Disclaimer: the author, Ben Beard, is a good friend of mine (and occasional writing partner), and he recently shouted me out on his excellent blog.1
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Book Review: “A Physical Education” by Casey Johnston
A book about lifting? Talk about combining my two passions….
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Book Review- “The Violet Hour,” by Katie Roiphe
This one hit me hard – I read it just a few months after my mother’s death, as I was trying to make sense of it all. It’s truly meditation on death, with Roiphe profiling the last days of a small group of great writers and thinkers: John Updike, Susan Sontag, Dylan Thomas, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Sendak (with some “bonus material” involving James Salter, who Roiphe interviewed during the writing of this book immediately before his death).
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Home Gym Review Series: The Multigrip Bar
Another “specialty” barbell I love is the multigrip bar, a/k/a the “Swiss” or “football” bar. The multigrip bar is a good barbell to use for shoulder safety while bench pressing, and at the same time poses unique biomechanical challenges that will benefit the bench press–analogous to the Safety Squat Bar with the squat.
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Breaking News: John Roberts Takes a Piss on the 4th Amendment
Pictured Above: A Courtroom sketch artist’s rendition of John Roberts pissing on the Fourth Amendment.
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The Dirty Kids – The Finale
After the service ended, they drove back to Spencer’s apartment. As soon as they walked in the door, Sal collapsed facedown on the bed and began to snore. Spencer sat at his kitchen table for a few minutes, then left Sal sleeping and headed over to the library. About an hour after he arrived, Spencer felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He dug it out and saw a text from Sal. All it said was: “Gotta go.”
“Hold on a minute” Spencer texted back.
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Home Gym Review Series: The Safety Squat Bar
Look at this beast. It’s called a safety squat bar, and it’s so goddamned big and heavy it won’t fit into a photograph straight on. So here’s another angle.
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The Dirty Kids (Part Six of Seven)
It was just past eight in the morning when they got to the Presbyterian church. It was the sixth church they’d been to that morning, driving around and relying on Spencer’s memory of churches he’d seen around town during his nighttime wanderings.
Sal shook his head, disappointed. “I told you, it has to be Catholic.”
“I grew up Methodist.” Spencer turned out of the parking lot. “I always thought a church was a church.”
Sal shook his head again. “Fucking Methodists.”
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The Pitchfork “Best Rap of All Time” Poll: Fuck Condé Nast as a Staff, Publishing House, and as a Motherfuckin’ Crew
I recently came across Pitchfork’s “Best Rap Albums of All Time” readers’ poll, and despite my issues with the direction of the website since its acquisition by Condé Nast–and in particular the cancellation of the great Pitchfork Music Festival–I started filling out the poll.
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RayDorl.com 