifted, my haircut is a $5 number a la Phresh Cutz, and some of my wardrobe has been with me since I was 14, when I stopped growing (especially in the chestal regions). So what do I possess? (more…)

Allison and Matt Robicelli. Photo by Amber Marlow Photography.

When I was a little girl playing with dolls, dreaming about my wedding and thinking of what my future husband would be like, I did not take into account how different reality would be from fantasy. For one thing, we don’t have a hot pink dune buggy. I managed to fall in love about 10 years before I had “planned to,” so I didn’t already have a successful chain of restaurants under my belt by the time I got engaged at 24. (I still don’t.) Most of all, I didn’t plan that one day Brooklyn would get trendy and I’d be priced out of Bay Ridge, the neighborhood my family has lived in since the 1920s, that we’d be in a massive recession, and our American dream would be less about owning mansions on either coast and more about keeping our family together and heads above water in our hometown. (more…)

All the sad young psuedo intellectuals. Image via New Yorker.

I was intrigued immediately upon reading the Brokelyn headline, “A free way to date the BK intelligentsia.” Why? I’m single. I started reading n+1 after devouring co-editor Keith Gessen’s novel about All the Sad Young Literary Men and kept reading when I discovered that each issue’s 200 pages were filled with even more sad young literary men’s critical-theory informed ramblings. I was sick of giving my number to boys in bars who seemed smart in person and used all the wrong conjugations of “your” via text. But how good could a free personals site that appeals to shy bookish types actually be? I sent in my post and received an unsurprisingly lengthy e-mail reply seeking a “cunning lit-cougar” a few days later. (more…)

The way the fashion-industrial complex is frothing over the Missoni Target collabo that drops in stores on Sept. 13, you’d think that Coco Chanel herself had risen from the grave to design a honeymoon line for Kim Kardashian.

From the preview photos, this ambitious collection does look pretty zig-a-zag ha (especially the bike), but then, they all do. Seriously, have you ever seen a Target collaboration that looked as good in real life?  The Rodarte stuff looked like goth skating dresses. Anya Hindmarch’s squeaky patent pleather bags didn’t whisper Anya Hindmarch so much as scream Target. And so on.

You’d think that a budget blog would be all over these high-low fashion smashups, but allow me to air a petty grievance: they’re patronizing. (more…)

©iStockphoto.com

I am a stay-at-home girlfriend. When my boyfriend goes off to work, I spend my days cooking, cleaning our two-bedroom Greenpoint apartment and trying to look good for him when he comes home. I never planned on this lifestyle; my corporate job of four years was outsourced in October when we were already living together. What was a matter of convenience before is now a matter of financial survival — while I’ve always been someone who’s really into keeping her boyfriend happy (that’s how I was raised), it’s now my primary occupation after job-seeking. I’m not alone. I was actually the third of my female friends living with her boyfriend to wind up out of work, and all of us, to some degree, adhere to stereotypically Stepfordish rules to keep our relationships afloat and ourselves sane. Here are mine: (more…)