By Brett Yates Earlier this month, in anticipation of Mother’s Day, Facebook introduced a seventh reaction emoji: the controversial “purple flower,” signifying thankfulness. In fact, it was a reintroduction, this time suggesting an annual springtime rollout, like the Reese’s Peanut […]
Category: Generation Y
Brought to you by Blue Apron
By Brett Yates Do you listen to podcasts? If so, have you noticed that pretty much every advertisement-supported podcast is funded by the same set of sponsors? These, in no particular order, are Blue Apron, Squarespace, Audible, Casper Sleep, Stamps.com, […]
Six other historical catastrophes that Andrew Jackson could’ve averted
By Brett Yates “I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was […]
Talking it out over a beer
By Brett Yates Out of all the political debates you’ve ever had over drinks at a bar, how many of them, in retrospect, do you think were worth your time? The new Heineken commercial (titled “Worlds Apart”) that’s been making […]
Ski movies: “Cold Prey” (2006)
By Brett Yates The title of this piece notwithstanding, “Cold Prey” is not technically a skiing movie; it’s a snowboarding movie, insofar as it concerns sports at all. More importantly, it’s a slasher movie: a group of frisky young adults, […]
Ski movies: “Hot Dog… The Movie” (1984)
By Brett Yates To make things immediately clear, “Hot Dog… The Movie” is not good. Indeed, one could go so far as to call its post-ellipsis subtitle aspirational, or at least a reflection of a certain need for self-reassurance: “Hot […]
Ski movies: “Downhill Racer” (1969)
By Brett Yates Editor’s note: The following is the first in a short series of reviews of mostly older films whose narratives prominently feature skiing and ski resorts. The opening shot of “Downhill Racer,” the 1969 Alpine drama starring Robert […]
Paul Ryan is a loser (To the tune of Beck’s “Loser”)
By Brett Yates [Verse 1] In the time of bloated budgets, I got real wonky, Made PowerPoints in vain, became a fiscal junkie. With the widow’s peak, the airbrushed headshots, Wisconsinites voted for the beefcake hotshot. Kill the entitlements and […]
The family that skis together
By Brett Yates During the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Neil Gorsuch, the federal appellate judge from Colorado, Republicans strove to give Donald Trump’s nominee opportunity to present himself as a friendly, well-rounded human being—as opposed to the Constitutional pedant […]
“Shall never see a poem lovely as a tree”
By Brett Yates Winter landscapes will never stop being kind of magical to me, no matter how joylessly and cynically grownup I become: the endless unstained carpet of a fresh snowfall, the sculptural perfection of an icicle, the fierce sting […]