Gawker - Kirsten Dunst Alert

And is this the year it finally stops?

The cult of Kirsten Dunst has become louder and louder over the past few years. Those of us who have long understood her to be the greatest actress of her generation have risen up from the dank pit the movers and shakers of Hollywood would prefer us to stay in. We are yelling from the rooftops, “Where is her Oscar?” and “Have you seen Bachelorette?” and, “If On Becoming A God In Central Florida had been on HBO, you all would have eaten it up!”

Finally, it seems that we are arriving at our moment. Dunst is receiving major Oscar buzz for her upcoming role in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. She was recently the subject of a glossy profile in the New York Times, as well as a cover story for Architectural Digest where she revealed her bathroom door used to belong to Jackie O. It would appear at first glance that the Dunst Hive will finally be vindicated for putting years of support behind Kiki. But if history is any indicator, we will end up sad and disappointed, because there are two things I know to be true about famous white actresses: Glenn Close will never get an Oscar, and Kirsten Dunst is the unluckiest leading lady in Hollywood.

Trust me, you aren’t throwing your money away

Taking out the trash is a gross chore — perhaps the grossest of the daily tasks — depending on if you actually deal with it daily. Unfortunately, when a task is so dreadful, it can lead to procrastination, which, depending on the contents of your trash can, will exacerbate the grossness of it all. This is why you should splurge on an extremely nice trash can.

A good trash can won’t make the chore of trash disappear, but it will be a loyal custodian of your secrets. It will conceal last week’s rotten produce and your failed attempt at dinner; it will discreetly prevent odors from rising out so you can pretend nothing even happened. A good trash can opens when you ask it to and closes gently but without hesitation. A good trash can cannot be made out of plastic because plastic absorbs stains and odors. A good trash can is your friend and ally.

The protagonist of John D. MacDonald's Florida crime fiction is something better than a hero — he's a useful guy

I love shitty crime novels. Yes, I admire the kinds of modern crime novels that feature “good writing” and are favored by my fellow literary types — your Megan Abbotts, your Tana Frenches — but I also love books whose lurid covers feature lush paintings of whiskey glasses, loaded guns, and leggy dames. Cheap mid-century paperbacks with slapdash prose, spotty characterization, and questionable politics. The kind that sell for two bucks at used book stores. The shortcomings of such books increase my fondness for them, as if I’m nursing the poor unread volumes back to health.

But my pulp habit led me to a genuine discovery in the form of Travis McGee. McGee was the creation of novelist John D. MacDonald, who wrote 21 McGee novels throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, along with dozens of other standalone novels and hundreds of short stories. MacDonald was one of those iconic mid-century crime writers, tapping away at his typewriter for a dozen hours a day, supporting his family solely by pumping out a new book every year. He was a prolific, bestselling novelist, but to me, early in my habit, he was new.

The holiday season is all about turkey, presents, and calling your mom's brother a piece of shit

My favorite time of year has arrived: It’s Uncle Season.

There is no time more trying for the brothers of mothers and fathers than the stretch of weeks from November 15 to January 1. During Thanksgiving and Christmas, family-oriented holidays that include among their traditions long stretches of boredom during meals and intergenerational screaming about polycule lesbians teaching children critical race theory at the Texas border, uncles everywhere descend upon family gatherings ready to wreak havoc at a moment’s notice. Or at least that is what the mainstream media would have you believe.

Our country's legal history renders the teen's case familiar if not inevitable.

In 1816, Andrew Jackson, then a general in the Army, took it upon himself to unilaterally invade Spanish Florida. His target was a fortified community of Choctaws, escaped slaves, and Black former British Royal Marines. Dubbed the “Negro Fort,” this community drew runaways from as far away as Virginia, infuriating Southern planters and inspiring fears of broader slave revolts. Jackson’s force of soldiers, Creek allies, and opportunistic settler militia accordingly leveled the place and sold the surviving Black people — regardless of their prior national citizenship or legal status — into slavery. When press and congressional critics of President James Madison questioned U.S. operations in Spanish territory, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams cited a letter from a Georgia plantation owner decrying “brigand negroes — a set of desperate and bloody dogs” who make “this neighborhood extremely dangerous to a population like ours” and proclaimed Jackson’s campaign an act of “national self-defense.”

Two centuries and change later, Americans watch the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old from Illinois who last year took it upon himself to cross a border and patrol the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Responding to a 911 call about a “domestic incident,” a white police officer shot Blake seven times in the back. As the community erupted and Gov. Tony Evers declared a State of Emergency, the Kenosha Police Department dug in. For his part, Rittenhouse, an avowed supporter of Blue Lives Matter and a would-be police cadet, self-deployed in his capacity as a private citizen armed with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15.