May 2012
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Belated Thoughts on Adam Yauch
For me, the pivotal Beastie Boys moment wasn’t when I first saw the video for “Fight for Your Right to Party” on a giant screen at a local Chuck-E-Cheese knock-off, or when I saved up enough change to make Licensed to Ill my first-ever cassette purchase. The video terrified me, less for what it sounded like and more for its wanton, idiotic cruelty. I may even have cried. But I...
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April 2012
2 posts
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March 2012
7 posts
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TOM BRADY IS A LADY!!!: It Came From Croatia:... →
jgriffo31:
As the first international player to really have an impact on the NBA, Drazen Petrovic helped set the stage for the international influx of the late 1990s and aughts. However, he remains best known for his tragically, unfortunate premature death. In 1993, at age 29 and just four year into his…
Um, this is verbatim a chapter from the second FreeDarko book. Nice post, though.
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My Brain the Sampler
The customary song-stuck-in-head is rarely a mystery. It’s either present in its entirety, or at least some self-evident chunk like the chorus or a key bit of lyric. When we only have a snatch of melody, it falls into another category. Unidentifiable, incomplete, and caught between irksome and haunting, these fragments have no value in themselves. They are signposts toward a...
February 2012
1 post
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December 2011
1 post
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Longreads: Bethlehem Shoals: My Top 5 Longreads of... →
longreads:
Bethlehem Shoals is an editor at The Classical and the founder of FreeDarko.com.
November 2011
3 posts
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Yoenis, superstar
classicaldotorg:
By Eric Freeman On Sunday night, a highlight video of Cuban defector and aspiring MLB center fielder Yoenis Cespedes, known as “Yoennis” up until a few days ago, appeared on YouTube. It set the sports world (well, one very specific quadrant of it) abuzz, and then just as abruptly, was removed by the uploader, presumably due to copyright issues.
The baseball clips of the 26...
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How uncanny is my valley
classicaldotorg:
By Fredorrarci This week in soccer, the clubs give way to the national teams. For some followers of the game — the special, enlightened, deeply attractive ones — it is a time of intrigue, with World Cup qualifiers taking place across the globe, and the final slots in the European Championships being filled. For others, it is anything but; to them, this is the first day of the...
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Baseball's white rabbit
nocoastoffense:
classicaldotorg:
illustration: Paul Windle
By Paul Flannery
Bill Lee is late. There are sixteen kids, their parents, and a man named Miro who is running for mayor waiting for him on a Little League baseball field in Burlington, Vermont. The weather is unusually cold for October, and now it’s starting to rain. Lee’s baseball life is equal parts inspiration and cautionary tale....
October 2011
18 posts
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Letty's Top Jamz
Here’s what my 5 week-old is listening to. Her picks, not mine: “Thirteen” -Big Star “Living in the Ghetto” -Purple Image “Train From Kansas City” -Shangri-Las “Without You” -The Classic Example “Tea for Two” -Bud Powell Legacy of Brutality - Misfits On the Beach - Neil Young ***for special occasions*** Fantastic Glissando - Tony...
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What I Learned
Bryant Gumbel uses a plantation analogy—sorry, he doesn’t really think the NBA is a plantation—and sensation ensues. Bill Simmons employs a insider-y business term, a week after harping on how little college the players attended, and “Twitter” seizes on its nastier connotations. So basically, any language connected to slavery freaks out white people, and writers who use...
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You Don't Matter.
I’m not really concerned with who first started humoring the voice of the fan, or why. We all started as fans; presumably, most of us working somewhere in the business still are. However, it has absolutely no place in this lockout. The knee-jerk reaction to cancelations, of which there will be more today, is “I want my NBA!” or “Come on, let’s save the NBA!” The...
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Michael Hayes: INTERVIEW: Jeffory Marker, The Guy... →
michaelhayes:
Sports fans and HWLBSers (hipsters who love Bethlehem Shoals), The Classical raised the $50 K they needed to launch their new online destination. Actually, they raised $55 K. We all knew it would be successful Kickstarter campaign. One donor distinguished himself in the process, a Jeffory Marker. A man from San Antonio. A gemini who loves basketball and airplanes. A life-long...
September 2011
4 posts
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FREE EVERYONE: Bomani, Race, Blogging
If you haven’t already, go read Bomani Jones’s post (piece?) on the construction of the American sports fan, and how it affects the media industry, new or otherwise. There’s a lot to digest there, and in my post-baby morass, I doubt I’m going to be able to give it the consideration it deserves. Full disclosure: This post itself is reconstituted bits and pieces of emails...
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The Classical and You
The Classical is $8,140 away from its goal. If you’ve donated, we thank you with all our hearts. If you’ve made a principled stance not to—maybe you would prefer to “support” writers with a different model, or believe freelancers can write two things at the same time—then we appreciate your honesty. If you’re either waiting, or on the fence, this Tumbl is for you. We...
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August 2011
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HUGE Thanks to NBA Off-Season!
nbaoffseason: Today, the team here at NBA Off Season, the self proclaimed Wu-Tang Clan of basketball blogs here on Tumblr, has a request. We’d like you, our ever-loyal readers, to help us support The Classical. For those unfamiliar, The Classical intends to be more than another sports site. It will hopefully take sports writing to great new heights. A lot of people that we love, and most likely...
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Dear Miranda July
SPOILER ALERT: I hate myself for doing this, because I really did like The Future, and I know that this was kind of the point of the whole film. But would it have been so hard to murder off those people at the end instead of that adorable metaphysical talking cat? Best, Shoals
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Watchgq:
The Classical: The New-Thing-We’re-Excited-About Of The Day
A new, user-funded Awl-esque website all about sports, brought to you in part by the Free Darko gang and featuring several of GQ’s favorite sportswriters. We will be kicking in coins to help make this happen. If you find the video primer as enticing as we did, please do the same. The fellas are calling it The Classical. Read more...
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